Jolene Eats Here: A (Not Very) Lazy Sunday

With Brad at work all day on a Sunday, I had a lot of fun in the kitchen cooking up a storm. Yes, I made all of this in one day! (Plus I cleaned the entire house.. um, it's harder than it looks and I now have a greater appreciation for the cleaning Brad does every Sunday)

BACON CARROT SOUP

I made this soup today, and it was delicious! I just kind of threw it together, so there's no recipe, but I listed the ingredients below. I thought this soup was even better than the sweet potato soup in my last post, due to the tasty addition of the bacon and sour cream garnish. Brad's taking this soup to work for lunch tomorrow with a salad.

Ingredients:
-roasted carrots with sage, olive oil, pepper
-homemade chicken stock
-cinnamon
-cumin
-butter
-lemon juice
-garnish with sour cream and bacon

BANANA MUFFINS

We had some bananas bordering on overripe today, so I made a small batch of banana muffins. The recipe is my own, and to be honest, I just made it up on the spot. I'm sure it's not the best banana muffin recipe ever, but the results were really tasty. What makes this recipe unusual is the addition of gluten free flour and the use of evaporated cane juice in place of sugar.

BANANA MUFFINS
-1/2 cup regular flour
-3/4 cup Red Mill gluten free flour mix
-1 stick butter, melted
-1 egg
-dash of salt
-1/2 cup evaporated cane juice (or sugar)
-2 ripe bananas
-1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 400°F. Line muffin cups. Mix flour, sugar and salt in large bowl. Mix mashed bananas, egg, melted butter, vanilla and egg in medium bowl. Stir banana mixture into dry ingredients just until blended (do not overmix).
Divide batter among prepared muffin cups, filling each about 3/4 full. Sprinkle tops with sugar. Bake muffins until tops are pale golden and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Transfer muffins to rack; cool.

FIGGY PIGGY CORNISH HEN

This is a recipe in Gourmet's September 2009 issue. Brad loved it and said that it blew our regular chicken dish (see the Chicken with Mustard Vinaigrette recipe in yesterday's post) out of the water. And we thought that dish was as good as it gets.
The pairing of the bacon and figs is perfect, and the hen was juicy all the way through. It's an organic cornish hen from Whole Foods. They're a little pricey at $10 each, but 1/2 a hen was enough for each of us for a meal.

You can find the full recipe here:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Figgy-Piggy-Cornish-Hens-354955

Bacon and sliced garlic are sauteed ahead of time and used for garnish