Adventures of a healthy-ish pseudo-foodie

Woah yum. In case you haven't noticed, I've become a fan of oat bran muffins. Today, I wanted to use up some leftover chopped pears, and I came across  this Farmgirl Fare recipe  that would not only use the pears and oat bran, but also the candied ginger leftover from my (thankfully over) days of morning sickness. I made a couple of changes in the recipe, just for convenience: -I had no wheat bran, so I used 2 c oat bran and 1 c Fiber One cereal, ground in the food processor. -I was short on honey, so I used 1/3 c honey and 1/3 c brown sugar. -I was a little short on pears, so I filled it out with some applesauce. It was delicious, but I'll go 100% pear next time. These will be made again. They're delicious, hearty without being too heavy, and the pear and ginger flavors make them stand out from your ordinary muffin. I'd serve these for house guests or bring them to a brunch potluck... they're a winner. The Recipe: 2 c oat bran 1 c

Like big pumpkin cookies. These are maybe a little bit too good. I want to snack on them all afternoon. They're fluffy and just the right amount of sweet, and they remind me of oversized pumpkin cookies. Next time I make them I'll have to add more healthy stuff - lots of ground flax seed and maybe some whole oats in addition to the oat bran? - just so I'm not as tempted to devour them all as unnecessary afternoon carbs. They're super easy and certainly healthy-ish in their current form, which I got from  this recipe . My only change was that I doubled it and then increased the amount of pumpkin by about 1/2 cup, so it would use up a 15oz can. Because although pumpkin lattes sound like a great idea, any leftover pumpkin in my fridge would likely go forgotten. I also used 2 whole eggs instead of 4 egg whites, again to avoid having any waste leftover. The Recipe: 3 c oat bran 1 c whole wheat flour 1 c brown sugar 4 tsp baking powder 2 tsp pumpkin

It took me until day 3 of leftovers to finally take a picture. Imagine 3-day-fresher-looking tomato sauce on top, but it was delicious in this state too. First, I must brag that I made from scratch the ricotta cheese , the mozzarella cheese , and the tomato sauce (from fresh tomatoes that I'd canned) before assembling this casserole. I'd say that for a normal day in the future, the ricotta and the tomato sauce were definitely worth it to make from scratch. The mozzarella is slightly more of a project, so I'm more likely to buy that unless I'm really in the mood to make cheese. I should have written down what I did for the tomato sauce, because it was really good this time. My memory is that I sauteed 1/2 an onion in olive oil until translucent, added 3 cloves of garlic and stirred, then immediately added 2 pints of tomatoes with some salt, basil, and oregano. I thought it would need a little bit of sugar, but I tasted it and it was plenty sweet, probably just