Spinach salad with mango vinaigrette.

I was at Trader Joe's in Centreville with ez_mo yesterday doing my usual thing--browsing aisles and filling my cart with rice pasta. I happened to decide to check out all the vinegars and saw one I hadn't seen before: mango chili vinegar.

It jumped into my cart. I immediately wheeled around and found manchego in the cheese section, then zipped down to the bagged produce for baby spinach.

Tonight, I washed and spun-dry the spinach and filled two plates.

In a small skillet, I heated some olive oil over medium heat. I tossed in several cloves of garlic to sweat. After they started turning golden, I added two generous fingerfuls of red flame raisins and about a quarter cup of pine nuts. I tossed those for a couple minutes until the raisins were just about to burst. I quickly scooped the raisins, garlic, and pine nuts onto the spinach. I whisked the oil with some of the mango-chili vinegar and then poured it over the two plates. A generous grating of cheese, cracked pepper, and sea salt and we were ready to eat.

Oh. My. God. So good. Definitely a keeper.

Lemon poppyseed muffins

Someone who shall remain unnamed likes to link lots of yummy recipes. It's very cruel to read such a list when pregnant.

This was one of those links.

I love lemon poppyseed breads. So I carried the laptop into the kitchen and got to work, chatting with baobh while I pulled out ingredients.

I did adapt, of course. Juiced a couple lemons, so just under two tablespoons of juice. Grated some of the zest, but got tired, so added in about a teaspoon of dried peel. Said, "oooh, crap" and added extra lemon flavoring (and then more, and then more). The soymilk (UGH!) was replaced with buttermilk (dry solids in with flours, water in with liquids).

Anyhow, I baked 'em. My flour mix is teff, brown rice, white sorghum, and tapioca. I filled the muffin tins and 15 minutes was perfect.

Interestingly, I should've waited. The remaining batter had time (20 minutes) to perk up (buttermilk, baking soda, etc). The remaining batter filled four slots in the tin. THOSE muffins peaked nicely--excellent muffin tops resulted. I'm used to flat muffins these days, but now that I know I can tweak recipes with buttermilk, I might just have to do that. I was taking a risk--they could've swelled and exploded, but risks are worth it with lemon poppyseed.