Power-breakfast muffins

Quick, healthy, and they fill you up. I make a whole batch, freeze them, and then each morning I take out one muffin, heat it up for 40 seconds, and eat it on the run!

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 Cup of wheat flour
• 1/4 cup of milled flax seed (I buy Bob's Red Mill at Whole Foods, then keep it in the fridge)
  
• 1/4 cup of sugar
• 1/4 cup of honey
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup oatmeal
• 3 tbsp oil (olive, canola...whatever youve got)
• 1 cup of milk
  
• handful of smashed chopped walnuts
• handful of craisins
• handful of raisins
  
• handful of whatever youve got on hand...you get the picture

Directions:
Put all of the dry ingredients in the bowl and mix them up, then add the wet ingredients and stir once theyre all in there- stir just until everything is all mixed up so they wont get tough. Add the raisins/craisins/nuts jsut at the end and give it a quick couple of stirs. Grease the bottom of muffin tins with Pam and spoon in some batter. Cook at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes!

Quinoa and Black Beans- what started it all!

I learned about Quinoa at the beginning of last semester from my neighbor, and I'm so grateful for that. It is one of the best graduate student foods as it is relatively cheap, expands like rice (to 4 times its original volume), and is considered a "complete protein." Now what that means is that it contains all of the essential amino acids, which you can rarely get from a grain. I looked in my "Food Lovers Companion" for more information about Quinoa, and learned that it is higher in unsaturated fats (the good fats) and lower in carbohydrates than most grains which may mean that it will fill you up for longer. The only problem is that it's difficult to find, and may not be at your local grocery store. Try a specialty store (Whole Foods, Trader Joe's...). Anyways, when I discovered this "miracle grain" also referred to as the "supergrain of the future," I looked around for recipes and here is my favorite that I have found. I eat it as a meal or take it for lunch at school, but my parents discovered that it tastes really good on tortilla chips so it could be used as a dip. I found the recipe originally on "allrecipes.com" and I hope you enjoy!

INGREDIENTS

• 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
• 3/4 cup uncooked quinoa
• 1 1/2 cups vegetable broth
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 cup frozen corn kernels
• 2 (15 ounce) cans black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

DIRECTIONS:

1. Heat the oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the onion and garlic, and saute until lightly browned.
2. Mix quinoa into the saucepan and cover with vegetable broth. Season with cumin, cayenne pepper, salt, and pepper. Bring the mixture to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 20 minutes,
3. Stir frozen corn into the saucepan, and continue to simmer about 5 minutes until heated through. Mix in the black beans and cilantro.

Introduction

Hello! I'm a first-year graduate student in Nutrition, which poses a number of issues for me. First of all, I've got to live on a graduate student budget (aka negative income). Secondly, since I study Nutrition, I have a little voice in my head that won't let me meet my daily caloric needs with macaroni and cheese, Ramen noodles, candy bars and frozen meals (possibly the typical graduate student cuisine?). Third, everyone in my program LOVES to cook and loves food, and whenever we have a potluck or party, the table is always covered with delicious foods. Fourth, I'm busy and dont have time. And fifth, I'm cooking for just one person. Thus during my first semester in graduate school, I began to attempt learn to cook and experiment cheaply, semi-healthy, tasty, creatively, and quickly and I learned to "meal plan" for just one person. When I brought a dish to my cousins' house over Christmas break, one suggested that I create a blog to share some of my recipes with the many others out there who are struggling with some of the very same issues. So here it is- I hope that you enjoy my recipes, tips, and ideas that I have created and learned from others in my program- and I hope that you post some of your own ways at adapting to your own "graduate student days!"