Don't waste. A lesson my mother tried to instill in me ever since I was a little kid, using such clever and unique quips as "Clean your plate. You're not getting dessert until you do" and even more unheard of: "There are starving children in China."It's only now, when I'm living on my own and supporting my own eating habits (with skimpy amounts of money), that I have at last considered the malnourished orphans abroad and adopted the habit of using every morsel of food that comes into my kitchen. Don't waste. Use up what you have. The study of economics in sum: make the resources you've got go as far as they can.
Thanks to muffins (and other foods like stew, shepherd's pie, and omelets) it's easy to avoid wasting food. You can basically put anything into a muffin, depending on your tastes. While I prefer to stick with the sweet kind, there are such things as meat muffins, cheese muffins, and of course, those super branny fiber muffins without any sugar. I don't know which of those three is worst.
What I do know is one of the saddest sights of summer is throwing away a peach because it's slowly going bad. Why didn't you eat it in time? That peach deserved more attention.
But if you peel that peach, dice it up, you're still in luck. You can fold it into some muffin batter and eat it for dessert. Or breakfast. Or any time. Snacks for a week.
For basic muffin batter into which you can fold anything (preferably edible)
Dry ingredients
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup spelt flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
cinnamon
Wet ingredients
1/2 cup agave syrup (change this if you're planning to add meat or cheese to the batter)
1 egg
2 tablespoons milk
4 oz. unsweetened applesauce
1 tsp. vegetable oil
Lightly spray a muffin tin with olive oil cooking spray. Whisk together the dry ingredients in a small bowl. In a separate bowl, blend all wet ingredients. Slowly add dry to wet, mixing until smooth and all flour has been incorporated.
To make peach muffins:
After completing all instructions for basic batter, peel and dice as many peaches you as desire (keep in mind too many peaches will make the muffins very gooey in the middle--too gooey) and fold them gently into the batter.
Bake at 400 F for 12-15 minutes.
