oatmeal berry bars (vegan; can be gluten-free).

Looking for the perfect breakfast item or healthy summer dessert? These berry oatmeal bars can serve as both. There is zero fat (no oil, butter, or eggs), but enough ingredients to keep these bars extremely moist and also satisfyingly delicious.

peachy breakfast quinoa.

Oatmeal definitely gets all the attention for breakfast. Whether cooked in a bowl with some flax and sunflower seeds, or crumbled with cinnamon, butter and clumped over apples, it's always oatmeal.

I recently got Gwyneth Paltrow's cookbook It's All Good ("all iz well" what up movie reference, what up superwoman reference). In it, she talks about how she was really feeling the ill effects of her stressful, crazy lifestyle, and so went about eating better. The cookbook is a culmination of mostly vegan, pretty simple recipes with basic ingredients.

whole wheat carrot zucchini muffins.

The two busiest weeks of my senior year ended today, and I cannot be more at peace. Before 9pm, I had washed my face, brushed my teeth, climbed into bed, and was watching a movie, and IT WAS GREAT.

I figured I would blog since I had the time, even if I made these muffins a while ago.

strawberry banana milkshake.

So much pondering going on lately.

Like whether I should buy hot pink lipstick (Persian Melon sounds so enticing). 

Why there are no science classes available next semester.

What to do for my RU Dance Marathon Board of Director presentation.

And about what to bake. I've finally been eating healthy on a more regular basis, which means not a lot of baked goods. As a result, I barely crave them anymore. Which technically is good, but so sad! I feel like I've lost my inspiration for baking. 

Milkshakes aren't baking, but I've been making them a lot recently. They're not your indulgent it's-really-just-melted-ice-cream with sugary fruit syrup drink. They're pretty light. And they're great for reasons more than just how they taste, too.

buttermilk waffles (optional: wutella).

Happy St. Patrick's Day! My roommate and I are on spring break, but we're pretending to be Irish for the day.

Green's not really my color, so I'm not such a good faux-Irish, but I do have these awesome waffles to share! My brothers decided they wanted waffles this morning. So I left my bowl of half-cooked oatmeal (the poor little oats sodden in a pool of almond milk) in the microwave, and started scooping out flour and buttermilk.

cranberry walnut stuffed french toast.

Sometimes you want to forego the oatmeal and cereal for a hearty, sweet, satisfying breakfast. This definitely fills all those requirements.

pumpkin chocolate chunk oat muffins.

This past week was so odd.

Hurricane Sandy hit. And believe it or not, it barely rained! It was mostly wind damage, by where I lived. I know the Jersey shoreline suffered severe damage, as did parts of New York. The subway system was flooded! All that salt water corrosion!

I won't add to how much you've been hearing about this natural disaster on the news and other social media networks. Instead I will give you my narrative of what I did during these last 7 days.

caramelized banana bread + browned butter glaze.

Have you heard of bananas foster? Butter and sugar are roasted in a pan, then sliced bananas are added until they start to soften. At the very end, some rum is sploshed in, before the whole mixture is spooned over ice cream while still warm.

The same concept is applied to this (relatively healthy) banana bread. The bananas are roasted with butter and sugar until they caramelize a little, and then the mixture is mashed together until everything is homogenous.

That sweet sticky mixture is incorporated into the rest of the ingredients, and baked in a loaf pan till golden. Afterwards, a thick glaze is spooned over the entire loaf, so that it dribbles into every crevice.

whole wheat breakfast muffins.

I'm in that mood. You know the one. Where you lay in bed, headphones streaming music from the iTunes playlist dubbed "Mellow" (the Drake & Linkin Park songs that belie the actual mood) and thoughts, instead of focusing on the relaxing chilling session earlier with the bestie, cannot progress past ce;swlfuehsfi;.

It may've been eating dinner so late (9:30 pm). It could also be something else.

It's probably the dinner. Weirddd. These muffins are weird, too. They have so many random (super healthy) things in them, because I made the recipe up totally by myself. I'll keep the focus on the muffins.

baked cinnamon mini doughnuts + cream cheese glaze.

I'm really excited about these. They're mini doughnuts. Everything is better mini .. well, most things.

They're adorable, healthy (baked, not fried), and virtually fat-free. I usually don't like cinnamony things, but I love these.

The texture is perfectly fluffy. I could pretty much drink the glaze on top, and the way in which it settles and slightly soaks into the top of the doughnut ... you are going to need to try these.

whole grain superman muffins.

It's half past midnight (do people tell time like that anymore?) aka - far too late for me to be awake during break.

I just ate one of these muffins. There are so many good things in here. Whole wheat flour, oatmeal, bran, flax, wheat germ, yogurt, cinnamon. Yeah man, cinnamon has minerals and stuff. I added "0.25 tspn ground cinnamon" to my iProfile when I was keeping record, and it boosted my mineral counts incredibly. Winnnn.

I could eat these little baby muffins all day. This for breakfast, and the chicken chili with bell peppers & fresh tomatoes atop brown rice pilaf with lentils I had tonight for dinner every evening. And whatever for lunch. My day would be awesomeeeeeee.

blueberry hazelnut coconut oatmeal.

I am here today to introduce to you - delicious oatmeal.

No sugar. Plain oats. Simple things combined to make the classiest breakfast you've probably eaten in a while, unless you have the good fortune of eating at Café du Monde every morning.

But us normal folk tend to either not eat breakfast (bad!!!) or eat breakfast sandwiches or something portable and convenient.

I won't necessarily concede to the fact that this is portable (although it could be! in a paper cup, I've eaten it that way for two years straight in high school .. while driving. so no excuses.), but it is quite easy. If you have ten minutes, I highly recommend it.

challah french toast. (+ optional steps)

Hey there! It's a fyne Sunday noon, a perfect day for french toast.

But not just any french toast, no no. What I'm talking about is a thick slice of challah bread, doused in a slightly sweet cinnamon egg milk mixture, placed on a hot pan sizzling with butter. As soon as it's cooked through, it's transferred from stove to tray. Brown sugar is crumbled indulgently atop the golden brown toast. Served on a satisfyingly heavy ceramic plate with a sturdy fork and knife. Authentic maple syrup sits in a cute little jug on the side, waiting to be drizzled (and inevitably get everywhere, making every singly surface sticky).

I live for Sunday mornings. 

almond cardamom quick bread.

This bread is wonderful. I made it yesterday, and ate two slices within 15 minutes of taking it out of the oven. Two generously sized pieces. Right after a filling lunch of whole wheat penne with steamed veggies & some Thai sauce.

I was so full, but it was worth it! No shame. No regrets.

^Good life motto, actually. That's the motto ** YOLO and we bout it errday errday errday like we sittin on the bench ** we don really play, errday errday ** what anybody say. Huh, I guess it kind of loses its effect when you need to bleep out the expletives so many times.

Yesterday was really good, actually. So was today. I ate oatmeal like I've vowed, and had super healthy lunches and dinners. My workouts are also really satisfying.. the amount of bread I ate motivated me to go for both a hike and run/walk four miles, although the bread is really healthy. I am excited to see progress!

Of course, today my mom would say that from now on, she's making all foods that I like. Tomorrow's dinner is falafel, next day's is chole. Handwo is coming at some point. I love my mom. And her cooking is without a doubt too superior to not eat, so .. I'll try to eat in moderation, still? I'll workout more? ... If nothing else, I'm definitely going to enjoy my last few days at home. Because ain't no shrikhand, date rolls, or aloo papri chaat gun end up in da busch dh.

pumpkin oatmeal + veggie burger.

So the other day I woke up early, by break standards - 7:45 am - and drove about an hour to the greenhouse where The Garden of Eden meets to plant, water, and harvest organically grown lettuce. I ate breakfast around 9 am, as I was driving. We worked at the greenhouse till around 2 pm.

At the end, I was eating the arugula that had been picked because I was hungry and wanted to munch on something, even if that meant eating these really bitter (the flavor was much more pronounced) tiny leaves.

With the knowledge that Thomas Sweet was in close proximity, I proceeded to spend about 15 minutes getting lost on Route 18 and going who knows where to park in a spot that was most likely illegal. But I mean, I wasn't going to be long or anything.

whole wheat pumpkin cinnamon rolls.

What is the difference between cinnamon buns and rolls? I feel like the icing is different for both. Otherwise, they seem to be pretty interchangeable, from what research I've conducted on the good old world wide web. Which is kinda annoying, I feel like there should be a difference but whatever, who am I to start an occupy Cinnabon movement .. speaking of which, I guess they're also called cinnabons at Cinnabon. What the hell man! It's so important it needs three different names?!

Anyway, let's talk about these pastries, oozing with heavenly glaze and exuding cinnamon-y enticement.

whole wheat molasses bread.

I figure what with all the delicious things I have been eating, with zero shame, in massive quantities, I should at least have something healthy on standby. That's where this bread comes in.

I was browsing different blogs for some inspiration and came upon this recipe on joythebaker's site. The pictures drew me in - the loaf looked really nice & hearty, with a gorgeous crust. I wanted it.

And so, in literally 10 minutes, I mixed the dry and wet, added dry to wet, and quickly greased a pan to bake it in. Then I ran to watch Midnight in Paris. Have you ever seen that movie? Owen Wilson, Marion Cotillard, and Rachel McAdams are in it .. I like them all. And it got all these awards/nominations .. I feel like maybe, if analyzed, it would spur some great life revelations. However, surrounded by my brother who kept trying to provoke me into attacking him by poking me, my dad who was fiddling with his videocamera, and my mom, who I could tell was on the brink of passing out, I did not find it that awesome.

crispy stuffed french toast.

This is a fabulous guest post on behalf of my suitemate, Andrea Poppiti. Enjoy!

Hello blogging world!!

I'm proud to call myself a borderline creepy admirer of this wonderful blog about food and life. Andrea's the name, and baking's the game. Well not so much the baking part. But my name is Andrea, and I'm one of Yat's roommates (that's right, I get to eat a lot of the food you read about in her posts). Anyway, in all honesty, cooking is not really my forte; I consider myself to be more of an eater. But one afternoon when Yat suggested we make some breakfast before class (an 8:55 physics lecture), I just couldn't say no to the opportunity, which leads me to this guest blogpost.

bran & pear breakfast.

Hm. Bran doesn't sound too good, huh?

Well I made the bran bread I always do when I bake stuff to eat for breakfast. I find making this bread (and others that are similar, containing things like oats, flax, and wheat germ) makes breakfast extremely easy.

It takes zero thought to take a slice of this bread with a glass of skim milk. Or in my case on busy work mornings, down a glass of milk, grab a slice of the bread, grab the keys in true relay race style as I dash into the car, and then take a bite at all of the red lights and on the straight roads.

It's a scene of great elegance and grace, I assure you.

zucchini bread: makeover.

What I like:
making & eating quick breads.
zucchini.
being healthy.
bran. (don't tell me i'm weird.)

What I like even more:
all of the above combined into one delicious loaf of bread.

What I like most:
instead of one gorgeous loaf, the above bread in five mini loaves. cute and ready for consumption in no time. yes, i partook in this deliciousness. read on to see how.