Keeping With The Times

living, learning, and keeping with the times

Mincemeat Blender Muffins

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Here’s an amazing way to use leftover mincemeat you may have purchased for pies for the holidays. This is an old recipe of my Mom’s, and a bit of an unusual one at that. The whole orange and peel are thrown in … sounds kind of weird, but I can tell you that these muffins are pretty scrumptious.

After a good whirring in the blender, the orange and the mincemeat virtually disappear – and you are left with an aromatic, slightly spicy, moist muffin. Definitely worth a try!

Mincemeat Blender Muffins, Keeping With the Times

Keeping With the Times

Keeping With the Times

Keeping With the Times

Keeping With the TimesAren’t these little measuring cups just the sweetest? My oldest daughter gave them to me years ago (from Pier One). They make being organized quite a bit more fun!
Keeping With the Times

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Mincemeat Blender Muffins
 
Ingredients
Muffins
  • 1 whole, unpeeled orange, cut into quarters
  • 1/2 cup orange juice
  • 1/2 cup mincemeat
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 cup cold butter
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1 cup white flour
  • 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
  • 1 tsp soda
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • *1/2 cup raisins
Cream Cheese Frosting
  • 8 oz package cream cheese
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 1-2 tablespoons cream (until desired consistency is reached)
  • 2 1/2 cups icing sugar
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla
  • Beat well.
Instructions
  1. Sift flour, soda, baking powder and salt into a medium bowl.
  2. Blend whole orange in blender, add juice, mincemeat, egg, cold butter, and sugar. Blend very well. Add to flour mixture and mix well.
  3. *Add 1/2 cup raisins after all other ingredients are blended.
  4. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.

If you feel like making your own mincemeat, check out this recipe by my daughter at A Pretty Life.

Enjoy!

Orange Mincemeat Blender Muffins

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Amazingly we are already heading into the middle of January! and how did that happen?

I don’t know about you, but I had the tree down and out the door on January 1st. I’ve since packed all the decorations away and cleaned the house from top to bottom.

Today I bravely peeked into the back of the refrigerator to see what was left behind in the rush, and came up with some oranges and a jar of mincemeat. An old recipe that my Mom used to make came to mind. It’s unusual in that the whole orange, peel and all is used. Sounds kind of weird, but I can tell you that these muffins are pretty scrumptious. After a good whirring in the blender the orange and the mincemeat virtually disappear – and you are left with an aromatic, slightly spicy, moist muffin. Definitely worth a try!

Orange-Mincemeat-Muffins-copy

Orange-Mincemeat-Muffins1-copy

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Orange Mincemeat Blender Muffins
 
Ingredients
  • 1 whole, unpeeled orange, cut into quarters
  • 1/2 cup orange juice
  • 1/2 cup mincemeat
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 cup cold butter
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1 cup white flour
  • 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
  • 1 tsp soda
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
Instructions
  1. Sift flour, soda, baking powder and salt into a medium bowl.
  2. Blend whole orange in blender, add juice, mincemeat, egg, cold butter, and sugar. Blend very well. Add to flour mixture and mix well.
  3. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.

Enjoy!

Buttermilk Oatmeal Muffins – A Family Favourite

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I felt so good this morning. I haven’t felt so good in quite a long time it seems. Not that there’s anything wrong – I’ve just been overwhelmed with some projects I have on the go and haven’t had a breather since the beginning of January. I haven’t had time to play. No time to just play and create for fun. So, I haven’t felt inspired – at.all.

But today I feel different. Aside from the fact that I had a good sleep, there is one other thing that seemed to have lifted my inertia.

Yesterday, I cleaned my house. I put all my magazines, and books, and dishes, and photography and project stuff in their proper places. I dusted. I vacuumed. I scrubbed and cleaned the kitchen and bathroom. I cleaned the fridge. I took the garbage out. I stripped the mantel and put back only the bare minimum (I had some Christmas stuff there for Heavens sake). How refreshing that felt!

oatmeal muffins baking buttermilk

 

I finally got around to arranging the pretty white tulips I had bought two days ago. One arrangement went on the mantel, the other on the dining room hutch. I changed the hutch runner to something more (springy) and strung some sparkly lights on it.

And then I sat around in awe at how much better I felt. I turned on Norah Roberts and just chilled out for the rest of the day.

So that brings me to these muffins. Because I wasn’t feeling overwhelmed by dust and clutter this morning, I was inspired to bake (a real bakethrough for me)… doing/creating something because I felt inspired!

Then I proceeded to eat about 5 of them… that might not be so good… but they are delicious and I’ve justified the fact that I ate so many by deciding that muffins are going to be my breakfast, lunch and dinner today.

Enjoy!

 

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Buttermilk Oatmeal Muffins
 
A family favourite!
Ingredients
  • 1 cup oats
  • 1 cup buttermilk
  • 1 cup flour
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp soda
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 cup oil
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1 egg (beaten)
Instructions
  1. Combine oats and buttermilk.
  2. Sift flour, salt, soda, baking powder.
  3. Add oil, sugar and egg to the oat mixture.
  4. Stir oat mixture into the dry ingredients.
  5. Pour into muffin tins lined with paper muffin cups.
  6. Bake at 400 degrees 15 - 20 minutes.

 

Let cool and try not to eat too many!

Cranberry-bran muffins

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When hosting guests overnight at Christmas it’s always a good idea to have some muffins at the ready for early risers. Before I go to bed I put the muffin containers on the counter and set the coffee pot so that I just have to push the button when I get up. This way Grandma gets her coffee hit and the grandkids don’t have to eat dry Honeycombs until the real breakfast is served. I don’t cook breakfast (hubby does) and when that bacon fat starts flying – I’m outta there! It’s about that time that I decide that the bed needs to be made and I need a shower . . . I hate bacon fat . . . love bacon, just hate cooking it and hate smelling like it . . . So, having some homemade muffins makes my disappearing act a little less guilt-ridden.

Cranberry-Bran Muffins
moist and satisfying, and because we don’t get enough sugar and fat at Christmas I dip the tops in melted butter and then sugar and cinnamon . . .
I like to have my ‘ducks in a row’ when I’m baking – learned that in “Home Economics” (ahem) many years ago
see this baby? a surprise from hubby about a month ago – out of the blue (well, I did grumble a bit about my old mixer that I’d had for over 30 years . . .)
love my mixer, and my hubby :)

Cranberry-Bran Muffins
PREP 25 MIN | TOTAL 50 MIN

4 cups flour
3 cups wheat bran
2 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp each of baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg
1/2 tsp allspice

5 eggs
2 1/2 cups buttermilk
1 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cups vegetable oil
1/3 cup molasses
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

300g pkg frozen cranberries
3/4 cup raisins

PREHEAT oven to 375F. Combine flour, bran, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice in a large bowl. Whisk eggs lightly then add buttermilk, sugar, oil, molasses and vanilla, whisk lightly again. Add flour mixture and stir until just mixed – do not overmix. Stir in cranberries and raisins to evenly distribute.

FILL 24 (or more) muffin cups to the rim (I always use paper liners – just so much easier to get out of the pan).

BAKE until a toothpick inserted in middle comes out clean, about 15 – 20 minutes. Watch them closely and rotate and alternate muffin tins on racks (mine got a little too brown on the bottoms because I didn’t rotate them).

Remove from pans and place on cooling racks. If you like, melt some butter, dip each muffin in it and then in a sugar cinnamon mix – yumminess!

NOTES: I used fresh cranberries, chopped