Chocolate

A couple of posts back, I gave yall the recipe for a yummy blueberry lemon muffin/cake or muffin. Well, today I tried a recipe that was very similar but was chocolate chip. Great for this rainy afternoon. 

Chocolate Chip Crumb Muffins:                                                     

3/4 cup sugar (or honey if your out of sugar)
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup canola oil (olive oil)
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sour cream
1 1/2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips mixed with 1 Tablespoon all purpose flour

Crumb Topping:

1/2 cup light brown sugar
3 Tablespoons all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 1/2 Tablespoons cold unsalted butter, diced
1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chips, chopped (this is the remaining amount of chocolate chips in the 12 ounce bag)

Sift together the all purpose flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In a bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, mix together the sugar, brown sugar, canola oil, eggs and vanilla extract on medium speed for about 3 minutes.
Slowly add the dry ingredients into the bowl on low speed and mix until almost combined. Then fold the ingredients together with a spatula.
Add in the sour cream. You’ll need to fold, stir (gently), fold, stir, etc. Make sure the sour cream is completely mixed into the batter but don’t over mix the batter.

Mix the chocolate chips with 1 Tablespoon of all purpose flour. Add the chocolate chips to the batter. Gently fold the chocolate chips into the batter.

Line a muffin pan with muffin liners. Using an ice cream scoop, scoop the batter into each muffin liner. Set the muffin pan aside while you work on the crumb topping. (Or the iron skillet is another baking option. Just grease the skillet and bake until done in the center.) 

In a small bowl, mix together the brown sugar, flour and cinnamon. Add the diced butter and cut it into the other ingredients with a fork.

Take the remaining amount of chocolate chips in the bag and coarsely chop them up. If you still have some whole chocolate chips after chopping them, don’t worry. Add the chopped chocolate chips to the crumb topping and mix them in.
Sprinkle the crumb topping onto the muffins.

Bake at 375 degrees F for 23 minutes.

Anna .V.

Summer Time Grilling

This year my 4-H presentation is all about outdoor cookery. It's a special kind of presentation that you can do an actual demonstration. The time allowed is 2 1/2 hours total and I have to grill two turkey tenderloins...yes, turkeys have tenderloins. Mr. Morris is my grilling instructor as well as Joseph. Both of them are incredibly great at all this and have helped me tremendously!
One of the tenderloins I did a savory rub on - Colorado Plateau Citrus Pepper and it was sooo good. With both pieces of meat I smoked them for a good 15 minutes or so with Hickory Wood chips and the smell was mouth watering. About 15 after tenderloin has been smoked good make sure you keep flipping it, putting it opposite ways gives you the nice patterned look.
The second tenderloin me and Mr. Morris made a sauce. Here's what we used.

1/2 stick butter
2 Tbs. Worshire sauce
1 cup Apple Cider Vinegar
1/2 cup Lemon Curd
3/4 cup Porky's Place sauce

You just heat it all up to a simmer then make a tray out of tin foil to place on the grill and set your smoked tenderloin into the tray so that the tenderloin doesn't dry out and you get an amazing flavor at the end. About 10 15 minutes before its done grilling put some extra flavor on there as almost a crust.

1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup Porky's Place sauce
1 scoop Lemon Curd

Gabby .V. 

Strange weather brings Confusing strawberries

   Strange title... right? Well we had a time with these strawberries.
We went to Howard's Strawberry Farm in Harmony. When we went,

we were on our way to Raleigh and planned on eating most all we 

picked there. We knew we wanted to can some, and we would have
to go back to get more berries. -Fast Forward-
   The weekend was over with, and this past weekend, we were
going to retrieve berries for canning. When we went back to Howard's,
the strawberries were gone due to the nice early weather. Terrific.
Now.... we were on the hunt for another local strawberry farm.
Some friends of ours told us about Hall's, a U-Pick in Bethlehem
(close to Hickory). Mom and Alyse picked a couple of gallons brought them home and we made strawberry jam, lemon-strawberry marmalade, and strawberry-jalapeno.

The strawberry jalapeno jelly recipe came from a couple who are trying things out for themselves. They have a great blog telling about their little farm experiences. Check out Jamie & Brady Wittkamper's blog and get the strawberry jalapeno jelly recipe. It's different, but good!

That's all I have for now,

Anna .V.