blue artichoke

If you'll remember, before corn retaliated against my blog, I excitedly bought lots of strawberries, some at the grocery store and some from a little ol' lady in the health department parking lot. With those strawberries, I made muffins, even though it was the first week of June and May is actually National Strawberry month. I'm such a renegade, bending all the rules. The recipe includes a recipe for strawberry jam, which I also made, using the smaller and riper strawberries. The jam is really easy, especially for novice jam-makers like me. There was no need for pectin or paraffin or processing the canning jars. Nope, the recipe is really simple, but the jam is so delicious. It won't last long in the fridge, but it's so good that it wouldn't last long anyway.

My berries were ripening quickly, so I made up the wet batter several days in advance, to save the strawberries from getting too ripe. It was then very easy to mix together the muffin batter. The muffins baked up into a nice thick crumb texture, with a light but distinct strawberry flavor. Super.

Strawberry-Orange Muffins

1-¼ cups halved strawberries
3 tablespoons butter or stick margarine, melted
2 teaspoons grated orange rind
2 large eggs
1-½ cups all-purpose flour
1-¼ cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
Cooking spray
2 teaspoons sugar

Preheat oven to 400°.

Combine first 4 ingredients in a blender, and process just until blended. Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife.

Combine flour, 1 1/4 cups sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add strawberry mixture to flour mixture, stirring just until moist. Spoon batter into 12 muffin cups coated with cooking spray. Sprinkle with 2 teaspoons sugar.

Bake at 400° for 20 minutes or until muffins spring back when touched lightly in center. Remove from pan immediately.

Serve warm with Brandied Strawberry Jam.

Yield: 1 dozen (serving size: 1 muffin)

CALORIES 184 (20% from fat); FAT 4g (sat 2.1g,mono 1.2g,poly 0.3g); PROTEIN 2.8g; CHOLESTEROL 45mg; CALCIUM 33mg; SODIUM 179mg; FIBER 0.8g; IRON 1mg; CARBOHYDRATE 34.8g
Cooking Light, MAY 1999

Brandied Strawberry Jam

This easy jam doesn't involve canning. It will keep in the fridge for about two weeks.

4 cups quartered strawberries
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup brandy, divided
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine strawberries, sugar, and 3 tablespoons brandy in a heavy Dutch oven; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer until reduced to 1 1/2 cups (about 45 minutes), stirring occasionally. Remove from heat; stir in 1 tablespoon brandy and vanilla. Spoon into a bowl; cool to room temperature. Cover and chill.

Yield: 1-1/2 cups (serving size: 1 tablespoon)

CALORIES 26 (3% from fat); FAT 0.1g (sat 0.0g,mono 0.0g,poly 0.1g); PROTEIN 0.2g; CHOLESTEROL 0.0mg; CALCIUM 4mg; SODIUM 0.0mg; FIBER 0.6g; IRON 0.1mg; CARBOHYDRATE 6g
Cooking Light, MAY 1999