Blueberry and Orange Muffins

Traditionally it is lemon and blueberry muffins but I wanted to be different.  Muffins are simple and easy to make.

Makes 12 Muffins

Ingredients:

300g Self Raising Flour

100g Caster Sugar

1tsp Baking Powder
Pinch of Salt

175ml Soy Milk

125ml Corn Oil

1 Egg
The peel of 1 Orange, grated
150g - 200g Fresh Blueberries (plus 12 for decorating)

Method:

1.  Wash blueberries and let them dry.  Take 1 tsp flour and put to one side.

2.  Grate an orange and finely chop the zest.  I think using the zest setting releases too many oils and I prefer bigger bits of orange.

3.  I didn't sift my flour this time because my sieve was acting as a colander for my blueberries.  It didn't make much difference.  Great time saving tip!
Add baking powder, sugar and salt.  Stir thoroughly.

4.  Measure the milk and oil into a measuring jug, add egg and beat together. Add the orange peel.

5.  Fan oven on, heat to 170c.
Line the muffin tin with 2 paper cases for each hole.  In a bowl, mix the 1tsp flour with the blueberries.  Then tip this into the flour/sugar/salt/powder bowl.
When the oven is hot enough, you can mix the wet and dry ingredients together.  I did this by putting the liquid into a bowl and then tipping the dry ingredients.  Combine until just mixed, do not over-stir.

6.  Spoon evenly between cases.  Apply a blueberry on top.  Bake for 20-25mins.

Review:

I think orange worked well.  I will experiment with putting some of the juice into the muffin mix next time.  I love how the blueberries bleed, they create a gorgeous marbling effect on top.  The great thing about home baking is that it is custom made and this one is bursting with blueberries!

Garlic and Rosemary Potato Wedges

 I have an abundance of potatoes to use up that I bought for the Christmas meal.  I wanted something moreish and simple.  I had cooked garlic and rosemary roast potatoes for Christmas and still had that fresh (or not quite as fresh) rosemary to use up.  I took out all the possible potato wedges seasonings from my cupboard.  These included: garlic salt, Cajun seasoning, oregano, rosemary, celery salt and chilli powder.  In the end, I settled on fresh rosemary and fresh garlic with salt & pepper.

The only bit of research I needed was the oven temperature and how long to bake them for.  Jamie Oliver came up first but he /gasp par boils them first!  Wedges are supposed to be simple and oven cooked.  You might as well make roasties if you're going to parboil them.  Then I stumbled upon a student recipe website: http://studentrecipes.com/recipes/party-foods/potato-wedges/

Makes...loads!

Ingredients:

Potatoes (I happened to have King Edwards and they worked well)

Extra Virgin Olive Oil (this was the only Olive oil in my house)

4 sprigs of fresh Rosemary, stalks removed

8 cloves of fresh Garlic, squashed, deskinned and roughly chopped

Plenty of Salt and freshly ground Black Pepper

Method:

1. Wash the potatoes and cut into wedges.  I do this by halving them lengthways (biggest surface area as possible) then quartering each half lengthways (8 wedges per large potato).  The potatoes were extremely starchy so I soaked them in cold water.

Cold bath

2. Drain the potatoes.  Meanwhile get a large baking tray/roasting tin and drizzle oil on the base.  Apply half the rosemary and garlic bits.  Place the potato wedges evenly in one layer as possible.  Liberally apply salt and pepper.  Sprinkle the rest of the rosemary and garlic and slug more oil on top.

3. Cook at 200C for 40 mins.  I turned them over halfway.

Serve with lemon mayonnaise.

Review:
Hmmm, these were really good!  I ate waaaaay too many.  Minor improvements would be more even cooking which would require uniform potatoes.  I did have some parts of the tray with more oil than other parts.  I think the wedges would benefit from a proper tossing in the oil and seasonings!
Note to self:  Make these instead of roast potatoes for Christmas because they were so much more simpler to make and tastier too!