Cooking By The Seat Of My Pantry: Not all cookies, all the time!

I recently purchased the book by Dorie Greenspan "Baking from my home to yours" in order to join the baking group "Tuesdays with Dorie". I loved paging through the book and having my mouth water at all the delicious recipes and photo's.

I'm not positive that I will actually join the group at this point. The fact that you must bake at least two recipes per month is a bit daunting to me. I may just blaze my own trails and bake what I choose, when I choose. I'm the type of person who when told I must do something by a certain time or date, will never finish the project or even attempt to start. Call me stubborn if you will, or just know, I don't like following most directions.

Which brings me to cookbook directions. I NEVER follow a recipe. I use them as possible suggestions and always tweak them in whatever form I choose as the time.
Because of this fact, nothing ever turns out the same way twice. Not a bad thing, mind you (as most everything turns out relatively well) but nearly impossible to recreate because I don't write anything down that I've added.

I think I'm this was for several reasons. 1 - it's genetic. My grandpa Hugo always cooked that way and 2 - when I was a little girl I watched all the cooking shows on PBS (Julia Child, Frugal Gourmet etc). They never seemed (In my young mind), to follow a recipe. They just had stuff on the counter that they added from here or there, as much or as little as they wanted. It always looked like so much fun to throw stuff together. After all...it's only food, how bad can it turn out, right?

Well, this first recipe I made from Dorie's book "Orange Berry Muffins" was no different. I didn't make a big step out of the box on this, just my little toe snuck out. The only thing I did different was I sprinkled them with sugar before baking to give a light crunch on the top. I restrained myself from doing more. They turned out fabulous!!!

The muffins were so light in texture and had just a hint of orange flavor. I overloaded them with blueberries (guess I didn't follow the recipe on that part either, lol) so when you broke them open, there was more blue than anything else.
That's OK with me, blueberries are good for you, right? I served them to friends last evening and they got rave reviews! The only thing I might do different next time is add a splash of vanilla (what can I say).

Here is a picture of me, taking a picture of me in the mirror. Yes, I am wearing clothes under my apron. I have never (yet) worn just my apron while baking or cooking
(much to my husbands dismay).