Cranberry-Orange Muffins

I have found my inspiration to post more often! As of last night, I'm taking part in The Cookbook Challenge. My blog focuses on recipes from cookbooks anyway, but now I have the fun of themes and deadlines with this. And I just love a challenge!

Today is the final day for the current theme, citrus, so I had to use what I had on hand. The only citrus fruit that I had was oranges, so I started searching through all my cookbooks looking for a good recipe that uses oranges, and I really couldn't come up with much. For some reason, if people want to make something that involves citrus, they pretty much only ever want to use lemons.

So I had to settle for a recipe that wasn't very citrus-y, being outshined by the cranberries, but still very good.

This is another recipe from Betty Crocker's New Cookbook, published in 1996.

1 tbsp grated orange peel

1 cup milk

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 large egg

2 cups all-purpose or whole wheat flour

1/3 cup sugar

3 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup fresh cranberry halves

Note: I felt that these could have been sweeter, so you might want to increase the sugar slightly.

I honestly had no idea what the inside of a cranberry looked like before today.

Beat orange peel, milk, oil, vanilla, and egg in large bowl. Stir in flour, sugar, baking powder and salt all at once just until flour is moistened (batter will be lumpy).

Fold in cranberry halves.

Heat oven to 400F. Grease bottoms only of 12 medium muffin cups or line with paper baking cups. Divide batter evenly among muffin cups.

(This is what overstirred muffin batter looks like. I decided at the last moment to add a little bit of cinnamon, and stirring that in made the batter a lot less lumpy.)

Bake 20-25 minutes or until golden. Immediately remove from pan to wire rack.

Mushroom Soup

Don't worry, I have not forgotten about this blog! I believe that NaNoWriMo made me sick of writing/typing much. I hope to get back into the swing of things soon.

This mushroom soup is fantastic. Not only is it delicious, but it's really easy to make and uses few ingredients, all of which are cheap. I've already made it three different times! The recipe is from An Acquired Taste: A collection of fine recipes from Winchester Thurston School and Pittsburgh celebrities and restaurants, published in 2000. The book credits this recipe to Carole Oswald Markus.

1 pound mushrooms, chopped
1 quart chicken or vegetable broth
1 medium onion, chopped
6 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons flour
1 cup cream (optional)
salt and pepper


I used white mushrooms and also chanterelle mushrooms. I didn't bother using cream. The flour thickens the soup quite nicely.

Simmer mushrooms in broth for 30 minutes.
Sauté onion in butter until golden.
Sprinkle flour into onions and cook for a few minutes. Mix into mushroom soup.
Cream can be added at this point, if desired. Season to taste.
Makes four servings.