The polar vortices must have been good for the grape kiwi. After years of being barely productive, it is flourishing wildly.
Sometimes it takes, as we can learn from mindfully practiced yoga asana, a stressor to stimulate growth or needed change. It isn’t stress that holds us back, but distress.
As for the kiwi vine, even if the birds get all the fruit, I still had the delightful scent of the flowers.
At what point does a recipe cease to be the one from the book and become one’s own? These muffins are loosely based on Martha Rose Shulman’s “Overnight Bran Muffins” from her book Great Breads. Her ingredients are: raisins, bran, boiling water, eggs, sunflower oil or melted butter, honey, molasses, buttermilk, whole wheat flour, white flour, baking soda, and salt. She bakes hers at 400F for 20-30 minutes. If I had just replaced the raisins with cranberries (sometimes I use other berries or dried fruits), or replaced the buttermilk with soy milk or juice, or used all whole wheat flour instead of a mixture of whole wheat and white flour, and added a few spices, it would not have been my cooking. But when one changes nearly every aspect of a recipe, is it a new recipe? I just happened to start with this one, but I could just have easily started modifying the recipe on the back of the bag of cranberries for cranberry bread or any one of a number of the recipes I have for apple, cranberry, or bran muffins and came to the same place.
I used chopped cranberries, succanat, walnuts, oat bran, egg replacer, walnut oil, soy milk, ground flax seed meal, whole wheat pastry flour, cinnamon, allspice, baking soda, and salt and changed some of the proportions, the order in which I prepare and mix some of the ingredients, and the baking temperature and time. Ms. Shulman’s muffins are richer and more classic for having the eggs, buttermilk, and white flower, but the ones I made this morning tasted pretty good, and I recommend her book as an excellent place to find solid, easy to follow recipes. I honor her recipe as a starting point, the way I honor my teachers on the yoga path, but still bring in my own experience.
Want to make your own?
I freeze muffins and then take one to work (I transport muffins wrapped in a cloth napkin or a reused bag from nuts or dried fruit) instead of buying coffee shop muffins. Saves on packaging, calories, and I know it was made with love. Keep the coffee store pastries for a special treat or for when you’ve temporarily run out of your own.
