Muffins and microgreens

Not together, of course…

(So I’ve decided to quit apologizing for not posting. No one’s paying for this, right? If I’m too busy or I don’t have anything worth sharing then I’m not going to post.)

This morning I made banana nut muffins for breakfast using my cake mix recipe. It’s super quick and makes just enough for the two of us. Essentially what you are doing is making 1/3 of a cake, and adding healthy stuff like oatmeal, those little bits of dry cereal you have sitting around, fruit, and nuts. I wouldn’t recommend using big pieces of juicy fruit (large blackberries, for example), but blueberries, chopped or grated apple, small chunks of mango or peach are good. Just don’t go overboard with the fruit or you’ll get very soggy muffins.

• 1 cup cake mix (vanilla is my standby, but spice and carrot cake are good too)
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup milk (or buttermilk, orange juice, etc.)
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1/2 cup dry cereal (something not too sweet)
• 1/2 cup chopped nuts
• 1/2 cup chopped, grated, or mashed fruit

This amount makes 6 regular cupcake-size muffins, or 4 really large muffins. Cook at 400 F for 15-20  minutes.

I am trying an experiment with microgreens. We have a row in our garden that doesn’t get as much sun as the rest, so I’m broadcast seeding it with saved seed from the last few years: lettuce, mustard greens, Chinese cabbage, bok choy and arugula. I have bags and bags of seeds I’ve harvested from these and there is no way we would ever need it all. We’ll see if we get anything worth harvesting for salads, or if it just turns out to be a quick cover crop and greens for the chickens.

Two other garden tips: Letting some of your spinach go to seed – not a hybrid variety, but Bloomsdale works for me – is a good strategy to make sure you always have enough fresh spinach seed from season to season. This is the third year I’ve done this and had really good luck. Unlike tomato seed, spinach seed doesn’t keep well and I have a hard time finding it for fall planting.

Mike picked many quarts of sweet cherries from our one espalier tree this year. They went into the freezer, and we will juice them later. It looks like we will have loads of plums, peaches, and almonds this year also. Last year we only got strawberries and a few figs, as everything else got hit by an unseasonable late hard frost.