Do you know the Muffin Man?

I was driving around my hood yesterday, on the way to get my haircut and saw two large lemon trees full of yellow ripe lemons. I thought "Oh delicious" then the thought quickly went out of my mind as I entered my salon. Driving around today I thought I wanted to make some Lemon Poppy Seed muffins, so here it is:

I adapted the recipe from imafoodblog.com

2/3 cup sugar

zest and juice of 2 small lemons

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup wheat flour*

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup non fat plain yogurt

2 large eggs**

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup applesauce

2 tablespoons poppy seeds

1/2 cup Sliced Almonds

*If you do not have wheat flour, just use 2 cups all purpose

**I typically use Ener-G Egg replacer for all my baking, 5 cal for each "egg" instead of 70, yes please.

Preheat oven to 400F

In a large bowl, rub together the sugar and lemon zest until the sugar is moist and you can smell the lemon. I like a lot of lemony flavor, so I also pulled some of the pulp from the lemon to add in. Not a lot, just a few pieces.

Whisk in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

In another bowl or measuring cup, whisk together the yogurt, eggs, vanilla, lemon juice, butter and applesauce until well blended.

Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and with a rubber spatula gently and quickly stir to blend. Do not over-mix.

Stir in the poppy seeds.

Stir in the sliced almonds

Divide the batter evenly in 12 muffin cups.

Bake for 18-20 minutes

Do a fork test to make sure they are done, and if it comes out clean, your good. Let them cool for like 5 minutes if you can. I couldn't.

Eat up, then check teeth for poppy seeds.

These also freeze well, I like to double batches and freeze them for a quick nom treat.

Make it Work

I had a bunch of White peaches in my fridge on the verge of going rotten so I decided to get creative and make pie.

Pie, of all things. However, I like pie, and I never make it, so I thought, hey why not. I didn't make the crust though, mainly because I don't have a rolling pin and I hate making crust.

I made a spiced vanilla white peach and blueberry pie. It is delicious. Plus its a fraction of the sugar and butter of normal pies. Every recipe I found said you should use like 1.5 sticks of butter, and 1/2 cup sugar, that is ridiculous.

Basic recipe:

2 tablespoons butter

White peaches, I used about 4 large ones, since that was what I had

Blueberries about 1/2 cup to 1 cup, I just used what I had left

1-2 Tablespoons Brown sugar

1 Teaspoon Vanilla extract

Ground cloves

allspice

I sauteed all these together, I don't typically do measurements, I just add till I think its right. Set the crust, pour in the concoction, and add the top crust, or whatever you choose to do. Make sure you cut vent holes in the crust!

I baked it for 30 minutes at 400F, then lowered the temp to 375 and baked for another 25-30 minutes, with foil placed loosely on the crust.