Healthy Low-Calorie Fruit Explosion Muffins

I have had berries in my fridge for quite some time and I've been worried that they wouldn't get eaten by me in the near future, so I tried to make blueberry muffins with a recipe I found online. Unfortunately I had added all the liquids together in this recipe before I realized that I put all the quantities in wrong and forgot to add the oils required. What the hell, I know. Anyway after that I figured F*** IT LETS DO IT LIVE so I just improved the rest of the ingredients and recipe.
I figured that the muffins would be a total bust, but when I tried one I discovered that they were probably the best thing I've ever invented!!!!

Having recently moved, I don't have much of anything in the way of baking supplies. For that reason, these muffins aren't keto friendly, and they aren't high in fibre... but they are high in awesome taste and low in calories...that counts for something, right?

Scroll onward for the recipe! :) :) :)

Ingredients (Makes 12 muffins - 125 calories per muffin)
1/2 cup Splenda Brown Sugar Blend
1 Large egg
1 1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup Wheat Germ (raw)
1/2 cup nonfat plain greek yogurt (I used 0% fat Oikos because, really is there any other kind of plain greek yogurt?)
1/4-1/2 cup water
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp Vanilla extract
1/4 cup milk creamer(?) + 1/4 cup water
3/4 cup blueberries (fresh)
1/4 cup strawberries (3 small strawberries cut up into little chunks)
1/2 tsp jam for each muffin (total ~ 2 tbsp) - I used double the fruit strawberry with no added sugar



Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 F degrees. Fill 12 muffin tins +/- paper muffin things. Spray/grease them well!
- In a large bowl, mix milk/creamer + 1/4 cup water, sugar, yogurt, and vanilla until there are no clumps
- Add flour, wheat germ, and salt to mixture. Add water (1/4 - 1/2 cup) until mixture is smooth, creamy but easy to stir. Do not add berries!
- Add baking powder.
- Using a tablespoon, fill each muffin tin just enough to cover the base of the tin (about 1 large tbsp) with batter (does not contain berries)
- Put in oven for 3-5 minutes just until the dough looks as though its starting to bake enough to handle jam on it without collapsing
- With remaining batter, add berries and mix just enough to have things stirred evenly. Don't overmix!
- Take muffin tin out of oven. Add ~1/2 tsp of jam to each muffin tin.
- Evenly distribute the rest of the muffin batter (now containing berries) in the 12 muffin tins.
- Decrease heat to 375 degrees then put muffins back in oven.
- Cook for 20-30 minutes depending on your oven. There is a lot of moisture going on inside the muffins so they will take extra time BUT you want to ensure the bottoms are not burning.
- Take out. Leave for a couple of minutes to cool then enjoy!!! SO GOOD WARM

Gluten Free Garbanzo Brownies Recipe

As most of you know, I recently moved from my home province to a new province for residency. Luckily, I came here a couple of weeks prior to my start date because there is apparently a lot to be done when it comes to moving! With the help of my family, my new house is now a home and I'm sure I will post something about it soon enough. BUT NOT TODAY BECAUSE TODAY THERE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO DISCUSS!

I've been living in this province for almost two weeks, and I more or less don't know anyone other than my sister and her significant other in the entire city. That was great while my parents were here, since it meant lots of family time. It was good when my parents left and my sister was still on her days off of work because we could hang out all the time. But now that she's back to work and it's still a few days until I start, it's been the dogs and I 24/7 all day every day.

So today, there was an excessive amount of productivity that ended in a poignant finale with me making (wait for it)... CHICKPEA BROWNIES! (Chickpea = Garbanzo)

And they're not garbage! Honest to God (I would tell you)! They're actually really super awesome!
Gluten free too! And no weird new-agey ingredients that you need to go to Whole Foods for (with their weird hard looks... yeah thats right, I went there and I got weird looks wannafightaboutit)!

WHEEEE!!!

Make sure you own a blender though. I only have a magic bullet and buddy let me tell you de-beaning the garbanzos took an eternity without an actual blender.

Gluten Free Garbanzo Brownies

Ingredients

• 3/4-1 cup milk chocolate chips (or however much you have in your cupboard, whatever)
• 2 heaping tbsp unsweetened cocoa
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon 
• 2 large eggs
• 1-2 tbsp melted butter (or coconut oil)
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 can rinsed garbanzo beans/chickpeas (I used the 540ml can... I'm pretty sure chickpeas only come in that one big ole jesus can)
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar (I used the splenda brown sugar for the increased sweetness and less calories because, you know, I'm unhealthy like that)
• (optional) 1/4 cup raisins

Instructions
1. Blend the crap out of the chickpeas. This is going to take a while and will likely require you to add in the eggs, melted butter and vanilla extract. Make sure there is no lumps! Mixture should be creamy.
2. In a medium to large bowl, mix cocoa, salt, cinnamon, and brown sugar
3. Add the chickpea/liquid mixture to your dry ingredients. Mix well!
4. Melt your chocolate chips (i used the microwave for 25 seconds, stirred then microwaved again for another 10 seconds)
5. Add chocolate chips to bowl of things. Mix well.
6. Add your baking powder. Mix (but don't overmix!)
7. Line a brownie pan (I have a 9x9 inch pan) with parchment paper. You don't need to grease it this way! :)
8. Add brownie mixture.
9. (optional) add 1/4 cup of raisins to top of brownies and cover the raisins just slightly with the brownie mixture. I did this so that they would not sink to the bottom of the pan and burn.
10. Cook in a preheated 325 F degree oven for 26-32 minutes (check them at 26 minutes. At that point I increased the temp to 375 for the last 4 minutes in order to brown the edges).
11. Take out of oven and let cook for 5-10 minutes. Then remove the parchment paper containing your brownie block from the pan and cut with a sharp knife.
12. Inhale
13. Write me about how surprisingly amazing the brownies are

WOOOO SO GOOD OMFG Seriously give it a try and let me know what you think!

Keto-Friendly Brownies

My national board exam is in 8 days.
I have been studying between 4-10 hours a day every day for weeks, with the only breaks being to go to physiotherapy/personal training, yoga, or potentially a tutorial/nature hike with the dogs.

I'm starting to go crazy.

I had three options this evening: go to yin yoga (which I 100% would have done if it wasnt in the middle of the night - aka 830pm), study for LMCCs, or bake keto-brownies.

As I'm scheduling a couple of days of fat-fasting and keto-brownies are the best invention since avocado, I opted to take a break from my normal schedule and experiment.

I've made keto-brownies only once before and burned them, but they were still awesome. I thought this time I would tinker with the recipe a little to reduce likelihood of scorching them into little fatty bricks, and this time they turned out at least 3x better!

This recipe is based almost entirely off of the AMAZING recipe from: 

http://www.tasteaholics.com/recipes/keto-skillet-brownies/ 

.... so that person gets all the credit 100%. 

I just did a few tweaks to convert the brownie from skillet to bread-pan... primarily because I don't own a skillet and I like to cut rectangles.

Warning: I am not a cook/chef. I barely know how to make kraft dinner (back when I ate carbs). But anyway, here we go.

(Adjusted) Recipe for Keto-Friendly Brownies!

Servings: 6

Calories per serving: 155

Carbs: 4g (2g fiber = net carbs 2g per brownie)

Fat: 16g

Protein: 2g

Ingredients:
6 tbsp butter (I use salted because I have a real problem with salt deficiency given the vegetarian diet)
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa
1/3 cup almond meal/flour
1/3 cup erythritol
1 egg
1 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
+/- 1 tsp vanilla extract (if you're cheap like me, use artificial vanilla extract)
+/- nut butter on top as icing if you have an addition to nut butters like I do (I like sunflower nut butter omfg I can't even)

Plan:

Melt butter and erythritol in a pan over low heat.
While that's happening, beat egg (giggity).
Add all other ingredients to egg EXCEPT baking powder.

Add in melted butter/erythritol and mix together until all lumps n bumps are gone.
Fold in baking powder last. Don't over mix! There's some kind of magic in baking powder and if you're aggresssive with it you'll scare it away.

Bake in a buttered bread pan at 300-325 degrees Farenheit for 35 minutes.
Take out of oven and leave it be until it cools!

Once they're cool-ish enough to cut, cut them into 6 pieces (or less ... or just get a huge spoon and eat it directly out of the dish - screw it there's no judging here) and if you want, add that nut butter on top. I suggest sunflower seed butter because I have an addiction to it.

Inhale.