Cheese Muffins

I've been on a baking kick lately. A few days ago I made cupcakes from scratch, and today I made Monterey Jack muffins. When we got our new kitchen last month we also got speakers installed, so I am now able to bake and listen to music simultaneously! Muffin Recipe, Muffin Mixtape, and muffin pictures below! :)

Recipe for Monterey Jack Muffins
Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 beaten egg
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/4 cup cooking oil
• 1/2 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese

1. Preheat oven to 400°. Grease one muffin tin (should hold 12 muffins) and set aside. In a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and cheese. Make a well in the dry ingredient mixture.
2. In another mixing bowl, combine egg, milk, and oil. Pour egg mixture into the dry mixture. Mix until moistened. Do not mix too much, or the dough will be too tough!
3. Spoon batter into muffin tin. Each muffin cup should be about 2/3 full. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until golden. Let cool for 5 minutes and eat warm.

This recipe is super easy and the muffins were pretty good, if I do say so myself. I adapted the recipe from one I found in a Better Homes & Gardens cookbook. Including baking time, it took about 35 minutes.

Muffin Mix

1. Stay Positive- The Hold Steady
2. Two Halves- My Morning Jacket
3. You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb- Spoon
4. The Sons of Cain- Ted Leo
5. Eraser- No Age
6. Sequestered in Memphis- The Hold Steady
7. Alex Chilton- The Replacements
8. I'm Amazed- My Morning Jacket
9. Constructive Summer- The Hold Steady
10. Sheila Take a Bow- The Smiths
11. A Little Bit of Feel Good- Jamie Lidell

The mix was just thrown together before I started baking. It's basically a blend of good songs off the albums that have been in heavy rotation over the past few days (Stay Positive, Evil Urges, Pleased to Meet Me...). No order, but it is about 35 minutes which is the time it takes to make the muffins! Woohoo!

Muffin pictures!

Happy 4th of July

Not a patriotic song in the least, but it has "American Flags" in the title...

Sorry I Accosted You.

I accosted a probably very friendly couple at a Barnes & Noble about a month ago. I feel bad about it, and yet I knew that accosting them was my duty. Read on:

I was standing in line with some friends at Barnes & Noble. Susannah was purchasing Robert Penn Warren's "All The King's Men" for summer reading, and as I waited for her to check out, I eyed the small CD rack. It was stocked with impulse soccer-mom buys, such as Michael Buble and Kenny G, but then, in the upper right corner, there was a copy of The Best of Radiohead. Now, as a huge Radiohead fan, I knew that this compilation album was in no way Thom Yorke's idea. It was a portion of EMI's plan of revenge after Radiohead left their label to give away In Rainbows. A twenty-something couple in front of me were browsing the CDs as well.

"Oh, Radiohead!" said the man, picking up a copy.
"They're great," replied his girlfriend tracing her finger down the back track listing.

I fretted. "These people can't purchase this sham of an album! Radiohead wouldn't want that!" I thought. So, I did what any partially insane teen would do.

"You can't buy that!" I said abruptly.

The couple stared at me blankly. I stared back.

"Um. EMI, Radiohead's old label, released it without permission. Radiohead, uh, doesn't want people to buy it," I stammered.

The couple stared at me blankly.

"Um. Ok," said the male with a forced chuckle, placing the album back on the rack. "Why is this nervous girl with braces yelling at me about Radiohead?" he was probably thinking.

My friend Victoria looked at me with an amused smile. I turned around and walked away. Mission accomplished.

My apologies for accosting you, friendly couple. But you really shouldn't buy the album.

Summer Shuffle

Every summer for the past three years I have made a massive playlist called the Summer Shuffle. It usually contains between 75 and 100 songs, ranging from old classics to new hits or just whatever I've been listening to, or simply songs that remind me of summer. The tunes are in no particular order, and every time I listen to it, I just stick the whole thing on shuffle so a new mix comes up every time. I'm the kind of person who puts great care into making mixes. I try to make the songs flow perfectly into each other, and I put a lot of focus on what the first and last tracks are, making sure there's enough meat in the middle so that the listener doesn't get bored, etc. So, the Summer Shuffle is quite a departure from my usual mix-making tendencies, but it far-and-away my favorite thing to listen to in the summer. This year though, in addition to my Shuffle, I made an "abridged" summer mix, using 16 songs from the shuffle, organized to maximize the listening experience. Here's the track listing:


a waste of time, pure and simple.

1. Blankest Year- Nada Surf
2. I Feel it All- Feist
3. Wild Mountain Nation- Blitzen Trapper
4. Production City- The Whigs
5. Lights Out- Santogold
6. Graveyard Girl- M83
7. 7 Stars- The Apples in Stereo
8. Strawberry Swing- Coldplay
9. Baby Britain- Elliott Smith
10. Heavy Metal Drummer- Wilco
11. Kirby's House- Razorlight
12. To Go Home- M. Ward
13. White Winter Hymnal- Fleet Foxes
14. Boy With a Coin- Iron & Wine
15. In Our Talons- Bowerbirds
16. Neverending Math Equation- Sun Kil Moon

If you're interested in a copy, email me at nmsles@gmail.com with your address. I'll send over a copy of the mix in a one-of-a-kind case :)

And with that, I leave you with this summer-spirited picture.