Interesting...thought I should post even though I answered my own question, as I don't see this elsewhere. I wasn't seeing "blog entry" as a content type even though it showed in my navigation menu and all the permissions were correct (and indeed, I could create a new entry various ways; just not via "add content"...!)

The problem was that I had "blog entry" in the navigation menu, but it wasn't in the menu position along with the other content types under "create content"...when I moved "blog entry" in among the other content types under "create content" on the navigation menu, it suddenly appeared in the content types under Admin > Content > Add (/node/add)...