Thursday, May 5, 2011

In which I didn’t mean to let the muffins get moldy.

I don’t really like zucchini. I’ve tried, but it just doesn’t seem very cooperative. It turns mushy in stir-fries and gets squeaky when you bake it. It’s tasty if you shred it and make it into fritters and fry it, but that takes time and work and I quickly get sick of frying things in the summer heat (and since we’re talking about zucchini, it’s almost always in the summer). Zucchini bread is good, but trying to keep up with the never-ending stream of zucchini yields a shit-ton of bread and inevitably I run out of people to give it to.

I returned from my trip to Charlotte to find three zucchinis in the fridge. “Where did these come from?” I asked Red. Turns out, his parents had given them to us, which was very thoughtful but didn’t help me figure out what to do with them. I looked at them for a few days. They mocked me every time I opened the fridge. “Ha ha, now you have to eat us,” they sneered. Bastards.

Finally I cracked open Vegan Brunch and found a recipe for Zucchini Spelt Muffins. Well now, that sounded easy and wholesome, so I went for it. I cackled as I shoved my zucchinis into the food processor, jubilant that they hadn’t defeated me. To sweeten the deal, as I was preparing to pop the muffins into the oven, I received an invitation to a yoga class/vegan potluck at an acquaintance’s house! The timing couldn’t have been better. My muffins would be the perfect post-yoga snack.



They came out very well. They were a bit like a healthier zucchini bread—not as sweet, and I didn’t go as heavy on the spices as I normally would because I like to follow new recipes pretty closely the first time. My fellow potluckers agreed that they were a great counterpoint to our other snacks: super-sweet crumb cake (so good, I brought a piece home), baguette slices with a pesto-chickpea spread, and tofu scramble. I was happy. My muffins were a hit.

Since we still had plenty of muffins left over, I started taking them to work for a midmorning snack. Removed from their brunch companions, they were a bit blander than I had originally noticed, but I figured that if I toasted one and added a little Earth Balance, it would rock. Imagine my dismay when I went to do that, only to discover that my four remaining muffins were playing host to a very healthy colony of mold! What gives, zucchini muffins? You were a week old and I’d kept you in the nice cool refrigerator! How dare you repay me thus? Compost bin for you, ungrateful vegetable-based wretches.

I guess that explains why the muffins I’d eaten in the day or two before tasted a little weird. My immune system got a mini-workout there. For real, though, anyone know why my muffins went all moldy? I was pretty bummed about that.

5 comments:

  1. Ugh, I lost two pies the same way in an unreasonably short period of time. I know the humidity seemed to shoot up last week out of nowhere and I think that's what got mine. (I know you're not too far from me in MD, that's why I mention it).

    If I'm the only one eating a batch of anything, and I think it'll take me more than 4 days to get through it, I freeze half the batch immediately. Maybe that's the answer?

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  2. The muffins I make for the pups will do that if they have a higher moisture content, even when they're in the fridge. Still, a week later is a short time!

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  3. Ill take any zucchini you dont want! I love it!

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  4. I guess maybe the zucchini stays moist even after baking? Ewww -- mold is such a buzz-kill.

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  5. Hello,

    I am from an educational publisher and we would like to use some text from a comment you made to an online Baltimore Sun article.

    http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/2010/01/what_do_you_love_about_marylan.html

    Can you please contact me at kerry.dunn@pearson.com so we can discuss?

    Thank you.

    Kerry Dunn
    Permissions Editor
    Pearson

    ReplyDelete