Lemon Blueberry Muffins

Hey yall, I know I know... it's been forever since I have updated this blog. Life has been busy! But that means that I have a lot of good things to share. 

The Area 4-H Food Show was back in February and all 7 of us kids entered some good smelling stuff. I'll post pics of that later, and I will also put some of the recipes up that we used. 

But this entry is a recipe for a great spring-time treat! Our family loves it. 

Lemon Blueberry Muffins:

• 4 C. + 2 tbs. all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 C. sugar
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 3 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 C. creme fraiche (neufachel cheese)
• 4 tbsp. milk
• 2 tbsp. lemon juice
• 1/2 C. oil, olive
• 2 eggs
• zest of 1 lemon
• 2 tsp. lemon extract
• 3 C. fresh blueberries

Crumbly Topping:

• 1 tbsp. butter, cold
• 4 tbsp. raw organic sugar (you can find it at walmart if nowhere else)
• 3 tbsp. flour
• 1 tsp. lemon zest
• pinch of salt

Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Grease or line muffin pan.

We use an iron skillet to make a muffin cake

Mix topping ingredients together in a medium size bowl, cutting in the butter until crumbly. Set aside

Coat blueberries with the 2 tbsp. of flour then set aside. 

Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl. 

Combine the neufachel cheese, milk, oil, egg, and extract together. 

Pour the wet mixture into the dry, stir. Add the lemon juice and continue to mix until the dough comes together. (You may have to add more milk or lemon juice)

Fold in the blueberries, carefully! Don't want to squish them much.

Spoon the batter into the prepared skillet or muffin tin, sprinkle with topping and bake in preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean from the center.

Ta-Dah! Great spring breakfast, side dish, or snack. 

Hope yall enjoy! 

Anna .V. 

! Bon Appetit !

 Dinner is always so much fun at our house. It's filled with great food, good family, and more times than not, a Bible study proceeding it. For us, dinner can last for a good 2 or more hours. To go along with the conversation, the food has to be good! So here are some pics of some of our dinners.

A good winter dinner!

warm vegetable soup with barley

With lemon blueberry muffin (made in an iron skillet)
I will have a recipe up for this soon. 

Our first time trying lighting the oil lamps

Our table complete with 9 place settings, oil lamps, and candles. 

Another dinner

Homemade bread with butter:) 

Fish with honey and a lot of herbs!

                                               Brown rice with vegetables and garlic

Hope this gives y'all some good ideas!

Anna .V.

Our Challengers!

Okay, so here are all you brave challengers who took the egg challenge with what looks like less trouble than we did. Congratulations! 

Maya

Lucca

Malachi

Alyse

Victor

Addison

Andrew 

Thank you guys for participating! 

Behind The Scenes: 

Sorry, but some eggs were harmed in the making of this post. 

If there's anyone else interested in the challenge that would like their pictures up, don't hesitate to send us pictures!  We would be more than happy to put yall up here too! 

You guys that attempted it did awesome! Much better than we did. And to those who tried it and were not posted, the Icards, we're glad to hear you had some fun with it! 

Anna & Gabby 

Bananas? No, Plantains!

Let's get simple. This recipe is not long, few ingredients, and a very good turn out..... I mean, they are fried. How could it go wrong?  Plantains are part of the banana family, they come from South America in places like Chile. They have a starchy taste something similar to potatoes. I get mine from the local cattle sale but you can buy them at grocery stores.So here yall go, this is very simple.

I use an iron skillet to fry in, I just pour enough oil in to fill the bottom of the pan about 1/4 inch. Before you turn on the heat, go ahead and cut up the plantains about 1 inch thick. For my family of 9 I like to do about 11 plantains. Put all the cut up plantains into a bowl and then set up a plate near your fryin pan. Along with the empty plate go ahead and grease the bottom of a bowl.  These will be used when you squish the plantains. Set one more plate up on the other side of the fryin pan to put the finished plantains onto.

You will need some tongs to flip the plantains when they are in the hot oil. Turn up the heat to about 4 or 5. The more plantains you put in the pan the quicker they will fry. Begin to place the pieces of plantains into the fryin pan. Fill up the pan but remember that when you double fry them they will be much larger. Leave them in there until both sides are a deeper golden color, flipping them so that each side gets fried. Take out the ones that are done and put them on the plate with the bowl. It's difficult to do all this on your own so I use my sisters. When you squish the fried plantain make sure not to make them flat as a flitter, you want them to be round and somewhat thick. Put them back into the fryin pan and double fry them. When you take them out place them onto the 2nd plate. Because they are starchy add some salt to the finished ones.

These are best served hot and quickly. Even after 30 minutes they aren't as good as when you first pull them out. See? Very good and very simple. I hope you try it soon and enjoy!

Fill up the pan about 1/4 inch oil.

The cut plantains are about an inch in width.

Put all the cut plantains in one easily accessible place.

Grease the bottom of a bowl to keep the plantains from sticking.

All the plantains beautifully fried.

Make sure you don't press too hard. 

Putting the fried plantains back in for the 2nd time. 

Our production line, about 4 or 5 areas. 

There's a better pic of it all. 

Here is the finished plantains! Don't they look great?

Okay, so this batch I did manage to burn a little bit, I had the oil too high. So be careful!!

And there is your wonderful side dish. I like mine thicker and most of the family likes them thinner so you just have to try out with them a bit and see what you like best. Thanks for reading and good luck! 

Gabby .V.

CHALLENGE: Don't drop the egg!

   Okay y'all... Who's up for a challenge? 

Recently, I was working in the kitchen, and Gabby came in and suggested we balance eggs on our head. She thinks we're princesses or something with perfect posture.  :) Anyway, we tried... and we succeeded. It is possible and we have pictures to prove it:

                               

                                           Trying so hard! CONCENTRATE!                                                                                                                

   

It's not that hard. Just do a couple of things:

1. Grab an egg out of the fridge our the barnyard

2. Be very careful and balance it on your head

3. Have somebody other than you to take the pic

(That will help reduce the messy egg risks)

4. We wanna see it! Leave comments, and send pictures

through email or comment.

 ! TA-DA !

! YAY !

NOTE: NO EGGS WERE HARMED IN THE MAKING OF THIS CHALLENGE. YOU MAY HAVE A MESS TO CLEAN UP THOUGH.

Anna & Gabby 

Always start out with a larger pot than what you think you need (or knead)

Bread Making 101. More like only successful recipe yet. This is a whole wheat yeast bread recipe that has actually risen correctly and baked correctly! So here it is...

Ingredients: 

                                                                              

                         

Step numero uno, dos, tres, etc.!

Mix yeast in hot water and mix with fork

In a large bowl combine brown sugar or honey (whichever you choose), salt, oil, and yeast water mixture.

Add 3 cups of the whole wheat flour and mix well, then add remainder of the whole wheat flour.

Thouroughly mix in the 3 cups of white flour

Cooking and muscle building?

That's right! Knead the dough for 10 minutes. While kneading, you can add up to 1 cup of flour (I use white)  to keep from sticking.

Let rise for 1 1/2 hours. It should be doubled in size

BEFORE:

 AFTER:

More muscle building...

Punch down the risen dough, then let rise again for another 45mins.

 

Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 and bake for another 10 minutes.

And there you have it. Warm, fresh bread.

This recipe has worked great for me! I have made it with honey and brown sugar, and both were good! 

If you have any questions or it doesn't exactly work for you, email or post a comment and I'll help you out the best I can through words:)

Thank you Mrs. Tammy for the great recipe! 

Anna .V.