I get a lot of cookbooks in the mail each season. It is always a treat to admire the work of my fellow authors. Every so often one book really stands out and catches my eye. That is the kind of book that I cook from immediately and ends up on my bookshelf for a few years, maybe longer. This spring one of these cookbooks is Modern Mediterranean: Easy, Flavorful Home Cookingby Melia Marden. Her simple Mediterranean dishes are inspired by her childhood summers spent in Greece and frequently served at The Smile, the restaurant at which she is executive chef. The extraordinary color photographs by Lucy Schaeffer pack a stunning visual punch. I am thrilled that Melia stopped by for an interview today and I am even more excited to be giving away a copy of her book!
1) Your story of growing up in Greece is extraordinary. I love how each recipe is a trip down memory lane. What recipes are the most nostalgic for you?
Definitely the stuffed tomatoes were something I only ever ate in Greece in the summers and would think about for the rest of the year. It seemed like such a simply perfect lunch when I was a kid so in the recipe I tried to recreate the flavor that I alwayslooked forward to so much. The zucchini simmered in tomato sauce was a dish my mom made all the time when I was growing up so being able to make it for myself now feels comforting like reliving a basic part of my childhood.
Every week I get a whole bunch of cool newsletters from my favorite cooking site. I love reading them to see what everyone is up to and getting their recommendations and ideas for new dishes and crafts. Last week I was perusing the Food52 newsletter and came across their genius recipe for a fresh spring pasta. With a bunch of fresh asparagus in refrigerator I knew it was just the thing to make for a quick weeknight meal.
I know I am fortunate to not have celiac disease. So many people I know suffer from it and have to cut all gluten straight out of their lives in order to get better. So people handle the news by weeping in their kitchen while tossing all their favorite bread. Others, like April, take a more comedic approach. When April was diagnosed with celiac disease a few years ago she too shed a few tears. But then she started this cool blog, took the bull by the horns, and made gluten her bitch. Anyone and everyone will love this informative and hilarious book and I encourage you to enter to win it, even if just to give to your BFF with celiac. Trust me, they’ll be grateful!
1) Now that you are gluten-free, what do you find yourself craving as your ultimate comfort food?
You know before I was gluten-free, I really didn’t give much thought to donuts. Now all I want is a donut. A good, gluten-filled donut. Yes there are people who have made gluten-free donuts, but gluten-free donuts are actually just round pieces of cake with a hole in the middle. I need some air up in there. SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME.
2) How does living in LA influence your eating habits as opposed to Brooklyn? I am dying to visit LA because I hear all about the delicious cuisine!
It’s rare that I dine out in LA and my server or the chef does not get gluten-free. Luckily I wasn’t diagnosed with celiac until I moved to LA, so I’m not sure what would have happened in Brooklyn. I know there are great gluten-free options in NYC, but I doubt I could hit all of my old favorites and still eat safely. Not that I’m unwilling to try. Oh, I’ll try.
But to compare the two cities cuisine-wise, they’re both cutting edge and amazing food is around every corner. I’m guessing you can find more vegan options in LA, and of course produce is super fresh year ’round. But other than that, they’re both great cities in which to get your eat on.
One of my favorite things about my year as a flavor correspondent for Sargento is discovering all of the amazing food trucks springing up within ten miles of my house. Turns out Southern Connecticut is a hot bed of food truck entrepreneurs. I LOVE it! To please my daughter, last week we decided to visit a truck popular with both adults and Kindergarten set – Skinny Pines Pizza.It was a Friday night and we were in the mood for an easy dinner that everyone would love.
My friend Julie is one awesome woman. She runs this great website, Dinner with Julie, is an editor, author, and rockin’ mama. Recently she and a friend started this great website, Rolling Spoon. As a music fan I am super excited that someone has finally decided to contact cooking with rock’n’roll. They go hand in hand! Today Julie is stopping in for a quick interview to introduce her site and give us some hot tips for great food and musical pairings.
1) I love the inspiration for this site! Do you always have a play list going when you cook? What are some of your favorite musical/food pairings?
I don’t always have a play list.. but my husband is a musician so music is virtually always on at home. I like cooking to upbeat stuff, and tend to go for the nostalgic, like the GoGos, Blondie, or even ABBA!
2) Given the audio component of this will you be giving us advice on what music to pair with your new groovy recipes?
We’re going to chat with chefs and food writers to ask what’s on their playlists – it’s as interesting to learn what chefs listen to as it is to learn what musicians like to eat!
3) How do you find new chefs/musicians to interview? Do you find that music and food are inextricably intertwined?
I know so many chefs, and Elizabeth knows so many musicians! Actually, I know a lot too…. we’re certainly not short of connections or ideas. And we’re meeting plenty of bands we’ve been fans of but don’t know personally – it turns out everyone loves talking about food! It’s so personal, and a common bond – something we all can relate to. What better way to get to know your favourite bands than getting a peek into their fridge? Or sitting down for a meal with them? Or getting into the kitchen and cooking together?
4) What kind of great content can we expect to find on the site as it grows?
We have so many ideas – we’re just trying to make sense of them and try to organize everything on the site in a cohesive way! We have recipes inspired by bands/albums/songs, and contributed by some well-known musicians. We have interviews, how-tos, playlists and embedded videos.. and will soon start hosting dinner parties and documenting them. This summer, I’m determined to cook with Pat Benetar when she comes to town.
5) Can you share one of your favorite recipes and songs?
I love Blondie – her song Eat to the Beat was part of the inspiration for Rolling Spoon! And so I must share a blondie recipe… {see below}
6) If you could listen to one band while eating one meal what would each be?
Right now? Hmmm.. I’m really into Volbeat, a Danish band we met last month to do our very first Rolling Spoon interview! And I could really go for a pizza – wood-fired and chewy, with extra cheese. And a hot fudge sundae for dessert.
7) {fill in the blank}…..is what makes me a Rolling Spoon.
Preheat the oven to 350F and butter an 8×8-inch pan or line it with parchment paper with extra hanging over the sides (which makes for easy removal and slicing).
In a medium bowl, stir together the butter and sugar, then add the egg, bourbon and vanilla, stirring until smooth. Add the flour and salt and stir until almost combined; add the chocolate and pecans and stir just until blended. Spread into the pan.
Bake for 25 minutes, or until the edges start to pull away from the sides and the middle is set. Cool at least slightly before cutting into squares.
It has been a crazy busy week around here and I haven’t gotten much cooking done. Over the weekend we were helping my in-laws move and spent most of the time packing up the attic. It was exhausting! Anyway, the one thing I have been doing, when putting my feet up at the end of a long day, is flipping through some new design books I got this spring. They are my new favorites! Design, architecture, and style have always been interests of mine. More like side interests, things I enjoy but am not necessarily an expert at. As my husband will attest, I could spend hours rearranging our furniture, building tablescapes, and styling my coffee table. My eye is still a work in progress, but I am getting there. While I tinker away I am always looks for new ideas and these books have really been inspiring me lately. Take a look:
1) Designers at Home: Personal Reflections on Stylish Living by Ronda Rice Carmen. This awesome book is a true peek under the tent of designers in their own home. There is not better way to learn tricks of the trade than seeing how the pros do it!
2) How to Read Fashion: A Crash Course in Styles, Designers, and Couture by Fiona Ffoulkes. While not a typical design book, this fashion book details a lot of the basics of design in general. I love the fresh look at the basics and the broad view of the evolution of fashion throughout the past two centuries.
I have been a huge fan of Daphne Oz ever since she started on The Chew. Her youthful energy and commitment to health is such an inspiration! I wish I had has it as together at her age as she does now. (Just saying that makes me feel so old!) Lucky for us, this week Daphne stopped in for a quick interview about her awesome new book, Relish: An Adventure in Food, Style & Everyday Fun. Anyone looking for an uplifting book filled with healthy recipes, solid life advice, and tips for home improvement this volume is for you!
1) I love that your new book, Relish, highlights much more than just food. You cover all the essential topics for adults in their twenties and thirties: diet, home, career, friendships, and love. What inspired you to write this complete manual?
I wanted a book like this for myself! I wasn’t looking for a major life overhaul; I just wanted usable tips for small things I could be doing a bit better that would yield big results. Most of us are already doing a lot of things right, we just need a nudge in the right direction, or a couple of smart and helpful insights we can easily use in our own lives to improve our health, our style, our relationships and our careers without driving ourselves crazy in the process. I took a year and a half organizing all the expert knowledge I picked up on set at The Chew, growing up around the Oz family dinner table, through my own successes and failures, and by asking everyday people how they maximize happiness in their own lives into a book that is all about creating a lifestyle that is beautiful, fulfilling, fun, and – above all – delicious!!
2) Social media and technology play such a huge roll in life today. How do you recommend young men and women manage the roll it plays in their lives while they learn to balance daily work/life/love post-graduation?
I love social media for so many reasons – it’s where I get amazing recommendations for trips I’m planning, books to read, news items, etc, and it’s a super easy way to interact with real people I’m trying to learn from and teach, which I love! But it’s also a major time suck for me – how many days have I been “too busy” for the gym, but spent HOURS hitting refresh on my newsfeed?? Such a waste! That’s time that could have been spent doing just about anything else in the real world. I had to train myself to stop the cycle because I wanted my real life to be better than my digital one.
Another little catch to social media: I’ve never seen anyone get up there and tell the world about all the little failures they’ve had today, or all the things they didn’t get to do, or were disappointed by – it could be that social media makes us all optimists, but more often than not, our Twitter streams, Instagram photos and Facebook updates are essentially a free-for-all brag-fest about the amazing friends, amazing places, amazing things and amazing us the fill our lives! We can’t help but to start to judge our own lives against other people’s…and sometimes feel like we come up short. We forget this online representation of a person is only a very narrow sliver of his or her life, and often an inaccurate one at that. The best advice I have is to judge yourself on your own totem poll. Don’t worry about what everyone around you is doing – if it’s all good for them, that’s wonderful! Be happy for their success. Hopefully, it’s all good for you, too! And if it’s not right this second, you have an exciting opportunity to learn from and push through the experience, and get better because of it. Every opportunity we have to struggle is an opportunity we have to grow and to come out on top. Sooner or later we all realize: the things we really should be bragging about don’t generally fit into 140 characters anyway.
3) I love that your recipes have a healthy bent but aren’t based on any extreme diet. My twenties and thirties have been all about creating healthy lifelong eating habits. What is your advice on easy ways to create these habits while life whirs by at the speed of light with work, children, marriage, and the like?
Make health a priority and NOT an obsession. This is something I really had to remind myself to do over and over again as I was working to create a healthy lifestyle and losing 30 pounds in college. It was a process, because we are so trained to look at things in black-and-white with ‘good foods’ and ‘bad foods’ and rigid rules that leave no room for balance or flexibility. But we are human! And life is short, and should be filled with delicious experiences. I grew up overweight, reaching almost 180lbs at age 17, and I tried every fad diet under the sun to try to lose the extra weight. Of course, none of them worked because making an item taboo only made it all the more alluring for me. The only way I was eventually able to lose the weight – healthfully and permanently, without ever giving up the foods I love – was by putting myself back in the power position and realizing that I had the responsibility and the freedom to choose to eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. Nothing is off-limits. I do try to eat a mostly healthy (plant-based, lots of foods that look the way they do when they come out of the ground as opposed to out of a box) most of the time, but I leave plenty of room for worthy indulgences (homemade cookies, dessert when I’m out to dinner with my husband) that count for something as opposed to stale, store-bought brownies at an office party that mean nothing and just add calories.
The biggest trick for me is to remember that eating dessert doesn’t make me ‘bad’ or ‘unhealthy’ – it’s a CHOICE I make, and I try to make smart decisions and relish those moments of indulgence so I can fuel my resolve to eat well most of the time and feel great about the balance. I set myself up for success by keeping healthy snacks on hand (snack time is generally where I’m at my weakest because I’m usually on the run and will power is at an all-time low when you’re already hungry and relying on convenience foods), stocking my kitchen with items that make whipping up healthy meals a snap (canned beans, dried brown rice/quinoa/lentils, frozen chicken breast, frozen fruit, yogurt, healthy sauces, etc) and picking up produce as I get inspired to make a particular dish so I don’t waste money on things that will go bad before I’ve had a chance to use them. But you know what, if there’s a night where I really just want to order in or go for pizza with friends, I do! And I enjoy it!! A healthy lifestyle is a commitment for life, and it has to be flexible to make room for all the things that fill your life with fun, which is the most important part and what Relish is all about!
4) What are some simple changes you recommend to add a little fresh joy to the everyday? I find that sometimes a little change or new perspective can make all the difference in my frame of mind. This feels especially relevant during the change of seasons. Spring is all about taking a deep breath and starting fresh!
For your food, fresh herbs and flavored oils are a simple way to breathe a ton of new life into old recipes. Even if you’re having canned soup, add a dollop of yogurt, a drizzle of chili oil and a sprinkle of fresh parsley and it becomes gourmet! Even better if you can grow the herbs in your own garden – outside or on a windowsill if you’re an apartment dweller like I am, or even at your desk at work! It’s a great way to add a little useful lush greenery to spruce up your surroundings.
For your fitness, try a new workout routine this week. Skip the gym – it’s too nice out to be indoors – and head for a run outside, or jump in on a new class. It can be mortifying to be the most uncoordinated person in the breakdance cardio class, and I can either choose to hold on to my embarrassment or loosen up and get lost in the energy of it! Anything that can make my workout go by faster I am down with.
I also love a good bout of spring cleaning. I do it for every area of my house to get rid of all the clutter that piles up over the year, but my favorite is my annual closet rummage. I go through my closet and try on EVERY SINGLE item of clothing. I see if I like how it fits (not how I hoped it would fit, thought it might, wished it could if I dropped 5 lbs, etc), examine for any holes or stains, check if I have unnecessary duplicates, and be honest with myself about whether I really am ever going to wear that vintage gold lame vest (the answer was “Yes!” – I had a 70s costume party it came in great for! And then I donated it). Streamlining is key to getting me out the door looking my best and feeling great about not having to spend an additional 20 minutes rummaging for the skirt I wanted because it’s buried behind 10 I don’t. My happy, fresh, joyful Spring life is an organized one.
5) This book is so thorough and inspiring! What is the single piece of advice you give in this book that you heed in your personal life?
Don’t be afraid to try, jump in, get your hands dirty, and not be perfect right from the outset. Everything worth doing is worth doing well, and doing anything well takes time and effort…and more than a few fails. Anyone who make it look easy is just having fun and enjoying the journey as much as the destination! That’s my goal.
6) When I was bopping around NYC in my 20’s I had a hard time figuring out my long term career goals because I was so caught up the intensity of building my resume and reputation. I had entry level jobs, emails streaming in on my blackberry, and could just squeeze by with my bills. It was a good learning experience, but not necessarily always fun. What advice would you have given me to remind me to take stock, enjoy, and relish that time despite the ups and downs? I’ll admit, sometimes I miss those days, and sometimes I am relieved they are over.
Don’t worry. If I have one regret in life, it’s all the time I spent worrying that I didn’t know the right answer. Then I realized that no one does, and that even the wrong choices lead us to the right destination one way or another – if we let ourselves learn from them. Plus, worrying never solved anything. Do something about the things you can control and forget the rest. A simpler way of saying the same thing is: “Live in Love, Not Fear.”
You are exactly where you are meant to be at this moment in time – whatever you’re living through, there’s something to learn. The most important thing to pay attention to is are you happy or are you at least working towards happiness. If not, get outta there! If you think you could be, figure out how to prioritize this joy in your life – whether it’s making more time to see your kids or your friends, creating a new role at work, learning how to cook for yourself or finally trying that restaurant you’ve been dying to get to, don’t wait for it. Tell people what you need from them, surround yourself with things you love, and be responsible for your own happiness – the truth is, no one else can give it to you.
7) What is next for you post-Relish? Will you write more about handling everyday fun as your life evolves in your career and marriage? I hope so!
I hope so, too!! Writing Relish was such a fun project because it really gave me a chance to crystallize all this great information I’d been gathering for myself and put it in a package that would let me share it with all the friends I know are looking for this kind of fun, practical advice, too! But I learn new ways of doing things a little bit better every single day – and the more I learn, the more I love to share. There are many more adventures that await!
Thanks, Daphne!
I am thrilled to be giving away a copy of Relish today. To enter to win:
1) Leave a comment sharing one of the favorite pieces of life advice you’ve gotten to date.
2) Subscribe to Daphne Oz on Facebook.
3) Subscribe to Kelsey Banfield on Facebook.
4) Contest runs from May 15th at 7:00am through May 22nd at 7:00am. Winner will announced in the May 24th newsletter!
As part of my year as a food correspondent for Sargento I am exploring the wild world of mushrooms. It has been awesome so far, playing with new ways to enjoy mushrooms. I love any excuse I can get to find new ways to eat them at home. This week I picked up a few portobello mushrooms and kept them around for a few days until I could decide what to make. I always enjoy a good portobello mushroom burger, but this time I wanted to change it up and come up with something easy and fresh.
Since spring vegetables have arrived I decided to mix the meaty portobellos with some vegetables of equal texture – tomatoes and peppers. I tossed them with a simple balsamic dressing and roasted everything until it was sweet and tender. The portobellos held up beautifully to the high heat, retaining their chewy texture and deep earthy flavor. Together, the mix was tangy and sweet and perfect for spring. Though not a main course this could easily be our new favorite mushroom based side dish for summer!
(Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Sargento. The opinions expressed are wholly my own. Thank you for supporting the sponsors that make Naptime Chef possible.)
Recipe
Balsamic Roast Mushrooms Tomatoes & Peppers
Ingredients
2
portobello mushroom caps, sliced 1-inch thick
1
yellow pepper, cut into thin strips
1
red pepper, cut into thin strips
1
green pepper, cut into thin strips
½
cup small cherry peppers
¼
cup low-fat balsamic dressing
Instructions
1. Preheat the oven to 425 degree F. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and lightly spray it with cooking spray.
2. Toss the sliced vegetables and tomatoes with the balsamic dressing on a large bowl and spread everything in one even layer. Roast for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the vegetables or tender and lightly browned. Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly. Then serve!
Last weekend my neighbor had us over and she served the kids dirt cake for dessert. I have to be honest, most of the adults had a few bites too. It was a hot mess of sugar, candy, and cookies and was totally, sinfully delicious. Needless to say, the children fell in love with the concept of dirt cake and my daughter begged me to make it for her class for my planned visit. How could I refuse? It is such a cool idea! Since a lot of the children in her class have food allergies I was challenged with the process of making the cake completely dairy and gluten-free. Trust me, it was no easy feet. However, once I conferred with the mothers of the children in question I was able to make this fun dessert completely safe for them to eat!
Notes: I found all of these ingredients at Whole Foods. You could also find them at specialty stores or large grocery store chains.
Recipe
Gluten & Dairy Free Dirt Cake for Kids
makes about 20 small servings (recipe can be halved)
Ingredients
1
Cherrybrook Kitchen Chocolate Cake from the box mix, baked and left unfrosted
1
8-ounce package dairy-free cream cheese, softened
1
Earth’s Best Vegan Butter Stick, softened
1
cup confectioners’ sugar
1
tablespoon vanilla extract
2
packages Dr. Oetker’s Chocolate Pudding Mix
1
8-ounce can coconut milk
2
containers of Tru Whip
20
gummy worms (or more)
Instructions
1. In the bowl of an electric mixer add the cream cheese, butter, sugar, and vanilla and beat it together until light and fluffy. Then, add in the pudding mix, coconut milk, and Tru Whip and continue beating until light and fluffy.
2. Arrange the plastic cups on a tray for easy carrying. Divide the whipped mixture evenly amongst the cups so they are each ¾ full. Then, top the cups with the cake crumbs. Stick a gummy worm in each cup and try to put one end into the cup so it looks like the worm is crawling out of the whole. Alternatively, you could plant a little candy flower or something to make it look like a potted plant. Serve!
Naptime Notes
Naptime Recipe Serving ideas
These clear cups were great because they made it easy to serve her class. However, you could also assemble one big dirt cake in a huge 13 x 9 pan if needed!
Naptime Stopwatch
30 minutes start to finish (additional time needed for baking the cake)
Naptime Reviews
These delicious treats were perfect for a spring classroom treat!
I love Asian cuisine but I don’t cook it at home that much. Luckily, that is all about to change thanks to Jaden’s new book, Steamy Kitchen’s Healthy Asian Favorites: 100 Recipes that are Fast, Fresh, and Simple Enough for Tonight’s Dinner. It is like it was written for someone like me. I love Asian cuisine by am unsure of how to make any of the healthy dishes I enjoy in restaurants. Today Jaden from Steamy Kitchen, my go-to Asian cuisine blog, is stopping in to answer questions about her awesome new book and what we can expect to see on her wildly successful site in the future:
1) You do you such an amazing job demystifying Asian cuisines for people who are new to cooking it like me. What is the first thing you tell someone when they express doubt that they can cook authentic Asian dishes at home?
Cooking Asian food is so incredibly easy! Even with just soy sauce, garlic, ginger and green onion — items that you can get at any grocery store, you can create any type of stir fry. What makes Asian cooking so easy is that most dishes are either a stir-fry or a simmer on the stove that can go from cutting board to table in about half an hour.
2) What inspired you to take a more healthy angle with this book?
While there are so many great Asian restaurants, there are just as many bad ones where everything is deep fried and covered in goopy sauce. I wanted to show people that Asian style, everyday home cooking is healthy, simple and clean. I grew up with Mom’s wonderful Chinese meals that were always light, yet so full of flavor from using fresh herbs and spices. I wanted to share that with people!
3) We’ve spoken in person about writing books before. What is your favorite part about the book writing process? What is your biggest challenge?
My favorite part is collaborating with my recipe testing team! Once recipes are created, they are tested over and over again by a testing team, volunteers who are average home cooks from all over the world. I get feedback and collaborate with them on refining the recipe….they are so helpful and creative!
The biggest challenge is the editing process -it’s a long process of laboring over every single sentence, punctuation and word choice!
4) As you continue to blog and write books do you find your cooking style is evolving? How do you manage to keep your work fresh and relevant after so many years? You are an inspiration!
Thank you! We have kept Steamy Kitchen going strong for 6 years now! I used to run the site by myself (which was really lonely sometimes) but starting 3 years ago, Scott began working with me full time (he’s a web developer) and the kids also became interested. There’s always so much inspiration when we work together as a family.
5) You are responsible for introducing so many of us to popular Asian dishes would never have otherwise encountered. What are some of your favorite dishes in this book that you couldn’t wait to share with the world?
We love the “SHARE” chapter! These are recipes that are cooked at the table, where every single person is involved in making their own food! There’s Sushi Handroll Parties, Korean BBQ, Chinese and Japanese hot pots (think of it like Asian style fondue but with broth instead of cheese). It’s so crazy fun and so much action at the table! To us, this is what eating together should be about.
6) Given all the cooking and photography you do – do you ever get stuck in a cooking rut? If so – what do you do to get out of it?
YES. I do get in ruts, but it’s mostly around the blogging administrative aspects of what I do. There’s a lot of typing, editing recipes, editing video. Three years ago, I began hiring a part time assistant to help me out with that. It keeps me in the kitchen, which is awesome. I never get tired of cooking!
7) What is next for Steamy Kitchen? I hope you say you are working on the next book! 🙂
More videos! For the past 8 months, I’ve been publishing a video with every single recipe. We’ve been working hard building a big video archive. I’d also like to write several single subject e-books with video too!
Scott is building an aquaponics garden where we are experimenting growing fish alongside the garden. The fish poop feed the garden, the plants cleanse the water that goes back to the fish. So far, we’ve got 125 baby Koi fish happily swimming in a giant tank in our backyard and tons of healthy vegetables, using no chemicals
Thanks for stopping by Jayden!
To win a copy of Steamy Kitchen’s new book:
1) Leave a comment sharing what Asian dish you would love to learn to make.
2) Subscribe to Kelsey Banfield on Facebook.
3) Contest runs from May 8th at 7am through May 15th at 7am. Winner will be announced in the May 17th newsletter. Good luck!
Cinco de Mayo is over and it is time to gear up for Mother’s Day! Obviously I am a big proponent of baking something for mom on Mother’s Day. The only requirement is that it has to be something simple and quick. I am pretty sure it would be hard to pull off a surprise cake that required hours laboring away over fondant and multicolored layers. The kitchen mess would surely give you away! So, instead, I suggest you focus on something tasty and easy like these sweet corn muffins. The batter comes together in one-bowl and it is the perfect thing for kids to make if they want to help out. (It is very forgiving so the muffins won’t deflate or anything if a little flour spills over the edge of the bowl – promise!) Once they are in the oven you have about twenty minutes to arrange the breakfast tray, or warm up the soup or sandwich, and your special treat for mom is ready!
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.
2. In a large bowl whisk together the flour, sugar, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt. Then, whisk in the milk, cooled butter, and eggs. Once the batter thickens up switch to a wooden spoon and fold the batter together a few more times3. Fill each muffin tin about ¾ full and sprinkle a little raw sugar on top of each muffin. Bake the muffins for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the tops are golden brown and spring back when touched. Remove and allow to cool slightly. Serve!
Naptime Notes
Naptime Recipe Serving ideas
These delicious muffins would be amazing served with jam, or crumbled up on top of bean soup. Whichever way you serve them – enjoy!
Naptime Stopwatch
10 minutes prep time, 30 minutes bake time
Naptime Reviews
These sweet corn muffins are always a hit. Try adding some fresh corn in the summer when you make them, or chopped jalapenos for spice!
