Leftovers and Lemon Poppyseed Muffins

I made a batch of lemon-poppyseed muffins today, with a bit of coconut and a handful of almonds added. These are a riff on the Lynne's Muffins recipe that I originally found almost 30 years ago (!!!!) in The New Laurel's Kitchen cookbook. The basic recipe is wonderful--tasty and healthy--and lends itself well to endless variations, many of which I have posted about in the past. Here's this one:

Mix (in a container with a lid) 2 cups oats (jumbo on this side of the pond, old fashioned on the US side) with 1 1/2 cups milk. Refrigerate overnight or for several hours.

When ready to bake, dump the oat mixture into a mixing bowl and add 1 or 2 tablespoons sugar, 2 tablespoons poppyseeds, and 1/2-3/4 teaspoon of lemon extract, stirring to incorporate. Add and egg and mix in. Add 1 cup wholemeal (whole wheat in the US) flour, 1 teaspoon each baking soda and salt. Stir in. Add some coconut and a handful of almond flakes (sliced almonds) and fold those in, if desired. Spoon into paper lined or greased muffin tins and bake for 20 minutes or so in a 170C  (400F) oven--or until they are golden brown.  I know this is not an even conversion between Celsius and Fahrenheit scales, but when I first was adapting to the ovens I had here, they were fan ovens, which changes things and this is the temperature that works best here. In the US I baked these at 400 and even now that I no longer have a fan oven, the 170 works, so I stick with it.

We will have these for our late night 'dessert', but they are quite healthy, so we can have them with meals too, if we want. They are a quick breakfast with a piece of fruit.

I have no other cooking to do today. I polished off my jazzed up smashed potatoes for lunch.

On Monday, I had a small head of broccoli that needed to be used, so I chopped it up, keeping the florets separate. I put the chopped stems in a puddle of olive oil in my pan, along with a sliced onion. I cooked this, stirring it around, with garlic, black pepper, some dried parsley, and dried chili flakes. When that was almost done, I added the bowl of florets and stirred that in, adding a little bit of water. Meanwhile, the potatoes boiled away in a separate pot. When they were done I smashed them up with a little butter and milk and stirred in the broccoli mixture. With some extra mature cheddar mixed in, it was a yummy lunch these last three days!

Tonight we are having leftover Thai red curry made with lots of veggies and tofu that had been drained, frozen, thawed, squeezed to get out the water, and crumbled. Freezing the tofu creates ice crystals and these change the texture. When thawed, I squeeze out the water and the dry tofu crumbles. Because it soaks in the flavours of whatever sauce you use it with it is great for strongly flavoured dishes. I also use it to make sloppy joes. It was not so easy to find in Ireland in the water pack form. We saw the cardboard packages in a few health food stores, but that was of no use to me. It was very surprising to find tofu all over the place in little Moville! The small grocery store down by the petrol station has it in jars, but it is expensive. I was shocked to find big 500g blocks (very little water in these packages) of it at veg man's stall--and for EUR1.50! I get it from him--have 3 blocks in my tiny freezer compartment as I type. Very handy!

May you have an abundance of nourishing food in your world too.

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