Last of Shed Cleanup Series - Joy of Cooking Muffins

We got more rain during the night but not a lot even counting the light rain during the day.  Every drop is welcome.

Yesterday we had the vet out to check our heifer.  Good news! She is the barren one, born a twin.  We began feeding her and in 90 days or so will have meat in the freezer once again.  That is one of the things I love about living on an farm.  I always dreamed of raising all of our food and we are almost there.  Still waiting on the blasted fruit trees to do something...

I will finish up with the shed cleanup by showing  the west side of the compound where the old chicken house is located.  The previous owner used to raise eggs for Estes Hatchery and that is what this building was used for.  It is about 30 wide by 30 feet deep....I am guessing here.

I took this picture on one of my walks west.  The new chicken house is behind the old chicken house. This should give some idea of the building that was cleaned out.


This is some valuable 'stuff' I couldn't part with:
and more on the other side:

This is the 'insulated' roof.  This keeps it pretty cool in the summer time, but I hate thinking about  the black snakes that are no doubt curled up in that straw.

This shows the center of the shed.  I see they did not sweep out the floor.....that will be my job.

Did you notice the boarded up windows.  These folks were paranoid about not wanting anyone to see inside their outbuildings thinking it would encourage theft.  They had even painted all the  windows in the milk parlor with white paint.  It took me forever to scrape off part of them.

Food

I mentioned making muffins the other day.  These were still very good cold and on the second day.  I did freeze 5 or 6.

I usually don't care much for muffins but these were so moist and I loved  them.  So did DH.  We had just them for breakfast the first morning and then with scrambled eggs and bacon the second.

 Muffins

From Page 635 in Joy of Cooking

12 muffins

Preheat oven to 400° Grease or line a muffin tin with paper cups (I do both).

Whisk together in a large bowl:

2 cups flour (I used l ww pastry flour and l regular, next time I will just use the ww)

1 tablespoon baking powder

½ teaspoonful salt

¼ grated nutmeg (optional, I used)

Whisk together in another bowl:

2 large eggs

1 cup milk or cream (I used whole milk)

2/3 cup sugar or brown sugar (I used brown)

¼ to ½ cup melted butter (I used ½) can also use vegetable oil

1 teaspoonful vanilla

Add to flour mixture and don't beat; mix until all ingredients are moistened.
Batter will be slightly lumpy.  This is the secret to tender muffins....it shouldn't look like cake batter.

I filled my muffin tins but there was still some leftover batter that I baked in a small oiled dish.

I also made a crumb topping and added it as an afterthought which is why it didn't spread out over the top. It was brown sugar, cinnamon, butter and chopped pecans.

Bake for about 17 minutes. Test with toothpick. Let rest in pan 2 to 3 minutes.

Additions

½ cup chopped nuts, apricots, prunes, dates or figs (I had dates)

½ cup chopped cranberries plus 2 teaspoonful of grated orange peel (I used this with the dates)

1/2 cup mashed ripe banana or chopped apples.