Chocolate Cherry Cider Muffins (Monday Muffins)

I mentioned in my very first muffin post that I love to make muffins and my kids love to eat muffins.  I make a lot of muffins out of the ingredients that I have in my kitchen, especially from my CSA farm share.  Since I've been so eager to share other recipes, however, I've got quite a backlog of muffin recipes to share.

So to work on this mass of muffin-ness, I'm starting an occasional (read, not weekly like Friday Night Pizza Night) series of Monday Muffin recipes.  I've got sweet muffin recipes, savory muffin recipes, and strange but good muffin recipes (Beet and Horseradish, anyone?).  I can pretty well say that they will involve less sugar and fat, and more whole grains than your standard bakery muffins.  And they will taste terrific.

Let's get started with a tasty winter treat!

These muffins sound like they are decadent, but really they're not that out there.  They are a morph of my Apple Cider Oatmeal Forgot-the-Sugar Muffins, so they can't be too unhealthy for ya, but with the chocolate and cherry additions they are a step above.

Note:  I let the cherry-cider-oat mixture hang out on my counter for about 4 hours until the cherries were pretty hydrated and the oats were fully . . . soaked.  I recommend at least 1 hour and up to overnight.  These muffins are easy to throw together and forget about for a while, perfect for any busy time.

Rolling in the Pizza: Basic Farm Fresh Feasts-a-boli (Pizza Night!)

You knew sooner or later I'd roll the pizza over, right?

I realize that there are endless variations on how to top a pizza, and I've barely scratched the surface of crust variations, but my spouse wanted a Nic-o-boli from Nicola Pizza in Rehoboth, Delaware for his birthday.

And we now live in Ohio.

And yes, I could order a frozen partially baked dozen shipped if I had to, but heck, I make pizza every week, so I should try this, right?

I did.

Then I tried a few other variations on the theme for good measure.  But those pizzas will be up later--for now, it's time to walk you through a basic rolled-over pizza, Farm Fresh Feasts style.  You gotta crawl before you can walk, right?  God bless physical therapists!  They taught my son to walk--right after his baby sister was born. Oy!  Bad timing!

I consulted the awesome The Best Pizza is Made at Home by Donna Rathnell German for specifics on baking time/temperature, and tried to recall the flavors of the basic Nic-o-boli.

Quadruple Roasted Vegetable Mock Florentine Mock Lasagna

I've been tweaking the blog a bit.  If you look over that way ----> you'll see a clickable Recipe Index.  Thanks to Jacqueline of Tinned Tomatoes for the code to make that work.  Moving the recipe index off the top bar gave me room for some essays (recipe-free ramblings, really) I wrote way back in the fall :) when I started this blog in case you just feel like reading a bit.
Let me know (comments or on my FB page) what you think!  On to the food.

This, probably more than anything else, illustrates how I feed my family from our CSA farm share all year 'round.

This dish contains 4 roasted veggies:  garlic, roasted after I harvested it and frozen in early summer, eggplant and bell peppers, marinated in a vinaigrette and roasted and frozen when I was overwhelmed with veggies in late summer, and sweet potato, roasted for another use and left over in the fridge.

The mock florentine refers to the liberal use of Swiss chard in lieu of spinach.  I used a bunch of fresh chard (stems in the sauce, leaves with the noodles) in addition to incorporating leftover Creamed Swiss Chard.  (If you're keeping track, the Leftover Score is now at 2).

The mock lasagna refers to the fact that, although I have a well-stocked pantry, I didn't have any lasagna noodles.  Yes,  I could go out and buy some, I'd rather use up what I already got.

Hence the crazy convoluted name.

I walked in the door after an afternoon wheelchair basketball exhibition game with the idea that I wanted "something good" for dinner but having no clue what that would be.  Seventy-five minutes later I was putting this dish in the oven.  It's not a 'quick take', but to go from cluelessly scratching my head in the middle of the kitchen to completed, ready-to-bake Quadruple Roasted Mock Palooza impresses me.  Then again, I'm easily impressed.

Having the roasted veggies and the prepared pesto put up, and a freezer full of potential pizza toppings, means that making this truly does illustrate my goal of feeding my family from our farm share--all year long.