6-Week Muffins

(These mini-muffins were made from batter approximately 5 weeks old.)

Game changer: A batter for muffins that will last 6 weeks in your refrigerator. 

You know what that means, right? It means that you can make a huge amount of batter and then every morning, drag your sorry, lazy behind out of bed and, while still half asleep, pour batter into muffin tins and then 20 minutes later when you've finally realized you're awake because possibly you've taken a shower, but more likely because your kids keep talking with the dulcet tones of children respectful of the morning pauses and silences--by which I mean yelling every word they say as though you were on a different continent. When this happens, all of the sudden (with no significant effort on your part) hot, sweet breakfast will come forth out of the oven like a miracle of goodness. 

That is what I'm talking about. 

I originally heard about these at a church event. We were given a recipe and I almost fell out of my chair and then one of my friends leaned over and said, "You can do that with my muffin recipe too." I love her muffins and they are already on this blog. So I thought I'd start with those babies. And sure enough, it worked. We probably could have gone through our batter in much less than 6 weeks, but I intentionally kept it in the fridge to make sure nothing nasty was going to grow on it. Nothing did. And we ate these muffins and they were delicious. 

I was sure the leavening would just poof out and not work after the first day, and I will say, they didn't have quite as much rise by week six as they did for the first batch, but they were still very respectably muffin-like and not leaden bricks of dough. 

Here's the recipe. (Note: This original recipe can make muffins or pancakes, but the pancakes do NOT work for 6 weeks--they just wind up really really flat if you try.) It makes quite a lot by itself, but if you double it, you'll have a super lot. Use what you want, tightly COVER the rest, and make muffins whenever you like. 

Magic. 

Creamy Dijon Chicken

Recently at a party, a friend commented that she had been checking my blog and that I hadn't had many recipes up lately. It was a fair critique. I have been uber busy the last two weeks and have spent this week whipping up such fabulous dinners as: Eggs.

But. That doesn't mean that I don't have a few recipes I've been meaning to post for ages and just haven't gotten to (see the busyness excuse; also the laziness one--oh, whoops, forgot to mention that one). So, my friend, here you go and enjoy. This is a simple, but very satisfying creamy chicken that'll get dinner on the table in less than 30 minutes. For the low-fat option--oh wait, never mind. (And truly I should have added some parsley to the top of this for color, don't you think.)

Creamy Dijon Chicken
adapted from The Hobo Kitchen
Serves 4
Prep and cook time: 30 minutes
Cost: $6.80 ($1.70/serving)
chicken: 5.00, cream: 1.50, mustards: .20, lemon juice: .05, other stuff: .05

4 skinless boneless chicken breasts
olive oil
2 garlic cloves
1 1/2 C cream
2 tsp Dijon mustard (or whatever else kind of mustard you like)
1 tsp whole grain mustard (I think I subbed in cheap mustard here)
dash onion powder
1 Tbsp lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste
dash chili flakes or a spring of parsley if you don't want your meal pale like mine is

Heat oil in a skillet. Add chicken breast and cook, browning on either side and cooking until center is no longer pink.

Remove chicken from pan. Cook garlic for a quick minute. (If you feel so inspired, you may also cook up some leeks or shallots). Add cream, mustard, and a dash of onion powder (if you didn't add leeks or shallots). Whisk and allow to simmer for 5-8 minutes until it has reduced just a bit.

While this happens, shred or cube your chicken.

Add lemon juice. Add shredded chicken back. Add salt, pepper, and possibly chili flakes to taste.

Simmer for several minutes.

Serve over rice. Or spoon from pan to mouth. Whatever floats your boat. Maybe garnish with parsley or at least serve a colorful vegetable.

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Herb Drying for Dummies

Although my normal garden is nothing to brag about, I do have a fairly lovely herb garden. Which is just great. Until it's the end of October and my basil is falling over itself and everything needs to have something done with it if I want to preserve some for myself over the winter. Which I do. But then the idea of cutting off leaves and hanging it or putting it in the dehydrator for days or making a pesto with it or slow oven-drying it, or any of the other methods for herb preservation that I've ever tried made me want to put my head under the covers and hibernate. Often I do have the time and energy for these things and I enjoy them, but this fall, it just made me heave a fat, dramatic sigh. Still, the cheapskate in me just couldn't let them all freeze and go to waste.

(Note: The following is an unnecessarily long story of how I accidentally learned this herb-drying-for-dummies trick. Interestingly many of my for-dummies tricks are discovered quite by accident while I, myself, am acting (for research purposes of course) like a dummy. Anyway... continue on with the story if you will or hop to the instructions below for the method...)

Finally, I went out and chopped down the basil. I figured I'd let it sit on the table and maybe it would, uh, dry itself or something. It didn't. A few leaves started getting funky and I figured, "Okay, I'm not going to let it just sit here and mold." So I took off all the good leaves and figured I'd just dry them in the oven. I had way too much basil to throw in the dehydrator and oven-drying seemed a little easier than making pesto, (and it didn't involve any expensive ingredients that I may or may not have had).

Generally, to oven dry, I do this: 1) Turn the oven to lowest setting. For me this is 175, which is a little too high for herbs, so I let it get almost there and then I turn the oven off and let it sit, and then when the oven has cooled a few hours later, I turn the oven back and then repeat that process. For a small amount of herb, it's not a big deal. But for a large amount, it takes forever. And you have to keep "tossing" your basil so some doesn't dry while the other stuff accidentally steams/cooks/gets weird. And then if you really have a lot of herb, you need to take the stuff that has dried out and let the other stuff keep going. Blah blah blah.

And I seriously had a lot of basil. It would have taken days and been super annoying and commandeered my oven. And I was sure I'd forget it was in there and pre-heat the oven for something and ruin the basil.

So I turned on the oven and let it heat. Then turned it off and let my basil sit in the warm oven. Then it was bedtime. And my basil sure wasn't all dry. So I gave my basil a toss and then turned on the oven light to remind me the basil was there so I wouldn't accidentally cook it all while preheating the oven for something non-herb-related the next day.

And guess what? The next morning, my basil was perfectly wonderfully, effortlessly dry. Crumbly, fresh-scented, awesome. When I took the pans out, they were warm to the touch. The light I'd left on had kept the oven just warm enough to be the perfect temperature. And leaving it overnight was the right amount of time (though I'm sure they could have been left for longer).

Herb Drying for Dummies

1) Take the leaves off the stems and spread leaves out on large cookie sheets. It's ideal if the leaves don't overlap, but I certainly broke that rule and had overlapping leaves and leaf clusters just everywhere.

2) Heat your oven to its lowest setting. As soon as it gets there or close, turn the oven off.

3) Turn the oven light on.

4) Let sit overnight. Note: If you have a ton of herbs (especially if they're overlapping), give them a little toss before you go to bed to get the bottom ones on top and visa versa).

5) In the morning, they should be crumbly and perfect. If not, leave them a few hours longer with that oven light on.