Blueberry Muffins - Blogging from the Land of Maple Syrup!

Bonjour from Montreal! This is my first post since I've arrived in Canada around two weeks ago. I've started to settle in already - adapting to the colder weather, cooking for myself, getting around the city and - the most tedious parts - cleaning my room and doing the laundry. Nonetheless, I have been really enjoying my time here in this beautiful city (especially the frsh air, green grass and blue skies!) both during frosh week and just going around with friends. Here are some pictures taken around Montreal:

But the best part is that I have an oven in my apartment!! That means I'll get to contin

ue baking here! I was so happy to see it when I moved in. During grocery shopping the other day I finally picked up a few basic ingredients and I whipped up these blueberry muffins to share with my roommates.

In Hong Kong I never really had any good blueberries before because they're really expensive, but here they're considerably cheaper and a lot fresher too. I like eating my berries in a product more than by itself, so blueberry muffins were the perfect thing - easy to make and delicious to eat. I'm glad all my roommates like them (well they were gone by the end of the day) - permanent taste testers for this year!

These muffins are light, just sweet enough to balance the tang of the berries and have a delightfully, slightly crunchy top. I had some trouble figuring out how the oven works, and it seemed like they were not baking. I peeked inside the oven and it turns out that there is no heating element on the top, but somehow the tops browned as well. Can anyone help out here?

I also splurged and got myself a stick blender, so I've been whipping up berry-banana smoothies everyday for breakfast too. It's a real handy tool and I love it to bits! With the freedom to cook and eat whatever I want now, I'm sure I will be trying out many new recipes and dishes - can't wait to share them all with you, successful or not!

Anyway I have a class soon (yes I'm blogging in the library again) so I'll leave you with the link to the recipe from Smitten Kitchen. The only thing different I got was that the recipe made 12 muffins instead of 9 or 10 for me. And they are awesome drizzled with maple syrup :)