Money well spent

It is fair to say I have a lot of cookbooks, food magazines and recipe clippings.  It is also fair to say that most of them are in pristine condition - or at least read but not used.  However there is one that is comes off the shelf constantly or at least once a month.  This is a book that I picked up as I was about to leave a second hand book shop years ago and I think it is the best $8 I have ever spent (closely matched by the USD9 spent on my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook from Walmart).  This is the Julie Stafford's Muffin Book.  Julie Stafford wrote a very popular series of books called "A Taste of Life" that contained healthy recipes that she developed as a result of her husband being diagnosed with cancer in 1980.  The muffin book contains a huge variety of sweet and savoury muffins; the savoury ones don't appeal to me but the sweet variety are great, with most containing fruit.  The common theme in all the recipes is the use of apple juice concentrate in place of sugar and grape seed oil instead of butter.  All the sweet muffins include eggs, but there is an option to use either whites or whole eggs.  The Lemon and Blueberry recipe, pictured above, is one of my favourites.  They freeze well, are tasty and quick to make as well as being relatively healthy.  Win win I say.