Strawberry Oatmeal Muffins

Prep time: 20 minutes Cook time: 25 minutes The addition of black pepper to this recipe is important, but make sure you are using finely ground black pepper, not coarsely ground. If all you have is coarsely ground, skip it. Add to shopping list Ingredients 1 1/4 cups old fashioned oats 1 cup plain yogurt 1/2 pound strawberries 2 teaspoons granulated white sugar 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar 2 eggs 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted 1/2 cup brown sugar (packed) 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 cup all purpose flour 1 Tbsp baking powder 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon finely ground black pepper 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon Method 1 Mix the oats and plain yogurt together in a large bowl. 2 Rinse and core the strawberries. Roughly chop the strawberries (I cut them in quarters lengthwise and then make one or two crosswise cuts). You should have about 1 1/2 cups of chopped strawberries. Place in a small bowl. Sprinkle with white sugar and balsamic vinegar. Gently stir to coat the strawberries with the sugar and vinegar. 3 Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat oven to 400°F. Prepare a 12-well muffin tin by coating with butter or lining with paper muffin cups. 4 Whisk together in a medium bowl the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, finely ground black pepper, and cinnamon. 5 Add the eggs, melted butter, brown sugar, and vanilla extract to the oatmeal and yogurt mixture. Stir until just incorporated. 6 Use a wooden spoon to gently stir the flour mixture into the oatmeal. Stir until just incorporated and the flour is moistened. Do not over-mix! Or your muffins will end up rubbery. The batter should be rather lumpy, not smooth. 7 Gently fold in the strawberries, including any of the sugary vinegary liquid the strawberries have been sitting in. 8 Spoon the batter evenly into the muffin tin wells or cups. Bake until the tops are browned and the muffin bounces back when you gently press on the top with your finger tips, about 20 minutes. A bamboo or metal skewer inserted into the center should come out clean. Let cool for a couple minutes in the muffin tin before removing to serve. Yield: Makes 12 muffins.

strawberries and dumplings

Strawberries and Dumplings
Adapted wildly from Gourmet

Being difficult — er, being “me” — I changed a whole lot of things about the original recipe. It sounded like it would be way too sweet, especially for my market-fresh peak-season berries, and boy, am I glad I dialed back the sugar by almost two-thirds because it needs nothing more. I added lemon juice, because it makes strawberries sing. And then, because I already knew that the dumpling recipe I’d used previously was perfect in every way — less wet and using less baking powder than the Gourmet version — I decided to not fix what wasn’t broken. The end result? A hole in one recipe, and an awesome weekday night treat. Or maybe breakfast, when I come at it with some Greek yogurt tomorrow morning. Gah, is it tomorrow yet?

Serves 6, in theory

1 quart (about 2 pints or 4 cups or 1.25 pounds or just shy of 600 grams) strawberries, trimmed and thickly sliced (about 4 cups)
1/4 cup sugar (though I might try this with brown sugar next time, just to up the cozy quotient)
Juice of half a lemon
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup whole milk
2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Accompaniment: Heavy cream

Stir together strawberries, sugar and lemon in a 4-qt heavy saucepan and let stand, stirring occasionally, until juicy, about 15 minutes. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, stirring occasionally.

Stir the flour, baking powder, and salt together. Heat the milk and butter together just until the butter melts. Stir this warmed milk mixture into the flour mixture with a wooden spoon until incorporated and smooth. Gather a golf-ball-sized portion of the dumpling batter onto a small spoon, then push the dumpling onto the stew using a second spoon. (I used a small cookie scoop for this — a #70. It made 16 dumplings. Yes, I counted because someone always asks these things!) Cover the fruit with the dumplings, leaving about 1/4 inch between each.

Tightly cover saucepan and reduce heat to low. Cook, undisturbed, until dumpling looks dry on top, 15 to 18 minutes; the dumplings will have doubled in size. Let stand off heat, uncovered, five minutes, then drizzle with heavy cream right before serving.

This dish definitely tastes best freshly made, as the dumplings do dry out a bit by the second. But then it starts to taste like a cobbler, and really, who is going to complain about that?