A Culinary Adventure!

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Hello, boys and girls!  Today is going to be special, because we're going to do something a little different!

First, I would like to take a brief survey.  How many of my readers have just come home from the grocery store (or even the supermarket!) with a packet of Muffin Mix, and thought to themselves: Oh dear; I just don't want to heat the house up with a lot of baking!  Let's see ... I thought I saw some hands going up ... yes!  Isn't that so true?  Just heat up a slice of pizza in the oven, and suddenly it's so hot, you've got to jump in the pool!  (And, sometimes, you don't even have one.  A pool, I mean.)

This is exactly what happened to me, only I have this little set up that works really well for me.  See, I have this little keyboard, and it came with --well, it didn't exactly come with it; I had to go out and buy it, you know?  Anyway-- it's this little stand thing; it's sort like of one of these Star Wars X wing fighters, you know what I mean?  One of those things, but of course it isn't going anywhere; it's just parked in my living room not doing much of anything.  But it really is a stand, but I don't use it for the keyboard any more.  So I put it out in the  back porch (which is another long story), and then, I bring out my convection oven!!  I don't think they make them any more (because I think little tots kept swallowing them, or who knows) but it is about the size of a small microwave, and much lighter.  So, I'm all set to go, and it's outside, so the house stays cool!  They say: preheat to 400 F, so that's the first thing to do.  (When the muffins are ready, I'm just going to throw them in, because, well, it's a convection oven, and it bakes in a hurry.)

The method is easy.  You put in some water --at least in my packet, which is KrustEaz, or something like that, you start with a cup and a quarter of water.  Then you add the mix, mix it up (I just use a beater from an old mixer that blew up one day, but the beater works fine,) then you fold in the fruit, er, stuff.  They give you a bag of, well in my case it was apple, in some sort of sticky syrup.  'Fold' means, just mix it in, but just lightly.  Now, I like just a little more fiber in my muffins.  So I crushed a tablespoonful or so of whole grain oatmeal, which of course is guaranteed to make the whole thing too dry.  So, I added a tablespoon of sugar-free Marmalade!!  So I folded those in.

Meanwhile, the KrustEaz fellows are giving me a recipe for 12 muffins, but I can make only 6.  You divide the batter up as well as you can (first you've got to grease the muffin tins.  I didn't have any spray stuff, so I just used my fingers --ew-- then I dusted the tray with rye flour.  Why rye?  Because that's all the flour I had in the house!!

Bake for eighteen minutes (I did 2o, just to be contrary), cool for five minutes, and serve!

I also bought some butter and olive-oil spread, which I'm sure will be yummy, and I will see how it comes out.  Hold on a second, while I try these little fellows ...

Oh my goodness, they are so good!  Well, what do you expect?  You add marmalade, how could you go wrong?

I mean, there are teen recipes, like: "Mix up a quart of strawberry cheesecake ice cream, a quarter cup of peanut butter, and a tablespoon of sprinkles, and top with whipped cream."  Like, this is not a recipe that can go south in any conceivable way.  Or: "Top a slice of pizza with chicken nuggets and blue cheese salad dressing, and eat with French fries."  I don't see the point in even mentioning these kinds of things in the same breath as a real recipe.

So, anyway, there's about a muffin's worth of batter still left, and I'm trying to think how to get it baked; maybe I'll just deep fry it with the chicken wings.

So, until next time, this is Arch, signing off:  Signoff!!!