Blueberry Lemon Mini-Muffins

For Glee Night (yes that's right...Glee is back!) I had my best bud Kay over with her sister and we made some fruit stacks of bananas, strawberries and blueberries covered in chocolate, and we had tons of blueberries left over. So I got excited cause I could make some blueberry muffins! I also had a lemon that was getting close to being past its prime, so I thought, "oh man, lemon and blueberry are delicious together!" I Googled recipes for "lemon blueberry muffins" and found a great sounding one from Food Network. But of course I had to make them mini...they are just so darn cute!


Blueberry Lemon Mini-Muffins
(original recipe here.)

1 stick butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen, thawed

Topping:
2 tsp. lemon zest
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease muffins tins.

In a large bowl cream together the sugar and butter. Stir in eggs and milk. Add vanilla and lemon juice. In a medium bowl combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Stir in the dry ingredients a little at a time until combined. Gently stir in the blueberries.

Divide the batter among the muffins tins. In a small bowl mix together brown sugar, butter and lemon zest with your fingers or a fork, and sprinkle over the top of each muffin. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool for a few minutes in the pans then transfer to cooling racks.

Bubbling-Blueberries Batman!

I have to say, you are better off following my typed out recipe because I noticed a ton of typos in the Food Network's recipe. Tablespoon written in the direction instead of teaspoons or lemon zest instead of juice...it was annoying.

But these little nuggets of lemon and blueberry freshness are delicious! I ate 3 of them while taking the photos of them...they are quite yummy. I don't see the point of the topping. And of course due to typos from Food Network I put the zest in the batter instead of in the topping, so they were quite lemony and the brown sugar and butter just sort of caramelized and kinda ran off to the side of the muffins. So I don't think the topping is necessary.

These light mini-muffins are refreshing and delicious...you really should try them!

Eat, Drink and Be Merry!!

-BellaRosa

Lemon Cream Rotini with Veggies: an adaptation of an Ina Garten recipe

We were having company over and I wanted to make a dinner that was nice and refreshing cause it had been a hot one here lately. I already had one pork tenderloin in the freezer, so I went out and got another one to make sure it fed everyone and then I started looking up side dishes. I looked through my mess of recipes on my computer and found a lemon herb pasta salad...I read it over and wasn't too impressed but I liked the idea of lemon because it's so refreshing and light.

Then I remembered back in the day Ina Garten made some sort of lemony, creamy pasta entree. So I went searching on Food Network's website and I found the perfect side dish, Lemon Fusilli with Arugula. I sort of adapted it to what I thought would taste good so here's what I did:

Lemon Cream Rotini with Veggies
(adapted from the original here.)

1 T olive oil
2 cloves garlic, mince or grated
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup half and half (I used fat free)2 lemons, zested and juiced
Salt and pepper
1 bunch broccoli
3/4 pound cauliflower florets, or about 1/2 a head of cauliflower
1 cup fresh corn kernels, or kernels cut from one ear of corn
1 pound dried Rotini pasta
1 pint grape tomatoes, halved

Heat the olive oil in a medium sauce pan and add the garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add the cream, zest and juice from 2 lemons and salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 15-20 minutes until it starts to thicken.

Meanwhile, cut the broccoli in florets and discard the stems. Cook the florets in boiling, salted water for 2 minutes, remove with wire strainer and set aside. Bring water back to a boil and add the cauliflower florets and cook for 3-4 minutes until tender and drain and set aside.

Bring large pot of water to a boil and cook your pasta according to directions. Drain the pasta in colander and place back in pot and immediately add the cream sauce mixture. Cook on medium until the pasta as absorbed most of the sauce. Pour the hot pasta into a large bowl and add the tomatoes, corn and the cooked broccoli and cauliflower. Toss and serve hot.

Picture courtesy of Food Network

Now I made this as a side dish because it was pretty rich. I replaced some of the cream in the original recipe with half and half cause I felt 2 cups of cream was a bit much. Also my grocery store didn't have Arugula so I just didn't use it and I added corn because it's in season and it looked great at the store.

This was surprisingly delicious. I had never really had a real citrus-y flavored pasta before and this was so good and like I said, refreshing. It was great for a summer day and I think went very well with the spicy, cajun seasoned pork tenderloin I grilled up.

I used a Cajun seasoning from Wild Tree Herbs which on of my girlfriends is selling. This seasoning is great! I used it on chicken once before but I was really excited to slather it on these pork tenderloins and then throw them on the grill. It was amazing! So good and with the lemon pasta...they just balanced each other out perfectly. The spicy kick from the Cajun and then the cooling Lemon Cream sauce. Perfect Match!

Sorry I don't have pictures, I was entertaining and didn't want to be a dork and take pictures.

Eat, Drink and Be Merry...
and entertain with a refreshing summer meal!

-BellaRosa

Honey Lemon Marinated Chicken Sammiches

So I found this marinade awhile back from one of the first few Everyday with Rachael Ray Magazines. This marinade is great. Honey, lemon, cumin and oregano...very flavorful, but also light. I think it's a great Spring Time marinade with the citrus flavor and you can always use a new recipe for chicken. So I like marinating my chicken in this and then topping some nice kaiser rolls with the sliced chicken. This time I decided to add some sauteed mushrooms and some provolone cheese to the top. I got the idea for the mushrooms and cheese from my girlie Lynds (Just a Girl Baking). She made us some awesome chicken sammiches the last time we were over and they were delicious!

Honey Lemon Marinated Chicken Sammiches

Marinade:
Zest and Juice of half a lemon, or use more if you wish
1-2 cloves garlic, smashed or grated
1 1/2 Tbsp honey
1/2 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. oregano
1/4 cup olive oilsalt and pepper
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
4 crimini mushrooms sliced
2-4 kaiser rolls (depending on the size, I got 2 sammiches out of one chicken breast)
lettuce, mayo and provolone cheese

• Whisk together the lemon zest, juice, honey, garlic, cumin, oregano, salt and pepper and olive oil, place in a big zip top baggie and add chicken breasts to the marinade. Seal the bag and mush it around to coat the chicken. Marinate in the refrigerator or 30 minutes, up to 2 hours.
• Preheat oven to 350. Heat a skillet over medium-high heat. Pat chicken dry with paper towels and place top-side down in the pan and brown. Once brown on that side, flip over and brown this side for a minute. Place whole skillet in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes until chicken is fully cooked. Pull chicken out of oven, leave oven on and let rest while you get everything else ready.
• In a small pan cook the mushrooms in butter until just tender, season with garlic powder, salt and pepper. Set aside. Toast the kaiser rolls in the hot oven.
  
• Once chicken has rested slice thinly on a bias and place on the bottom of your rolls. Top with mushrooms and provolone cheese. Place in the oven to melt the cheese and heat everything through. Smear mayo on the roll tops and top with lettuce. Place tops on the sammiches and you are good to eat!

I served these with just a nice salad of red leaf lettuce, but some nice potato chips or corn on the cob would be great too!

These sammiches were so good, my hubsie came in from the other room just to hug me and tell me how good they were...and then he did the dishes and cleaned everything in the kitchen!!! Yeah...you should make them!

Eat, Drink and Be Merry!

-BellaRosa