Barefoot Contessa's Cornbread Muffins

Cornbread.  It's one of my most favorite things, right up there with nectarines, pizza, green grapes, and beer.  Oh, and sriracha, definitely sriracha.


Given my penchant for all things spicy, you'd think I'd want my cornbread loaded with jalenpenos.  But actually, this cornbread is perfect as it is.  What I love most about these is how you can really taste the cornmeal, and they're not too oily or greasy (kind of surprising, given the amount of butter I put in these puppies).  And, eating the muffin top, that's the funnest part.


I brought these cornbread muffins to a BBQ, but if you want to make them more breakfasty, you could let the muffins cool slightly and then pipe apricot or raspberry preserves into the center.

Barefoot Contessa's Cornbread Muffins

Makes 12 very, very large muffins

Ingredients

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup medium cornmeal
• 2 tablespoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 1/2 cups whole milk
• 1/2 pound unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 2 extra-large eggs

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Line 12 muffin cups with paper liners. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, mix the flour, sugar, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt. In a separate bowl, combine the milk, melted butter, and eggs. With the mixer on the lowest speed, pour the wet ingredients into the dry ones and stir until they are just blended. Spoon the batter into the paper liners, filling each one to the top. Bake for 30 minutes, until the tops are crisp and a toothpick comes out clean. Cool slightly and remove from the pan.

Japanese Style Rice with Edamame

Listen up friends.  This meal is awesome, especially if you're like me and love edamame.  It's also pretty much effortless with a rice cooker.  Oh, and if you'd like, you could also add about a half cup of hijiki, wakame, or kombu seaweed, but that's spendy...

Plus, I think I need glasses.  Law school did this to me, I'm 99.9% sure.

But I'm kind of excited because I want cute green frames.  

Besides, I've always thought glasses were marvelous. 

In middle school, I bought fake glasses at Claire's and wore them to school.  Soooo cool.

Ingredients 
1 cup dry rice
Package of dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked in water and roughly chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 teaspoon toasted sesame seeds
12 tablespoons dark sesame oil
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 package of frozen edamame (could also use less)
Directions
Cook rice in rice cooker.  Once cooked, transfer rice to a large pot and add chopped mushrooms, sesame oil, soy sauce, and edamame.  Stir and season with additional soy sauce and sesame oil, if desired.  Serve in a bowl with chopsticks and enjoy!

Chicken and Broccoli Stir-fry

Today was a pretty fun day!  Started off helping teach the shim sham (a vernacular jazz dance) to middle schoolers and then went to Bobo's with the lovely Katy, Gayl, and Michelle!  It felt so funny to be having so much fun so early on a Monday morning!

This recipe is perfect as a quick and easy weeknight meal!  Next time, I think I'll use less hoisin sauce and more sriracha (although, if you have a sweet tooth, I'd leave everything as is).      

Chicken and Broccoli Stir Fry

from Simply Scrumptious (blog)

Ingredients:

Couple pieces of chicken Breast, chopped into 1" pieces

1 Large Yellow Onion - Sliced into half moons
2 Large Garlic Cloves Chopped

2 Broccoli  crowns - Cut off Flower Heads and Cut Stem into Edible Pieces

3 Tbsp Hoisin Sauce

3 Tbsp White Wine Vinegar

Sriracha

Olive Oil

Salt & Pepper

Water

Brown Rice (fully cooked)

Directions:

Saute onion, garlic, broccoli stem, salt, and pepper in a medium size pan over medium high heat.  

Once the onions turn translucent add the broccoli heads and about 1/3 cup water.  Saute until the broccoli begins to look cooked, however still very green and not quite ready yet.  Remove vegetable mixture from pan.  Season your chicken pieces.  Add to dirty pan with another 1 Tbsp of olive oil over medium high heat.  

Once browned and almost cooked through add your vegetables back into pan.  Add hoisin sauce, white wine vinegar, and enough sriracha to match your taste buds.  Season mixture to taste with salt and pepper.  Serve over cooked brown rice.

Barefoot Contessa's Guacamole

This guacamole is kind of a big deal.  I'm not dramatic at all.


This is one recipe that always turns out great and gets lots of compliments!  It's really fresh tasting with the perfect amount of kick.  It's also super thick!


The guacamole comes from The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook.  I'd recommend getting the cookbook because it has so many great recipes, but you can also find most of them online (or check out the book from the library).  Apart from her food, I'm also kind of in love with how Barefoot Contessa is so cute for her husband, always giving him smooches and making the foods he likes ... adorable, right?


Anyway, make this guacamole and then serve it with blue corn chips.  You will get compliments.


Note - the recipe calls for a teaspoon of pepper, but I'll probably dial it back to 1/2 teaspoon next time.

Ingredients

• 4 ripe Haas avocados
• 3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice (1 lemon)
• 8 dashes hot pepper sauce
• 1/2 cup small-diced red onion (1 small onion)
• 1 large garlic clove, minced
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 very shy teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 medium tomato, seeded, and small-diced

Directions

Cut the avocados in 1/2, remove the pits, and scoop the flesh out of their shells into a large bowl. (I use my hands.) Immediately add the lemon juice, hot pepper sauce, onion, garlic, salt, and pepper and toss well. Using a sharp knife, slice through the avocados in the bowl until they are finely diced. Add the tomatoes. Mix well and taste for salt and pepper.

Butternut Squash and Coconut Milk Rice

Good gracious!  What a day I've had ... studied in the library from 7-12 then took my Property exam from 1-4.  I think I deserved that beer I just drank.  


Man, that exam ... I don't even know.  The first question (worth 65% of my grade, took 1 hour and 45 minutes to write) was about nudists, inspired by this recent article.  Briefly, nudist communities are dwindling in numbers because young people don't think it's so cool to get naked with people their parents age. Yeah, my professor has a sense of humor.  I can't even bear to imagine all the puns ... 


Tartelette raves about this recipe, and I pretty much agree.  Would have been better if I remembered to add the lime .... grumble, grumble... property exam.  So, yeah, next time I'll add the lime and see if I can find a substitute for lemongrass (lemon juice and ginger?), which we didn't like especially much.  Also, I used frozen butternut squash, which is exactly bajillion times easier than peeling and cutting a butternut squash yourself.  Will definitely use frozen next time I want to make butternut squash risotto, too.


Butternut Squash and Coconut Milk Rice
Slightly adapted from Tartelette, who adapted from Cooking Light form 2002


1 1/4 cups vegetable broth or water
1 cup light coconut milk
1 cup brown basmati rice
1 cup finely chopped onion
2 stalks lemongrass, finely chopped
1 bag frozen butternut squash
1 teaspoon chopped fresh (or 1/4 teaspoon dried) thyme
salt & pepper
1 1/2 cups cooked black beans (if using canned, drain & rinse them first)

zest and juice of one lime


Bring broth (or water) and coconut milk to a boil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Add rice, cover, reduce heat, and simmer about 45 minutes or until liquid is absorbed. Remove from the heat and keep warm (I just keep mine covered while I prepare the rest of the recipe).


Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion and lemongrass and sautee 5 minutes or until the onion becomes translucent.


Reduce heat to medium and add the squash. Cook until unfrozen, stirring occasionally. Stir in thyme, salt, pepper and black beans. Cook 3 minutes or until thoroughly heated, stirring occasionally. Add rice to squash mixture, add the lime zest and juice and stir to combine.

5-Minute Naan

We love this naan!  It's super doughy and tastes amazing dipped in saag paneer!  And you probably already have the ingredients on hand, so it's the perfect thing to make you have no food in your house!  


We are always running out of food around here, probably not least in part because law school makes me eat too much of it!  Anyway, sometimes it means that we eat raw steel cut oats as a snack.  It's super weird, I know.  But now, we'll have something new to munch on!  yay!


5-minute Naan from (never home)maker

• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 pinch salt
• 2/3 cup water
• 1. Whisk together the bread flour, salt, and baking powder in a medium bowl.
  2. Add the water and stir. Then knead with your hands for a minute or two. If dough is too sticky, add a bit more flour.
  3. Dough should be smooth and elastic. Divide into 4 balls the stretch out it out a bit.
  4. Spritz a frying pan with olive oil and heat over medium-low heat. When hot, place one of the pre-naans on it. Press down a bit with your hands or a utensil. Cook until golden.
  5. Then flip and cook until golden. Repeat with remaining pieces.
  6. Use a pizza cutter to cut each piece into 4 triangles.
  7. Serves between 2 and 4 people. Each piece (divide into 4 triangles) is about 140 calories

Groceries!

No special recipes this week ... just beer, beans, brats, and boxed Indian food!  

See you next week!

xoxo,

Jennifer