Sweet Potato Muffins

You may recall that Patrick and I participate in a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm share. We receive a box of farm goodies from a local farm every week. Farms set up their CSAs in different ways. One thing that differs between the programs is whether or not you are able to select what's in your box. Our CSA coordinator will send out an email at the beginning of each week and we reply with our selections. Some CSAs provide a random box of goodies according to what is being produced on the farm at the time. This was one of the main reasons we chose the farm we did so that we could have more control over what was in our box. However we do challenge ourselves to try vegetables that we are not familiar with. Another factor in choosing which CSA farm fits your needs best is the length of their season. Some will run the entire length of the growing season (spring through fall) while others may just do a spring, summer, or fall CSA offering.

If you're interested in a CSA follow this link for more information. Patrick and I have thoroughly enjoyed our weekly box of veggies and knowing that we're supporting our local food economy! We first started our CSA in Spring 2011; how quickly time flies! If you are in the Triangle area we highly recommended Brinkley Farms!

As I mentioned earlier, we receive an email at the beginning of the week with all the current vegetable offerings. Here's an example of one from October:

Individual $12.00 to spend

Couple $16.00 to spend

Family $20.00 to spend

Veggies:

squash $1.50/lb

zucchini $1.50/lb

cucumbers $1.50/lb

red tomatoes $2.50/lb

regular sweet potatoes $1.50/lb

white sweet potatoes $1.50/lb

acorn squash $2.00/each

butternut squash $2.00/each

spaghetti squash $3.00/each

regular eggplant $1.50/lb

regular kale $2.00/bundle

white turnips $2.00/bundle

green bell peppers .75cents/each

red bell peppers $1.00/each

purple hull peas  $5.00/1lb bag shelled

butterbeans $5.00/1lb bag shelled

blue hubbard squash $4.00/each (odd shaped grayish/blue squash good for decor or cooking)

cinderella pumpkin $5.00/each (flat greenish/orange pumpkin good for decor or cooking)

regular orange pumpkins $4.00/each

pie pumpkins $3.00/each (great for making pies, or decoration)

mini orange pumpkins .50cents/each (decoration)

mini white pumpkins .50cents/each  (decoration)

small autumn wing gourds .50cents/each (decoration)

Our coordinator provides descriptions for the more unusual offerings which is helpful (as is google).

We receive a "couple" box and then reply back to the email with a $16 selection of produce. Then Patrick picks up our box at the end of the week with all of our requested vegetables in it!

One vegetable we usually select are sweet potatoes because a) they're delicious, b) they're super healthy, c) they're easy to prep, and d) they don't spoil within the week. Recently I found myself with lots of sweet potatoes and I felt like all we've done lately is roast them as a side for dinner! Then I said to myself: save these sweet potatoes for breakfast! So I browsed a little for some inspiration: should I make sweet potato scones? sweet potato hash? pancakes? waffles?! The options were endless! Finally I limited it down to sweet potato muffins or biscuits and asked my husband what his preference was.

He wanted muffins! Without any further chit chat I will share the sweet potato muffins recipe I used. Patrick said they're a keeper (which is a big deal for muffins)!

Sweet Potato Muffins
Recipe from The Weelicious Blog
Recipe says makes 30 mini muffins; I made 18 regular muffins

Ingredients
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup old fashioned oats
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 large eggs, whisked
1 cup sweet potato puree, cooked*
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup canola or vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preparation
1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Place the first 7 ingredients in a bowl and whisk to combine.
3. In a separate bowl whisk the remaining ingredients.
4. Slowly combine the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients just until they are combined (be careful not to over mix the batter).

 

5. Place 1 tbsp of batter in each cup of greased mini muffin tins and bake for 15 minutes.
6. Serve.
* To make sweet potato puree, bake sweet potatoes (or yams) in a 400 degree oven for one hour, allow to cool, slice in half lengthwise and mash flesh with a fork until smooth.
** You can place muffins in labeled freezer bags and freeze for up to 3 months.

 

Since sweet potatoes are a good source of protein and fiber, we had these for breakfast with a banana and coffee before heading to the Google Glass exhibit in Durham.

With Google Glass you would be able to access the whitskitchen blog while cooking and follow the recipe! How cool would that be?!

Homemade Crusty Bread

If you know my mom then you know she makes some amazing sourdough bread! It's a crowd pleaser if I've seen one. I grew up with her always making this bread and thought I might be able to make it a family recipe... but it's hard! It's a very intensive process. She has a starter that must be kept alive (sounds crazy, right?!) and you have to keep feeding it so it won't die. This is the first sign that this is hard: keeping something alive that doesn't have a heart! Then the rest is a bunch of math. You feed it and then after a certain amount of time you are able to take some of the starter and make dough. You make the dough and let it rise, make rolls and let it rise, then finally you have bread! How she's done this for so long is beyond me! Way to go Mom!

When I say "it's hard" I speak from experience because I thought I could do it at one point and tried. I had a little trouble getting the dough to properly rise and keeping the starter alive so I conceded and declared it a Mom-only recipe.

But I still wanted to make bread! So I found a recipe that didn't require keeping a starter alive and didn't require too much time for rising and such. Isn't this pretty:

 

Whitney's First Successful Bread Attempt

I think the recipe popped up on Pinterest. And I'm definitely excited about making it again. This unfortunately isn't a good "sandwich" bread so I will be on the hunt for another sandwich bread recipe.

If you're interested in making this yourself I highly recommend hopping over to the Simply So Good Crusty Bread post for step-by-step instructions and pictures. There's also a Q&A forum because the post was so popular!

Here are some of my pictures:

 

 

Top left: In the bowl we have mixed 3 cups unbleached all purpose flour, 1 3/4 teaspoons salt, 1/2 teaspoon instant yeast, and 1 1/2 cups water. Then we let it rise overnight (or at least 12 hours).

Top right: In the morning it looked like this

Bottom left: While you preheat the oven to 450F with your enamel cast iron pot in it, you shape the dough into a ball and let it rest for 30 minutes. My dough ball deflated quite a bit (this part needs improvement).

Bottom right: After baking; at least it turned golden! 

 

 

We considered it successful! We look forward to experimenting with the recipe more. I'd like to try with half whole wheat flour. The post also mentions mixing in other ingredients (like rosemary, lemon zest, and gruyere cheese) for a fun twist. Hopefully at some point my bread won't be so deflated too.

Picnic at Vineyards at Southpoint

In my initial comeback blog post I promised to share some fun things us newlyweds are doing!

A few weekends ago we had the pleasure of touring million dollar houses in the Parade of Homes. We're getting some ideas for what features we'd be interested in. We were a little underwhelmed with the million dollar houses on the tour. They were just really big houses without many extravagant details! We did, however, fall in love with their outdoor entertaining spaces. One had a vanishing pool and screened in porch with fireplace!

Nice outdoor entertaining space is on our "wish list" complete with a little patch of yard for some vegetables!

One of our local wineries was en route to the million dollar houses. We brought a picnic and purchased a glass of wine for some afternoon relaxing. We highly recommend visiting the Vineyards at Southpoint!

This is what I get when I say "smile"

 

For our picnic I packed an apple, peanut butter crackers, pecans, and cheese. I brought along a small cutting board which doubles as a serving platter and knife. This way our apple could be freshly sliced! Patrick enjoyed a glass of the Cabernet Franc and I had the Viognier.

Pumpkin Spice Latte-ish Coffee

All things pumpkin spice are back! So it's no surprise that I should have a pumpkin spice featured post here.

Pumpkin spice latte-ish coffee

Last Thursday Stephanie came over for our Grey's girls night. We've been watching Grey's Anatomy together this season and I've been looking forward to our weekly date nights.

I decided to whip us up a special coffee drink. In case you didn't notice fall decided to make an appearance last week and our above normal highs sunk to above normal lows and they were chilly! I decided pumpkin spice latte-ish coffee would be a perfect addition to our night! Latte-ish means I don't have an espresso machine but wanted warm milk in my drink!

After this decision I consulted the google and used these posts (from the New Nostalgia blog and Real Housemoms blog) as jumping off points before I entered the kitchen. First thing you have to do is decide if you want to use pumpkin. Technically "pumpkin spice" doesn't require pumpkin flavoring but rather the spices traditionally used in pumpkin pie making: cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, and others. I had some pumpkin on hand so I decided to use it!

Here's what I did for two servings:
While brewing 1 cup of regular coffee, warm 1 cup of milk (I used half almond milk and half skim milk) over low-med heat. To the milk, add 1 tablespoon pumpkin puree and a good dash of pumpkin pie spice and stir together. After the milk is heated through add to the coffee. Sprinkle with cinnamon and serve.
For extra fun, I used a hand blender with the whisk attachment to froth the milk before adding it to the coffee... this was after all girls night.

Serve with chocolate cookies and a girlfriend! I asked Patrick if he wanted me to make him one and he declined. He's too much of a black coffee purist.

 

Enjoy!

First Meal!

Patrick and I planned our honeymoon to begin on a Monday so we wouldn't have to rush any of our wedding weekend festivities. This would also give us time to get back home Sunday and just enjoy some quiet time in our home as newlyweds.

That Sunday our house looked like a mess! We were in the midst of unpacking wedding weekend bags and repacking for the honeymoon. We also had wedding presents that needed to be unwrapped and recorded.

With all that in mind we decided to order some take-out Chinese and wanted to share with you our first meal together at home as newlyweds!

We split chicken fried rice, edamame, and egg rolls.

Showing off our wedding rings so we can see we're married now!

 

We enjoyed a wonderful week in Charlottesville. The highlights of our trip included touring Monticello, the Luray Caverns, and several wineries.

At Veritas Winery

The newlyweds are blogging!

It's time to get back to blogging!

It's been two months and a day since...

... we got married!

Thanks to all of our family and friends for your love and support during our engagement and through the wedding! And especially your patience in the return of the blog. It really seems like some of you missed our kitchen ramblings! We have also missed recording tasty recipes so we could remember we liked them to cook again.

Until the blog is fully functioning again, you may see some posts about the following:
  - our registry! what we registered for and why. hint: we upgraded our cookware! as well as our dishes.
  - some backdated draft posts from earlier in the year
  - what we're doing for fun as newlyweds

We've missed you and look forward to getting back to blogging action!
More coming next week!

A Tale of Three Gnocchis

The blog is not dead; I promise!! But, let me tell you, planning a wedding will keep you busy. Patrick and I are about to eclipse the 100 day mark and I couldn't be more excited to walk down the aisle to my handsome fella.

If you noticed the last blog post was mid-January. Our wedding planning has been in cycles. After he first proposed (a year ago last weekend) was the initial cycle. I refer to this one as the "big" things. In my opinion the big things are what is necessary for your wedding to happen when you want it to; like, the venue, the caterer, the officiant, and the photographer. It took us about 2-3 months (or throughout the summer) to research and finalize these details. After this was completed we took a little break from wedding planning in the fall and throughout the holidays. All along I knew that we would get back into planning the next cycle once the 2013 New Year started. So after January 1st, sure enough we transitioned into planning the "medium" things. From January through April we research and finalized our cake, invitations, ceremony / reception music, flowers, rehearsal dinner, and other things. Now I feel like we're at another brief relaxing break... which is why I have time to blog! From mid-June to August will be the final cycle of all the "small" things and finalizing all the details.

Patrick and I have still been cooking and trying new things. We were so excited when our CSA started back up just a few weeks ago. It's so nice to have fresh produce in the house. Obviously we've been very pleased with our CSA because this is our third season (read more here)!! Patrick picks up a box of produce weekly from the CSA drop off. We utilize the produce that spoils the fastest first. Today I have sweet potatoes that we haven't used yet and will make sweet potato gnocchi!! I'm actually blogging about the meal before it happens but there's another recipe to share which brings me to A Tale of Three Gnocchis.

First Gnocchi
  We first experimented with gnocchi last fall. The butternut squash gnocchi we tried was delicious and we even managed to blog about it; see this post.

Second Gnocchi
   We had so much fun making butternut squash that we couldn't let the gnocchi fun stop! So in March we attempted a regular potato gnocchi. This did not get blogged since it was in the busy planning "medium" things cycle. The recipe was from the Better Homes & Garden website: Gnocchi with Sweet Corn and Arugula in Cream Sauce. Unfortunately that recipe called for pre-made gnocchi and we couldn't eliminate gnocchi-making fun so I followed this Giada recipe for making the gnocchi.

Gnocchi with Sweet Corn and Arugula in Cream Sauce

The Third and Final Gnocchi

   Today we're switching it up yet again and making sweet potato gnocchi! We will loosely follow this Giada recipe. However, I plan to saute some fresh mushrooms in the sauce and omit the maple syrup so it's not so sweet.

Wedding parties help eliminate some stress from wedding planning! This group of wonderful ladies traveled with me to my shower this past weekend which was hosted by Glenda and her daughters in Sanford. It was such a wonderful day and I want to thank everyone who came and made it so special.