My favorite muffins and fun with favicons (cooking! and blogging!) — Updated (I’ve always wanted to say that)

Don’t worry. I don’t use endearments like ‘muffin’ or ‘cupcake’ for the people I live with. Though it is pretty irresistible when Susan is kind enough to inform me, while I change Spot’s diaper for the second time in 10 minutes, that We don’t eat poop. We eat corn.

Or when Sally talks Susan into taking off her panties while they’re in a mutual time-out. Why? For the love of everything holy. For the love of ponies and princesses and pink, why would you do that? We were playing ‘jokes.’ Please, please tell me this isn’t something you learned at school.

So. Since it’s only 9 am, and not physically painful enough for a Vicodin, I need some chocolate.

You know oatmeal’s good for you. Oatmeal cookies, with chocolate chips? Not so much. Since I am uber-healthy, I compromise with Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Muffins. And if you buy me this cool muffin-top pan, I’ll whip you up some.

They’ve got applesauce (fruit), semi-sweet chocolate chips (anti-oxidants), oats (fiber), sugar (energy) and butter (dairy). Basically, all the food groups. You can see the original recipe at that greatest of recipe websites, allrecipes.com, but, as usual, I made a few changes.

At least if I die, Dick can look back through this blog and make some of my favorite foods.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Muffins

1/2 c butter (you could use margarine, but, why?)
3/4 c brown sugar
1 egg
almost 1 c applesauce (unsweetened, because this is a health food here)
1 c wheat flour (white or red)
1 c quick-cook oats
1 1/4 t baking pwd
1/4 t baking soda
1/4 t salt
1 c semi-sweet chocolate chips (bittersweet and milk chocolate have their places, but they’re just not right for this recipe).

All the wet stuff in one bowl, all the dry in another. Whisk the dry and then whisk the wet. Mix the wet with the dry and add chips. Bake in a paper-lined muffin tin (unless you have the silicon muffin-top pan) and bake at 350 for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out mostly clean.

Now that you’ve got heaven in the oven, let’s talk technology. You know you’re a really cool blogger or internet reader or just a geek if you know what a favicon is. Like I found out a couple days ago. Maybe you’ve always known what they are, in which case, Why didn’t you tell me? They’re those little doohickies to the left of the “http…” in your address bar. Look at mine, isn’t it cool? (or, like, descriptive? — Maybe I should get a diaper favicon and re-name my blog We don’t eat poop.)

Don’t Try This at Home‘s was the first favicon I noticed, and here’s a clever, yet potentially disturbing one from June’s new review blog, Chic-Critique. I can appreciate the blog name without having any burning desire to read more beauty product reviews. But June somehow makes even talk about foundation not make me want to poke my eye out, much.

Also check out Dick’s bold yet simple, and Sally’s cuddly yet trendy (in Japan) favicons. Once you know what to look for, favicons are everywhere. Learn how to add a favicon to your own site by googling “how to add a favicon to blogger/typepad/wordpress blog.” I know, you never would have guessed, right? I would link to Blogging Basics 101 for a tutorial, but they don’t have one. Crazy. You can make your own favicon, or choose from a collection.

So, eat, drink, make a favicon. It’s kind of like marking your territory, without the mess.

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Those smart women at BB101 DO have a post on favicon (Fave-Icon, long A, long I, though I think fahvicon rolls better) making and placing. Guess I mis-searched or made a mistake (don’t tell my kids; I’m trying to keep that possibility a secret for a few more years). If you’re interested in starting or expanding a blog, you can’t go wrong checking out BB101. They even have a podcast, which, besides great information, features cute Southern accents.