Mushrooms and Polenta

Some of my favorite ladies came over for dinner tonight.  It was a hot, sunny day in Chicago, so I wanted to spend most of the day out, not cooking up something over-elaborate.  So, using only things I had in my cupboard, I whipped up a little meal of a mushroom-and-onion saute and herbed polenta.  It was simple, quick, and quite delicious (If I do say so myself).

Here's the final product:

Carrot Cake Cupcakes

Earlier this week, I promised someone carrot cake cupcakes.  Yesterday rolled around and it was time to deliver.  I found it surprisingly difficult to find a recipe that I liked (something that used butter instead of oil, had traditional carrot cake ingredients), so I based my recipe off of this one, but with some pretty serious tweaks.  These are almost "hummingbird" cupcakes, but not quite.  One quick note: I didn't make my own icing, and for that I am sorry.  Next time I make a cake-like item, you can expect an accompanying icing recipe.

You'll need:

1/3 cup butter, room temperature
3/4 cups granulated sugar
1 tbsp. honey
2 eggs
1 cup grated carrot
1 cup flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
3 tbsp. apple juice
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup crushed walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a dozen muffin cups with paper liners.

Cream together the butter, sugar, and honey until the mixture is smooth.  Beat in eggs one at a time, then add grated carrot (you can grate right into the bowl—that's what I did).

Stir in flour, baking soda, and baking powder in two parts.  Stir smooth, but don't overbeat.  Add apple juice and stir.  Add walnuts and raisins.  You should have a smooth, moist batter at this point.

Spoon the batter into the twelve muffin cups approximately equally.  Bake until golden and risen, so that when you stick a knife in the middle, it comes out clean.  This takes about 25 minutes.

Cool on a rack, then remove from pan.  Let cool thoroughly before icing (This was a mistake I made because I was in a rush).

When you're done, you'll get some sweet cupcakes like this:

And your friends will be happy and look like this:

I warned you, Alex.  Now it's on the Internet.