Springtime Chocolate Chip Muffins #MuffinMonday

Seasonal chocolate chips are a colorful and fun way to change up a classic muffin recipe. This one is a family favorite and makes a small batch of six muffins.

It’s the last Monday of the month so that means it’s Muffin Monday! March has been a better month than February, which was a better month than January (pretty grim despite it being my birthday month) so I have even higher hopes for April. 

The brightest hope comes from the increasing number of people I love who have been able to get vaccinated against COVID-19, including yours truly.  But sadly, people are still succumbing to that terrible virus. According to my Sunday Chronicle yesterday, we’ve lost more that half a million precious lives altogether just in the United States and that breaks my heart. 

It’s small consolation but bake some muffins for someone you love. If you can’t find springtime chocolate chips, use normal ones. 

Springtime Chocolate Chip Muffins

I’ve been making this muffin recipe or adaptations thereof since 2005 because it is infinitely adaptable. This is the first time I’ve adjusted the ingredients to make only six muffins though. If you want the recipe for 12, check out my post from 2012, along with a list of possible add-ins. 

Ingredients

1 cup or 125g all purpose flour

1/3 cup or 66g sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup or 120ml milk

1/4 cup or 60ml canola or another light oil

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 large egg

1/2 cup or about 90g springtime semi-sweet chocolate chips

 

Method

Preheat oven to 350°F or 180°C. Generously grease cups and top of 6-cup muffin pan or use paper liners. 

Whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together in a large mixing bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the milk, oil, vanilla and egg. 

Add all the milk/egg mixture to flour mixture. Gently fold just until dry ingredients are moistened.   

Then fold in most of your springtime chocolate chips. Save a small handful for decoration. 

Divide your batter relatively evenly between the 6 muffin cups. Top with the reserved chocolate chips.

Bake 20-25 minutes in your preheated oven or until the muffins are golden.

Remove from oven and leave to cool on a wire rack. 

Enjoy! 

Check out all the other lovely muffins my Muffin Monday friends are sharing today!

• Lemon Muffins from Passion Kneaded
• Papaya Orange Muffins from Magical Ingredients
• Peanut Butter Banana Muffins from Making Miracles
• Sourdough Banana Nut Crunch Muffins from Zesty South Indian Kitchen
• Springtime Chocolate Chip Muffins from Food Lust People Love
• White Chocolate Muffins with a Pistachio Glaze from Karen's Kitchen Stories

 

#MuffinMonday is a group of muffin loving bakers who get together once a month to bake muffins. You can see all of our lovely muffins by following our Pinterest board. Updated links for all of our past events and more information about Muffin Monday can be found on our home page.

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Strawberry Mint Glazed Roasted Rack of Lamb

A tart and fruity strawberry and mint glaze makes a wonderful sticky topping for this strawberry mint glazed roasted rack of lamb. It’s the perfect dish for date night or the ingredients are easily doubled for a family dinner. 

Years ago I discovered quite by accident that a rack of lamb takes only 45-60 minutes to roast, which is so much quicker than the leg, my usual part of a lamb to roast. As much as we love lamb chops, I had never bought them all hooked together still. 

One day I arrived home to find a care package with big prawns, some smoked salmon and a vacuum-packed rack of lamb stashed in my refrigerator. One of the catering contractors who supplied my husband’s drilling rigs had dropped it all off as a thank you for the business.

Those were the days of achingly slow dial-up internet so I consulted my trusty Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook (1980 edition.) Right there on page 227, the instructions were so simple: Season with salt and pepper. Roast for 1 hour or until you reach your desired internal temperature. In the last 15-30 minutes, brush with an apricot glaze aka warmed apricot jam. Honestly, does it get easier than that? Who knew!

Good Housekeeping ended with the instructions of how to remove the back bones on one side of the rack so the chops can be easily cut apart. Let me offer you a little tip. Ask your butcher to do this before you even bring that rack of lamb home. Roasting and serving is quicker and easier without those back bones to deal with. 

Strawberry Mint Glazed Roasted Rack of Lamb

Instead of the Good Housekeeping recommendation of apricot glaze, you can use any fruit you like so this can be a wonderfully seasonal dish. This time I used strawberries and mixed them with the more traditional accompaniment to lamb, classic mint sauce. Any leftover glaze can be served with the roasted rack of lamb, to spoon over the chops. So good! 

Ingredients

For the strawberry mint glaze/sauce:

7 oz or 200g strawberries

Pinch salt

1­-2 teaspoons sugar (if needed, depending on the sweetness of your strawberries)

2 tablespoons prepared mint sauce (Not mint jelly! Proper mint sauce has a bite from the vinegar. I recommend Colman's Classic Mint Sauce.)

For the rack of lamb:

1 1/2 lbs or 680g rack of lamb, preferably with a nice layer of fat on top

1 teaspoon flakey sea salt 

1 large clove garlic

1⁄2 teaspoon peppercorns (I use mixed peppercorn but just black are fine.)

Method

Start your oven preheating to 375°F or 190°C. 

Use a sharp knife to score the fat on the top of the rack of lamb. Don't cut all the way through to the meat.

Use a mortar and pestle to crush the peppercorns, garlic and salt salt into a paste.

Rub the seasonings into the scored fat then place it on a rack in a baking pan. Set aside. 

To make the strawberry mint glaze, hull the strawberries and chop them into quarters. Cook them until soft in a small covered pot over a medium flame, with the pinch of salt and a splash of water.

Taste the strawberries and add a little sugar if they aren’t sweet. 

Mash the strawberries with a fork and cook them down until they are a thick sauce. Remove from the heat and stir in the mint sauce. Set it aside

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When your oven has reached the proper temperature, put the pan in the oven and roast the rack of lamb for about 30 minutes or until the internal temperature reaches about 115°F or 46°C, for rare chops.

Remove the rack from the oven and brush it all over thickly with the strawberry mint glaze.

Return the rack to the oven for another 15 minutes or until the internal temperature is about 135°F or 57°C. Remove it from the oven and tent it with foil for about 10 minutes.

Slice into six chops and serve the remaining strawberry mint sauce alongside the chops.

Enjoy! 

It’s Sunday FunDay again and this time I’m hosting and we are sharing lamb recipes. Check out all the delicious recipes below. 

• Handi Mutton Mughlai from Sneha's Recipe
• Lamb Meatballs in Tomato Sauce from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Lamb Stew from Making Miracles
• Stinging Nettle and Lamb Börek from Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Stir-fried Mongolian Lamb with Scallions from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Strawberry Mint Glazed Roasted Rack of Lamb from Food Lust People Love

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.

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Roasted Rack of Lamb!

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Chili Plum Sauce

Spicy, sweet and tangy, this chili plum sauce is the perfect combination of all three. It's wonderful with duck, pork or chicken. 

Several years ago, we were discussing our Christmas dinner menu and our elder daughter suggested roast duck, Peking-style. I was intrigued because I don’t think I’d ever roasted a whole duck. (Although once I came close.)

We love pan-fried duck breast so even when I came across a whole duck when we lived in Cairo, I broke it down so I could pan-fry the breasts and confit the legs and thighs. And we adore classic cassoulet. I guess you could say we are duck people. 

And, of course, I’ve eaten roast duck in Chinese restaurants so I knew that the skin had to be shatteringly crispy and that it’s often served with plum sauce, which I usually find too sweet. So while my trial duck dried out, I searched for plum sauce recipes that would suit my palate. Adding chili peppers seemed like a great idea. Unfortunately the original blog I adapted my recipe from is no longer active on the interwebs or I would share the link.

This was in our front room so it got a few second glances from the neighbors as they passed by. 

I’m pleased to tell you that trial duck was fabulous and we did indeed have roast duck for Christmas that year and most years since till 2020 shut us down as a family who could get together. Last year, we just couldn't do the same menu because there was just no way to pretend that things were normal. I have high hopes for 2021.  

Trial bird was a crispy success. Maybe one day I'll post that recipe.

Chili Plum Sauce

This recipe makes a generous 6 2/3 cups or 1575ml of chili plum sauce. Feel free to halve it but when plums are at their peak and a bargain to buy this summer, why not make the whole batch? You can use it in the traditional moo shu pancakes with roasted duck or as a marinade or dipping sauce for pork or chicken. I have also been known to whisk it into a vinaigrette with olive oil and a little extra vinegar, which is lovely on a green salad or over sliced cucumbers. 

Ingredients

2 small red chili peppers

9-10 cloves garlic

4-inch piece fresh ginger

18 plums (Mine weighed about 3 1/2 lbs or 1600g) 

2 cups or 480ml red wine vinegar

1 2/3 cups or 332g sugar

1 1/4 cups or 296ml reduced salt light soy sauce

2 teaspoons Sichuan peppercorns

Method

Cut the plums in half and remove the stones. Then cut them into small chunks.

Use the tip of a sharp knife to split your chili peppers. Peel and slice the ginger and garlic. 

Add the plums to a heavy bottomed pan and cook for 20 minutes over medium-low heat.

Add the chili peppers, garlic, ginger, vinegar, soy sauce, sugar and Sichuan peppercorns and bring the mixture to the boil.

Reduce the heat until the mixture is simmering, cover with a lid and simmer for 5-6 minutes, or until the plums have softened completely.

Carefully blend the hot mixture to a purée in batches in a food processor or straight in the pot with a hand blender.

Strain the purée through a sieve into a bowl. Pour the hot plum sauce into sterilized jars. 

Enjoy with roast duck, chicken or pork! 

Here are our moo shu duck pancakes! Pancake recipe: moo shu pancakes

It's Sunday FunDay again! Our host Karen from Karen's Kitchen Stories invited us to share recipes with chili peppers, a theme that is near and dear to my heart. Many thanks to her for the great theme and her behind-the-scenes work. Check out the other chili-peppery recipes we are sharing below! 

• Chile Pancakes from Sid's Sea Palm Cooking
• Chili Plum Sauce from Food Lust People Love
• Creamy Chicken Tortilla Stew from Amy's Cooking Adventures
• Enfrijoladas from Making Miracles
• Homemade Salsa Verde from Sneha's Recipe
• Maharashtrian Green Chilli Thecha from Cook with Renu
• Mirchi Ka Salan from Mayuri's Jikoni
• Roasted Monkfish Over Mole Negro from Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Spicy Carrot and Broccoli Salad from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Thai Curry Noodles from Palatable Pastime

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.

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