Better Than Flour Blueberry Bran Muffin

June 7, 2016

I have always thought of or rather tried not think of bran muffins, associating them with the dry tasteless cardboard muffin "healthy" people eat. Well.... what can I say, I am now one of those people trying to be healthy. I made the Blueberry Bran Muffins from the Baking with Less Sugar. Much to my delight, I would eat them any day. I have to confess being very partial to blueberries so the Blueberry Bran Muffins were an absolute treat. So full of blueberries, it provided a fresh sweetness and moistness to the muffins and a certain childlike enjoyment when one had to lick the purple juices when finishing the last bits of the muffin.

Rainy garden offerings

Human nature - never satisfied. With only an annual rainfall of 11 inches, San Diegan wish for more rainfall to fill up our reservoir and water our gardens naturally ( and for free). Then the rain comes down, and the frown appears on the foreheads and smiles turn down :(

I am no exception to this. I LOVE even miss the rain but not winter rain because it is cold! When one grows up in the tropics where you can play in the warm rain, winter rain is a big let down. Strolls through the garden lessen. Thankfully, I live in San Diego, when winter days can unexpectedly be sunny and 75F. When that happens, it is time to spend all day in the garden and the kitchen is close.

I was in my garden despite deary weather to harvest the last of my Persimmons. Took a quick look around and snap some pictures of the plants that keep going despite the weather. You can see the drops of rain on the fruits!!

Pomelo ripe for eating. It holds well on the tree

From the look of the leaves, my Pomelo plant is lacking in Iron. Actually, I think all my citrus plants are in need of iron and some trace minerals... more loving care that is for sure.

Satsuma Tangerine almost ready to be enjoyed

The ripening schedule for the Satsuma Tangerines and Pomelos are in line with Chinese New Year. My kumquats are also getting fairly big and getting some color on them.

Kaffir Lime (Limau Perut)

The Kaffir Lime plant is loaded with fruits.

The flavor and the fragrance of the my Kaffir Lime leaves depends on the weather; the hotter the weather the more intense the flavor and fragrance. I am told there are some variety of Kaffir Lime more fragrant and flavorful but the nurseries are pretty general in their labeling so I have not been able to spot different. Hence, I still have only one plant.

A young fig overwintering. 

I neglected to remove the net I had draped over the fig tree to prevent the birds from eating the ripe figs. As a result the fig grew through a hole in the net cutting itself in half, growing over the net. I am going to have to sacrifice the fig. 

Immature Blueberries already on the plant

This particular pot of Blueberry seems to have acclimatized to the climate in my garden. It has flowers, immature fruits and ripening fruits on the same plants a good part of the year. It is almost winter so it should really quite bare but as you can see my breakfast fruit is being formed on the plant. Definitely a candidate for making cuttings.

Blueberry Scones

This posting is in honor of the secretaries and the other wonderful ladies at the front office of my son's high school. My son recently suffered an injury to his eye and he had to be out of school for awhile. These ladies helped get his homework from his various classes and got him his off campus passes for follow up doctor visits. This truly helped me in a stressful situation. I bake some of these blueberry scones as a treat to these special ladies.

The pictures are from another batch I made at our Temecula weekend home. I had fresh peaches and blueberries but no sour cream. I improvised by adding 2 tablespoon of buttermilk powder to 1 whole cup of milk in place of the 1/2 cup of milk and 1/2 sour cream. Another substitution I made was 1/2 stick of non-trans fat cisco and 1/2 stick of butter in place of 1 stick of butter. Again, based on what I had on hand. I am a great believer in making it work! The scones were flaky and moist. Original recipe was from CooksIllustrated. These are so easy and fast to make that I made an extra batch for the freezer. I freeze them unbaked so that I can have truly fresh Blueberry Scones the next time I am up at the house.

Eating from my garden

As May drew to a close and sunny June, despite the June gloom reputation, settled in,  my garden started to take off and provide me with pleasurable eating. I started off eating blueberries with my breakfast cereal, slowly adding blackberries, then came the strawberries. Now, I am in heaven!! I am eating my morning cereal with all those berries and tree ripen bananas from the garden. Imagine!! 

Harvest the fruits

slice the strawberries and bananas, scatter blueberries

Milk Star on blueberry

It has been many years since I have devoured, yes that is the correct expression- DEVOUR- because that is exactly what I do, tree ripen bananas from my garden. Almost every year a banana plant or two would flower. Invariably it is almost Fall when it does so. I half heartedly let it flower but more often that not chop off the flower, sometimes offering it to my Filipino friends. This is because there would not be enough time for the fruit to develop before winter. Somehow last year, the timing was right and I let it develop combs of bananas. Sceptic that I am I never thought it would ripen. It sure took a long time but now I have delicious bananas!! I was going to cut down the whole stalk and let it ripen away from the tree. Luckily for me, my dear husband suggested that I leave it on the tree and enjoy them tree ripen. So each day I can be seen plucking individual bananas and eating them right under the tree. 'Ice Cream' banana does its name proud.

Banana grove

Ripening combs of bananas

Top combs ripening first

The first tomatoes are also on our dinner menu. Speckle Roman tomatoes with fresh basil from the garden, drizzled with balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil makes a fine lunch. Cherry tomatoes are the sweetest fruits in my garden bar none. They are so beautiful with the sunlight shining through them.Olive oil, chopped garlic, pinch of chili pepper flakes, fresh basil sautéed with those cherry tomatoes makes a delightful sauce served with spaghetti. 

Heirloom Speckle Roman

Sliced Speckled Roman, Basil and fresh Mozzarella  Cheese

Cherry Tomatoes glisten like jewels in the sun

Spring 2010 in my garden

I thought I would post some updated pictures of what is happening in my garden. It has been a strange spring. It seems like we had a lot more rain then usual but that also means it was colder longer than normal. Seedlings sprouted but never really grew. I had to pull up Kai Lan, Garland Chrysanthemum/ Tong Ho and Broccoli Rabe plants because they grew too slowly. They were old before they grew of size. Basil plants set out in March are only just taking off as the weather warms up.Next year, I will work on a cold frame structure or hoops to increase warmth of seedlings.