Recipes

A flaky pie crust & Meg’s fancy super duper pie dough rolling out secret

Seventeen years ago when Will was just a little baby I was shooting Leaving Normal in a minuscule town in Alberta.  I don’t remember the name of the town.  I do remember the flat beautiful horizon that went on forever, broken up only by the relief of a tall grain silo.  Broad skies.  We were staying at a rather tired looking motel, with a small diner attached.  Yes, the motel wasn’t much to look at, the cast and crew complained.  Generally we stayed in more upscale places.  But me…I was in heaven!  That diner had the best pie I had ever tasted!  And every day when we finished shooting I would race to the diner to have another slice, warmed up with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.  I could have staying in that dusty, windswept motel forever! 

On our final day of shooting there I worked up my courage and asked the woman behind the counter if she’d consider giving me her recipe for pie crust.  I was so nervous, because some people are very possessive about their recipes that have been passed down from generation to generation.  But she didn’t get mad.  She laughed. “It’s tenderflake,“ she said. 
“Yes, it’s very flaky.  Flaky and tender.  I really like it.“ I replied, wondering if that meant yes, she was going to give me the recipe or no, she wasn’t.  She started wiping down the counter.  Didn’t say anything else.  I was embarrassed.  “Don’t worry,“ I said.  “I just figured it didn’t hurt to ask, but if it’s a family secret I totally understand.“
“No, that’s the recipe.  Tenderflake.“
“Tenderflake?“
“Yes, Tenderflake.  You know, the lard.  I use the recipe on the back of the box.“
I thought eew..lard?  But I didn’t say eew.  I thanked her profusely and left. 

Well I’ve been making Tenderflake pie crusts for 17 years now.  You can’t buy it in the stores in the States, and don’t try to substitute another lard because I tried that and it sucked.  So I’d always bring a couple boxes of Tenderflake lard to the States with me if I was going to have an extended stay there.  BUT the good news is, once I was in LA with no Tenderflake and a hankering for pie, so I phoned and ordered a bunch of it and made pie to my hearts content!  That’s the good thing about that stuff, it’s probably really unhealthy for you because it never goes bad.

So that’s my pie crust recipe.  Buy Tenderflake lard and make the recipe on the back.  (And no, I don’t know anyone who works at Tenderflake, nor do I own stock in the company.)  However I don’t recommend their already rolled and frozen pie crusts.  I don’t know why but…not so tasty!

Now for the next part.  If the idea of lard grosses you out, or you are vegetarian, or you already have a crust recipe that you like but can’t get it into the pan, you are in luck because my super duper rolling technique will work for all pie dough recipes!

Meg’s super duper pie dough rolling secret!
-Make your pie dough.
-take a wet sponge and wipe counter.  Don’t wring that sponge out too much, you want the counter to be moist. 
-Lay out two strips of saran wrap onto the moist counter, overlapping by around one inch at the middle.
-sprinkle a handful of flour on the saran wrap.
-shape your pie dough into a sort of flattened out circle and then place in the middle of the floured saran wrap.
-sprinkle another small handful of flour on the top of the pie dough. (this is so the rolling pin won’t stick)
-smooth flour out evenly over dough and start to apply rolling pin.
-Always roll starting from the middle and working your way out.  Don’t roll the pin back and forth as it make the crust tough.
-when you think you’ve rolled it big enough, gently place the pie tin on top of the rolled out dough.  If there is around two inches or more of dough showing from under the pie plate you are good to go!  If not, roll it a little bit more.  Then,
-Gently lift the saran wrap with the pie crust and the pie tin and flip it over.  Now the pie crust is in the tin!
-Make sure the crust is tucked down and touching the bottom of the pan, then peel the saran wrap off.
-Cut the excess dough off making sure you are leaving enough (3/4 to 1/2 of an inch maybe) to tuck up onto the lip of the pan to make the edge of the pie. 
-If you are making a two crust pie (ie, apple pie, peach pie, etc.) Repeat the steps above.  If not, fill with your favorite filling (pumpkin, pecan, lemon etc) pop in the oven at the appropriate temperature and then…ta da!  Enjoy!

I personally don’t wait until after dinner.  When I make hot apple pie, I want it right away!  Sometimes I love eating dessert first.  That way I’m sure I’ll have room for it.

Posted by Meg Tilly on Friday, October 05, 2007 in Recipes

Roast Turkey, with stuffing

Roast Turkey is one of my favorite meals of all time.  There is such a feeling of abundance about it!  Even during hard times as a child, on Thanksgiving, we were allowed to eat as much as we wanted.  And let me tell you…we did!  I always purchase a BIG turkey, because I love having lots of leftovers.  Sliced cold turkey, tucked between toasted bread, a little mayonnaise, and a sprinkling of salt and pepper.  Yum!  (My husband adds some of my leftover cold mashed potatoes to his sandwich, which he swears tastes delicious…but eew!  Really, I’m glad he’s so happy, but yuck.  Ruining a perfectly good turkey sandwich with cold congealed mashed potatoes?)  This year we are celebrating Thanksgiving early because my boy David is coming by on the sixth on his way back from visiting his friend in Toronto.  Emily, sadly won’t be here.  She’s at University in the States and the Thanksgiving is in November there.  Will, obviously will be eating.  As will I and Don, however, Don did have a hard time controlling his mirth when I came back to the car from the butcher shop clutching an order form for a 22 lb Free Range, Organic Turkey.
“22 pounds!“ he kept saying.  “You ordered a 22 pound turkey?“  I don’t know why he was so surprised.  I always order a turkey around that size.  “There are only going to be four of us,“ he said, which was a fact I was well aware of, but hearing it out loud filled me with a sort of wistful longing for my daughter to magically arrive home with a hungry friend or two in tow.  “David’s going to be here,“ I said, chin stuck out slightly.  “And John might come too.“  But even as I say the part about John coming, I know he won’t.  He hasn’t been coming up as much as he used to, I don’t know why, but I miss him, feel like time is slipping through our hands.  “Besides,“ I said with a little more conviction than I felt.  “I want to have lots of leftovers!“  “Well, you will have that,“ Don said smiling at me affectionatly.  And then I didn’t talk anymore because he was backing up and he is a…ahem… distractable driver. 

Roast Turkey with Stuffing

If you can afford it buy a free range organic turkey.  If you can’t, don’t worry about it.  Being able to buy a turkey at all is a splendid thing!  If your store carries fresh turkeys I recommend that over frozen.  I find fresh turkeys tend to be juicier than frozen.  If you have a regular sized oven I would warn you against buying anything over 23 lbs.  I once told the butcher, “Give me the biggest turkey you got!“  I ended up with a 25 pounder, and it wouldn’t fit in my roasting pan, so I had to race out to the store and buy one of those flimsy disposable roasting pans.  Two of them actually because they were so flimsy I was worried that the turkey would just bust right through it and end up rolling around on the kitchen floor!  And then, after all of that…the darn thing wouldn’t fit in my oven!  It was an odd shaped bird and it’s frame was too tall, so I had to saw the thing in two, overlap the two halves, with the stuffing tucked underneath.  It tasted well enough, but just didn’t feel the same.  So from then on, I never would let my enthusiasm run away with me.  My turkeys are now always between 20-23 lbs.

-heat oven to 325 degrees. * regular bake, not convection.
-Grease your roasting pan lightly with whatever oil you have handy.  This is important so when it comes time to remove the turkey to the chopping board it doesn’t stick to the sides. 
-Wash turkey throughly in the sink.  Inside and out. Then dry.  It’s important to tip it up on it’s end so that you don’t have a little pond of water trapped inside.
-place the neck, heart and gizzard in a pot of water to simmer.  This will be your stock for your gravy
-Throw a bay leaf and around 7-8 shakes of dried sage, rosemary, thyme into the water. Or chop and use the fresh stuff.
-Add one or two chicken bullion cubes to the water, and a glug or two of white wine.
-place pan with turkey in the fridge and start the stuffing

 
(Make sure you keep an eye on the water level of the gravy stock throughout the day and add more if it gets below the halfway mark on the pot.)

Meg’s Delicious One-Of-A-Kind Turkey Stuffing

Ingredients:sour dough bread, french bread, whole wheat bread, celery, butter, bacon, apple,( sausage, if you like) onion, frozen orange juice concentrate, paprika, rosemary, thyme, sage, onion powder, salt, pepper (and lemon pepper if you have it lying around.)

- cut or tear into a huge cooking pot or bowl, 10-12 cups of bread.

Using approximately equal amounts of sour dough, crispy french, and whole wheat bread.  You can do this part the night before to cut down on the amount of work on Thanksgiving day. The bread pieces should be around as big as a nickel (obviously not as skinny)

- Peel and dice one large onion.(Using my super onion dicing trick found in my beef stroganoff recipe)
-wash and chop half a bunch of celery, starting at the top, leaves and all.
-peel and dice one apple (green is nice, but really, use whatever is lying around in your fridge.)
-Fry 6 slices of bacon in a LARGE pan until brown, remove from pan
-Fry 4-6 (depending on size) sausages until brown, remove from pan
-pour out around half the bacon and sausage greasy, discard. 
-Fry the onions, celery and apple in leftover grease and 2/3 cup of butter until onions turn sort of opeque.
- dump around 1/3 of the broken/cut bread into the onion/ celery/ apple, add salt, pepper, rosemary, thyme, sage, paprika, to taste. 

The rosemary, thyme, and sage can be either fresh and minced or dried from a jar.  Both work well.  Don’t skimp with the seasoning.  Keep in mind that these spices are going to be seasoning the rest of the bread bits as well.   

- chop the sausage and bacon and add to bread mixture
-toss well. 
-Add two rounded tablespoons of the frozen orange juice concentrate to the mixture in pan

Make sure you scoot the bread mixture to the side so you can drop the frozen juice on to the hot part of the pan so it can melt.  Stir as it melts so that the flavor gets mixed equally.  Now I know the idea of frozen orange juice in stuffing sounds weird, but trust me, it adds that special zing.  You can’t really taste it, but you miss it if it’s not there!

- now pour the contents of the pan into the large pot holding the rest of the bread bits and mix well. 
-Taste the seasoning one last time, add more if it needs it.
-Take the turkey out of the fridge and stuff.

First stuff the top part where the head and neck used to be.  Then fold the flap of skin over the stuffing and tip up on it’s head and stuff the rest of the bird. 

-slip some cooking string, or a piece of white thread underneath the turkey’s back and tie the wings so they are tucked close to the turkey’s body
-Then pop the stuffed turkey, chest up into the oven.

Let me re-phrase that.  If you bought a huge honking turkey like me, it is unlikely that you will jauntily “pop” that sucker into the oven.  More than likely you will stagger that baby over to the oven and pray you don’t get a hernia when you bend over to heave it in.

Now…Very Important! Many cookbooks say you are suppose to cook a stuffed turkey that is over 16 lbs for anywhere from 18-23 minutes per pound.  With my big gigantic turkeys I find it’s more reasonable to give it 15 minutes per pound.  But even then, depending on the turkey, that amount can be too much.  What I do is when we are around an hour from the supposed end time, I take the turkey leg in my hand (wearing the pot holder of course!) Twist the leg gently.  Using no more pressure than around half of what you would use opening a new jar of catsup.  It the drumstick bone rotates easily in your hand take the turkey out immediately!  Because it is done and if you don’t take it out, that sucker will be dry as dust.  It can happily sit on the counter while you finish up the gravy, and last minute vegetables. 

Another Very Very Important Tip: After the turkey has been in the oven for around a hour you are going to want to take a stick of butter out of the fridge and run it all over the turkey’s breast, legs and wings.  Try to repeat this every half hour or so.  By around the 4th basting, there should be enough juice in the bottom of the roasting pan that you can stop using the butter and take a turkey baster, suck up the juice from the bottom and squirt it all over, really drench that turkey.  There’s no such thing as basting a turkey too much!  Also, don’t bother removing the turkey from the oven every time you want to baste it.  Just slide the rack out, baste it, slide it back in and shut the oven door.  There’s no need to race around checking the clock and doing it every half hour on the hour.  Just use that as sort of a frame work and basically baste it when ever you are passing the oven.  I aim for every half hour, and I doubt I’ve ever actually managed to do it.  Don’t worry if one or two bastings slip your mind, my turkey is always nice and juicy!

The Last Very Important Tip: You must remove all the stuffing from the turkey before you store it in the fridge!  What I do is scoop it all out into a large serving bowl so it’s easily accessible and people can come back for 4th and 5ths.  That way you won’t forget and by accident put the partially stuffed bird into the fridge and poison your family!

(I’ll tell you how to make gravy next time.  And don’t throw out those bones, because in my mind, turkey bones make the very best soup!)

Posted by Meg Tilly on Monday, October 01, 2007 in Recipes

Sweet potato mash

Canadian Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away and my mouth is already watering for that turkey.  I’ll give you my stuffing recipe and how to know when your turkey is done.  I’ll give you my secret for rolling out pie dough without ending up with a bunch of crumpled little fragments, a headache and tears.  But today I’m going to give you my sweet potato mash recipe.  Well it’s not really a recipe, because I’m not going to give you measurements.  That would be pointless as everybody is going to have different amounts of people to cook for.  But I’m going to tell you how I make it. What I love about this dish is that you can prepare it the day before, stick it in the fridge and then pop it in the oven when you take the turkey out and begin making the gravy.  My husband and boys love this dish.  I like it, but to be honest, I prefer just a plain old baked sweet potato or yam with lots of butter, a couple shakes of salt and a spoonful of light brown sugar.  Maybe it’s because it’s what I grew up with. 

Sweet potato mash

Ingredients: yams or sweet potatoes, brown sugar, salt, butter, rum, cinnamon, miniature marshmallows.

I call this sweet potato mash, but actually, around three-quarters of the time I use yams.  It got the “sweet potato mash” name because the first time I made it, the yams were looking a little beat up and tired, so I bought sweet potatoes instead, and so when I made this up, the name stuck.  Also, when you are shopping at the store, if they have organic yams or sweet potatoes get them, they are so much better for you than the ones full of pesticides, and are tastier too.  Don’t pick out the biggest honkers you can find, because I find that although they look impressive, they can sometimes be sort of stringy and fibrous inside, whereas the smaller ones can be more tender. 

-Wash the yams/sweet potatoes thoroughly to get all the dirt off.  Then quarter them and plop them into a large pot of water, skins and all.  I feel the skins adds texture and interest to the mash.
-Boil until soft.  You should be able to poke a fork into it with ease.
-Strain water out. 
-Mash with salted butter (for four regular sized yams I would use around 1/4 to 1/3 a cup)
-Add a glug or two of rum
-Add light brown sugar, salt and cinnamon to taste.

Always start slow when you are seasoning.  You can always add more, but once you’ve added it, you can’t take it back out!  You want to make sure that the sweet of the sugar is balanced out with the savory of the butter, salt, and the bite of the rum. 
When you have it just the way your tongue wants it, dump the concoction into a baking pan.  Sprinkle the top with miniature marshmallows, make sure the marshmallows are evenly spread out so they cover the whole surface.  Then stick directly in the oven.  Temperature doesn’t really matter, thank god.  Because I don’t know about you, but on Thanksgiving my oven is always stuffed full.  And some recipes are very finicky about what temperature they have to be cooked at.  Not my sweet potato mash.  It’s nice and adaptable.  So you can bake it at anywhere from 300 degrees to 425.  Cook until hot all the way through and the marshmallows are a puffy golden brown.  If you want to prepare this the day before, then delete the popping-in-the-oven part.  Instead cover and stick in the fridge to be cooked tomorrow.

Posted by Meg Tilly on Tuesday, September 25, 2007 in Recipes

Meg’s Tasty Beef Stroganoff

If you want a proper beef stroganoff recipe I suggest you get it out of a recipe book.  This is my slap-dash version and once you get the hang of it, you can have the whole thing ready in 30 to 40 minutes.  However, with every new recipe, it is best to familiarise yourself with it first, so you feel comfortable.  Not only that, you don’t want to deal with that new recipe nervousness while trying to be host/hostess with the mostest to a house load of guests.  Use your family as guinea pigs and try it out on them first.

Ingredients needed: beef tenderloin, onion, butter, sour cream, heavy whipping cream, a beef bullion cube, white mushrooms, dry white wine, salt, pepper, nutmeg, egg noodles.

Meg’s Tasty Beef Stroganoff

Put a large pot of water on to boil.  Cup your hand and pour around a chocolate turtle sized amount of salt into your palm.  Toss it into the pot with a drizzle of olive oil.
-1/2 a beef tenderloin (about 3 pounds)
I use tenderloin because I’m lazy, but if beef tenderloin is out of your budget, no problem.  Buy a cheaper cut of beef and get yourself one of those kitchen implements that look like a square two headed hammer, I’m not sure of the name but it’s to tenderize the meat. 
-Cut the meat (against the grain) into thin slices (the size really can vary, but for those of you who want something specific, say around 2 inches long (against the grain) by 3/4 of an inch wide and around the thickness of a wood ruler) And if you are using economy beef, bang the hell out of the beef strips with the tenderizer hammer. 
-Dice 1/2 a large white or yellow onion, or 1 medium one.  A nifty way to dice a large mass of onions is to peel the outer skin, cut off the top pointy part, then cut it into sort of a multi-lined tic-tac-toe.  Be careful to cut straight down and NOT to cut the slices right off the onion.  You want the cut onion to still be held together by the rough roots area at the bottom.  Then, when you have finished your lattice work pattern, you turn the onion on it’s side and slice it.  Voila!  The diced onion just falls away from the onion into a nice little pile.  Then when you get down to the back end of the onion you chop and dice it up, just like you used to do.  The whole thing takes less that 20-30 seconds and the best part of all is…NO MORE TEARS!  Because believe me, I’ve tried all the other tricks, slicing onions gripping a slice of sandwich bread between your lips.  Doesn’t work, I couldn’t see over the bread to what my hands were doing, would still bawl my eyes out and to top it all off, I looked well and truly ridiculous!
-Heat a large frying pan to medium heat.
-Saute the onions in a slab of butter (around 1/4 of a cup)  until clear.
-Turn pan heat up to medium high. 
-Saute your strips of beef in the onion/butter mixture. In 2 or 3 batches until brown (around 4-5 minutes per batch)  Remove each batch into a bowl, and cover with…whatever, a dinner plate, a frying pan lid, a cookie sheet.
-When all the beef is browned, turn the pan off.  Sprinkle the meat with salt and pepper and around 5 or 6 dashes of nutmeg.  Toss meat.  Cover. 
-wash around 10-15 mushrooms depending on how much you like them.  (I know the fancy chefs would prefer you not to wash mushrooms because the mushrooms absorb water, but pulleaze who has time to gently dust each individual mushroom off with a dainty little brush?  Not me.  I have a hungry family to feed!)  Slice the mushrooms.  When you are around 1/2 way through slicing the mushrooms turn the frying pan back on medium high heat.  When the pan is warm, start frying the 1st half of mushrooms while you finish up slicing the rest.  When the edges of the mushroom are slightly brown, throw them into the bowl on top of the cooked beef.  Cook rest of mushrooms and throw them in the bowl too.
-Pour 1/2 a cup of dry white wine into the pan. 
-Add 1/2 a beef bullion cube, mash it up in the wine. 
-Throw in 3/4 of a cup of sour cream, stir that around until all the lumps have dissolved.
-Turn pan temperature to medium low

*If your water is boiling now, throw in around 3/4 of a bag of wide egg noodles. 

-Pour into the wine and sour cream mixture 1 1/2 cups of heavy whipping cream.  Blend.  Then add beef and mushrooms.  Blend.  Taste.  Add more salt and pepper if needed. 

*When egg noodles are soft, strain, add a dash of butter, salt and pepper to taste. 

-Spoon out onto dinner plates, ladle a generous heaping of beef stroganoff on top, and devour!

(This last step is not mandatory for those of you who actually know how to present food.  I’m not going to give suggestions as how to garnish it because I suck in this department.  My food tastes good, but I always serve it county style.  Also know that with this recipe, nothing is set in stone.  You don’t like sour cream?  Don’t put it in.  You want some garlic in there too?  Be my guest, slice up a clove and bung it in.  Another shake of nutmeg?  Shake away.  Whatever you do, I’m sure it will taste wonderful!)

Posted by Meg Tilly on Friday, September 21, 2007 in Recipes

coffee cake, apple and otherwise

The wonderful thing about cooking is that nothing is set in stone.  Other than the set things like baking soda, baking powder, amounts of flour, and so on, you are really free to play and have fun.  Ask yourself the “What does my mouth feel like?“ kind of questions.  I think many people when faced with a cookbook, get gripped with fear.  Like there is a wrong way and a right way and if you don’t do everything exactly so, you’re screwed.  Not true. 
Take my “Blueberry muffin” recipe.  That’s the batter from a coffee cake I like to make.  If you feel like delicious coffee cake instead of blueberry muffins this is what you do.

Meg’s Apple Coffee Cake
Heat oven to 375* Grease (with butter of course) an 8 x8 cake pan, or a bunt cake pan, or a bread loaf pan (you see what I mean, you can really do whatever you like)
Use the batter recipe for the Blueberry Muffins, EXCEPT omit the blueberries and add to the flour mixture
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
3-4 dashes of nutmeg
Then cut up:
1 apple peeled and diced into little chunks around the size of your baby fingernail (smaller than your baby fingernail for those of you who have fabulous long ones)
Add the liquid mixture to the flour mixture with the diced apple, (do not over mix, just stir blended and all the flour mixture is mixed)  Then scrape into your baking pan.
In a separate bowl cut together:
One handful of flour
two handfuls of brown sugar
one handful of white sugar
around ten shakes of cinnamon
3-5 tablespoons of butter (depending on how big your hands are)
Sprinkle this mixture on top of the cake batter, pop the whole thing in the oven and wait.  The cooking time will vary depending on what kind of pan you used, as well as the accuracy of your oven.  The coffee cake will be done when a fork, straw, or kebab skewer is poked into the middle of the cake and comes out clean.

To make this in to a regular Pecan Coffee Cake which is sort of the like the original recipe I started making many years ago.
Leave out the cinnamon, nutmeg and apple in the recipe for the batter and mince a cup of pecans and add them to the topping mixture.  Serve with pipping hot.  Make sure you have butter on the table, because I always like to tuck a little pat of it inside my piece of cake to make it truly decadent!

Posted by Meg Tilly on Saturday, September 15, 2007 in Recipes

Meg’s Blueberry Muffins

The thing I love most about summer is the arrival of the summer fruits. I look forward to this with even more anticipation than the release of my children from school and the gift of long glorious days of unstructured time stretching out in front of us. The ripe juicy peaches and nectarines, which I eat voraciously. The really wonderful ones have to be eaten outside, or over a sink, to catch all the rivulets of that run down the arm and drip off the elbow. The wild blackberries, plucked from the roadside bushes, sweet and tender, still warm from the sun. The cherries. The ten pound flats of plump, taut organic blueberries I buy from Kate when her truck rolls in off the ferry. I have to confess, I never buy just one flat. She only comes once a week and the blueberry season is only a month and a half long. If I'm lucky. I buy three flats each week, four if we have company. And we have a huge enormous bowl out on the table. We toss fistfuls of blueberries into our mouths like popcorn. I refill the bowl several times a day. I'm like "mother bear" in the children's book, Blueberries for Sal, written by Robert McClouskey. "Eat all you-" gulp, "can possibly hold!" swallow. "eat lots of berries and grow big and fat. We must store up food for the long, cold winter." And we do. Then, so that I have the memories and the tastes of summer in the grey winter months, I freeze huge plastic freezer bags of Kate's blueberries. And all winter long, I bring great sackfuls out and we eat frozen blueberries in a cup. I make a blueberry compote that I pour over sponge cake, and dollop big spoonfuls of freshly whipped cream on top. You also can use the compote to put inside crepes, and yes, whipped cream goes well with that as well. Sometimes I add raspberries, strawberries and/or blackberries to the compote. It depends on my mood and what I have in the freezer. I shall share these recipes with you, but not today. Today I'm going to give you my Blueberry Muffin recipe. I made it up. Hope you like it.

Meg's Blueberry Muffins

-Heat oven to 375 degrees. Grease 12 cup muffin tin or place cupcake liners in the muffin tin instead. Place 1/4 cup of butter in a mixing bowl and chop the butter into pieces. Put the plug in the sink and fill the sink with around an inch of hot water. Place the mixing bowl with the butter in the sink so the warm water will soften the butter and when it comes time for mixing, your arms won't get so tired. (Do not sneak use margarine or oil. It doesn't taste nearly as good!)

In separate bowl mix
1 ½ cup flour
(I like organic flour the best. But organic is more expensive and unbleached regular flour is fine too)
1/4 teaspoon of salt
2 teaspoons of baking powder.

Set flour mixture bowl aside.
-When butter is soft, remove from sink and add:

½ to 3/4 a cup of white granulated sugar
(depending on how tart your berries are)

Blend well with butter. Then add to butter mixture:

1 large egg
2/3 cup milk
½ teaspoon of pure vanilla (don't use imitation vanilla, please.)

Add the butter etc. mixture to the flour mixture. Do not over beat. Just turn with fork until moistened. Now add several large handfuls of:

frozen blueberries

Stir in. Add more as needed. I love lots of berries, but some of you might prefer less. I leave it up to the individual. Spoon muffin batter into muffin tin and place in heated oven. Bake until golden brown on top. Give it 25-35 minutes. It all depends on your oven, and how many fistfuls of frozen blueberries you used. The more blueberries, the longer it takes. If you're using fresh blueberries then it won't take as much time to cook as the frozen ones. You can test to see if the muffins are done by either pressing lightly on the top of a muffin with your fingers. If it is done, the muffin will spring back into place. Or you could use a straw, a thin wood skewer, or jab a fork in one. If the implement comes out clean, (berry juice doesn't count, just no dough) then the muffins are done.

Take out of the oven, serve hot with a nice slab of fresh butter. If your family doesn't eat all of them at breakfast, don't worry. These muffins taste good cold too. Leave them out on the table and you can be certain that by lunchtime, they'll all be gone!

And don't worry. If you don't have access to a Kate with a truck full of berries, no problem. Any grocery store worth their salt will have bags of frozen organic blueberries in their frozen food section.

Posted by Meg Tilly on Monday, September 03, 2007 in Recipes

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