Everything Blue

This past week at the local grocery store blueberries were on sale, "Buy one get one free with your Price Chopper card." After little contemplation I decided, why the heck not? Earlier in the week I had been craving blueberry muffins and never before had I made them from scratch. I love to cook and bake so I thought it would be a wonderful new baking adventure. Now mind you these little containers weren't the standard small size normally sold at the grocery but quite large, you know the larger strawberry size containers, which reminded me of my childhood.

As a little girl I remember my Aunt Claire and Uncle Neil taking my brother and I blueberry picking. They talked it up and it was going to be a fun adventure. Hours later I hardly had any blueberries in my bucket. I ate a lot of them and I'm pretty sure I had a tummy ache. While at the grocery store I reminisced about what it must have been like in fields picking blueberry after blueberry for hours on end.

As I was unloading the groceries, and the baby, I came to the realization I really did have a lot of blueberries. I needed to do something. The next morning, Friday, I made blueberry muffins as I planned. The only problem was the recipe called for only one cup of blueberries, which really wasn't as much as I thought it was. Regardless the recipe only made twelve muffins and they were delicious. Chris referred to them as blueberry cupcakes all day. Between Chris, Bradley and me we ate about five of them. The remaining seven, although an odd number, we gave to our neighbor Carol, who was more then pleased to have homemade muffins.

The next morning I was determined to use up more of those blueberries. We hardly eat pancakes and I thought it would be a great way to get rid of some of the fruit. I pulled one of our dining room chairs up to the counter and had Bradley stand on it. In my mind I thought it would be fun for my almost toddler to help me cook breakfast. Bradley's idea of stirring the pancake batter was dunking his entire hand in the bowl and squishing it with his fingers. Good thing his hands were clean and it was just us eating the meal. After cleaning up his little mess I thought he would enjoy putting the blueberries in the batter, instead he was taking handfuls of blueberries and shoving them in his mouth. I was dreading future diaper changes. Turns out things weren't nearly as bad as I thought they would be.

Sunday I decided to make more blueberry muffins, this time sending the remaining treats with Uncle Brad. I still have almost a full container of blueberries left. Although I think we are blueberried out, I may try one more recipe of something blue.




To Die For Blueberry Muffins (www.allrecipes.com)

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 cup fresh blueberries
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup butter, cubed
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners.
2. Combine 1 1/2 cups flour, 3/4 cup sugar, salt and baking powder. Place vegetable oil into a 1 cup measuring cup; add the egg and enough milk to fill the cup. Mix this with flour mixture. Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin cups right to the top, and sprinkle with crumb topping mixture.
3. To Make Crumb Topping: Mix together 1/2 cup sugar, 1/3 cup flour, 1/4 cup butter, and 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon. Mix with fork, and sprinkle over muffins before baking.
4. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until done.