Baked Eggs for Any Lazy Morning

This morning I am lazy. We are nearly done unpacking and making dinner more often than eating out. Last night, we drank a bottle of wine and sat on the couch, stretched out and in a comfortable silence. 

This morning, I give you another non-recipe. Another easy, no fuss attempt to make your mornings a little easier. These baked eggs are my solution to a no-prep, delicious alternative to another bowl of cereal with my third cup of coffee.

Directions: Preheat your oven to 350*F and grease any oven-safe pan (While my personal favorite is to use Lodge's Mini Cake Pan, you can use ramekins, muffin tins, or even a small casserole dish). Crack  your eggs into your pan, sprinkle with a little salt and pepper, a tablespoon of leftover pasta sauce, and a pinch of dried tarragon. Bake for about 14 minutes or until whites are just set. Remove, eat immediately.

Sunday Muffins! (Pumpkin and Tahini, to be exact)

Tomorrow I’m going to be an uncle. My sister’s scheduled for delivery at 7:30. I keep waking up and checking the time, thinking I slept through the weekend and it’s Monday so soon. On Thursday I took her pregnancy photos, I stayed for an hour and we talked about our own childhood and the brother we both don’t call. On Friday I looked at jewelry for her, trying to put a thousand moods into one small necklace. On Saturday I stayed busy, idle hands and all that. I walked Milo, bought books on farming, went to the vet for the dogs’ pills.

And now it’s Sunday and I’m wasting time. I woke up at dawn and fed the animals. I sat with a cup of hot, hot coffee and sprinkled cinnamon in it. I made these muffins to greet the morning, anything to fill the space between now and when Lana comes into the world.

Pumpkin Tahini Muffins

I know the ingredient list seems long, but it's mostly spices! For airy, crumbly muffins, I would suggest following the directions closely and not dump them all in at once. Also, if you are making regular-sized muffins, there are adjustment notes below as well. Happy baking!!

Ingredients:

• 2 ½ cup AP flour
• ½ TB cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 teaspoon allspice
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 TB cornstarch
• 10 oz pumpkin puree
• 1/3 cup tahini
• 2 TB dark molasses
• ¼ cup olive oil
• 1 TB freshly grated ginger
• 1 TB pure vanilla extract
• 6 TB butter, softened
• 1 ½ cup dark brown sugar
• 3 eggs, room temperature
• 3 TB cream cheese, softened
• 2 TB confectioner’s sugar

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400*F and prepare 6 jumbo muffin tins with liners (you may also use a dozen regular-sized muffin, but see note below)
2. Sift together flour, spices, salt, soda, and cornstarch in a large mixing bowl
3. In a measuring cup, whisk together pumpkin, tahini, molasses, oil, ginger, and vanilla until well-mixed
4. In the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy
5. Add egg, one at a time. Don’t add subsequent egg until previous is fully incorporated
6. With mixer on lowest speed, alternate between flour mixture and pumpkin mixture, ending with wet ingredients until a batter forms
7. In a separate bowl, mix together cream cheese and confectioner’s sugar (just with a fork is fine), set aside
8. Using an ice cream scoop, scoop batter into all 6 liners
9. Now, pinch off about ½ TB of your cream cheese and place on top of all 6 batter-filled cups
10. Top with another scoop of batter (your cup should be about full but not over flowing)
11. Bake for 28-32 minutes, checking at the 28 mark for any browning
12. Remove from oven, allow to cool before serving

Note: If using a regular-sized muffin tin, you will make the following adjustments to the recipe: You will divide the cream cheese by ¼ of a tablespoon instead of a half; you will have one scoop of batter in each muffin cup and not two; your bake time will be reduced to approximately 16-18 minutes instead of 28-32

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Mornings and Rituals (and donuts!)

I've always been a morning person, and I enjoy that about myself.  I think it all began when I would sleep in my parents' bed and they would wake up for work, leaving me sprawled in bed and aching for attention.  I think it's the promise of a new day, a new opportunity to make decisions that either enhance my life or fuck it all up.  I like that, the sublime wonderment of choice of indecision.  How they intermingle to create discontinuation in the plans we make ourselves as children.  It's hope, it's nascent disregard for obligations.  It's a half hour of freedom before hot showers and coffee that's cold by the time you're out of traffic. This week has been especially enjoyable for mornings because I've been sleeping in the living room, under fleece blankets from Christmas, under an I Love Lucy woven blanket, under a quilt that was hand-stitched by a great-aunt named Naomi, called Noni.  Everything is gifted, nothing bought.  I'm sleeping in the living room because of Elsa, the tiniest member of the family.  I'm sleeping with her cradled in my arm, curled in a ball to keep warm and comforted by my drumming heartbeat.  They say a ticking watch reminds puppies of their mothers, and so I keep one on all night to help her sleep.  And in the late, dark, ash moon midnights of this April's beckoning, that sigh of puppy-breath and the thunderous metronome of timekeeping are my only companions.  The things that keep me warm and sane.  I pray to the rhythmic god, a space-time confusion of faith and disaster.

And in the mornings, when it is cold and I'm too tired to press the coffeemaker button, I sit with a cradled puppy and my thoughts.  I watch the sunlight thread through cloud eyes, I watch the birdsong swell up in the robin jays.  I watch it from the bay window of our kitchen, through a tangle of dying tarragon leaves.  I watch it until I can make the decision to keep going, to fulfill a prophecy unbeknownst to me.  I brush the sleep from my eyes, have my morning coffee with cream and two sachets of sugar, stir it with a wooden rod.

And I eat one of these amazing donuts.  And I know life is good, that life is doable.  That it's all worth it.

___________________

Sweet Corn Donuts with Honey-Sugar Glaze (makes a dozen mini donuts)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup cornmeal
• 1 cup flour
• 1 Tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup honey
• 2 Tablespoon applesauce
• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoon butter, melted

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400
2. Prepare donut pan with cooking spray or butter
3. Combine cornmeal, flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar in large mixing bowl
4. In separate bowl or in liquid measuring cup, measure and mix all remaining ingredients
5. Pour wet into dry, mix with rubber spatula (here, I refrigerated mine overnight and preferred it, as the liquid gets into the coarse cornmeal, but it is not necessary)
6. Pour into pan 3/4 way full
7. Bake 10-13 minutes, until browned and springy to the touch
8. Glaze while warm (recipe below) and serve (they're so good warm, I microwaved mine back up after they cooled!)

(For the glaze: whip 2 TB room temperature butter, mix with 2 TB raw clover honey, spread on warmed donuts with butter knife. Dust with confectioner's sugar)

Banana Donuts with Hot Cocoa Glaze (makes one dozen)

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1/4 cup applesauce
• 3/8 cup sugar
• 1 whole egg and 2 egg whites
• 1 1/3 cup flour
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 overripe bananas, mashed

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Grease donut pan
3. Mix butter, applesauce, sugar, and eggs with hand mixer on high until blended
4. Add flour, mix until blended
5. Add juice, soda, and bananas (one at a time)
6. Mix on high for two minutes. Mixture should be glossy
7. Fill donut pan 3/4 way full with mixture
8. Bake 8-11 minutes until browned and springy to touch
9. All to cool before glazing (the "hot cocoa glaze" is 1-1-1 1/2 ratio of Hershey's cocoa powder, confectioner's sugar and heavy whipping cream) 

I hope you enjoy these as much as I have!