Pineapple top shelf margs

It was warm and sunny today; a balmy 65 ºF at the end of January. That's winter in the south my friends. The hubs is on dinner duty tonight (chili cheese enchiladas!) so I pulled out some pineapple from the fridge and made margaritas.

The fresh pineapple and freshly squeezed orange juice is really killer. However, they could easily be subbed with frozen or canned pineapple, and commercial oj. I bought a sample pack of bitters (lime, cardamom, chocolate, and grapefruit), and the lime bitters made a tasty addition. However, I would've just added lime juice if I didn't have them.

On a side note, this weekend was spent exploring some nearby hometown digs. The Sloss Furnaces
in Birmingham were visited, followed up with a visit to Avondale Brewing Company. The Sloss Furnaces are a historic site with preserved intact post-industrial steam furnaces used to make iron and pig iron. I learned why Birmingham is called the Magic City, and that it was founded at the junction of two railroad crossings. The iron factories would operate all day and night, and when the iron was being poured out it would light up the budding Birmingham skyline a gleaming orange. That, coupled with tremendous growth, caused Birmingham to rapidly change, as if magic had miraculously expanded the city.

Avondale beers have a distinct flavor. They have a jolly rancher-esque tang that permeates the saison-styles, and is on the nose of many of their other beers. The hubs enjoyed a few pints of the oud bruin, a Flemish-style red, and I liked the Miss Fancy's Belgian-style tripel. It's always fun to hear the Flemish words pronounced in the American way. Oud sounds like ode, when it should be the "ow" that you hear in town; bruin was pronounced "broon,"  but should be said like it's English translation, "brown." Duvel gets it the worst. Everyone here thinks Duvel is French and pronounces it the French way, but (alas and sigh) it's Flemish and is said like "doovle" and not "du-VEL" with the emphasis on "vel." Alright folks my snobby self is leaving you with these margs: which is said exactly like it's spelled.

Pineapple Top-Shelf Margs
Yield: 2 margaritas for 2 greedy people, or enough for 4

Ingredients:
1 cup, fresh pineapple chunks (frozen pineapple would be great)
Juice of 2 medium oranges or approx 1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 cup tequila (I used Don Julio)
1/4 cup triple sec
2 T brown sugar (or 2 T simple syrup)
lime bitters (optional), I used Scrappy's Lime Bitters, but feel free to sub in fresh lime juice
ice
pineapple wedges for garnish

Directions:
In a blender, add all of the ingredients from the pineapple to the ice. Blend on high speed until fully blended. Pour into mason jars, or festive glasses, garnish with pineapple chunks, and a swizzle stick. If you don't have a swizzle stick, a single chopstick works well. The margarita tends to separate into 2 distinct layers, so a swizzle is nice.

Of course, you can substitute rum for the tequila, and some coconut milk for the orange juice, for a top-shelf colada.

Sweet potato pineapple muffins

Sweet potato with pineapple and fresh ginger.

Sweet potato with dates. Look at that fine crumb. 

Prepared muffin pans with oat-brown sugar topping.

Filled to just about 1/2 inch from the top, leave enough room for them to rise.

Fresh baked muffins, mmm lekker. 

In keeping with my goal of testing recipes multiple times, these sweet-potato pineapple muffins have been baked 4 times. The recipe has been adapted from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. The original recipe calls for 1/3 cup of candied ginger. Instead, I used 1/3 cup canned chopped pineapple, or dates. I add in 1 T of fresh grated ginger, along with 1/8 tsp fresh grated nutmeg.

Muffins are quick breads meaning that they don't need to leaven or rise. To bake muffins, mix together all of the dry ingredients in a bowl, and all of the wet ingredients in another bowl. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and with a large spoon (not a hand or stand mixer) combine the wet and dry together with swift quick strokes. Avoid overmixing. The batter is ready when all of the flour is incorporated into the wet, a good rule of thumb is that the batter looks slightly undermixed. Drop batter by the spoonfuls into a greased muffin pan.

In general I try to make healthier modifications, but I find the proportions of this recipe work out nicely, and they aren't too sweet with a 1/2 cup of brown sugar, or heavy with 1/4 cup of vegetable oil. Subbing in whole-wheat pastry flour is fine. The pineapple and sweet potato make a delicious moist end product.

Sweet potato pineapple muffins

Yield: 1 dozen muffins

Ingredients listed in order of wet and dry:

Dry

1 and 3/4 cup all-purpose flour (can use whole wheat pastry flour)

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp nutmeg

Wet

3/4 cup cooked sweet potato, mashed (canned or cooked pumpkin would work too)

1/3 cup canned chopped pineapple, or dates, or candied ginger

1 tbsp fresh grated ginger (leave out if using candied ginger)

1/2 cup buttermilk (see note below)

1/4 cup vegetable oil, plus a tiny bit extra to grease muffin pan

2 eggs, beaten

a heaping 1/2 cup of brown sugar (yes I know it's a dry ingredient, but add it to the wet ingredients first)

Note: if you don't have buttermilk, yogurt thinned with water works, or add 1/4 tsp of vinegar to a 1/2 cup of milk. Stir the milk and vinegar together and let stand 10 minutes.

Directions:

Set oven to 375 ºF; grease a muffin pan or line them with muffin liners. 

1. Combine the dry ingredients from flour to nutmeg in a medium-size mixing bowl. Stir together to ensure that it is well mixed. Set aside.

2. Combine the wet ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. Stir together to combine. A sturdy spoon is sufficient as muffins do not require a hand or stand electric mixer.

3. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. You should add the dry ingredients all at once. Stir together, scraping down the flour from the sides of the bowl. The mixing is done when the flour is mostly all incorporated into the wet batter. Undermixing is fine, but don't leave any huge clumps of flour.

4. Drop batter by the spoonful into a prepared muffin pan. Bake 20-25 minutes until a toothpick or fork inserted comes out clean. 

For the oat-brown sugar topping:

2 tbsp butter, softened

2 tbsp oats or more

1 tbsp flour

1 tbsp brown sugar or regular sugar

small dribble of vanilla extract

Combine all the ingredients. A fork works nicely to mash everything together. Distribute evenly over muffin batter once they are in the muffin pan. Seriously, I've been making this topping since my 9th grade home-ec class. 

Chili sin Carne (con frijoles!)

Tacos with chili con frijoles


Chili con frijoles

In my never-ending quest to satiate my Mexican food hunger cravings, I scoured the Leuven library to check out some Mexican cookbooks. I adapted a recipe from Tacos and Tortillas by Thea Spierings to be vegetarian and include more taco-esque ingredients. Cookbooks with simple pictures do loads to help with language learning.

If you've never had bean-based tacos I would highly recommend trying this. When I taught cooking classes, I often taught how to prepare simple healthy foods, encouraged trying new foods, and helped plan meals to make the most out of food budgets. In prepping tacos, I would recommend cutting half the beef with beans to improve nutritional content and extend food dollars. A lot of meals I taught revolved around beans – beans are high in protein, fiber, and nutrition. Beans cooked from scratch are dirt cheap (although they do take some planning), and they have a long shelf life. Canned beans can be very cheap, and require no cooking (besides heat and eat). The bean filling can be used in tacos, quesadillas, burritos, or served alongside some rice.

Chili sin Carne (con frijoles!)

Serves 4-6

1 tbsp olive oil

½ block of frozen tofu, defrosted and chopped fine (optional)

1 onion, chopped

1 bell pepper, chopped or mixture of red, yellow, or green bell peppers

1 jalapeno, seeded, deveined and chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

2, 14 oz cans pinto beans (or mixture kidney and pinto), rinsed and drained, or 1 and ½ cups soaked pinto beans prepared with the soak and cook method

1, 6 or 8 oz can pineapple chunks in their own syrup, rinsed and drained

2-3 tbsp hot chili sauce

1 pack of taco shells

Fix-ins for tacos:

2 cups shredded lettuce

salsa (like this really yummy chipotle salsa)

black olives

chopped tomatoes or bell peppers

sour cream

avocado chunks or guacomole

Directions:

1. Heat up olive oil in a wide skillet over medium-high heat. If using tofu, add it in and stir fry until golden brown. Once golden, remove from pan and then add in onions and bell pepper. Continue to cook 5-7 minutes.
2. Preheat oven to 350° F.
3. Stir in jalapeno and garlic. Season with a bit of salt.
4. Add in pinto beans, tofu (if using), pineapple chunks, and hot chili sauce. Stir to combine until heated through. Meanwhile, place taco shells on a pan and heat up until hot.
5. Set out taco fix-ins on a counter and serve immediately.