The Best Blueberry Muffins

Update: go ahead and make the sweet and rich version if you decide to make these. I know I'm heavy handed on the butter and was on the sugar last time as well. A friend made the light ones and thought they were a little dry. The extra egg in the richer version might help that.

Well at least these are some of the best blueberry muffins I've ever had. I've made them a number of times and always love them. The recipe comes from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. He mentions that he doesn't especially like sweet or rich muffins so this recipe is light on the sweet and rich. He does provide a recipe for the sweet and rich ones, which have three more tablespoons of butter, one more egg, and 3/4 cup of sugar rather than 1/2 cup. He also lists a variety of variations on the basic muffin recipe so that you could, for example, make banana nut muffins, spice muffins, coffee cake muffins, savory muffins, etc. You'll need the cookbook to make those, though, since I'm just listing the blueberry muffin recipe here.

3 tablespoons melted butter or canola or other neutral oil (plus some for greasing the muffin tin)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup of sugar
1/2 teaspoon of salt
3 tablespoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest (optional, but I like it)
1 egg
1 cup milk, plus more if needed
1 cup blueberries

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Grease a standard 12 compartment muffin tin. Mix together the dry ingredients in a bowl. Beat together the egg, milk and butter or oil, and add the lemon zest to the wet ingredients. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour the wet ingredients into it. Using a large spoon or rubber spatula, combine the ingredients swiftly and add in the blueberries, stirring and folding rather than beating, and stopping as soon as all the dry ingredients are moistened. The batter should be lumpy, not smooth, and thick but quite moist. Add a little more milk if necessary. Spoon the batter into the muffin tins, filling them about two-thirds full and handling the batter as little as possible. Bake 20 to 30 minutes, or until the muffins are nicely browned and a toothpick inserted into the center of one of them comes out clean. Let rest for 5 minutes before taking them out of the tin. Serve warm. Yum. Don't forget a little pat of butter.

Married Money From Decorno

I was catching up on some blog reading and came across Decorno's question(s) to readers asking married couples how they handle their money. I love reading the answers! I'm so nosy, and I'm always curious about the answer to this question myself for no other reason really than to know what works (and doesn't work) for other people. Merging finances can be a complicated and messy process for some couples and for others no trouble at all. In both cases, it's interesting to me to read how couples handle their money. I thought it would only be fair if I answered the question too. We have joint everything except my business checking account. We save a pre-set amount each month, then pay bills, then use the rest for spending money. We talk about all our expenses every month, but I do the actual bill paying. This system works well for us. Head over to Decorno to read how other couples handle their money.

More From The Beach

We're back in San Francisco now, but we had a great time on Vacation. Here are some more pictures from the beach (Edisto Island in South Carolina).

Cash flew a kite for the very first time (see the fish above, that's the kite). Unfortunately, it was really, really windy that day and the kite ripped off the string and blew away. I don't think I've ever seen Cash so upset. He was devastated, that is until about an hour later when he forgot about it. My sister bought him another kite the next day.

My mom and aunt brought their sewing machines and taught me how to sew bibs and pillowcase dresses!

There were a whole lot of pretty flowers along the beach access path.

Andrew and I drove to Charleston one day, which was about an hour away from where we were staying. He grew up there and wanted to show me his childhood house and show me around town. I had been once, briefly, in high school, but it was nice to go again. It was incredibly hot that day though--101 degrees! We're not used to that kind of heat anymore (not that we ever really were). My hands and feet swelled up like little balloons for the first time. We took lots of breaks and drank a lot of water so we wouldn't melt.

We walked around The College of Charleston's campus, which is beautiful.

Me on the beach!

Mom made a chocolate cake for me and my grandma whose birthday is right before mine. Yum.

Remnants of a sand castle.

Andrew made another amazing pie. This time it was peach. It was sooooooo good, I cannot even tell you how good it was. He made a lattice top crust for the first time, and it turned out great.

Ooooh, a thunderstorm! Nothing like hearing a good thunderstorm at bedtime. We were in bed about to go to sleep when we started to hear thunder rumbling in the distance one night. We decided to get up and wait for the storm to come. Setting the camera to a really long exposure time, we got this great picture when lightening struck. It was great. It's one thing we both really miss about living in the south--thunderstoms. We won't be heading back south for a while though. That was our last trip until who knows when. With baby on the way our plans are just to stay here and have people visit us, which is going to be great.

Greetings From The Beach

We're having a great time at the beach! Here's a little glimpse of our days here. Sun, sand and water. I figured you didn't need to see messy pictures of our kitchen or people napping. More on our trip later. Time to help out Andrew with the peach pie, or at least get off his computer so he can read the recipe!

Happy Birthday To Me

Today's my birthday! I love birthdays! Here I am last year celebrating in the park with Andrew. Now, though, we're off to the beach so I have to run. See you soon.

Plum Tree Visit

It's been a really busy (and fun) week going between my mom's, Andrew's mom's and my sister's house, and making time to see our friends, but mom and I managed to get over to the Plum Tree for a visit. It's my favorite antique shop near my mom's, and I always like to see what's new and see how Cindy's decorated the shop. The garden looks great right now, and I love the new wall colors inside--a pale grey blue in the main room and a soft chartreuse in one of the back rooms. Here are some pictures from the Plum Tree this week. (And here are some from a past visit if you want to take a peek.)

The front porch is looking festive for July.


A collection of bird prints. I love this wall color. Our bedroom used to be this color, and I miss it.

I love this mirrored mantel. I'd like to have this to go above my bed. I'm too afraid to hang anything heavy, though, because of the possibility of earthquakes!

My mom brought in this table, which I love. (My mom sells some things on consignment at the shop.)

This corner of the shop is looking appropriately summery. Ready for the beach? I think yes!

A splash of black and white--reminds me of Lisa.

And here are some pictures from the garden. I love this first pot--nice and clean--just white and green.

A cute little statue kicking back on some vintage barkcloth.

A little garden shed.

I love the "window box" Cindy made from old painted metal pots.

Garden junk. Funnel turned planter.


See you next time Plum Tree!

Shower

On Sunday after we went to the flea market, we headed to my sister's house for my baby shower. I was so excited the night before that I barely slept. I was really just excited to see all my friends in one place at one time since it's usually always hard to see everyone when we come in town. And I love parties, especially parties that are thrown for me! It was great to see everyone and my sister did a wonderful job hosting the shower. Here are a few pictures.

Me opening gifts.

The little one now has her first pair of tiny Vans with matching bib.

My grandma says to Jill (a hairstylist), "what do you call that haircut you have?"

Jill says, "a mullet!" My grandma says, "well, if you cut my hair, I don't want one of those." Ha.

My sister made everything look nice.

My mom, me and my sister.

My very first friends when I moved to Atlanta in 7th grade, Lee and Megan (and me in the middle). I still have a box full of notes from both of them from middle and high school. What a hoot to read.

Later, it was picture time with the boys, Wyatt and Cash. The party was so much fun! Thanks sis!

Flea Market Pickin's

Bright and early Sunday morning my mom, grandma and I headed to the McDonough flea market. I think it was a little too early for most vendors, though, because only about 10 people were set up when we got there at 7:30. My mom thought it was probably because of the weather, since it was supposed to rain. Still, it was fun, and mom found a few treasures. She got the chair above for $1. It's missing one piece of the back, but that's okay. I thought it would make a good garden chair with a hole cut in the seat to hold some potted flowers. She also got this table for $5, which is covered in stuff here, but it's really cute with a white metal top and black trim. And below are just a few other things I liked, an oil painting of flowers and a little, old scooter. Later this week we'll go to one of my favorite junkin' places here, the Peachtree Pedlers Antique Mall.

Vacation

Tomorrow we're off to Atlanta for a week then to South Carolina for a week to go to the beach. We can't wait! No staycation for us (though just staying here in San Francisco would be a good one). I'll get plenty of nephew time this trip. I'll be with the boys for a whole week at the beach. Here's little Wyatt on one of his beach trips earlier this summer. He's so cute. Also, I'm looking forward to attempting to sew. My mom and aunt are going to bring their sewing machines and teach me a few things. I'll show you what I end up making if anything ends up being picture-worthy. There's no internet access at the beach, so it will be light posting for me, but maybe I'll post a few things before we get there.

Cottage Project

This weekend we're headed to Atlanta and then to Edisto Beach in South Carolina for vacation. I'm so excited! Andrew's actually taking real vacation days rather than working while we're there, so it should be extra fun. One thing I want to do every time I go to my mom's is clean out her shed and make it into something like this. Isn't this little cottage shed cute? The pictures are from Victoria magazine's Romantic Country Style. It looks so like my mom's style. I showed it to her, and she really liked the idea. But it may be way too hot to even consider starting a project like this. My mom's little shed is packed with storage stuff right now and there's no AC in there, so we might pass out trying to make it into something in mid-July. Maybe we'll hit the antique mall instead to see if we can find some treasures for the shed when the time comes!