Sundays with Joy -- Brown Butter Blueberry Muffins

Today is not Sunday, I know, I know.  But I did make these on Sunday, so I think it counts, right?  See, I am two weeks behind on my group because I joined late, but I don't want to be able to say I only did 98% of the recipes, so I am making up for lost time.  Which means this weeks we enjoyed the avocado fries and got some sweet muffins, as well.  Score!

Or so I thought...

First, I had to learn how to brown butter.  Really, it is not that tricky.  Seeing as it was a new skill for me I figure it might be a new skill for you, too.  And what a better way than to learn a new skill than from a video?  Not only can he cook, but he has a hot accent to boot.   (Don't we wish we all sounded like that?  Don't we all secretly think our sexy-factor would increase if we just had the accent, right?!)

For this recipe you will not add all the pepper and lemon and whatnot, just brown the butter.  But my goodness, I am ready to make some of that sauce for pasta this week!  Doesn't it sound incredibly delicious?

  Anyway, back to the muffins...

I opened the book, took out my ingredients, and followed along.  No adaptations, no ambitious attempts, just followed along.  And when they were cooking smelled so good.

But something was wrong.  They didn't cook all the way.  I had them at 375 F for the 18-20 mins, I did all the right proportions, I sifted the flour, I added the mixtures together in the right order...  So I turned back on the oven and stuck them back in. 

Finally they were cooked and they looked good, but they were dense.  I knew that it was something that happened because of me because, well, face it, Joy had this recipe go in a cookbook for crying out loud.  And people around the world were singing the praises of these little muffins.  Yet mine were just "eh",  and kind of thick.  Then it hit me: I have had this baking powder for quite a while now (remember -- I didn't really bake a lot for a long time).  I marched into the kitchen and pulled it out of the cupboard, flipping it over to see the expiration date.  04/08/2011

April.

Of 2011.

No wonder they didn't turn out right! 

The baking powder is now in the trash and the muffins sit there, staring at me.  Do I toss them?  Do I keep them?  They look so pretty... 

Whatever I do today, I know one thing: this is a recipe I am going to have to try again.  As I mentioned earlier, they smelled so good.  And in my experience smell usually is a good indicator of taste. 

"What every artist must learn is that even the failed pieces are essential."

—Rob Bell

Well, that didn't go as planned...

Yesterday, I planned to make guacamole. 

Scratch that. 

Yesterday, I made guacamole. 

See?  I even have a picture of my ingredients to prove it. 

And that's ALL I have to prove it.

Yup, that's right.  The lighting was right, the bowl was beautiful (a bowl from Mexico was going to make its official debut!), and the guac tasted good.  Not my best, but whatever -- you can't tell that from pictures, right?  And then we ate it. 

Without taking pictures.

Which might not be a tragedy if this wasn't a food blog I was keeping.  But this is a food blog I am keeping.  And I had a bought these beautiful avocados for a reason.  Sigh.

Oh well, at least we enjoyed some not-great-but-good guacamole.  On crackers.  Because I didn't have chips.  So really, even if I had taken pictures, that would have been a major fail, even though taste-wise it is what we prefer.

Whatever.

But really, this was all OK, because today I had a plan.  A super salad plan.  We are on a beans-and-rice-with-a-different-salad-every-night-for-dinner diet for the week (not because we think we are fat, but because we want to just kind of "freshen up" for a few days...).  So I had this plan.  I was going to come home right after work, make a beautiful salad, take some beautiful pictures, and then eat my beautiful food.

Except that's not how it worked.  I worked late and had to run to the grocery store to get rice.  By the time I got home the sun was setting, the light was ugly, and I realized I did not have some of the key ingredients.  Missing ingredients two days in a row?  What is going on with me???  Oh, that's right, I went shopping without a list.  For the first time in months.  See why I need my list?!  This is the best picture I got, poor lighting and missing ingredients not included:

I can't show you more of the salad because it is ugly. 

Very, very ugly.

This is the point where I did what any grown woman would do: I started to pout.  And whine.  And drop my feet heavily every time I stepped.  Just to prove my point. 

To whom?

The world.

Sometimes that's just what we need to do.

But then I stopped.  I breathed.  And then I realized I needed to let it go.  When I took a moment to look at it from not-smack-dab-in-the-middle, I began to understand how incredibly small and completely idiotic this cause for irritation really was.  So I relaxed my grip and let.it.go.

As annoying as it is to hear, Annie sang it best years ago. "The sun will come out tomorrow."  That's really the great thing.  For most things in life you always get tomorrow; this case is no different.  So, yes, the sun will come out tomorrow, and you better believe when it does I will be ready -- camera and the correct ingredients in hand.


(A special shout-out goes to my husband.  Thank you for letting me vent and laughing at me when I was about to fall apart in a way that encouraged me to laugh along with you.)

FAIL: Chocolate Covered Strawberries

As I mentioned before, I am not much of a fruit person.  For some odd reason I like veggies better than fruit.  It isn't because they are sweet, because everything else sweet I adore, but fruit for some reason is OK to me, but nothing I crave. 

Except berries. 

Oh how I love berries!  Blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries... yum yum yum!

Every so often there is a guy selling strawberries on a street corner on my way home.  I have never stopped and bought any because I am always longing to be in my house instead of in my car.  Today, however, we were both in the car together driving home from the beach, relaxed and unconcerned about time schedules.  So we decided to get some strawberries.



Paulo used to hate strawberries.  I guess in Brazil they are really sour.  Both my husband and my sister-in-law declined strawberries here in America when offered but finally gave into the pressure and quickly changed their tune to, "Oh, they taste so good, so sweet!"  (I think in Brazil they pick them early so when they export them they will be sweet.  Good for us, but bad for the Brazilians who have to eat the sour strawberries.)  So now we are able to enjoy this treat together.  And what a better way to eat strawberries than turn them into chocolate covered strawberries?

I looked up the recipe online.  Hmm... I needed chocolate chips.  I don't have any chocolate chips.  So that wouldn't work... But wait!  I thought.  I have cocoa powder!

Yes, you heard me correctly, cocoa powder.  (All of you real cooks out there are moaning, I know.  But remember -- my blog is called A Clove of Garlic, A Pinch of Salt  NOT  A Spoon of Sugar, A Dash of Baking Powder.)

So cocoa powder it was.  I had just been looking at a recipe the other day that used butter, cocoa powder, sugar, and some other stuff, so I figured I would just see what I could whip up.  It went something like this:

(That would be mixing my ingredients, then realizing it was way too bitter so adding more sugar, and then melting it all together.)

But then I faced another problem:  I needed more sweetness but the more sugar I put in the more grainy it got.  And then I got my second great idea:

That's right, honey. 

Think about it for a moment: it is sweet AND it is already ready smooth, not grainy.  Really, I thought this move was quite brilliant.  I added a bit, stirred, and tasted.  You know what?  It didn't taste that bad!  SCORE!

Except, this is what I got:

I don't know about you, but really, I don't want to eat that.  I know what some of you are going to say, though.  Yes, maybe it doesn't matter what it looks like as long as it tastes good. 

Well, it didn't taste good. 

It tasted so bad that I spit it out in under a second and quickly jammed a clean strawberry into my mouth to take away the awful, awful taste.  Luckily I was smart enough to only coat three with chocolate before I tasted them again.  (That taste test from the pot must have been the one good spot!)

So, you live and you learn.  Now I know to trust the experts and know if there is no recipe that says make chocolate covered strawberries with cocoa powder, there is probably a reason why. 

At least I have some good, fresh strawberries waiting for me.  And you know what?  Plain sounds just fine.