THEY ARE NOT CUPCAKES

The only reason muffins are not cupcakes is that you can eat muffins for breakfast.
The muffin recipes are moving to their very own blog site. One is already there.
Their new home is FIDDLING MUFFINS

The fiddling magpie site will continue to cover the reishi, among other things. Here are some recent shots of the reluctant creatures.

This is the antler form of reishi. The antlers grow toward a light source. They will change their growth direction and re-orient themselves if they are moved.

Muffin People

Not done talking about muffins!

It turns out the tune I sing to the rhyme "Do You Know the Muffin Man?" is a polka. Or a rant. Depending on your predilection for Irish or Scottish dance tunes.

You can hear it all HERE .
It is number eighteen, recorded by Adam Rennie and his Scottish Country Dance Band. The last tune in the set. They title it "Come Let Us Dance and Sing" but I tell you, it is "The Muffin Man" through and through.

Here is my concept of the Muffin Man.

Muffins on Demand

Way back in August I posted a different muffin recipe. The muffin tin-greasing tips still apply.
My task of the day is to develop a generic muffin recipe. This way, I can make a muffin mix to have on hand when I am in a time crunch, and I still want to feel virtuous about my on-the-go food. The muffins pictured above are NOT virtuous. Making muffins is virtuous, however, and that is enough virtue to do the trick.

The muffins do have a bit of whole grain cellulose, thank you Dakota Maid, and are low sodium, thanks in part to Rumford brand reduced sodium baking powder and Morten's lite-salt. If you think that is oxymoronic, you are wrong. There are so many kinds of salt in the world. It's a good thing, too. Almost any one of them is better for you than more sodium.

PART 1
Here is the recipe I used:
Mix together the following -
1 cup unbleached white flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
3 TBS shortening
3 TBS unsalted butter

These should be mixed thoroughly, until the result looks like slightly sticky sand. You can use your hands to do this. At this point, the result can be sealed in a container and reserved for "Muffin Baking Time." Next time I mix this up, I am going to make several and heat seal them in vacuum bags.

PART 2
When "Muffin Baking Time" arrives, preheat the oven to 375º f.
Now, create a taste theme for the muffins. Today my theme was pineapple, dried cranberry and walnut. With vanilla and cinnamon, for good measure.
Put the taste theme items in a 2 qt bowl. I used 1/4 cup of each chopped fruit and nutmeats, 1 tsp. vanilla and 1/2 tsp. cinnamon.

Finally, to the theme bowl add -
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
Combine everything in the theme bowl thoroughly.

Grease (the bottoms only) of 8 muffin cups. Pour the muffin mixture into a large bowl. Add the contents of the theme bowl. Mix with a spoon just until everything is moistened. Evenly scoop the muffin batter into the muffin tins. Bake for 25 minutes, or until done.
Run a butter knife around the side of each muffin to loosen it from the tin. Remove and cool the muffins on a rack or eat them while they are still warm.
This is so easy, I can do PART 2 in the morning, while I am making coffee. As soon as the muffins are in the oven, I am in the shower. It adds exactly four minutes to my morning activities.
That is less time than it takes to even find the right muffin in the bakery section of the convenience store.

Minnesota - Salsa and Sentence Padding

Please don't try to bleach your own flour. I was joking.

Here in Minnesota, sentiments, among other things, are well padded.
One easy way to cushion what you mean
is to use prefix and suffix words.
Now, some words HAVE prefixes or suffixes.
I am not talking about those words.
These words ARE the prefixes or suffixes.
They are the prefixes or suffixes of the sentence subject.
A common example might be "So, are you still OK over there, then?" In that sentence, there are four prefix words (if you consider the subject to be given), and three suffix words.
The ubiquitous "Sure, pretty good" is the correct answer to that question, with the inflection weighted just slightly onto the word "good." That sentence has either two prefix words OR two suffix words, take your pick.
These and those (above) are two great prefix or suffix words, and when combined with the suffix or prefix word "ones" can stand alone as an understated sentiment. You might even be able to fit them all twice in the same sentence for a total of six, but I'm not sure.

With no segue, I need to move right into the "holiday season." October is my cue to begin making gifts in dribbles. I enjoy squirreling these gifts away until mid December. I always seem to hide the list of giftees in a different spot than the gifts and can not find the list. So I mentally re-distribute each and every item, and dole them out a brand new way. No, those are not prefix words. They are something else. I think they are emotive words. I will let you know for sure next week. Which reminds me - the most expensive color is purple, for those of you who may be regular readers.

Gift project of the week: Mystery Salsa.
Canned tomatoes are on sale. They are perfect for this project, and cut the prep time way back. Green peppers have been on sale all year, it seems like. (three suffix words).

Here is my favorite recipe.
1 15 oz can chopped tomatoes
1 green pepper, seeded and chopped
1 medium yellow onion chopped
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1 jalapeno, or other pepper, chopped*
1 TBS sugar*
1/2 tsp ground cumin

You can double this recipe.

*I use different heat and or sugar sources for this recipe each time. 
In the past, any improvisation happened inadvertently, but this year I will hone the skill.
You try it too. Here is an opportunity to get creative. Stay focused on flavors and the all-important JAR LABEL. Imagine a catchy label such as Tupelo Honey and Serrano Salsa or Minnesota Mystery-Maple Salsa. Or Trehalose and Fire Ant Salsa. Just kidding. About the fire ants. We don't have them in Minnesota.

I do have Mystery peppers this year. They are so crazy hot! They were supposed to be non-spicy Anaheim eat-them-off-the-bush type, and I took a big bite right out in the garden. About halfway through the thought "this pepper has a sweet, yet pungent fruitiness that warms the tongue" I suddenly had to spit the whole bite right across the pepper plants and onto the green bean patch.

Whatever you choose for your sugar and heat, simmer everything together 45 minutes. Ladle boiling hot into hot, sterilized jars, cover with canning lids the way you always do, and process for 15 minutes. THAT was a whole slew of suffix words. Lots of padding!
And the innuendo of the words is staggering. Or maybe that is just the heat of the mystery peppers.

Make the jars pretty after everything has cooled off. Put it all in a box for later.

The Cheapest Color

White is the cheapest color in so many ways.
If you reduce a food to white, it will just sit there like a bump on a log.
case in point....
flour
rice
sugar
oil (sorry, gotta hydrogenate that to turn it white)
I am not talking about protein here, because that will still rot at room temperature if it has any moisture in it, even if it is white.This phenomenon can be put to good use, and it may occasionally save you money in the long run.

What about things that are not food? White is still cheap, when it comes to fabric and paper, because bleach is cheaper than dye and mordant.

White cars, are they the cheapest? Your insurance company will say "you betcha." I can not believe that is true in North Dakota in the middle of winter. On the other hand, maintaining a white yard in North Dakota in the winter is waaaaay cheaper than any other color. And no maintenance! Unless you feel the need to spiff your snow up. Or get in and out of your house after the blizzard.

I will come back later to cover the most expensive color.

Eating Wood

Whether or not cellulose is a good thing for humans to eat, is a difficult question. Several individuals have expressed shock and dismay at suddenly noticing it is in the ingredients list of your favorite foods. and some you don't like too.

I am really on the fence on this one. "K," who started this whole can of worms still has people commenting on the comments of other people's livid remarks. These remarks include ‎"YAY to the world of 'less expensive food, now we can buy bigger cars and more shoes!!" Yes, that is out of context. The original incendiary spark can be found here - Not Food?

And the full blown inflagration centers on the apparent deception to the consumer, who thinks he or she is getting edible food at the grocery store, while lo and behold, it is parts of trees or cornstalks, more likely, that we are actually "eating."

Personally, I am irritated that we can't figure out how to digest the stuff already. At this day and age, we could be responding to references about our ever expanding mid sections with "That's my reticulorumen, don't you have one yet?" We would need our reticulorumens to house a few bacteria we don't already own. I think they could be easily ingested by making some dirt milkshakes.

The same humans who don't want to have a go at eating chopped paper may not have tried the delightful and largely inedible slippery elm porridge. Made from the inner bark of the slippery elm, this porridge has the distinctive flavor of wood shavings. I have eaten it many times, and I didn't put on an ounce.
Have you seen this pop-up ad? One trick of the tiny belly. Eat wood.

I MUST point out that wood is not cellulose. Sure, some of it is but there are many other things to digest in wood, such as lignin. You try digesting lignin sometime.

 My Ganoderma, in its jar house, truly enjoys a wood diet. I treat the youngster to a warm-up in the oven twice a day. Just over 100ºf. Soon, it will be moving again. More space, more wood, more oxygen.

This all reminds me of a joke. What is brown and sticky? A stick.