Rosemary Cheddar Cornbread Muffins #MuffinMonday

A great cheesy, savory muffin flavored with fresh rosemary and extra sharp cheddar that is perfect as a snack or for breakfast.

I was in Providence, Rhode Island this week, baking in my elder daughter’s kitchen.  First I went to the grocery store and fondled the fresh yeast, whispering to the tiny foil-wrapped cubes that I would be back next week for Spring Break.  And I bought rosemary, cornmeal and sharp cheddar cheese for this week’s #MuffinMonday.  Our required ingredient is rosemary, one of my favorite herbs and, surprise! I decided to go savory with this one.  Yeah, I know, not so surprising if you’ve been reading along here for a while.

As an expat parent, I have missed every milestone in our daughters’ university journeys beyond the emotional drop off at the beginning of their first semester the first year.  (And their father wasn’t even able to make that.)  We have missed Parent Weekend for four years now and we get all of our news via email and Skype without the benefit of occasional weekend visits to touch base or help with laundry or cook for them or love on them in person.

I close their bedroom doors for the first few weeks after they leave home to start a new semester because it makes the separation more bearable.  I pretend they are still at home, just out with friends for an evening.  So, as you might imagine, it was our distinct joy to attend the opening reception of our elder daughter’s Senior Show at Rhode Island School of Design last week.  We are proud of the beautiful, passionate young lady she has grown into and have complete faith that she will continue to be the talented, caring, hardworking artist that she has always been.  And that is success enough for us.

Our sweet talented young lady. You can see more of her artwork here. 

Victoria's current obsession (and I don't think she would disagree with my use of that word) is typography.
This is one wall of her portion of the show and includes (on the right) a textface or font she created. It's called Sylvia, after Sylvia Plath and is perfect when you need to express deep emotion. Or just good taste. 

She and her roommates (and a good friend from KL who had come in from Boston for the show - Hi, Aeden!) enjoyed these muffins for breakfast the day after.  They went quickly.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups or 260g yellow cornmeal
1 1/2 cups or 190g all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups or 355ml milk
1 egg
1/2 cup or 120ml canola oil, plus a little extra for greasing the muffin tin
8 oz or 230g extra sharp cheddar or other strong cheese
3-4 long sprigs fresh rosemary (about one tablespoon minced, plus some extra leaves for decoration)

Method
Preheat oven to 375°F or 190°C and prepare a 12-cup muffin tin by oiling the inside of each cup, using a pastry brush dipped in a little canola oil.

Grate half of your cheese and cube the remainder.  Remove the leaves from the rosemary stalks and reserve a small amount for decoration.  Mince the remaining rosemary leaves and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.  Add in the grated cheddar and minced rosemary and stir well.

In another bowl, whisk milk, egg and oil.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ones and mix well.

Fold in the cubed cheddar and divide the batter between the greased muffin cups.

Sprinkle on the reserved rosemary leaves.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the muffins are golden.  Some of the cheese may melt out, but just scrape it off the pan with a knife and eat directly.  This is a perk of being the baker.

Cool in the pan for a few minutes and then remove to a metal rack to cool completely.

Enjoy!

Pin these Rosemary Cheddar Cornbread Muffins!

Butterflied Chicken with Rosemary and Lemon

As I mentioned back when I wrote the post about Rosemary Lemon Chicken Stroganoff, this is one of my favorite meals to make for guests.  This is also one of my favorite meals to make when it’s just us.  My original post didn’t include photos of the first recipe since the focus was what to do with the leftovers, so I thought I would document making the rosemary lemon chicken itself as I made it the other night.  Two chickens so we would have leftovers again!  You should do the same.

Ingredients  

2 whole chickens, cleaned and trimmed of extra fat

6 long sprigs fresh rosemary or more to taste. 

2 lemons

2 purple onions

Olive oil

Maldon or other flakey sea salt

Black pepper

Method

Using a sharp knife or kitchen scissors, cut along the backbone of each chicken.

Turn the chicken over and press down on the breast to spread it flat.

Put the chickens into a large freezer bag.

The 2 1/2 gallon Hefty bags work great. (The link says 2.5 Qt. mistakenly.
The jumbo bags are really 2.5 Gallon.  Get your act together, Hefty!) 

Pull the needles off of the sprigs of rosemary and throw them in the bag with the chicken.

Cut your lemons in quarters and pop them into the bag.  Squeeze them from outside so the rinds and juice stay in the bag. 

Cut your purple onions in quarters and add them to the bag.

Sprinkle in the sea salt and black pepper.  Pour in olive oil and then close up the Ziploc and give the whole bag a good mix around.

Try to distribute the lemons and onions farily around and then open the zipper just a little and squeeze out as much air as possible, before closing the zipper again.

Marinate chicken for a couple of hours in the refrigerator, or overnight—even a couple of days.  (Or freeze it.  Just make sure to thaw and bring the chicken to room temperature before roasting.)

Preheat oven to 425°F or 220°C.  Once the chicken is at room temperature, dump the whole bag out into a baking pan which has been drizzled with a little olive oil.

Redistribute the lemon and onions pieces around the chicken and put some of the rosemary on top.  Drizzle the chicken liberally with more olive oil.

Roast for 45 minutes.  Serve with bits of onion and even lemon, if your fellow eaters are willing.  My mother-in-law is the only person I know who will eat the roasted lemons but there are surely more people in the world who would and I just haven’t met them.  Anyhow, they look pretty on the plate. 

I serve this with couscous and use all the lovely lemony drippings off the chicken to further moisten the couscous on the plate. 

Enjoy!

N.B. This recipe was created by Nigella Lawson. The original can be found in this book and you should buy one because it is full of wonderful recipes, written by one of my food heroes. 

Spring Onion Rosemary Cheese Quick Bread

This Spring Onion Rosemary Cheese Quick Bread is easy to make, no yeast, no kneading, no trouble. Just full on flavor and an excellent crumb!

Cairo days

The heater is broken again.  Well, not exactly broken but all the wires that connect it to power have apparently burned up and melted into a molten non-conductive mess.  This happened on Thursday night, of course, because our weekend starts on Friday.  And it's still COLD!

So Friday I made soup – will post that recipe later because it turned out quite delicious – and yesterday I baked bread.  This recipe was adapted from one of my favorites, from the great doyenne of British cookery, Delia Smith.  Her version was with goat cheese and thyme but I have figured out that you can put any cheese and any herb and this will taste fantastic.

Spring Onion Rosemary Cheese Quick Bread

As mentioned above, you can switch out the cheese for any of your favorites, except perhaps something too soft and runny like Camembert or Brie. I fear those might melt completely out of the bread when baked. 

Ingredients

4 oz  or 110g strong cheese of your choice (I used a combo of blue and cheddar.)

4 spring onions, finely sliced

1 medium potato weighing approximately 6 oz or 175g

At least 1 rounded tablespoon fresh herbs (I used rosemary this time.) plus a few extra leaves for the top when baking

6 oz or 175g flour

1 1/2 teaspoons double-acting baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon or generous pinch of cayenne pepper

1/2 teaspoon English mustard powder

1 large egg

2 tablespoons milk

Olive oil for greasing the cookie sheet

Method

Preheat the oven to 375°F or 190°C.

Pare the rind from the cheese, if there is one, and cut it into 1/2 inch or 1 cm cubes.  Remove the rosemary leaves from the stalks and mince all but a few.

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a big, roomy mixing bowl, holding the sieve up high to give the flour a good airing.

Peel the potato and grate it straight into the flour, using the coarse side of the grater.  Lightly mix the potato in with a fork. 

Mince your spring onions.  

Add the spring onions, rosemary and two-thirds of the cheese to the potato/flour bowl.  Add in the cayenne and mustard powder.

Still using a fork, gently mix everything thoroughly.

After that, beat the egg with the milk, then pour the mixture into the bowl, just bringing it all together to a loose, rough dough, still using your fork.  It will seem too dry to come together but just keep mixing and turning the bowl and the dough and your patience will be rewarded.   It will come together.

Rub a little olive oil on your baking sheet and transfer the dough on top of the oil.

Pat it gently into a 6-inch or 15 cm rough round.  

Now lightly press the rest of the cheese over the surface, and scatter the reserved rosemary leaves over it as well.

Bake the bread on the middle shelf of the oven for 45-50 minutes or until golden brown.  

Remove it to a cooling rack or cutting board and serve it still warm if possible.  We slathered ours with butter and called it lunch! 

Enjoy!