Month: January 2010

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and spray your muffin pan with fat-free cooking spray or whatever non-stick agent of your choosing.

In a bowl, combine Jiffy’s Oatmeal Muffin Mix, an individual cup of no sugar added, all natural applesauce and three tablespoons (or thereabouts) of coconut oil.

In a small cup, whisk three tbsps of flaxseed meal with six tbsps of water till it has an almost egg like consistency.

Combine and mix well! It should be a rather wet mixture but if you feel like it’s too wet, a quick fix is just adding some rolled oats to dry it out. Of course you can spice it up by adding raisins, craisins, blueberries, etc but I find it to be rather delicious and moist on it’s own.

Pop ‘em in the oven. I’d say approximately 5-10 minutes, more importantly till you can start to see the nooks and crannies on the top of the muffins and the edges get slightly golden brown. Drizzle ‘em with some agave nectar (lightly!!) if you want to pump up the sweet factor a notch and serve!!!

happy snacking :)

So after a long hiatus and completely burying the idea of blogging about my little cooking/healthy eating fascination under a mountain of unfulfilling part time jobs, I am back, thanks to a DVD of “Julie and Julia” I received in the mail a few days ago. And I decided tonight, after a particularly amazing yoga class, that I would treat myself to an evening of watching it while baking some vegan oatmeal muffins. Lo and behold, the muffins are AMAZING (and I will post the recipe! ) and here I am at my computer resurrecting this wonderful website back from the dead.

So where have I been and what have I been eating? Well, shortly after finishing my juice fast, I went back to the completely vegan side and stopped dabbling in animal products. My body feels fantastic and I really don’t have a terribly hard time eating healthy and staying full. In fact, being vegan has given me a kind of freedom I have never had before in my life. It gives me the freedom of not being on a diet. I don’t count calories anymore and I eat till I’m full. If I can make it vegan, I can eat it. Bagels, muffins, cookies, ice cream, anything at all I want, I allow myself to eat it. Now let’s be honest, I don’t live on these kind of treats or I would surely gain weight, but I never deny myself them. It’s a whole new world for me. I’m pretty sure this is the longest in my life I have gone without being on a diet. To be honest, I now finally understand what they mean when they say ‘it can’t be a diet, it has to be a lifestyle’. Vegan is my lifestyle, it’s not some crazy fad I’m doing for the next 3 months till bathing suit season or something ridiculous like that, it’s just how I eat.

I don’t want to preach and I would never force my views on anyone else (or judge them for eating meat!) but I figured I’d explain a little more about my particular lifestyle choice because I know it might seem a bit extreme. I love animals, yes, I have an awesome little Westie named Charlie who might as well be my little brother. However, I am not a vegan ONLY because of this. I truly disagree with the way our animals are handled in mass quantities and pretty much bred to be slaughtered. It’s gross and I personally don’t need that kind of karma in my life but for the sake of food chain logic, let’s go beyond that. The hormones, the pesticides, the infections, and the illnesses of these animals are seeping into our food supply and that is truly what I want to stay away from. Cows, chickens, pigs, etc are fed hormones to make them grow faster and gain weight so that the farms can expedite the slaughtering process. Now I absolutely do not need those kinds of hormones in my system, nooo thannk youu! Not to mentions the illnesses and infections these animals get because of the treacherous conditions they live in or the pesticides put on the grass/greens their fed – completely unappetizing.

Enough about that though, in all fairness I must admit I do slip off the vegan wagon from time to time and as a lover of food and cooking, it is hard to deny how amazing some animal products taste. I can’t promise I’ll be vegan for the rest of my life but I’m pretty sure I’ll always err toward the vegan side of the scale. I confess to missing fish (particularly salmon) and brie the most but I don’t ever see myself eating steak or drinking milk again.

* If your interested in learning more about living vegan, I strongly recommend checking out the books “The Kind Diet” and “Skinny Bitch”.

 

 

If your work is what you love, then you love your life… And you never stop working.

As a film/tv and theater actress in New York City you can find me in everything from character-driven independent features to comedic ‘funny or die’ shorts. When I’m not acting, I’m writing and producing my own webseries. And when I’m not doing that, I’m practicing yoga, dancing and of course, sampling vegan cupcakes.

That’s right, cupcakes. As creator of GoSweetandSkinny.com, I’m dedicated to demystifying low fat and vegan living. I’m here to prove that taking care of your body and making healthy choices can be easy and you don’t have to give up the foods you love!

My all-time crush is Audrey Hepburn, the embodiment of classic femininity. Her example inspired women to their highest aspirations. I’ve committed my career to honoring her example, and to empowering the women of my generation to a life of class and integrity.

Life is a lot like baking cupcakes, sometimes it’s a big, sticky mess and it sure gets hot with the oven always on but when you combine the right ingredients and mix it all up with love, it always ends up sweet and skinny.

 

Let’s also get this straight, when I use SKINNY on this site, I do not mean anorexic, unhealthy, dangerous skinny. I playfully refer to SKINNY as in the way you will feel when you are eating right, exercising right and at a comfortable weight for your body. I personally do not have a HUGE amount of weight to lose. That is not to say that you can’t use the tips, tricks, and advice from the site if you do have a good amount of weight to lose. This is meant to be useful for everyone and if I think something would work more or less depending on your current size I will state that specifically on a case by case basis. I am open and welcome to any questions or comments you may have, so don’t be shy!

Of course, before you start any diet or fitness routine you should ask your doctor to make sure it’s right for you.