The 50 Mile Diet

During that first month of the 50 Mile Diet, I think I put on some pounds. Although I wrote of having nothing local to eat in my pantry, and although I spent quite a bit of time “foraging” for food, what I really did was eat a lot of what was easy to find locally — ice cream, cheese, eggs and chocolate. Oh sure, I ate my chicken and vegetables, but I’m not the kind of person who is really jazzed by vegetables. And sure I ate fruit, but how many times in a day can you eat just the fruit that is in season? Rhubarb for weeks, strawberrries for weeks, raspberries for weeks, and then apples, apples, apples… And in order to come up with new ways to eat the food repetitively, I found myself baking a lot.

I do love to bake.

Last night, I baked strawberry muffins that called for wheat flour. Never sniffed the wheat flour to see if it were okay, and it was only after the first depressing bite of muffin did I realize the flour had turned rancid. So this morning, if only to redeem myself, I baked up another batch, using only white flour. The batter turned gorgeously red with the berries.

No Mixer Strawberry Muffins
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup canola oil
1 large egg
1 3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1 cup chopped strawberries — keep it coarsely chopped

Mix the milk, oil and egg together in a bowl. In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients. Add the chopped strawberries into the flour mixture, coating the berries. Then gently stir the liquid ingredients into the dry.

Put in lined muffin tins and baked for 25 minutes at 375.