Mouthful o' muffin!

Raspberries.

They stain my fingers red. And my teeth. And often, my face is covered in streaks of red as I desperately stuff my face.

And yes, they make me happy. Very happy. They make Vodka super happy too - he can lick all the raspberry juice off my face. *so* much of fun, eh? :)

Today was definitely a raspberry day. I probably ate a couple of those baskets from the farmers' market. The berry appetite was sated, but I still wanted to do something with the rest of them. And I've been trying to come up with several lowfat variants of muffins anyway, so this seemed like a perfect opportunity to try a recipe out. Besides, nothing like a load of juicy berries to make up for any shortcomings in my "lowfattitude". Hey, can I trademark that word?

So, in the spirit of some fabulous lowfattitude, I skipped the eggs, used some fatfree cottage cheese to lend some creaminess to the muffins and added a bit of cinnamon for extra flavour.

If you're using frozen berries instead of fresh ones, thaw and drain them before tossing them into the batter.

Rasberry Cottage Cheese Muffins
Stuffin'. A muffin. Into my mouth :)

Servings: 12 regular sized muffins

2 cups white whole wheat flour (I used King Arthur's organic flour - seriously kicks ass!)
2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/2 cup cottage cheese (fat free)
1/4 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup nonfat milk
2 T butter
1 T Earth Balance (whipped spread)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 t cinnamon
1-2 cups raspberries
2 t vanilla soy sorbet (lowfat)

Preheat the oven to 375 F. Line a 12-cup muffin tray with paper cups.

Cream the butter, whipped spread and sugar in a bowl till well blended and smooth.
Add the cottage cheese and buttermilk and mix a bit more.
Stir in the cinnamon along with the vanilla sorbet and beat for 2-3 minutes till thick and creamy.

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Mix the flour mixture into the butter/sugar mix, about 1/2 cup at a time.

Once the ingredients are well blended, stir in the raspberries, trying not to break them too much. They will probably break up, but it is pretty heavenly to bit into a piece of raspberry in a muffin, so try to keep that option alive as much as you can :)

Spoon the batter into the lined muffin tray and smoothen the surfaces. Bake for 30 minutes at 375 F.

Stick a toothpick into the muffins to make sure they're baked before taking them out of the oven. Once removed, let them cool in the tray for 10 minutes before removing the muffins and setting them on a cooling rack. Once they're at room temperature, stick them into an airtight container. Or eat them up :)



Opinion

Chewy - yummy wheat flour - earthy and delicious!
Moist - raspberries and cottage cheese worked wonders.
Juicy - courtesy of the raspberries - *so* good!

As someone says ... "Yom!" :)

*****************

Happy Vodka loves those berries! :)

[Photo Courtesy: Stephanie & Shawn of Dog-E-Central]

Eating local and all that good stuff ...

Local ... sustainable ... organic ... earth-friendly ... call-it-what-you-want ... All the buzzwords making the rounds in the food world recently.

A handful of years ago, the air started teeming with the concept of organic foods. Horrendously expensive, but Oh! so right and healthier and tastier ... I can honestly say that with some fruits and vegetables, we could taste the difference - like tomatoes and peppers and most greens. And cherries for sure! But with others ... nah! Couldn't quite savour the difference. But we loved the idea of hitting the local farmers' markets and buying our produce and starters there. Especially after growing up in India where there are vendors trolling the streets selling their produce and it is so very common to walk to the little store at the end of the street to buy veggies for the evening's dinner, it felt so right to shop local, pick and feel the veggies before dropping them into our baskets. I still remember the first time I bought green beans at a local market -

K strides up confidently to this vendor at the Redmond farmers' market, picks up a green bean or 3 and snaps them between her fingers!
Vendor's jaw drops!
K looks up at him, wondering if he's having a seizure! Isn't that how folks check for good beans? That's how the mum did it, right?
Vendor recovers and starts laughing! And slowly asks with a smile "Do you HAVE to snap the beans before you buy them?"
K turns beet red, realizing her cool "snap-the-bean" tactic is not so cool here! And finally learns to just buy the damn green beans without obsessing about snapping them.

Ok, so what does this incident have to do with all that local, organic goodness? Umm ... nothing. I just felt like telling a story, that's all! :)

Today, it seems like we're way past organic, which I personally believe is a great thing. We're not just trying to live by some ostensibly vaguely defined standard of agriculture, but we're going several steps beyond. We're seeking out local foods, sustainable foods that are developed without monocyclic farming methods. We're looking to form bonds with the local farmers that bring those delicious beets and greens and turnips and garlic snapes to our plates.

Yes, I very much like to have a personal stake in what I'm writing about.
~ Michael Pollan

So, talking about eating local ... we love it! Truly, madly, deeply! Pretty much all our veggies come from the veggie patch or a local market, except for the occasional indulgence in something that has been on a plane. Honestly, we don't know if it helps with all that carbon footprint stuff that is making the rounds everywhere, but it sure makes us feel good. Plus, we have a connection with several local vendors, the tomato guy even asks me how the plants are doing - they're quite happy, thankfully! I would feel terrible to tell him that I did the plant in!!!


So, this meal was one of those mostly local ones. Took all of 15 minutes to throw it together and tasted so blissful, I'm still talking about it! All that it took to make this meal:

Local:

* A slew of garlic and vidalia sweet onions from the market
* Spinach and Roasted Garlic Ravioli from the pasta guy (La Pasta?) at the Madrona farmers' market
* A fabulous sourdough loaf from La Panzanella
* Roasted Red Pepper tapenade from La Buona Tavola
* Yummy Cirrus Camembert from Mt.Townsend Creamery
* Gouda from Golden Glen Creamery

Not so local:

* A really tasty bottle of Tinta de Toro that Abbie heartily recommended - super fruity and luscious!
* And the rest of the glue (spices, oils, etc) We're not obsessively local about our ingredients, but we definitely keep an eye out for fresh local produce and wines as much as we can. Yes, there is definitely a feel-good factor there :) But the biggest kicks (for us) are the insanely awesome quality of the foods and the whole community-bonding thing.

As for this meal, what more could we ask for - fabulous ingredients, perfect company, warm summer evening. Sheer bliss!



And yes, substandard pictures, but whatever! :)