On Monday I made muffins (Day 25)

It's been a cold and dreary June day.

Just right for a little baking, especially as I'm out of chocolate and think I'll go nuts if all I have to eat for morning and afternoon tea for the next 5 days is apples, slices of cheese and plain popcorn.

Over the weekend I was sorting out my baking shelf and came across a bag of crystallised ginger which got me all excited with visions of gingerbread dancing in my head. But alas, I'd forgotten to buy butter last week and with only 5 days of the Fiscal Fast to go I didn't want to buy anything unless I really really couldn't live without it.

So I started pondering and hunting through my cookbooks. Muffins. I thought. They use oil don't they? (admittedly not usually wonderful locally grown cold pressed olive oil but needs must). And so I found a recipe which I thought could cope with the mangling I needed to do to fit what I had.

May I present The Muffin Loosely Based On A Ginger Muffin Recipe? (Note how well they match the leaves strewn across the backyard!)

Instead of knobs of ginger I used crystallised. I replaced the walnuts in the recipe with some slivered almonds I discovered in the dark recesses of the cupboard (probably from here

which makes them well over a year old. Whoops!). And I figured that Lime Refresher could be considered ginger syrup if you squinted.

And they're fine (if just a teensy weensy little bit odd):I ate two for afternoon tea and plan to freeze the rest.

And finally, here's today's roundup:

Breakfast: Tea. Date Oat Temptations. Toast and ginger/ lime marmalade.

Morning tea: Apple, slice of cheese, almonds

Lunch: Leftover frozen Blackeyed Bean Potato Topped Pie and green beans from Day 10.

Afternoon tea: See above.

Dinner: I'm guessing leftover pumpkin and spinach risotto. Either that or coleslaw...

Finished today:

* Milk

Bought today:

*Milk (I really really can't live without it!): $2.50

Total spent since June 1: $145.46

Days to go: 5