Ginger-Peach Oat Bran Muffins

Peaches are in season—hallelujah! And you know how it goes: You get a big mess of ’em, then soon discover that your strategy of “doling out” those precious, special gems isn’t working—you wake up a few mornings later to find they’re getting softer than they ought to.

And this is why people bake with fresh peaches. Otherwise, you would just suck them up raw, like you should’ve done in the first place!




And anyway, it’s time to share with you a new oat bran muffin recipe! Click here to see the ones I’ve posted so far.

Here’s why I’m addicted to oat bran muffins: They’re delicious, compact, and portable. They’re filling without being fattening (that is, they have lots of fiber), but they never make me feel, well, bloated. With all that fiber, it’s good for the, ah, digestion. And then there’s the whole oat-bran/cholesterol thing.

Also, I believe one or two oat bran muffins, plus some good, fresh fruit, makes an excellent breakfast for losing weight (kind of like “Slim Fast,” minus the spooky additives and outrageous price tag). Great for snacking, too.




Ginger-Peach Oat Bran Muffins

As I’ve mentioned before, the basic recipe’s a blank slate that can be taken in all sorts of flavorful directions, and I can make up mixes ahead of time, making a morning’s baking very easy.

Note that the basic recipe doesn’t include the egg yolks, and uses instead only two tablespoons of vegetable oil (or olive or canola—your choice). Additional liquid can be skim milk or 2 percent, or evaporated skim milk, or low-fat yogurt, or fruit juice . . . take your pick.

So, here’s the basic recipe (for convenience, I usually buy a big bag of oat bran at the bulk store, then make up several batches with the dry ingredients, then store in the fridge in zip bags):

(((Preheat oven at 425 degrees F)))

2 1/4 c. oat bran cereal
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
1/3 c. brown sugar

To the basic dry ingredients, I add these special flavors for this recipe:

--1/4 or 1/3 cup chopped candied ginger (see below)
--a small pinch of ground cloves (optional)

In a separate bowl, mix together the wet ingredients:

--3 egg whites, or equivalent in egg substitute
--2 tbs. vegetable oil
--3 very ripe peaches, pitted, peeled, and mashed, including all their juices

Add the wet ingredients to the dry, then stir to combine. If necessary, add additional liquid (yogurt, milk, water, etc.); consistency should be similar to corn muffin batter.

Spoon into prepared muffin tins (use paper muffin cups or spray with Pam). (Makes 1 dozen.)

Bake for about 13 minutes and check; they might need to go for about 15 or 17 minutes total. Don’t overcook them. They’re done when they’re a little golden on top and a toothpick comes out clean.




About Candied Ginger

Oh, yum! If you haven’t yet “discovered” candied ginger, you’re in for a real treat! For baking, it’s a wonderful “secret weapon.” Baking tends to mellow its intensity and bring out its pure sweetness. I like to add chopped candied ginger to a pumpkin pie. Ooh, I bet it’d be good with cooked sweet potatoes or butternut squash, if you’re taking it in the “brown sugar/cinnamon” direction.

Also, I think it’s delicious as a zippy little snack—sweet and hot, very intense!—or as an addition to a really good cheese platter, just like you might include a few dried apricots or nice big golden raisins. A little goes a long way.

(Okay, now my mouth is watering!)

Where do you get candied ginger? Well, you can often buy little bitty jars of it in the “spices” section of a regular supermarket—for an arm and a leg! Seriously, that’s too dear for general cooking. Like cardamom, candied ginger is something worth going to an international grocery or bulk store for.

You can buy bulk candied ginger at Global Foods in St. Louis, for instance, or at the Dutch Bakery in Tipton. The price might vary widely, from three to five dollars a pound, but this is more or less like the price of dried apricots, so it’s not outrageous (and still better than buying it off a supermarket spice rack). Like raisins, candied ginger keeps well on a shelf, and it’s great to have on hand for any number of purposes, so I encourage you to try it out!

It’s Been Hot

It’s been a hot summer. Like it does so many years, once we hit Memorial Day, it’s like the “tap” got shut off. Our wet spring is just a memory; and the threat of the river flooding seems more and more bizarre—and remote.

It does seem strange to have the river so high, while our weather’s been so hot and dry.

Ice cream. We’ve been hitting Sparky’s a lot when we’re in Columbia. And Zesto’s here in Jeff. We’ve been staying inside.

It’s interesting how one’s appetite diminishes when it’s really hot outside. Our dinners have been like little picnics: A few pieces of bread, some pesto, olives and peperoncinis, wedges of ripe tomato, slices of sausage, some ricotta, a hard-cooked egg.

Sue said she read an interview with a Georgia peach farmer, who said that the peaches are loving the hot nights—even though it’s uncomfortable for us—the peaches love it. And yes, ripe peaches are one of the great treasures of summer, and of life itself.




Our grass has turned brown and gone dormant. C’est la vie; that happens to some extent most summers. In fact, it’s kind of nice, since we don’t have to go out and mow the yard so often. But this year, since the temperatures have been in the upper nineties so often, we’ve been running the sprinkler for a while some evenings, beneath our trees, to make sure they’re getting enough moisture.

We were lucky enough to have been in Columbia last night when a small thunderstorm went through (it didn’t even get close to Jeff City). We were at my parents’ house, and the thunder was the first sign.

“Was that thunder—?”

You know it’s been a while since it’s rained when you’re not sure you even recognize the sound of thunder.

When it started to rain, it felt like a miracle, like we’d somehow received a great boon from a power beyond imagining.

Sue said she felt like going outside and dancing around in it.

I looked at her: “I’ll do it if you do it.”

So out we went—down the back porch steps—into my folks’ backyard. We ran around and waved our arms. We jumped around in circles. Our shoes splashed in the water puddling in their yard. We lifted our faces to the sky and let the water come right at us.

It was pouring down, and it felt great. When it’s been so hot, rain like this feels just right. Our hair and shoulders got soaked. So what?

We were soon driving back home, and by the time we crossed I-70 (not even out of Columbia yet), we’d seen the last of the rain. (When will we have rain again?)

By the time we got to Ashland, it was feeling pretty good to have the air conditioner blow on our wet shoulders and hair.

And Jeff City was pretty much like we’d left it: Hot and dry.

Fortunately, we have peaches to get us through.

Peach Lassi

Today was Clara Day—my maternal grandmother was born September 17, 1897. I usually try to commemorate my grandmas’ birthdays somehow—in some kind of small, but privately meaningful way.

Last year, we had a dinner of some of Grandma Renner’s favorite foods.

This year, I spent most of the day cooking (which was rather commemorative in itself, given the amount of cooking she did in her life). I made several batches of pesto, cleaning out some of the herb garden. And I fussed over a grape tart (more on that soon). And more; a terrific dessert calls for a special dinner. This activity wasn’t consciously part of Clara Day, but in retrospect, it does kind of fit.

But I did find time to make a couple big glasses of peach lassi, and Sue and I tipped them in honor of Clara—who was so fond of peaches.

Granted, the lassi was kind of a stretch—it’s like a Punjabi milkshake made with yogurt and pureed fruit—but I think Grandma would have enjoyed trying it. Peaches are great in almost anything. And Grandma loved peaches.

Here’s the formula I used. Quick and easy.





Peach Lassi

Take 2 nice big juicy ripe peaches, peel and stone them, and puree them, with a small pinch of ground cloves, in a blender or food processor.

Add about 16 oz. of vanilla yogurt. (This is about half of a 32-oz. tub of Dannon. I didn’t have any plain around. It’s what I had on hand. And this way, I didn’t need to add much sugar. And the Dannon isn’t very thick, so I didn’t need to add milk or water.) Blend and blend.

Okay, taste some: sweet enough? I added about 1/8 cup sugar, and a small pinch of salt, blended again.

Take two pint glasses and half-fill with crushed ice. Pour in the lassi and stir well.

Garnish with ground unsalted pistachios.

Things You Can Pretty Much Count On

Tax day. You never completely know, until the final calculations are done, whether you’ll get a refund or will owe.

And you can’t count on much with the weather around here, or a lot of other things.

It’s good, then, to look around and see some things that are more or less reliable.

This, for instance, will smell heavenly:




This will make me sneeze and my eyes itch:




This, in our yard, will make a “rock peach.” (Gotta love it.)




This will attract hummingbirds:




This will beget black walnuts:




And this will draw ants, and then bloom pretty white right around Memorial Day.

Clara Day

Today’s a special day in our family, because it’s the anniversary of when Grandma Renner was born—on a farm in Kincaid, Kansas, on September 17, 1897. She grew up in Washington, Missouri, and lived her entire adult life here in Jefferson City. She lived to be nearly 101 years old.

The things she saw. Horse-and-buggies. Cars, radio, television, airplanes, lunar landings . . . Ballpoint pens . . . Digital alarm clocks . . .

Anyway, I just wanted to say that Sue and I commemorated her a little this evening with some “everything” pizza from Pizza Hut (the Pizza Hut on Christie Lane is right across the highway from where Grandma’s house was, so she became a fan of it).

She always wanted to pronounce it “peetzer.”




We also picked up some “peach shodie” from the supermarket—back in the 1970s, when Nehi or one of those companies came out with peach-flavored soda, Grandma decided she loved the stuff. And she always pronounced it “peach shodie.” Maybe it was just a collision of enunciation, or maybe it was a denture thing.

Anyway, it’s a fond memory—of Grandma sitting in her chair next to her big picture window, sipping that fizzy orange stuff so contentedly.




(Yes, my brother, my cousins: This is indeed one of Grandma Renner’s glasses; remember them, with the tulips?)

When I was preparing for this post, I looked through an old photo album of my parents’, and I decided to take pictures of some of the pictures (yes, we do have a scanner; no, I don’t know how to use it).

Because Grandma had such a long, gradual decline, I find it hard sometimes to remember her when she “had it goin’ on.” In part, it’s because she always seemed “old” to me—I was the youngest of all my generation, and my mom was the youngest of her siblings. Grandma was sixty-eight when I was born. And sixty-eight was a lot older in 1965 than it is today.

Also, Grandma had extremely poor hearing, which prevented her from wanting to go out a lot, and I often had a hard time communicating with her, since I was a soft-spoken little girl.

. . . Anyway, I’m posting these pictures to help me celebrate Grandma the way I want to remember her. Like on Christmas morning, 1970, when she was explaining something to me.




Or the day after my birthday in 1971.




She was a really warm and nurturing grandma.




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Then, on September 17, 2001, the day Grandma Renner would have been 104 (three years after Grandma’s death), we welcomed little Daniel August into the family—Grandma Renner’s newest great-grandson, my brother’s second child.

The timing was a coincidence, supposedly.

. . . But I’m not sure I quite believe that.

So happy birthday, Grandma, wherever you are, and super-happy-birthday, Daniel. We’re tipping our peach shodies to you, too!

Fruits of May

I was just in the backyard taking pictures of some of the lovely fruits I saw, and I thought I’d share them with you.

First, an update on our walnuts’ progress. The last time I showed you (May 8), they were about half the size they are now. I love their pebbly texture, and their black walnutty smell.

The male catkins have all fallen off now; at their peak, clouds of yellow-green pollen would fall from the walnut boughs each time a bird landed or launched. It was a good time to be a stigma, or an investor in Claritin. There’s a fallen catkin in this picture, caught on one of the leaf stalks. . . . See how the stigmas are starting to look kind of dry and worn out? I guess their job is done, too.

So this time I got the bright idea of putting a coin in the picture for scale. Yes, that’s a Missouri quarter. Appropriate, huh?

Next is a little wild strawberry; we have them like weeds in our yard. This little guy is between a quarter and a half inch in diameter. Isn’t it pretty? It makes me kind of sorry to cut the grass. It makes me wish we had more box turtles in our neighborhood.

So do they taste good? Well, yeah . . . kind of. If you like the flavor of strawberry stems. Let’s just say: They don’t taste downright bad.

Next, we have a crucified orange! Holy orange hemispheres, Batman! I hung it on a nail and strung it to our peach tree yesterday when I noticed a Baltimore oriole couple passing through our yard.

I spent about ten minutes yesterday constructing my homemade oriole feeder, and roughly half of that time was spent hopping around clutching my fingertip after I whacked it good with the hammer.

I’ve only seen pictures of orioles feeding at oranges, but I figured this year I’ll give it a try. As far as I could tell, the oriole couple dropped by our house to check out our peaches (which are still, and forever, as hard as rocks), so I hung the orange in that tree.

Yes, Mr. Oriole was lovely. After inspecting our lame peaches, he stood on the perch above our birdbath and admired his own loveliness. He didn’t drink or bathe; just gazed at his reflection.

Last, one of the aforementioned rock peaches. What else do you call them? If they are the “cling” type, then these win the supreme award, for they remain practically solid during their entire development, until they rot and fall off. But the tree—which grew up in a compost pile, so what do you expect—at least flowers nicely in the spring.

There have been some years, when we have bumper crops of both walnuts and these peaches, when it has been hard to stay afoot in our backyard.

Yet like the bright little strawberries, the peaches possess a beauty that forces us to like them just as they are.