Cranberry Honey Butter

This compound butter is tangy and slightly sweet, terrific on seasonal veggies, desserts, or breads. It's a terrific last minute homemade addition to a Thanksgiving or holiday meal.

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I couldn't decide if I should post this recipe for Thanksgiving, Thanksgivukkah, or Christmas meals, so I opted for the 'throw it up there the day before Thanksgiving and call it a last-minute homemade addition' strategy.


Did it work?


If you're reading this in a turkey coma, I hope to give you ideas for upcoming meals or a reason to toss a bag of cranberries (on sale now, impossible to find later) into the freezer.

The pretty pink color would look nice on a variety of tablescapes--Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine's day--tragically I am not a tablescape kind of person. I can cook the food. Don't rely on me to make it look pretty, too.

Healthy Carrot Cake Whole Grain Muffins for #MuffinMonday

Carrots, raisins, and dates--sweetened with honey and maple syrup--combined with whole wheat flour and rolled oats for a deliciously sweet treat

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Updated 3/2018
As much as I enjoy baking in my kitchen, fixing goodies for my family or something just for me, it's a treat to go out for a snack.  Choosing amongst the variety of offerings in the bakery case is Big Fun for me, and that's how I was inspired to make these muffins.


Our local military spouse group met for coffee at the grocery store down the street.  As previously mentioned, I'm a tea drinker and fancy coffee drinks are just plain lost on me. However, I like the conversation--I always learn something new that makes my life smoother. Military spouses bring a wealth of life experiences to the table, and we're a formidable asset to any community. Recently my fellow spouses have helped me prepare the house for market, and wow what a difference fresh eyes bring to your place!


I was peckish, so I scanned the muffins in the Bakery Case and saw Good (or Better?) Morning Muffins. The muffin was yummy, and got me wondering why I haven't combined my finely shredded Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share carrots into a muffin before. I played around with my key muffin recipe to come up with these, and the result is a whole grain muffin using honey, maple syrup, raisins and dates for sweetness.

I'm not normally one to throw the word "healthy" around, because I believe it can be interpreted in a wide variety of ways and I'm not about to say which way is best--and it's not a One Size Fits All definition anyway. I'm confident in saying that a baked good which tastes as good as these muffins, that doesn't happen to contain refined sugars and does pack in some protein and fiber, is healthy--at least compared to a slice of iced carrot cake that is, and if you're not allergic to the components of the muffin, that is.  And since it's got some of my favorite parts of carrot cake--I'm going with an easily searchable recipe title though I hope I don't prevent myself from making an even carrot cakier type of muffin!

Honey Semolina Wheat Pizza Dough

A recipe for basic pizza dough, with a bit of honey, semolina and wheat flours to make a nice chewy crust that stands up to whatever toppings you'd like to use.

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This pizza dough is a good basic dough. I've been making it weekly for a couple of months now, and it fits with a variety of toppings and sauces. It's sturdy enough for a heavier topping or deep dish pizza, mild in flavor, and has a nice chewy crust.

Pizza dough is best made ahead. The dough has time to relax and chill, and so do you.  Usually for me that means I throw the dough together sometime on Thursday for our family's Friday Night Pizza Night. Lately I've pushed the envelope on what 'make ahead' means. Typically I'm mixing up dough while my first cup of tea steeps, around 6 am, shaping it into a ball and bagging it, then chilling until I get off work or the kids get home from school. One of us transfers the dough bags to the counter to sit for 1-2 hours until it's back to room temperature. At dinnertime it's time to shape it, top it, and bake it as described in the photo exhaustive My Pizza Primer post.

Fast Creamy Honey Wheat Pizza Dough

Use prepackaged 'pizza yeast' with your own additions of honey & cream cheese to make a quick and flavorful whole wheat pizza dough.

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This is a teaser post, and I utterly own up to teasing you with a delicious-yet-unattainable-today pizza.  See, the sauce is made of garlic scape pesto, and you can't find fresh garlic scapes right now.  Not in the grocery store, not in the farmer's market, not off the internet.

Garlic scapes are one of those items that are only available for a brief time, and after that:  poof.  Unlike asparagus (another actually seasonal item that's nowadays available in the grocery store year-round because it's shipped from other countries during the off-season) garlic scapes are a get-them-before-they-are-gone item, else you're out of luck.  One of the reasons I enjoy eating seasonally is because I get to look forward to different foods throughout the year.

So why am I sharing this pizza while my garlic bed out in the garden looks like this?

Simply because, again unlike asparagus, you can put up garlic scapes when they are plentiful and enjoy them later.  Garlic scape pesto freezes well, and provides a lovely mild garlic flavor and gorgeous color any time you use it in a dish.  I'm partial to pizza.  

Now, I've already written (and scheduled for Spring, in anticipation of garlic scapes in our Community Supported Agriculture [CSA] farm share) a post about how to make the pesto I used in today's pizza.  Instead I'll share the recipe for dough.

Yes, yes, I know I said in my Pizza Primer that I make my dough days ahead.  I usually do.  But not always--sometimes it's Friday afternoon and I've got nothing prepared.  That's when I grab a packet of pizza crust yeast [This is not a sponsored post, I buy my own packets--with coupons, always--and Fleischmann's doesn't know I exist. I'm just sharing the name of a product that I buy, use, and love--and if it inspires you to be successful in making pizza at home I'd love to hear it in the comments below.]

The inspiration for this pizza crust came from my friend Kim, who said she often makes a honey wheat pizza on her family pizza nights.  Never having tried honey wheat dough, I decided to adjust the recipe on the pizza crust yeast packet to make my own fast honey wheat dough.  I also threw in some cream cheese in lieu of oil just because I had some sitting on the counter from my son's post-braces removal Everything Bagel after school snack.  I can't call this a fat-free dough because I used regular cream cheese, and I can't call it oil-free dough because I did put it in an oiled bowl and used oil on the parchment paper.  So Fast Creamy Honey Wheat Pizza Dough it is.

Citrus and Honey Whole Grain Muffins

Oranges and tangerines paired with honey in a whole wheat and oatmeal muffin

When you first get cases of citrus for the Band Fruit Fundraiser, your family is gobbling up oranges, grapefruit, and tangerines as fast as you can peel them.  My family is as spoiled as the composting pig.  I peel the oranges for them as well. I have that hook thingamajig from Tupperware.  It makes it easy.
But after a while, the joy of juice bursting in your mouth pales a bit.  The palate gets a bit tired of such unrelenting sweet goodness. Like living in Hawaii with unrelenting sunshine. It happened to me!
So you get creative, and start serving the citrus as the main event at breakfast.  That goes over well, so for special people you serve salmon and oranges with dinner.  You throw orange sections in spinach salads and fruit salads. [And you freeze the leftovers of those fruit salads for smoothies.]  You buy apples.  And grapes. And you kinda forget about the handful of citrus still in your crisper.

As Norah Jones just sang on my stereo, <they're> just sitting here, waiting for you to come on home <and make a muffin>.

I wanted to make another muffin without added refined sugar, this time on purpose, so I grabbed the honey out of the pantry. Honey pairs very nicely with citrus.  Add in the whole grains--oats and wheat--and you're good to go.  This muffin is a great use for leftover peeled citrus.  Chop the citrus finely, or you will have odd lumps sticking up here and there. You'll live if you do.  I did.  Kids still ate them.
I like to soak my oats in buttermilk overnight because I like the texture of the resulting whole grain muffin, but even an hour's soak makes a difference if you didn't mix these up the night before.