TWD: Lemon Poppyseed Muffins

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I been neglecting my Tuesday with Dorie group.  But I had to be honest the last recipes just have not caught my attention at all, and I have to say I’m sort of picky when it comes to making desserts.  If I truly don’t love it, then why waste ingredients in making something that I’m not going to eat in the first place?

I’m sticking to that, sorry folks, that is how the cookie crumbles around my house.

But I could not PASS UP this weeks choice picked for us to try by Betsy at A Cup of Sweetness.  I’m a huge fan of lemon poppyseed muffins and I’m always looking for the right balance of lemony goodness and sweet. So I have eaten A LOT of lemon muffins in my lifetime.

And sadly I have not found it yet, they are always way to sweet or way to lemon-y.  So when I saw these, I thought to myself - Ok, Dorie, show me what you got.

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French Toast Casserole

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Another fact about me…I don’t like breakfast.  In fact eating early in the morning – yuck!

Maybe the fact that I’m NOT a morning person has everything to do with this.  I barely can think in the morning hours to get myself from my house to work, so breakfast is not a high point.  The only thing I have to have in the morning is my café con leche (coffee with milk, or café au latte, if we want to get fancy) if I don’t have that every morning, I’m a cranky person the rest of the day – which means no fun for anyone in my immediate vicinity.

But, I do love brunch. Not during the weekdays, only during the weekend, specifically Sunday brunch.

I think every city had that special brunch place that everyone like to go to.  The one that has the perfect Egg Benedict, or that bake egg with that yummy sauce, how about the bagel with lox or the fruit platters? Or if you are bad, like me, you like to skip all that protein and mosey over to the dark side of carbs. The one, with the sweet breads, Danishes, pies, quiches or the loaded pancakes and waffles.

Yep, I’m all about brunch.

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GCC: Menu 4 - Wild Mushroom Tartlets

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After last weeks difficulties with the Empanadas, I was a bit worried going in with the Gutsy Cook menu.  First it involved making another dough for the tarts, Hollandaise sauce (A first for me) and my cooking schedule this past weekend sort of exploded all over the place, up till late saturday I was not even sure I was going to be able to make them at all.

But, once I’m committed to something, its hard for me to say no.

So, I started with a bit of research about dough that gets used for the tartles and found that the recipe in the Kitchen Bible is pretty standard to everything that is out there.  In fact it was the same recipe in 5 different cookbooks that I use to cross-reference.

Relief flow through me.  This was going to be a piece of cake.

And it was.

The dough is pretty easy, if you use your handy food processor, which forever and ever will be my go to for making pie crust, tart dough and anything that involves the words “until it resembles coarse bread crumbs”.  Because, I’m sorry, but I don’t think making this by hand I will get to the point of feeling it resemble coarse nothing.

So, into the food processor it went and 3 minutes later it was in the refrigerator taking a chill.  The dough was a complete success, rolling it out and placing in the tart baking shells went smoothly and no swearing was heard from the kitchen.

I was crossing my finger that this was going to be the theme - EASY.

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