snack

Bea’s Bran Muffins

Bran muffins can be tricky.  Well, muffins in general can be tricky. You never know if you’re biting into a healthy, wholesome snack or a oversized sugar bomb. Sadly, bran muffins are often the worst offenders.  Most recipes contain healthy ingredients like wheat bran, walnuts, and raisins, but often in way too big of portions.

Luckily, my family still has a recipe from way back in the day when my grandma used to make bran muffins.  Original recipecard and all:

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How cool is that?!

Besides being incredibly healthy, these muffins are delicious. Topped with a little honey, they’re just the right amount of sweet and filling.

I love that I can continue to show my late grandma love by baking these muffins. They’re perfect for a light breakfast (if you add some protein and fruit on the side) or a quick snack.

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Bea’s Bran Muffins

Ingredients

  • 3 cups All-Bran (cereal)
  • 1/2 cup vegetable oil
  • 1 cup raisins
  • 2 cups walnuts
  • 1 cup boiling water
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 cups buttermilk
  • 1/4 cup molasses
  • 2 1/4 cup while wheat flour
  • 4 teaspoons sugar
  • 2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt (optional)

Combine cereal, oil, and raisins and pour boiling water over them (mixture 1).  Set aside to cool.

In a small bowl, combine eggs, buttermilk, molasses.  Add that to cooled mixture 1.

Combine flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt: add flour mixture to cereal mixture 1, stirring just enough to moisten dry ingredients.  Cover batter with plastic wrap and let stand 15 minutes, preferably an hour.

Preheat oven to 400. Bake in greased muffin tins for 20 minutes, or when a toothpick comes out with just a few crumbs.

Enjoy!

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Questions:

  • What’s your favorite type of muffin?  I love lemon poppyseed or fresh blueberry ones!
  • Any big plans this weekend? 

on the go: adventures of the 13 hour work day

Luckily today went a lot more smoothly than yesterday.  I’ll just attribute it to first-day jitters 😉

I stayed in the city last night to avoid another hefty train ticket (I’ll be buying a monthly pass on Sept. 1 to save some money).  Last night I was ecstatic about not having to make the commute, but this morning I realized it left me feeling like a chicken with its head cut off.  I forgot to pack any food for the day, left my mascara at home, and only brought my work shoes (and while they’re cute, they certainly aren’t made for the 50 minute walk that I had to take to get to the office this morning).  Because of the whole situation I was left to buy all my meals today; so much for saving $$, right? I really have to get it together if I’m going to make this whole living-in-two-places, working-two-jobs, and posting-on-a-daily-blog thing work.

Breakfast ended up being a surprisingly healthy instant oatmeal package at my desk.

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Look at the ingredients! (Sorry for the blurriness…I still feel awkward taking pictures at work so I take them as fast as possible haha). Usually when I have to buy a prepackaged breakfast I’m horrified by what I read, but it seems like Quaker has their act together. Paired with coffee and a banana an hour later, it was a decent breakfast. I mean it was no homemade egg sandwich but it got the job done.

Work was a little slower today so I really felt like I had time to get myself together. Staying organized throughout all this has been a challenge.  I’ve been relying on my Mary Poppins purse to carry my entire life, and between my snacks, makeup, extra shirts in case I stay the night, wallet, laptop and chargers, it’s a miracle the thing hasn’t snapped yet. I’ve been psyching myself out by convincing my brain it’s just an extra workout 😉

I left the office for lunch today and dined outside at the ever-fancy Potbelly.

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Turkey on wheat with mustard, lettuce, tomato, onion, and pickle.

It felt so so nice to sit outside, enjoying the sun and solitude.

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I have to work at the restaurant tonight so I’m currently blogging from the train on my way home. I was hungry again so I picked up a Jamba Juice smoothie at the station.  As I do so many times, I made the mistake of thinking with my eyes and not my stomach.

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 Blogging on the train 🙂Image

Original Mango-a-go-go + soy protein powder. Too big for the “snack” it was supposed to be! See, this is why I need to get back to my kitchen at home and pack my meals/snacks. I need to start saving money, plus I enjoy that kind of food so much more.

Sadly a workout probably isn’t going to happen today, but I’m in the process of organizing my life so that I’ll stay in the city every Wednesday night so I can enjoy “Yoga in the Park” with Megan a la Lululemon. Don’t you just love how they offer free classes like that?

The amount that my life is changing at the moment is insane—and I know it would be so easy to let my health and fitness fall to the wayside. That’s why it takes serious dedication and effort to schedule workouts just like any other commitment.  I still want to workout 5-6 days a week, no exceptions.  Like I’ve said before, I’m a better person when I take care of myself, and fitness is a huge part of this.  Getting that daily sweat in is so important!

I’ll be back tonight with a restaurant review! It’s a good one and if you’re headed to Chicago soon you’ll definitely want to check it out.

I hope you’re enjoying your humpday! If not, go outside and soak up some sun! That never fails to brighten up my day.