The holidays have a way of making time go by both very slowly and very quickly, which is why it has taken me so long to get this post up even though I intended to do it days ago. Fortunately for me, despite the fact that Thanksgiving is now over, pumpkins are considered to be winter fare, as well as fall. Of course, canned pumpkin means that you have have pumpkin all year long, though…. I digress. The point is that these are delicious muffins - delicious enough to make up for my delay in posting them.
Pumpkin muffins can often be rather heavy and dense due to the fact that there is so much moisture in the pumpkin. These muffins are neither. They have a very tender crumb that is fluffy and light, but very moist. Because they use both butter and sour cream, they can be quite rich, but you can cut back on the amount of fat slightly by using yogurt, either low fat or fat free. The taste will probably make up for any guilt you might feel from eating these, though. They have a good pumpkin flavor, but not overwhelming enough to put off even people who aren’t particular fans of pumpkin. The spices, and the hint of cinnamon in the streusel, really round out the overall flavor of fall.
I should also note that the instructions for the streusel below will make a bit more than enough to cover the muffins. You can either try to stack the extra on top of the muffins or store it in the fridge for a couple of days to use on a second batch. You can also half the recipe - but isn’t it better to have too much stresel than too little?

I really love pumpkin in any form that it comes in and I have to say that, in my opinion, these are realy excellent muffins. They can also be dangerously addictive, so you might want to have some people in mind to share them with.

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Before Thanksgiving, I usually think about savory foods. This is because I already know what I’m going to do in terms of dessert (pie, of course!), so I need to spend more time working out the other things on the menu, like soups and side dishes.
Last year, the soup course was some kind of potato soup that was uninspiring and perhaps a bit too heavy with the other potato dishes at dinner. I wanted to do something lighter and a little bit different, so I thought back to a very good artichoke soup I had at an Italian restaurant a few months ago and decided to aim for that flavor. I recall the waiter explaining that there was no cream and no potato, which is often used as a filler, in the soup, so I started out with a lot of artichokes. I used frozen because they’re just as good as fresh for soups and other cooked dishes and they take very little prep time. I added in a little bit of rice to help thicken the soup and ended up adding in some milk to smooth it out. You can use any type of milk in the soup, from skim milk to cream, based on how rich you want it to be. I used a combination of skim milk and light cream (half and half), which is pretty much like low fat milk.
Is it the same as the soup I enjoyed this past spring? No, but it does taste delicious. The flavor of artichoke really comes through and you’ll know exactly what it is you are eating. I highly recommend serving the soup with a sprinkle of dill - fresh or dried - and a dollop of sour cream or yogurt, as the dill really blends well with the artichoke flavor.
This soup can be served as a first course in small bowls or as a main dish with bread or half a panini sandwich.

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Whether you call it stuffing or dressing, this dish and its many variations are a classic holiday dinner side dish. Personally, I always called it stuffing, regardless of the fact that it may or may not have actually be stuffed in a bird. I don’t really care for the mushy texture of the in-bird stuffings, so I tend to opt for the “on the side” variety with a crunchy, browned top.
I was working on a couple batches of stuffing for Slashfood this week and I really like the recipe that I ended up with, so I figured I’d share it here as well as there. This version uses cranberries instead of raisins and eliminates the small amunt of oil, which I found made little difference in the crispness of the final stuffing.
It’s very easy to make and completely vegetarian. It is flavorful with sage and a fair amount of sweetness from the fruit. You can, of course, adjust the seasonings to suit your tastes and the type of bread you are using. I don’t usually measure things as I’m adding them (and will sometimes toss in a bit of paprika or garlic just to make things different), so these are ballpark figures anyway. I like to use fresh bread, not stale, since the flavor is better and it gets just as crispy on top in the oven. I also like to use a good-qualiy store bought bread (usually from TJs or something) rather than homemade, since I tend to want to eat homemade breads and not chop them up into stuffing.
The only “odd” thing about the recipe is that I noted you should use “strong” vegetable stock/broth for the best flavor. I use a vegetarian bullion to make my veg stock, so it is easy to increase the amount for a stronger batch. Add a tbsp of soy sauce to boost the flavor if yours isn’t particularly flavorful.

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Thanksgiving is only a week away and I don’t know about you, but I’m already starting to think about what I’m going to serve. I don’t usually do “test recipes,” making up a batch of something before I intend to serve it, and this isn’t one. Instead, these rolls came about as al the ideas that I had for different courses and ingredients were floating around in my head. Dinner rolls and cranberries were the two that spoke loudest to me, and combining them produced these Dried Cranberry Dinner Rolls.
The rolls are delicious, soft with a great texture and a bit of sweetness from the cranberries. They’re not actually sweet at all, although there is a bit of honey in the recipe, and they can certainly be used to sop up gravy with dinner. The good thing about any roll like this one is that, even though they work with savory foods, they can still be breakfast-friendly if you have leftovers
I used bread flour, not all purpose, in this recipe and that is what gives the rolls such a nice texture. They sell bread flour at most supermarkets these days, so keep an eye out for it.

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I know that I just recently made something from Dorie Greenspan’s new cookbook, Baking: From My Home to Yours, but as I flipped through the book I bookmarked over a dozen recipes that I wanted to try, so here is another one.

This recipe appealed to me both because I like blondies and because there is so much good stuff packed into these. A blondie is supposed to be a slightly fudgy/chewy, non-chocolate version of a brownie. In most cases, the blondies turn out to just be slightly chewy cookie bars, which is exactly how these turned out. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but if you’re looking for a more brownie-like bar, this might not be the ideal recipe.

The batter is thick and doughlike - in part because of the fairly generous amount of flour and in part because there are chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, pecans (the original recipe called for walnuts) and shredded cocnut - and the only problem I had with the recipe was getting it into an even layer in the pan. I solved this little issue by lightly greasing my spatula and using it to flatten down the dough. I recommend keeping an eye on your oven temperature, or else the bars might turn out to be a touch crispy on the edges and dry in the center. Otherwise, however, they had a great flavor and a nice, chewy texture. These aren’t refined cookies to be eaten with tea, but ones to be dunked in a glass of milk when no one is watching.

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If you think that the name I gave this cake is long, let me assure you that it could have been longer. It almost makes me wish I was the sort of person who could come up with short, cutesy names for my creations, like “Mary Sunshine Cake” or something. Alas, I am not and so we are all stuck with a long name.

Names aside, this is a really good cake. I’ve been thinking about incorporating cornmeal into a cake for some time now but I really wanted to avoid the dense texture that so many cornmeal-heavy cakes have. I wanted to keep a hint of the crumbly, rustic texture that cornmeal offers, though.

This recipe seems to have come out just as I imagined. It has a noticeably different texture from an entirely flour-based cake, but is still very cake-like. The best way I could describe it is to say that there is the tiniest hint of crunch in the crumb. It is moist and very tender, yet isn’t heavy at all. The only thing more that you could want is flavor, and this cake has plenty of that, too.

I used buttermilk to add a bit of richness and a generous amount of lemon zest to get the lemon flavor into the cake. I happened to have some Meyer lemons, but ordinary lemon zest will work perfectly well, too. The only thing is that you really must let it sit, well-wrapped, overnight. If you don’t, the cake will be good, but it will be a bit cornbread-like because the texture will be slightly more coarse on the first day. After sitting overnight, however, it is perfect.

I highly recommend this cake. Try it with blueberries instead of raspberries if you prefer, or for something with a bit more fall flavor (or if you like slightly tart desserts), try using chopped up cranberries.

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