Two humans and one small cat in our household are addicted to half and half. We humans drink it
in our coffee each morning and the cat just has hers plain in Mom's saucer. When we run out of half
and half and it is not shopping day Mom sighs and often opens a can of evaporated milk, our emergency
back-up for coffee use. Then we get half and half again and have to figure out what to do with the opened evap.

Last week, Mom went away on a four-day trip and by the second day the half and half was soured. I worked
my way around it by making caffe latte with a pan of heated one-percent milk and then skipping coffee the next
few days. When Mom came back she said that the coffee-colored pitcher had contained cream, which was now
soured. Also last week, on Wednesday, my farm box provided another installment of summer squash, which
I do not expect to see in October.

I woke up this morning with summer squash on my mind and realized it was time to make gingerbread muffins.
Gingerbread muffins are a catch-all of mine: I use them to transform any number of foods that are past their prime
or just do not excite my imagination. Summer squash plus soured half and half whisper "muffins" to me.

How did I get to gingerbread muffins? First of all, this family likes ginger, sweet spices, brown sugar and
molasses: we will devour Indian pudding, pumpkin pie, anything with that hot, spicy, brown-tasting kick. Second,
I have long been a fan of gingerbread pancakes at a local French restaurant. And third, I have a recipe that is my
fallback for quick, reasonably healthy muffins, which is the "Multigrain Muffins" recipe on page 56 of Moosewood
Restaurant Cooks at Home. To transform "Multigrain Muffins" into "Gingerbread Muffins," I use the principles of
equivalence, addition and substitution.

For instance, the original recipe includes one cup of buttermilk. Most buttermilk these days is a commercial
product and one we often keep around (real buttermilk is what is left after you churn butter) -- it is essentially a
cultured milk with a sour flavor. Yogurt is also a cultured milk product with a sour flavor. Milk, cream or half and
half that have soured naturally -- i.e. gone bad -- have been transformed by a different culture: while they don't
taste good anymore raw they will be transformed in cooking just like buttermilk or yogurt: what you do is add
some baking soda to "sweeten" the milk again. The Multigrain recipe calls for soda and buttermilk. What I do is
pour the pitcher of sour half and half into a one cup measuring cup and add evaporated milk until I have three-quarters
of a cup. I stop here because I want to add molasses to the recipe to get that gingerbread flavor, so I add molasses
until I have 1 cup of liquid like the original recipe.

The recipe recommends mixing liquid ingredients together and adding those to the dry ingredients, the exception
being half a cup of quick-cooking oats that soak in the liquids. One egg, a quarter cup of oil. Hmm, oil. I set the
kitchen on fire several weeks ago when I tried to make deep-fried chiles in a skillet. It was not fun, but since
I had only used the oil once and only attempted to fry one chile in it before I gave up and put the batter-dipped
chiles on a baking sheet in the oven, I saved the oil. I can use this oil in gingerbread muffins because the spices
will mask it and because it started out as a mixture of corn and peanut oil. Waste not, want not. Into the muffin
batter goes a quarter-cup of the oil. After I have added the oats, milk mixture and other ingredients I toss in the
three squash I have grated on a fine grater: you will never see or taste them in the muffins, but they add fiber and
vegetables to your breakfast, lunch or tea.

When I shift to dry ingredients, I follow the original multigrain recipe, except for substituting whole wheat pastry
flour for whole wheat flour: the pastry flour will give me a lighter result. I add to the flour a teaspoon each of
cinnamon and ground ginger, a quarter teaspoon of cloves, a grating of nutmeg and a dash of quatre epices,
which I throw in before I see the ground cloves on the spice shelf.

The muffins go into the pan after I grease it with the end of an opened margarine stick from the butter
compartment. I could have used Crisco. I could have used butter and might have if we were down to the
dregs on a butter plate. You could use cooking spray if you like -- you just want something good and
greasy to keep the muffins from sticking.

The muffins emerge from the pan high and light with a tan color and a mild gingerbread flavor.
They will keep well, due to the extra moisture from the grated zucchini. The only trouble is what
to name them: if I call them "Zucchini-Gingerbread Muffins" zucchini haters will shy away.
"Garbage Muffins" occurs to me, or "Super G" for grains, gingerbread and garbage. It's not that I
put garbage in my muffins, but I do use ingredients other people are afraid of nowadays, cooking
the way of a farm wife who cannot waste food: when the milk sours, it's time for pancakes or
cornbread. When you have too much zucchini, hide it in a breakfast muffin.

Gingerbread Muffins

Preheat oven to 400.

Grease a 12-cup muffin tin

Grate (up to)

3 small zucchini or other summer squash.

In a small bowl, combine

1 egg
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup quick cooking oats
1/3 cup packed brown sugar

In a 1-cup measuring cup add,

2/3 to 3/4 cup buttermilk, sour milk, sour cream, yogurt or any combination

Add molasses until you have 1 cup total liquid.

Add milk/molasses mixture to the liquids bowl.
Stir in your grated zucchini.

In another bowl measure

1 cup unbleached flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 dash nutmeg

Stir the wet ingredients into the dry until just blended. Spoon into muffin tin.

Bake for twenty minutes.

Food Notes:

Substitutions: Besides zucchini and other summer squash, I have used gingerbread
muffins to make use of grated carrots, apples, coconut, and overripe (squishy)
persimmons. If you limit additions to about a cup of grated vegetables or soft fruit
you should not get into too much trouble -- much more than that and you could throw
off the dry-liquid balance.

Chocolate is another strong flavor useful for covering the use of sour milk. You could
devise chocolate or chocolate ginger muffins by substituting 1/4 cup cocoa for part of
the flour and chocolate milk or melted chocolate for part of the liquid. I haven't done this
yet: we usually use large amounts of sour milk to make chocolate pudding.We have also
used soured chocolate milk with a pinch of soda and a spoonful of powdered espresso.

If you don't like molasses and want a really light-colored muffin with a milder flavor,
substitute honey for the molasses in this recipe, but do use the brown sugar.

Don't have a muffin tin? Use a loaf pan or custard cups. If you use a loaf pan, the batter
might need extra cooking time -- test it with a toothpick after twenty or twenty-five minutes.

While I was typing up the recipe, Mom came in and said, "We should have BLTs for
lunch -- we need to use that bacon."

Sharyn in Kensington, CA