Years ago, I spent a semester of college in Orlando, Florida, working for The Mouse. While living in Orlando, I discovered the joy that is a Perkins Restaurant muffin for breakfast when you have a very long day of creating Magical Memories ahead of you.

My absolute favorite Perkins Muffin is a Peaches and Cream muffin. Sadly, Perkins no longer makes this particular flavor, which I discovered when we moved out into the New Jersey countryside, and we found a Perkins nearby. Such a mix of emotions that day!

But you know me – I’m not going to be deterred when I want a favorite. A search of the Interwebs found this recipe.

Next came a trip to my local Farmers’ Market. If you have a farmers’ market nearby, please frequent it! The experience of walking through the market stalls, absorbing the bright colors and smells of fresh produce (and in the case of mine, fresh baked bread and pretzels) can get you very excited about food, even when you think you can’t cook. And supporting local farmers is very important.

As I strolled through our local market with my husband and brother in law, Chris, we spotted these great looking fresh peaches, and also some gorgeous blueberries. Chris intended to put those blueberries on his cereal, but I got to them first.

I have to say that this recipe is a great ‘base’ for any sort of fruit and cream muffin. I followed the original recipe to make the Peaches and Cream muffins, and then I moved on to making a Blueberry and Buttermilk muffin with the same basic ingredients and measurements. Maybe I’ll try strawberry and sour cream next.. or raspberry.. I’m even wondering how it would do with Banana.

Moving on to the method of this madness – did you know there’s a super easy way to peel peaches? It involves blanching them in boiling water first.

After the water comes to a boil, drop the peaches in, and let them boil for 30-50 seconds (depending on the ripeness of the peaches). Then, immediately dunk them in ice water. While my stock pot full of water came to a boil, I filled a mixing bowl with ice and water and had it at the ready next to the stove. After a few minutes in the ice water, the skin will just peel right off, without much effort at all. You can use your fingers to start a strip, or a vegetable peeler, but you will most likely be finishing the job with your hands. It seems to be the easiest way to do it and also not lose a significant amount of peach flesh. Preheat your oven to 400F when this step is done.

It’s really really cool to see a naked Peach. The varying colors on the skin carry through to the flesh.. but you don’t see that if you peel them entirely with a vegetable peeler.

So start by blanching all the peaches you want to use. For this recipe, you need one cup of diced peaches, and I think that’s about 4 whole peaches. At least, that’s how many I used. But then again, I have a relationship with peaches like I do pumpkin. They’re pretty much my two favorite flavors in the entire world.

When they’re diced, if you’re worried about any browning, hit them with a little lemon juice.

Next, combine your wet ingredients in a large mixing bowl. In this case, 1 egg, 1/2 cup of sour cream, and 1/4 cup oil.

When well mixed, put aside, and bring together your dry ingredients: 1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour, 1/2 cup of sugar, 2 teaspoons of baking powder, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Once they’re combined in a bowl, I mix them through with a fork, and then sift them on to a flexible cutting board. You would not believe the difference sifting makes in a quick bread like muffins. Please don’t skip this step!

Now add your dry ingredients to your wet ingredients, stiring only just enough to make them combined. There will be lumps – that’s okay. Overmixing of quick bread batter leads to horribly tough muffins, so just don’t do it. Don’t even use a mixer of any kind, use a spoon. Please! It took me years to learn that a light hand is best with muffins.

In fact, these are the first muffins I’ve ever made that didn’t turn out like little bricks from overmixing.

When the ingredients are combined, add the peaches, and stir through one more time lightly until they’re evenly distributed throughout the batter.

Next, spray your 12 count muffin tin with cooking spray. Even if you’re using paper cups, spray with cooking spray. I kid you not, it makes for a much easier time of the muffins coming out of the paper, with no muffin-crumb lossage! My husband tells me this is important, so I tell you.

Scoop the batter into the cups using an ice cream scoop, like the pros do. (It creates uniform muffins without sticking to a strict measuring system.)

Before we go any further, can I talk about this ice cream scoop for a second?

It’s my grandmother’s. I have loved it forever. It’s all metal, it’s never tarnished or rusted, and it makes perfect ice cream scoops. It’s at least 50 years old, and to me, it conjures up memories of summer night freezer raids with Gaga (my grandfather), where he’d make us each a two scoop, strawberry/chocolate cake cup cone and whisper, “Don’t tell your Nanny!” before leading me out to the back deck to listen to the crickets sing while we ate them.

When I was last home, I told her I wanted to have it some day. Given that she has 2 or 3 of every kitchen utensil ever created, she said to me, “Just take it now!”. After I stopped doing a celebratory jig, I hugged and kissed her, and ran with it up to my room and put it straight in my suitcase, lest I forget it. It means that much to me. There are just some things – things you used every day as a kid, that mean more than words can say. That’s my ice cream scoop story.

And FYI – it makes for an excellent muffin scoop measurer.

See?

Pretty uniform if you asked me.

Bake at 400F for 20-25 minutes. Cool, and then devour.

To make Blueberry & Buttermilk muffins, simply substitute blueberries for the chopped peaches, and buttermilk for the sour cream. They turn out perfectly.

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Post tags: blueberries, cream, fruit, muffins, peaches

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My Nan’s potato soup has always been on my list of comfort foods. It’s never the same twice, but it always tastes amazing. It’s one of the few things that I like the taste of pepper in.

When we decided to have friends over for New Year’s Day, I wanted to keep the food simple. The excesses of the previous few weeks were catching up to all of us, and the last thing we wanted was another heavy calorie-laden meal.

Call me crazy, but I was also pretty nervous to be making a meal for a cook book author. She’s like a second mother to me these days, but this was my first time really cooking for her. If you care about the food you make for other people, I don’t know who wouldn’t be nervous!

I’m happy to say our little party, and the soup, went off without a hitch. This warm and hearty soup was exactly what we all needed on a cold day. Along with the wonderful conversation and nibbles like My Mamma’s Salsa, and pigs in a blanket, we were one happy bunch, and it really started the new year off right.

The Players:: Potatoes, an Onion, Celery, Bacon, Green (Spring) Onion, Chicken Broth, Salt, Pepper, Nature’s Seasoning (or garlic and celery salt instead), Milk and Cornstarch (pictured later)

Start by chopping the ingredients that will cook first – potato, onion, and celery. There’s no need to peel the potatoes, though you can if you want to. On New Year’s Day, we made this soup using red potatoes, but for this attempt I used golden ones.

Per Nanny’s instructions, use one medium sized potato per adult you’re feeding. Because we wanted leftovers, I used 4 medium sized potatoes to double the batch.

There doesn’t seem to be too much of a taste difference, but I think I’ll probably use red potatoes from now on, just because they’re prettier in the finished product. (Call me a silly girl if you want to, I like asthetics!)

No need to dice things extra small, though I did keep the celery tinier because I didn’t want it’s crunchy texture to compete with the potatoes, onion, and bacon.

As you go along, just throw everything into your soup pot.

When you’ve got all three into the stock pot, sprinkle the whole thing with kosher salt. I’d say it was probably 1 tablespoon.

Then fill the pot with water so that it covers all the vegetables, with between 1/2 and 1 inch of water above. You can do more if you like a lot of broth. I then added 4 chicken boullion cubes. Instead of water and boullion, you can use the ready made boxed or canned chicken stock, or you can use vegetable stock if you’re going for vegetarian soup.

Now that everything’s on the stove, go ahead and add a little heat. This is all down to taste, but I’ll gather a guess that I added 1 tablespoon of black pepper, 1/2 tablespoon of Nature’s Seasonings, and 1 teaspoon of white pepper.

Please ignore my messy kitchen. Please?
Look! Here’s a pretty picture of it all bubbling away, just before I stirred the pepper in properly.

Allow this all to cook on high for as long as it takes the potatoes to get soft enough that they break apart when pierced with a fork, just like when you’re making mashed potatoes.

While that’s bubbling away, grab the bacon. (no, that’s not a euphamism!) Use as much or as little as you want here, but for goodness sake, don’t subsitute bacon bits! Use the real stuff! I used 4 strips of bacon, and I used kitchen shears to cut it into smaller pieces, which is much easier than trying to chop bacon with any of the crappy knives I own. One of these days I’ll get some good knives.. and a kitchen that has drawers on rollers.. and a double oven..***snaps back to reality*** where were we? Oh right.

Bacon. Mmmm.

Fry it up until it’s a little crispy. Don’t do what I did and char it until it’s in cinders.

When cooked, remove from the pan, and drain on a paper towel until the rest of your soup is ready.

The potatoes should be just about done after 30-35 minutes, though you can leave this to cook for up to an hour if you want. Everything will just get more tender and flavorful.

You’ll need a collander, and a second stock pot for this next part. Set up your empty pot with the collander over it. Pour everything from one pot to the other. All the lovely veg should stay in the collander, and the stock should now be in previously empty pot.

Don’t adjust your monitor. My sink is green. It’s kitschy in a cool way, but I really wish it were a double sink.

In this new pot, turn the heat back up to high. Now mix some cornstarch and water. I don’t know how to explain to mix the cornstarch in mathmatical terms, and for this, I am very sorry. I put a little more than two tablespoons in a cup, and a little bit of water, and stir until it’s a thin paste consistency.. then I add that to my stock to thicken.

At this time, also add in your milk. Add as little or as much milk as you want. I added about a cup. We’re all about cooking with love instead of math ’round these parts.

When the stock is thickened to a consistency you like, you can add it back to your potato-onion mixture. Make sure you don’t scald the stock. Now that it has milk in it, that can happen.

Also, chop up your green onions. Add both them and the bacon to your soup.

I’d let it simmer on low for another 5 to 10 minutes, but you can actually let it simmer for as long as you’d like, so long as the temperature is low enough to not scald the soup.

Mmmmm. Yummy stuff, man. Yummy stuff.

Variations of this soup can include swapping the bacon for ham, adding in chopped spinach, or using vegetable stock instead of chicken.

I topped mine with sharp cheddar cheese and saltines, James had his straight up. This soup freezes beautifully, and keeps in the fridge for up to 5 days. Enjoy!

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Post tags: bacon, chicken stock, cream, Nanny, potatos, soup

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