Blueberry Muffins

I have recently been pining for the crisp air of fall, for red and golden leaves to slowly drift to the ground, for cozy sweaters and my breath in the air. I've been wishing on all the stars for fall and wishing on all of the candles of everyone's birthdays that I could go back to Alaska.

I told my mom this and she was very surprised. Some of you make know that I take care of my mom, she has some medical issues and she has always been there for me, so I will always be there for her. But for the next 5 years she still has to stay here in DC for her work.

I am searching for a job on the Alaska Slope, the Pipeline. I would of course be cooking or baking or whatnot and it would most likely be a two week on, two week off deal. I could also pay off my loans and save money for...well what I wish for is to open a Bed and Breakfast. My mom wishes for me to open a Bakery. At this point I'm not sure which I would go for, I know what I want...but that almost never works out.

Long story short, while I am looking for said job, I am at home and am working my way through recipes. A few weeks ago I made an AMAZING apple pie. I mean...the BEST apple pie. I stole it from Alton Brown and I tweaked it. This week I decided that I needed to make something with blueberries. I needed muffins. Again I looked to Alton Brown, since to me he is a God, and again I tweaked it.

Let me backtrack and tell you my story about blueberries. Since I grew up in Alaska , and with a family that enjoyed being out of doors I was dragged along on all sorts of trips. Fishing and blueberry picking with the two biggest ones every year though.

I would be packed up along with my mom, my Grandparents and my Uncle and we would go blueberry picking. Apparently I was VERY good at this, my Grandmother would tell my mom that I was fast and gentle at picking. Let me just tell you straight up, I was not always fond of Alaska like I am now. And I HATED blueberry picking, I probably wouldn't really like it now either because I'm not a huge fan of camping. But I would go for two days and one night. More then that I would just say no.

When we picked the blueberries my Uncle would always make some famous blueberry pie...ick. I only say ick because for whatever reason he wasn't very good at picking off the twiggy stems. And it involved SO MUCH gelatin it was as if you were eating a blueberry aspic. Blah.

But, as I am now a certified Baker I can make my own choices on how things are made. And I am working on a cookbook. What better way to start out a book then to start with fall. And perhaps this blueberry recipe will be the first one in it. I'll need to start reaching out and looking for pictures of me blueberry picking.

So here is my recipe. You should try it. Its AMAZING.

12 1/2 oz Cake Flour
1 tsp Baking Soda
2 tsp Baking Powder
Salt
1 Cup Sugar
1/2 Cup butter *melted*
1 egg
1 Cup Vanilla Yogurt *you could use any kind though*
1 TBSP Lemon or Orange Zest
Sugar in the Raw
1 1/2 cup Blueberries

Heat oven to 380 Degrees

In a large bowl add all dry ingredients and mix well or sift all together.

In another large bowl mix butter and yogurt together, this way your egg wont curdle. Then add your egg, and zest. Add the dry ingredients, minus 2 TBSP's and mix. Please do not overmix, it perfectly okay to have a few lumps here and there.

Add berries to 2 TBSP's of flour mixture and toss, then add berries into the other bowl. Mix gently.

In paper lined cups heap batter past the top of the cups. Sprinkle with sugar in the raw.

Put batter into oven and crank heat up to 400 degrees, bake 10 min then rotate pan, bake another 10-15 min until slightly brown ontop.

Jackson and His Water Bowls

I have two cats. A boy and a girl, I believe I have written about both of them from time to time. Today I will be talking about my boy cat Jackson and his water bowls. One might think this wouldn't be very interesting, but my cats are strange...

Jackson will only drink from one type of bowl, little glass cups that I normally make flan in. He always wants TWO bowls as well, though he normally only drinks from one of them while the other just kinda sits there.

When he's thirsty he will begin by staring into the water, I always wonder what he's trying to learn by doing this. Does he talk to the water? Is he looking for something? I'm never sure. But he will sit there and stare at them for awhile before choosing which one he wishes to drink from.

He will also sit there and guard the water. If his sister *who doesn't like to drink water* wishes to drink from the cups he will come running over and stare at her while she drinks from his cups. Its very cute, but also very weird.

Thats about it. Not so funny, just weird. I have a weird cat.

The picture is of him deciding if he's thirsty or not. That small weird stain beside the cup isn't in fact a stain its water. He drinks very quickly and tends to slosh it out of the bowls. He's my dorkus!