Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Autumn is a Mosaic


Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all.

------------------------------
Oatmeal Muffins (based on these Scotch Oatmeal Muffins):

2 cups old-fashioned oats (or you can use quick oats, too)
2 cups whole milk (you can add a tbsp of lemon juice 20 minutes ahead of time to make it curdle a bit since the original recipe calls for buttermilk)
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1/2 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup carob chips
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Stir together oatmeal and milk and leave for a few minutes (optional; helps the oats soften). Stir in sugar, oil, flour and other ingredients. Mix in carob chips (the original recipe calls for dates, nuts, or raisins so you could use those instead).
Optional: Sprinkle top of muffins with white sugar or cinnamon sugar.
Fill greased muffin pans 2/3 full. Bake for 20 minutes.
-----------------


These muffins don't have any Scotch in them. My mother is pure-blooded Scottish (my grandparents were Scottish immigrants to Canada where she was born and raised) and she always said that Scotch is to drink; Scottish or Scots is the name for the people. You can see that here.

They are very good on a cool fall morning like today up in the Sierra mountains. The wood stove that you can see in the background has been getting plenty of use these days. Autumn is my favorite season, and I think it's partly because everything seems to gather itself inward and settle down to stillness and preserving of warmth.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the beautiful line and the great recipe!

Anonymous said...

"These muffins don't have any Scotch in them."

When I saw that my immediate thought was that that would be a waste of perfectly good whiskey. But then I am already well aware of the fact that the people are Scots.

I'm enjoying autumn, too. We don't have a wood stove but that would be nice.

Katie said...

I was just thinking of oatmeal bread or oatmeal muffins this afternoon! We have a lot of whole-grain/whole-oat cereal the kids are kind of tired of, and what better way to use it than in muffins? Thanks for the new recipe to try!

lissla lissar said...

So lovely. Thank you. Autumn is my favourite season, too. Fall colours, and bundling up, and warmth, and the smell of fallen leaves. And tea and hot chocolate!