sweet miscellany

I feel that I have been neglecting my blog again… maybe the holiday season makes me lazy. Or, maybe I just like to make excuses. Either way, I felt a post was due.

Over Thanksgiving, I visited my brother in NYC and had some pretty delicious food. I also cooked some pretty delicious food for Thanksigving but didn’t think to photograph any of it. I figured I would share two places that we went to in case anyone is traveling there in the near (or distant) future.

Cafe Gitane at the Jane Hotel
This little cafe was an interesting mix of French and Moroccan influences, both in food and decor. It is located in the Jane Hotel on Jane Street, not far from the Hudson River. I had a lovely mint iced tea to drink and the cous cous with merguez sausages. The cous cous had a good bit of spice and was full of red peppers, raisins, pine nuts, and eggplant. It was topped with delicious hummus and placed a top a delectable herb oil. Everything was delicious and made me want to polish off my plate, even though my stomach was full.

La Maison du Macaron
My family is all about eating out, but we are also all about eating dessert. We stopped in for some macarons at this cute little bakery and were not disappointed. From what I can remember, the flavors ranged from simple pistachio to pink champagne, lavender, and apple cider. I chose the pistachio, apple cider, and fleur de sel caramel for my little trio. I think the fleur de sel was my favorite because I am a sucker for salty/sweet desserts.

We also ate at an interesting Peruvian restaurant named Pio Pio, but unfortunately, it was too dark for me to take pictures of anything. I had a pisco sour and some shrimp in an aji amarillo sauce served with quinoa. The sauce was so good that I ended up eating my quinoa with it, too. If you are in NYC anytime in the future, I highly recommend any of these places. You won’t be disappointed!

I can’t believe Thanksgiving is on Thursday. Perhaps it is because a busy work schedule can make you forget the seasons changing around you. The unwelcome warm weather is not helping either, making it feel more like a muggy September day instead of the end of November. I guess that is the price one pays when living in Texas. You end up feeling lucky for whatever resemblance of cold weather you get.

Anywho, enough about the weather. I feel as though I have been neglecting my blog a bit, though not completely on purpose. My work as of the past few weeks (and months) has been particulary horrendous and busy, leaving little time for much else but sleep and laundry. In the small bits of spare time I did have, I was trying to prep some listings for my etsy shop (see the previous 2 posts) and re-photograph some existing listings.

Since things have slowed down a bit, I have had time to bake just for the sake of it. It’s a wonderful thing to stand in my kitchen, not knowing exactly what to bake, and then going through the thought process until I get a plan. In this particular case, my mind went the muffin route. I planned a little impromptu early Thanksgiving feast for my man and I before we parted our ways to spend Thanksgiving with our respective families. This muffin was part of the mini feast and it did not disappoint. The hazelnut meal imparts a certain richness and earthiness to the muffin that is enhanced by the lemon thyme and nutmeg. These are gluten free and refined sugar free, so they make a healtheir option than the typical dinner roll.

Hazelnut & Lemon Thyme Muffins
makes 6 muffins
(if you cannot find hazelnut meal, you can substitute any other nut meal)

2 cups hazelnut meal
1/2 tsp fine grain sea salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 tbsp fresh lemon thyme leaves
2 eggs
1/4 cup grapeseed oil
1/4 cup honey

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and line a muffin tin with muffins papers or squares of parchment paper.

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients until they come together in a uniform mixture. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry until combined, then scoop into the lined muffin tin, dividing the batter between the 6 muffin slots. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes until the tops are golden brown. Enjoy!