First of all, I want to thank you all so much for your feedback on my previous post!  It gave me a lot of food for thought, and I can't wait to touch on those subjects in future posts.

   And speaking of food for thought..*chuckle*...I have a FANTASTIC recipe for you today.  I will just start by admitting I don't know whose it is originally.  I got it from my lovely mother-in-law but she may have gotten it from her friend Anita?  So I will let those of you that know this community sleuth that out on your own time. :)  But regardless of whose it is, it is definitely one of my all-time favorites and one I turn to time and time again.

   I would never claim to be a gourmet chef or a baker.  My kinds of recipes are the ones that require few ingredients (and all of them common, please?) and very little time or fuss involved.  I cook because:
A. It's a lot cheaper than eating out every day.
B. I want my family to benefit from home cooked, healthy meals.

   But if it wasn't for those two reasons?  Yeah, I'm pretty sure I would never cook.  I keep waiting for it to thrill and inspire and delight and entertain me like it seems to do for countless other women, but that just hasn't happened yet.  I don't meal plan, and so 4:00 pm every day usually finds me standing in the kitchen with a dazed look on my face, fighting back tears and wondering what in the world I'm going to make and why in the world I don't just MENU PLAN ALREADY.

  But, thanks to this fabulous recipe, breakfasts have gotten a whole lot easier around here!  I love making the girls a breakfast and cringe every time I have to resort to cold cereal.  So having a healthy alternative that is quick and easy has been a lifesaver for us.  So, without further ado, my favorite bran muffin recipe.

1 Cup All Bran
1 Cup boiling water
3/4 Cup butter
1 1/2 Cup sugar

   Mix one cup bran and boiling water and let stand one minute.  Cream butter and sugar together and add to bran.  Then add 2 eggs and 1 pint buttermilk.  Or add vinegar to regular milk like I do, because I never have buttermilk on hand.  But I hear buttermilk is best!

2 1/2 Cups flour
2 1/2 tsp baking soda
2 more Cups of bran

Mix flour and baking soda and add to bran.  Fold in 2 remaining cups of bran lightly and bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes in a greased muffin tin.  (I usually take them out a few minutes early!)  And now for my favorite part.......cover and store the leftover batter in your fridge for up to one month.  Fresh muffins and no work every week?  Sounds almost too good to be true.

Let me know how you and your family liked them, I'd love to hear!

 

   If you remember from last week's pear post, I received a basket of pears from a friend and have been trying to use them all up before a single one spoils.

  Randy has been having to work late a lot lately, which every mother of small children knows is just a complete party.  And by "complete party" I mean the girls have discovered entire new LEVELS of naughtiness and this mama is usually ready to clock out by 3:00 pm.

But that's not what we're talking about today.

   When Randy IS working late and not going to be joining us for dinner, sometimes as a matter of survival, we cheer ourselves up by having a particularly girly supper, followed by popcorn and a chick flick.  Usually does the trick.

   So the other night we had breakfast for supper, which is certainly one of my FAVORITE meals to do, but not necessarily my husband's.  In an effort to use up more pears, I found this baked pear pancake on Pinterest via Bojon Gourmet, and had to give it a try.




Baked Pancake with Pear and Cardamom

Adapted from Local Flavors

Makes 4 servings

3 tablespoons butter
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 eggs
1 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 - 3 medium, buttery pears, ripe but firm, cut off the core and sliced 1/4 - 1/2" thick
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
juice of 1/2 lemon
2 tablespoons sugar
powdered sugar for dusting (optional)
maple syrup for drizzling

Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 400º. Place the butter in a 10" cast iron (or other oven proof) skillet and put in the oven to melt.

Combine the flour and salt in a large bowl, make a well, and add the eggs. Whisk to combine, adding the milk little by little until the batter is smooth. Whisk in the vanilla and about two-thirds of the melted butter. Set aside.

Heat the skillet with the remaining butter over a medium flame, and brush some of the butter around the rim of the skillet. Toss in the pears, cardamom, lemon juice and sugar. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the pears are tender and the sugars are beginning to caramelize, about 10 minutes.

Pour the batter into the hot pan over the pears and place in the oven. Bake until golden and dramatically puffed, as though trying to escape from the pan, about 25 minutes. Dust with powdered sugar and cut into wedges. Drizzle with maple syrup and serve immediately.

Leftovers, should there be any, reheat beautifully in a toaster oven in 5 or 10 minutes.


   I was quite surprised how simple and quick this recipe ended up being, and I even skipped the cardamom, because I didn't have it.  Pretty bold for it being part of the title and all, I know.  I just substituted cinnamon and nutmeg and I thought it turned out quite yummy.  But that's coming from me, and that's how I cook all the time.  Not too particular, nothing too fussy, just throw it all together and see how it turns out.

Pastry chefs everywhere are shedding a tear.

Hope you enjoy it!

   Sometimes people disappoint me.  Sometimes they frustrate me, sometimes they bewilder me, and sometimes they completely misunderstand me.  But sometimes, people completely and totally AMAZE me.

  Take the time for instance when my friend, who has FIVE small children of her own, took the time to hand-weave me a beautiful basket and fill it full of farm fresh pears.   That's when a thank-you card just doesn't seem to cut it.

   So obviously I didn't want to let a single pear go to waste, but I also wasn't sure I wanted to can one. Single. More. Jar.  And so........baking with pears!  Seasonal, delicious, it warms up your house, makes everything smell like Heaven, and is just an all-around great idea.  So after a bit of Pinterest-browsing, I found a pear bread recipe that didn't seem too daunting or too unhealthy and I gave it a try.

  And boy I'm glad I did because this stuff will not last long around here!  Not only is it the perfect companion to a cup of coffee, but every once in a while I start to get a little burnt out on banana bread, and so this is a delightful (while every bit as sweet!) alternative.  Try it, you won't be disappointed.

 
   Trust me, it was not without its challenges....the dough kept doing funny things on us and the perfect consistency seemed nearly impossible to find.  Too dry, too wet, too stiff, too soft....it seemed there was always a little room for error and a way that it could go wrong.  But we persevered, and we actually managed to make some that turned out pretty well!

Or at least I think so.  I haven't actually tried them yet.


 The children certainly offered ample interruptions as was to be expected, but I'm really glad that even though we all have little ones right now, we still try and attempt to do things together.

   We even tried our hand at a little homemade card making, and a few cards in realized that perhaps card-making and noodle-making was a little ambitious for one day and 6 kids.

You live and learn.


   Unfortunately, mine fell asleep on the way home and it was torture waking them up when we reached home as I did not want their entire night's sleep ruined.  I put them in the bath and Charlotte threw a major fit and Jocelyn just tried to go back to sleep.  IN the bath.

   When they finally WERE down for the night, I still had a full evening ahead of me making tomato juice from tomatoes that needed to be done RIGHT NOW.

But, we survived, and it made for a good day with minimal damages and good memories.


And sometimes, as a mom of little ones, that's about all you can hope for.

   Well, as I've said before (probably too many times by now) it's been raining lately....alot.  Gray, drizzly, cloudy, overcast, muddy, slushy, wet.   And my heart is aching for some sun.  I have a few bright spots shining out from my calendar as we are planning a trip to sunnier skies in a few months....but until then, I will only wait patiently and hope for spring!

   These gray, moody days always make me feel like baking.  Warming up my house with the oven and watching Randy's face light up when he comes home from work smelling something delicious.  And one of our favorite things to bake around here, hands down, is banana bread.

  Banana bread has always seemed to me like the sneakiest of baked goods because the banana makes you think that it's healthy and then you check the ingredient list and you're just like......yeah.  Not that healthy.  But it's delicious and it's the perfect coffee mate in the mornings and it smells delectable, wafting throughout your house.  And so why not?  Bake some banana bread.

   And so I'm happy to share with you today one of our all-time FAVORITE recipes, combining both the desire for sunnier, tropical skies, AND baking something delicious.  Plus it's kinda/sorta/a little bit healthy because of the yogurt (I use plain Greek) and the applesauce instead of oil.  You could even make it healthier by substituting stevia for the sugar, and more Greek yogurt instead of butter.  I haven't tried that yet, but it's a fun recipe to play around with!  Plus you could skip the glaze.  But that would be no fun at all.

Anyways, here it is: