whole wheat blueberry muffins

I made these last week since I had a handful of blueberries that I had use.  

Recipe

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter melted

2 cups of whole wheat white flour

2 teaspoons of baking powder

1/2 teaspoon of salt

2 cups of fresh blueberries

3/4 cup of brown sugar

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

1/2 cup of milk

Preheat the oven to 375.  Grease 12 cup muffin pan or you can use cupcake liners.

In a bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

In another bowl, mix butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. 

Add the dry ingredients to the wet.  Mix until just combined.  Add the milk and mix.  Be careful not to over mix.  Gently fold in the blueberries.  Divide into the muffin tins and bake for about 25 minutes or when a cake tester inserted in the center of one muffin comes out clean. 

Happy Friday!

More Korea

The following day we went out to lunch with some really old friends.  The restaurant was in this modern building nestled in a traditional neighborhood.  You can see all the old style rooftops from the pictures.  The pasta was really good and it really brought back a lot of childhood memories. 

Then we went to visit my grandpa at the restaurant.  It used to be my grandfather's house when he was little and later converted into a restaurant. 

my dad did a lot of work and even built a deck

 The back of the restaurant.  View from the top.

My dad's dog had 4 puppies on Christmas Eve.  So my dad named then  Mary Chris Mas Eve.

Someone is ready to take one back to the states.

Dinner!

My Gramps loves dancing.  He knows the salsa, chacha, waltz...and many more.  He took many years of dance lessons.

Grandpa and me.  This is how I remember him either dancing or smoking :)

TGIF!

Yayy it's Friday!

The sad thing is that my 9 year old niece is sick so I am on eemo (aunt in Korean) duty today.  My sister and I live a hop and skip away from each other.  It's great most of the time and once in a blue moon not so great.  Hey we're human and we do get annoyed with each other once in a blue moon.  But not this morning.  I came over since my brother in law had to go into the office and there was hot coffee waiting for me AND lemon shortbread cookies she made last night.

I really like her new coffee maker.

Cuisinart On Demand Coffee Maker

Then she had these....

Glazed Lemon Shortbread Bars

It's from this blog.  Week Of Menus  Check her out she has a lot of great recipes and I kind of know her.  Well, I know her brothers and they are both really nice and funny.  

Back to sisters....I love having sisters and it's a good thing cuz I have 2.  We all live close together and probably spend way too much time together, but hey life is short and when there is lemon shortbread involved I am there.  

Anyways, I daily read this blog.   Oh Happy Day!  She recently moved with her family to France.  Yes, I am Kermit the Frog green with envy.  One of my favorite cities in the world is Paris.  Then I found out that her sister Design Mom also moved to France (3 hours away from Paris) with her family as well.  

The lesson: sisters stick together.  

Hope you all have an awesome weekend!!!

Valentine's Day crafts and Korea

Valentine's Day is right around the corner and there are so many blogs with great ideas.

http://www.twigandthistle.com/

Have your kids make their own cards.

http://mermag.blogspot.com/

http://inchmark.squarespace.com/

Korea continued..

My grandmother's sister took us out to lunch.  Seeing her younger sisters brought back a lot of memories.

Sorry the picture is a bit blurry.  But I couldn't get over how great they both looked!

Later that evening we went out to dinner and stopped by  UNIQLO. 

Buldak....fire chicken!

After dinner headed back on the subway to spend time with my gomers aka my aunt.

My sister and gomers.  Sister#2 is goofing off and wearing a hairpiece that was in my gomers hair for the wedding.  

Korea Day 5

We left the resort and headed to meet up with my aunt.

me enjoying a cup of americano at the hotel coffee shop before heading out

raw fish

side dishes

the best meuntang (spicy fish stew) i've ever had.

raw squid. 

Then off to eat patbingsoo!

Our final destination....Terrarosa Cafe & Bakery

my cafe au lait

Happy Monday Everyone!

Korea continued...

For my friend A, who is probably stuck with freezing cold weather somewhere out there and to my 6 followers (I know this sounds dorky, but I can't believe that I have 6 followers and none of them are my parents or sisters.)

Yes, cupcakes have landed in Korea and they were so big.

me goofing off at Passion 5

It was really cold when we went to Sol Beach.  At the fish market there were a lot of these yellow pots (best used for instant ramen in my opinion) boiling on top of coal.

Three sisters at the fish  market.

Getting ready for dinner.

I want a shower head like this one!

When Anna saw this picture she said...angry angry crab!  I told her it was dinner :)

View outside the window.

Watching the sunrise

taking a break from Korea

Last week I had a craving.  Usually, I forget about it but this one was nagging me.  So I caved and drove to Marie Callenders, bought a peach pie and enjoyed every bite.  Did I mention that I ate it for breakfast the following morning.

Feeling guilty about my pie, I started to make some whole wheat banana chocolate chip muffins and was even planning to leave the chocolate out.  I know talk about serious guilt!  I threw the dry ingredients into a bowl and melted the butter in the microwave.  I opened the fridge for the bananas.  Yikes, it stunk like it was on its way to being banana liquor or something.  I started to think about what else I could make with the measured out ingredients and then I remembered a whole wheat chocolate chip cookie recipe I've been wanting to try.

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies
Adapted from Kim Boyce

3 cups whole wheat flour
1 ½ tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 ½ tsp. kosher salt
2 sticks (8 oz.) unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch cubes (see note above)
1 cup lightly packed dark brown sugar
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
8 oz. bittersweet chocolate, roughly chopped into ¼- and ½-inch pieces, or bittersweet chips

This was the recipe, but remember I had already measured out some dry ingredients from the other recipe and only had one stick of melted butter.  I decided to half the recipe.

1 1/2 cups of white whole wheat flour (I get mine at Trader Joe's)
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp of salt
1 rounded tsp of baking powder
1 stick of butter (mine was melted)
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla
3 ounces of dark chocolate chopped finely

1.  Sift the dry ingredients together.
2.  In a bowl mix the butter with the sugars.  Add the egg and vanilla and mix well.  Then add the dry ingredients and mix with a wooden spoon.  Then the chocolate.

The texture was not creamy probably because my butter was melted.  So I threw it in the fridge for an hour.  I baked these at 350 for about 8-10 minutes.  They were surprisingly good.  Crunchy on the outside and slightly chewy in the middle.  I baked the second batch longer because I like them crunchy.  Anna liked them and so did her therapist.  They actually reminded me of a version of  Digestive biscuits or McVities Digestives.  If you like those you will definitely  like this recipe.