Budget: Eating in Day 4: nonfat yogurt Blueberry muffin loaves

Day 4:

Budget available for today.  Rollover from yesterday $6.85 + $5.00daily = $11.85

Got home a bit after 10:35am and crashed.  I’d been up all night and the “next” family/friend shift was a little late.  Not their fault.  Bev takes care of her granddaughter until 10 and the divorced dad was supposed to pick her up and he was late.  So Kris came over to relieve me until Bev could get there.

After I woke up, I called.  Bev and Kris were still there.  I said I’d be there around 9pm.  Did a load of laundry.  Tried to get two pissed-off cats happy with me — with indifferent results.  They don’t like to be left alone that much.  Then cooking time.  Trying to keep to my 7-day commitment even with the schedule changes.

I bought blueberries a couple weeks ago so checked on them.  Luckily, my fridge is very cold so they were still ok.  Blueberry muffins it is.

Preheat the oven.  Get out the muffin pan to grease.  Shit!  Where is the muffin pan?  Huh.  Now what?  Looks around.  There are some mini loaf pans.  I bought a couple before because I thought mini banana loaves would be cool.  And then forgot I bought them and at a garage sale bought a couple more.  Then at the thrift store, I forgot ….  Laughing.  Anyways, I have 6 mini loaf pans and somehow they look like they matched.

Grease the pans.  I did it with a pat of butter which lasted for all 6 mini loaves and had some leftover.

So Banana Muffin Mini Loaves it is.

1/4C fat-free half-and-half
3/4C nonfat yogurt
1/4C butter
1/2t vanilla
a squeeze of honey
1 egg
2C all-purpose flour
1/3C sugar
3t baking powder
(note: I don’t salt. if you really need salt then add 1/2t salt to the flour and baking powder)
blueberries

stir the flour, baking powder together

if you’re prepared, you left your butter out so it’s all soft.  if not, slice it up and nuke it for 15 seconds and stir it. you don’t really want it hot, just melted

in a different bowl, whisk the egg, vanilla and the fat-free half-and-half (milk is fine).  Together they will become a pretty creamy yellow. Stir in the yogurt.

Squirt a squeeze of honey.  Hard to tell you how much because honestly I don’t like to put honey in a measuring spoon or cup as it leaves too much honey behind.  The honey balances the sour of the yogurt.  So about 2 or 3 T. Maybe I would think up to 4-6T.  Today I squeezed a little hard so it looks around 4T.  For sweeter add more but not much more as you already have sugar and don’t want to make things too liquidy.

Stir until the liquid is all one color and most of the yogurt lumps are gone.  Pour that into the mixed flour and baking powder. Stir until the flour is moistened.  You’ll still see some lumps and that’s ok for muffins.  Fold in the blueberries.

spoon the mix into the mini loaf pans.  The batter is a little thick so you’ll need a spoon.  They should fill up all 6 to the top of the pans.  I put a metal flat pan under them (like a cookie pan) as I worry about them overflowing but they didn’t.  I used the top grill of my broiler pan. The broiler pan grill or the cookie pan under the loaf pans also makes it a lot easier to take them all out at the same time.

put it in the oven at 375degrees for 30 minutes.  Keep an eye on it though — depending on your oven, it might be 25 minutes or a little longer than 30.  Mine comes out great at 30 minutes — the top is crunchy, the insides moist.

Carol liked it too.

I also made a chicken thing with soy sauce, brown sugar, garlic and vinegar but couldn’t find the recipe so guessed at it.  It came out ok but I am not quite happy with it so not sharing until I am.  It’s one of the favorite things and the one thing I cooked that mom loved.  Just bugs me that I can’t quite remember the way I usually make it.

Brought the chicken and frozen bagged rice over to Carol’s house so we had chicken, rice and green peas.  Carol had the canned sweet green peas because JB, her dog loves it. She liked the dinner which totally surprised me.  She is a very fussy eater.  She also said my blueberry muffin loaf was good.

So today I did good on keeping to my challenge.  I think when you start a challenge, life throws you it’s own challenges to throw you off.  So you have a choice, if you fell off the wagon — do you give up or get back up on the horse?  If your life changes, do you continue with the challenge and make the adjustments necessary to complete the challenge?    Sometimes you need to do something else for awhile.

I got derailed and restarted.  I am cooking at home but keeping to the challenge by bringing the food over when I stay with Carol and sharing.  I’m not eating at home but the spirit of the challenge was cooking the food I already had in my own kitchen instead of grabbing something out.

So day 4 is done! Today I spent $0.  Except for Carol’s can of green peas, everything I cooked with was food I already had. I admit I am feeling a little puffed because this is my best day on the challenge.

Amazon:

Yogurt Centered Recipes: A Complete Cookbook of Tasty Yogurt Dish Ideas! December 7, 2017 by Martha Stephenson. I don’t have this cookbook but thought it looked interesting.  I found with making my muffins that baking with yogurt is pretty cool.

Lighten Up, Y’all: Classic Southern Recipes Made Healthy and Wholesome by Virginia Willis. Another one I’d like to get. I admit it. I collect cookbooks. If I cooked from all of them, I’d be a master chef by now.

As an Amazon affiliate, I’ll usually get a percentage if someone buys something by clicking a link — for books it’s 4.5%. My highest month so far is $3.90 so not getting rich any time soon, lol. But I love books so it’s fun to look at books I might want. Amazon disclosure: “We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.”