Banana chocolate chip corn muffins

[Snapchat: Gilleighs]

• 1 1/2 cups corn flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 bananas
• 1/8 cup honey
• 1/8 cup maple syrup
• 1 tsp chia seeds
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 1 tablespoon grape seed oil
• 1 egg
• 2/3 cup nonfat plain greek yogurt
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare muffin tin with butter or non-stick spray.

In a large bowl combine all ingredients. Gently fold in chocolate chips.

Divide batter evenly into muffin tin and bake for 18-20 minutes or until tooth pick comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached.

[Adapted from Ambitious Kitchen: http://www.ambitiouskitchen.com/2014/09/30-minute-skinny-banana-chocolate-chip-muffins/]

Lemon Chia Muffins

It was labour day Monday at 11pm and all I wanted was lemon poppy seed cake. I opened the cupboard, pulled out the following ingredients, and twenty five minutes later I had delicious muffins ready to be devoured.

    
  
  

1 tbs lemon zest

2 & 1/2 tbs freshly squeezed lemon juice

2 & 1/2 tbs honey

2 tbs sugar (or use maple syrup, honey or agave)

1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt

1 & 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 large egg

1 tbs chia seeds

1/2 cup chickpea flour

1/2 cup oats

1 tsp cinnamon

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. I used muffin liners but the muffins stuck to them. Probably best to grease muffin container.

Zest and juice lemon. Combine lemon zest and lemon juice in a bowl with the honey, sugar, yogourt, and vanilla. Stir together and then add in an egg. Stir until combined.

In another bowl, stir together the chia seeds, chickpea flour, oats, cinnamon, and baking soda.

Combine the wet and dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Over stirring the muffins will make them dense.

Pour muffin mixture into the prepared muffin tin. Make them pretty full because don’t rise too much.

Bake for 15 minutes or until lightly golden on top and a toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the center. All ovens are different! It may take 13 minutes in your oven, or 20. Remove and allow to cool.

Makes 10 muffins. Freeze in freezer-friendly ziplock bag for up to one month.
*** if possible, use unpasteurized local honey. It makes ALL THE DIFFERENCE***

C4 Banana Bread

Who doesn’t have a banana [or seven] turning a delightful shade of brown in the back of their freezers? Lezbehonest. I had twelve [yes, twelve] in my freezer and enough was enough. I was craving banana bread, but knew I wanted to riff on the traditional one and make a healthier version. I wanted to make a loaf with a shit ton of fibre [all puns intended]. The chia and flax seeds I had in my pantry were calling my name and I was CRAVING cinnamon. Google: bananas + chickpea flour [i had a ridiculous amount because I was clearly drunk last time I went to #bulkbarn] + chia/flax seeds = a ton of recipes but nothing spectacular. So I made up a combo of about four different recipes and the banana bread turned out to be the crazy moist with a perfectly crispy crust. Definitely the most delicious one I’ve ever made. C4: Coconut, Chickpea, Cinnamon, Chia. Enjoy!

3 Tbs chia seeds

9 Tbs water

1/4 cup honey [or maple syrup]

3 Tbs flax seeds

1/4 cup coconut oil

2 Tbs yogurt [you could use vegan or coconut if you’re dairy free]

1 tsp lemon juice

4 bananas, thawed from frozen [or fresh if you don’t have frozen ones]

2 cups chickpea flour

1 Tbs cinnamon

1 Tbs baking powder

1/2 cup blueberries or chocolate chips [optional]

Coconut oil for greasing loaf pan

1. Preheat oven to 350°

2. Whisk chia seeds with water and let stand at least 15 minutes to overnight

3. Whisk chia mixture with honey, then flax seeds, coconut oil, yogurt, lemon juice and mashed bananas.

4. Sift flour, cinnamon and baking powder together and add to wet mixture. Mix well. Add blueberries or chocolate if using.

5. Grease loaf pan with coconut oil and cook for 45 to 50 minutes [check after 30 mins, every oven is different], or until top of loaf is deep brown and toothpick comes out clean.

Store in fridge! Enjoy!

With blueberries:

Without blueberries:

So you say you’re not a feminist?

“My response to the “I am not a feminist” internet phenomenon….

First of all, it’s clear you don’t know what feminism is. But I’m not going to explain it to you. You can google it. To quote an old friend, “I’m not the feminist babysitter.”

But here is what I think you should know.

You’re insulting every woman who was forcibly restrained in a jail cell with a feeding tube down her throat for your right to vote, less than 100 years ago.

You’re degrading every woman who has accessed a rape crisis center, which wouldn’t exist without the feminist movement.

You’re undermining every woman who fought to make marital rape a crime (it was legal until 1993).

You’re spitting on the legacy of every woman who fought for women to be allowed to own property (1848). For the abolition of slavery and the rise of the labor union. For the right to divorce. For women to be allowed to have access to birth control (Comstock laws). For middle and upper class women to be allowed to work outside the home (poor women have always worked outside the home). To make domestic violence a crime in the US (It is very much legal in many parts of the world). To make workplace sexual harassment a crime.

In short, you know not what you speak of. You reap the rewards of these women’s sacrifices every day of your life. When you grin with your cutsey sign about how you’re not a feminist, you ignorantly spit on the sacred struggle of the past 200 years. You bite the hand that has fed you freedom, safety, and a voice.

In short, kiss my ass, you ignorant little jerks.”

Libby Anne [via Mark Ruffalo]

Sex on TV

“I don’t think that most men know this, but a lot of the stuff they create is propaganda for the way they want to move through the world. It’s the definition of male privilege, and it influences the way real girls act as they watch this stuff growing up.” — Jill Soloway

How TV Sex Got Real

GIRL IN A BAND

“I’d never written a word, but I took Dan’s advice. I decided to write about men, and how they interact onstage with one another and bond by playing music.
I remember staring endlessly at the books lining the walls of my dad’s study as a little girl. I didn’t know what a sociologist did, but the books had titles like Men and Their Work. What did that even mean? Obviously, men – and boys – spent time, most of it in fact, engaged in an activity knows as work. Keller, for example, had his rock collection, Erector set, and assorted other boy-passions. Whereas whatever I made up or imagined in my own head lacked that builder’s significance or invention, and the train set I presumed would someday magically appear must have died on the tracks on its way to me. Looking back, I was clearly devaluing what women did. How had that happened? Was it just that my parents placed higher expectations on Keller as the firstborn? Did I ask for, and in return get back, a little smile rather than any attention?
Guys playing music. I loved music. I wanted to push up close to whatever it was men felt when they were together onstage – to try to ink in that invisible thing. It wasn’t sexual, but it wasn’t unsexual either. Distance mattered in male friendships. One on one, men often had little to say to one another. They found some closeness by focusing on a third thing that wasn’t them: music, video games, golf, women. Male friendships were triangular in shape, and that allowed two men some version of intimacy. In retrospect, that’s why I joined a band, so I could be inside that male dynamic, not staring in through a closed window but looking out.” 

Buy it here: http://www.amazon.ca/Girl-Band-Memoir-Kim-Gordon-ebook/dp/B00M70S96S

#NoTaxOnTampons

Let’s all remember that change is possible. We have come so far — we have the right to vote, to own property, to work, to have maternity leave, to have child care, sick leave, (almost, maybe soon) equal pay and so much more all because a small group of women said enough is enough. And now we have no tax on menstrual products. I am so proud of this group, and the almost 100,000 people across Canada who fought to make this a reality. This will benefit so many people. It’s truly amazing. If we stay cynical about the world nothing is possible. When we believe, the world opens up to the beauty of possibility. 

 

A special shout-out to the amazing leader of this movement, Jill Piebiak. She is a force to be reckoned with and without her none of this would be possible. I am so honoured to call her a friend and so proud of her amazing hard work. Period.  

VAJACULATE with WIFEYTV and FUNNYORDIE

http://wifey.tv/video/if-you-build-it-she-will-come/

My feature in InMontreal

“When we constantly see the same thing over and over again in the media, it affects the way we see difference in everyone. I don’t know when we started seeing difference as something bad, and why we think everyone needs to be the same, look the same, and act the same… I think wanting to be different is actually what propels society forward. So when we see difference in the media and on the screen, it helps us understand that all beauty and the unattainable idea of unrealistic standards are completely made up. The more that we see different bodies in the media, the more that we’re going to (hopefully) not discriminate against people who don’t look the way we think people should look, whether that’s their weight, their skin colour, the things they’re wearing. If the ideal is just made up, then we can change what that ideal is.

I don’t think that I ever looked the way the people on screen, in ads or in magazines looked, and I never felt there was something wrong with me. But being really tall affected the way other people looked at me and treated me. I mean, I was 5’9” when I was in grade six! But I never felt like there was something inherently wrong with me; I always felt like there was something inherently wrong with the system. For example, I was recently looking through some old pictures and I found this photo from my grade six graduation dance. There’s a lineup of all of us slow dancing in a row, as you do when you’re in grade six. Everyone is the same height and I’m towering over them. I look back and I’m like, ‘oh my God you were so tall!’ And then I think it’s amazing that I didn’t care or notice. There are so many things now that I notice about myself; why can’t I go back to that 12 year old who was just happy and didn’t notice or care that she was towering over everyone? Almost 20 years later, I’m trying to be that brave 12 year old.”

See it here : http://inmontreal.com/archives/1861

MERRY HOLIDAYS AND HAPPY BEGINNING YEAR.