Chef Lisa

Matt’s hobby is homebrewing, specifically beer. He’s started using grains in addition to malt extract, so that leaves me with spent grain to play with. Yum! Unfortunately, my web searches reveal 99.9% of the recipes for spent grains on the web are for bread. Not being one to accept defeat easily, I’ve decided to try adapting recipes on my own.

The first one is Banana Peanut Butter Spent Grain Muffins, based on the Banana Peanut Butter Oatmeal Muffins I found at Eat Me, Delicious. I substituted 1 1/2 cups of spent grains (I believe it was crystal malt) for the 1 cup of quick oats. The muffins are delicious, and extremely moist – almost too moist. Next time, I think I’ll cut the buttermilk back to 1/2 cup.

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I found this recipe at Eat Me, Delicious (here’s the link to the recipe). It creates a really moist, dense bar. They’re great room temperature, but we find they taste better warm. Considering Matt and the kids ate all but 4 of the bars in less than 2 hours, I have to say they’re a hit.

Snickerdoodle Blondies

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 cups brown sugar, packed
1 cup butter — room temperature
2 each eggs — room temperature
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350F. Lightly grease a 9×13 inch pan.

Sift together flour, baking powder and salt and set aside.

In a large bowl, beat together brown sugar, butter, eggs and vanilla extract until smooth.

Stir flour mixture into butter mixture until well blended. It should have the consistence of cookie batter. Spread evenly in baking pan.

Combine granulated sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Sprinkle evenly over batter.

Bake 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick stuck in the middle comes out clean. Cool completely in the pan.

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Per Serving (excluding unknown items): 322 Calories; 13g Fat (36.4% calories from fat); 3g Protein; 48g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber; 61mg Cholesterol; 337mg Sodium.

Exchanges: 1 Grain(Starch); 0 Lean Meat; 2 1/2 Fat; 2 Other Carbohydrates.

I love sourdough. Not just the bread, but everything you can make with it. I’ve got a batch of sourdough starter going in the fridge right now. I made it the “true” way – equal parts flour and water, then let it sit on the counter with a dish towel over it. It took less than 48 hours for it to be ready, which is cool.

One of the sourdough-based recipes the kids love is Sourdough Blueberry Muffins. Below you’ll find the recipe, along with nutritional ino, courtesy of MasterCook Deluxe.

Sourdough Blueberry Muffins

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 each egg — well beaten
1/2 cup sourdough starter (all-purpose, unbleached flour)
3/4 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cup blueberries

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Measure flour, sugar, baking powder and salt onto waxed paper.

In a large bowl, beat the egg. Add sourdough starter, buttermilk and oil. Mix well.

Add dry ingredients all at once. Stir until just mixed.

Fold in blueberries.

Fill greased or paper lined muffin tins 2/3 full. Bake at 400 F for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.

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Per Serving (excluding unknown items): 152 Calories; 7g Fat (39.9% calories from fat); 3g Protein; 20g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber; 18mg Cholesterol; 149mg Sodium. Exchanges: 1 Grain(Starch); 0 Lean Meat; 0 Fruit; 0 Non-Fat Milk; 1 1/2 Fat; 1/2 Other Carbohydrates.

I was informed yesterday by my kids that I had to bake muffins. Why? Because they ate the last two of them for their after school snacks. Tomorrow is grocery shopping day, so there’s not a heck of a lot of choice for mix-ins, but I stocked up on chocolate chips when they were on sale about a month ago. I briefly considered using the butterscotch chips, but I want to save those for oatmeal scotchies (which I may make this weekend as Matt loves them). Instead, I went for the milk chocolate chips. Here’s what I threw together. And one of these days, I’ll remember to take pictures while baking and cooking so I can post them here!

Milk Chocolate Chip Muffins

 
2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
1 cup milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup milk chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl, sift together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Create a well in the center and set aside.

In a small or medium sized bowl, beat the egg, then stir in the milk, oil and vanilla. Pour the egg mixture into the well in the flour mixture and stir until almost all the dry ingredients are moist. At this point, add in the chocolate chips and finish mixing until everything is moist. There batter should be lumpy, so that’s okay.

Portion the batter equally into a standard 12 muffin muffin tin that you’ve either lined with paper liners, or sprayed it with cooking spray. Bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool for 10 – 15 minutes before eating.

Sunday was another one of those “I just HAVE to find something to do, something to make” days. This is one of the things I created. I started off with the Best Ever Muffin base, added pumpkin puree (I had it in the freezer, the stuff I didn’t use to make pumpkin cheesecake), pumpkin pie spice and chocolate chips. It was a hit – a very subtle pumpkin taste, complimented by the spice. The level of sweetness was perfect.

Next time, though, I will mix the puree in with the wet ingredients. I think it will spread the pumpkin better through the batter, and I won’t have to worry about over mixing – or white spots in the finished muffins.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

 
2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
3 tsp baking powder
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup pumpkin puree
1 cup milk
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray a 12 cup muffin tin with cooking spray and set aside.

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice and salt in a large bowl. Whisk together, then form a well in the middle of the dry ingredients.

In another bowl, beat the egg, then combine with vegetable oil, pumpkin and milk.

Pour wet ingredients into the well you made in the dry ingredients and stir until almost combined. Add in chocolate chips. Stir it all together until well combined, but don’t over stir. There can be some lumps, but you don’t want too many.

Divide the batter equally between the muffin cups and bake for 25 – 30 minutes, or until golden brown.