Banana apple pecan muffins

Jacqui had been asking to make muffins for the past few weekends, but we just haven't had the time to. I promised her last night that we would make muffins this morning for breakfast. We are lacking in fruit and veggies at the apt right now, so I looked around and decided to make banana and apple muffins. The muffins were soft and delicious, a perfect breakfast. And the girls loved actually making the batter and the muffins. Feels like a long time since we've done that together. 

Ingredients 

2 large ripe bananas 

3/4 large golden delicious apple, finely chopped 

1/4 cup applesauce 

1/4 cup organic canola oil 

1/4 cup blackstrap molasses 

1/3 cup vegan sugar 

1 cup all purpose unbleached flour 

1/2 cup spelt flour 

1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour 

3/4 tsp baking powder 

1/2 tsp sea salt 

1/2 cup chopped pecans 

What to do 

Preheat oven to 350. Gather ingredients and children. Have girls peel bananas into a large bowl. Given the forks and show them how to mash the bananas. Mash. Add the applesauce, oil, and molasses and mix well. Then add the sugar, flours, baking powder, and salt, and mix well. Mom or dad may have to help with this mixing to get everything combined. Add the chopped apples and chopped pecans. Have the girls put the liners in the muffin pan. Spoon the batter (after the girls have tasted it, of course) into the muffin pan. Bake for 20-22 minutes. Enjoy!

Applesauce, Garbanzo Lentil Soup, and Wild Rice Bread

Happy New Year!

We finally returned home to Brooklyn Saturday night and I made a few things for eating Sunday. The new thing: applesauce! The old thing: a version of my garbanzo/lentil soup. Yum. Oh, and one more new thing: wild rice bread.

Applesauce
We had a bunch of apples that were near the end of their lives, so I made them into applesauce. It was much easier than I had expected, and quite tasty. The recipe is easy: take the apples you have, peel, core, and chop them. Add them to a big pot (I had Aji do this step) and then add water, some vegan sugar, and cinnamon. For eight apples, we added approximately two cups of water, 1/4 cup natural sugar, and 1 tsp ground cinnamon. Cook, covered, until the apples are soft. Then, puree with a handheld blender or mash with a fork. Et viola, applesauce!

Wild rice bread
I've been on a bread making kick lately. I dug out the breadmaker from storage and I've been making loaves at least once a week. I have a rye bread that I really like (but Jacqui doesn't). As soon as I figure out the water content for it, I will post that recipe. I've also been making a teff bread at my mom's that Jacqui loves. It keeps inverting though, so I need to work on it a bit. :) This bread turned out lovely and was relatively easy to make. Enjoy it sliced, with applesauce, with butter, with jam. :)

Ingredients
1 1/3 cups cold water
3 T canola oil
3 T agave nectar
2 tsp sea salt (finally got iodized sea salt!)
1/3 cup rye flour
1/3 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
3 cups bread flour (+4 T)
2 tsp bread yeast
1/2 cup wild rice
little bit of soy milk
4 T sunflower seeds

What to do
I made the dough in the breadmaker and then shaped the bread and baked it in the oven.
To make the dough, out the water, oil, agave in the bread maker. Then add the salt, rye flour, oats, whole wheat flour, and bread flour. Make two indentations for the yeast. Put it on the dough cycle. When it beeps to add ingredients, add the wild rice.
When the dough is finished in the breadmaker, if it is still wet, add the extra bread flour one Tablespoon at a time (I needed to add 4T) and knead. Shape the bread into a round or oblong loaf (or you could get fancy and make three strands and braid it together, but I didn't!).
Cover with a cloth and place in a warm spot to rise. Preheat the oven to 375F. (I put the bread on top of the stove to rise using the heat of the oven as it warmed up.)
When the bread has doubled in size, brush the top with the milk and sprinkle the sunflower seeds on top.
Bake it for 25-30 minutes (or longer, as needed) until it is golden, a knife or skewer stuck in the middle comes out dry and not sticky, and the bread sounds hollow if you knock it on the bottom. My bread took about 45 minutes because my oven never made it to 375. But it was delicious once it came out! :)

Garbanzo Lentil Soup
This is a version of this soup and this soup, made on the stove (instead of the crock pot) and with orange sweet potatoes and white/yellow yams. I love this soup.

Ingredients
2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
1 medium sweet onion, chopped
6-8 tiny sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped
1 large white/yellow yam, peeled and chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 tsp ground ginger
3/4 tsp tumeric
3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 cup dried green lentils, picked over
1 15 oz can of diced tomatoes, with juice
2 1/2 - 3 cups cooked organic garbanzos (with liquid)
6 cups warm or hot water
2 low-salt vegan bouillon squares

What To Do
Heat the oil in the soup pot while chopping the onion. Saute the onion for 5-10 minutes, letting it brown a little. Chop the garlic, and add it for one - two minutes. Then, add a bit of water to de-glaze the pan (get all the good brown stuff off the pan). Let this simmer while you put all the other ingredients in the soup pot.
Add the water and bouillon. Add the cooked garbanzos, chopped sweet potatoes and yam, and green lentils. Add the ginger, tumeric, cinnamon, cumin, and cardamon. Stir everything well.
Cook and cook over medium-high heat; let everything come to a boil. Reduce the heat, and let the soup cook for 45-60 minutes, stirring every so often.
Serve warm with slices of bread (you can use the bread I made or any other bread). It's also good with rice or couscous.

Happy New Year!

ABP2 Muffins

Last night, I made up some yummy muffins. The recipe I was going to make called for appples and applesauce, but my applesauce had mold growing in it (as I found when I was going to give some to A with her rice cereal -- boo) and I only had one apple. What I did have was: two almost too-ripe pears, one almost too-ripe apple, and two super-ripe bananas. So, I made apple-banana-pear-pecan (ABP²) muffins.

Ingredients
2 T ground flax
6 T water

2 super ripe bananas
1/3 cup canola oil
1/4 turbinado sugar
1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cups organic all purpose flour
1/2 organic whole wheat flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 T baking powder

1 apple
2 pears
~1 cup pecans (might have been more -- I just used what was left in my jar)

What to do
First, blend the flax and water together until frothy in your blender or food processor.
Then add the other "wet" ingredients (bananas through vanilla) to the blender and blend until creamy.
While blending, before blending, or after blending, mix the dry ingredients in a small/medium bowl with a wooden spoon.
Peal and chop the apple and pears, cutting out any bad spots. Make the pieces small. Chop the pecans.
Pour the creamy blended liquid into a big bowl and add the dry flour mix. Don't over mix to combine, but make sure there aren't any pockets of flour left.
Add the chopped pecans, apples, and pears. Have D fold everything together while I line the muffin pans. Oh! Don't forget to pre-heat the oven! I preheat to 365, because, as we all know, my oven thinks that is 350.
Spoon the batter into the lined muffin tins. This recipe makes 12 big muffins.
I baked my muffins for 27 minutes. The recipe that I based these off said 20 minutes, but my muffins were still sticky in the middle when I poked them with toothpicks. So they kept baking. :) Check your muffins after 20 minutes with a toothpick to see how long they will take.

As you can see from my (sad blackberry) picture, the muffins are very light in color. They are yummy (had one for breakfast this morning with my fruit smoothie) and lent a gentle fall aroma to the apartment as I baked last night. The 20 minutes I had set them for was enough time to eat all the remaining batter (YUM!), clean up and put everything away, and still have time to make and enjoy a cup of tea. :)