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banana oat bran muffins

2009-09-24T15:50:07Z

Well, since lovebirdskitchen.com is down for the time being, I thought I'd go back to posting recipes here for a bit. No pictures of these, but it's a totally awesome and flexible recipe that we use a lot (more than we should) lately. I got the original idea from Mary McDougall here: http://www.drmcdougall.com/free_5f.html

We've made lots of variations on her simple, nutritious muffin recipes (sometimes with additions that make them a bit less healthy, but still vegan and without added fat). Last night I wanted to make some bars to travel with my partner on the road trip she's going on today. So I just poured the batter into a square baking pan and they came out great! They're like muffin bars - but they'll travel a bit easier than muffins, thanks to their shape. These aren't super banana-y, but they have a wonderful flavor.

2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups bran cereal (measure before blending, then crush in blender)
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/2 banana chopped into little chunks
1/2 cup raisins (optional)

In a blender, put 1/2 of banana (or more if you're going for more banana taste)
about 1 c orange juice
about 3/4 c nonfat soymilk
1/8 tsp coconut extract
1/8 tsp almond extract
(if you don't have extracts, they can be omitted, but they do give it a nice flavor)
*you need 2 cups of liquid total, so adjust amounts as needed if you add more banana
Blend till liquified and pour over dry ingredients. Mix till combined , but don't overdo it.
Add water as you're mixing, if needed. Batter should be thick but somewhat pourable.

Fill muffin tins or square baking dish evenly and sprinkle the top with whole oats.
Bake in preheated oven at 350 for about 30 minutes.

Enjoy!
and.... Go forth and be creative! 2 cups flour (ww or oat), 2 cups bran (or other cereal), 4 tsp baking powder and 2 cups liquid are the only requirements!

NOLA SNOW!!!

2008-12-11T21:31:16Z

So gorgeous! My love woke me up this morning to tell me it was snowing! I couldn't believe it. I headed outside and have been wondering at it all day! I went out this morning and took some pics - some of which turned out pretty well. It was bitter cold there for a while though and I have to say, I am super grateful for our warm house. Here are some of the pics of this rare and wonderful NOLA occurrence! (You can see them all on my flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/midcitygirl/sets/72157611043366811/)

A New President - A New Blog

2008-11-12T06:25:29Z

I haven't really been able to put my thoughts and feelings about Obama's election into words yet. Suffice it to say for now that I am overwhelmingly relieved and deeply inspired. My faith in the people around me has been shored up, fo sho. I look forward to the coming years and to being an American in a country that elected this totally awesome man.

My girl and I have started a blog devoted entirely to eating McDougally so I won't be
posting that kind of stuff here anymore. Please visit us at: www.lovebirdskitchen.com.
We'd love to get comments or emails from you with any feedback or ideas - or with
your own experience with the McDougall program. We've got some great, easy recipes
there too so come check us out!

Wow.

2008-11-05T17:29:42Z

Political Pumpkin Fiasco

2008-10-28T19:12:25Z

Ok, so I was completely excited to find the www.yeswecarve.com website - which had stencils for carving Obama logos into halloween jack o' lanterns. I looked forward to it for a week - I even changed my twitter avatar to the 'yes we carve' obama pumpkin symbol. So the time came - sunday night... chores and studying finished, it was time to dive into our 'yes we carve' festivities. I thought I might try a stencil of Barack's face - perhaps the iconic Shepard Fairey "HOPE" piece... but decided with only one pumpkin that I should err on the side of caution. So I picked simply, VOTE with the O as Obama's campaign logo. I thought it would be cute to carve an evil pointy-toothed smile under it, just to give it a bit of halloween spooky flavor. So I did. And I was all proud of it when I finished - ready to send off my picture to the 'yes we carve' website. Then we took our pumpkins out to the night porch and lit them. I looked down and suddenly realized I had inadvertantly (but unmistakably) created a pro-GOP pumpkin!!! (although the O logo created a bit of a mixed signal). To my true horror (happy halloween), I looked down and saw "VOTE W". Holy SHIT! I gave a terrified scream that echoed through the peaceful stillness of my neighborhood at midnight. I then proceeded to scoop my pumpkin up and dash inside to try to turn my pumpkin blue. Toothless... but blue. Phew. A true fright.

W:

Toothless Blue Grin:

GEAUXBAMA!!!

A picture is worth a thousand words (or in this case, about 120 million VOTES)

2008-10-17T02:51:54Z

Oh and by the way, it's not photo-shopped. Here's the original.

Obama: Our Next American President

2008-10-16T04:06:41Z

NPR did a poll on Twitter during the debate tonight in which they asked tweeters to rate Obama's and McCain's answers as the debate took place by tweeting their ratings, 0-10. Then they did a plot of the responses. Below is a screen shot of the results. 0 is at the bottom of the screen and 10 at the top. Orange dots are Obama and blue dots are McCain. 7.872 was Obama's average. 2.325 was McCain's. Geauxbama!

the love of my life in her sexy blue glasses

2008-10-14T16:48:06Z

Recent McDougall Successes

2008-10-14T05:56:24Z

Well... we're sticking with McDougall and still discovering ideas to make it enjoyable. I've lost 10 lbs so far and my girl has lost 13. I've had a few tough moments... such as my persistent craving for chocolate cake over the last 3 days. But I've gotten through it with my loving partner's support (and the absolutely delicious pumpkin cookies she baked to soothe our sweet teeth). You can find the recipe for those amazing goodies here. She followed this recipe except that she omitted the 3 cups of oatmeal and we were very pleased with the result. Unlike the fat free oatmeal cookies we made last week, these were soft and moist and not so dense that they felt like health bars. When freshly baked, the outside was a little crisp while the inside was soft and moist. When we put leftovers in a tupperware, all the cookies turned soft. They were still scrumptious but I recommend serving/eating them freshly baked for optimum yumminess.

Tonight, we did a crawfishless crawfish boil. We put some Zatarain's crab boil seasoning in a big pot of boiling water and loaded it with small red potatoes, whole artichokes, whole garlic fists, 4 ears of corn and a bunch of whole musrooms. It was like all the great "side items" that get boiled with the crawfish or crabs - minus the crustaceans themselves (hence it was both vegan and McDougally). It turned out GREAT. And it was so much fun!

A few days ago, I sliced up some sweet potatoes and layered them in a baking dish with Bulls Eye Original BBQ sauce. I didn't cook them long enough and I used too much BBQ sauce - I should have diluted it by mixing it with some veggie stock or something. But it was good - and with the missteps fixed, would be fabulous. Dr. McDougall suggests bottled products in his books, that have no oil and can be used (sparingly, he suggests) on his eating program. Bulls Eye Original is one of those. It's oil free - though I'm pretty sure it does have sugar in it. Anyway, BBQ sweet potatoes are pretty damn yummy.

So we're sticking with it. 10 pounds in 16 days feels pretty great to me. And I have to say that now I really am starting to feel better too - which is what it's all about. Oh! and we found a nonfat soy milk - which is totally great. Westsoy now has a nonfat soy - though not unsweetened - the total calories per serving (70) are the lowest we've seen and best of all of course, 0 of those come from fat.

Off to bed.
Bon appetit!

Another winning McDougall meal

2008-10-05T06:00:52Z

McDougall is still going well. We've definitely had some bombs - learned we don't care much for at least 2 winter squashes - and that we don't like amaranth - an ancient grain that really should be extinct because it's like eating sand - teeny weeny little grains of sand that roll in your mouth like... well - I'll stop. All I can say is ick. But tonight's dinner was definitely super yummy. I think it's ranking number 2 on my list of top meals so far. Till now, we haven't really made anything with potatoes (a staple starch on the program). We've been discovering new things (some we love like quinoa and others we don't - see above) - and we've been eating lots of brown rice and enjoying it. So tonight we finally pulled out the potatoes and did a totally basic stir fry kind of thing - that was nothing short of mouthwatering. My love got us this beautiful new bamboo cutting board for a bargain today at TJMaxx cuz all we had was a tiny plastic one and we're doing far too much cooking now for that to suffice. We also bought an awesome new non-stick deep skillet. We needed a high quality no-stick pan since we can't use oil to cook. And we wanted to be able to brown hashbrowns and stuff. This one worked perfectly tonight.

prep:

season:

cook!

Here's our scrumptious McDougall Potatoes recipe:
Pour some vegetable broth and some water into non-stick skillet
Add chopped onions and green peppers, garlic powder, a few splashes of redwine vinegar, basil, salt and black pepper
Slice red potatoes thinly, cut yellow squash and red bell peppers into strips and slice white mushrooms
Add potatoes to pan and cook for a few minutes, stirring often
Add the rest of the vegetables, adjust seasoning and let cook for about 20 minutes, stirring often
That's it! It's totally basic, but just completely tasty.
Oh yeah and when it was done, I wilted some spinach leaves on top which just added a lovely splash of bright green color to the dish.

bonsoir!

More McDougalling

2008-10-01T19:37:40Z

Well, this is day 6 of our McDougall experiment. We got some books from our friends which are opening up new worlds of possibility. We erred on the side of caution, not having all the info - but have discovered there are quite a few things allowed on the program - even the maximum weight loss program - that will make our lives easier. (like honey and soy sauce, sparingly) We decided we really want to keep track of the recipes we create that we enjoy. So I figure this is as good a place as any - plus I'm enjoying snapping off pics of the things that turn out pretty. Last night I made my favorite McDougall meal so far....

Tomato Curry Stew
Pour vegetable broth into a deep skillet
Add chopped onions, green and red pepper and chopped garlic and cook
Cut yellow squash into thick chunks and put into center of pan to cook
Add curry powder (lots), red wine vinegar, hot sauce, garlic powder, parsley and salt
When squash begins to get tender, add a large can of tomato sauce
Add more seasoning as necessary and cook on low heat
Strain and rinse 1 can black beans and 1 can garbanzo beans and add to stew
When beans and squash are tender, add thawed green peas

Voila!

It's yummy by itself in a bowl - but we served it over brown rice (cooked in this awesome new rice cooker):

Today for lunch I put water and quinoa in a pan and as it was cooking, added chopped red peppers, and sliced mushrooms, chopped cilantro, lime juice, garlic powder, some tony chachere's and a bit of tumeric. I cooked it till it was tender, then added thawed green peas and stirred in a bit of soy sauce. I blanched some fresh broccoli and served it w/chopped cilantro on top. It was tasty. Here it is:

brought to you by dr. mcdougall (and me)

2008-09-28T20:28:16Z

Today's McDougally lunch was homemade (oil-less) hummus - which I made by blending up a can of garbanzo beans and adding lemon juice, garlic powder, paprika and a bit of salt. Also, I made a cold salad with peas, corn, carrots, cilantro and balsamic vinegar (mixed w/some red wine vinegar). It all turned out really good - and again, was surprisingly filling. Oh yeah, we each had a 1/2 pear sliced up as well and brown rice cakes to spread the hummus on.

Here are pics:

my gorgeous girl enjoying lunch:

McDougall - givin it a try

2008-09-27T04:57:38Z

My girl and I have decided to give the McDougall weight loss program a try (a shift to a healthier lifestyle, really - but primarily now to lose weight). It's pretty fun, coming up with ways to cook without any oil or refined flours. But I think the fact that the plan is centered around starches makes it really doable. Starches are satisfying and I crave them naturally (Dr. McDougall makes the point that we all do) so centering my meals around them seems like a good thing, in terms of feeling satisfied by what I'm eating even though my choices are limited, overall.

Last night, my girl made our first McDougally meal. She made quinoa (a mild tasting, yummy whole grain that can sub for rice), mixed in corn and fresh cilantro (w/garlic powder and salt) and topped it with black beans. We put salsa on top and lemme tell ya - it's was really yummy.

This morning we had oatmeal with applesauce and cinnamon. It was okay. I'm gonna experiment with other fruits - I sliced some banana in it and that improved it tremendously b/c it was more the right kind of sweetness than the applesauce was.

Tonight, I made dinner. I sliced and boiled some sweet potatoes (or yams, I forget which is which) and mashed them up. And I blanched some fresh broccoli and just put a little salt and pepper on it. To go on top of the potatoes (and broccoli if we wanted), I made a roasted red pepper sauce. After roasting the red pepper on the open flame of our gas stove (trick learned from my girl), I put it in the blender with some chopped onions, fresh cilantro, balsamic vinegar, a little curry powder, cumin, basil, salt and garlic powder and blended it. Then I heated it in a pan and ladled it over the potatoes. It turned out super good. And I thought I'd missed the boat on giving us enough food to be full, but by the time we finished our potatoes, we were stuffed.

I'm still a little confused about some things though. Have more reading to do on it. But I'm looking forward to being creative and to hopefully taking off weight!!!

more all about O

2008-09-15T20:47:15Z

Here are my newest all about O pics:

This first one is a picture I took (action figure courtesy of my girl for my birthday :)

I absolutely love this next one. It's done by artist, David Choe.
Check out The Obama Art Report for more O art.

Like others, I am glad to see O a bit more on the offensive lately with McPalin. But I really see the repugs sinking their
own ship and I feel confident that O/B will come out ahead as long as they continue to conduct themselves
and their campaign with the integrity so sorely lacking from McPalin.

Geauxbamabiden!

Gustav

2008-09-01T23:51:58Z

so gustav may be on the way. I've been tearing up all day. not exactly sure why - but the memories of 2005 are just so intense - especially b/c today is the 3rd anniversary of the big K - 8/29/08.

Well... obviously I never finished the post I started with the 2 sentences above. It's now Monday, 9/1/08 and I am sitting at the Motel 6 in Memphis, TN with my girl and our pup. We evacuated here yesterday. From our house to room-check-in was 14 hrs. Now it looks (looks) like NOLA is pretty much in the clear. No severe flooding reported - no levee breaches at this point - and I've even gotten reports from tweeple that some power has been restored (already!). So I'm feeling pretty calm and hopeful that we'll be able to return home soon and that we'll find our city and our home in decent shape, considering. I've definitely experienced a wide range of emotions over the last few days - but I suppose that's to be expected after what we all experienced in 2005. Though part of me really wishes we hadn't evacuated at all this time, I know it was the right thing to do. "Better safe than sorry" is an understatement when 'sorry' could mean losing your own life or losing someone you love. I'm grateful my family and I were out of harm's way and I'm looking anxiously forward to returning home.

Under the circumstances, my love and I (and our cute dog) did pretty well yesterday during the evacuation. We were stressed out, but we managed to keep things in perspective and even laugh a lot of the day (I have the best partner in the world). Here are some pics of our trip: (More can be found on my flickr page at: www.flickr.com/photos/midcitygirl.)

When we first headed out of town, the highways in New Orleans were completely deserted. It was eerie - especially because the emptiness reminded me so much of the days after Hurricane Katrina.

At first, we were extremely encouraged by the pace at which traffic was flowing. But at some point (a friend said for him it was at the MS state line), the traffic slowed to stop and go and it felt a lot like previous evacuations (Ivan and Katrina), The contraflow is always interesting - especially when you're on the wrong side of the highway like we were. On our route (I-55N) I thought it worked better than previous years. But those traveling on I-59N would strongly disagree with me, as they were in a big parking lot for hours upon hours.

Trixie did okay on the trip. She gets kinda stressed out and she didn't look like she felt too well - but her rebel streak was in full force every time we pulled over to walk her around. So I was pleased that she was curious and lively when given the opportunity to explore. She spent most of the car trip sacked out - but ocassionally popped up and pressed her nose against the window waiting for us to roll it down so she could stick her head out and sniff the 60mph wind hitting her snout. So cute.

My girl was in good spirits and made me laugh throughout the long journey. Her smile could light up a city! No, a continent! What am I saying? Her smile lights up the universe! (...what's bigger than the universe?)

One of my very sweet birthday gifts from honeypie was a sony digital camera. So I had fun at sunset, taking picutres of the lovely sky and trees while we cruised along on the highway.

I love the way they turned out - like abstract art.

Sunset silhouette of the most gorgeous, loving woman alive...

Impressionistic Jasperfields.

Today we met friends who also evacuated here to Memphis for a scrumptious lunch at India Palace. It was so great to see them - always is. But today especially nice to connect with people who love New Orleans as much as we do.

Love sees us through.

Birthday Luxury

2008-08-04T04:45:46Z

I am completely overwhelmed by the loving generosity of my partner... For my birthday this year, she checked us into the W hotel here in New Orleans for three nights. I have A L W A Y S wanted to stay here. It is so gorgeous and swanky. I feel so lucky!!! I totally started crying when we were checking in. I just can't believe how absolutely wonderful she is to me. I've been so needing a break from life and we couldn't really afford to leave town, so she's treating me to the most amazing stay-cation ever! And it's wonderful, really - because I seriously need to experience a renewed love for and connection to this incredible city I call home. It can be wearing living here in post-apocalyptic, post-levee failure, post-region-wide trauma, post-life-changing storm New Orleans. Sometimes, ya just gotta get away - and sometimes, ya just gotta look at what you've got with fresh eyes.

Thank you thank you thank you, sweet love, for being the most incredibly loving, thoughtful, kind and giving partner in the world. I'm yours.

Sooo wish I could go to the convention!

2008-08-03T18:05:16Z

Welcome August!
Latest All About O pic...

for my girl...

2008-07-23T19:28:17Z

Livin' like bachelors, me and the dog...

2008-07-03T01:43:01Z

My honey pie has been gone on her (nearly monthly) business trip to Santa Monica, CA this week. She comes home tomorrow (YAY). When she's gone, me and trix are total frat boys. It's ridiculous. we don't pick up after ourselves, we don't clean anything, we don't even straighten our beds before going to sleep at night. And then, the day before our favorite girl comes home (today) we suddenly kick into action and get our acts together again! So far tonight since being home from work I have done dishes (that would be, every single dish we own, practically), taken out all the trash, dustbusted the floors to get up all the trixie hair (she's no help), cleaned the bathroom sink, folded and put away laundry, threw all the old food out of the fridge, cooked myself a proper meal (more about that to come) and ate it! Phew... I'm exhausted. Not really. Which is good because before the night's over I want to finish the dishes (tonight's dinner dishes and some random left-overs), brush the dog, vacuum the carpet to get the rest of the trixie hair up, change the sheets on the bed (that's a must) and clear all my junk off my love's desk where I've been sitting every day since she left b/c I miss her and it feels good to be surrounded by her stuff (I'm a total sap). <shake head> Good lord. Oh yeah! And I gotta call my grandmother. Luckily I have a cute new earbud for my phone so I can talk while I work!

So about my dinner. Don't have a pic b/c I'm not savvy enough to get it off my phone and into the computer. But it was super yummy. I made basmati rice - so easy, in the microwave - just pop it in with the water and a lid and let it do its thing for 20 minutes (thanks Pam) and then
i cooked up some sliced red potatoes and red peppers and put them over the rice and drizzled it all with homemade peanut sauce. The peanut sauce turned out really good which is kind of amazing considering I've never tried it before, didn't have a recipe and was working with the limited ingredients with have in our house (oh yeah - was supposed to go shopping too...). I started with creamy peanut butter and added some of all of the following (little by little, tasting as I went along):
soy sauce
a different soy sauce that tastes different
worstashire sauce (sp?)
bottled nuac cham sauce (vietnamese sweet chile fish sauce)
fresh lime juice
sugar
garlic powder (I think... did I? I must have - I put it in everything)
oh yeah (this is weird) sour cream (just a little!)
oh yeah and apple juice too

Ya know, that's my thing - my food always has at least 100 ingredients because i just keep trying different stuff till I get the taste I want. It's pretty fun to cook like that but when you try to tell people how you made stuff, it gets a little silly. Anyway, the sauce turned out fabuloso. I decided that the potatoes and rice were a little too starchy together (I was thinking it'd be kind of like potato curry over rice but it wasn't saucy enough to taste right. But the red peppers were a perfect match with the peanut sauce. Next time I think I'll do all veggies - peppers, squash, broccoli etc... YUM!

So I better sign off so I can get working! Can't wait to see my beautiful love tomorrow (trix can't wait either).
Ciao!

bonsoir...

2008-06-27T05:55:28Z

je dois etudier francais, mais je ne veux pas etudier maintenant. demain, j'ai un examen de francais. nous etudions passe compose. je dois comprendre etre et avoir. je suis allee a la plage... j'ai etudie ou j'ai pris des photos hier soir. j'aime apprendre francais. c'est bon! ma petite amie et moi pouvons aller a france quand je peux parler bien. je peux bien parler? je suis deja allee au cinema aujourd hui. ma petite amie besoin de dormir. bonsoir...

All about O

2008-06-14T04:23:57Z

I've been looking online for Obama gear and these illustrations are my favorite. The first is sold as a sticker on www.stickerobot.com/obama and is done by an artist named Munk One (aka Jose A Mercado). I think it might be my number one favorite of all the O artwork I've seen so far.

These next two are done by Shepard Fairey. The first one (Change) is sold as a poster at the BarackObama.com store under Artists for Obama. Unfortunately (but not surprisingly) they're all sold out, at least for now. But stickerobot.com/obama has the second one (Hope) and they're selling it as stickers. Personally, I like to get my O support gear from O's website so the money will go to his campaign. But this stuff is too cool to pass up, really. And part of the history of what is happening with Barack is the work of artists like these who have been inspired by him. So even if it doesn't monetarily help his campaign to buy them, it supports those who support him and getting his face and message out there in any way is a good, good thing (as Martha would say).

I've heard people say that they're just not sure he really is different. Well I, for one, am totally convinced. Just the fact that he is willing to speak so passionately about our ability and capacity as a nation and as individuals to be better, do more, come together - feels very different than any politician I've ever heard. I feel certain that he really does believe in the basic goodness of people and in the power of unity... in the premise that we have more that unites us than we have that divides us. And I feel like he is totally genuine when he speaks about our embracing the best parts of ourselves and his belief that when we do, there's nothing out of our reach. It's an honor to live in this time, witnessing the historic and deeply moving words, actions and steadfast hope of Barack Obama. I wish people just wouldn't be so scared... to believe in their own goodness... and to believe in his.

Santa Monica... where my heart is, once a month.

2008-05-30T00:21:32Z

My beautiful girl has to travel to Santa Monica, CA pretty much every month for business. Several months ago, I tagged along and we had an absolutely wonderful time. Here are some of the pics we snapped off. I went to the beach one day and she and I spent lots of time in the city together. It was a great trip.

The love of my life and me on the Santa Monica Pier...

Memorial Day Weekend Festivities

2008-05-28T16:00:24Z

My sweet and I had so much fun over our three day weekend. We went to Bayou Boogaloo, ran right into Super Sunday by surprise and hung out there for a while, did Greek Fest, bought a totally cool blowup pool and played in it all afternoon, had an L Word marathon... loved on each other lots and just generally had an amazing, relaxing, fun and much needed 3 day break together.

Super Sunday Tuba Player!

This guy was so sweet and looked just amazing. He made his outfit as a tribute to his sister who died of breast cancer.

At Bayou Boogaloo we lounged by the lovely bayou (where I took this pic) listening to the music and eating yummy ice cream. We ran into three people I hadn't seen in years. It was great to see them and took me way back in time...

Our awesome new pool! Trix sooo wanted to jump in with us. She's so cute. We gotta get her a little plastic kiddie version so she won't feel left out. The pool is perfect - it's a great depth and could definitely hold 6 people. Gotta have a party!

Geauxbama!

2008-05-27T19:35:24Z

Love love love my new tee shirt from Dirty Coast (http://www.dirtycoast.com/home.php).
Thank you sweetheart!

(pic courtesy of my lover's cool Nokia N800)

Geeking Out

2008-05-24T01:18:49Z

...as my girl would say.
It's fun! I set up a twitter account (see the link on my side bar -->).
I'm looking forward to a 3 day weekend with my partner. There are lots of local festivities going on in NOLA this weekend. The two we're going to try to make are Greek Fest: http://www.greekfestnola.com/ and Bayou Boogaloo: http://thebayouboogaloo.com/ And then we're thinking we might head out of town for a short day trip to St. Francisville or somewhere else that's pretty and not too far away... we need some relaxing time together. On our last trip to St. Francisville we stayed in a plantation (mixed feelings there...) and the best part of the trip was hiking in Clark Creek Natural Area (http://www.hikelouisiana.org/detailsclark.html) which has tons of beautiful waterfalls that you can walk and play in. It's absolutely lovely. Some refer to it as Tunica Falls. It's right outside of St. Francisville, LA in Pond, MS. Stunning, really and so peaceful... Here are a few pics of our trip there...

Off to take a shower and then we're having an L Word marathon! Yummy...
Ciao!