These Are a Few of MY Favorite Things

And no. They do not include crisp apple strudels or schnitzel with noodles.

What they do include are reading good young adult books and not-so-great teen romances, my camera, Sandy.
Oh, and I forgot to mention: apple-oat muffins and khoresh-e karafs.

When two of your favorites are as diverse as those two, it probably isn't the best idea to try to combine them. But as I mentioned before, the celery in the fridge was calling to me, our stove died (a new one's coming soon) and I don't want to use the scary looking ones upstairs or the burner on the grill (it's hot out and khoresh takes forever!), and Bababozorg is coming in a week, and he is the king of khoresht-e karafs. There's no point in even trying (though maybe I can watch him like a hawk and learn to make it, but I'm impatient.)

So I decided to try to take the flavor of khoresht-e karafs and put it into a muffin. Now using rice instead of oats would have made it better (more like the real deal?), but rice requires the stove... plus, why add an extra cooking step to the muffins?

The only parts of khoresht-e karafs that made it into the muffin are the celery and the parsley, because to be honest, I'm not quite sure what goes into khoresht-e karafs other than that, meat, salt, pepper, and some more green stuff (mint? but I overtrimmed what was growing in the backyard).

But I'll hurry it up and say that Karafs Muffins are yummy. And worth the hour to make them. Though I wouldn't eat them for breakfast necessarily...

Karafs Muffins
makes 10 to 12

2 cups diced celery (about 4 stalks)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
1 cup rolled oats (quick might work, but I've never tried. It might make them mushy)
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon allspice
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
pinch turmeric
1 cup plain yogurt
3 fluid ounces (6 tablespoons or 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons) milk
1 large egg
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup finely chopped parsley

Preheat oven to 400ºF and grease 12 muffin cups.

In a large bowl combine flours, oats, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, allspice, cinnamon, salt, pepper, and turmeric.

In a small bowl whisk together yogurt, milk, egg, oil, and parsley until smooth.

Make a well in the center of the flour mixture. Pour in yogurt mixture and stir until moist. Stir in celery until combined. Be careful not to over mix the batter.

Using a size 12 scoop (or not), divide batter among prepared cups. Bake for 15-18 minutes or until lightly browned and the indentation made when lightly pressing on the top of the muffin springs back.