You've Got To Taste This

            While some people spend the afternoon watching a riveting game of football or curl up on the couch for a daily dose of Oprah, my dirty little secret is cooking shows. Baking, cooking, entertaining, public television or cable – I watch them all, but my absolute favorite star is British chef Jamie Oliver. He manages to be charming, informative, funny, and educational all while chopping, dicing, or grabbing fresh veggies from his garden. His show “Jamie at Home” focuses on one ingredient each week, and contains 2 or 3 recipes for that ingredient. The recipes are always innovative, interesting, and delicious and I was spellbound when Jamie made butternut squash muffins on a recent butternut squash episode. Quick, easy, and healthy – perfect for a snack, or to satisfy a kid’s sweet tooth (they’ll just think it’s a cupcake). And it’s a great way to use butternut squash, which is in season now through winter. Make the muffins with or without the frosting (“frosty top” in Jamie speak); they’re fabulous either way. (And check out Jamie’s show; it runs on the Food Network.)

Butternut Squash Muffins with a Frosty Top

14 ounces butternut squash, skin on, deseeded and roughly chopped

2 1/4 cups light soft brown sugar

4 large free-range or organic eggs

Sea salt

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, unsifted

2 heaping teaspoons baking powder

Handful of walnuts, chopped

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

For the Frosted Cream Topping:

1 clementine, zested

1 lemon, zested

1/2 lemon, juiced

1/2 cup sour cream

2 heaping tablespoons icing (confectioner’s) sugar, sifted

1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise and seeds scraped out

Lavender flowers or rose petals, optional

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line your muffin tins with paper cups.

Whiz the squash in a food processor until finely chopped. Add the sugar, and crack in the eggs. Add a pinch of salt, the flour, baking powder, walnuts, cinnamon and olive oil and whiz together until well beaten. You may need to pause the machine at some point to scrape the mix down the sides with a rubber spatula. Try not to overdo it with the mixing - you want to just combine everything and no more.

Fill the paper cups with the muffin mixture. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes. Check to see whether they are cooked properly by sticking a wooden skewer or a knife right into one of the muffins - if it comes out clean, they're done. If it's a bit sticky, pop them back into the oven for a little longer. Remove from the oven and leave the muffins to cool on a wire rack.

As soon as the muffins are in the oven, make your runny frosted topping. Place most of the clementine zest, all the lemon zest and the lemon juice in a bowl. Add the sour cream, icing sugar and vanilla seeds and mix well. Taste and have a think about it - adjust the amount of lemon juice or icing sugar to balance the sweet and sour. Put into the fridge until your muffins have cooled down, then spoon the topping onto the muffins.

Serve on a lovely plate (on a cake stand if you're feeling elegant, or on a rustic slab if you're more of a hunter-gatherer type!), with the rest of the clementine zest sprinkled over. For an interesting flavor and look, a few dried lavender flowers or rose petals are fantastic.

Makes 12 muffins

Note: Unfrosted muffins freeze well; just wrap them in plastic wrap and stick them in a freezer bag for up to one month.

At first glance, you may think I'm referring to my husband, but actually, the Grill Daddy is a cool gadget I recently picked up for him. With all of the grilling he's been doing this summer, the grill was starting to little dingy, and this tool did the trick. No batteries required (I kept looking for somewhere to charge this thing up), you simply fill it with water and scrub away!

Speaking of grilling, with football season here and our baby due next week, we'll be doing plenty of tailgating at home. My favorite party spread? LOTS of appetizers to munch on throughout the day! Check out a some of my favorites, and let us know what you enjoy during tailgating!

My husband loves to fish, and after a recent trip to the Gulf, he returned with enough red snapper to feed a village! So to make the most of his fresh catch, we had to be smart about freezing the fillets, and we wanted to come up with some fun ways to fix a feast. Here are some quick tips that we picked up!

A few weekends ago my boyfriend and I packed up and headed off on an adventure for our anniversary. Let’s just call it a team-building excursion. Our destination wasn’t a quant romantic bed and breakfast tucked away in the mountains like I had envisioned. 

We opted for a 20-mile Smoky Mountain back-country hike and 7 miles of this trip was calf-burning, steep incline. We'd  never done something like this, and I will say that it was worth the labor. The view from the top of Gregory Bald was breathtaking and we saw some amazing wildlife like a black bear climbing a tree  (pictured right)! 

Of course I was chosen to get the camp food together for this venturesome weekend. Keep in mind I was going for light on packing the lbs but still satisfying. The best meal was planned for our first day. 

Red Beans and Rice Camp Chow 

1 box of Tony's Red Beans and Rice 

Kielbasa (I froze it the night before so it would thaw but not go bad)

1 Corn on the cob

Tortillas 

Hot sauce (a mini bottle optional) 

1. Cook the beans and rice according to the package instructions. 

2. Mix in sliced kielbasa and let it simmer while you cut the corn off the cob. Then mix in the corn. 

3. Wrap a few tortillas in aluminum foil and toast them at the edge of the camp fire. Scoop your beans and rice combo into a warm toasty tortilla and chow down. 

It was delicious and easy cleanup! We brought a couple of mini bottles of champagne to toast our success. 

What are some of your favorite camping foods?

Last Saturday I rolled out of a warm comfy bed to do something I’ve never done before, run 13.1 miles voluntarily. My previous blog, Will Run For Food, set the stage for how I was going to achieve my aggressive New Years resolution of running in the Nashville Music City Marathon with my older sister (middle one in the photo). Now I can write to you a blog of success and encouragement.

I’m not going to tell you I was a model trainee on how to prepare for this lengthier run. Since I couldn't run a mile in December, I started with the Couch to 5K running plans and worked from there. I will say with sincerity if I can do it you can do it, and so can 30,000 plus people that ran or walked.

My pre-race preparation consisted of the classic pasta plate. I would advise to keep it light. A vegetarian or chicken recipe will do the trick. I went with the meaty sauce and noodles and I will say that might not have been the best choice.  The morning of I kept it simple with an orange, half of an English muffin, and water. My post race cool down consisted of a warm Schlotzsky's sandwich, a chilled brewski, and an extremely cold pool. Fantastic!

I probably could have done a few things differently, but I had a blast running my first half marathon. The country music set a great tempo for running and the amount of people lining the streets cheering was unbelievable.

Watch these tips to cook pasta just right every time.

 Also check out Eat Like an Olympian