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.

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?

tell me about: amande yogurt!

Hello!

When I was at home, my mom had this coupon for $5 off a $50 purchase at A&P. Were you expecting me to say J. Crew, or GAP or something? Nope. I most look forward to food shopping. And I spent approximately 90 minutes searching for the way to maximize my expenditures. My final bill was $50.03. Winnaaaaa.

As I was browsing (it's not Whole Foods or anything, so it took some effort finding unusual things. I almost paid four bucks for a tin of clams. They had 50% RDA iron though! woahoaohhoahh I need iron. I got three types of tortillas instead.), I noticed this yogurt. I love yogurt. And I love almond milk. And so, when I saw that this yogurt was made sans dairy & with cultured almondmilk instead, I was intrigued. And coconut flavored! The only real, and actually good quality, coconut-flavored yogurt I have had was in Poland a couple years back. That had shreds of coconut in it, and was nothing like the Dannon Light n Fit Pina Colada flavor.

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.

toasted coconut butterscotch bars.

Watch out for these. They are dangerously addictive, with the contrast of the crisp edges and top crust with the soft, chewy interior. If you haven't gotten by now, I love when there's a crisp/chewy contrast. The coconut is chewy, but also slightly crunchy and nutty from being toasted. The butterscotch chips are very sweet, and mesh well with the brown sugar dough.

I made them for my brothers, but after tasting them, I am tempted to make another batch to bring back to school with me. If I have time. I need to collect my things & wash my hair & do my nails first. 

I'm excited to work out at Sonny Werbs once I get back, so I can eat more of these .. I want to see you work out for me, work out for me. I don't know if I like the words/idea behind that song, but I definitely like the beat of it.

"lighter" brownie pie.

Inspiration is a funny thing. It hits you when you least expect it, and when you are totally unprepared. But it gives you the motivation to do what you know you need to do.

It's even funnier in that it's difficult to describe. What exactly is inspiration? And how does it affect you? Interesting questions. But yet, you are aware when you are inspired. You realize just what you want to do,  and everything just seems to fall into place. It's a complex feeling that brings such clarity.

Each creature has a place in life. I have a friend who believes that maturity is the realization of one's place in the cycle of life. Regardless, each creature also has one thing to offer to the world - themselves. I just watched the most recent JennaMarbles video, and weird as it sounds, that, along with a couple of other things, happened close enough in proximity to inspire me. To do what? Not sure. But I definitely feel a heightened sense of responsibility, maturity, and direction.

It all hit me after I ate a piece of this brownie pie with some warm milk while chatting with my little brother.

tell me about: Joghurt Chocolate!

One day I went to a Brazilian place to eat Brazilian burgers (more on that in a future post) with a few friends. Afterwards, we drove to a nearby Brazilian grocery store. They had lots of interesting things, like these Quail eggs.

They were so tiny! 10 calories each, too. It would take eight of them to equal the caloric value of the regular chicken egg most of us are used to, at least here in the US.

Where do ostriches live? Do people in those places take advantage of ostrich eggs? I saw either a Food Network show (ugh. Food Network.) or a Top Chef challenge where people had to cook with an ostrich egg. One person carefully carved open the thing & dumped the contents into a large measuring cup (that had the capacity of  > 1 cup) and poured it that way onto the grill. One person tried cracking it open directly onto the grill and failed majorly.

tell me about: kefir!

About two weeks ago, I decided to make chicken fatayer. More about that later though, in an upcoming post about tons of flour and the untrustworthiness of online recipes.

Chicken fatayer is Arabic, and when I was shopping for the chicken, I saw kefir on sale. And since my mom wasn't there to reign me in and sanely point out to me that kefir is pretty much drinkable yogurt (not gogurt, gross.), I bought the vanilla flavored kind to heighten the Arabic-ness of that night's meal. And oh boy, it was too good.

I liked it so much, in fact, that I spent too many hours searching where to buy kefir grains online and how to culture it at home.

Don't shake your head at me, I'm sure you do equally useless things in your free time.

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!

baby bran muffins.

The theme today is brown.

The dry mixture is brown, the wet mixture is brown, and by the transitive property (or not), the combined mixture is obviously brown.

peruvian chicken kebabs + tzatziki.

I cannot believe two days ago I was on Rutgers soil, and now, I am at home. For three and a half months. Leaving was bittersweet; everyone wanted to be with everyone else for the whole summer, but they also wanted summer vacation to come because that would be mean the end of a period of no sleep, emotional eating, and immense stress about finals.

I got the last of my final grades back today, and I am quite ecstatic. For a crazy second I thought summer classes might be a very real necessity but alas, I need to relaxeth. Allth will be fyne with mine life, especially now that I can partaketh in consumption of victuals, mostly for mine pleasure.