Blueberry Muffins

I could not sleep well last night and woke up very tired at unusual (for me)time of 6 am on the dot. Alarm clock was set for 7 am and when I went to bed I was sure to miss it ringing. My body did not let me oversleep today. Wondering about what to do in the hour that is remaining I thought of what I will give for breakfast to the kids. Somehow blueberry muffins popped up in my head and I walked downstairs and made them. I had blueberries from my recent shopping trip, that were calling to be used. There are lots of recipes for blueberry muffins out there and I read many of them, they are very similar in nature. I guess my recipe is not drastically different from what is out there, however I use somewhat different technique. Most batters are done by whipping up softened butter and sugar, then adding eggs and dry ingredients. I do not think that is very important and I did not have butter at room temperature, mine was frozen solid.  Instead, I make it in the same way I would make a cake. In a food processor I mixed eggs with sugar, then added melted butter and milk and dry ingredients. Once everything is mixed I pull out the blade and with a spatula fold in berries in the same food processor bowl. I place  silicon cups to line the muffin pan, spray them and the flat top of the pan with nonstick spray, fill the cups with batter and bake at 380F for about 20-25 min. I had just enough time to make today's breakfast. To avoid scrambling the egg, melted butter should be cooled, which is accomplished by melting butter in a measuring cup in a microwave and adding cold milk to it once it is melted.

2 eggs
1 stick of unsalted butter = 1/2 cup
1/2 cup milk
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cup blueberries

Chicken Wings

I love chicken wings of all kinds. Today I stopped by Lucky supermarket and came across a fantastic sale of wings at ȼ99/lbs. I often buy cooked frozen chicken wings from Costco and the are ready to eat in about 20 min. I recently started cooking wings myself and they go from raw to cooked and ready in just about the same amount of time. Well, little more but definitely under an hour. I usually salt and peeper the wings and drizzle a little sumac and broil them, today however I made it even easier and simpler. I had about 6 lbs of wings. Unfortunately, I notice that they are plumped up with salt water, for as they cook they release a ton of water.  A large foil pan could be used to cook the wings but I make my own to maximize the cooking surface. I line the top of the wife rack of the oven with 2 large pieces of foil, covering the rack completely. Fold in the outer edges of the foil then pinch the corners, creating a very shallow pan then spray with cooking spray the surface of the foil . I use the 18 inch wide industrial size heavy duty foil to do this.
Wings are washed and lined on the foil covered rack. Add liberal amount of Grill Mates® Montreal Steak Seasoning and Sumac and place them in the upper part of the oven but not immediately under the broiler. After about 15-20 minutes of broiling wings are turned over and sprinkled with seasoning again to cover the other side. In about another 20-25 minutes they are done and perfectly seasoned just calling for a cold beer.
Approx 2 tblsp of Grill Mates® Montreal Steak Seasoning
Approx 2 tblsp of Sumac

Bagels

I have said in my other posts  that when I decide to make something new to me but common, like lemon bars, for example, I do not follow the recipe completely. I read a bunch of bagel recipes and did my own thing. My family loves bagels - our breakfast and lunch. I know there are so many bagels on the market and for the longest time I was happy with Noah's bagels and bought them in bulk at Costco.  Then I looked at the ingredient list and as I suspected I found High Fructose Corn Syrup.  In my case, I read labels and find it in so many things, so I can't completely avoid it, if it is in breads and most of the jams, and even in catchup. While it is nearly impossible to rid your diet completely of HFCS, unless you are planning on buying everything organic and make your own breakfast cereal, one can make baby steps and try. Making bagels at home is just one way, also I save money doing it. 

to make about 1 dozen
6 -6 1/2 c of flour
3 tblsp sugar
2 tblsp salt
3 tsp yeast
3 tbls oil
2 c warm water

My KitchenAid mixer does a fantastic job, I do not even get my hands sticky. The dough it really stiff and tough. Avoid the temptation of adding more water. Once the dough is formed, it is cut in pieces and rolled or formed into a ball, then into bagel. Arrange them on the baking sheet and let them rest for no more then one half hour or while the water is boiling. I boil water in my large shallow pan and couple of tbsp of sugar. Drop the bagels in to the water and boil about 1 minute on each side. Place on the baking sheet, and sprinkle with sesame or poppy seeds. alternately you may add the seeds to a small plate and dip the wet bagel in it. Arrange on the baking sheet and bake in the middle of the oven at 425F for 20 min.

My husband loves onion bagels and I had to figure out how to make those. To the list of ingredients for those bagels I add

1 small onion finely chopped and sauteed til golden brown
1/2 cup of sesame seeds
1/2 cup of poppy seeds
1/4 c of sunflower seeds
2 tblsp of caraway seeds
reserve about a 1 tbl sp of the mixture for topping the bagels.