The Pelican Pantry

I've started tracking the common ingredients for muffins, along with their nutritional content. This is still very much a work-in-progress, but I thought I'd quickly through up a page that displays the database. Obviously it's incomplete, and it looks like crap right now. My goals are to be able to...

I love cookbooks. Yes, I know that you can find a recipe for almost anything online, and as such, a big, hardcover cookbook might feel a little archaic. Even if I'm likely to turn to the Internet to find a recipe, there's something about reading my way through a printed...

The Great Muffin Experiment, No. 9 (Jump to the Recipe) One of the reasons that I started this muffin experiment was to try to get away from the protein bar fare that relies so heavily on protein powders — whey, egg white, pea, collagen or otherwise. Every morning, I do...

Several years ago, I decided to quit drinking coffee. As I traveled a lot, I found it incredibly tiresome to be so beholden to caffeine each morning. I'd have to plan the start of my day around locating and consuming the drink, lest I suffer the headaches and lethargy of...

The Great Muffin Experiment, No. 8 (Jump to the Recipe) This is the second batch of muffins in a row that I'm really not thrilled with. The taste is fine, but the consistency is far too "stodgy," as Paul Hollywood would probably describe them. Part of this stems from my...

I've had some fairly terrible homemade granola in my time. Mostly, it was terrible because it was, in food critic speak, "raisin forward." I hate raisins. I want my granola to be crunchy, without any surprise mushiness in any of the bites. I'd never made granola myself until I bought...

The Great Muffin Experiment, No. 7 (Jump to the Recipe) When I started this project, I wanted to go "all in" on what some people think of as the most annoying part of online recipes: the verbiage before you get to the recipe. That's because, despite there being a recipe...

My molasses cookies are Kin's favorite. And I'll admit, they're one of my favorites as well. There's something about that ginger-molasses combination that just hits perfectly. The recipe I use makes a nice soft cookie — one that doesn't dry out on the counter and turn into more of a...

The Great Muffin Experiment, No. 6 (Jump to the Recipe) One of my goals with this muffin experiment was to do just that: experiment with different ingredients in order to optimize the health benefits in my daily post-workout snack. As I've written before, I'm not actively avoiding fats, but I...

Whenever I ask Kin what kind of cookies he'd like me to bake, he reminds me of how he ranks his favorites: peanut butter are okay; chocolate chips are good; better are my molasses cookies; and the best are oatmeal. I found a pretty good oatmeal cookie recipe online a...