I know, it’s not Sunday night. It’s not even Monday. It’s Wednesday night. That’s the problem when you get into the habit of posting every Sunday, people expect the posts to come every Sunday. Like what if a priest decided on a Sunday morning he was just too tired, he can’t postpone mass until Monday (or all the way till Wednesday). Luckily, food blogging is a little more flexible than Sunday mass, but still I know I’m late with this one. The baking still happened on Sunday and the coworkers still got their sugar fix Monday morning, which is why there was not as much of an uproar as the few times I’ve shown up to work on a Monday cookie-less. Anyways, I was not on my a-game sunday when I made these so I wanted some feedback from my coworker guinea pigs to see if these were even good before I put this into an official recipe post.

I usually make muffins with buttermilk or sour cream. But all I had in the fridge was greek yogurt, and I was in rough shape Sunday from a night out on Saturday so there was no going out in public, and I needed to make due with what was in the fridge. Here’s all I’m going to say about Saturday night. Colleen and I went to a great concert. Great hair day, rocked the red lips. And while we may have lost ourselves in the sunshine and perfect day for an outdoor concert, the Sunday all-day bud light headache was a reminder that we’re not 21, and don’t bounce back like we used to. Enough said. 

Earlier in the day I had ventured out in public with my friend Amanda to try to get some breakfast. We went down to Cranberry Cafe on East Broadway for breakfast smoothies and I got the orange creamsicle smoothie. The waitress cut up an entire orange and put it in the mega-mixer and my body was really excited for the mega dose of Vitamin C. So when I got home I perused through the fridge and found an orange and then some white chocolate chips in the baking cabinet, and decided to do some experimenting. I used a combination of my recent lemon poppyseed muffin recipe and cranberry orange recipe, to try to come up with an orange muffin recipe where I had all the ingredients in the house already. I used greek yogurt in place of where I would normally use sour cream in a muffin recipe. I ended up adding two tablespoons of vegetable oil at the end because the batter was a little thick, but I think you could just add a little more greek yogurt if you had it and it would be fine. Or use 3/4 cup of sour cream instead of the greek yogurt. Either way, they looked decent enough that my coworkers could taste test them on Monday, which of course they were so graciously willing to do.

Yield: 16 muffins

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• Zest from one orange
• 2 tablespoons fresh orange juice
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup greek yogurt (or 3/4 cup sour cream)
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 stick butter, melted
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil (optional)
• 1 1/2 cups white chocolate chips

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line 16 muffin tins with paper liners and spray the inside with non-stick spray.

Step 2: Zest a large orange into a large mixing bowl over the granulated sugar. Mix the zest together with the sugar so that the sugar becomes infused with the orange zest flavor. Add in the fresh orange juice. You don’t need to measure here, just squeeze out as much juice from the orange you zested as possible.

Step 3: Mix in the greek yogurt, eggs, vanilla extract and melted butter and stir well.

Step 4: In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add the dry ingredients slowly into the wet mixture stirring with a wooden spoon until evenly incorporated. If the batter is a bit thick, you can add 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil to thin it out a bit.

Step 5: Fold in the white chocolate chips until evenly distributed. Using a large cookie scoop, place even-size scoops of batter into each muffin tin. Bake at 400 degrees for about 18-20 minutes, rotating the tray halfway through so ensure even baking. The white chocolate chips that are exposed brown a little, but that’s okay.

Let them cool in the trays for a bit before moving them to a cooling rack.

 

So I was really unsure about these. Not just because I was under the weather with the “Irish Flu” on Sunday, but I was concerned about if the batter would be too dry. But my coworkers gave these a resounding two thumbs up on Monday morning. They liked the flavor and sweetness of the white chocolate chips especially. So after enough encouragement from positive feedback, I figured these were blog worthy. So let’s cut to the chase. Summer is over. Before you get all depressed and run around with your white pants on screaming “we still have 4 more days to wear these” let’s just take a moment to reflect on how awful we Bostonians are when it comes to weather. All winter we lament about the ungodly cold weather, snow emergencies, parking, shoveling, freezing temperatures, “CAN’T WAIT FOR SUMMER.” Well last week we get a brief taste of fall mid-august with some nice 60 degree temps, and everyone is busting out their riding boots saying “THIS WEATHER IS BEAUTIFUL, SO MUCH BETTER THAN THE HEAT.” This week, we’re back into the 80s and you’d think we took the elevator straight to the fiery gates of hell. CHILL OUT BOSTON. We have only had 4 days this summer over 90 degrees (or at least that’s what someone told me yesterday) and everyone is losing their shirt over a little heat. And it’s only a matter of time before these wicked pissahs are all crying when daylight savings spring forward hits and its pitch black at 4pm and it snows in October. So let’s just do this. Whatever the weather is for the next few weeks, embrace it. I don’t give a flying cupcake whether it’s 90 degrees or 60 degrees and breezy or a monsoon. As long as no one comes at me with that four-letter word of Winter that I won’t even utter this time of year. Also, let’s remember the best part of the upcoming season – PUMPKIN. and cranberries. and apples. Recipes galore chock full of fall flavors are coming your way people, so prepare yourself.

In an effort to really live up the nice summer weather I’ve been trying to get as much use out of my back patio recently as possible. Last week my friend Kate came over on Thursday night and we had some grilled flatbreads and pinot noir, with the free entertainment next door of Crazy Eddie who has been experimenting late night with his tile cutter outside (very very safe). Kate and I lived across the hall freshman year at Boston College and it’s always great to catch up and relive our glory days, when our weekends were scheduled around BC football games and eating unsanitary sausages from Chi-Chis at 1am on Lower Campus. Ah college. Take me back.

 

I was down in lovely Pittsburgh last week for work. I used to fly to the Pitts back in 2009 weekly for work in the middle of the winter, so I was not thrilled to go back, but I will say that in the summer, it’s a much nicer place. Though I was happy for it to be a quick trip so I was back in Boston in time to catch this sweet city view on my flight home. They should seriously put a note on Jetblue seat selector that row 20 is “ideal for instagramming” – actually no, that’s my go-to seat. Forget I just told you that.

So that’s it. Not the most pulled together and witty post, but I’m much less pulled together on Wednesdays than I am on Sundays. I went to a crossfit class last night – more to come on that in the next few weeks. I also started my post-Summer detox a week early (thanks to Sunday’s hangover) and am coffee and wine free for 30 days. So until September 25th I’m going to be a REAL gem to be around. You’ve been warned. But at least fill all my free time with house projects and baking, so make sure you follow @thesaltedcookie on Instagram for (mostly) daily updates!

Tomorrow’s my Friday because I took the real Friday off to enjoy one last beach weekend down the Cape. Beach chair and a book, that’s the only thing in my outlook calendar this Friday and I’m totally onboard with that plan.