Lower-Fat Lemon Blueberry Muffins

These blueberry muffins have a luscious taste, are moist & dense, and the buttermilk does wonders for the flavor. The blueberries just pop in your mouth. Got milk?!

3 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
4 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon Kosher salt 

2 cups fat-free buttermilk, shaken
¼ lb. margarine or butter substitute
1 ½ teaspoons ground lemon peel
3 large eggs

2 cups fresh blueberries, washed

In a large bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the buttermilk, margarine, lemon peel, and eggs, one at a time, sitrring after each addition. Fold in the blueberries using care not to smash them. 

Pour the batter into a lined muffin pan. Bake at 350 for about 35 minutes. Put muffin pan on a wire rack to cool. 

Easy Buttermilk Substitute

If you don’t have buttermilk on hand, you can make your own by mixing 1/3 cup of milk and 1 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar. Mix well, and let the milk stand at room temperature for 15-20 minutes until the buttermilk flavor develops. Who knew?!

Fresh Blueberry-Almond Smoothie

I picked ten pounds of these blueberries yesterday and now have big bags of them in my freezer. 

This is an easy to make and healthy blueberry smoothie, and a great start to your day. You could use other berries too. The blueberries are frozen when added to the blender so they double as ice cubes. The almond extract adds a nice undercurrent. 

Blend these ingredients in your favorite blender until smooth:

2/3 cup fresh frozen blueberries
1 cup vanilla non-fat yogurt
2 tablespoons fat-free milk
2-4 drops almond extract

Spanikopita: Spinach Pie

I absolutely love Greek food and was influenced early on by working for a Greek restaurant in Chicagoland when I was a teenager. Also during this time, my girlfriends and I drove downtown on special occasions and had dinner at Diana's and other Greek restaurants. We danced in Greektown and tasted flaming cheese and ouzo! Opa!

Side note--following one of these great Greek dinners we decided to make saganaki (flaming cheese), but later realized we were not old enough to buy the liquor to flame this delicious appetizer. 

Spanikopita = soft little spinach & cheese pies.

Ingredients:

18 oz. box frozen chopped spinach, thawed
16 oz. feta cheese
16 oz. fat-free cottage cheese
8 oz. low-fat cream cheese
10 green onions, chopped
4 eggs
1 tbsp dried dill weed
1 tbsp dried parsley
1 1/2 tsps Kosher salt
1/2 tsp pepper
4 oz. butter, melted
Phyllo dough

Squeeze all of the liquid out of the spinach, then combine all ingredients, except the phyllo and butter, in a large bowl and mix well. Grease two 12" x 17" cookie sheets with melted butter. Preheat oven to 350. Lay a sheet of phyllo down on a flat surface and brush it lightly with the melted butter. Place two tablespoons of the spinach mixture in the center of the filo sheet near the bottom.

Fold the two sides inward over the mound and brush the seam with butter. Roll forward to form a rectangle, roughly 2”x5” in size. Butter the bottom where the seam is and place it on the baking sheet, seam side down, then lightly butter the top. The cookie sheets should hold about 10 spanikopita at one time. Once the sheets are full, place them in the oven and bake for 35-45 minutes, or until the top of the phyllo dough is golden brown.  

Serve these warm, but they fabulous cold, too. I plan to serve these with tzatziki (see recipe on my blog) next time. Spanikopita freezes well.