Is it bread or a cupcake? Neither. It's a muffin

After a very long day of work, Steve was craving a midnight snack the other night. He wanted muffins and wanted to know if we had any muffin mix.

Despite all our years together, he thinks that food has to come from a package to be "right".

"You can't make muffins without a box," he teased.

Of course, I can. And I can make them almost as fast and at least as good from scratch.

So while he settled down to relax, I whipped up a batch of chocolate chip muffins in just under half an hour. They're so easy that even he could have made them. With this recipe, you can make chocolate chip muffins or by simply substituting a bit of fruit for the chips, you can have whatever kind of muffins you'd like.

Muffins are somewhat like small cakes or cupcakes in shape, although they usually are not as sweet as cupcakes and generally lack frosting. If you make fruit muffins, a sweet streusel topping can be added for kicks and great flavor.

Chocolate Chip Muffins

2 cups of  flour
1/3 cup of brown sugar
1/3 cup of sugar
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
2/3 cup of milk

1/2 cup of butter, melted and cooled

 2 eggs, beaten

1 teaspoon of vanilla

1 2-ounce package of chocolate chips

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees and grease six large or  twelve small muffin cups.
• In a large bowl, stir together the flour, the sugars, the baking powder, and the salt.
• In another bowl, stir together  the milk, the eggs, the butter and the vanilla until they are blended together.
• Make a well in center of the dry ingredients and add the milk mixture. Stir just enough to combine the ingredients.
• Stir in the chocolate chips.
• Spoon the batter into the muffin cups and bake for 15 to 20 minutes.

Vegetarian.