Blueberry Muffins

Guess what you do when life throws you blueberries... on sale?  After you're oatmeal berried, smoothie berried and yogurt berried out, it's time to make muffins.  Y'all...these turn out so well and they're so easy.  Much better than a box mix :) I made the mistake of making them in the evening.  Fully intending on serving them for breakfast the next morning.  mmmm....yeah, that didn't work. But we did have a good snack that night.  See, the glass of milk is always half full.  At least I hope it is when I'm eating muffins.

Ingredients

• 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

Directions

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. Toss the blueberries in about 1 tbs flour then fold into mixture.  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.

Where has Holly been?

It's been so long since I've had the energy to think let alone blog anything.  I've been away from my blog, school work, running and honestly my kitchen for I guess about 3 weeks now.  I don't want to get into specifics but  it may or may not have had something to do with a sinus infection and subsequent reaction to medicine from alleged sinus infection.  So, I'm still not feeling 100% but felt I owed you an explanation. 

I've done a bit during our time apart, during my sporadic encounters with feeling human.  I have a few recipes to share.  I'll get those up here asap because I know you're all on the edge of your seats for my ultimate blueberry muffins.  That was a mean tease huh?

Anyway,  So, not much else is going on right now. The Captain has taken a hiatus from chartering and his full time job as a Navy Diver for his other Navy job, a completely different kind of diver.  He'll be in California joining the Navy Parachute Team for their winter training.  By the way, yes, he's away, but don't get any funny ideas, this momma is packin'. It's a military spouse necessity.

 When he's away, my cooking is way different.  We eat much lighter meals, a lot more meatless meals.  Breakfast for dinner..etc. The blog will reflect that in the upcoming days.

Here are some cool pics from last year that I wanted to share. I'm pretty proud.  Course, everything he does makes me proud. I'm very lucky  :)


In the meantime, I'm feeling much better and should be back at it very soon.

Smiling big before I jump from this perfectly good plane

Smokin!!

Thats not flying, It's falling, with style

Pure Adrenalin

Packing it in

Awesome group of guys

It's a perk :)

Yellow Thinking Shoes

I know I bought my text book used.  But I think there's a malfunction. There must have been a  mix up during printing.  Here I am, ready to start my next chapter "Menus and Recipes"  Sweet!!  Right up my alley. This will be a nice change from salmonella.  Everything was going smoothly. The first couple pages were really informative. It talks about the different types of menus: static, cycle, market..etc.Then, I flip the page and  BOOM!!!  MATH??????!!!!!

What the hell is up with that?  Ok first of all, if I'd really thought about it, I'd realize there is math in cooking. If you're one of those people that measure things.  I think they're called bakers?  That must be why those spoons and cups have numbers and fractions on them.   But this is for real math.  Weight and volume and grams and ounces, division, multiplication, thinking....ugh!

I really didn't think they'd hit me in the beginning of the book.  Doesn't hard stuff come towards the end of the book? It's textbook etiquette 101 people.

Oh but check this out.  Did you know that "dash", "bushel" and "peck" are real measurements? 
dash= 1/8 tsp
peck= 2 gallons
bushel=4 pecks

Although, Doris Day wouldn't have sounded so great singing "i love you 4 pecks and 2 gallons".  Click the link to listen to it if you've never heard it.   Haha..song tag :)

I'm gonna fly thru this chapter.  I don't suspect I'll need to make 165 servings of anything anytime soon. And if I do, I'll know which defected book to reference.  All I need are my yellow thinking shoes because they make me faster and if at all possible, smarter...

And my study buddies:

The cool kids..

Maybe they'll let me sit with them at lunch!

First Day of Cooking School

I know y'all are so excited to hear about my first day of school.  Well, I worked a little later than expected so got to class around 11:30 ish.  Yes, I know I said I resigned, but that doesn't mean I'm crazy.  I'm still working, just part time.  Anyway, thought that might be important information sometime down the road.

So, reported for my first day of cooking class and since the first few chapters aren't in the kitchen, teacher (meaning me) let us have class out by the pool today.  I think I might be teachers pet. She is super nice and cute and so smart.

Today, the class learned about Safety and Sanitation. I now know what the "danger zone" regarding temperature is, what the difference between biological chemical and physical contamination is, what HACCP (hazard analysis critical control points) are AND that you should wash your hands well and often when working in the kitchen.  WEW!! Glad I got that outta the way.  All that talk about fungi and unhygienic workers did not sit well with my nutella and banana waffle.

The next chapter is on nutrition.  However, I spoke to the school board (meaning me) and they said since I've had that class and many levels of it and passed with flying colors, I'd probably be ok to test out. HOLLAA!!

The most serendipitous part of class today was that I had some cubed steak set out for dinner tonight....but not thawing at room temperature because that's bad! Cubed Steak is the other red meat,  for those of us that are "for all practical purposes, unemployed".  But I couldn't decide what I wanted to do with it.  So I flip to page 30 and right in front of me is a recipe typed out with exact critical control points where you'd check temperature, wash hands (thank you for that) etc.  And the recipe was for beef stroganoff.  Yeah yeah, i know it's not a typically a cube steak dinner but we in the food business (meaning me) can improvise like that. It worked out perfectly delicious.  Served with a side of warm caprese: roast cherry tomatoes and EVOO at 375 degrees until they start popping, about 20 min.  Then pull them out and sprinkle fresh pearl mozzarella balls on top. They'll slightly melt.  Then drizzle with balsamic glaze and fresh torn basil.

Thank you school textbook for my dinner idea.  I think this will be one of many. After all the damn book is 1500 pages.

School makes me tired..all that learning. So I'll be done here for the night.  Oh!, Hey, do you like how I bolded my textbook definition words?  Looks all legit!!

G'nite!

Good Holly Wil(son) Hunting

 Thoughts, Changes and a Smoothie

strawberries, bananas, milk, greek yogurt, agave and ice

It's not often I have a mild panic attack on payday.  This is the day most of us anxiously await. This day, however, I'm finding it hard to breathe.  My chest even hurts a little.  No need to run to the phone and call for help. The pain and hyperventilation is completely self imposed.

I have been working as a manager for the same company for about 5 years now.  Thats a lifetime in military spouse years. Anyway, it's a great company, pretty good gig, but also quite stressful.  It was one of those situations where I could physically feel my blood pressure rising second to second.  As I sat in my office feeling my blood pressure rise, yelling into my computer, I couldn't shake the overwhelming need to be in the kitchen.  It's not the Donna Reed "I must be in the kitchen" feeling.  It's more of a "I want to play with my food" type feeling.

So guess what? After many months of planning and the support of my wonderful husband The Captain, not to mention some great enabling cheerleader type friends,  I got one last overpriced hair cut and color then resigned my position. And here I am, on a weekday, nowhere close (well kinda close) to my work email and blackberry NOT watching the money roll in. I'm hoping this isn't a mid life crises since I'm only 36.  I truly believe the Universe has something great in store for people that make these drastic moves based on a passion, and a little bit of skill.

Whats next?  I've had this blog for, mmm,.... I guess about a year and half now?  It's not wildly popular, hell,  it's not even mildly popular, but it's fun.  However, I think the last thing the virtual world needs is another food blogger.  There are already so many talented, creative and established ones that I do think that market is saturated. I also had full intentions of attending a local culinary arts program starting this summer, but I've already done the school thing. So I thought, what if I put myself through culinary school, here in my own kitchen. The Wilson Culinary Academy. I'll buy some textbooks and use course schedules borrowed from other culinary arts programs and even do an externship. And I'll blog the entire process.  Chapter 1- Safety and Sanitation!! Read along if you wish.

my first textbook. bought used for $30

Next step- CULINARY ARTIST!!!! So that's the plan for now.  I'm not sure how it'll turn out or what the end goal is but here's what I do know:  I'm not nearly as stressed. I get dinner on the table every night. I even get to make a real breakfast and pack lunch for the kids.  When they're done with school, I can play basketball or ride scooters with them. And, I get to talk to you guys much more often. Those things alone are worth the occasional payday freak out

But right now, I'm gonna drink my smoothie and not check email.

Garden Ready!!

Y'all know I am not a gardener. I like to play one on TV, or at least in my own back yard.  I've tried for years and years to be successful.  I get a teeny tiny better every season, but not enough to make my bank account any better.  But, it's about that time again, so we spent yesterday getting our two very humble raised gardens and pots ready for seed.  We typically buy the plant itself, but this year, we're starting from seed.  You never know,this could be our year. And if it's not, I've got a fall back plan, I've signed us up to be a part of a local CSA (community supported agriculture).  I'll be picking up a box of fresh fruits and veggies every Thursday that were grown on local farms.

This year, we just needed to get some compost to refurbish the soil we bought last year. $10/half load. Thanks Dirt Lady

Yep, it's steaming hot!

Breydon gardening in his PJ's

Lunch Break!!!  Beautiful day to grill some hot dogs

They're ready!  Still covered to protect from ornery dogs

Perfect Herb Pots

Time to relax and take a walk to the beach

Ornery Dog #1

Ornery Dog #2

Played in S**T all day, and still ended with this sunset

Chili Cheese Home Fry-Cho's

Stop drooling on your computer!!!  Y'all this isn't so much a recipe as it is a "re purposing".  You know what that is.  So you know the other day I made Venison Chili .   Anyway, we, like so many other people are on a budget.  So I'm trying to stretch our food out as much as possible.  The killer thing about this recipe is, I got the potatoes and the Velveeta as a BOGO!!  WINNING!!

So basically I chopped these teeny taters and roasted them at 375 degrees tossed in olive oil for about an hour, maybe a bit more.  PS... these little beauties are 90 calories and zero fat for 5 of them, about the mount shown below.  Much better for your waistline than chips.  And since my son snapped that picture of me from behind while making dinner, I feel better about making these instead.  But please remind me to always wear my spanx when there's a camera in the room

Then:

Melt your Velveeta. ( rarely use this stuff but a sale's a sale) into the leftover chili

Spoon your chili con queso on top of the roasted taters.  

Anndddd top the way you would your Nachos.  I have lettuce, onion, jalapenos, scallions, avocados and sour cream.

Now, what to do with all the Chili Con Queso I have left?