Muffin Lady Update & Chicken Salad Sammies

Another day, another muffin. I promise this is the last muffin post for awhile, and for those sick of 'em (you crazy fool, you), I have another quick treat down below.

Thanks to everyone for sending me recipes. You've successfully fed into my muffin making obsession and I will be making them shortly once I recover from this muffin binge. I'm sure it won't take long. I recover quickly, thank God.

I made yet another batch of Raisin Bran muffins and think I like 'em better. These banana filled babies received an A+ on the day-after dryness test. I'm not sure if its the added fat from the butter or the moisture from the mashed bananas, but these do not remind me of the dry bran muffins I'm used to!



Here's the recipe I modified from the Kellogg's website for any of you gettin' rid of your cereal. Kristal, I know. It's blasphemy :) Because I have no mixer in the studio, I first melted the butter as opposed to creaming it with a mixer. Even if I did have my beloved KitchenAid, I think I like this low maintenance method -- one less thing to wash!

Ok, on to life beyond muffins!

I made this chicken salad sammy for hubby's lunch today. He seemed to find it strange that I stopped to take photos as he was waiting to leave for work, but I've gotta show off my creations, right? I never use a hard and fast recipe when making chicken salad, so if you'd like some better guidance try visiting Picky Palate or The Pioneer Woman who are much better teachers than me on this short attention span Friday.

My version starts with a poached chicken breast. It's up to you whether you prefer to dice or shred your chicken. Personally, I like my chicken shredded as diced chicken sometimes reminds me of the bad pasta or chicken salads that use pre-fab processed chicken chunks. Yuck.

The dressing consists of nothing fancier than a little Hellman's mayo, lemon juice, spicy brown mustard, Kosher salt & fresh ground pepper, diced red peppers, and green grapes (cut in half). I season as I go so its hard to give exact measurements. I often cook as my mom taught me - just wing it!

Top your chicken salad with some cucumbers & spinach and you're on your way to a healthy lunch! Have a great weekend.

Help a Manic Muffin Lady

DC is wonderful, but I'm starting to miss the luxuries of home: my trusty red Kitchenaid mixer, a toaster oven, my Calphalon pans, oh and of course, my bed. Nothing's better than your own bed, dont ya think? Because the college kid has no other baking tools beyond a muffin pan, I have been well, baking a lot of muffins to satisfy my need for baking. When I get back home, I've already compiled a list of quick breads, yeast rolls and cornbread that I'm dying to make.

Today's muffins come as a courtesy of our cereal addiction. When cereal is on sale, I cannot pass it up and as a result, we have more cereal boxes than living space in the studio right now. How two people can devour 5 boxes of cereal is really beyond me. In an attempt to clear out the pantry, I went after my least favorite cereal,Raisin Bran and tried to repurpose it as muffins.




Raisin Bran cereal is soaked in a milk mixture along with molasses, brown sugar, oil and an egg. To boost the 'excitement' factor of sometimes blah bran muffins, I added cinnamon, chopped apples and extra raisins to the batter.

These were delightful straight out of the oven - warm & fluffy. A day later, the muffins were still good but a little bit on the dry side - nothing a quick 5 second nuke in the microwave didn't fix. Is this just the nature of bran muffins? I seem to have run into this day-old dry-bran muffins dillema many a time - they're never quite the same the 2nd day around.

Readers, please help! I need to get rid of this box of Raisin Bran. Do you have any tried & true Raisin Bran or bran muffin recipes to share? Something that doesn't dry out the next day? If so, please share!

In the meantime, here's my recipe. I'd suggest gobbling these guys up on the day you make them. Making half of a recipe always helps as well.

Molasses Apple Raisin Bran Muffins (Low Fat)

2 cups Raisin Bran cereal
handful of extra raisins (use your judgement. My cereal didn't have enough raisins)
1/2 of an apple, cored, peeled & diced
3/4 cup milk
1 extra large egg, slightly beaten
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup molasses
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
pinch of salt

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease or line 12 muffin cups with muffin cups liners. In a medium bowl, whisk milk, egg, brown sugar, vanilla, molasses and oil in a bowl until combined. Stir in cereal, raisins and apple. Allow to stand for 10 minutes.

2. Stir cereal mixture again to break up cereal. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and pinch of salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the center and add cereal mixture. Stir until just combined and divide batter among muffin cups. Bake 20 minutes or until toothpick comes out of center clean.

Makes 12 muffins.