Savannah Bee

The Savannah Bee Company offers both edible honey and honey-enriched beauty products. We were both suffering from bad colds and drinking lots of hot tea with honey and lemon, so we jumped at the chance to sample some of Savannah Bee's products.

They sent us three flavors of honey shortbread cookie bites and a jar of spun cinnamon honey--both perfect additions to our tea habit. The cookies are little bitsy things with a big buttery taste and pleasantly granular texture. They are honestly some of the best shortbread we've ever tried, tasting pretty close to home-made.

The spun honey is made from crystallized honey and cinnamon, creating a smooth and dense product that tastes delish eaten right off the spoon, but it's also terrific spread on toast or warm biscuits. I like to add it to my overnight oats, to give them a nice sweetness with a hint of cinnamon. Of course, it's great in regular hot oatmeal as well.

Savannah Bee also sells different types of artisan honey, in flavors like acacia and sourwood, and honeys they call "everyday" honeys, formulated for adding to tea or eating with cheese. They also have a ton of beauty products made with honey or beeswax, including lip balm, body lotion, hand cream, and shampoo. I'm eyeballing the beeswax lip gloss and royal jelly body butter myself to keep dry lips and hands at bay. Hm...might need more of those cookies, too.

Savannah Bee products can be ordered online, from their Web site, but some local Baltimore-area shops also carry their honeys, like Baltimore Coffee and Tea, Eddie's, and the Teavana in Columbia.

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Meyer Lemon Muffins

When life gives you lemons...

...make lemon muffins.

I had this great plan to make a simple dessert that a friend taught me some years ago involving oranges and alcohol. I knew there were oranges in the fridge, so I grabbed a couple. I cut into one. It was unusually fragrant for an organic orange, so I tasted a piece only to find it was terribly sour. I tried the other one, and it too was very sour. Then it hit me - they were Meyer lemons. I had received some from a recent CSA delivery, but I thought there had only been two lemons, not four. The two I had in front of me were huge, the size of oranges. Their labels only said "organic" and had a number. I just assumed they were oranges.

You know what you get when you assume, right?

So now I had two precious Meyer lemons that I had to use right away. At first I thought to do a riff on Nigella Lawson's flourless clementine cake, but realized it would need far more than two lemons and more eggs than we had in the fridge. I suppose I could have done math and made a much smaller cake (I do have a set of adorable mini springform pans), but math and I have never gotten along. I didn't want make something that required only the juice or only the rind, because it seemed wasteful, and I had recently made a batch of lemon curd. So I consulted the almighty Internet and found the perfect recipe on the LA Times web site: lemon muffins that used every part of the lemon except the seeds.

I imagine this recipe could be used for oranges or limes or regular lemons. There's a whole cup of sugar in them, which takes care of any sourness issues. The end result is moist and very lemony, and really quite delicious. And they freeze like a dream!

Meyer Lemon Muffins (adapted from the LA Times)

2 Meyer lemons
2 cups flour
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar, divided
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup butter, melted
1/2 teaspoon Ceylon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Cut about 1/3 off of one of the lemons. Cut that small part into 18 tiny wedges. Chop the remaining lemon into pieces and puree them in a blender.

Combine flour, 1 cup of sugar, baking soda, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients.

In another bowl, beat together the eggs, milk, butter, and pureed lemon. Pour into the well of flour/sugar and stir until just combined.

Grease 18 muffin cups and spoon the batter in.

Combine the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar and the cinnamon. Sprinkle evenly over each muffin. Top with a wedge of reserved lemon.

Bake until golden brown, about 20 minutes. Remove muffins from pan and cool on a wire rack.

Makes 18 muffins.



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Rice Cooker Oatmeal

I prefer steel cut oats to rolled oats because I find the texture to be more pleasing, however I hate that they take so long to cook. So one morning, I decided to try out the rice cooker. It worked beautifully, took about a third less time, and didn't require regular monitoring/stirring.

Rice Cooker Oatmeal 

To the bowl of your rice cooker, add 2 rice-cooker-cups of steel cut oats. Fill bowl with water to the 3 cup line. Add a pinch each of cinnamon, cardamom, and nutmeg, 2 tablespoons of brown sugar, and 2 tablespoons dried sour cherries (or, if you prefer, cranberries or raisins). Close lid and start rice cooker. After the first 10 minutes or so, open the lid occasionally to check the cooking. (Depending on the brand of oats you use, the oatmeal may bubble too much when boiling and ooze through the steam vent.). When the rice cooker flips from cook to "keep warm" mode, the oatmeal is pretty much done. If it's still too chewy for you, give it a stir and turn it back to cook for another 5 minutes or so.

Serve with chopped apple, butter, and a bit of cream or half and half.

YMMV depending on the make, model, and capacity of your rice cooker. (Ours is a National SR-SH10RN 5-cup.)

Posted by theminx on Minxeats.com.