Muffins and Bean Patties

Today was a full day for us.  Lots of playing, library trips, playing, house hunting, and more playing.  We added in some baking and a lovely end-of-day story from Jacqui's former teachers and Aji's new teachers.  Great day, but I'm officially exhausted.  Vacation is hard work.

Pumpkin muffins

I know that I have my own recipe for pumpkin muffins, but I recently treated myself to Let Them Eat Vegan by Dreena Burton, and could not resist trying her pumpkin muffin recipe.  

I hadn't made them yet, despite the girls' requests for muffins, because the recipe calls for oat flour and I didn't have any.  A few nights ago, I realized that I could just make my own!  I put 1.5 cups of rolled oats into my food processor (I wanted to make sure I had 1 cup of flour) and processed on high until it looked sufficiently flour-like.  This made more than the 1 cup I needed, but I will use the rest at some point. ;-)  

I also couldn't find my nutmeg, so I subbed that for another of the lovely fall/winter spices and used the 1/4 tsp ground ginger suggested for adults.

The muffins turned out well.  The recipe made 17 muffins for us (my tins are really on the small side and I tend to underfill rather than overfill).

The girls worked very hard on these and we only ended up with a little bit of sugar on the floor.  We ate these as part of our dinner tonight.

Bean cakes/patties

For the main part of dinner, I had in my head to use up leftovers and make a bean burger or bean ball.  Into my food processor went ~1 cup of leftover steamed veggies and kidney beans, ~1 cup of leftover rice, ~1/2 tsp sea salt, ~1/2 T nutritional yeast, ~1/2 tsp organic seasoning, and ~2-4 T oat flour (see, I'm already using the extra!).  Process on high until everything is mixed together well.  Unfortunately, this was much wetter and stickier than I has expected, so I added panko to thicken it up and make it possible to form some sort of ball.  When I transferred the balls to the frying pan, the transfer process did not work out.  I ended up flattening the balls and breaking them into smaller pieces to fry.  That worked out well and they ended up with a nice brown patina.  We ate them with organic ketchup for dinner.

Aji ate her portion right up.  Jacqui exclaimed how wonderful it was, but then stopped eating halfway through and decided she didn't like it anymore.  I think she got to a thicker area of the patty that was not as crispy.  Next time: thinner, smaller patties so that everything gets nice and crispy.

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!

Not Quite Banana Muffins

I tried to make muffins over the weekend -- Saturday morning to be exact. But I forgot a **crucial** ingredient -- the rising agent! So, instead of fluffy muffins, I had compact, but delicious, things. I don't really have a word for them. But I just finished off the last one. Yummy.

Not Quite Banana Muffins
Ingredients
1 cup whole spelt flour
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp sea salt
4 ripe bananas, mashed
1/3 cup organic canola oil
1/3 cup turbinado sugar
1/4 cup water
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup pepitas

What I did
Preheat oven to 350F.
Put the flours and salt into a bowl, let Jacqui mix.
Mash the bananas in another (bigger) bowl.
Give Adrianna her own bowl and a spoon to mix her imaginary not-quite-muffin-batter.
Add the oil and sugar to the mashed bananas, let Jacqui mix well. Add the water and vanilla, and let her mix well again.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet, and fold everything together. Once it's mostly mixed, let Jacqui mix some more. Make sure to incorporate all the dry ingredients.
Chop the pecans. Let Jacqui add in the chopped pecans and pepitas.
Have Jacqui (is this child labor???) line the muffin tins. Spoon the not-quite-muffin batter into the tins. Bake for 30 minutes at 350F.
This made 16 not-quite-muffins for me. The first set, I put in as if I had remembered the rising agent, expecting some vertical growth. After there was none in the first batch, I just topped the second batch out to the top of the liners, so I only had enough batter for four more. I filled the other muffin-holes with water and baked for 30 minutes too.

Outcome
Not muffins. No rising. Looked really funky. Taste: Delicious! Jacqui ate them. Adrianna ate them. I ate them. Even Dave ate them! Woo hoo! And we finished them in just a few days. Next time, though, I'm going to try to remember the rising agent. Muffins, here we come!

(If you want to make them rise, I think I meant to add 1 or 1 1/2 tsp baking soda to the dry ingredients. Try it out. Let me know if that works!)

Pumpkin Muffins!!!

It being fall, and I loving pumpkin, I decided to make my own pumpkin muffins to supplement the pieces of pumpkin breads that my loving D brings home for me on days when he takes J for lunch to our friendly veg-Ital shop on Washington for a vegetable or soy pattie and maybe some vegan ice cream.

These muffins are perfect for breakfast or a snack or a second breakfast. They are light and moist (although if you add the extra T of flax below, they are less moist). It's hard to stop after just one!

I've worked on this recipe a bit and tried it a few different ways. These muffins have been devoured, so I am making them regularly now (or as often as I can get organic canned pumpkin!). I need to get some more pumpkin from the store on my way home tonight, as we finished the last of these for breakfast this morning. :)



Ingredients
2 T ground golden flax plus 6 T water
1 can organic canned pumpkin
1/4 cup organic oil (canola or sunflower -- don't use olive)
1/3 cup maple syrup (I'm now using the HUGE container that D brought back from Canada on his last trip)
1 1/2 cups spelt flour (ground by the farmer!)
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 T flax, if desired (I find adding the extra flax makes the muffins less "wet" after baking)
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground tumeric
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 - 1 cup chopped nuts (I use pecans)
12 whole nuts to top muffins
cinnamon sugar, ground nutmeg, etc for topping muffins
12 biodegradable muffin liners

What To Do
Preheat the oven to 370 F (350 F for those of you without finicky ovens).
Whisk the flax and water in a small dish and set aside while you prepare everything else.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the pumpkin, oil, and maple syrup.
In a large bowl, stir together the spelt flour, baking soda and powder, salt, and spices. Add the extra ground flax if using.
Whisk the flax and water together again and add to the pumpkin mixture, whisking to combine. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir or whisk to combine. Make sure to get any pockets of flour incorporated into the batter. Add the chopped nuts if using.
Prepare your muffin pan with the muffin liners. Fill the tin. Top each with a whole pecan or other nut. Sprinkle the tops with freshly ground nutmeg or cinnamon or cinnamon sugar, or whatever you may like.
Put in the oven for 35 minutes. If your oven runs hot, check at 30 minutes. A toothpick inserted in the center of one of the middle muffins should come out clean. Remove from the oven and let cool for a few minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. Try to wait until they've cooled a little before you start to devour them!

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. :)

Muffins

D's birthday was Monday, and he loves muffins. He normally buys (ugh) muffins at the Key Food down the block, but they haven't been stocking them lately. So, I made three kinds of muffins for his birthday on Sunday and Monday.

Sunday, J and I made banana nut muffins, based off a recipe in The Joy of Vegan Baking, and 8-grain muffins, based on a recipe in The Vegetarian Mother. Monday, I made carrot bran muffins as birthday cakes. (J is on a birthday kick and insisted on wearing birthday hats all day.)

The banana muffins are the most appetizing and appealing on looks. They taste pretty yummy too.

The other muffins are very yummy, but look like health foods (which, I guess they are). I topped the carrot muffins with a vegan cream cheese icing and a birthday candle for the "Happy Birthday" singing, which provided a nice balance to the "healthy" taste and texture of the muffin -- filled with shredded carrot, sunflower seeds, dried cranberries, and bran.

I froze 2/3 of the muffins, and forgot to take photos before the freezing. I will try to take some photos when I take the next batch out of the freezer. And include the recipes.

Added one photo...looks like we've eaten all the banana muffins already! The muffin on the left is the 8 grain muffin and the really healthful looking one (with carrots sticking out) is the carrot bran muffin.