Bacon and Egg Breakfast Muffins

This is another favourite of ours.  It takes a little bit of time to prepare, but is oh-so-dee-lish.  We generally try to stick to having it for special occasions only, as there are quite a few calories in one of these.

Some of us may be familiar with this type of breakfast treat, from one or more of the American fast-food chains. Is this version better?  You decide.

This is not really the type of dish that needs a recipe, but it's amazing how many people have not thought of making it.  So, in the best tradition of stating the obvious, here we go.


Ingredients for each muffin

• an English muffin
• an egg
• a slice or two of bacon.  Back bacon (aka Canadian bacon) is good too, and a slice of ham is another option.  Or skip the meat altogether if that's your thing.
• A slice of cheese.  Swiss is good, but any other "meltable" cheese is fine, too.

Directions

1. Cook the bacon. It should be put into a cold pan and cooked slowly until perfection.   For best results, it should be chewy and not very crisp.  Remove the bacon from the pan and place on a paper towel to drain.  Wipe out the pan and return it to the stove for the next step.
2. Fry the eggs.  This can be done with a hotter pan than the bacon.  Partway through cooking, flip them over to help cook the yolk until it's just hard.  A minute or so before the eggs are done, top it with the slice of cheese so it melts just a bit.
3. Optional: put some herbs and spices on the egg when it's first put into the pan.  We like freshly ground black pepper and dried basil.  But other flavours are good, too.  A little bit of cumin goes especially good with eggs.
4. While the eggs are cooking, toast the muffins.
5. Assemble the muffin.  Stack the egg and cheese on the muffin and top with bacon.

Enjoy.  You'll see why we think that this is a treat and loaded with calories because, really, who can eat just one?  We challenge you to try.

Even Bow-Tie Calico approves!

Simple and Easy Blueberry Muffins

This week's recipe is all about simple and easy.  And delicious.

The new season brings lots of fresh berries and the blueberries looked particularly appetising so we decided to give them a go.

Once again, we tried our best to make this a healthier version of bad-for-you food by decreasing the sugar and using whole-wheat flour instead of the regular alternatives.

This recipe makes a dozen muffins.  You can cook as many at a time as you want, and put the rest of the uncooked dough in the refrigerator in a sealed container.  It'll keep for a week.

You can also make more at once and freeze any leftovers.   If you do manage to freeze any then you're doing better than the three of us because, once again, they all disappeared right away.

If you have any unused cups in your muffin pan, be sure to fill them with water while baking.  This prevents your muffin pan from warping.




Ingredients

Dry

• 300 g (2 cups) whole wheat flour
• 25 ml (2 tbsp) sugar
• 25 ml (2 tbsp) baking powder
• 3 ml (1/2 tsp) salt
• 175 ml (3/4 cup) fresh or frozen blueberries (don't defrost frozen blueberries)
• 5 ml (1 tsp) grated lemon zest.  About 1 lemon

Wet

• 2 eggs, beaten
• 250 ml (1 cup) milk
• 50 ml (1/4 cup) butter, melted

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 200C (400F)
2. In a larger bowl, stir together the dry ingredients
3. In a smaller bowl, combine the wet ingredients
4. Add the wet ingredients all at once to the dry ingredients.  Stir quickly until the ingredients are barely mixed together and may be still lumpy in places.
5. Put paper muffin liners into the muffin pan, or grease the muffin cups very well
6. Fill the muffin cups to about 2/3 full
7. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.
8. Remove from pan and serve warm.

It's best to put the cooling muffins on a rack and cover with a soft cloth until they're ready to serve.

And Bow-Tie Calico approves once again.