Thursday, July 22, 2010

Amazing Muffins! "To-Die-For Cherry Almond" and Cream Muffins

Tonight I tried a great new recipe so I wanted to share it with you! It will be included in my Family Favorites album , for sure!


Here's the recipe! On the website it's called "To Die For Bluberry Muffins" and I'm sure blueberries would be just as wonderful! I'd maybe decrease the amount of sugar for blueberries though. I made these muffins with Almonds and Cherries because that's what I had and it sounded SO good! Reminds me a lot of the sour cherry muffins that Costco makes during the holidays!


So, start with clean, fresh or frozen cherries... and pit them. Make the batter.. I added 1 tsp vanilla and 1/2 tsp almond flavor PLUS I added 1/2 Cup chopped almonds to the batter. You could also get creative and exchange some or all of the flour for brown rice flour or a little bit or others like millet, white rice flour, or spelt. I also added 1/2- 1 tsp of cream cheese (because it was on a closeout). And I the last thing I changed was adding 1/4 cup chopped almonds to the crumble topping plus a bit of Pampered Chef's Lemon Sprinkles.


And here they are! Fresh out of the oven!


You did want to see the gooey cream cheese right? I can't even tell you how wonderful it was to bite into a bit of crunchy topping, warm cream cheesy goodness, a tart cherry and the fluffy cake-like muffin! Add these to your list of recipes to make and you wouldn't be dissapointed!

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Cherries Jubilee!

I'm sitting down after many hours of quality time spent with... cherries. There's the picking, hauling, washing, sorting:


Then there's the pitter! This is the most time-consuming part, of course so you NEED a good cherry pitter. This is a Pampered Chef one. I also used, just a cheap plastic one from a grocery store. Either way, you don't want jam with pits!
Speaking of jam.... I made 5 batches of Cherry freezer jam! These containers from Ball work great! Just twist, open and with some fresh bread and peanut butter!


I also made 3 canner-fuls of cherry pie filling! Yum! It even has cinnamon and nutmeg!




Cherries. They are jubilicious!
ps. this is by no means the full process of canning cherries! For that info, look for up -to- date canning recipes and guidelines from Ball!