Easy Dinner: Soup and Spicy Corn Muffins with Sweet Butter

This is an open letter for all of you to read.

Dear Summer,

I miss you already. Fall is nice, but you’ll always be my favorite. Come back soon.

xo-AP

*Angie Pangie sighs*

I guess it could be worse, it could be winter, right? At least we still have pumpkins, onions, apples, plus a few tomatoes and peppers left.

Last week I used my peppers to make some spicy cornbread muffins. I served them along with my super-secret-recipe chicken tortilla soup.

Well, it’s not really super-secret. I only have a couple of super-secret recipes. They’re too secret to even tell you what they are.

Here’s that soup.

Looks good, doesn’t it? Let’s see – that’s one can of refried beans, one can of white beans, one can of tomatoes with green chilies, one can of chicken broth and the leftover cut up rotisserie chicken from the night before. Mix it up, heat it up and top it with tortilla chips, sour cream and cheese. That’s it. No. Really. That’s it.

If I’m going to make one of my super-easy soup recipes like potato soup or tomato bisque or chicken tortilla soup I always try to make something a little special to along with them. It helps me alleviate my guilt for not spending hours in the kitchen. (Yeah right. As IF that would ever happen. I mean the guilt part would not happen. As it turns out, I do actually spend hours in the kitchen.)

These jalapeno muffins are the perfect accompaniment for southwest soups and chilis. They’re served with a sweet honey butter, which makes them mellow and amazing. I think you’re going to love the way they spice up your easy dinner nights.

Spicy Corn Muffins with Sweet Butter

From Recipezaar

Start out by mixing the dry ingredients in one bowl and the wet ingredients in another.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix up gently and just enough to get everything wet. Don’t worry about lumps right now.

Chop up your pepper – wear gloves! Remove the seeds and membranes.

Mix in the corn and pepper and stir gently to combine.

Pour into muffin tins that have been sprayed or try my WD-40 for baking. Fill with about 1/4 cup of batter, or 2/3 full. You should get 8 muffins, or 6 if you make really big muffins.

Bake these for 14-16 minutes at 400 degrees. While they are baking mix up the honey butter. I <3 honey butter. Lots. It makes everything taste good. These muffins are good without, but they’re fantastic with it – so don’t skip this step! (Forgive the blurry picture. It’s likely I was shaking because of the great amount of will power I was exerting to not eat this muffin immediately.)

Once again, without the pictures:

Recipe: Spicy Corn Muffins and Sweet Butter

Ingredients

1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
4 1/2 teaspoons brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 dash pepper
1 egg
1/3 cup sour cream
1/4 cup milk
1 tablespoon canola oil
1/2 cup whole kernel corn
1 jalapeno pepper (minced, remove the seeds and membrane)
For the Honey Butter:
6 tablespoons soft butter or margarine
6 tablespoons powdered sugar
6 tablespoons honey
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Instructions

Preheat oven to 400°F.
In a small bowl combine dry ingredients.
In another bowl, combine the egg, sour cream, milk and oil. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened.
Stir in jalapeño and corn.
Grease muffin cups, fill 2/3rds full with batter.
Bake at 400°F for 14-16 minutes until tester comes out clean.
While the muffins are baking, mix all ingredients for honey butter together and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Number of servings (yield): 4