Citrus and Honey Whole Grain Muffins

Oranges and tangerines paired with honey in a whole wheat and oatmeal muffin

When you first get cases of citrus for the Band Fruit Fundraiser, your family is gobbling up oranges, grapefruit, and tangerines as fast as you can peel them.  My family is as spoiled as the composting pig.  I peel the oranges for them as well. I have that hook thingamajig from Tupperware.  It makes it easy.
But after a while, the joy of juice bursting in your mouth pales a bit.  The palate gets a bit tired of such unrelenting sweet goodness. Like living in Hawaii with unrelenting sunshine. It happened to me!
So you get creative, and start serving the citrus as the main event at breakfast.  That goes over well, so for special people you serve salmon and oranges with dinner.  You throw orange sections in spinach salads and fruit salads. [And you freeze the leftovers of those fruit salads for smoothies.]  You buy apples.  And grapes. And you kinda forget about the handful of citrus still in your crisper.

As Norah Jones just sang on my stereo, <they're> just sitting here, waiting for you to come on home <and make a muffin>.

I wanted to make another muffin without added refined sugar, this time on purpose, so I grabbed the honey out of the pantry. Honey pairs very nicely with citrus.  Add in the whole grains--oats and wheat--and you're good to go.  This muffin is a great use for leftover peeled citrus.  Chop the citrus finely, or you will have odd lumps sticking up here and there. You'll live if you do.  I did.  Kids still ate them.
I like to soak my oats in buttermilk overnight because I like the texture of the resulting whole grain muffin, but even an hour's soak makes a difference if you didn't mix these up the night before.

Cranberry Apple Pecan Tangerine Mini Muffins

These were for a gathering and I dusted them with cinnamon sugar before baking.

It's all about the leftovers, isn't it?

When I made this bread I had leftover Cranberry-Apple-Pecan mixture.  I froze it, since I am big on the "What do I do with this?  I dunno.  I'd better toss it in the freezer" method of dealing with things.

The paperwork for my taxes is not in my freezer.

Luckily, I married a wonderful man whose wonderful mom prepares taxes for a living, otherwise my tax paperwork would be in the freezer with random assorted bags of vegetables and fruits.  And Butch.

I enjoy the cranberry-citrus combination (and will soon be blessed with Band Fruit Fundraiser citrus, stay tuned for a recipe round up next month) so I decided to add some tangerine to these muffins.  I was making up a frightfully orange smoothie (Tangerine-Carrot-Banana) and since I'd gotten the blender out, I blended up a tangerine first for the muffin batter before continuing with the rest of the smoothie.  If you're not mixing up a smoothie, just chop up a tangerine and add it to the batter, or get fancy and remove the juicy flesh and toss the scaffolding* in the compost.  Alternatively, give the remnants to the composting pig as she'll eat almost anything (her late roommate would eat anything).
Don't give it to the worms--they don't care for citrus.

Orange Cherry Oatmeal Muffins (Monday or President's Day Muffins)

I cannot tell a lie.  Yesterday morning we were walking the dog to the grocery store to pick up cream for my tea when we saw some guys cutting down a tree.  I admire their gumption--it was cold as heck out, and to be hanging from a rope way up high, with a chainsaw?  Yipes.  Then I got to the store and saw cherry pies on sale.  It wasn't until after I bought the pie that I realized it was for President's Day.  So here's a President's day muffin recipe for you, using cherries and oranges.  These muffins are perky, if a muffin can be called that.  The flavor is bright and brightens my morning.  My kids eat them for breakfast and after school snacks, so perhaps they brighten the whole day!  Sunny citrus in action.

I adapted this recipe from the most excellent Muffins: A Cookbook by Joan Bidinosti and Marilyn Wearing.  I made these before the Band Fruit Fundraiser oranges arrived.  Had I been swamped with fresh oranges, I'd substitute a blended navel orange for the juice.  The original recipe called for raisins, but I've got a lot of dried cherries so I snipped them in small pieces and used those instead.

Butternut Squash Waffles

Putting up packages of fruits and vegetables when they are ripe from the farm share means that I can pull them out in the middle of winter and feed my family from the farm share all year 'round.

Like the other morning.

I had buttermilk and was in a waffle mood.

A long time ago, while watching the Food Network, I'd written down Alton Brown's waffle recipe.  I love his Wet Team and Dry Team talk.  When I got to the "just walk away--walk away" part of the recipe (let the batter rest) I decided to take him literally.

We took the dog for a walk!

Tangerine Waffles (Fruit Fundraiser #1)

When you open up the fridge and see this, it's time to find recipes that put your Fruit Fundraiser produce to work for you.  I got an early start with the 'I've got a case of oranges what do I do?' phase when my young son's wheelchair basketball team did a fundraiser so they could buy equipment. (A basic pair of court shoes costs $50, a basketball chair costs $2K!).  Over the years I've gathered a few recipes for using citrus fruit and, now that I've got Band Fundraiser fruit filling up the fridge I am compelled to share them.

Let's start with breakfast, shall we?

This recipe takes its start from this waffle recipe, and its finish from this waffle recipe. The bright tangerine flavor really comes through but is not overpowering.  If you have a blender that crushes ice, don't knock yourself out seeding the tangerines, just pick out any obvious ones and the rest will get ground up.  I particularly liked this with pear butter, but the kids preferred maple syrup.  I think it'd be great with mini chocolate chips tossed into the batter too!