Fresh Blueberry Muffins

Crumb Topping:

1/4 cup sugar
1/8 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons butter, cubed

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1/3 cup milk
1 cup fresh blueberries

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line with muffin cups with liners.

Crumb Topping: Mix 1/4 cup sugar, 1/8 cup flour, 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon, and 2 tablespoons of butter with a fork in a small bowl. Set aside.

Combine flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder. Add the vegetable oil, egg, and milk. Fold in the blueberries. Fill the muffin cups about 2/3 full.



Sprinkle with crumb topping mixture.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until done.

Any leftovers freeze beautifully. I made another batch because we had good fresh blueberries on hand that I didn't want to go to waste.

Blueberry-Almond French Toast Bake

That was our Father's Day breakfast.

The recipe is from Ellie Krieger's cookbook, So Easy: Luscious, Healthy Recipes for Every Meal of the Week.

Cooking spray
1 whole-wheat baguette (about 18 inches long, 8 ounces), cut into 1-inch cubes
8 large eggs
8 large egg whites
2 cups 1 percent lowfat milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/3 cup pure maple syrup
2 cups fresh blueberries
1/3 cup sliced almonds
2 tablespoons dark brown sugar

Spray a 9 by 13-inch baking pan with cooking spray. Arrange the bread in a single layer in the baking pan. Whisk together the eggs, egg whites, milk, vanilla, cinnamon and maple syrup. Pour the egg mixture over the bread in the pan, spreading it around so the liquid saturates the bread. Scatter the blueberries evenly on top and sprinkle with the almonds and brown sugar. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Uncover the baking pan and bake for 40 to 50 minutes. Serve warm, cold or at room temperature.

It was good although I'd A) macerate the berries in a bit of sugar first and B) Add some butter in there somewhere. It needed just a touch.




Per Serving:

Calories 270; Total Fat 8 g; (Sat Fat 2.5 g, Mono Fat 2 g, Poly Fat 0.75 g) ; Protein 16 g; Carb 35 g; Fiber 3 g; Cholesterol 220 mg; Sodium 280 mg

Sweet Potato Biscuits

I served these, stuffed with ham slices, at a bridal shower over the weekend. They would also be tasty served with pepper jelly.

If you have leftover sweet potatoes, this is a good way to use them up. The biscuits can be frozen, pulled out, and baked off quickly. They're great for a fast, hot breakfast or to go alongside a roasted pork tenderloin for dinner.

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon white sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons shortening
3/4 cup mashed sweet potatoes
1/4 cup milk

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Cut in the shortening until pieces of shortening are pea-sized or smaller. Mix in the sweet potatoes. Add enough milk to make a soft dough.

Turn dough out onto a floured surface, and roll or pat out to 1/2 inch thickness. Cut into circles and place biscuits 1 inch apart on an ungreased baking sheet. If desired, brush biscuits with melted butter and a bit of grated nutmeg.

To freezer and serve later:
Bake biscuits for about six minutes. Let cool completely before packing in freezer zip top bags. Biscuits can be baked frozen.

To bake and enjoy now:
Bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Tomato Tart

It's true love!


Up until I made this tart, I didn't like tomatoes, not even a little bit. Not on a burger or sandwich or salad. Now, though...

For Tomato Tart:

pie pastry
1 garlic bulb
1/2 teaspoon olive oil
1 1/2 cups shredded fontina cheese, divided
handful fresh basil leaves
2 to 3 tomatoes tomatoes
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

For the pie pastry, make your own if you are so inclined.

The recipe I use is my mom's:


Combine a cup of all purpose flour and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Cut in 1/2 cup shortening (it's not a bad idea to refrigerate the shortening first) and add ice-cold water, one tablespoon at a time. Stir with a fork until the dough forms a ball. Roll out on lightly floured surface.

Or use a refrigerated pie pastry.

Either way, press the dough into the bottom and up the sides of a 9-inch square tart pan (the kind with a removable bottom although you could bake this in a 9-inch round pie pan, too). Bake for about 8 minutes or until lightly golden.

Cut off the top of a bulb of garlic and place it on a square of aluminum foil. Drizzle garlic bulb with olive oil and fold in aluminum foil to seal.

Bake for 35 minutes. Unwrap garlic and let cool. Squeeze the roasted garlic cloves onto the bottom of the baked piecrust. Smear it around and moan about how good it smells.

Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees.

Sprinkle 1/2 cup fontina cheese over the roasted garlic.

Slice the tomatoes and place on folded paper towels. Sprinkle the tomato slices with salt and pepper and let sit for 10 minutes. The tomatoes look so pretty just like that.

Arrange tomato slices over shredded cheese. Sprinkle with remaining 1 cup cheese.

Bake for 45 minutes or until tart is lightly browned.

Eat and enjoy warm or at room temperature. Good stuff!

Pumpkin Apple Streusel Muffins

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups dark brown sugar*
1 teaspoon cinnamon
dash each of nutmeg, ground cloves, and ginger**
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup canned pumpkin puree (I ended up using most of the entire can.)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 cups peeled, cored and chopped apple, chopped in a fairly small dice (I almost grated the apple instead. I wonder how that would have turned out?)

* The original recipe called for white sugar but I live on the edge and I substituted brown sugar and dark brown sugar at that. I think it gives a deep, rich flavor to this type of autumnal baked goods.

** Pumpkin pie spice was what the original recipe called for but I don't have a tin of Pumpkin Pie Spice in my cupboard. I don't see the point of buying a container of something I'll use maybe three times a year. So I used a combination of cinnamon, ginger, ground cloves, and nutmeg. I have no idea how much of each. Just toss in some of your favorite seasonal spices.

Streusel topping:
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 cup dark brown sugar sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 teaspoons butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Line 18 or so*** cupcake cups with paper lines.

In a large bowl, sift together flour, brown sugar, and spices. In a separate bowl, mix together eggs, pumpkin, and oil. Add pumpkin mixture to flour mixture; stirring just to moisten. Fold in apples. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.

In a small bowl, mix together 2 tablespoons flour, 1/4 cup sugar and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle topping evenly over muffin batter.

Bake in preheated oven for about 35 minutes.

I used Granny Smith apple, which was pretty tart. Next time I'll try another baking apple.

Also, next time I'd add some toasted walnuts or pecans to both the batter and the streusel topping.

*** This recipe made 24 muffins, although the original recipe said it would yield 18.

A Gauntlet Is Thrown

I've known The Fiance for over a year now. That's at least 56 oportunities for lazy weekend breakfasts that haven't been realized. In fact, he has never had biscuits I've baked. He's been giving me a hard time, implying that he needs to make sure they're "worthy" before we can get married.

I'm like, "Dude. I've written two books about southern cooking. Do you seriously think I don't know how to make biscuits?"


Then again, the entire time he's known me the only biscuits I've made were the cheddar garlic kind.

Truth be told, I don't think baking biscuits is a big deal. I have no special secret southern family biscuit recipe. I use the one on the back of the Martha White Self Rising Flour package.

I like my biscuits thin and crunchy. Most everyone loves KFC biscuits? Bleh. All that pillowey doughy stuff just...no. I made his biscuits fluffier and mine thinner.

The verdict?

Mmm, mmm good.

My biscuits are at the top of the photo, nice and flat. With each butter- and fig-preserve-laden bite you get a nice crunch of biscuity goodness. His are near the bottom of the photo - thicker and fluffier. He said they were good.

Buttermilk Biscuits

2 1/2 cups self-rising flour
dash salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup shortening
3/4 to 1 cup buttermilk

Note: This recipe called for 2 teaspoons sugar. The hell? I didn't put sugar.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

In a medium bowl, stir together flour, salt, and baking soda. Cut in shortening until mixture looks like fine crumbs. Add buttermilk a litle bit at a time until dough rounds up into a ball.

Place dough on lightly floured surface. Knead gently. Roll out until about 1/2-inch thick (or thinner, as you like). Cut with floured biscuit cutter. Place on ungreased cookie sheet about 1 inch apart.

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown.

Garlic Cheese Grits

We're celebrating Christmas with my parents, brother, sister in law, and niece the evening after Christmas. My mother is roasting a pork tenderloin, baking a sweet potato casserole, and cooking green beans. Our contribution is garlic cheese grits casserole and peanut butter fudge.

This is a good breakfast/brunch dish, too. It can be made a few days ahead and refrigerated.

Garlic Cheese Grits

1 cup grits, uncooked
4 cups water
2 teaspoons salt
1 stick butter
6 ounces Velveeta, cubed
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
(OR substitute 1 roll of Kraft garlic cheese, cut in small pieces,for the Velveeta and garlic)
8 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, grated
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
good dash of cayenne pepper
paprika for top of grits

If making to eat now, preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Add grits to boiling, salted water. Cook 5 to 7 minutes until thickened. When cooked, add butter, Velveeta cheese, garlic, cheddar cheese, cayenne, and Worcestershire sauce. Put in greased casserole and sprinkle with paprika.

At this point, casserole can be refrigerated for 2 or 3 days. Bring to room temperature before baking.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes.

Serves 8 to 10 persons.

Sausage Cheese Balls

An autumn morning in the Delta is beautiful and melancholy. It’s more than the chill of the temperatures, although that’s a part of it. In early spring, the actual temperatures of a typical morning are probably the exact same degree, but the feel is something altogether different from the fall. It feels like childhood days, mornings rich with anticipation of the day’s pep rally before the home football game. The smell of the central heat clicking on in my home, one of the first times since February or March, probably adds to it…as does the smell of coffee perking, and the cotton defoliant that ag pilots spray on fields before harvesting.

I remember with great clarity one particular fall morning. It was mid-October, one of those perfect autumn days that is so gorgeous it makes you hurt. The sky was incredibly blue, the temperature nice and crisp – my idea of the perfect day, in other words. I was in the kitchen preparing sausage balls for a catering client. She and her family were traveling to Ole Miss for the ballgame and tailgating in the Grove. It was morning, the windows open in the kitchen and the little gas heater on. I do see the irony in that but I’m the type who, if I had a fireplace, would crank up the air conditioner in September in order to use it. That morning’s activities sum up all that is good and fine about the season – cool air, blue skies, football, and food.

Scrumptious little sausage balls are one of my favorite foods of fall. I always associate them with autumn and rarely, if ever, make them any other time of year.

There are surely as many versions for it as there are for Chicken and Rice Casserole. My favorite version is garlic-laden and spicy:

Sausage Cheese Balls

3 cloves garlic, minced
16 ounces grated sharp or extra sharp Cheddar cheese
1 pound sausage (hot or mild)- can use turkey sausage
2 ½ cups baking mix
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1 good dash Worcestershire sauce

Combine all ingredients until thoroughly mixed. You may as well go ahead and use your hands – they’re really easier to mix up that way. Shape the dough into small balls and place on an ungreased baking sheet.

At this point, sausage balls can be baked immediately or frozen.

To freeze, place baking sheet with sausage balls in the freezer for at least an hour. Write baking instructions and date in permanent marker on a zip-top bag and place the frozen sausage balls in the bag. Don’t forget this step! I cannot tell you how incredibly efficient it makes you feel when you pull that bag from the freezer and see neatly penned instructions, written in your very own handwriting.

When ready for a few, simply remove however many you’d like from the bag and bake on an ungreased baking sheet; no need to thaw first.

To bake, preheat oven to 350° F. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until lightly browned.

NOTE: I usually double this recipe, using one pound hot sausage and one pound mild sausage. However, I learned the hard way that my KitchenAid bowl can’t handle that much dough, so I mix up two batches. Cleaning sausage and cheese bits from all corners of the kitchen was fun only once.

Recipe excerpted from More Culinary Kudzu.