Popcorn muffins

I made a lot of popcorn and started daydreaming about baking with it. I was running short of snack muffins so muffins were the obvious choice (referred to this recipe). These are fun!

(makes ~9 muffins)

5 cups popped corn (2 1/4 cups after homogenising)
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt (use less if the popcorn was salted)
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 cup fake milk
1 tbsp ground linseed mixed with 2 1/2 tbsp boiling water
2 tbsp veg oil
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Version 1 = dark chocolate, sour cherry and thyme - add 1 tsp dried thyme, handfuls of sour cherries and of dark chocolate chips/chunks in with the dry ingredients.
Version 2 = mango, coconut and cardamom - add 1/2 tsp freshly ground cardamom, 2 tbsp dried shredded coconut and ~4 tbsp diced mango (from frozen) to the dry ingredients.

Heat oven to 400F. Prepare a muffin tin. Grind popcorn (I used the blender) until it is mostly pulverised (don't worry about a few remaining unground kernels - they will be fine+fun). Put ground popcorn in a medium bowl with flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and any additional dry ingredients (see Versions) and mix with a fork. In a separate bowl, beat together the fake milk, linseed mixture, veg oil and vanilla essence. Add wet to dry and mix until just combined. Dollop into prepared muffin cups and bake for 25-30 min, until lightly browned and a skewer comes out clean.


They are tasty but with so many additional flavours the popcorn is lost. I plan to tweak this to get a version that actually tastes like popcorn!

Quick quinoa salad

I felt like eating quinoa. While it was cooking, I thought I may as well mix it up with some stuff to make it more interesting. This was very quick and easy - herbs from the balcony (how much longer will they last as it gets colder?), and a few other things from the pantry / fridge / freezer, all requiring minimal prep. We both really liked it - not bad for an afterthought.

1 cup quinoa, cooked in 2 cups of water
1/2 cup frozen shelled edamame, defrosted
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds, toasted
1-2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1-2 tbsp chopped chives
2 tbsp olive oil
juice of 1 lime
1/2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1-2 tbsp wholegrain mustard
1 tsp honey
salt+pepper
1/4 cup dried sour cherries (or cranberries)

Put the quinoa in a small pan with the water, cover and bring to the boil. Simmer over a low heat til the quinoa is tender and the water all absorbed or evaporated (~10 min). Meanwhile, defrost the edamame (pour boiling water over), toast the pumpkin seeds and chop the herbs. Mix the dressing in a small bowl: beat together olive oil, lime juice, red wine vinegar, mustard, honey and seasoning. When ready, transfer the cooked quinoa to a serving bowl and add the dressing. Mix thoroughly. Add the edamame, pumpkin seeds, sour cherries and herbs, mix and serve.


I liked this so much I made a second round to take to the LUrC potluck last night - I thought it would be cool to make something savoury that featured some of the LUrC fruit (sour cherries). I forgot about edamame actually, so this version was just herbs, pumpkin seeds, sour cherries and dressing - I only remembered just now so obviously didn't miss the beans too much! Was psyched that my parsley was still alive on the balcony despite a few -3 or -4C nights. And the chives! So, although the quinoa and other ingredients are from distant lands; the sour cherries were from Cambridge, the herbs right outside my kitchen, and the honey from a friend of S's in Brookline.

Roasted apple and fennel seed chutney

I keep thinking this year's harvest is over - I thought the quinces would be the last thing for sure. But then something else crops up. This time it's apples - a LUrC tree five minutes from my house! How could I resist? I spent a fun few hours with M on a busy street corner - our strategy was for one person to try and knock apples out of the tree with a pole while the other (usually M - he is good at catching, I am decidedly not) tried to catch them, all the while trying to avoid hitting people, bashing parked cars, or sending apples to become untimely apple-roadkill-sauce under passing wheels. We grabbed a surprising amount before I had to leave and it was getting dark; at which point M was still up the tree in gathering gloom, unable to resist reaching for the final few.

The other reason I was happy about that harvest was that I'd joined a skillshare group wherein some people wanted me to show them how to make jam. It was starting to seem like it wasn't going to happen, but this last-of-the-season bonus made it possible. So, on Sunday, three ladies came over and I took them through my jam making process using this recipe.

I wasn't really meaning to make any more preserves. But then started constructing an apple and fennel seed chutney in my mind. And, while thinking of it, came across this recipe, which featured an interesting new chutney-making technique (roasting in the oven rather than simmering on the hob - also here), and sounded exactly like what I wanted (and completely delicious).

(made 4 small jars)

90g dried sour cherries, soaked overnight in apple juice (used white grape juice, soaked ~3 hours)
1 kg Cox's apples, peeled, cored and roughly chopped (used Packard's Corner apples)
2 fennel bulbs, finely sliced across (a mandoline is very good for this) (used green tomatoes instead)
1 red onion, cut in half and sliced lengthways, from the root end to the top (used white onion as had no red)
100g fresh ginger, finely grated
1 red chilli, finely sliced into rings (used dried)
2 tsp fennel seeds (used 2 1/2 tsp)
2 tsp coriander seeds
3 star anise (used 2 1/2 tsp anise seeds instead as liked the taste more than star anise in this context)
250 g demerara sugar
400 ml cider vinegar

Put everything in a roasting dish, cover with foil and place in an oven preheated to 160C/320F. Cook for an hour and a half, stirring once or twice, then remove the foil and continue to cook for about an hour, until thick and browned and a good chutney consistency (cook for longer if necessary). Remove from the oven and spoon into sterilised jars while still hot. Seal immediately.


The roasting worked well although not sure if it is any different or better than doing it on the hob, and does make sterilising the jars a bit more faffy since the oven is occupied. It's a delicious chutney. The ginger is pretty strong, the fennel / anise is present, but the sour cherries are perhaps a little lost. Will taste again when it is mature - for now I am definitely happy with it. Would probably be even better with fennel - just used green toms as that's what I had, but they don't really add anything to the taste.

Sour cherries: dried, juice, syrup

Another LUrC harvest: this time sour cherries, on a sweltering 4th July afternoon. No equipment (other than plastic bags) this time, and fewer people. Harvesting at one point involved balancing on top of a ~5ft tall  / 6 inch wide gatepost. We split the haul between the four of us. I decided to dry mine - and to test with / without sweetening.

~8 cups of sour cherries, after removing stones and splitting in half
2 cups sugar
2 cups water

Wash the sour cherries and put them in a colander over a bowl. Remove the stone and split each cherry in half (I found it easiest to do this with my fingers). Any juice that comes out will be caught in the bowl and saved: make sure to collect all the cherry juice in this way throughout as it is delicious and must be drunk!

Measure the volume of halved cherries. To sweeten, per four cups of cherry halves, put two cups of sugar and two cups of water in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Add the cherries and simmer gently for ~20 min. Drain (reserve the syrup), and let the cherries cool.

For the unsweetened cherries, pour boiling water over them, let sit for a minute and then drain.

Arrange the cherry halves on dehydrator racks (line with finer mesh if the cherries are on the small side). 8 cups of cherry halves filled 4/5 racks. Dehydrate at 135F. The sweetened ones took approx. 12 hours; the unsweetened ones took a bit longer.

For cherry syrup, boil the reserved sugar syrup until reduced by about half. It will be a rich cherry red, and very sweet, although with some cherry taste.

I ended up with about 400ml of cherry juice (one glassful).

2014 cherry season: This time I dried without boiling water or sweetening. Just took the stones out of the cherries and laid them out in the dehydrator. They came out just fine, whether laid face down or face up. Took a bit longer - maybe 16 hours.

The dried cherries came out great. They are little: look like dried cranberries, and with a similar texture. Both sweetened and unsweetened are delicious. The sweetened ones are more easily munchable, and taste just like the bought kind (except more intense). The unsweetened ones have more of a sharpness, but not uncomfortably so: perhaps this is more exciting. Not sure why unsweetened took longer to dry, but they did.