A Weekend Away

Today is looking like a good day.  I baked some mini apple muffins for breakfast, and Kat took the remaining to school with her:

High-Fibre Apple Muffins

Ingredients
1 1/2 c whole wheat flour
1/4 c. coconut flour or powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/4 t salt
1/2 t nutmeg, shaved or ground

1 medium-sized sweet apple, peeled, cored, and chopped

1 extra large or jumbo egg
1/2 c. buttermilk

Instructions
Preheat oven to 400F.

coat a 12-portion mini muffin tin liberally with cooking spray.  Set aside.

In large bowl, sift together baking soda, whole wheat flour, nutmeg, and salt.  Stir in coconut flour or powder (the powder has a coarser texture than flour).

In medium bowl, beat egg, then add buttermilk, whisking until it forms a thick fluid.

Add chopped apple to dry ingredients, stirring to coat.  Add wet ingredients all at once to flour mixture, then stir to mix thoroughly.  Allow the coconut flour/powder to sit for a few minutes to start absorbing moisture.

Pour batter into muffin tin (the cups will be very full), and bake for 15 minutes.  They will brown slightly along the edges, and will likely meet each other, almost completely covering the top of the tin, so it may behoove you to spray the entire top surface of the tin with the cooking spray instead of just the interiors of the cups.

Allow to cool slightly in the pan on a cooling rack, then place in a folded linen teacloth in either a ceramic bowl or wooden bowl (which would allow better air flow for cooling).  Serve with butter.

This evening, Peter and I will board the Horizon, a boat fitted out for SCUBA diving.  It has cabins and bunks downstairs, and a dining room on the deck level which serves as the meeting space for the crew to provide information to passengers prior to departure, before each dive, and at the end of the trip, when passengers will have the opportunity to leave gifts in the tip jar.

The Horizon is a nice dive boat, outfitted well with, from what I've experienced, a good crew.  A dive boat's crew is usually made up of the captain, a cook, a dive master, and one or two deck hands to help keep things running smoothly.

We will dive at San Clemente Island.

I will be leaving Kat for the weekend.  She has activities planned for both Friday and Saturday (no football game on Friday, so they'll have marching practice), and will likely be finishing homework on Sunday.  I just baked some nice crackers for her to snack on over the next few days (garlic-rosemary crackers, recipe below).  They are cooling on racks on the stove at the moment.  I tasted a few of the edge pieces (ones which came out quite irregularly shaped) and can say, with no doubt, that she will enjoy them.  They have just enough salt to bring out the flavors, and the ample garlic and rosemary really pack a punch.

Garlic-Rosemary Crackers

Ingredients
1 good-sized head garlic, root ends cut off and paper removed
(3-4) 5-6" sprigs fresh rosemary (we'd just gotten some in our CSA share this week)

3/4 c. warm water (just nuke it for several seconds until warm to the touch)
1/3 c. EVOO

1 t salt
1 t baking powder
1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour, plus a little more if needed

Instructions
Preheat oven to 400F.  Spray two baking sheets with olive oil or some other nonstick spray.

Sift flour, baking powder, and salt together into a large bowl.  Set aside.

Separate garlic cloves and mash them (I use a garlic masher that I'd bought from The Pampered Chef) into a paste.  Separate rosemary leaves from stems, and chop into a fine texture (I used my Ulu knife).

Stir rosemary into the flour mixture.  Add garlic and liquid ingredients all at once.  Fold mixture until a smooth batter forms.  You may need to add a tad more flour if the batter is too sticky/runny to handle.  Form a soft ball with the batter.

Cut batter ball in half, and spread each half, using your bare hands, onto each baking sheet (the batter will not completely fill each sheet, but you want it to be pretty thin).  Cut into cracker portions with a pizza cutter.

Bake in preheated oven for approximately 12-14 minutes (mine took 13).  Remove from oven and allow to cool on baking sheets until ready to handle and eat!

These crackers would go well with the Baba Ganoush I'm preparing next.  Vampire dispellers!

Baba Ganoush

Ingredients
1-1 1/4 lbs eggplant, either a single large one, or two smaller ones
4 small- to medium-sized lemons or limes, or combination thereof
4 large cloves garlic
4 T Tahini

Instructions
With a sharp fork, poke holes all around eggplant(s).  Wrap in foil, and bake on a baking tray at 450F for 45 minutes.

Meanwhile, process/chop garlic cloves and juice lemons/limes.  Add tahini, and place mixture into a large bowl.

When eggplant(s) are finished roasting, cool slightly, then cut open and chop coarsely.  Place in food processor and process in bursts until desired texture is reached.  Pour eggplant into large bowl with remaining ingredients, and mix together thoroughly.  Add salt and freshly ground white pepper to taste.