apple pear muffins

Heh! Remote blogging... let's see if this works.

Well, in an attempt to be healthy after becoming addicted to the biggest loser (more productive than dancing with the stars-- "you've given me my life back!" "i am an inspiration to the tongan people!) I decided to make some mornin' muffins. Also to get some fruit in my sad, seriously allergic system. I'm no nutritionist, but these seem like a totally decent way to start the day/make it through the afternoon/ fuel those sweaty "last chance" workouts. Uh. I kind of winged the recipe and they came out more than a little moist. Better than dry, right, Le Pain Quotidien? That was low. Anyway, I guess the way to remedy that would be less wet stuff? Watch out, Michael Ruhlman.

Apple Pear Muffins

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar or just white sugar
  
• 4 tbs butter, softened (this is half a stick)
  
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce (could go less if you want a less moist muffin)
  
• an apple and a pear (two pears?), grated.
  

Grease your muffin tin/line up some of those tin liners on a baking sheet and preheat the oven to 400.

Mix up the eggs and sugar. Now cream in the butter. Mine didn't really cream up that well, just kind of chilled out in soft chunks. Oh well.

Now add the applesauce and your grated fruits. Shake your fist at your tyrannical immune system that keeps you from eating such delicious smelling things in their normal state.

Now plop the flour, baking soda, baking powder and spices on top. "Sift them together" with a spoon without incorporating them into the batter yet. Now go! In a few decisive strokes, mix the wet and dry ingredients. Don't go crazy. Muffins are very delicate creatures.

Fill your muffin tin-- 2/3 in each cup. Bake for 20-25-+ minutes. Breakfast! One of these days I'll make granola bars and be truly invicible. If you know how to do this (granola bar making, I mean), drop me a line.

Recipes over twitter?

In this article, the Times dining section amusedly recreates recipes from Twitter.

Now, I am a supposed "new media expert"-- according to my resume, at least-- but this one gets a big Lily WTF. Why? I don't get it.

Check out a prime example here. Wouldn't you rather have my loving commentary, or someone more talented's photos? Me too.

nytimes approved

you know the extremely high proportion of pizza recipes on here? you know that i am eating a mushroom parmesan pizza right now? that is because pizza is a really quick and delicious dinner. as with all my obsessions-- well, mostly just making pizza and crackers-- the NYTIMES has fallen in love as well and written a love note to homemade pizza. You can even forget that homemade dough thing.

classy pizza

There is a restaurant in Harvard Square called Veggie Planet that I snubbed for years because it is in a basement and one time I looked down and there was no one there. Then one of my favorite people in the world convinced me to go-- and-- lo and behold, it is one of those super feel-good happy hippie places that makes me put moving to vermont much higher on the list of priorities. They have a couple different kinds of iced tea and the food is not only super delicious but also CHEAP.

This pizza is totally stolen from them, but with love, in that vermonty-sharing is caring kind of way.

LILY'S FAVORITE PIZZA

pizza dough
1 sweet potato
log of goat cheese
1 sweet onion

OK-- Preheat the oven to 450.

Chop the sweet potato into thick rounds and boil until soft-- like 15 minutes?
In the meantime, chop then onion and fry it up until it's carmelized, but not quite blackened. Still has to go in the oven.

Now stretch out your pizza dough, put it on a baking sheet. Put the sweet potato rounds on in some kind of decorative folk-art like pattern and then crumble on the goat cheese and spoon those onion on there, too. How can this not be delicious? Oh, it can't. It is the best pizza in the world. 20 minutes in a 450 degree oven, this baby is unstoppable.

chocolate pudding

Making your own desserts is awesome and way better than sitting around eating a whole bag of milanos. Making cookies take a long time. Blog readers of the world: make your own goddamn pudding.

PS-- wouldn't you know it, it is kind of HARD to find good chocolate pudding recipes. Some are based on pots-de-creme: egg based. those require cute cups and a cooking savvy I just don't have. The trick: the pudding you are thinking of in your head is filed under blancmange-- which is like your basic cornstarch pudding recipe. Upside: while it is not a heavenly thing of glory you would pay like 8 bucks to eat in a restaurant, it is pretty damn close and also INSTANT GRATIFICATION.

Oh-- you know what I want, pudding. Ok, stir some milk, bloop bloop blooop, DONE.

CHOCOLATE PUDDING

2 cups milk
1/4 cup sugar
1 chocolate bar (semisweet)-- to taste really. I think the recipe said 4 oz and I put in a good 10. Especially if you are going to make it spicy, it's gotta be chocolately.
2 tbs cornstarch
1 tsp vanilla
(moving to San Diego edition-- 1/2 tsp chili powder, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp allspice)

Pour 1/4 cup of the milk (give or take) into the cornstarch, slowly. Go through the groovy ooblek phase into the weird watered down viscous milk stage. No lumps, now. Add the sugar to this concoction. And whatever "Mexican" spices suit your fancy.

Heat up the rest of the milk and vanilla and the chocolate broken into chunks over low heat. Now slowly pour in the cornstarch goop. Cook and stir the future pudding so that the cornstarch loses its "raw flavor"-- now, I don't know what that is, but I've never had a cornstarch pudding taste really bad so just, you know, cook it and then in the end you'll have pudding. Take it off the heat when its looking pretty firm (like 10 minutes?) and pour/glop it into little cups, wine glasses, a bowl, whatever. Stick it in the fridge.

It's pudding tiiiiiime.