Blueberry Gems

Yesterday I posted a recipe for Blueberry Muffins w/ Orange Honey Butter. I'm currently obsessed with those things, and I've been eating them all week, but my husband is currently obsessed with Blueberry Gems. Why? Because he's the Muffin Man, and they are muffins. And because of the buttery-cinnamony-sugarness. 

Don't believe me? See for yourself. See?

I posted a very similar recipe recently, so if it's not blatantly obvious, we are blueberry people in this here household! 

These are not "gems" unless they are made in something that makes them bite sized. You can be creative and even plop a dollop of... uh, not daisy (eww)...batter on a cookie sheet like cookies, but whatever you do, make them bite sized! You're tongue will thank you. Your entire mouth will thank you. You will thank you. 

I used a mini muffin tin. But like I said, use whatever your little heart, er, tastebuds desire. 

Blueberry Gems

Ingredients

• 3 cups white wheat flour
• 3 teaspoons Baking Powder
• 1 teaspoon Salt
• ½ teaspoon Ground Nutmeg
• 3/4 cup Sugar
• ⅔ cups Shortening
• 2 Eggs
• 1 cup Milk

  Directions: 

Preheat oven to 350. 

Mix flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg together in a bowl. In a separate bowl, beat sugar and shortening for a couple minutes on medium speed. Add eggs to sugar and shortening mixture, and beat for a about 10 seconds. Add half of flour and beat for a few seconds, then add half of milk, beating for a few seconds. Next, add the rest of the flour and beat, and then the rest of the milk and beat. Everything should be combined. Fill each muffin cup up to the top, and bake for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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Meanwhile, when you pop them out of the oven, they will look like this:

Just plain ol' blueberry muffins. But not really. It's deceptive, you see. These are whole wheat, and they have less sugar than the regulars. Why? Because first of all - I think they taste better with less sugar, second of all - I never, ever use sugar substitutes, and third of all - we are coating them with more sugar, so it's pointless to add a lot of sugar in the batter.

Now, let's make them more healthy, shall we?

Stuff that makes them "Gems"

2 sticks Butter, melted

1 C Sugar

 3 TSP Cinnamon

Directions: 

Place butter in one bowl, and in another bowl, mix cinnamon and sugar. Dip gems into butter and coat evenly, and then dip in cinnamon sugar mixture, coating evenly. At this point, they look like this:

This one had less cinnamon. 

And this one had a little more. They look prettier with less cinnamon, but taste better with more. 

And really..who cares about appearance, when you have a muffin coated in cinnamon and sugar!

Enjoy!

Blueberry Muffins w/ Orange Honey Butter

Oh yes ma'am...er, sir. These things are the bomb diggity. Sorry, I think my Junior High days just caught up with me. 

Blueberry muffins are pretty common in our house. Actually, blueberry everything is pretty common in our house. Actually just blueberries are. We throw them on top of almost everything, and muffins just seem appropriate.

The problem is that one (being me, of course) can easily get tired of the traditional blueberry muffin. "What??" You say. "How can one ever get tired of a blueberry muffin?! Are you crazy or something?" First of all, yes, I am slightly crazy, hence the name of my blog, second of all, trust me, it's possible. 

But it's not worth giving up muffins, for Blarney's sake (sorry, we had Irish food last night). So sometimes I tweak them a little, just to vary things up. And I can honestly say that this is one of my favorite muffin recipes to date. It's sweet, but not too sweet, it's fluffy but rather moist and not dry, and they are bite size, which just makes them that much more tempting. Oh, and they are not overly unhealthy, since they are made with 100% whole wheat flour. 

But that's not all that makes these things stand out above the rest in my eyes. You see, they also have this stuff below. 

 Orange honey butter. It's easy, it's good enough to eat on it's own (not that I'd do that......ever again...), and it's great on muffins! Heck, it's also great on plain toast, french toast, and other things I'm not creative enough to think up right now. 

But let's get started on the muffins. Basically I'm using a classic muffin recipe, except with whole wheat flour and less sugar.  

Blueberry Muffin Recipe

• 3 cups white wheat flour
• 3 teaspoons Baking Powder
• 1 teaspoon Salt
• ½ teaspoon Ground Nutmeg
• 3/4 cup Sugar
• ⅔ cups Shortening
• 2 Eggs
• 1 cup Milk

Directions 

Preheat oven to 350. 

Mix flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg together in a bowl. In a separate bowl, beat sugar and shortening for a couple minutes on medium speed. Add eggs to sugar and shortening mixture, and beat for a about 10 seconds. Add half of flour and beat for a few seconds, then add half of milk, beating for a few seconds. Next, add the rest of the flour and beat, and then the rest of the milk and beat. Everything should be combined. Fill each muffin cup up to the top, and bake for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

And I should note that I'm pretty anti-Crisco. Here's the ingredients list: "SOYBEAN OIL, FULLY HYDROGENATED PALM OIL, PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED PALM AND SOYBEAN OILS, MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES, TBHQ AND CITRIC ACI" -- yeah, no thanks to the fully hydrogenated stuff, not to meantion partially hudrogenated junk. Enough of the lecture, I use this stuff:

 I'm not just a huge fan of shortening in general, but when it's needed, this stuff works great every time. IF you can't find this stuff, you can use just plain oil. If you're a Crisco lover, that's fine too. I won't tell anybody. :)

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Now on to the stuff that makes these things EVEN BETTER!

(Super easy, don't worry)

Orange Honey Butter Recipe

1 stick Butter, unsalted

1/2 large orange (with skin)

1 TBS honey (plus more to taste)

Let butter soften for about 20 minutes, just enough to where it's not so cold. Slice up the half orange until a couple pieces (doesn't matter how you do it) and leave the rind on. Once butter has sat out for about 20 minutes, toss it into the food processor with the orange and honey. Spin it around in the food processor a few times, or until well blended. At this point, you can add more butter, orange, or honey to your liking. The recipe above is the perfect balance to me (with up to 2 TBS of honey), but you want this to taste how YOU want it to! 

At this point, you can spoon the honey onto some parchment paper, and roll up into a tube. Instructions on how to do that here.

And you could probably even gift this stuff. Who wouldn't like orange honey butter?

Or, you could save it for yourself, and spread some on these muffins! 

..which is what I did!

And I have no regrets. 

 I mean, I'm just not to the type to live with regrets. 

It's orangish. It's creamy. It's sweet, but kinda tangy. It's my breakfast. It's my go-to for a week's worth of super delicious breakfast for me and my husband.

It's........ Blueberry Muffins w/ Orange Honey Butter. I'll be posting another blueberry muffin recipe tomorrow..Blueberry Gems. Sorry, I just felt you should be warned. 

The Result + Recipe Reviews - V-Day

What a great weekend!! We mostly celebrated on Saturday. On Friday night, I made those french breakfast puff things, with blueberries of course. When we woke up on Saturday, I coated them with cinnamon and sugar and fixed them on the table with a printed menu to tell the husband what was to be expected that day. 

Not my pictures, but still enough to make you drool!

French Breakfast Puffs (w/ blueberries)

Review: The easiest muffin recipe I've ever tried. Very basic ingredients, fluffy, and probably the best muffins (or uh, "french puffs", I've ever had..maybe?). Hard to say. They truly tasted just like blueberry cake donuts to me, and that says a lot, considering I used all whole wheat flour. My husband was hording these like nothing else. In fact, I made some extra to give to his mom, and she almost didn't get them. He's never been so protective of something food related. Good stuff!

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We also made this stuff. Pretty easy, and not the type of recipe I usually follow. If I make pasta, it usually has a homemade spaghetti sauce, or a decent jar of sauce if I'm lazy. So chicken broth and whipping cream were new to me when it came to pasta. 

Cajun Chicken Pasta  

Review: Once again, simple ingredients. Simple recipe, yet a little time consuming to have to cook the chicken in 2-3 batches. I guess you could do them all at the same time, but they might stick together, so you'd have to constantly break them apart. The taste? Amazing! We didn't use wine for the sauce, but it was still so good! 

Garlic bread would have been great with this, but we were rushing and didn't have time!

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While I was throwing the pasta and other stuff together, the husband was slicing the mushrooms for the mushroom soup. He did great in the kitchen. In fact, he's welcome to help me anytime. What this means is that he will soon regret being so perfect in the kitchen. He came in handy. His video games might start collecting dust as we know it. 

Creamy Mushroom Soup

Review: Overall this soup was super easy, very creamy and had an interesting flavor. By "interesting" I guess I mean great, but to enjoy this soup, you really need to wipe out all previous experiences and expectations of what mushroom soup should taste like. Again, we didn't use wine, but the taste was great, just not so much mushroom-ey. It tasted more like a creamy, tasty ...soup that happened to have mushrooms in it. Still good, and I'd make it again with slight tweakings!

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Now these things.....these fried hot things, filled with love and all that is good in this world. These things. These things are.....they are.....amazingly, melt-in-your-mouth wonderful. I could pop these poppers in my mouth all day. My midsection and thighs wouldn't love me for it, but the growth of a double of triple chin might be a plus...? Or not. 

Regardless...

TRY. 

THESE.

Jalapeno Poppers 

Review: Mine didn't look like this picture; mine were somehow more sporadically coated. I'm going to guess the reason for this could be one of 2 things. 1. I made my own bread crumbs, and I used whole grain (Ezekiel 4:9 bread ground in the good processor), or 2. I used rice milk, instead of whole milk. I don't do well with following directions in cooking, and rice milk is much thinner, so it probably didn't coat as well. But you know what? These things rocked my socks off! Not that I had socks on, but maybe that's because they were rocked off. Very good. Time consuming to slice in half, fill, coat a zillion times, and fry, but these bad boys have my heart. They also had my husband's heart. 

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You know what else I made? Something pretty stinkin' adorable, that's what. I didn't post this on my blog last week, because I wanted to surprise my other half, which I did in fact do. I copied Bakerella (love that woman to pieces), and I'm so, so glad I did! These things will catch on big time for other holidays. 

Just think of the possibilities...Mother's Day, Anniversary, Christmas, President's Day!!!

Stop what you're doing right now, and make these! Make these tonight. Make them tomorrow morning. Make them (and eat them like I did) at 5 a.m. For Pete's sake, just make them!!

Homemade Oreo Kisses

 Review: This was the best dessert I've had in a long time. They don't look like much I know, I know. Stop whispering, I CAN HEAR YOU! You're saying, "Why in the world would I make these; they are half off at Target, crazy apron lady! Not to mention, these look at little strange in the middle!" Are you done talking to yourself yet? Good, now wipe the drool off your bottom lip (we both know it's there). Now listen. Do you know what's in the middle? OREO COOKIES. Well, except that I'm a nut and I used some off brand organic Oreos knock off, but you get the point. And not just Oreos, either. Oreos mixed w/ softened cream cheese.

Yeah, you heard me. It doesn't get easier than this. Throw Oreos in a bag, let your kids take out their frustration on the bag (slamming those puppies up into oblivion), and then mix the crumbs w/ softened cream cheese. Shape the "dough" into balls, and then point them up into kisses. Let them freeze for a few minutes, and then dip in melted chocolate (I used bark, but whatever). Why am I giving you the recipe?? Just click on the title. 

Anyway, my husband horded these things more than the french puffs above. In fact, we almost got into a fight over them...

Me: *Mmmm, I think I'll have a few of these kisses."

Him: "How many have you had? I've only had a couple so far."

Me: "I've only had 3..........do you like them that much?"

Him: *protective tone* "I'm just saying..I've only had a couple."

Me: "I'm just saying. I've only had 3. Just sayin'."

Him: "That's fine. Have all you want..just keep in mind...I've only.."

AND THEN IT HAPPENED. 

I dropped them. 

I had 3 on my plate, and I dropped them right between the 2 of us.

Me: "Umm...."

Him: "No! What just happened?"

Me: "Sorry.. it's just, I mean, they...slipped."

Him: "Well, now you've had 6."

Me: "Huh? No, I've had 3. Then I dropped 3. I've only eaten 3, which means I can get more!"

Him: "No. You've had 6."

Me: "No, I .."

Him: "You've had 6."

Me: "I...."

Him: "6."

Me: "Hey wait a minute! I shaped and coated each and every one of these things. I coated them! I stood here and individually ...with love...made every. single. one."

Him: "All for me?"

Me: "Yep! All for ....you."

Him: "Best wife ever."

Me: "...........What just happened?"

Him: "It's called, 'winning an argument' " *munches on kisses*

Me: "Huh. Interesting."

Now go make these for your loved ones (and hide some for yourself - Just sayin').