Food

Honey Raisin Bran Muffins

/ jenniferdyck / 1 Comment

I would consider myself a classic baker. I enjoy recipes that are nostalgic, warm my heart and are tied with food memories. Trying new recipes is fun but I find that I always revert back to my basics, especially when I’m craving a taste of comfort.

Everyone needs a classic bran muffin in their repertoire. The original recipe came from my mom’s recipe box and I remember her baking these in my youth.

When these muffins come out of the oven they have that delicious slightly crusty muffin top.

The only real change I made was to add the dash of nutmeg, pinch of cloves and of course swap out that vegetable oil for canola.

If you plan to eat multiples of these babies in one day, be sure to drink your fluids so your digestive system keeps on flowing. Wheat bran is a source of insoluble fibre and while it moves through your digestive system doing it’s amazing work, if will absorb moisture. Don’t let it get stuck, stay hydrated.

From my kitchen to yours, fibre up and enjoy!
Jenn

Honey Raisin Bran Muffins

Ingredients:

2 cups milk
2 Tbsp lemon juice
2 eggs
3/4 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup canola oil
1/2 cup liquid honey
3 cups wheat bran
2 cups raisins or dried cranberries
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole-wheat flour
1 Tbsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
pinch of ground cloves

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350F and spray two muffin tins with canola oil cooking spray or line with muffin liners.
  2. In a large bowl mix together milk and lemon juice. Set aside for 5 min.
  3. After 5 min, mix in eggs, brown sugar, canola oil and honey until well combined. Stir in bran and raisins. Let sit for 10 min. Skipping the 10 minutes will leave your batter too runny, your raisins too hard and your bran gritty. Do not skip this step.
  4. In a separate bowl, whisk together; the flours, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, nutmeg and cloves.
  5. Add the dry mixture to the wet mixture and stir until just combined.
  6. Divide the batter into the prepared pans using a full 1/4 cup scoop. I usually get 24 plus 3 muffins. I know, a bit annoying. You can go back to top up evenly or bake off another round or invest in a mini loaf pan and you get a bonus snack for yourself.
  7. Bake in the preheated oven for 18-20 minutes or a toothpick comes out clean.
    Notes:
    -You can cut this recipe in half for 12-14 muffins.
    -Muffins freeze well.
    -Store your wheat bran in the freezer to extend shelf life once open. Wheat bran will go rancid once open and nobody enjoys a rancid bran muffin!

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

/ jenniferdyck / 1 Comment

We all have that one recipe we can recite by heart. The recipe that feels like a dash of this and a dash of that. You’ve made it so many times that you are not sure you even read the words on the card anymore.

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For me, it is Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins. They are a staple in my kitchen and it is not uncommon for me to be whipping up a batch at 9 pm on a Sunday night to fill lunch kits for the week.

But don’t worry, I’ve measured this recipe out and tested them umpteen times!

Here are my Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins!

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

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Ingredients:

  • 2 cups whole-wheat flour
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 cup ground flaxseed
  • 1 Tbsp cinnamon
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • 6 medium bananas
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 cup canola oil
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • 1 cup chocolate chips plus extra (optional)

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350F.  Prepare two muffin pans with parchment muffin liners or spray with canola oil. You are making 24 standard sized muffins.
  2. In medium size bowl, whisk together flours, flax, cinnamon, baking powder and baking soda.
  3. If you are using a stand mixer: to the stand mixer bowl add the bananas and beat. Add eggs, beat until well combined. Add canola oil and beat until well combined. Add sugar and vanilla then continue to beat until well combined.
    OR If using a regular second bowl, mash bananas, beat in eggs, beat in canola oil then beat in sugar and vanilla.
  4. Add dry ingredients to wet mixture and stir just to combine ingredients but not fully combined. Yes, this is backwards to a standard muffin method but I make mine in my stand mixer for less mess and simplicity and this works just great!
  5. Add 1 cup chocolate chips and stir just to combine ingredients.
  6. Add batter to prepared muffin pans using 1/4 cup self-releasing scoop.
    Optional: drop 2-3 chocolate chips or walnut pieces to the top of each muffin.
  7. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove from oven, let stand for 5 minutes. Remove from pans and let cool completely on a wire rack.

Notes:

If your bananas are ripe but you are not ready to make muffins; peel them and put into a resealable bag in your freezer. Keep adding bananas until you have 6 – now you are ready to bake!

Peeled, frozen bananas are also quick and easy for smoothies!

Storage:

Keep in a resealable container on the counter for 1-2 days or in the freezer for up to a month.

Always…Jenn

Nuts + Bolts

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Nuts + Bolts: the party snack of holiday gatherings near and far.

As a child both my mother and my grandma made ice cream pails and Tupperware containers full of the stuff! You couldn’t walk past the counter without grabbing a taste.

We snacked on bowls in the weeks leading up to Christmas break, while we decorated the tree and it became the snack of choice while watching CBC Christmas family night movies.

Every family seems to have a slight spin on what dry cereals to include or which combo of seasonings make the cut. I’m open to seasoning switch ups but you better not mess with the Shreddies, Bugles, Cheese Crackers or Chex!

Nuts + Bolts

Nuts + Bolts | www.jenniferdyck.com

Ingredients:

  • 6 cups Cheerios
  • 6 cups Chex or Crispex cereal (or a mixture of both)
  • 6 cups Shreddies
  • 300 g unsalted peanuts or mixed nuts (1 small can)
  • 213 g Bugles (1 bag)
  • 200 g cheese crackers, square, fish or stick shaped (one box)
  • 200 g pretzel sticks (1 small bag)
  • 1 1/3 cup canola oil
  • 1/3 cup Worcestershire sauce
  • 2 tsp celery salt
  • 2 tsp garlic powder
  • 2 tsp onion powder

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 225°F.
  2. In an extra large roasting pan with a lid; combine cereals, nuts, Bugles, cheese crackers and pretzels.
  3. In a 2 cup glass measure; whisk together the canola oil, Worcestershire and seasonings.
  4. Keep whisking the liquid mixture while slowing pouring half of the mixture evenly over the dry mixture that is in the roasting pan. Stir gently with large spoon being careful not to break or crush your dry ingredients.
  5. Whisk back together the remaining canola oil mixture and evenly pour over the dry mixture. Stir gently to fully combine.
  6. Put the lid on the roaster and bake for 1 hour, stir gently every 20 minutes. After 1 hour, remove the lid and continue to bake for an additional 1 hour and stir every 20 minutes. Your mixture will bake for a total of 2 hours.
  7. Remove from oven and allow mixture to completely cool before storing in airtight containers for up to 4 weeks.

Planting with Science

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Food for Thought

What if your garden failed and you couldn’t replace your ‘lost’ produce by going to the store or market? What if the success of your garden determined not only what you’d eat but also how you’d live? How would you ensure you are making the best decisions for growing year after year after year?

Planting Seeds With Hope

Each spring, many of us anticipate the excitement of growing our own food.

Oregano in Garden | www.jenniferdyck.com

We might put some seeds in the ground or in a pot. Maybe we splurged and bought small garden plants, stuffed them into something bigger and said “Voila, my garden!

We plant seeds with hope. We hope they will grow.

We water, we might fertilize, we weed (for a little while), we might choose to fight off insects or disease and we watch them grow, until sometimes they don’t. Not everything we plant will grow to its fullest potential and maybe it doesn’t grow at all and that’s ok.

When Gardens Don’t Grow

What happens when you have a garden failure? What happens when your garden plants don’t grow? This has happened to me and it for lack of a better word it “sucks”. Yes, it sucks. I put time, money and effort into growing something to eat and it failed.

What happens next is where (I think) there is a disconnect taking place and a large opportunity for learning.

Many of us, me included will do the following:

“Oh well,” I shrug, pull up the plant(s), clean up my failure and head to the nearest grocery store or market and buy what I tried to grow at home. I carry on. We carry on.

My Garden is a Hobby

I grow food as a hobby. For most people, growing a garden is a hobby. I do it because I enjoy it, it brings me pleasure and I do it outside of my regular occupation.

Rhubarb Crisp | www.jenniferdyck.com

The success or failure of my garden and patio pots do not determine whether my family and I will eat. Failure of growth does not determine if we will have the resources to pay our bills, put food on the table and function in our day-to-day lives.

We have the ability to replace our loss, we can go buy what we need and carry on.

When Science and Gardening Meet

My friends with the most successful gardens have one thing in common – They turn to science. They read the seed packages, they know their soil type, they know what growing zone they live in, they read about AND practice science in their garden.

CSA Veggies week 4 of 2016 | www.jenniferdyck.com

A garden can be super rewarding and very successful. It can allow us to play, to learn, to have fun and it can feed many mouths even when it is a hobby.

Successfully growing food relies on science with a dash of hope.

Farming Requires Science

A farmer growing food is growing food for a living. It’s their job, it’s their lifestyle and it’s their way of life.

Canola Heart Hands | www.jenniferdyck.com

When a crop fails, there is no store around the corner to replace what is lost. It is a failed crop. It might mean learning to do with less the coming year, it might mean bills going unpaid, it definitely means more than a failed hobby garden.

Farming relies upon science and the advancement of technology to be successful but science alone is not going to win over the hearts and minds of eaters. We will always have science to back us up but the greater connection, understanding and support will come from meeting one another around a table of compassion, emotional connection, critical thinking, a deep interest in learning and finding common ground.

Let’s Get Planting with Science

Growing my canola plant made me realize that if it fails, there is no store around the corner to buy a new one. This is up to me and science is going to be my best chance for a successful canola plant.

Here is what I decided to consider:

  • Soil
  • Fertilizer
  • Seed depth

Soil

My cup contains:

  • New potting soil 75%: it will contain unused nutrients. It was also recommended by a farmer.
  • Black earth provided 25%: it looked rich, contained moisture, contained small bits of clay and it grew plants this past season which indicated fertility.
  • 1 Tbsp of canola meal: this is my science experiment. My sister-in-law who is a Canola Meal expert used 2/3 of a cup so I’m the ‘low dose’ portion of our mini experiment.

Fertilizer

  • Inserted one fertilizer spike 13-4-5. This was also on recommendation of a farmer with an agronomy degree.

Seed Depth

  • Research has been done and is shared through the Canola Council of Canada agronomy team that ideal seed depth is 1/2 to 1 inch. I aimed for the 1/2 inch mark as I’d like to have early emergence from the soil.

  • I planted 4 seeds in my cup that are evenly spaced between the cup edge and the fertilizer spike in the center.
  • I was also advised to ensure I pack my soil down enough to ensure good soil contact to my seed.

The soil is mixed, the seeds are planted, the fertilizer spike is in, I’ve watered and now I wait…until I get this tweet:

Thanks Curtis! My cup is now in the bag provided and on the South facing window sill. It will stay in the bag 24hrs a day until day 5.

Follow #FarmToFoodFamily on twitter for more frequent updates.

Always…Jenn