Muffins.. granola, whatever – I just hate seeing food go to waste

Hello again, my dears.

After brewing my Belgian wit, I found myself with about a pound of spent grains – malt, barley, and wheat, and a desire to do something with them.  After all, they’re so nutritious!  So much fiber!  No barnyard animals to feed them to…

So I got creative.  I thought to make cookies.  But I had so much grain that I had to do something bigger.  Then, it hit me: MUFFINS. 

I threw in a stick of butter.  Three eggs.  About a cup, cup and a half of sugar.  Two cups of flour of so.  About a half a cup of peanut butter and some chocolate shavings.  Baked at 350 degrees for, like, a half hour.

How were they, you ask?  Pretty good, I think.  After baking for a half hour, they were still wet in the middle and a little crumbly.  But they tasted good and are pretty healthy.  AND they mitigated me having to ditch an entire pound of perfectly good grain.

When/if you make these muffins, be advised that they won’t come cleanly out of the muffin tins.  You’ll get the top out, plus a little of the middle (be careful and they’ll remain easy on the eyes), but the bottoms will stick to the tin.  I scraped out the remainder to make granola.  Bake for another half hour or so at 350 degrees and leave out to dry.  I’ll tweak this recipe with the next batch of homebrew that we make and will post a much improved recipe.

I’m beginning to get a feel for how our grandparents used to live – wasting as little as possible of the things we consume.  It feels good not to waste.  Thus far I’ve found uses for beer at all stages of the game – the grains go into muffins/granola and the sediment goes into beauty masks and hair treatments.  Now if I could only figure out how to infuse things with the scent of hops.. I’d be all set.