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.

crazy brownies.

These brownies are crazy. Why? Because there's crazy things going on with them.

As a corollary, there have been lots of crazy things going on with me, too. Corollary .. coronary .. artery .. heart attack.

That's my train of thought, without fail, when I hear/see/say corollary. I guess heart attack is kind of depressing. But doesn't everything lead to cancer anyway?

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.

tell me about: Naturally More Peanut Butter!

I really like peanut butter. Freshman year of college, I went through seven jars of peanut butter - the 40 oz (2 lb 8 oz.) ones. Not including all the pb I would eat in the dining hall.

Maybe I should've started out with less disturbing stories. At least I got a lot of protein! And fat .... but protein! I need protein now. These weekly Monday yoga classes are getting to me. As is the hour of gym time I put in directly after each time. And the one hour Just Dance session I had yesterday ... I don't care if you think it's sad that a Wii game affected me, it was intense. 

Need protein to feed all that torn muscle, you know. And this peanut butter has not only protein, but iron and fiber! Yeeeey everything I need. 

There's a blood drive tomorrow. Every blood drive for me ends in disappointment. I guess not eating red meat is detrimental to my blood-donating abilities. Maybe I will eat this entire container of peanut butter right now so my body will be ready to fake enough iron in about 12 hours for me to donate! 

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.

overnight oats.

Ever since I got a job ( ! ), I have been having to think of creative breakfast, lunch, and snack ideas.

Breakfast for the first week was the easiest it could get - whole wheat toast with trusty old peanut butter and a glass of milk. Not old peanut butter like rancid or rotten ... actually, peanut butter is never present for long around me, so I have never even considered it could go rotten. Wow, that's a weird thought.

Anyway, here's what a really easy breakfast like toast did for me:
1) I had more time to sleep / get ready.
2) I could eat at red lights while driving to work.

However, recently, due to certain reasons, my mom has been driving me to work. Also, it is now the second week of me working. This means two things:
1) I am trying to have a variety of breakfasts.
2) I can eat more complicated things in the car as my mom drives.

Monday, I had yogurt with granola in a plastic cup (easy disposal). Then, while on tastespotting, I saw a picture of overnight oats. And so Tuesday's breakfast was decided upon.

homemade clif bars.

Yesterday I ran for 50 minutes straight. Well, jogged.

I haven't continued that long without stopping for ... a very, very long time. The whole route was about 4.2 miles, according to my Google Maps calculations. So that's not fast or anything, but considering there were slopes, the scent of roasted garlic wafting out of nearby Italian restaurants, and my overall terribly out-of-shapeness, not too bad, I guess.

The run also reminded me of the 5K I promised to do with two of my suitemates this upcoming September. And how I will probably not be able to do it because I am so slow.

LOOK AT ALL THAT HEARTY GOODNESS. 

But that got me thinking of pre and post - workout fuel. That raised my spirits! I immediately thought of energy bars. And that reminded me of the energy bars I saw for sale at the gym where I recently got a membership. And how the bars cost $1.50 - $3. Um ew.

creamy almond & walnut face exfoliating mask!

I think my toner is making me break out. That, or Revlon Colorstay. Or both.

Or none of it, and my bad diet is the cause behind all my woes.

I dunno.

Oh yeah, this isn't a food post, if you haven't gotten already. But if you're looking for a way to use items from your kitchen to help your skin, keep reading!

butternut squash maple flax bread.

Thanksgiving just recently passed, and of course, that calls for the use of fall produce in my baking. Butternut squash is not typically used, relative to how often we see pumpkin items. Usually, it is seen in the form of soup or roasted with spices or sugar. However, when pureed, butternut squash is a versatile vegetable that can be put to use in many different forms.

Since my favorite thing to bake is quick bread, I decided to use butternut squash in bread.

I bought pre-cut squash and boiled & pureed it. This was much easier than my last encounter with this squash; first, you have to cut the squash in half, so the bulbous round part is one half and the narrower part is the second half. Take out all the sees covered in slimy flesh. (rinse, dry, & save to roast later with some salt) Then you have to peel the thing, which requires quite a large, sturdy knife and is quite difficult, let me tell you. After your hands are raw from peeling, you have to battle the slippery naked squash to cut it into chunks. Then you have to cut those chunks into relatively uniform pieces. THEN can you boil it.

Would you go through the above torture or just buy them precut and get to the same final step? Honestly, I would buy the squash whole and peel it etc. because I enjoy the effort required to do that, but lack of time prevented me from doing that in this instance.

Regardless, this bread is quite easy to make once you have the puree. It follow the typical method: prepare the dry mix. prepare the wet mix. add dry to wet. don't overmix. put in greased loaf pan & enjoy warm fresh bread about an hour later.

Plus it's healthy, because you know how I like my bread.

Click for the recipe.