Sunt atat de neconventional incat scriu rar despre evenimentele curente, poate pentru ca despre prezent scriu toti si se scriu multe, de aceea atunci cand totusi ma incumet sa o fac imi iese totul atat de diferit..

Tin minte.. ca nu de mult imi placea Craciunul.. dar spiritul acestei sarbatori a fost distrus in ochii mei de, ironic, oamenii care’l sarbatoresc.

Unii se afunda intr`o ipocrizie iesita din comun.. ii vezi cum in fiecare an, la mijlocul lui decembrie incep sa se transforme. Nu`si dau seama de prefacatoria de care dau dovada, nenorociti falsi.. trec luni intregi si nu vorbesc cu tine, dar acum simt nevoia sa’ti dea un sms, simt nevoia sa’ti zambeasca fals si sa’ti ofere drept cadou cate un produs cu intentii artistice dar de foarte prost gust. Nu ne’am vazut mai tot anul si acum vrei tu sa’mi demonstrezi mie ca esti “generos” sau ca te`ai “gandit” la mine.. macar fa o intr`un mod cat mai simplu.. fa’ti timp si intalneste`te cu mine, strange`mi mana, pupa`mi obrazul sau imbratiseaza`ma .. nu vreau puloverul tau, ieftin si de proasta calitate, nu vreau sa primesc massu’ sau sms`ul tau cu o urare copiata de pe nu stiu ce website.. pentru ca intentia chiar NU conteaza.. nu’ti bate joc.. daca vrei sa faci ceva, fa o pentru ca vrei din suflet, nu pentru ca “asa e frumos” sau ai vreo obligatie..
Nu inteleg de ce unora le trebuie o sarbatoare ca sa fie buni, de ce va trebuie o sarbatoare ca sa va sunati rudele si prietenii sau sa va faceti cadouri ?! .. daca vrei sa faci asta o poti face oricand, nu’ti trebuie ca motivatie nu stiu ce traditie..
Imi aduc aminte acum cateva luni, dupa ce am lipsit cateva zile din peisaj .. am constatat ca multi au crezut ca pur si simplu printr`un numar de magie am disparut si ca n ‘am existat niciodata. Majoritatea cunostintelor cu care umblasem luni intregi, facusem gratare impreuna, bausem prin cluburi si parcuri, impartisem mancare din aceeasi farfurie, impartisem zile de dimineata pana seara si nopti pana dimineata au crezut ca pur si simplu nu mai sunt. Adica ne o ardem o luna impreuna si dupa cateva zile nu incerci sa vezi ce se intampla cu mine si mi dai un sms de craciun ?! Ai mancat la mine in bucatarie .. si te’ai imbatat la mine pe canapea dar cand nu am mai fost, nu am mai fost si gata ? M’a inghitit negura timpului si nu mai exist ?!

Mai sunt si altii care urasc Craciunul.. unii chiar au motive.. si sechele .. restu sunt niste idioti, niste “grinch wannabes” niste asa zisi razvratiti cu o propaganda anti craciun penibila care nu se bazeaza pe nimic.. cand ii intrebi de ce nu’ti place.. scutura din umeri mirati.. cred ca unii au o dorinta fundamentala sa fie prosti.
Stati departe va rog ! Nu vreau sa sara prostie din voi pe noua mea sapca scumpa.

Cat despre mine.. adevarat sunt, lucruri adevarate fac.
Daca vreau sa ti urez ceva.. am s`o fac din suflet, imi place ca fiecare urare plecata de la mine sa fie speciala, sa fie personalizata pentru destinatar, si nu.. nu am sa’ti raspund doar din obligatie..

Mai intai sa mi faca mie placere.. si dup’aia mai vedem..

It’s time to Deck the Halls with these cute little bite-sized jingle balls.  These are incredibly easy to make and are sure to please your guests this holiday season.  Whether it’s at your Hanukkah table, your Christmas feast or your New Year’s Eve bash…be sure to whip up these adorable cherry almond balls, which are packed with fiber and naturally sweetened with dried cherries, unsweetened coconut and almonds.

Ingredients

• 2 cups bran flake cereal
• ¾ cup dried cherries
• ½ cup almonds, toasted
• 3 Tbsp. honey or agave nectar
• 2 Tbsp. silken Nasoya Tofu
• 2 tsp. freshly squeezed orange juice
• ½ cup unsweetened coconut flakes
• 1 Tbsp. wheat germ

Directions

• Place bran cereal, cherries and almonds in a food processor and process until finely chopped. Add honey, tofu and orange juice; pulse until a stiff dough forms.
• Scoop tablespoon-size portions and shape with greased hands into balls. Roll each ball in coconut and wheat germ.
• Place on wax paper. Let stand at room temperature for 30 minutes before serving or storing.

This project requires understanding every link in the cycle of growing, refining and making all sorts of things with wheat.  Now that I’m feeling a little more comfortable with the baking, I can take things up a notch - what about actually making the flour?  Back in Seattle, I ground some of the wheat up in a coffee grinder just to see how that would work.  It took a long time and almost burned out the motor, but I did end up with something flour-like.  I thought I might be able to find someone who had a home-use flour mill in Chicago and try it, but it turns out I’ve been a little busy trying to find things like commodities traders and farmers and cannot even bring myself to think about running around this huge city trying to track down a flour mill.  Somewhere, somehow I heard something about using a blender to do the job.  And InCUBATE happens to have a really nice heavy-duty blender.  So this is what happens when you put wheat in a blender and make some bread with it.  

It took 5 or 6 rounds of running the blender, sifting out the flour, and putting the rest back in the blender till I was good and sick of the noise, and there were still a bunch of cracked wheat berries left over.  

I decided to repeat the bomb-proof no-knead recipe from the other day, and used 1 cup of milled whole grain flour, 1 cup of fine whole wheat flour (the whole grain flour sifted) and 1 up of the blender flour.  To that I added a healthy dose of pure wheat gluten that a friend gave me.  Made from the protein part of the wheat, pure (or vital) wheat gluten added to bread is supposed to help it rise – another trick home bakers use to get bakery-quality results, especially for whole wheat breads.  

At the end of the milling, sifting and measuring stage, here’s what was on the counter.  The photo deliberately misrepresents my organization / neatness level. 

Wheat, Deconstructed

From left to right in the bowls, we have the sifted and unsifted milled flour, the blended flour, and the cracked wheat.  The cracked wheat won’t go into the bread but can be made into some sort of porridge (ugh) or as a substitute for couscous or bulgur in a pilaf (not so bad), or even into bulgur wheat itself, which sounds delicious but labor-intensive.  In the center we have the gluten on the left and the bran on the right.  The excess bran is used to keep the dough from sticking and to put a little crunchy crisp on the top, but there will still be some leftover.  I’ve been using it in shakes for breakfast and gave the rest to the person who gave me the gluten. 

The result:  delicious!  I was a little bit amazed at how quickly this bread baking stuff has become somewhat routine.  The motions, the textures and the timing are already starting to feel more intuitive.  No doubt my learning curve has been flattened (steepened? anyway, it’s getting easier) due to the advice of many friends and visitors (pros and hobbyists) to the InCUBATE ‘test kitchen.’  The all-powerful internet helps too, but the internet can’t stand in the kitchen with me and tell me  “that’s a good crumb” or “those little strands are what you’re looking for” or “it’s probably time for it to go in the oven now.”  These people are teaching me what to look for and how to observe the process, and it’s making this project a whole lot more satisfying and delicious. 

As a postscript, I thought of Heike a lot making this latest loaf and this post – read her observations, and her observations about observation here (I liked them so much I put them on my other blog).  She’s also the proud owner of a new flour mill!

Ahh, breakfast. The most important meal of the day. And the meal most of us don’t have time for. I love breakfast, and would love to have time to cook in the morning. But since my schedule more often than not does not allow that, I’ve become the queen of grab-and-go brekkies. Make these muffins on Sunday night, and you’ll be taken care of for the rest of the week. Just pop a muffin in the microwave for a few seconds, grab a piece of fruit (nature’s fast food!), and run out the door. Applesauce is used in place of most of the oil in these muffins, dramatically cutting down on fat. And with fiber-packed oat bran and protein, these happen to keep me surprisingly full, for a muffin.

This recipe is extraordinarily versatile. Swap any berries for the blueberries, or leave them out completely. Swap the yogurt for soy yogurt for a vegan muffin, if you are so inclined. I’ve even added peanut butter to the batter, which was surprisingly tasty. Enjoy!

Blueberry Oat Bran Muffins

1 1/2 cup oat bran
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 packed brown sugar
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup applesauce
1/2 plain yogurt
2 Tbsp canola oil
1 tsp vanilla
2/3 cup frozen blueberries
1/3 cup chopped walnuts
Brown sugar for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line 12 muffin cups and spray liners with cooking spray.

In a large bowl, combine oat bran, flour, brown sugar, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. In another bowl, mix together the applesauce, yogurt, oil, and vanilla. Add the applesauce mixture into the dry mixture, and mix thoroughly.

GENTLY fold in the blueberries and walnuts (if you rough it up too much, your batter will turn all blue. Which isn’t necessarily a BAD thing, but it’ll look a little funny). Distribute batter among the muffin cups, and sprinkle each with a bit of brown sugar. Stick in the oven and bake for 20 – 24 minutes, until a knife inserted in a muffin’s center comes out clean.

Serving size: 1 muffin
Per serving – 167 calories, 5 g fat, 0.5 g sat fat, 264 mg sodium, 31 g carbohydrates, 3 g fiber, 4.3 g protein

Another track off Shock Value 2 “Meet  In Tha Middle” Feat Bran Nu A.k.A Brandy. She pulls double duty on this track singing and rapping and its not that bad surprisingly. Bump Inside

Timbaland(Feat Brandy)-Meet In Tha Middle  …::LISTEN::…

~Tură de biciclete la poalele Pietrei Craiului~

by Simona

Deși am mai colindat pe jos pe dealurile din zona Rucar – Bran, în toate anotimpurile, m-am gândit să încerc ceva mai dinamic – o tură de biciclete, să cuprind cât mai multe locuri, pentru că zile libere sunt doar două… Din fericire, au fost cu soare și căldură neobișnuită pentru sfârșit de octombrie. Și nu doar atât: paleta de culori tomnatice foarte variată.

Nimic nu ilustrează mai bine atributul splendorii decît un deal împădurit, toamna, cînd totul intră în marea derivă a brunurilor. Primăvara e a jubilației, vara, a unei omogene deplinătăți, iarna – a ascezei cathare. Dar splendoarea, splendoarea adevărată nu e de întîlnit decît toamna, în octombrie, pe o zi însorită. Moartea vegetală debutează cu o cutremurătoare sărbătoare. Și e de înțeles că anul bisericesc începe tocmai cu anotimpul acesta, în care sfîrșitul și slava se întrepătrund. Toamna, fiecare specie încheie altfel și fiecare individ vegetal se singularizează într-o culoare proprie. În această diversificare extatică a particularului stă splendoarea spectacolului autumnal și, poate, a destinelor noastre postume… („Stiu, vom muri, dar cîtă splendoare!”)

Fragment din “Jurnalul de la Tescani”,  Andrei Pleșu

Pentru că acest fragment cuprinde esența a ceea ce reprezintă toamna, nu-mi rămâne decât să redau detaliile concrete și să exemplific prin poze, câtă dreptate are d-l Pleșu.

Prima zi: Fundata – Cheile Grădiștei – Cheia – Moeciu – Măgura – Peștera – Șirnea – Fundata (~ 45 km, harta)

Plecarea a fost din Fundata, chiar de la drumul național căci acolo am avut cazarea. Ne lăsăm imediat pe drumul lateral, asfaltat, ce duce spre acea parte din sat care mie mi se pare că este de fapt vatra satului. De aici, avem o frumoasă priveliște către Piatra Craiului și Bucegi.

Din sat, ne abatem pe un drum în stânga, care ne va duce către Cheile Grădiștei. Frumusețea peisajelor ce ni se desfășoară în față ne înviorează încât nu mai simțim că pământul pe care este croit drumul este prea frământat de animale sau mai are câte o acumulare de apă. Suntem în natură, este liniște, aer că la țară. Mă gândeam… oamenii care trăiesc aici ar trebui să fie fericiți…Însă, e grea viața aici sus, pe dealuri. Probabil localnicii spun la fel despre cei ce venim de la oraș. Eu cred că ești fericit, acolo unde îți place, indiferent cât de greu e.

Până să coborâm în Cheile Grădiștei natura și-a mai etalat câteva straie de toamnă. Pădurile de fag amestecate cu conifere au făcut deliciul zilei. Peste tot, în tura noastră, am avut Craiul mereu în zare. Iezerul, care se vede și el mai jos, era deja încărunțit de nea.

După ce am străbătut Cheile Gradistei, am intrat, dar pentru puțin timp, în civilizație. Cheia era destul de animată de plimbăreți de șosea. O fi asfaltul plăcut sub roți, însă parcă e mai bine pe drum de pământ… După ce traversăm șoseaua națională la Moeciu, luăm direcția Peștera.

Bine… ajungem și la Peștera, dar după ce salutăm și satul Măgura de după deal. Dacă-i deal, e și soare și rost de plaiuri mioritice. Opririle au fost dese, pe porțiunea cu pricina, la fiecare pas, ni se înfățișa un nou spectacol de culoare și compoziție. Măgura… locație destul de colindată, în ultima vreme, pentru că se ajunge destul de ușor cu mașina, din Zărnești… Sau cu bicicleta, dinspre Moeciu, luând dealul la urcat.

Din nou, ne urmărește creasta Craiului, văzut din Măgura:

După ce am strabatul satul Măgura, am urmat direcția către Peștera. Bucegii încep și ei să ni se desfășoare în toată splendoarea. Până aici, drumurile de pământ au fost foarte mulțumitoare. Cea mai solicitantă porțiune a fost trecerea spre satul Șirnea, pentru că am forțat o traversare prin pădure, apoi peste un deal.

În Șirnea, centrul satului găsim “Magazin cu de toate” … mi-a plăcut așa, e în purul grai românesc…. Minimarket n-ar fi sunat deloc bine la țară… iar avizierul satului e și mai original… însă bietul copac…ce vină are?

De aici, fiind deja spre înserat, umbrele se întorc de unde au plecat: Fundata.

A doua zi: Fundata – Șirnea – Ciocanu – Dâmbovicioara – Podu Dâmboviței – Cheile Cheiței – Fundățica – Fundata (~ 40 km, harta)

Am pornit cu aceeași energie ca în ziua precedentă, pentru că ziua era la fel de însorită. Am coborât pe șoseaua națională apoi pe drumul lateral, până în Șirnea. Am revenit la avizier, pentru că… atenție! Avem traseele de mountain bike descrise și cotate pe scara dificultății (nu știu după ce criteriu, așa că nu vă speriați). De aici se ajunge destul de repede în satul Ciocanu. Teoretic… la noi a durat mai mult…peisajele sunt de vină

Din nou, același măreț Crai, văzut din Ciocanu. Urmează coborârea spre satul Dâmbovicioara și traversarea Cheilor Dâmbovicioarei, până în Podu Dâmboviței. Prin chei, era cum ne așteptam: mașini multe, focuri de grătar, dar nimeni la plimbare…pe jos. Niciodată nu am înțeles tipul ăsta de turism…

Din chei în chei… După ce străbatem și o porțiune din Podu Dâmboviței, intrăm în Cheile Cheiței, pe un drum forestier care parcă nu se mai termină… Cotim spre Fundățica, un sat cu case răsfirate și în care au rămas puțini tineri. Urmează Fundata și sfârșitul ciclopromenadei prin culorile toamnei… e greu de imaginat că o săptămâna înainte, când de fapt plănuisem această tură, ne zicea un nene din zonă că era ca de Craciun – ninsese toată ziua. Era prea devreme ca aceste culori să fie acoperite, fără să fie admirate….

„Stiu, vom muri, dar cîtă splendoare!” … oare putem s-o luăm cu noi?

Filmul turei noastre:

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Just a quick recap before I go to bed.

After my morning race and oat bran, CD and I took the pups for a walk around the neighborhood, and then came home to get ready for our annual Thanksgiving potluck. We weren’t going to be eating until 2, and so I had a protein smoothie around noon. I used to starve myself all day on Thanksgiving and Christmas and then stuff myself silly when it came time for the big holiday meal. That was dumb. Now I eat normally, and just treat the big meal as a late lunch.

The spread (part of it anyway)…

This does not include the salad or other veggies…or the entire dessert TABLE. I fixed a plate of salad, roasted Brussels sprouts, turkey, cornbread pudding, green bean casserole, and some stuffing. Rather than focus on the food, I focused on my friends and family instead.

Me & CD.

Me and my girls.

Me and my papa. Everyone thinks my dad looks like the Dos Equis Beer commercial guy. Stay thirsty my friends.

Yes, I never took my scarf off all day. Wear it constantly during the winter months.

I skipped the dessert table altogether, opting for more sausage cranberry stuffing instead. I love stuffing. Honestly, I don’t fear the holidays like so many others. I know that if I eat a typical breakfast + a snack that day, I won’t go crazy when it comes to the main meal. Of course I’m sure I took in more calories today than normal, but it will all balance out in the end. Again, it’s my time with others that matters most. Life is too short to worry about how much pumpkin pie (or stuffing) I might eat, right?

Hope everyone enjoyed their day as much as I did! We have so much to be thankful for, no? Good night.

Inceput de toamna in Bran… Dimineata de octombrie

Every morning I make this “cereal” which ends up looking like a giant muffin. I’ve got the procedure down pat so that it doesn’t take long to make it but I’m always amazed at how involved it is.

I make it in a big 4 cup Pyrex measuring cup. It has straight sides. Most of the following ingredients are measured by weight; I have a digital scale which I love. I set it on grams because that’s more accurate than ounces.

First I put in the fruit flavorings; 70 grams of frozen fruit juice. I’m borderline diabetic so I only use the ones that don’t have any added sweetener, for example, pineapple juice or apple juice. Next is 1 teaspoon of some liquid fruit flavoring or extract; I cycle through lemon extract, orange extract, and rasberry flavoring. All are natural; my formative years were during the late 60s and early 70s when we learned to shun anything artificial. Next is 30-40 grams of reconstituted lime juice.

Stir that a bit.

Next are the spices. All are 1/4 teaspoon. Ground allspice. Ginger. Nutmeg. Cardamom. Ground cloves. I was surprised to discover that cinnamon alters the overall flavor in a vague and unpleasant way so I’ve stopped using it.

Next are the “white” grains. It used to be all oatmeal but my local health food store had some ground barley; it looks like cream of rice. 20+ grams of each. After the barley is gone it will be 40 grams of oatmeal because it looks like they’re not going to keep carrying the ground barley.

Next are the “jars;” I have these Mason jars of ingredients that I keep in the freezer. Unsweetened coconut; 2 tablespoons. Rice bran; 2 tablespoons. Dulse seaweed; 1/4 teaspoon. You have to be careful with seaweed; too much and it gives an unpleasant metallic flavor. Ground flax seed; 1 tablespoon. Currants; 2 tablespoons. They’re like tiny raisins.

At this point out comes the electric hand mixer and it gets a good mixing.

Next is the wheat bran. Lots of it; that’s why the ingredients above are so numerous; wheat bran tastes like ground cardboard. I put in 4 tablespoons at a time, mixing with the mixer after each batch, until I’ve put in 80 grams of wheat bran. Probably about 10 heaping tablespoons. Since it’s semi dry it requires careful mixing.

Next is the milk, but not real dairy milk, I use unsweetened soy milk; 240 grams. Soy milk isn’t very tasty so this is the only place I use it. Mix again thoroughly with the mixer. I then take a spatula and scrape the sides down and smooth the top and make it a nice dome shape.

Then it goes into the microwave, covered. I put a paper towel over it and then a little plate. Without the paper towel the condensation on the plate drips back down.

The microwave settings are quite weird; 3:33 minutes at high (level 10), then 5:55 minutes at level 5, then 5:55 minutes at level 4, then 5:55 minutes at level 3, then 7:77 minutes at level 2. I can only do 5 steps with my microwave or I’d do another one at level 1.

When I eat it I pour Blue Diamond almond milk on it. Again, unsweetened but I cheat and put Splenda in it; 1 packet per cup of milk, or, in my case, 8 per big carton. The regular sweetened almond milk is exceptionally tasty; the unsweetened isn’t as good, but adding artificial sweetener to it makes it just as good.

Another thing to keep in mind is that there are two types of fiber; fiber that gives bulk and holds water, in this case wheat bran, and soluble fiber, in this case oatmeal (and I’m assuming the barley as well). The bulk fiber is good for your gastrointestinal tract, while the soluble fiber encourages the excretion of bad cholesterol. And the oatmeal really improves the flavor and smooths the rough edges of the wheat bran; without it it’s rather harsh.

I also did some searching and from what I found oat bran really isn’t the bran of the oat seed. It’s also not any higher any fiber than oatmeal.

Bran Muffins

These muffins are delicious and the recipe makes batter for two dozen muffins that can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 4 weeks. Just bake up what you need and keep the rest until you need it. The first batch of these didn’t turn out well because I filled the muffins cups too full and they overflowed! I got the amount right in these. Don’t fill the cups more than 3/4 full! I used silicone muffin cups that I purchased at Marshall’s for $12.99. They are naturally nonstick and can be used over and over again. I highly recommend them if you bake muffins or cupcakes regularly.

This recipe is nice because you can easily do variations on the basic recipe. I love them for breakfast or with soup for dinner. For the muffins shown, I added 1/2 cup of dried cherries to half of the finished batter to make cherry bran muffins and then refrigerated the rest of the batter to use another day. I’ll list the variations at the end of the recipe. This recipe is adapted from the one on the back of the Hodgson Mill Wheat Bran box.

Ingredients
3 C. unprocessed wheat bran (I used Hodgson Mill brand)
1 C. boiling water
1 C. packed brown sugar
1/2 C. butter, softened
2 1/2 C. unbleached white flour
2 t. baking soda
1 t. salt
2 eggs, beaten
2 C. buttermilk

Mix 1 C. wheat bran with 1 C. boiling water; stir and let water absorb into bran. In a separate bowl blend sugar and butter. Mix in the salt and baking soda until well combined. Combine the moist bran with beaten eggs, the remaining two cups of bran, and buttermilk. Alternate adding this egg mixture and the flour to the sugar and butter mixture until everything is well combined.

Place in the refrigerator for future use, or bake immediately. If baking immediately, bake in a preheated 400 degree oven for 15-17 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of a muffin comes out clean. If you don’t wish to use all the batter at once, store the unused batter in an airtight container for 2 to 4 weeks. Stir the batter well before spooning into prepared muffin cups. Yield: 2 dozen muffins.
Variations: For banana bran muffins add 1 large mashed banana to 1/2 of the batter. Yield will be 14 muffins. For cinnamon bran muffins add 2 t. of cinnamon to the whole recipe to yield 24 muffins. For raisin or cranberry bran muffins, add 1 C. of raisins or dried cranberries to the batter to yield 26-28 muffins. For banana bran muffins add 1 mashed banana to half the batter before putting in baking cups.

 Previous research has shown that women who eat more whole grains are less likely to develop high blood pressure.  But the impact of whole grains on men’s blood pressure was unknown. 

 A recent study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (September 2009) followed over 31, 000 men for 18 years.  Men with the highest daily whole grain consumption were 19% less likely to develop high blood pressure versus men who ate the least amount of whole grains.  The lower blood pressures were found regardless of weight, physical activity, fruit and vegetable intake.

 So whole grains can help control blood pressure in both women and men.  The current dietary guidelines recommend that adults eat at least 3 ounces or 85 grams of whole grains daily.  Whole grains are richer in nutrients because they retain their bran and germ unlike refined grains.

 “Take Charge: A Woman’s Guide to a Healthier Heart” discusses how women can help control their blood pressure, cholesterol and other risk factors to prevent a heart attack, stroke and diabetes. “Take Charge: A Man’s Roadmap to a Healthier Heart” is due to be released Fall 2009. For more info visit www.heart-strong.com

Weekendul acesta am ajuns la castelul Bran, fisrt time. Vă pun aici câteva poze pentru că îs prea obosit să mai povestesc, oricum, o fost foarte fain.

I was recently told (by the dubious woman at the bank) that since I was unemployed, but married, I must therefore be a homemaker. Yes, you read correctly. Homemaker is indeed an option on the ‘employment status’ drop-down menu on the bank’s account information. I was also told that it was better to be a homemaker than list myself as ‘unemployed’ since “you can’t get anything for saying you’re unemployed.”  This begs the question of what exactly I’ll get for saying I’m a homemaker, but I digress…

In my new role as homemaker, and in order to elevate (or maintain) my status to/as domestic goddess, I decided to wake up early on Monday morning to make muffins for our houseguests. This is also part of the G&C Bed and Breakfast, which is open for business, if anyone fancies a few nights in London.

Craving some healthy bran muffins, I started measuring, weighing, mixing, and attempting to multi-task as I chatted with our friends and helped them find things in the kitchen for their coffee, etc. After carefully filling the muffin cups with the batter and sliding the tray into the oven, I glanced over at the corner of the counter and only then realised my significant error. There was no bran in my bran muffins! The bag of bran sat, sealed shut, where I’d pulled it down from the cupboard earlier. I contemplated scooping the batter out of each cup and adding the bran, but decided it wasn’t worth the hassle. That said, 75 grams of wheat bran is a significant amount to forget, and I was convinced I had a disaster on my hands. I was most concerned that I had failed miserably in my domestic duties.

Our friends were quite sure that the ‘branless bran muffins’ would be fine, and indeed, they were right. They just taste like sweet, molasses-y little cakes with dates. Not bad, but not the healthy start to the day I was hoping they’d be. They look and taste fine, but next time, I’ll make sure I’m less distracted. After all, I do have to maintain my reputation and live up to the standards of my newest occupation…

P.S. Here’s the recipe for the yogurt bran muffins…WITH the bran! Apologies who don’t like weighing their ingredients, but all recipes here are in grams, rather than cups.

Bran Yogurt Muffins

Preheat oven to 375-400F. Prepare muffin tins (grease or line with paper cups).

Stir together 225g flour, 2 tsp baking powder, and 1/2 tsp salt.

In a separate bowl, beat egg with a fork. Add 110-140g brown sugar, 1 tsp vanilla, 1-2 tbsp molasses or honey, 75g WHEAT BRAN or 105g OAT BRAN, 60ml milk and 90ml oil or 85g butter melted.

Spoon 240ml plain yogurt (preferably with bacterial culture) into a jug or bowl. Stir in 1 tsp of baking soda and let it stand for 1-2 minutes. Some yogurts will react vigourously and bubble up (very cool!). Stir yogurt into the egg mixture after a few minutes.

Pour all of the wet ingredients into the dry. Stir until just combined, adding 85-100g of raisins or chopped dates if desired. Ignore any lumps. Spoon into muffin cups and bake for 20-25 minutes until the tops spring back gently when pressed.

Although omitting the bran will not ruin the taste, it is highly recommended that you keep these as BRAN muffins! Enjoy!

Years ago, when I was working in Boston, MA I always got my morning, breakfast muffins at Souper Salad.  They had the most unbelievable zucchini/carrot muffins, and bran muffins.  And believe me when I say, I’m NOT a veggie girl.  By any stretch of the imagination.  So for me to like these you know they must be good.  Since I’ve moved away from MA I’ve tried to find a recipe that comes close to those muffins and as far as the zucchini carrot muffins go, I’ll have to go on trying.  But I’ve finally come across the bran muffin recipe that most closely resembles it.  And now you too can have these yummy (and maybe a little bit good for you?) muffins!

INGREDIENTS

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 400 degrees. Spray standard-sized muffin pan with nonstick cooking spray.
2. Combine raisins and water in small microwave-safe bowl, cover with plastic wrap, cut several steam vents in plastic with paring knife, and microwave on high power for 30 seconds. Let stand, covered, until raisins are softened and plump, about 5 minutes. Transfer raisins to paper towel-lined plate to cool
3. Process half of bran cereal in food processor until finely ground, about 1 minute.
4. Whisk flours, baking soda, and salt in large bowl to combine; set aside.
5. Whisk egg and yolk together in medium bowl until well-combined and light-colored, about 20 seconds. Add sugar, molasses, and vanilla; whisk until mixture is thick, about 30 seconds. Add melted butter and whisk to combine; add yogurt and whisk to combine. Stir in processed cereal and unprocessed cereal; let mixture sit until cereal is evenly moistened (there will still be some small lumps), about 5 minutes.
6. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and gently mix with rubber spatula until batter is combined and evenly moistened. Do not overmix.
7. Gently fold raisins into batter.
8. Using 1/3-cup measure or ice cream scoop, divide batter evenly among muffin cups, dropping batter to form mounds. Do not level or flatten surfaces of mounds.
9. Bake until muffins are dark golden and toothpick inserted into center of muffin comes out with a few crumbs attached, 16 to 20 minutes, rotating pan halfway through baking. Cool muffins in pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire rack and cool for 10 minutes before serving.

If anyone has a really great recipe for zucchini/carrot muffins – nice, dark, rich ones, please send it to me!!!

I often receive requests on moist muffin recipes, and the one thing that I need to re iterate here is that DON’T be afraid to experiment with flavours!

There is nothing better than citrus bran muffins or cranberry and nut or anything really that you can find lying around in your pantry

So the base recipe I use is as follows:

Ingredients
2 eggs
150 g soft brown sugar
60 ml canola oil
250 ml oat bran
375 ml cake flour, sifted
500 ml bran
2 ml salt
15 ml bicarbonate of soda
5 ml cinnamon
1 large apple, grated
250 g sultanas
500 ml low-fat milk
5 ml vanilla essence

Method:
Preheat the oven to 180 °C.
Beat the eggs, sugar and oil together.
Add all the dry ingredients, the grated apple and the sultanas and mix well.
Add the milk and vanilla nad mix thoroughly but guard against overmixing.
Leave in the fridge overnight.
Stir before baking, place in a a muffin pan and bake for 15 minutes

NOTE:  here I used apples, saltana’s and cinnamon, but go wild, play see what you come up with…be BRAVE!

The FDA is pretty darn good at sounding the alarm over foods that one shouldn’t eat, or maybe not in excess. They’re just as good at recanting that advice after a year or so, more research and maybe some hand deep in their back pocket, but do they ever go the opposite direction? Can a food item be so stuffed with good ingredients, a high health quotient and incredible good taste that it’s possibly too good for you? Would the mighty FDA ever come at us like a pack of angry Chihuahuas for bypassing the french fry in favor of whole grains and fruit?

Eh, I think not. But this muffin might come a wee bit close to inducing a good health coma, if that is indeed possible.

Muffins are one of my favorite snack items to make. There is so much that can be done to your basic muffin that I could spend from now until next November making a different variety each week and likely never run out of options. They tend to have a split personality though; as much as everyone wants to believe that eating a muffin is healthier, most of them sold in stores or coffee shops aren’t any better for you than eating a cookie or a croissant. And they’re HUGE, usually. Much too huge, and come on….who eats only half of those monsters? Uh, huh. That’s what I thought.

These basic whole grain muffins are one of my favorite recipes to play with, and they’re loaded with healthy ingredients. With their good hearty texture, they’re wonderful for any eating need from morning coffee to a late night indulgence and they adapt to any kind of extra I can dream up to mix into the batter. I’ve made them with zucchini, chopped pears and pecans, banana, blueberries and here in this version with apples. They freeze beautifully too, as any good muffin should.

Whole Grain Muffins
by Kate

1 ½ c. buttermilk
2 large eggs
2 T. butter, melted
¼ c. oil
¼ c. real maple syrup
1-1/2 c. All-Bran cereal
½ c. packaged 7-Grain cereal (like Bob’s Red Mill; 5-Grain or 10-Grain is fine too)
3 T. whole rolled oats
1-1/2 c. AP flour (can sub Whole wheat flour for half, if desired)
2 T. ground flaxseed
¼ c. brown sugar
1 t. EACH baking powder and baking soda
¼ t. salt.

Heat oven to 375°. Line muffin tins with paper liners, or spray with cooking spray.

In a medium bowl, whisk together buttermilk, eggs, butter, oil and maple syrup. Stir in All Bran cereal, oats and the 7-Grain cereal. Let stand for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

In another bowl, whisk together the flour, brown sugar, flaxseed, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Blend in the wet ingredients and fold together until just combined. Scoop into muffins tins to 2/3 full and bake for 18-20 minutes, or until tops spring back when touched. Cool on wire rack for about 10-15 minutes, then remove muffins from pan to cool completely.

Added ingredients- 1 c. blueberries, frozen (do not thaw) or fresh; 1 c. chopped pear like a D’Anjou or Bosc; 1-2 mashed ripe bananas, 1/2 c. of any nut you prefer; 1 c. shredded zucchini; 1 medium apple, cored and chopped or shredded (or about a half cup of chunky applesauce), 1/2 c. coconut (delicious with banana and pecans)  The possibilities are endless for what you put in these!!

And yes! Pumpkin, sweet potato or even squash is an option too, but check out this recipe for a delicious muffin idea with those ingredients.

This is another one with actual measurements, but there’s still room to play around with the recipe. You’ll have enough batter for about a dozen pancakes – maybe fifteen if you like them little.

Start with either 1 or 1.5 cups flour – the former if you’re planning to add an extra dry ingredient or two, the latter if you’re going for straight-up plain pancakes.

Add 3.5 teaspoons baking powder, a scant half teaspoon salt, and a quarter cup sugar.

In this batch, I added both bran and quick oats – half a cup of each. Other additions I’ve tried successfully include almond flour and cornmeal.

Now add an egg, three tablespoons of canola oil or melted butter, and one and a quarter cups milk.

Mix it all up!

Now melt a generous pat of butter in a frying pan over medium-high heat:

And dollop out some pancakes – I just use a serving spoon, but about a quarter cup per pancake is about right if you care to be more precise. I can fit three in my large frying pan.

While they’re frying on that side, add whatever you’d like: slices of apples or bananas or strawberries or peaches, blueberries (frozen are fine!), or what I’ve used – chocolate chips.

Nudge the edges of the pancakes as they cook with a spatula. When they seem to be holding together pretty well, flip them over – starting with the one you dollopped on first.

You can always flip them back over again later if the first side isn’t as done as you’d like. Determine whether they’re cooked through by pressing down on the top of a pancake with your spatula – they’ll smoosh and let a little uncooked batter out through small holes in the cake if they have more cooking to do. When they’re done on each side and in the middle, scoop them up and serve them with syrup, compote, or extra butter!

I think I figured out what happened to the Cranberry Harvest Muffins that made them so crumbly – I overfilled the muffin tins.  The muffin tins used for the Barefoot Cotnessa cookbooks may be slightly larger than mine, which I assumed were standard.  So, when I made these Chunky Banana Bran Muffins (Barefoot Contessa at Home, pp. 216-217), I made 30 muffins, even though the recipe says it yields 20 to 24.  They’re healthier than your average Ina Garten recipe, with raisins, bananas, and a lot of wheat bran, but they were tasty enough to meet the picky toddler seal of approval.

My mom used to make “quick chicken parmaesan”–it was chicken breast topped with some mozzarella cheese and tomato sauce served with angel hair pasta.   I was thinking about this the other day…there was no parmaesan.  Usually the parm is in the breading of the chicken, but since this didn’t have a breading: no parm.  Here’s a version I made, much more Americanized than an Italian version.

• Chicken Breast
• Bran (for the breading)
• Parmaesan cheese (powdered- right out of the green Kraft container!)
• Garlic, onion, and ranch seasoning… haha I guess that would be “reasoning”

Bread the chicken and add seasonings.  Then top with a tablespoon or so of the parmeasan cheese.  Bake for 20-25 minutes at 375 degrees.  Here was the result

Finally I served them with a side on home-made baked fries.  Just slice a potato, season however you want (I used some ranch, garlic, onion, and chili powder) and give it a light spray of and olive oil non-stick cooking spray.  Bake for 10 minutes, flip them and then bake for another 10 minutes.  Don’t under-do these, but definitely don’t over-bake them either!

A tip for the chicken:

           Baking the cheese on the chicken was good but made the cheese very dry.  I haven’t tried this yet, but it might be better to add on immediately when it comes out the oven and then microwave for a minute or two so that the cheese heats using moisture and melts.  If you try this, let me know!

This pictures was taken in the same place as the previous one. I think this was an outside shop for selling pots of flowers and gardening materials.