Bancrango Nut Muffins

The dry ingredients include: 3 cups flour; 1 cup sugar (brown or white); 1 tablespoon baking powder; 1/2 teaspoon baking soda; 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg (optional).  Use a whisk to blend the dry ingredient together. (PS...the entire recipe is listed below)

Walnuts, before chopping

After chopping with a knife

About 1 cup of nuts - I like walnuts because they aren't so hard.

Dried Mangos, chopped up

About 1 cup.  If the mangos are too dry, you can pour boiling water over them to soak them for a few minutes.  Then pour off the liquid and they will be softer.  I do this with raisins anytime I use them for baking.

1/2 cup of dried cranberries.  You can use more if you like.

I just put them all together in a bowl and wait to add them to the batter.

1/2 cup of melted cooled unsalted butter.  Put butter in a bowl and into the microwave for 15-20 seconds, and it should be melted without being hot.

The rest of the wet ingredients: 1 1/2 cups of yogurt. For these muffins I used peach yogurt (but any flavour would be fine - even plain will work). 1 1/2 cup of mushed bananas (it usually works out to 3-4 bananas - if you have abit more than 1 1/2 cups, thats okay too). Also, add 2 large eggs and whisk the whole thing together.  The melted butter can be added to this bowl too.  Please note, if your melted butter is too hot it will cook the eggs....yuck - you don't want that to happen.  One option is to mix the yogurt, bananas and eggs together and then

add the butter separately and mix together.  This time I put the butter in last, but that was only because I forgot about it and just about missed putting it in....a big oops that would have been!

Mix the wet ingredients to make a well blended batter....

Add the wet to the dry ingredients and GENTLY fold together until just about blended then add the nuts, mango and cranberries and again GENTLY fold the whole thing so it is just blended.

It should look something like this:

The more extra ingredients you put into it the thicker the batter will be - but it will still back up just as delicious.

Fill your greased muffin tins.  I use an oil spray and always seem to get 24 muffins.

Bake for 20 to 26 minutes in a 375 oven until a toothpick comes out clean.  Don't overbake - your muffins will get dry.  I use a convection heat and get a very even browning on the muffins. Of course this time I only had the oven at 350 and they were done before they browned nicely - still good though so go and ENJOY!

The muffin recipe:
375 preheated oven.  Yield: 24 muffins
3 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups yogurt (I used peach, but you can use whatever you have)
1 1/2 cups mushed  banana
1/2 cup melted cool unsalted butter
2 large eggs
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup chopped dried mangos
1/2 cup dried cranberries

Roast Chicken - simple

Roasted chicken resting after coming out of the oven.  I have roasted chicken with various seasonings and rubs, and always end up doing the simplest and easiest, usually because of time constraints - but always delicious and moist.

I rub the chicken with this seasoning before it goes into the oven.  I poured some in the palm of one hand and just rubbed down each chicken. 
I lined a jelly-roll pan (cookie sheet with edges for those of you who have never heard of a jelly roll pan) with parchment paper, my sheet liner of choice, but you could use aluminum foil as well.  I place the chickens onto a cake cooling rack and onto the lined pan.

The oven was at 400, and this time I used convection roast, I had the chicken in the oven for 1 hour 10 minutes.  The picture shows me basting the chicken with the juices from the bottom of the pan after about 50 minutes.  I basted the chicken every 15 minutes to get a nice crispy browned skin.  I didn't add anymore seasoning except what was on the bottom of the pan.

I check the internal temperature to make sure it is over 175 when I take it out of the oven.  The internal temp. will continue to rise a few degrees while it rests.  Do not cut into the chicken until it has rested for at least 10 minutes, otherwise all the juices will come out of the chicken and your chicken will be dry.

I know this is hard to see, but the chicken breast is very moist as I cut it into pieces. 

I didn't cut up the whole chicken, but left one whole chicken breast to be used for sandwich meat.  The rest of the meat will be removed and used for chicken pot pie or soup.  I will put all the bones and juices into a pot, add a carrot/celery/onion and some salt. Cover with water and simmer until the meat comes easily off the bones. I discard the bones and veggies and keep the stock for soup or gravy for another meal.  It can be frozen in ice-cube trays too.

This chicken was eaten with fried rice, broccoli and caramalized yams, no go and ENJOY!

Fried Rice - Basic

Here is a simple way to make fried rice.   I didn't add any extra stuff, that will be posted at a later date (or when I make it again).

I use leftover rice (I do not use converted rice, but you can use whatever rice you want - brown rice works well too) and heat it in the microwave abit so it is easier to handle in the pan. I used a non-stick pan.  You can add butter at the start, this time I did not.

I put some sesame oil over the rice and mixed it all together.  Again, in many of these types of dishes, you will have to judge how much to add. It all depends on how much rice you use, less rice, less oil, more rice more oil...

Pour in some oyster sauce. 

Oyster sauce tends to be fairly thick, so I added some water (beef/chicken stock, or potato water works too) to make it easier to mix with the rice. Stir it all together to coat the rice as evenly as you can.

Push the rice to make a rice free area.  I added 3 eggs, but depends on how much you make whether you use 1 or 2 eggs.

Cook the eggs until they look like wet scrambled eggs, then mix the eggs together with the rice.

Taste your rice, I found that it needed more taste, so I sprinkled soy sauce over the rice and mixed well.

I cut green onions into the fried rice mixture.

mix and eat

Fill your favourite serving bowl with the fried rice, sprinkle on some roasted sesame seeds and ENJOY!

Yummy Yams

Caramalized yams, very delicious! 

 Jan W. thank you for asking about how I make it.

I baked this very large yam in the oven at 350 for 2 hours.  The sugars were just starting to bubble out of the yam when I pulled it out of the oven.  I let it rest for 20 minutes or so.

I removed the peel after the resting period.  It was very easy, because during the resting period, the moisture helped the peel to separate from the yam meat.

I sliced it into large slices.

In a separate bowl I put some brown sugar and maple syrup (regular pancake syrup will work too) and a wee bit of water.

Mix together to make smooth.  Use this to coat the yam slices.

I put a tablespoon of unsalted butter into a warm non-stick fry pan.

I added the yam slices to the pan, and brushed the sugar/syrup/water mixture onto the yam slices. In this picture, the yam has already been flipped once.

Here is the second side, already looking delicious.  I kept the heat at medium, and cooked them slow to help the sugars caramalize without burning.

The yams were served with broccoli, roasted chicken and fried rice.  It is something that you will definitely ENJOY!

Aparagus

Obtain one bunch of asparagus. I try to choose very small stalks as they are more tender than the larger stalks.

Chop off the woody base

Rinse under cold water to clean

Heat a pan with 1 part olive oil and 1 part unsalted butter.  I like using butter because it gives a creamier flavour.

Add the asparagus to the pan with olive oil and butter.(you can cut then in half if you have a smaller sauce pan)

Sprinkle some garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper and Roasted Red Pepper and Garlic seasoning mix.  If you don't have the Roasted Red Pepper & Garlic seasoning, just sprinkle a bit of salt.

I then add 1/4 cup of water, rotate the asparagus so the seasoning hits all the stalks evenly.

Put a lid on it  and turn the heat down to medium, let it steam for 3-5 minutes, or until it looks ready.

The lid is off, lookin' good.  They should be crisp tender, don't overcook or the asparagus will become mushy, they will taste good, but the texture isn't nice.

You can serve asparagus on its own or as a side dish with any meat.  This meal included asparagus, sliced cucumber,  parmesan eggplant, roast pork, boiled potatoes and gravy.

Asparagus has a nice mild flavour, so try some and ENJOY!