Smells like fall, in the spring: Apple Cake

What's for dessert tonight?  Chef Earl's Streusel Apple Raisin Muffins, baked in two 9 x 13 inch cake pans.  (I made a double batch and froze most of it in sandwich bags for school lunches and quick breakfasts.)

P.S.  I left out the extra white sugar--it's sweet enough without it.

What's for dinner?

Earl's Soup (Potage Paysanne)--lots of chopping but worth the effort...and probably the only time all year that I buy leeks

Frozen pizza in the toaster oven (could have been garlic breadsticks, or Peasant Bread, or rolls, or just toast, but we got the pizza on sale and it seemed like it would bulk up a meal of what is basically vegetable soup)

Banana-peach freeze (frozen bananas and a bit of peach jam run through the food processor, with plain yogurt added if needed to make it run better) (could have been fresh bananas, but we don't have any)

Let's make muffins

The heat level went down enough yesterday that we decided to make some of Chef Earl's Muffins. Chef Earl is Earl Johnson, who was the subject of a favourite Canadian Living article which also featured Potage Paysanne, a soup we try to make at least once a year just because it's so much better than the ingredients make it sound (turnip, leeks, parsnips--shudder). The story of how he won over the high school students in Winnipeg also made it into Reader's Digest.

His muffin recipes are a bit fancier and sweeter than my usual throw-it-in-the-bowl formula, but once in awhile--like the soup--they're fun to make. The recipes for Streusel Apple Raisin Muffins and Black Bottom Muffins made 24 large muffins and 24 half-size muffins, respectively. I found it was just as easy to get all the dry ingredients mixed for both (put the 2 cups flour for one in one large bowl, then the 1 1/2 cups flour for the other in another bowl, and so on), mix up the wet ingredients for both, and then finish putting both recipes together and bake them at the same time. If you have an extra willing pair of hands around, it helps too. (Ponytails put the Streusel muffins together.)

Note on the Black Bottom Muffins: they call for cream cheese, but I've substituted both sour cream and drained (thick) plain yogurt, and both work fine. They do tend to get sticky if they sit around, so you would probably want to keep them refrigerated or frozen.

Especially if it's the middle of August.

Chef Earl's Soup (and Ruby Red Rutabagas)

In February 2003, Canadian Living Magazine published a story about chef Earl Johnson's way-better-than-your-average-cafeteria-food at Gordon Bell High School in Winnipeg. They followed up that October (after many requests) with some of his recipes. We've been making his Potage Paysanne ever since, on cold days and when we can manage to get turnip (we use rutabaga), parsnips, leeks and parsley all in our fridge at the same time. (Sometimes we leave one or the other of those things out.)

Now Mama Squirrel must be unflinchingly honest: she hates rutabaga. Rutabaga crumble, rutabaga casserole, rutabaga disguised with apples and spices--it's still rutabaga. Rutabaga raw and sliced is tolerable; and Earl's soup makes it taste...well, about as good as you're going to get a rutabaga to taste. We figured if Earl could convince the teenagers in Winnipeg to eat this, it must have something going for it.

And it gives us one way to eat our ruby-red rutabagas with a smile.

(I'm not posting the recipe, in case you wondered or missed the link; Canadian Living did it nicer than I can, here.)