Thursday, January 3, 2008

Blueberry Muffins

It’s funny how your tastes change as you get older. When I was growing up, I always thought I hated blueberries. I never liked blueberry flavored candy, blueberry muffins, blueberry pie. Nothing. I wouldn’t even try anything with blueberries in it. And, we never had blueberries around the house, either, so, the unknown factor was definitely in play there.

About 3-4 years ago, my mom started buying fresh blueberries to eat with my parent’s breakfast. And for some reason one day, I opened the carton, popped a couple in my mouth and was in love. They were sweet, but also tart and a perfectly semi-firm texture. They were delicious! Where had they been all my life?

Now, I love blueberries and try to eat them as much as possible (they apparently have all kinds of healthy antioxidants in them).

Last night, I went on a bit of a baking spree. I am sick of making regular cookies and my palate was sick of cookies, as well. I wanted something rich and different. So, I looked around for some good muffin recipes. I found a few and even a cookie recipe that sounded good and I headed off to the grocery store list in hand.

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before… but the grocery store I go to is prime guy territory. There are always lots of attractive single guys milling around in the grocery store. Last night was no exception… in fact, I actually had a fairly embarrassing encounter with a crush of mine. There is a guy that comes into my work sometimes (maybe once a month) and I’ve always had a huge crush on him.. he’s really nice, cute, has an incredibly sexy deep voice and striking blue eyes. Definitely drool-worthy. I’ve even gone so far as asking my brother (who I work with) to give me the scoop on this Adonis (ok, Adonis might be a stretch, but he is hot), but he didn’t really cooperate, he just told me he was too young for me. Hmph. Well, anyway.. who did I bump into in the baking aisle last night??? Yes, him. There was no ducking out of the situation, as we basically met each other head on. So, we exchanged pleasantries (I wasn’t sure if he really recognized me or not) and there was a girl on the other side of the aisle, that I was afraid might be his girlfriend, so I totally stiffed up and kind of skirted by him after a few moments. Come to find out, they weren’t together. Arrrg.. I’m always screwing up situations like that. I am so not a slick flirter.

Anyway, I got home and whipped up these blueberry muffins. They turned out really pretty! And very tasty! And I used half white whole wheat flour and half all purpose flour. They could actually be a little sweeter for me, but still a good muffin. Good texture and flavor. I’ll make these again!

On a side note… I got a kitchen scale for Christmas:
And I absolutely love it! I’ve been using it some and I’m realizing that I’ve been using too much flour and not enough brown sugar, etc… so fun to measure things out precisely! I highly recommend a kitchen scale if you are kind of anal about measurements!