Blueberry Oat Muffins

I was reminiscing the other day about my mom’s blueberry bushes in the back yard. Fresh blueberries—either from the garden or from the wild—are truly one of the best fruits in the world. That said though, I was also fondly reminiscing about $1 pints of blueberries at our old fruit market in Vancouver. Long story short, while I ended up buying some frozen blueberries, they’re just nothing like what they could be.

These muffins almost made up for my missing fresh blueberries, however! With oats and wheat germ in them, they’re definitely a healthy breakfast option and easy on the budget. I also got to use my new silicone muffin cups for them, which worked magnificently instead of paper cups. The muffins just slid straight out of the silicone cups with barely a crumb left behind, which also meant very minimal washing up. They would definitely make a great gift for someone who loves baking!

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Edited: May 21st, 2010

Mixed Berry Flaugnarde

I’m realizing as I’ve been writing up these last few recipes that I’m starting to acquire a lot of new cookbooks. This recipe is from one of them—a promotional cookbook published by Philadelphia (yes, the cream cheese brand). They had a deal at the grocery store that you got one for free if you bought two items of cream cheese—so who was I to say no?! The production value of the book is beautiful, and the photography is fantastic. There certainly isn’t anything wrong with plenty of recipes that call for cream cheese, either!

This is a very simple dessert to make, and—while not exactly healthy—can be easily justified as a little breakfast treat too. (Or maybe that’s just me, I can justify chocolate mousse for breakfast too!)

Fun fact! This recipe is called a ‘clafoutis’ in the cookbook, but after a bit of Wikipedia-ing (that’s nowhere near as cool a verb as Googling), it is revealed that a clafoutis is a flan-like dish made with black cherries. When other fruits are used, it’s a flaugnarde. (Which I’d argue shares an etymological root with flan.)

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Edited: March 22nd, 2010

Raspberry Yoghurt Muffins

This Christmas, Luke and I were lucky enough to be given an amazing cookbook called “delicious. quick smart cook,” published by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). The delicious magazine has been out for a good long time as well, and has a reputation as being one of Australia’s best food magazines. We were so lucky to get this cookbook that we got it twice, in fact! Expect a review of it soon.

This is one of the several recipes I’ve tried from delicious. so far, and it deserves a big thumbs-up. These muffins are delicious, moist, keep well, and are decidedly nutritious. Make them when pberries are in-season, or use up some of the frozen ones in your fridge. More below…

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Edited: January 18th, 2010

Blueberry Pie

Growing up, blueberry pie was one of the treats in my house: other than chocolate paté, how much better could it get? My mum loves berry picking in the summer, and growing up in the mountains leads to some amazing wild blueberry, huckleberry, and sometimes even strawberry or raspberry picking. Wild berries are much smaller than domesticated versions (none of this half-grape sized blueberry business), and have a lot more bang for your buck when it comes to taste. If you can’t pick your own wild berries, this pie still tastes great with domestic berries. Try a blueberry-huckleberry blend for something a bit different.

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Edited: January 14th, 2010