Weekly Food: Kheer Muffins

The other great meal we had was at Maharaja, an Indian restaurant on Madison's east side. We got the vegetarian feast for two, and it came with way more food than we could handle: Samosas, Saag Paneer, Vegetable Korma, Karhi Pakora, Basmati Rice, Nan Bread and two desserts of mango ice cream and kheer. We had so much food that we had to take leftovers, but I, as usual, didn't want styrofoam containers. That was all that was on offer, though, so the best I could do was convince our waiter Kirv to bring only one container instead of two. But then he snuck in an extra little box, insisting we take the rest of the kheer (a sweetened dairy rice dish) home as well (even though we'd been trying to leave it behind since it was the one element of the meal we didn't love). So, we came home with these leftover curries--which we gobbled up--and this little box of cloyingly sweet, liquidy rice. I knew we weren't going to eat it in its present form, so I had to transform it.

And so I had to make some muffins. I've been on a muffin kick lately because they're about the only thing, besides fruit, that I can eat in the morning. Justin insists I eat a breakfast, so muffins it is. He's the Norm to my Marge. Here's the classic scene from Fargo that captures our relationship around breakfast:

(snoring)
(phone rings)

(Marge)
Oh, jeez.
Hi, it's Marge.
Oh, my. Where?
Yah.
Aw, jeez.
OK, there in a jiff.
Real good, then.
OK.

(hangs up phone)

(Marge to her husband Norm)
You can sleep. It's early yet.

(Norm)
Gotta go?

(Marge)
Yeah.

(Norm)
I'll fix you some eggs.

(Marge)
That's OK, hon. I gotta run.

(Norm)
You gotta eat a breakfast, Margie.
I'll fix you some eggs.

(Marge)
Oh, hon, you can sleep.

(Norm)
You gotta eat a breakfast.

And since I, too, like Margie, have gotta eat a breakfast, I took my cup of kheer, added a cup of white flour, a cup of wheat flour, a tablespoon of brown sugar, a quarter cup of soy milk, a tablespoon of butter, 2 teaspoons of baking powder, and a handful of raisins, and popped it all in the oven.

And it worked! (and this is a real accomplishment for me, since I love to cook, but have never been much of a baker, especially an off-the-cuff sort of one!) Golden, tasty muffins: (I took the Kirv-ball thrown at us and threw it right back)