There’s a very good reason for that. Ready to be shocked?

I don’t like blueberries. Not even a little bit. I literally cannot put a blueberry into my mouth and be okay with it. That means that all foods containing blueberry just don’t happen in my universe. But that doesn’t mean I can’t still bake for others, so I figured it was time.

See, there’s a great business manager at my new school who has been helping me all summer. I have about five bazillion questions, and she’s been so patient about answering every single one. When someone is that nice to me, I show the baking love.

The problem is that I haven’t hit on her favorites yet. I gave her this peanut butter brownie pizza, and she said it was great, but no PB frosting needed next time. So, okay, I figured she wouldn’t do peanut butter. The next time, I offered her banana chocolate chip muffins, and she politely told me that she wasn’t really into that flavor.

If you know me at all, you know that I’m a very forward person. So I just asked her what she did like, and her answer was…? Of course. Blueberry muffins.

Have you ever baked something you’re not so fond of ? Or that you actively dislike? Share your stories!

With these, I tried a corner of the muffin that didn’t have the blueberries in it just to kind of reassure myself that they weren’t gross. But then I gave them out to some loyal taste testers, and they assured me that the muffins are all that and more.

To be honest, I didn’t used to bake muffins much. They seemed like a mundane cupcake to me, and I didn’t understand why I should eat a cupcake in a more boring outfit if I could be getting something with frosting.

Of course, I had it all wrong. Muffins and cupcakes are nothing alike. The baking process is completely different, and so is the consistency, and the purpose, and…well, everything. Plus, I love baking muffins. They’re easy. You just combine dry ingredients with wet and you are donesies.

I hope my new friend at work likes these muffins, since I made them just for her. We bake because we love! And really, let me know about those things you bake that are on your list of no-nos. I’m curious!

Do you know what time it is? That’s right, kiddos. It’s back to school time!

As a teacher, I approach this time of year with a mingling of regret and excitement. I’m looking forward to a fresh new year, and I’m also looking forward to having my kids out of the house doing productive work. But you know, I do love the summer sunshine. And the flexible hours. So yeah…I’m torn.

With everything getting very busy (very fast, might I add), I need to be ready with great after-school snacks. When all of us get home from school, some refueling is definitely in order. These banana chocolate chip muffins are a perfect way to unwind and get ready for homework time, especially when I pair them with NESTLÉ® NESQUIK® Powder. The kids are pretty happy to settle in with their muffins and Nesquik, and I do it right along with them!

This year, I’m more anxious than usual to meet my kids with an energetic frame of mind when they come home from school. My son (who is also my oldest) has always come home and done his homework without much struggle, and I realize that makes me lucky. He gets home around four, has his snack, and then takes a break for about fifteen minutes before taking out his books and getting to work. He’s in the third grade, by the way. And yes, he has a lot of homework.

My middle child is going to be starting with homework this year in first grade, and that’s why I’m a little nervous. She’s a very smart little girl, but she’s also an artist. Her favorite thing to do is come home and draw for hours. My temperament is similar, so I know how hard homework was for me growing up. I want to make sure that I’m there to support her, but it’s hard to be patient and fully with it after a day of teaching. That’s where snack time comes in!

For my kids and me, that snack time after school is where we come together and check in on one another. I can gauge moods, figure out if anything traumatic or good happened to the kids, and just take a few minutes to breathe before we all get back to work in that pre-dinner time. It’s important that we connect, and it’s also important that we have some nutrients while we’re at it.

While we were at the beach last week for a final summer hurrah, I looked at the tired bananas on the counter at our rented beach house (yes, tired bananas follow me around) and knew that I wanted to start snacks off right this year. As soon as we got home (tired bananas in tow), I ran out to Target to get some Nesquik so we’d have a great pairing with these banana chocolate chips muffins. Then, I started baking. These muffins freeze like a charm, and I wanted to be ready for the first week of school!

My kids were pretty excited when they saw the muffins, but they were even happier when they saw the Nesquik. Nobody can resist a bunny, after all! And I love the fact that Nesquik is low in sugar, has no artificial colors or flavors, and is full of both vitamins and minerals as well as protein (when combined with milk). Translation: the kids (and I) stay full until dinnertime, and we also have the energy to tackle all that homework!

If you’d like to be ready for the oncoming onslaught of school and the nutritional needs that arise, be ready! You can pick up Nesquik right now with this Cartwheel Offer at Target (for Nesquik Powder and ready-to-drink bottles, valid 8/21/2016-8/27/2016 with 15% off 18.7oz powder and 10 packs of bottles), and the muffins almost make themselves. If you don’t have a gluten-free diet, subbing in regular flour will also work. They’ll be great either way!

How do you get ready for back to school? It’s an exciting time, but a busy one. Be prepared!

Confession: I don’t really do smoothies much. As someone who rushes out the door to work in the dead of night (okay, well, 5:30 in the morning), I don’t want to be turning blenders on and waking up the sleeping monsters…oops, children. I’m more of a protein bar kind of girl.

But when there are muffins around, I’ll grab one of those instead. These are gluten-free and they even have protein in them (yay, Greek yogurt!), so they do the trick, And they’re peanut butter and chocolate. You are so welcome.

I’m at that stage in life when weekends are more tiring than the weekdays. Kids have all this ungodly energy, and if they don’t expend it, they turn into disciples of Satan. To make kids happy on a weekend, there is constant activity and running around. You have to pack roughly 42 activities into each day to make them tired so they don’t turn on you.

On Memorial Day weekend, we went to a great park. This park had a playground, a carousel, a train, a farm with animals, a nature center, and a nice pond and picnic area. We got there around 9:30, did everything, and around 1:00, we announced it was time to go home. The response? “We can’t leave. We just got here!”

Once we got the kids home, all I wanted to do was stretch out on the couch and sleep. But they all started fighting with one another, so when a friend called to make barbecue plans, I groggily agreed. We were at this friend’s house a mere hour later, watching kids screech and run around in the rain while pelting one another with bouncy balls. Then they all got hot dogs, which gave them more energy to bring back the crazy. Even the cat couldn’t take it. The poor thing kept trying to hide from aggressively rough hands “petting” her, to no avail.

So as the weekend approaches, I’m gonna need these muffins. They’re my only protection from the boundless energy of three young kids in the summertime.

Like many muffins, these come together without a mixer. It’s a simple process of mixing ingredients together, and look at the results!

Plus, I mean, peanut butter chips. Can anyone think of a more addictive food item? Not for me, anyway.

Hope your weekend is sunny, bright, and free of screechy whiny drama. You deserve some quiet time!

Well, my world, anyway. There are certain days (or weeks) when facing the day is just hard. Maybe I have to work a 12-hour day before heading home to my kids, or maybe a student of mine has been going through something rough and I’m absorbing the pain. It’s not always cake!

On days like that, I need an easy breakfast to throw together. This muffin base is simple, butter-free (and therefore a health food, of course), and easily customized. I chose lime zest (a.k.a. summer in a whiff) and white chocolate chips, but you can use any old mix-ins. It’s all about making your mornings as happy as possible!

I know it’s pretty common for people to whine about winter, so I try not to do it a lot. But being honest here, this time of year is an endless struggle for me. You see, I have an autoimmune disorder that restricts the blood vessels all over my body. In warm weather, my blood flows freely and I feel energetic, vibrant and positive.

But when winter hits, I range from a partial lack of feeling in my arms and legs (and even other parts of me on bad days) to a continuous ache in those areas. It’s totally manageable, but there is a tangible difference between the person I am in warm weather and the person I am right now. I’m just waiting for the seasons to shift so that things can get better.

And I don’t even mean to complain (though it reads that way, I know), because I’m really lucky. At least my problem is seasonable and it’s workable. A lot of people suffer with chronic pain and exhaustion and there’s not anything they can do to make it better.

While I like to think of the Sylvia Plath quotation that there’s not a whole lot that a good book and a good bath doesn’t fix, we all know what happened to her. So I think it’s really important to focus on self-pampering when possible. That could be wrapping yourself up in a cozy heated blanket at work with a mug of tea, or taking a bubble bath at night, or taking a 20-minute power nap, or having muffins for breakfast. Or why not do it all?

Well, time often gets in the way, but that’s why I love these muffins. They take no time at all to make (the video will show you!) since it’s a simple matter of mixing dry ingredients with wet ones, and then you’re done. Check it out!

This time of year, I start baking with citrus more, especially lime. Lime to me is summer. When I zest a lime and the aroma reaches my nose, I feel sunny days and sand and margaritas. These muffins reached me at the heart of my winter blah feelings and really helped alleviate some of the grayness everywhere.

And white chocolate with lime is the best. If you haven’t gone for that tangy-sweet combo, try it now!

It’s totally okay to hate on a season for whatever reason, but just be sure to self-pamper. After all, there’s no guarantee than anyone else will do it for you. Make some muffins, grab some tea and have a moment!

Personally, I’m not a coffee drinker. I’m fairly wired as it is, so I don’t need any chemical help getting going every day. And I was on a decaf kick for a while because it tastes nice, but it also stains your teeth. I guess some people don’t fall prey to that, but I do, which also explains why I gave up green tea. Hot beverages are not my friend.

As a result, I like to get my caffeine kick through dessert, and what better way than with the best muffin I’ve had in quite a while? These pack a nice coffee punch while not being overly sweet, making for a gentle start to the day. We all need that on a tired Monday morning!

In the meantime, I’m doing okay because I did not stay up late. I’ve mentioned before that my body turns off at nine, and I’m not ashamed of that. It’s also wired to wake up in the 4s, and I’m very upset about that. I should have been a farmer.

The thing is, once anyone wakes me up, that’s it. I’m up. My brain starts racing and I just can’t sleep any more. Kenny, on the other hand, sleeps through pretty much everything and if he does wake up, he’s snoozing again within seconds. It’s very tempting to throw things at him in the wee hours of the night out of sheer frustration at his sleep skills.

Over the past week, I have been awakened by the following: a child with a nosebleed, a child needing her nose to be blown, someone slamming the toilet seat shut at maximum volume at two A.M., Kenny accidentally turning the light on in the middle of the night, little feet running down the hall at top speed back and forth (I don’t want to know), and a nonstop looping nightmare that I’m drawing My Little Ponies nonstop for my daughters. Which actually did happen in real life, but the nightmare is worse.

While this level of sleep deprivation runs nowhere close to what we experienced when the children were babies, I have to wonder if I’ll ever sleep well again. When they get older I’ll just wonder where they are, who they’re with and what they’re doing. I can see myself doing a lot of waiting up. And by the time they’re responsible adults, I’ll have forgotten how to sleep properly at all.

But then, I can always throw things at Kenny while he sleeps if it makes me angry. He’ll never know. And I can make breakfast muffins with lots of coffee in them to get me going.

A few weeks ago during our big snowstorm, I decided to bake my way through Dorie Greenspan, and these muffins were part of that. As happens a lot with any recipe I make, I added chocolate chips. My mother pointed out that no coffee dessert recipe is nearly as good without chocolate, and I agree with her wholeheartedly.

These are pretty easy, and they make for good motivation after a night of little sleep to get up and at ’em. We’re all tired, but let’s see what we can do to make today happen!

If you are getting excited, join me. I’m pretty psyched about these. You see, I’ve never been much of a muffin girl. To me, a muffin is a cupcake without frosting. Yes, I know that’s technically wrong, but whatever.

When a muffin gets to emulate one of my favorite dessert bars, though, I’m down. These are the best dang muffins I’ve had in many a day.

Breakfast is very much about sweet cravings for me. I went through a period of making little egg muffins that were super-healthy and packed with veggies for my morning meal. They were definitely satiating, but there is a huge difference between being full and being satisfied.

Ever wonder why you eat when you’re full? It’s because you’re not satisfied, and that is very much an in-your-head kind of problem. I spent years chomping on sugar-free gum to get that sweet fix after a meal when it would have been much more practical to eat some chocolate. It just took me a while to realize that being full doesn’t mean that I should automatically be happy with my meal.

Every day, I see people at work eating the lunches they think they should eat, not the lunches they want to eat. The result? A lack of satisfaction, of course, which leads to after-work snacking and dinners that are less than ideal. We’re so busy thinking about what we should be eating that we’ve forgotten to listen to our own bodies.

My body wants sugar in the morning, so I finally gave up the egg muffins and usually, breakfast is a protein bar that has either chocolate or peanut butter flavors, if not both. The protein bar is processed, but it fills me up and, more important, I don’t feel like running toward the nearest cookie after it’s eaten.

Not that I don’t eventually get my cookie. I’ve learned that listening to my cravings is essential for keeping things in balance. But if I can have a cookie with lunch, and some chocolate between lunch and dinner, I don’t need that gum.

Believe me, I’m no dietary expert or nutritionist. But common sense dictates that saying no to food will send you rushing toward forbidden fruit faster than a Kardashian rushes to a plastic surgeon.

And I can’t say no to all the food I make. These peanut butter blondie muffins are a classic example. I bake them and think they’ll be great but resistible, and then I try them. Needless to say, when I shared these at work, they went fast. One coworker kept trying to eat pieces, and then she threw in the towel and ate the whole muffin. And maybe another one. Because that’s what dessert demands!

These are a one-bowl deal, and about as easy as it gets. But  be advised: these muffins are not healthy. They are based in peanut butter chips, not peanut butter. So don’t for a second think that you’re getting your daily protein. Nope. That’s for your meals. This is dessert!

If I’d frosted these, they would have been cupcakes, maybe. But they also would’ve been too much. These have just the right amount of sweetness, and they’re packed with both milk chocolate and peanut butter chips. If you can stop at one half, you have more self-control than I do.

Eating is a delicate balance, but I have to believe that the right way to begin is by saying yes. Yes to being satisfied, yes to being happy, yes to being open to possibilities. Otherwise, the joy of food disappears. And that is just a shame.

It’s been a year and a half, and I think I missed some kind of initiation or tutorial. Do any of you have that dream where you’re in college and you somehow missed an entire semester’s worth of classes? In my case, it’s always a math class, and I head to the final with no clue how to do anything. It’s the worst dream ever.

When I started JAB, I figured I would just post dessert recipes that took sugar highs to a new extreme. I hoped that with time, my little blog would grow. To an extent, that’s totally happened. Every recipe I post is 100% tried, tested, and devoured by yours truly with a crazy amount of passion and enthusiasm. If you’re seeing it on the blog, that means I love it.

I’ll tell you what JAB is not doing: making money. Amassing bazillions of followers on social media. Becoming a viral baking blog in the vast world of the Interweb.

To a degree, that bothers me. I’m not going to lie and act all sunny and cute about this. The blog takes a lot of work, and its returns are fairly low. But while I find that a tad frustrating and am constantly tweaking and working to make it better, I’m not stopping. I want to continue to write (and oh, how I love writing), learn more about taking photographs, and hang out with the food blogging community. It’s a ton of fun and if it didn’t take so much time, I’d probably do it forever. We’ll see how it goes.

But friends who read and comment, feel free to tell me what to do. I hate unsolicited advice, but if I ask for it, share it. Suggest away!

So many good ideas come from friends. Such is the case with these muffins. This recipe has been making the circuit among people in my social circle for years. It’s quick, easy, and very popular with kids. I adapted it to make it gluten-free. If you don’t want to use the oat flour, the muffins will rise without getting that little well in the center. But they taste amazing either way!

Here’s the thing about these muffins: you have to keep an open mind. Ready? The carrots in them are baby food carrots.

Before you run screaming out of the room, let me just try and get you to see things my way. I used to be totally grossed out by baby food, but that was before I had any reason to buy it. Turns out, baby food is just pureed fruits or veggies. And the carrots in the jar are…carrots. Already pureed. Nothing else. If you can wrap your mind around that and be okay with it, then these muffins are the answer to your prayers.

One bowl. No butter. Totally healthy. And, should you choose to make them GF, they’re fantastic. And they taste so good. I serve them as a side dish, or with breakfast. They make a good snack too. In any scenario, they are gone. The recipe makes twelve, and that’s about how many seconds these will last.

Look, I don’t really know all that much about being a big-time blogger. I haven’t given up my day job as a teacher, nor do I plan to. I love teaching. That’s a separate point. However, I do know about baking, so I’ll keep these recipes coming your way for some time to come. Even if only relatively few people see them!