More Comfort Food

Yesterday's early evening dinner was a previously-tried and loved recipe - Rigatoni with Mushrooms, Roasted Garlic and Red Pepper. I really like the flavor of roasted garlic, so I used two VERY large heads I picked up at Trader Joe's. Instead of fresh mushrooms, I used the dried shitaake mushrooms from Costco. Kalyn’s Kitchen had warned me that they could be chewy, and she was right. I followed the directions on the package and poured boiling water over them and let them sit for 15 minutes–maybe next time I'll let them sit longer. But the dish was still good. The combination of roasted garlic, cream, red peppers, mushrooms, and Parmesan cheese is divine.

This morning, DH is visiting T at the hospital, giving me a break and a chance to clean up, do some cooking, and get ready to go back to work a little tomorrow. I decided to search for a recipe to use two lemons I had in the refrigerator, and came across a tasty-looking recipe on Two Lime Leaves. While Kirsty's recipe looked good, I wanted to change it a bit to add fiber, take away some of the sugar, and add coconut. This is what I came up with:

Lemon Coconut Muffins
















1 cup white whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup flaked unsweetened coconut
1/3 cup ground flaxseed
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup Splenda granular
⅔ cup butter
1 cup milk
1 egg
½ teaspoon lemon extract
zest from two lemons
Topping:
¼ cup sugar
juice of two lemons

Preheat oven to 375˚. Mix flours, coconut, flaxseed, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and Splenda, together in a large bowl. Melt butter. Mix egg, milk, lemon extract, and lemon zest together. Add cooled butter. Add liquid ingredients to dry ingredients and combine VERY gently until lightly mixed. Spoon into 12 greased muffin tins. Bake for about 15 minutes.
Stir together topping and drizzle over hot muffins. Let muffins cool in pans as they soak up the liquid.

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