flaking on the bran

Have you ever bought something at the grocery store only to bring it home to find it doesn't taste nearly as good as you had hoped? That's what happened to me when I bought this breakfast cereal. I'm not saying it isn't a great cereal because I have heard rave reviews, just not for my tastebuds. I love bran and I crave fibre so I thought 56%?! I am so in! Maybe because I'm used to the texture and flavour of Raisin Bran Flakes I just didn't enjoy my bowl of Fibre 1 flakes and sadly the honey clusters couldn't even persuade me to eat another bowl. Not one to waste food (a pet peeve of mine) I decided last night was the night to find a use for the underused box of cereal in the pantry.
Enter www.allrecipes.com a favourite site of mine mainly because of the reviews, I like having guinea pigs for my recipes and seeing their feedback. I found a recipe for muffins that included bran flakes and modified it slightly. So if you have bran flakes in your cupboard that you would rather not eat drenched in milk here is a recipe to try.

Molasses Bran Flake Muffins

1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 1/4 cups skim milk
1/2 cup molasses
1 egg, beaten
2 Tbsp oil
2 cups of "your favourite" bran flakes
1/4 cup chocolate chips

1. Mix together flour and soda.
2. In a separate bowl mix together milk, molasses, egg, and oil. Stir in bran flakes then mix in flour mixture. Stir in chocolate chips.
3. Bake @ 375 for 15-20 mins until toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean.

The original recipe included salt which I omitted. Also I did 1/2 and 1/2 with the flour but you could probably do all whole wheat, the original recipe called for all purpose flour so I like to do 1/2 and 1/2 the first time I try it. Also the chocolate chips were my little addition just for fun, the recipe called for 1/2 cup raisins but as much as I love to eat raisins alone I am not a fan of them interrupting my enjoyment of a muffin or a cookie.

summer of makeovers

Although we bought our house complete with window coverings I feel as though it needs a little personalizing so I have purchased some fabric and as soon as I buy fabric for the lining I will be making some blinds, most likely of the roman variety. Here's the fab fabric... from left to right we have living room, bedroom and kitchen.



Also on the subject of personalizing my in-laws were here for a visit last week and my mother-in -law is very experienced with painting so we tackled the living room, kitchen, dining room and hall. Don't get me wrong I loved the colours that were in the house, the previous owner certainly had designer taste but the dark colours made for dark rooms especially in the kitchen even on the sunshine-iest of days, so we lightened it up. Here are some before and afters, please ignore the fact that she had grogeous matching furniture and ours is all hand-me downs, let's think of it as shabby-chic:)

dining room before
dining room after
beforeafter
beforeafter

Speaking of changes I was getting bored with my shoulder length curly hair and decided it was time for a chop. I never felt like my hair looked like it had a particular hairstyle, it was just wet and curly or if I had the time and patience straight. So off I went, pictures in hand to the hairdresser. She hacked away bit by bit for an hour until we had the finished product. It feels great to change things up.