eclaire (what's in a) name?

do you know about the amazing-ness of quinoa?  i learned about it a few years ago, and quickly became obsessed with quinoa because it is super quick to cook, has a very satisfying texture and taste, and is a complete protein (i.e. it contains all of the essential amino acids, something that can be challenging to find in one food item for vegetarians/vegans).  if you clicked on the link above and read the wikipedia page on quinoa, you’d know that part of what makes quinoa so special is that it’s a faux grain – it’s actually a seed.

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you may have noticed that posts have been a little further apart than usual around here lately, and i sincerely apologize. i’ve been spending most of my computer time obsessing over the new features in apple’s iLife ’09, and to be even more specific, i’ve been consumed with the faces feature in iPhoto. this new feature goes through your iPhoto library (mine dates back to ’01 with a few scanned pics from earlier years) and identifies the faces in all the photos using fancy face detection software. next, you provide a name to go with the faces of your friends and family members (i used my wedding photos for this because they contain just about everyone we know). after that, the program starts to get scary smart and suggests other photos that might contain these people as well. the program isn’t foolproof, though, and this led to me revisiting every single photo on my computer to correctly identify every single face.

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there are some cookbooks, like the one i used to make butternut squash risotto, that i go back to over and over, finding new and delicious recipes every time.  there are other cookbooks, however, that despite enticingly written concoctions, never quite carry through.  sadly, mike and i bought a cookbook like this years ago, entitled the student’s vegetarian cookbook: quick, easy, cheap, and tasty vegetarian recipes, by carole raymond. quite a title, huh?  we bought it when we were still students, and i can still remember spending an afternoon in the local bookstore, pouring over all kinds of cookbook options, before finally deciding that this cookbook had the most recipes that we would actually make.  unfortunately, every recipe we made was kind of a dud, and we stopped using the cookbook.  except for this one recipe, called sunday morning muffins.  the recipe was not perfect by any means, but i’ve reworked it a ton over the years (see all my edits below!), and i think it’s finally ready to share with you.

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many years ago, my mom gave us a cookbook entitled the one-dish vegetarian: 100 recipes for quick and easy vegetarian meals, by maria robbins. when we were first gifted the book, it was the beginning of our get-fit-2003 campaign, and mike and i poured over every recipe in an effort to discover delicious, healthy, and quick recipes that would accommodate our new lifestyle of exercising daily and eating smaller and healthier portions of food. the title of the book is almost exactly what you get—super fast and easy meals that can be served in one dish (although it often takes more than one dish to make them, which made me feel a little duped—i was looking forward to less dishes to wash!). we dog-eared the pages of the recipes we wanted to make and found several keepers, ones that became part of our regular repertoire. years passed, more cookbooks were purchased, and this one began to gather some dust on our cookbook shelf.

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as i was grocery shopping this week, and looking through the store’s winter selection of apples, pears, and citrus, i found myself really missing my favorite summer fruits and berries: nectarines, strawberries, raspberries, and plums. as i was daydreaming about these fabulous fruits that feel months away, i absentmindedly placed a bunch of bananas into my basket. as i unpacked the groceries a little later, it dawned on me that although i miss the summer fruits, and consider the four above to be my all time favorites, bananas might actually qualify as my absolute favorite, albeit the unsung fruit in my life. since bananas are present almost all year round (thanks, global produce market), and something i never leave the store without, why don’t i think of them as my absolute favorite fruit? perhaps it’s because i take them for granted and never yearn for them in off season months. are there any fruits and veggies that you miss over the course of the year, dear readers? do you think that missing them makes them better when you actually get to eat them than they actually taste?

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