NARRATORS: Erin Mallon and Teddy Hamilton

REVIEW: Hello, dear readers. I know…I know. You’re probably sick and tired of seeing book reviews for Abby Jimenez on my website. LOL. I do apologize, but what can I say? She’s just a really great author. I believe I'm caught up on all of her books now, except for her latest one, The Night We Never Met. I have that one in digital format, but I’d rather wait on the audiobook version. The Friend Zone was another funny, romantic, and enjoyable read. Lots of sarcastic and hilarious banter between the two main characters, and I was glad to see Abby took on something that’s rarely talked about in romantic comedies - women’s reproductive issues. Kristen, the female lead, suffers from uterine fibroid tumors, which have caused debilitating periods for most of her adult life, and she makes the difficult decision to have a hysterectomy. Josh, the male lead, wants a house full of children someday, so this causes problems between the two of them. There’s a lot of back and forth drama, especially on Kristen’s part, which honestly could’ve been solved with a simple conversation, but this is a romance book, so you’ve got to go through all of their angst first before they get their happy ending. This is book one in the Friend Zone series, and I wish I had read it first instead of The Happy Ever After Playlist (book two) because I knew what was going to happen toward the end, and I dreaded it. I’m not giving away any spoilers, so I’ll just leave this review with recommending reading the book series in order and not how I did it. 

Baking spray with flour

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour 

2 teaspoons baking powder 

2 tablespoon monk fruit sweetener or granulated sugar  

½ teaspoon kosher salt 

2 large eggs at room temperature

2 cups fat free milk, unsweetened almond milk, or milk of choice 

1 tablespoon vanilla extract 

1 ½ tablespoons canola oil

1 cup blueberries, raspberries, bananas or chocolate chips 

DIRECTIONS: Preheat oven to 375°F. Spray a 12-cup non-stick muffin tin generously with baking spray. In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients from flour to salt. Whisk to combine. In a medium bowl, combine wet ingredients from eggs to oil. Whisk to combine then pour mixture into the bowl with the dry ingredients. Whisk until JUST combined. Don’t over mix. There will be lumps but don’t worry. Using a 1/3 cup measure, fill 12 muffin tins to the top with batter. Add a few blueberries to each. Place in the oven and bake 20-25 minutes, rotating halfway through bake time, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Allow to cool in pan for 10 minutes then with a paring knife or off set spatula, gently remove muffins from tin and transfer to cooling rack. 

NUTRITION INFO: 2 muffins, Calories: 249 kcal, Carbohydrates: 43 g, Protein: 10.5 g, Fat: 5 g, Saturated Fat: 1 g, Cholesterol: 63.5 mg, Sodium: 273 mg, Fiber: 2 g, Sugar: 7 g

(Recipe and photo courtesy of Skinnytaste)