Hello! You're So Great!

Hey everyone! I hope that all of you had a great week, I sure did. Now we're just winding down for the end of the year here at my house.

Today I decided to do a post that will essentially give you, the reader, a virtual hug. I honestly feel like that there's too much negativity out in the world right now. For example, I went to look at Google News and the first story that came up was about a couple of doctors being charged with fetal homicide. Wow (which is seriously all I can say). Because of this, I feel like writing an encouraging post.

Okay, puppies and kitties are pretty cliched, but I like this picture.

Guess what? No matter what you do, who you are, where you live, how much money you make, or even how you laugh, you are an amazing person. Why? Because you're here. Right now. Alive. And you have the ability to smile. Maybe life totally sucks, or maybe you're not feeling like enjoying yourself for whatever reason. Things can always get better or worse. You decide if you're going to let it be better or worse.

Keeping a positive attitude will help you have a clear mind to solve your problem. And while you're brushing yourself off from that horrible incident, or trying to figure out your life, or trying to find happiness, or just trying to survive, think about this:

• this universe is specifically calibrated so that you can be alive right here, right now
• the stars are always over us, even when we can't see them, so that you can wish on one right now
• you have the ability to change the world right now, even if it's just helping that little old lady across the street
• today is not yesterday, so you can make today as good or bad as you want (I call that ability "power")
• you have a purpose, even if you don't know what it is
• you have the ability to create something beautiful (a joke, a story, a piece of art, food, laughter, smiles, goofy faces...)
• you can feel pain, which is totally important for survival and recognizing nice things when they happen

"Who has never tasted bitter does not know what is sweet." --German proverb

And think about how somewhere in the world right now:

• someone is praying for you
• someone loves you
• nuns and monks are praying and writing mantras to end your suffering and ensure the continuity of your happiness
• there is an inspiring song being made right now that will touch your heart
• there's a person who just wants to sit down and hug you until all the bad goes out of your life
• there are people trying to make sure that you have a safe and clean life
• children still think that the world is a big, wonderful place where anything can happen
• a book is being written that will change the world for the better
• something ridiculously funny is happening that will make you laugh so hard that you pee your pants

Hope you like this, and I hope that it makes you feel happier. Have a great day!

Here's a recipe: 

Yogurt Coffee Cake

From The Rodale Whole Foods Cookbook, page 592

Topping:

3/4 cup chopped nuts (I like a walnut/almond mix)

2 tablespoons flour

2 tablespoons honey, warmed

2 teaspoons cinnamon

Cake:

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

1/2 cup honey, warmed

2 large eggs

1 1/3 cups white whole wheat flour (white whole wheat flour is milled from white wheat grains)

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup plain low-fat yogurt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract (Mexican vanilla is great if you can get your hands on it)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (176 degrees Celsius). Butter and flour a 9x9-inch baking pan.

To make the topping: In a small bowl, combine the nuts, flour, honey, and cinnamon.

To make the cake: With an electric mixer, cream the butter. Beat in the honey and eggs.

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Beat portions into the butter mixture, alternating with the yogurt. Beat in the vanilla.

Pour half of the cake batter into the baking pan. Cover with half of the topping, then add the remaining batter, and top with the remaining topping. Bake for about 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Let cool slightly and cut into squares. Serve warm or at room temperature. 

Makes 8 servings

Christmas Eve, The Hobbit, and Tea

It's Christmas Eve everybody! It's also the middle of Hanukkah everybody! I hope that all of you are safe and having lots of fun, what ever you're doing this weekend.

I know that this came out a couple of days ago, but I am so excited about the Hobbit trailer. If you haven't seen it already, you can view a really good version here. Why am I excited? First of all, The Hobbit is one of my most favorite books. I'm also excited because since the movie will be a two-part installment there's a high likelihood that there will actually a part of the movie with Beorn in it. All Hobbit adaptations that I have seen (okay, it was the cartoon, but still...) have neglected this character. It's pretty funny how Gandalf gets Beorn to let all fifteen of them to stay at his house for a couple of days, and he's not like Tom Bombadil (who can easily be neglected as a minor character). Beorn makes it possible for them to get into Mirkwood! Plus, along with seeing old faces like Ian Mckellan, Martin Freeman is playing Bilbo! Having seen him in many other roles, I feel that Freeman will be a fantastic Bilbo. Is anyone else excited yet? What if I said that Benedict Cumberbatch is voicing Smaug and the Necromancer (eg: Sauron)? Yup, another fantastic actor will be in The Hobbit and he will be voicing one of the best villains in literary history: Smaug.

Smaug is my favorite villain because he positively reeks of evilness and says one of my favorite speeches from The Hobbit, "Revenge! The King under the Mountain is dead and where are his kin that dare seek revenge? Girion Lord of Dale is dead, and I have eaten his people like a wolf among sheep, and where are his sons' sons that dare approach me? I kill where I wish and none dare resist." He says more, but I really like that part because it's so full of gloating and yet also the best threat ever.

On a less "OMGIT'SMYFAVORITEBOOKEVERMADEINTOAMOVIEYAY!!!" note, I discovered a couple of yummy teas this past week. The first one is a zhena's gypsy tea brand. It's called Chocolate Chai Herbal Red Tea. It's got all of the fantastic notes from chai (warm, spicy, sweet), plus a light chocolate flavor at the end. It's also Fair Trade, high in antioxidants, and has zero caffeine according to the package. The chocolate flavor comes from carob, so I will trust that it's actually caffeine free. Another good tea that I have discovered a couple of days ago with my mom is from the Republic of Tea brand. It's from their Cuppa Chocolate Tea line, called Coconut Cocoa. It seriously tastes like a sweet and coconutty hot chocolate. The ingredients include carob, barley, chicory, dates, and coconut and chocolate. Super yummy, super sweet (but no added sugar), and it's low in caffeine (as in less caffeine than white tea). However, I would suggest leaving the tea bag in for a lot longer than normal tea for a fuller chocolate flavor if you like a very strong flavor in your drink. I don't think that it hurts the flavor like it does with normal tea (for example, green tea gets bitter if brewed too long). I hope that if you try them you'll enjoy those teas as much as I do.

Here are a couple of presents from me:
Ormie the Pig, if you like ridiculously funny animation, and true happiness from a cat's perspective, if you like cute stuff like that.
Merry Christmas! Have a great weekend everybody!

New Discoveries and a Recipe

Hi all! Boy, it has been one crazy week (and it's only Thursday!). But never fear, there are fantastic things in the world to look at and eat. :) Today I decided to post about some fantastic discoveries concerning food (since this is Muffins and Musings).
First, I have discovered a few fantastic looking indie shops that make food-related jewelry. There is Tiny Hands Jewelry, then I ran into Sweet & Savory Trinkets on Etsy, and then another awesome looking Etsy shop called The Menu. Each one is pretty cool looking and I'm excited to share them with you guys. Each shop, although all about food, has its own unique twist (which is why I'm sharing them).

Tiny Hands specializes in scented food jewelry. That's right, scented. I actually bought a chocolate chip cookie charm already, and it smells exactly like a real cookie! (For the skeptics out there that are probably wondering right now: No, I am not an affiliate of any of these shops. It's just good craftsmanship.) Tiny Hands also has plastic food charms that are a little less expensive and not scented, but really cute (yes, I bought one). The selection is really good, too. There's boba tea, a variety of cookies, cupcakes, cake, waffles, pancakes, chocolate, and even sushi (not scented). Another awesome feature is that the customer service is great. For the impatient it can be a little maddening waiting for your order to come, though, since it's made-to-order and it takes up to two weeks to make the charms.

                       
Sweet & Savory specializes in miniature food charms and jewelry. As in close to the size of a dime kind of small. But they're super realistic, judging by the pictures. I'm planning on purchasing the peach earrings sometime soon (I have been coveting them for a while). Unlike Tiny Hands, Sweet & Savory has a bigger variety in the type of foods. Tiny Hands has mostly sweet treats, but Sweet & Savory has things like Eggs Benedict, fruit, ice cream bars, pie, nachos, burritos, and pizza. What's also really cool is that what's on display is available right now, so no waiting.

The Menu really excites me, because I just came across it last night. The Menu specializes in super realistic and quirky food jewelry. For an example of quirk for you, there's a melting ice cream cone hair barrette and a  zombie lunch ring (it's a tiny little brain on a plate with a spoon and fork). The Menu has a fantastic variety of pizza as well. For a selection there's pizza (at five different types that I can tell), ice cream cones, ice cream sandwiches, popsicles, sno balls (those coconut-covered marshmallow and cake balls from Hostess), alphabet soup and even Ritz Cracker earrings! They just opened 4 days ago, so I advise grabbing what you can now before they get so popular inventory turns too quickly.

The next discovery is that I made gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free brownies that tasted good! That isn't really what's so amazing as the fact that they were the right chewy/crumbly texture that all good brownies should have. I got the original recipe from Gluten Free Goddess, but switched to brown sugar for xylitol (because she switched the white sugar in the recipe that she took it from to brown sugar). Here's the recipe below:

Gluten-Free Dark Chocolate Brownie Recipe 

Ingredients:

5 ounces high quality dark chocolate

1/2 cup Organic Coconut Oil

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons organic light brown sugar (or xylitol)

1/2 cup almond meal

1/4 cup brown rice flour

1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

2 organic free-range eggs, beaten

1 tablespoon bourbon vanilla*

Optional:

1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts, if desired

Dark chocolate chips for the top, if desired

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Line an 8x8-inch square baking pan with foil and lightly oil the bottom.

Melt the dark chocolate and coconut oil in a saucepan over low heat, gently stirring. (Or melt in a microwave safe measuring cup and stir together to combine.) 


In a mixing bowl whisk together the brown sugar, almond meal, brown rice flour, fine sea salt and baking soda. Make a well in the center and add the beaten eggs, vanilla extract and melted dark chocolate mixture. Beat on low-medium for two minutes, until the batter begins to come together. At first it will seem thin, like cake batter, but keep beating until it thickens and becomes smooth and glossy.

If you are adding nuts, stir in the nuts by hand and spread the batter into the prepared baking pan. Even out the batter with a silicone spatula.

Stud the top with some dark chocolate chips and press in slightly.

Bake in the center of a preheated 350 degree F oven for 32 to 35 minutes, or until the brownies are set. The top will crack, like a flourless chocolate cake.

Cool on a wire rack; and remove the cooled brownies from the pan by gripping the foil edges and lifting the brownies out as a whole.


Chill for an hour before cutting. (Though warm and gooey is really divine, if you don't mind them falling apart.)

Yield: 12-16 servings

*For chocolate-mint brownies use 1 teaspoon peppermint extract and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract.

Read more: http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/2006/01/dark-chocolate-brownies.html#ixzz1gccT1DX9

Thanks so much for reading, folks!

Hunger Games vs. Matched

I'm assuming that everyone knows about The Hunger Games movie coming out next March. However, how many of you guys have read Matched by Allie Condie or the recent sequel Crossed? If you haven't read any of these books, or you really dislike distopian fantasy, then you may want to come back next week for a different subject. But for the rest of you guys that are willing to stick it out with me, I decided to do a fun post comparing these two series.

                                                 
The Hunger Games
Setting: Post-apocalyptic North America
Government type: Corrupt Roman empire/Isle of Crete (A vast empire with a city as the central command point. To keep the Districts in line the government demands a tribute of youths and maidens every year to die a horrific death.)
Story: Enter Katniss Everdeen, a strong-willed young woman who's only goal in life is to survive. She's basically the head of her household, she looks down on her mother's debilitating bout of depression after her father's death and took over. When Katniss's younger sister, Prim, is chosen to take part in the Hunger Games, Katniss takes her place and is sent off to compete in the Games. Katniss decides on the strategy of feigning love for Peeta Melark, a fellow tribute from her town, and eventually falls for him enough to make sure that they both end up winning the game. During the Game is a bunch of blood and gore that I will not dwell on. After the Games (in the following books) Katniss is slowly taken over by post-traumatic stress disorder as she is used as a pawn in a rebellion against the Capitol. It's a very brief overview, but if you really want to know the entire story line I'm sure that there's a Wiki (or you could read the books).
My thoughts: I enjoyed reading The Hunger Games trilogy, but I do have some criticisms. First, Katniss has only one goal, which is survival. I recognize that she's a strong female lead, but come on. Katniss is essentially willing to let everyone die on her quest to survive. I know, she and Peeta make a scrapbook of everyone that died and "Remember Rue!" all of you fans cry. But Katniss is still pretty heartless in the sense that she operates on the pure animal instinct of survival of the fittest. Secondly, the violence. Yes, situations in which 12-17 year-olds are killing each other can't exactly be Disney material. But at some point I eventually started to say "gruesome death" and scanned to the end of the scene because I got so tired of it. I also wonder how the movie is going to be PG-13 (appropriate for children 13 and over) when the actual book probably would have been rated R (appropriate for adults only). Another problem that I had with the books is the simplistic writing style. I understand that Collins is coming from writing a book series for a 10-12 audience (Gregor the Overlander anyone?), but this is YA. You gotta up your game. I have a similar writing style issue with Twilight. But overall, this is a far better book than  The Giver and it is a fairly enjoyable read. I can see why there's so much hype about it.

Matched
Setting: Post-global warmed North America
Government type: Socialistic utopia (eg: the government knows exactly what's best for you and makes all of your decisions)
Story: The story starts with a vivid day dream of Cassia Reyes as she is riding the bus to her Matching Banquet. Condie  minces no words to really explain what The Society is about, but rather lets the reader understand along the way. The Matching Banquet is where 17-year-olds are shown for the first time whom they will marry. The Society determined that the best way to raise children is in a stable, two-parent environment. So if you choose to be matched the government chooses for you. Cassia gets told that she has been matched to her best friend, Xander. But the problem is that when she goes home to look at his information, another boy that she knows is shown to her on the computer for a brief moment (Ky). When Cassia's grandfather dies soon after (the government only allows you to live until you're eighty, then you just die), Cassia is given a piece of paper with poetry that the government disproves of. The rest of the book is about her journey discovering that she wants to make her own decisions, even if that means that she will be hurt along the way. In the second book, Cassia has fallen in love with Ky and has signed onto a suicide mission to find him. She is sure that he has been assigned to the mission because of a mistake that she made in the earlier book. Ky has discovered that because he's an Aberration (a person or a member of their family that cannot marry or have children because they or their parent broke a law), he is being sent out into the desert to be gunned down. The Society is slowly getting rid of Aberrations and Anomalies (I'm guessing from what I read in Crossed that they are people with genetic/mental diseases) to cleanse the Society of "unwanted" people. When Ky and Cassia finally find each other, they decide to join a rebellion in order to bring free choice back into the Society.
My thoughts: I really like the Matched books because they have an actual moral issue (Is it better to have freedom for all and be unequal, or to be equal and unable to choose your life?). I also like the visual writing. I know that this is a weird thing to say, but Condie really paints pictures in your mind when you read. However, I do have some issues with her books as well. First, the love triangle. I abhor love triangles. They're so annoying. I get that the first book uses the love triangle to represent the fact that Cassia chooses Ky (free agency) over Xander (comfort) as a symbol of her moral dilemma, but still. Secondly, I was totally confused by Anomalies and Aberrations. From what I gathered reading the second book, I think that Aberrations are dissenters and their families, but I would really like to have a clear "this is this, that is that, fish is not pie."

So overall, Hunger Games is good if you like action and Matched is good if you like moral dilemmas. My personal favorite is Matched, but I love both series. As a side note for Matched fans, there has been confirmation of a movie! Yay! If you feel that either series is better, please comment which one and why. Or maybe you disagree with my reviews, tell me why (I promise to read every comment)!

Thanks so much for reading, more to come next week.

Opening Post

Hi all, although at the moment that isn't anyone. For my first blog I decided to set out a goal for the blog. That way you (the reader) know exactly what to expect. So sit back and enjoy the following list.

1. This blog will not focus on negative things happening in my life or in the world. I don't think that sending more negativity into the universe is going to help anyone, and there are plenty of negative bloggers out there if you prefer that kind of thing.
2. I probably wont post more than 3 times per week and absolutely no less than once per week, you can depend on that.
3. My goal for this blog is to share fun videos, wonderful recipes (hence "Muffins"), and other randomly happy thoughts (like food-related jewelry and other musings).

I'd also like to give you guys a heads up: I simply adore food, jewelry, and good books. Hopefully the majority of my posts will actually have something to read, since I like to think of myself as a budding writer. Bear with me, though, if some posts are a video or link. Since I am an active participant in human society I cannot spend all of my time online.
Thank you for visiting and I can't wait to really get going with our blogging journey!

As a opening post celebration gift, here's a link to an awesome video (unless you hate Harry Potter, then you just suck).