Lavender-Peach Pick-Me-Up Muffins

Lavender-Peach Pick-Me-Up Muffins

Well I've been a little slow in getting going- but here I am!  My very first food blog post... my Bubbe would be so proud!  I was trying to decide what delish dish to start my postings off right with, and decided on these perfect peach-lavender muffins I whipped up the other day.  

I woke up in a funk and before I sat down at my desk for a long day of work (I work from home- a blessing and a curse!) I decided to treat myself to something yummy.  I had this jar of lavender peach jam that my sister had made that was too runny for toast, but PERFECT for muffin-making.  So I went to my tried and true, everything always turns out just how I want it 100% of the time, favorite cookbook- The Fosters Market Cookbook by Sarah Foster & Sarah Belk King- for a general muffin recipe and then doctored it up a bit to make it full of lavender peach goodness.

They were freaking AMAZING, if I do say so myself ;)  They were so good in fact that I marched a few over to my new neighbor whom I had only ever spoken to in passing *maybe* twice.  Hey people, nothing spreads neighborly love like freshly baked muffins right?  And that sweetie brought my plate back a few days later with some freshly baked amaretti cookies!  Baking karma- it's real.

So the recipe is as follows- but because I used my sisters peach-lavender jam, you'll have to substitute with your own fave jam/fruit/flavored syrup of choice.

Lavender-Peach pick-Me-Up Muffins:

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup sugar

2 t baking powder

1/2 t salt

8 T unsalted butter (1 stick), melted

3 large eggs

3/4 cup milk

3/4 cup Karen's Lavender-Peach Jam

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F

2. Grease (or line with muffin cups, I like the crispness of the greased bare tin) a 12 cup muffin tin.

3. Sift together all dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, salt, sugar) in a large bowl.

4. Whisk together the melted butter, eggs, milk, and jam until well combined.

5. add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix just until moist and blended- do not over-mix or you'll have a heavy muffin!

6.  Scoop into prepared muffin tin with a 1/3 cup scoop or measuring cup.  The mixture will come to the top of the tin- don't worry, thats how it gets such a nice rounded top!

7. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

8. Remove from oven and let cool 5 minutes before transferring to cooling rack and cooling completely (or till cool enough to not burn your tongue!)

9. Slather with butter and jam and prepare to be uplifted!

Shrimp, Bacon, Sausage Jambalaya

I just got back to California after spending the long weekend in Chicago with my family for Thanksgiving. I missed you and your cinnamon rolls on Thanksgiving morning! It just wasn't the same without you there. And it was freezing. My pathetic California-infused blood can't handle temperatures below 50 degrees these days (I know, where did the Midwesterner in me go?), so when I got back this afternoon I still had soup on the brain. Luckily it's in the 60's here right now so I didn't have to bundle up too much to go to the store. :)

I decided to make a shrimp, bacon, and sausage Jambalaya, but the recipe I used is actually a combo of a jambalaya and a gumbo recipe. If you were wondering (because I was) what the difference between the two is, it's seemingly pretty simple says a few online resources. Jambalaya has rice cooked within the dish and gumbo serves rice on the side. I'm no soul food expert, but it sounds good to me. I did cook rice in the dish, but I did about half as much as you would use for Jambalaya.

I should also note that since I am not a pork eater, I used turkey bacon and hot Louisiana all beef sausage for this recipe.

Ingredients:
- 1/2 lb sliced turkey bacon
- 1/2 lb sliced sausage (I would suggest Anduille sausage or any other hot/southern sausage)
- 1.5 cups diced onions
- 3/4 cup diced celery
- 1 cup diced green pepper
- 3 cloves of minced garlic
- 1 cup rice
- 1 can diced tomatoes
- 3 cups chicken broth
- 2 tbs worcestershire sauce
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1 lb raw shrimp, peeled and cleaned

Directions:

1. In a large skillet over medium heat, cook the bacon and sausage until brown. Transfer the bacon and saussage into a slow cooker or larger pot.

2. Next sautee the onion, celery, and pepper in the skillet. You can use the bacon grease as oil to cook the veggies, but if it looks like a lot of grease then I suggest pouring some out. I didn't have enough grease left over so I added about 1 tbs of oil to the pan to sautee the veggies. Once the veggies are soft (~7 minutes), transfer them to the slow cooker/large pot.

3. Add tomatoes with the juice from the can, chicken broth, worcestershire sauce, and salt to the slow cooker/large pot. Cook for 3 hours. If you're using a slow cooker, dont worry about stirring or anything. If you don't have a slow cooker and you are making this on the stove, make sure to stir it every 20 minutes or so.

4. Add the rice, and shrimp to the slow cooker/large pot and cook for another 45 minutes or until the rice is cooked.

5. Enjoy! I served this dish with some sourdough rolls, but I bet cornbread or something more exciting than sourdough would be great!!