Asparagus Goat Cheese Muffins #MuffinMonday

A savory dinner muffin bursting with bright lemony asparagus and tangy goat cheese.

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It's funny how, when Spring hits, you feel all fresh and new inside when in a brown reality you're surrounded (barely) by bits of buds and shoots. There's not much green around! The local Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share food I'm currently feeding my family is the last of the Strategic Winter Squash Reserve out of my basement plus whatever I've canned and/or frozen during the past year.


That doesn't stop me from craving green things. Grabbing a bag of local spinach out of the freezer to make a Peanut Butter, Spinach, and Banana Smoothie helps, but I need fresh green vegetables in my life, too! This craving for fresh greens is yet another way eating seasonally from the farm share has changed my life.

I've never gardened in one place long enough to even think about growing asparagus until it's too late. It's always in hindsight that I think "you know, if I'd planted an asparagus bed our first year here, we could have harvested some before we moved". I've read that "military spouses plant annuals for themselves, and perennials for those who come after them". That's sure been my experience. I've left strawberry patches, daffodils, and/or mint beds all over the globe, but I've never moved to a home that had an established asparagus bed. Maybe someday.

These muffins were inspired by a ravioli I make at work. I kept some key elements and turned them into a savory muffin. This would be good with chili, stew, or a Spring/Summer soup like my Finnish Summer Soup with Kale. I tend to think most muffins are enhanced when served warm with butter, but these were pretty nice served to my classmates at room temperature without any butter. We had wine, though, so that possibly made a difference. Who knows?

Matcha Monkey Bread with Pistachio

This overnight sweet brunch bread is a perfect way to start off a St Patrick's Day celebration. Delicately, naturally, green from matcha powder, this monkey bread is rolled in pistachios for flavor and crunch.

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I like to celebrate holidays with food, even if it's not a holiday I claim as my birthright. I'll make Pumpkin Cranberry Maple Kugel even though I'm not Jewish, and Corned Beef, Cabbage & Dubliner Pizza although my People went a viking to the Emerald Isle then returned home to Scandinavia. It's fun to celebrate with food, especially colorful food. Recently I shared an attempt at green muffins that did not work out exactly as I'd hoped--even if they were tasty!

One surefire way to have naturally-colored baked goods is to make the dough ahead of time, letting it rest in the fridge. This allows the color to deepen, and has worked for me with several Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share vegetables. It seems, in my experience, that a cooked vegetable as part of the moisture for a yeasted dough results in vibrant breads. My two favorite examples, so far, are my three color Mardi Gras Braided Bread and my bicolor Overnight Sweet Potato Pecan Monkey Bread. Today's recipe is a fusion of those two--taking the green matcha dough from the Mardi Gras bread and baking it in the manner of the monkey bread. I kept up the green theme by using pistachios in place of pecans, but this recipe remains inspired by the book Make Ahead Bread by Donna Currie.

Sausage Pasty Meat Pie

A savory meat pie stuffed with seasoned pork sausage and vegetables.

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With Pi day (March 14, or 3.14) coming up, how about a meat pie? Meat pies make a wonderful dinner and a great leftover lunch. You can combine Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share vegetables with meat into a simple and satisfying vehicle for nourishment.

I did not grow up eating meat pies. My spouse did--in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where the pasty reigns supreme. Last summer we took the kids on a Lake Michigan Loop (up one side and down the other). We ate pasties in multiple places. Each was different (pasty sliders?!) and nearly all were amazing. [At one tourist place I had a merely 'good' pasty, but the brown gravy served alongside it was a new twist for me, so I considered that visit not a total loss.

This pasty uses pork sausage. It was inspired by my visit to the Runyan family of Oak View Farm Meats where I received a basket of pork products to play with at home, including the pound of pork sage sausage I used in this recipe, and loads of ideas on how to use them. You can take a virtual tour of Oak View Farm Meats with me here. I wanted to make a colorful filling to stand out from the paleness of the sausage, so I grabbed what I had handy--some potatoes from the basement Strategic Winter Squash Reserve--and a package of marked down chopped vegetables from the store. The key is to use finely chopped vegetables so that you have a cohesive filling.