Blueberry Scuffins and Vacation

Greetings from Martha’s Vineyard!!

I’m on my yearly getaway with my best friend and her family on the beautiful island that is Martha’s Vineyard.

Yes, we are at a house with wi-fi, but my urge to blog isn’t quite where it should be.  That said, there has been no shortage of blog-worthy food eaten so far!

Why do some foods taste SO much better on vacation??

Nothing special here, but these Garden Herb Triscuits with brie really hit the spot when we first arrived at the house after getting off the ferry.

A bowl full of fresh cherries in the fridge for snacking

Yes, you can toast a GIANT marshmallow over a gas grill

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Grilled chicken & veggies, cereal with raspberries, and even Skinnygirl Margaritas all taste better on the Vineyard vacation.

Found a new bakery

with delicious “power cookies” and almond croissants

Hit the beach… obviously

It’s been beautiful here and thoroughly relaxing!

Now for the Scuffins that you may be looking for.

Well here they are:

Lemon and blueberry

Not quite as dry and heavy as a scone

Definitely not a muffin

Just a delicious healthy breakfast treat!       

And you will find my recipe HERE!  It’s my first/latest article as a Boston Healthy Foods Examiner! 

I just started contributing to examiner.com…I’m hoping to gain a little more experience writing and thought it would be perfect to focus on healthy foods! 

I’ll add this one to my recipe page soon! 

What “everyday” foods do you enjoy that much more on vacation?? 

Coming Home

Well this isn’t about my actual home, where I live with my husband and pup…this is my 2nd, well no make that 3rd home (of course my 2nd home is where I grew up, previously my #1 home :) 

My 3rd home is UNH!  My alma mater, where I spent 4 AWESOME years of my life!  Seriously, I just love it there, I still miss college so much and it makes me so happy when I get to return.

Luckily that’s what Homecoming is for!

I graduated in 2004 (eww that makes me sound so old now), and since then have attended 3 or 4 homecomings.  Up until last weekend I hadn’t been to homecoming since 2007 and I’ve missed it so.

Usually this involves a hotel room for Friday and Saturday night.  You want to stay over Friday because people line up to get into the tailgating area EARLY!!!  And Saturday because you’re going to want a nap between tailgating and whatever you do Saturday night :)

However, now that we have a new member of the family….

…homecoming was now a day trip.  Totally fine by me as the tailgating portion is the best part anyways…unfortunately this means getting to UNH by 7:30/8AM.

Luckily early weekend mornings deserve delicious bagels…French Toast bagel from Bagel World!  Warm and delicious.  I also had an iced pumpkin spice coffee to get me going.

We arrived around 8AM and the line was RIDICULOUS!!  Luckily we made it in but we were at the end of the people who did. 

Oh college, how I’ve missed you and your ridiculousness!

Another thing I found quite hilarious is how we’ve, um, matured.  Check out the spread..

complete with table cloth!

I decided to use the Almond Cream filled scone mix that was in my King Arthur goodie bag to contribute to the group!

Funny that we all got different mixes from King Arthur that day and I ended up with the Almond item…it was fate I tell you. 

These scones had an almondy filling and even an almond glaze!  They looked and tasted so good!

We may have improved on our food selection over the years but other than that we all just wish we were still in college!

Nothing quite like a mimosa at 9AM

And maybe a jello shot or two… what? When in Rome…

And as fast as the food spread was set up, it was easily shoved to the side so we could play flip cup!

Friends…

“you’re a tiger…Grrrr baby grrr!”

Joc and I

So SO happy I wore my rain boots, the rain the few days before made for a MUDDY tailgating field.

Brian and I

The crowd (actually I believe this was a picture of ‘the girl with the way too short skirt on’ haha)

     The boys   

Fun FUN day!!  Can’t wait for next year!

More Q&A and Winners!

First down to business.

The three lucky winners of the Fiber One Chocolate spa gift packages are:

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

11
74
14

Coco
Chocolate mousse, especially those with dark chocolate, the bitter kind!

Sarah
Brownies.  And hot fudge.  Wait - a hot fudge brownie sundae... yes, that's it.

Danielle
Yum! I'd love to be entered :)

Send me your addresses girls and I will make sure these get to you!!

Q&A Part 2:

This question came about after my post about the bridal shower I helped plan for my friend Jen!

Sabrina (aka Rhodey Girl) asked:

Could you do a post on how you managed the time for it all? Did you prep mostly everything the day before? Was the frittata easily sliced?

I'd love to elaborate :)

Whenever you're preparing a big meal for many people (in this case about 3o), it is always a good idea and most of the time NECESSARY to plan ahead and figure out what can be prepared ahead of time.

The Shower was on a Saturday at 11:00AM, at a location 45min away.

I'll go through each item and how it was broken down:
Shopping:

• Most was done on the Wednesday before. I got all the items I could at this 1 store which has the best prices. The items had to sit in my car for a while so I didn't get any of the dairy or meat items.
• I also wanted to get the berries later so they were fresher
• Definitely couldn't get everything at 1 place
• In the end there were 7 trips to 5 places haha...good thing I like grocery shopping, and good thing there is a 24hr Shaws nearby for those last minute "oh crap I forgot..." moments.

Muffins:

• Because the scones are more reliant on peak freshness than the muffins, I chose to do the muffins Friday night. They'd still be served less than 24hours after baking.
• I made both the blueberry corn muffins, followed by the Chocolate Coconut Banana muffins on Friday night and let cool completely before placing in large Zip loc bags

Scones:

• Scones are one of those things that are really best when fresh from the oven, so I really wanted to bake these the morning of.
  
• There was some parts I could do beforehand though. On Friday night I prepped the dry ingredients to which I then cut in the butter. This mixture went into the freezer.
  
• The dry ingredients/butter came out Saturday morning, I added the wet ingredients, shaped, cut, and baked!
• For the Scones I also made clotted cream, this was done Friday night as well and just sat in the fridge until it was ready to serve.

Fruit and Yogurt Station:

• I was really excited about this idea, and 1 reason was that NO PREP NEEDED!
• When we arrived at the bridal shower house, we placed everything in bowls and set it out!

Fruit Platter:

• All the fruit was cut up Friday night.
  
• We also assembled the whole fruit platter and just wrapped it up tight with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge.

NOTE: We have an extra fridge in the basement which was KEY to this operation. We would of really had to clean/empty our fridge other wise.

Frittatas:

• There's nothing too appealing about an egg dish that's made the day before, so these definitely had to be cooked the morning of. However, getting all the ingredients prepped saved TONS of time.
• I blanched the asparagus on Thursday night and placed in the fridge until needed.
• I grated the Gruyere cheese Thursday and placed that in a container in the fridge until needed.
• Friday, we cooked up the chicken sausage as well as the balsamic caramelized onions and placed in containers until needed.
• Saturday morning, I mixed up the egg mixture, placed the ingredients in the pan, poured the egg mix on top, and baked.
• When I arrived at the house I placed both Frittatas in the oven on like 250 to keep warm
• NOTE ON THE ASPARAGUS - was it easy to cut?? Well it wasn't hard, but because the egg is so much softer, next time I would pre-cut the asparagus into bite size pieces so that you wouldn't need to cut through the asparagus when cutting a slice of frittata! The other frittata was fine :)

Chicken Salad

• Thursday I cooked the chicken, let cool, then bagged it and placed it in the fridge
• Friday I made the chicken salad; cut/shredded the chicken, sliced the grapes, and cut the celery...mixed it all up with the dressing then placed in large zip locs.
• I didn't want to assemble the sandwiches until we arrived so the pitas would not be soggy. I had some helpers assemble the sandwiches that morning :)

Others:

• Jocy made her penuche cake Thursday night because it keeps well.
• The only prep needed for the salad was slicing strawberries Friday night.
• The little brie/ham/apple crostinis were assembled at the shower with the only prep being cutting the brie and the baguette Friday night.

All in all it was not an overwhelming amount of work. Jocy and I didn't get to bed til about 1am Friday night then were up at 5:30am Saturday...so the lack of sleep wasn't great, but that was the worst of it :) Everything else went smoothly and it's KEY to have a helper. Sous Chef Jocy did a lot of the cutting and interim dish washing!

Bridal Shower Catering

Yesterday my good friend, Jen's, Bridal Shower!! Her wedding is only 3 weeks away now!

There are 8 of us bridesmaids, and two live in California so they weren't able to fly out for this. However, the rest of us put on a lovely brunch for friends and family at her father's GORGEOUS house on the coast. (this is the same house I raved about at New Years). I kind of put my self in charge of the food for two reasons...#1 no one else stepped up haha, and #2 I LOVE doing it!!

7 trips to 5 different grocery stores later, and a late night Friday + early morning yesterday and we had a beautiful spread of food (too much obviously).

Being a brunch I wanted to have a good selection of breakfast foods with a little lunch mixed in!

The Menu consisted

Beverages

• Champagne
• OJ
• Grapefruit Juice
• Cranberry Juice
• Coffee

Baked Goods

• Mini Blueberry Corn Muffins (used Jiffy mix...Jiffy is pretty much the only box mix I'll use for any baked good. It's a classic and the corn muffins are just SO good!!) I used this recipe from their website with a bag of frozen wild Maine blueberries I picked up. I didn't have apple juice so I used water with a squeeze of honey!
• Mini and regular size Chocolate Coconut Muffins - I used my recipe, but with a few tweaks. I used all coconut oil, and added a tad more sweetener (an extra tbsp of brown sugar, and maybe a little extra squeeze of honey, plus I used regular sweetened coconut) I figure not everyone loves a good healthy not-so-sweet muffin like I do, so I just wanted to make them a tad more crowd pleasing...and they were!
• Cranberry-Orange Scones - I used this recipe I found online, just subbing out the lemon for orange and I did not make a glaze.

For both scones I cut the butter into the dry ingredients the night before, kept it in the fridge, then added the wet ingredients, shaped, cut, and baked in the morning of the shower.

• Plain Cream Scones - Using this recipe, and not adding the currants.

For both scones I cut the butter into the dry ingredients the night before, kept it in the fridge, then added the wet ingredients, shaped, cut, and baked in the morning of the shower.The cranberry orange scones waiting to be baked. It's been a long time since I've made scones and the very dry crumbly dough was tough for me to work with so even thought it's supposed to be like that I may have added extra cream, but in the end they were awesome.

• note: For both scone recipes I used light cream wherever it called for heavy cream because I used all the heavy cream making Clotted Cream for the scones! I've only ever bought clotted cream, but since I saw a recipe in my tea time cookbook I decide to use that! It was pretty good, more like whipped cream and I like other store bought ones more but it worked.

Presentation - All the baked goods arranged on a tray:
There was also a Sour Cream Coffee Cake with chocolate chips and walnuts (this was a special request I put in to my mom...she makes the best and I asked if she'd make one for this!)

(there are also mini chicken salad pitas on the table, but we'll get to those in a minute)Clotted Cream with two different Jams: Strawberry-Rhubarb and Raspberry

Fruit and Yogurt

• My first idea I had was to have a Yogurt Parfait Station!! We got strawberry and vanilla yogurt and served it along side lots of toppings:
• Strawberries
• Blueberries
• Two types of Granola
• dried cranberries
• walnuts
  

We have a lot of this as leftovers (actually lots of everything) but it will not go to waste obviously!

• We also had a lovely LARGE fruit tray with Cantaloupe, Honey Dew, and Pineapple!

Protein and Veggies (and dairy and more carbs too hehe)

• The other breakfast items included two large frittatas!
• The first was a version of my aunts Asparagus and Gruyere Fritatta from last Sunday. Although when I learned she made it was 3 cups of heavy cream I decided to "Bridge-fy" it haha.

Above: pan of asparagus topped with shredded gruyere prior to being covered in egg mixture

For the frittata:

• I cooked 2 bunches of asparagus in boiling salted water for a few minutes until limp, then into a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking. This was done Thursday night, along with grating the cheese!
• For the egg mixture I used 9 eggs, 3/4 Non-fat Evaporated Milk, 3/4 cup light cream, 1.5 cups whole milk, salt, pepper, and a dash of nutmeg.
• Sprayed the large 18"x13" jelly roll pan with cooking spray, placed asparagus, topped with cheese, poured egg mix on top, baked for 25-30min at 350 until set!

I also made another large fritatta the same way but with:

• Chicken Apple breakfast sausage
• balsamic caramelized onions
• goat cheese
• I have yet to try this one but I heard it was amazing!
  Baked at home, but re-heated at the shower!

• Another crowd pleaser was the salad. I used one of my aunts salads she makes a lot but added goat cheese...of course.
• SO COLORFUL!!
• 2 packages baby spinach
• sliced strawberries (about 1 quart worth)
  
• candied walnuts (almost 1 bag from TJ's)
• goat cheese!! (about 1/3 of a large log)
• Dressing: extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, honey, dijon mustard
• Delicious!!!

Next was Chicken Salad Mini Pitas!

• Made a classic chicken salad with
  
• Cooked Chicken (5 breasts, steamed/boiled)
• chopped celery
• halved grapes
• chopped walnuts
  
• Lite Mayo mixed with a little sour cream and honey!
• Placed in Mini Party Pitas I saw at the grocery store ( I know Trader Joe's has them too)
  These were a hit! They are the perfect size to pop in your mouth :)

Final Savor food item was: Slice Baguette with Honey Mustard, ham, green apple, brie...heated in the oven at 350 for 8 min (or until cheese melts).
I left some without ham for the veggies!!
The one thing I didn't have to worry about was dessert. The bride's mom offered to pick up some things from a local french bakery...perfectly fine by me!! :) She got cute little mini pastriesWe also had Penuche Cake! This is a family recipe of my roomates and she was dying for a good opportunity to try out this famous cake her grandmother always made. It's SO SO SO GOOD!!! It's like a cinnamon cake with this brown sugary icing (it was like caramel when it was hot). You just need a small bite as it's SUGARY, but oh so good.

Shower Go-ers enjoying the day:
Shower Fun: A gift, bridal bingo, and the obligatory ribbon "bouquet" she'll use for the rehearsal
It was a loooong night for roomie and I. We didn't get to bed until 1:00AM Friday night and had to get up at 5:30AM Saturday to get back to the food, but it was worth it.

BEST PART: A few people asked me if this (i.e. catering) is what I do for a living, and that was probably one of the best compliments I've ever received!! It felt great after all that hard work to hear things like that. Especially when someday I would love to do something like this for a living.

Sorry I wasn't able to post until now, we had a few friends over allllll weekend and the spa day bachelorette was today so I have not had a free moment until now!! Can't wait for bed :)