FROM OUR LITTLE KITCHEN

There are millions of good recipes on the Internet.  But those aren't as much fun as the ones that are connected to a story -- when you remember where you got the recipe and maybe when you cooked it.  A must-have in our little kitchen is a version of the family cookbook our daughter put together for us as a Christmas present years ago.  She got tired of hearing me whine "someday I'm going to organize all those recipe clippings" and so she did it for me.   Her gift gave me the incentive to keep the book up-to-date and I've done that ever since, adding new favorites and food-sharing memories along the way.  Its fun to remember people and places while I cook.

When we started our RV life, I updated the book by removing supersized recipes that easily fed a family of teenagers.  Although I might never cook some of those early recipes again, the original version of the book is stored in Oregon with our photo albums and other priceless memories that we don't have room to carry with us in our home on wheels.  Here's our modified version with the original dedication page.  (It really WAS quite a few years ago!)  

The recipe below for refrigerator muffins is a "litened up" version of one we have in the original recipe book. 

Here's something wonderful that I learned last summer.  Muffins can be cooked in the microwave.   Wow!  Why didn't I know this trick back in 1976 when we had six people who needed to get out of the house by 7 a.m.?  It works just as well for two people with no particular schedule though (and is especially handy if we don't happen to be breakfasting at the same time). 

I use a 6-oz pyrex custard cup and fill it a little less than half.  It takes about a minute and a half in our nuker.   Last summer, I baked a dozen the old fashioned way because we were having company for breakfast.  And it was our breakfast guest, our friend Anne Dryman, who told me about microwaving them.  So I used the refrigerated half of the batter for microwaving individually. (The recipe says that the batter keeps up to two weeks -- I kept it a little longer and we're still alive and well.)   

The recipe calls for two cups of buttermilk.  I can only find it in quarts -- but you can freeze it for next time.  Just pour the unused half into a freezer bag, seal and pop it in the freezer.  Last week, I made the recipe again with the frozen buttermilk and it works fine.  I have too much in the refrigerator this time though, so next time I'm going to halve the recipe.

Enjoy breakfast! 

Lighter Version Refrigerator Bran Muffins

Ingredients

2 cups All-Bran cereal
2/3 cup wheat bran
1 1/3 cups boiling water
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon grated or ground nutmeg
Vegetable cooking spray
2 cups low-fat buttermilk
1/2 cup pasteurized egg substitute  (The second time I made these I used 2 whole eggs beaten lightly)
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

(I added raisins to the batter at the end.)

 

Instructions

1. Mix cereal and wheat bran in a large bowl. Add boiling water, stir well and set aside 1 hour.
2. Whisk together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg in a medium bowl.
3. Preheat oven to 375F. Coat muffin cups with cooking spray.
4. Add 1 cup buttermilk to bran mixture; stir well with a whisk. Add remaining buttermilk, egg substitute, granulated sugar, brown sugar, oil and vanilla, stirring until smooth.
4. Add flour mixture; stir until a thick batter forms.
5. Fill each cup with 2⁄3 cup muffin batter. Bake 20 to 25 minutes, until puffed and lightly browned. Makes 2 dozen muffins.

Recipe by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough, Relish the Healthy Table, "Waves of Grain," Sept. 2008.

Nutritional Information (with the egg substitute)

Per muffin: 150 calories, 5g fat, 0mg chol., 3g prot., 26g carbs., 2g fiber, 250mg sodium.

 

Comments

[Denae]

I never knew that you could microwave muffin batter! That's pretty exciting, I'll have to try that sometime when we have a kitchen. That photo of your muffin with the coffee and Laughing Cow cheese is making my mouth water!