Blueberry Muffins

This must be my favorite kind of muffins ... I never seem to make any other kind!

Blueberry Focaccia

Throwback to: Blueberry Focaccia, posted a couple of weeks ago. Here it is featured by itself, in all its glory. To quote from my previous post: "The Blueberry Focaccia is my variation of the Sweet Grape Focaccia in Lauren Chattman's Moms Big Book of Baking. I just replaced the grapes with fresh blueberries. The bread rose so nicely, that I could easily cut a slit in the middle, and fill it with the ricotta. I've also tried it with some ricotta spread over the blueberries, which is quite good. It might be nice to use for baked French toast."

Blueberry Focaccia 

(slit open with a filling of store-bought ricotta), 

& Tsik-Tsik 

(Summer Vegetables with Egg)

The Tsik-Tsik recipe is from Mia Kouppa. I could only use a smaller amount of olive oil than the recipe suggested, and it also includes egg, fresh tomatoes, and zucchini. I had already finished up the eggplant I'd bought, and was too tired to bother with adding potatoes. However, in the story along with the recipe, it sounded like this is meant to use up excess or leftover veggies, and so it's okay to put in whatever you have. 😉 This was so good, and I think it will be nice to make again, the next time I have these veggies to use! 

The Blueberry Focaccia is my variation of the Sweet Grape Focaccia in Lauren Chattman's Mom's Big Book of Baking. I just replaced the grapes with fresh blueberries. The bread rose so nicely, that I could easily cut a slit in the middle, and fill it with the ricotta. I've also tried it with some ricotta spread over the blueberries, which is quite good. 😃It might be nice to use for baked French toast.

Mia Kouppa Facebook

MiaKouppa Instagram, Tsik Tsik

Mia Kouppa Website, Tsik-Tsik (Summer Vegetable with Egg)

Blueberry Rose Cake

This is from Julie Hasson's 125 Best Cupcake Recipes. The original recipe is for cupcakes, but I felt like making a cake, instead, as it seemed easier. It bakes at the same temperature, but just takes a little longer. The recipe advises using fresh blueberries, not frozen, so I splurged and got some organic, local blueberries. The "rose" flavor was from rosewater.

I happened to make this a couple of days before family arrived for a visit. I was so happy to be able to share this with them, and they all said they enjoyed it. 

Julie Hasson Facebook

Sattoo (Corn Pudding)

I made this from the recipe in Julie Sahni's Classic Indian Vegetarian & Grain Cooking. This is a popular item for breakfast in part of northern India. From the explanation, finding the grains for Sattoo in the U.S. can be difficult, and then preparing them can be complicated. Therefore, this recipe uses cornmeal as a substitute.

The cornmeal is combined with ghee or melted butter -- though as I can't have either, I experimented with coconut oil, instead. This mixture is dry-roasted, and then cooked slowly with water -- I used half-milk/half-water, to hopefully soften the stone-ground cornmeal a bit. Lastly, add brown sugar, and then raisins -- I used brown sugar, and dried blueberries (plumped up in some hot water). Although I chose not to garnish it, she suggests toasted pumpkin seeds, and sliced fruit.

This reminded me so much of the oatmeal that I haven't been able to eat for a number of years, and hadn't yet found a substitute for, until now. That makes me smile. 

Blueberry-Almond Scones (with dried blueberries)

This recipe is from James Villas' Biscuit Bliss. The scones are based on the recipe for chocolate chip scones, with the dried blueberries instead of the chips. Also, I was trying out some almond milk at the time, so I used that here in place of the regular milk. With my usual habit of using oil instead of butter, these scones are vegan. I really liked the very blueberry-y flavor from the dried fruit, and it was easy to use with these scones. (Normally, I use frozen blueberries for muffins, but I don't think they'd work so well here.) A success!

Buttermilk Pancakes with Wild-Blueberry Fruit Spread

I served the pancakes with the fruit spread, as I'd already used up the last of the maple syrup. The recipe for the pancakes was from Lauren Chattman's Mom's Big Book of Baking. Accompanying them is some creamy whole-milk yogurt that reminds me of the homemade yogurt I've had at friends' houses before. The yogurt combined with the blueberry spread, is like blueberries and cream.