Here comes the train

I've been having a great deal of difficulty completing projects lately. To be honest, I can't even think of the last project I truly completed, can't recall anything that I officially stamped, sealed, and sent off with any resolution. My digital draft boxes are filled with half written posts and recipes, prose that frantically skips around, wandering aimlessly in rambling incoherent cyclical repetitive trails. At work, I slog along with patient cases, pushing to finish their treatment but ultimately meeting obstacles at every turn - most often, obstacles tend to revolve around money, money, money, or more specifically, the lack thereof or the inability of the patient to pay for their care, so really....what can one do?

I'm not going to lie, I absolutely and completely let these obstacles utterly derail me. I will lay down in front of the oncoming train and let it flatten me, quite comfortably and apathetically, I might add. I mean, in real life, if I was on the track of an oncoming train, I'd probably step out of the way...unless I was tied to the track. I might not try so hard then, and that's probably a better metaphor. Let's move on though, as rambling about potential death makes lots of readers and people, in general, uncomfortable.

While overall, work contributes to that endless feeling of never being done, not helped by the loom of licensing boards, which require some supposedly self-motivated studying, at home, I struggle with even the most basic tasks. I try to focus on cleaning, feeding the starter, reading, applications, studying, yet it all seems to vaporize into the ether. I can't even follow through on a Netflix series, can't sit through a movie. Whether all this is the result of boredom with my life or incompetence, who's truly to know. All I can say for certain is that I have an attention problem that makes me, in turn, real real sad, but that's nothing new.

Let's try to complete this one, this post, this one post that I've been writing for 2 months now. Will I make it?

I'm not going to lie....it was sad. I didn't finish the post in a timely fashion. So I'm starting up again from here, about a month later, to bring at least this recipe home. Find below instructions for some healthy blackberry yogurt muffins: whole wheat, minimal sugar, lots of yogurt, no butter....did that cover most of it?. Note, I'm sure there are people who would argue with me that this is indeed not healthy - this recipe has has gluten, sugar, so on and so forth...I get it, I get it.

Well, they're healthy to me. To me, they "taste" healthy and lightly textured and moist and not so sweet, so much so that I've already decided in advance that next time, more sugar, more sugar, more sugar. Just another future project that will take forever to complete, am I right? In these photos, it almost looks as though I've used raspberries, as the color of the blackberries has bled and mellowed into the batter during baking, but rest assured, I used blackberries. Blackberries are my favorite fruit, and there's nothing more wonderful than eating a ripe, sweet blackberry straight out of the grocery box. Well, sorry, I'm sure "grocery box" didn't sound particularly tempting. Nevertheless, I really wanted to emulate that in this muffin, but alas....so tart...so healthy...blackberries so soft. Granted, I'm sure there is a way to prevent this (more sugar??? Clearly, I think I've already solved the problem but will pretend to keep hypothesizing) from happening, a way to keep the blackberries black and maintain the "bite" of the fruit... but had the blackberries I used been a little sweeter, I doubt anyone would have minded, myself included, and this discussion would't even be going on in my head.

Anyway, I've been flattened by the train but there are more to come and I'm still alive. More sugar. See you next time.
Blackberry Yogurt Muffins
Makes 6 large muffins

1 C whole wheat flour
1 C all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 C granulated sugar + 1/4 C for sprinkling
1/2 teaspoon fine salt

1 C plain Greek yogurt (2% or whole)
1/4 C water
7 TB canola or other vegetable oil
1 TB walnut oil (you can omit this if you don't have it)
2 large eggs
1 TB vanilla extract

2 C frozen blackberries (or any berry you'd like)

Preheat oven to 375 F degrees and prepare your muffin tin. If you do not have parchment paper (I did not), oil the muffin baking tin with an oil of your choice - I used coconut oil because it's what I had available in a jar wide enough to dip in my pastry brush. Lightly sprinkle some granulated sugar evenly across the bottoms and sides of the oiled muffin tins; the berries leak through and the sugar caramelizes with them and helps prevent them from sticking.

Now to assemble the muffins. Mix together dry ingredients (flours, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, 1/2 C of the granulated sugar, salt) in a large bowl.

In a separate bowl, whisk together yogurt, water oil, eggs and vanilla extract until a smooth mixture is formed. Then gently fold the dry mixture into the wet mixture, in ~2-3 parts. Be careful not to over mix, as the muffins can end up tough and dense. I utilized the "turn the bowl" and fold down the center method.  Add in the frozen blackberries and gently fold to distribute them evenly.

Using a large spoon or ice cream scoop, divide the batter evenly across the 6 large tins. The batter should fill up the tins to ~3/4 or slightly more. Do not fill to the top - apparently this prevents the muffins from getting that lovely domed top, although I will admit, I have not tested this theory.

Bake for 20 minutes. Open the oven and sprinkle granulated sugar over the tops of the muffins (you can also do this before you put the muffins in the oven; I just wanted to have the granulated sugar visibly coating the muffins like snow). Then bake another 5 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

After baking, let sit 5 minutes at room temperature, no more than 8 minutes. Then gently release the muffin sides with a thin spatula and invert the muffins out of the tray, placing them onto a rack to cool. Note that if you leave the muffins cooling in the tin for too long, they'll get soggy.

Eat with honey if you'd like, as these muffins tend to be only on the less sweet side. I used very tart blackberries, so I definitely was craving sugar or some crumble. Next time...next time.