Monday, October 5, 2009

a couple of Fall recipes

By popular request (haha!).....

Butternut Squash Muffins
Ingredients
* 1 1/2 cups unbleached flour (or a combination of unbleached and white wheat)
•1 teaspoon sea salt
•1 cup organic sugar
•1 teaspoon baking soda
•1 cup butternut squash (mashed thoroughly)
•1/2 cup neutral oil (like canola)
•2 eggs, Beaten
•1/4 cup milk
•1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
•1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
•1/2 cup (or more!) dark chocolate chips
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Sift together flour, salt, sugar, and baking soda. (or don't sift if you don't have the time or inclination).
3. In a separate bowl combined pumpkin, oil, eggs, milk, and spices.
4. Then, combine with dry ingredients, but do not mix too thoroughly. Stir in chocolate chips (or nuts or cranberries).
5. Pour into a muffin tin. Bake 20-25 minutes or 10-14 for mini muffins until a thin skewer poked in the very center of the muffin comes out clean. Turn out of the pan and let cool on a rack.

*note: to cook a butternut squash, simply slice it in half length wise, put it in a glass baking pan with about an inch of water around it, and bake at 425 degrees for 40 minutes to one hour (whenever you can easily poke the squashy part with a fork). this recipe is also delicious with pumpkin puree!!

Molasses Cookies
INGREDIENTS
• 3/4 cup butter, melted
• 1 cup organic sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup organic molasses
• 2 cups unbleached flour (or combination of unbleached white & wheat)
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves (we use these if we have them, but often we just omit)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1. In a medium bowl, mix together the melted butter, 1 cup sugar, and egg until smooth. Stir in the molasses.
2. Combine the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves, and ginger; blend into the molasses mixture. Cover, and chill dough for 1 hour.
3. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Roll dough into walnut sized balls. Place cookies 2 inches apart onto ungreased baking sheets.
4. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, until tops are cracked. Cool on wire racks.

Enjoy!!!!!

5 comments:

Lisa said...

Oh, what wonderful recipes! I love any cookie with molasses and ginger in it and those butternut squash muffins sound wonderful!
Thanks!

lisa

Blue Harvest Mama said...

Thank you for the awesome recipes! We made the butternut squash muffins today but with pumpkin pie mix - YUM!!! Tomorrow, COOKIES! :)

Do you mind if I share the recipe with friends?

Carrie said...

Erin, thanks so much for those recipes, especially the muffins. We will be making pumpkin muffins with pecans again now that the Autumn is here. I usually use pumpkin puree but I think this year we'll see how roasting pie pumpkins goes.

Roasted butternut squash is a favorite here - I cannot wait until our Farmers' Market has them! I roast the cut-side down, then flip over and fill with honey, brown sugar, pecans, cinnamon, butter and/or chopped apples and bake some more. And of course, giving your yummy muffins a try! Thanks!

Peace,
Carrie

Raymora said...

My mom used to make molasses cookies and they were my favoriate. I will have to try and make it wheat free.
Bring back childhood memories.

Erin said...

Cook, mamas, cook!!! Hurray for baking! And, Dionne, ofcourse you may pass on the recipes. :)