25 July 2007

Volunteering

Today I volunteered for an arts group in Columbus. They do all sorts of really cool activities including drum circles, spoken word poetry, hip hop, break dancing, and MCing. They also have a program at a community center in the inner city to give kids and teens fun art activities to do during the day. I decided to volunteer to help out since I was so impressed with one of their performances I saw recently. I basically just called them up and told them that I liked what they did and wanted to know how I could help.

The director told me to show up at the community center today at noon to assist teens with some art projects. We were doing portraits in different artistic mediums with the idea that we'd make a collage of the different portraits. It ended up not quite working to plan as most kids drew stick figures, but I got to do some fun paintings of random faces.

28 February 2007

Blueberry Muffins

I have discovered the best healthy, low calorie blueberry muffin recipe to fall from heaven. It kind of only works if you're on a low calorie diet, though, because then you're not used to high sugar foods and so you can actually taste the sugar that exists in low-sugar foods. Having said that, if you're concerned about not being able to taste the sweetness of the following recipe, just add more sugar. I recommend about another 1/4 cup. I got the base of this recipe from allrecipes.com, but tweaked it by adding different kinds of bran, altering the sugar content, and going from one whole egg to two egg whites. I suppose that's all I can take credit for :)

Low Calorie Blueberry Flax, Oat, and Wheat Bran Muffins

1/2 cup wheat bran
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup oat bran
1/4 cup flax bran
1 cup milk
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 egg whites
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup blueberries



1. Preheat oven to 375 F and prepare muffin tin with cooking spray or muffin liners.
2. Mix wheat bran, rolled oats, oat bran and flax bran with 1 cup milk and let soak while preparing other ingredients
3. Add baking soda, baking powder, and salt to whole wheat flour and mix well
4. In large bowl mix together egg whites, brown sugar, vanilla extract, and applesauce. Add bran mixture. Sift in flour mixture until just blended. Fold in blueberries.
5. Bake in preheated oven 15 to 20 minutes, or until tops spring back when lightly tapped.

Servings: 12 Muffins

Nutrition Facts:
Total amount per muffin
Calories: 136
Calories From Fat: 15
Total Fat: 2 g
Saturated Fat: 0 g
Cholesterol: 0 mg
Sodium: 167 mg
Total Carbohydrate: 28 g
Dietary Fiber: 5 g
Sugars: 11 g
Protein: 5 g
Vitamin A: 1%
Vitamin C: 11%
Calcium: 7%
Iron: 9%