Sudden Death II: Spinach & Feta Muffins

No, I don't think that title sounds too appetizing either.  :-P  But I was making soup for dinner, and I thought that these savoury roles might work well as a side.  And who knows, maybe baked spinach might be taster than expected...?  Maybe?

First, assembling the ingredients...

One of the tricky things about this recipe was that many of the listed ingredients were given in weight, not volume.  Given that I'm not remotely serious enough of a chef to own a kitchen scale, I decided to wing it. It was relatively easy to guess for the cheese -- I'd bought 250g container, so I just eyeballed what 100g would look like.

The 50g of chopped spinach, on the other hand, was more difficult.  Recalling that your average chocolate bar is about 100g, and being thoroughly familiar with the weight of said chocolate bars, I guessed at the equivalent weight of half a chocolate bar.

Lastly, I never realized how difficult it is to chop up DRY sun-dried tomatoes.  That step was such a pain!  It was like trying to work with the evil lovechild of raisins and titanium.  After that experience, I can't run fast enough back to my usual oil-soaked sun-dried tomatoes, added fat and all.

So, I followed the recipe, and the end result was sorely disappointing.  The muffins were dry, and somewhat salty.  Any exposed spinach was hardened into this dusty, flaky wad of bitterness.  The feta had more or less disappeared.

Our toddler ate a muffin without complaint, but keep in mind that he will basically eat any breadlike food offered to him.  D ate two, but was a bit quiet.  When I probed, he expressed having difficulty with the concept of "failing" a recipe, given that he worried that would seem unappreciative of my efforts.  (What a guy!)  :-)  So, I suppose the final verdict falls to me.

 The Verdict: This dry, bitter muffin recipe with uncooperative ingredients and odd measurement methods FAILS.

The score for Healthy Winter Warmers: The first fail means that we now have 1 of 2 attempted recipes succeeding.  50/50 is not a good ratio, so I hope HWW starts pulling its socks up!  ;-)

Next up, I'm going to try making a jam!