Nothing beats a good muffin in the morning, especially with a warm drink in the other hand. There are so many different types of muffin recipes available, but my favorite has always been one which included blueberries. Luckily, I had some left over from another baking project so I decided to create some tasty muffins using them and include our unique Almond Meal Flour.

Almond Meal Flour contributes a really nice taste and texture to baked goods. You can substitute up to 25% of the flour in a recipe with this flour. So if you have a recipe which calls for 1 cup of flour, you can use ¼ cup Almond Meal Flour and ¾ cup of the flour called for in the recipe. Sometimes more can be used in a recipe, but this ratio is a safe bet for good results.

People really enjoyed these muffins so I hope you do as well!

Portland is famous for our rainy weather and this spring has been no exception. Day after day of rainy gray days can make a person a little stir crazy sometimes. When I get stir crazy, I like to jump into the kitchen and bake up something delicious. It keeps my mind off of the weather and I find it so comforting to create something good to eat.

These days my inspiration has come from trying to find quality whole grain recipes that replace something I normally purchase pre-made. I probably have too much time on my hands, but good, homemade food is one of the many pleasures of being human.

For bread, I have been baking Three Seed Bread. With the addition of hard white whole wheat flour, in place of white flour, I find this loaf hearty and wholesome and irresistible right out of the oven with a pat of butter. Our website has many recipes that are far more complicated and will yield an amazing loaf, but I love the simplicity of this bread. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Here’s a sneak peak of a recipe that will be featured in our upcoming Bob’s Red Mill Cookbook. Our cookbook will feature over 350 recipes dedicated to cooking delicious whole grain foods and hit the publisher this fall. Look for it in major book retailers across the country and in our mail order catalog in October.

While flipping through the manuscript, I came across this recipe and could not ignore it. I decided that there was none more deserving of a sneak peak than you, our loyal customers.

What struck me about this recipe, and many of the recipes in the cookbook, was how gourmet the meal sounds compared to its relatively easy preparation. This dish contains only 6 ingredients and is ready-to-eat in only 35 minutes. Enjoy!

Polenta with Goat Cheese and Basil

1/2 tsp Salt
1 cup Polenta/Corn Grits or Coarse Cornmeal
2 to 4 Tbsp Unsalted Butter (optional)
8 ounces (1 cup) Chèvre or other soft creamy Goat Cheese
1/4 cup thinly sliced Basil Leaves
Salt
Freshly Ground Black Pepper

Lightly grease a 10-inch pie plate or wide, shallow bowl.

Bring 3 cups of water to a boil. Add the salt and then slowly add the polenta, whisking to prevent clumping. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring frequently, until very thick, about 30 minutes. Remove the cooked polenta from the heat. Stir in the butter (if using) and mix thoroughly. Fold in the goat cheese and then the basil. Season the polenta with salt and pepper to taste. Spoon the polenta into the prepared pie plate and set aside to cool for 5 to 10 minutes. Cut into wedges or squares to serve.

While the weather outside may still be rather frightful in your area, it is officially spring here in the Portland. One of my favorite parts of spring, beyond flowers and sunny days, is the return of fresh, seasonal produce- specifically asparagus.

Asparagus will be poking up their little green heads any time now and sharing their bounty with us for only a few weeks. The true season for asparagus is preciously short, spanning only a few weeks in late March and April (depending on your local climate). The little green shoot that we identify as asparagus is best eaten the same day it is cut, although this is possible only for the few people who have access to fresh asparagus.

Even if you cannot enjoy asparagus fresh from the ground, the green shoots are incredibly delicious and offer a bounty of nutrients including vitamin K, folate, vitamin C, dietary fiber and vitamin A.

While asparagus can be steamed and eaten with just olive oil, salt and pepper, it also makes a great addition to salad, stir-fry and pasta. At Bob’s Red Mill, we really like this recipe for Wild Rice, Asparagus and Pecan Salad. How do you enjoy asparagus at home?

 

We had a lot of fun choosing the most creative toppings for our pizza contest last month. The topping ideas you submitted were so wild and tasty that Bob turned the contest over to us for a company-wide vote to determin our winners. After two intense, tie-breaking rounds, we finally picked our finalists.

For Meat Medley, Bonnie Nork from Klamath Falls, Oregon, won with her recipe for “Pesto Pizza with Bay Shrimp,” which left us all drooling. Here- is how she describes her recipe: “Last summer we had a surplus of garlic scapes from our CSA (the green shoots that the garlic bulb sends up before it’s ready for harvest). I made them into pesto (scapes, toasted walnuts, olive oil, and parmesan) and froze several batches. One of my favorite uses for this pesto was on a grilled pizza. I grilled the crust, both sides, then spread it with garlic scape pesto. I then sprinkled it with cooked Oregon baby shrimp, a medley of chopped roasted peppers, and a tiny bit of shredded mozzarella. Absolutely phenomenal!”

For Veritable Veggies, Gena Stout from Ravenden, Arizona, won with her recipe for “Gena’s Pizza.” To make Gena’s Pizza, she uses “any jarred red sauce, then top with a mixture of canned artichoke hearts, fresh spinach, canned sliced black olives, jarred capers and top with veggie cheese shreds.”

For Craziest Concoction Overall, we put all of the pizzas in the ring. While we had some pretty unique and delicious sounding dessert pizzas, the pizza that won Craziest Overall was “Curried Potato and Spinach Pizza” from Alina Abbot of Fort Edward, New York. Alina was kind enough to share her full recipe with us:

Curried Potato & Spinach Pizza
Leftover Boiled Potatoes, quartered (red or white, not too large)
Cooked Spinach
some Plain Yogurt (maybe between 1/2 cup to 1 cup, depending on how much potatoes you have)
curry powder (around 2 tsp.)
1-2 cloves garlic minced
1/4 cup sm. diced onion
Salt & Pepper
Fresh cilantro

I never measured, but here’s how it goes. Mix the curry powder, S & P, garlic, and onion into the yogurt till well combined. Add yogurt mixture to the leftover boiled potatoes & spinach, spread a generous layer on top of cooked pizza crust. (pizza cooks faster if potato mixture is heated up, like on stove or microwave.) Add a sprinkle of feta cheese evenly over topping. Then add plenty of mozzarella on top of that. Bake in oven till oozy & bubbling. Immediately garnish with chopped cilantro before serving. Pizza will look lumpy with the potatoes in it, but that is part of the awesomeness of it.

Alina says that she “came up with this by making curried potatoes with spinach for dinner one night, then decided to use the leftovers for topping a pizza. We changed it a couple times, but we like the end result!“

At Bob’s Red Mill, we like to reward creativity. One of the most unusual entries we received far exceeded what we would normally consider to be appetizing. A very special gift is going out to Cindy Vattathil from Houston, Texas, for her BBQ Sauce and Nerds Pizza.

Here’s what Cindy had to say about her unusual combination. “When I was pregnant with my daughter, I craved some of the most unusual things. This was, by far, the most bizarre combination that I ever put together…but, for some reason, it really hit the spot! I don’t know if my sweet-tooth was converging with my husband’s love of BBQ in the form of my daughter’s pre-natal needs… I don’t know if the crunchy texture mixed with the kick of the sauce was exactly what I desired to help stave off my morning sickness… Whatever the (still) unknown reasoning behind this combination, it worked. Of course, I have never had it since my pregnancy; but, it does go down in our family’s history as the most unusual pizza we’ve ever eaten!”

Thank you to everyone who participated in the contest and tantalized our team with so many mouth-watering pizza combinations. Look for more tasty contests coming up in 2009!