Friday muffins

Happy Friday errbody! I am so excited because I got to bake (from scratch!) last night! I made blueberry cream cheese muffins. I found the recipe from Glamour magazine & have wanted to make it for a while now. I finally broke down, went to Kroger & got all the stuff and made two batches last night!



This is before they headed into the oven



Pretty much you whip all the ingredients together, scoop half in a cupcake tin, put a dab of cream cheese, then cover it with more batter & another dollop of cream cheese on the top. They are delightful! :) I may try it a different way next time: It called for regular cream cheese, light yogurt, flour, etc. So next time I'd be curious about using Greek yogurt, whole wheat flour, etc. - make it a little healthier! I know you can substitute apple sauce for oil maybe? So I will look into that. Here's the recipe:

(This will make 12 BIG muffins)

Ingredients:

7 Tbsp. unsalted butter
3 Tbsp. sunflower or vegetable oil
1 cup low-fat plain yogurt
2 tsp. vanilla extract
3 large eggs
3 & 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp. baking powder
Just under 1 cup superfine sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
6 oz. blueberries
4 oz. cream cheese


Preheat oven to 400 degrees and line your muffin pan with cupcake wrappers. Melt butter in a medium pan over low heat - stirring to melt. Once melted, remove from heat; whisk in oil, yogurt, vanilla & eggs.

Sift flour & baking powder into a separate, large bowl. Stir in the sugar & salt, then make a well in the middle. "Well" is a opening in the middle (I'm guessing) :)

Pour the yogurt mixutre into the flour well. Lightly FOLD the dry ingredients into the wet using a rubber spatula until the mixture has just come together. Pour in the blueberries, working them into the batter with the bare minimum of stirring; I would continue to FOLD the blueberries in, just until they seemed mixed throughout - but definitely be gentle with them! :) (The mixture will look lumpy)

Spoon half the batter into the prepared baking cups. Dot about 1/2 tsp (this doesn't have to be exact - just a dollop; but make sure you have enough CC for all 12 of your cupcakes) of the cream cheese on top of the batter in each half-filled muffin cup. Add remaining batter, then another 1/2 tsp of cream cheese on each muffin. Bake muffins for 18-20 minutes or until golden. Let them cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then transfer to a rack & let them cool completely. Then you will have...

Trays of yumminess!

I am definitely turning into my mama :) Cooking relaxes her and baking seems to do the same for me. Aaaah... the smell of baked goods in the house isn't too bad either.

Monday mad, not even madness

Good Lordy, do ya ever have those days where people just annoy the ever living ---- out of you?!?! It seems like its on purpose too. Hence, "I did that because I like giving you a hard time McCain, bahahahahaha!!" ... Lucky I didn't introduce my open palm to your face.

I'm definitely feeling like a green monster today & one that has flames/smoke coming out of her ears. Grrrrr. But I know everyone doesn't think like I do and operate how I do, but come on! Give me a break!

Well, other than that little barraid, life has been good :) Nothing too exciting, just working, trying to exercise/eat healthy, and babysitting to make some extra money honey.

I've noticed lately that I've been avoiding certain situations, to avoid certain people... So I need to work on that. I just don't want to look confrontation (& certain people) in the eye. Is that so bad? I'm taking myself out of events to avoid that, rather than get all worried, worked up, mad, sad, etc. Ugh. It's just hard & I don't want to face it. In the end, I know it'd be better for me to face it & it'd help me grow as a person.