BA's Blueberry Muffin Adventure

Woke up this morning with a complete fry-hangover.

You read right. A fry hangover. After Trev's hockey game last night, we went to the Outback for supper. We shared Cheese Fries. (I apparently forgot about my diet for the moment). I'm paying for that decision this morning.

So, instead of going for a run this morning, I decided to find a blueberry muffin recipe. I had bought (most) of the ingredients for Krissy's muffins, but alas, I forgot the applesauce. I had fresh blueberries in the fridge though, so I decided to search the trusty interweb.

After a bit of searching, I found this recipe. Looked on the money to me, since I still had buttermilk left over from last week's experiment.

Did a little tweaking - ended up with the recipe below.

Ingredients

1 cup white flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
3/4 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup melted butter
1 cup blueberries, preferably fresh


Directions

1. Line 12 muffin pans. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Beat egg and into it whisk the buttermilk and melted butter.
2. Make a depression in the center of your dry ingredients. Into it pour the liquid ingredients, all at once. Stir just enough to combine the ingredients. 12 strokes should be enough. Mixture will not be smooth. Quickly FOLD in the blueberries. (Tip - lightly coat the blueberries in flour to prevent them from sinking to the bottom).
3. Spoon the mixture quickly into the muffin pans and bake approximately 20 to 25 minutes. Cool slightly and remove from pans. Cool completely. Enjoy!



And, according to my trusty Sparkpeople (recipe site), here is the nutritional information for these bad boys.

Amount Per Serving (12.5 servings per batch. hehe. Every ounce counts!)

Calories 126.0

Total Fat 5.2 g

Saturated Fat 3.0 g

Polyunsaturated Fat 0.3 g

Monounsaturated Fat 1.3 g

Cholesterol 26.7 mg

Sodium 193.9 mg

Potassium 26.7 mg

Total Carbohydrate 17.4 g

Dietary Fiber 1.5 g

Sugars 2.0 g

Protein 3.1 g

Here's how they looked coming out of the oven. Is it normal that the berries "bled" so much? Hmmm....


I'm not so artsy with my picture taking... but here they are:



Hopefully they help with the fry hangover... I will workout today. I will workout today. I will workout today.

Hubby's rating on the muffins: "(shrugging) Meh, I'm not a huge blueberry fan; but I like them" and after finishing his whole muffin: "...it's not like they're disgusting". (hahaha, he'd not be impressed to know I just wrote all of that. Muahahhaa).

Well, another adventure complete.

So not on the diet

Food: PB Cookies
Feet: 4.91km run - gorgeous weather, happy to be outside.
Fun: Watering trees with hubby. Watching The Hills.

So this mixer is seriously hurting my diet... Well, maybe it's more ME than the mixer, but I'd much rather blame an inanimate object!

Tonight's experiment: PB Cookies.

This is my favorite recipe, and always turns out great. I was SUPER impressed with how they turned out - but next time I will press down the balls with the back of a fork...they look like there's something missing without the little lines!

Super-easy Peanut Butter Cookies

1 cup peanut butter (don't use low fat - they don't taste right!)
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg

Pour all ingredients into a bowl. Mix.


Form into 1" balls, place on a cookie sheet. Press down with a fork.

Bake at 325 for 15 minutes. Let cool on pan for 5 minutes. EAT.



Now, I MUST find some diet friendly things to make in my mixer. On my run I started thinking about pudding and jello. Though I'm pretty certain you don't need a mixer to make jello (HA. Yes, I'm very green in the kitchen).

OH, Trev said these were delicious tonight! I lovvvvvvve it when he likes what I make!!!

Coffee Cake Muffins

The finished product:

First foray with the KA Mixer

Found an awesome sale on my KA Mixer, so off Trev and I went last night to buy it!

We got the white one. I was hoping for the Almond colour, or something really fun like the lime or light blue - but alas, white was:

a) on sale
b) in stock
c) sure to go with our white appliances.

Set the bad boy up and broke him in this morning!

I decided to make Coffee Cake Muffins from the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook (since this book seems to be a staple in most kitchens, I won't write out the recipe, but if you'd like me to, just holla!).

First of all, I made a mess - see exhibit a.


My brown sugar was very hard, so I put it in the microwave with a small dish of water - a trick Trev has used before. Well....the water exploded. EVERYWHERE. So strange. At least it was just water: easy to clean up.

Continued on with the baking. Probably not the best way to break-in my mixer, but oh well. The mixer whipped it all into shape in about 30 seconds. Zoom!

I'll put up a picture of the finished product in another post since I can't get it to load here...

They were okay. Nothing spectacular. Would likely add a bit of fruit to the mix if I make them again.

Calories: 180
How I feel about eating two of them for breakfast: unsatisfied. HA.

I don't think that Sunday morning Mixing will (or should) become a part of my routine... When I was training for the half, I would get up and run on Sunday mornings...a little healthier than getting up to bake! But I am committed to finding some healthy ways to use my mixer!

And I'm committed to finding another race to sign up for - must get that running motivation back!!

The feet business...

So I did a half marathon about a month ago. It was sooooo fun! Looking for another one - I'm thinking about a February half. Seems like a good idea, until you consider that the weather here is generally awful in February...but that just makes it more of a challenge!

Here I am crossing the finish line (white shirt)!

Back at the blogging?

I've been reading so many fabulous food blogs lately that I want to start my own... so I figured why not come back to this trusty blog I started oh-so-many years ago...

Hoping to get a Kitchen Aid mixer this weekend, so what better way to celebrate than by blogging about the experience?

Now to choose the colour of mixer...and to find the best sale!