Best Ever Blueberry Muffins

Growing up in the backwoods in Oregon, I wanted nothing more than to get out of town, grow the hell up and never look back. While I had cherished my summers, sprinting barefoot through my backyard, blonde hair wild and pale skin rosy with sunburn and scattered with freckles, I had grown tired with the pace of small town life. The Umpqua Valley felt smothering and the expectations folks held for high school graduates were depressing. I desperately wanted to do more than work at the Mill, the casino or follow my peers off to University of Oregon or Oregon State. I have vivid memories of flipping through college guidebooks as a freshman, fantasizing about how different my life would be in just a few short years. 

Never did I imagine the kind of “different” I would experience. Moving from a small, sheltered community to the San Diego State University campus was nothing short of culture shock. The student enrollment at SDSU almost doubled my hometown’s population. Gone were my easy days of navigating Garden Valley, Harvard and Stephens surface streets. SDSU was perched atop a tangle of freeways, all of which had more lanes in either direction than anything I had ever driven on. Walking down the hallway of my third floor traditional style dorm, I came across kids from Singapore, Alaska, Washington, Colorado and cities and towns up and down California. I was suddenly very far removed from the townies and monotony of my little logging town.

As my time at State wore on, I got used to the vast array of differences. People snickered when I let a “y’all” slip into my speech. Flip flops were appropriate footwear year round. It was normal to drink a beer before heading to class. And despite my previous desperation to distance myself from home, I frequently found myself longing for the familiarity. Seeing an Oregon license plate, or a U of O shirt, or even the occasional rainstorm, flooded me with memories of the good things that home had given me. I definitely missed home, but I was proud of myself for carving out a niche in this new (HUGE) world. I survived my freshman year without major incident, despite my parents’ messy divorce, a bout with blindness and a roommate with a penchant for Marines.

After nearly ten years in San Diego, I’ve realized I have so many things to thank Oregon for. I appreciate nature. I have a deep love for all things tie dye. I know how to drive a stick shift. I can bait a hook, clean a fish, pitch a tent and pee in the bushes. These are all valuable life skills, of course. San Diego, on the other hand, has helped me grow. I’ve made the best friends anyone could ever ask for. Been adopted into their families and welcomed into their homes. I’ve found love, and lost it again. I’ve learned perseverance, tenacity and strength. I’ve learned that a little blind faith and some reckless ambition can take you a long way—and that the journey is just as important as the destination.

The path to where I am now has been a meandering one. I have been lost, despite always having a vague idea of where I am going. Along the way I have accumulated memories, experiences and friendships that have helped me get where I am today. Deep down, I know I’ll always be the barefoot blonde, running through the grass, covered in freckles and pink with sunburn. I’ll never lose the part of me that Oregon created—the part that hates blueberries, loves peace signs and is always down for a little country music. San Diego has simply added a bit of sand to my country grit, a little more glamour to my redneck ways and a much greater appreciation (and application) for sunscreen.

I’ll never let go of all the things that make me a real country girl at heart, but I know that I’ve found my place in San Diego. Nothing in my life, this far, has gone as planned, but it’s all turned out perfectly. At times, it feels like an absolute mess… But I know what I have on my hands is simply a beautiful disaster—full of potential, possibilities and promise. I just have to figure out what to do with it.

When I first found the recipe that these muffins are based on, I dismissed it. If you know the backstory, you know that I am not a fan of blueberries. But, when I started thinking about ways I could tweak the recipe to make it more my style (and more my taste), I realized there was some potential there. So while they may seem like a basic blueberry muffin, chances are... they'll blow your mind.   

Best Ever Blueberry Muffins

Adapted from allrecipes.com

The best blueberry muffin you will ever have. Promise.

Ingredients

Muffins

1.5 cups flour

¾ cups white sugar

½ teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 egg

1/3 cup whole milk

1.5 cups fresh blueberries

1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

2 tablespoons lemon zest

Topping

½ cup white sugar

1/3 cup flour

¼ cold butter, cubed

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon cardamom

½ teaspoon lemon zest

Procedure

1.    Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners. Spray the top of the pan with cooking spray! These muffins are BIG and you don’t want the tops to stick to the pan.

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, lemon juice and zest. Fill muffin cups right to the top.

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.    Sprinkle generous spoonfuls of the topping onto each muffin.

5.    Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until muffin tops spring back when pressed. 

Blueberry Zucchini Muffins

Being raised in the Umpqua Valley in southern Oregon provided me with some distinctly country-style memories that always bring a smile to my face. When I compare my childhood to the lives that my students are currently living, I can't help but wonder how much of an impact my country upbringing really had on who I am today.

I learned to drive on a tractor. I spent most of my summer barefoot. We didn't have pools in our backyards, we had nature--and a rive. I took my driving test in a hail storm. It's nothing like Southern California. Does that make one better or worse? I don't know.

Growing up, summer meant long, hot days. It mean sunburns, followed by a fresh crop of freckles. It meant barefoot and in a bathing suit, from 9 am until 9 pm. It meant sleepovers on the trampoline. It meant running in the sprinklers. It meant all-day adventures with my partners in crime, Katie and Laura, who lived in the houses adjacent to my parents'.

From grade school until we each started our own paths in early high school, the three of us were inseparable. We staged lawnmower races across our backyards (because no one in Oregon has a fence). We whipped up strange concoctions to attempt to feed to Laura's dog, Charlie. We made paper dolls that looked like people we knew--Most famously, the Dawn Doll. We did origami and played with clay, and tried to sell our creations to the neighbors (the Guy Who Didn't Pay still owes us big bucks for whatever crap we pawned off on him). We came up with elaborate stories to torment our younger siblings with--I am fairly certain we had Laura's sister convinced she was adopted. We played the piano and sang Lion King songs. We took dance classes. We waited for the sun to set for kick the can and flashlight tag. Looking back, I don't know how we ever got bored. We had each other, and we had acres to run wild on.

As our clay-creation business proved to be less than fruitful, we also sought out employment through other means. I mowed a community lawn for $45 a month. We all did our share of "chores" to earn our freedoms and a little fun money here and there. But before we could jump, full force, into the workforce at 15 or 16, we found another way to make some extra money for all the Jones Soda and Mambas our little hearts desired.

One of the local farms paid people to pick blueberries during the summer. Pickers made $2.50 per bucket, which probably worked out to far less than minimum wage, but our child labor was somehow legal. Katie, Laura and I would get up at 5 something in the morning, have one of our parents drive us out to the farms, and we would pick berries until noon. Each bucket you filled got you a stamp on your card, which you turned in at the end of the day. I remember paychecks being roughly $75, which, when you're 12 or 13, is a lot of money.

But the work wasn't easy. Not only did we make a huge sacrifice by getting up early, but we would spend hours hunched over rows of blueberries, sitting ontop of hard plastic buckets. We got sunburned. We ate a lot of junk food. We ate a lot of blueberries. We watched in awe as migrant workers, with far more nimble hands than our own, breezed down rows of blueberries, filling up a dozen buckets in the time that we completed two or three. But nevertheless, we did this for several summers. Blueberry picking became somewhat iconic for us--it was summer when you could make some extra cash picking berries.

Over those summers, I guess you could argue that I learned how to appreciate hard work. I learned how difficult it can be to make decent money doing manual labor. I learned that ice cream is even more delicious after you've been working in the hot sun all morning. I also learned that I hate blueberries. I was never a fan of the fruit before, but after summers of sneaking handfuls as a snack, here and there, I loathe their taste. I may have even been known to refer to them as the "devil berries." Funny how things turn out, no? Despite the distaste for blueberries that I developed, I still fondly think back to all my summers spent on Norris Farms. I can't walk by a fruit display in a store and peek to see if the berries are from Norris's.

And even though I am not a blueberry fan, I have come to appreciate them for what they are. As a kid, they meant money to me. Now, they mean a fun ingredient to toss into muffins and breads, sparingly, to change things up.

With the copious amounts of zucchini I have had at my disposal, I have been looking for a way to change up the typical zucchini bread with some new flavors and textures. Blueberries answered that call!

Blueberry Zucchini Muffins

recipe adapted from epicurious.com

Blueberries and lemon zest add an interesting twist to zucchini muffins.

Muffins:

• 3 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup applesauce
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 1/4 cups brown sugar
• 2 cups shredded zucchini
• 1 1/2 cups white flour
• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 pint fresh blueberries

Crumble Topping:

• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup oats
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 6 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons chopped walnuts/pecans (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Line a muffin tray with paper liners OR lightly grease two large loaf pans.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, spices, baking soda and baking powder and salt.
4. With an electric mixer, mix the eggs and sugars. Add the olive oil and applesauce, followed by the juice and vanilla.
5. Mix in the dry ingredients.
6. Fold in the zucchini, zest and berries.
7. Scoop into liners, or fill loaf pans.
8. Mix together the crumble ingredients, until well blended (but crumbly, duh!).
9. Sprinkle on top of the muffins/loaf.
10. Bake for 18-22 minutes (muffins) or about 1 hour (loaf).