Good Results

To me there is something about baking that just makes me so joyful. I find very few things in life bring me as much satisfaction as taking something out of the oven. When that something is beautiful and tasty as well? I bet they have these muffins in heaven.

Last night I stumbled across a recipe for beet blueberry muffins. I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned it here before, but I have made beet brownies that were delicious. I even brought them into work and no one knew there were beets hiding inside. Of course, beets in a muffin of the non chocolate variety is no easy thing to hide. Good think I like my food funny looking. I think it spices up life. I altered the original recipe a bit in two ways. The first batch I made without beets and with apple sauce instead and for both batches I changed up the flour types.

Blueberry Muffins

3 Tablespoons non-dairy milk
2 Tablespoons lemon juice

1 ¼ cups apple sauce
½ cup canola oil
¾ cup sugar sugar
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup high gluten bread flour flour
1 ½ teaspoons non-aluminum baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda

1 cup blueberries, fresh (sliced in half)

I mixed the lemon juice and the soy milk in it's own dish, then combined the apple sauce, oil, sugar, vanilla and salt together. I whisked the dry ingredients and then added both the wets. Then I folded in the halved blueberries.

Add by ice cream scoop (or utensil of choice) into 12 silicone or paper muffin cups.

I fudged the temperature as the original recipe tells you how to roast beets but I left the oven at 400 degrees for this version. 25 and they were perfect. Original recipe actually called for them at 325. Or maybe you don't even know the real temp of your oven and it wont matter. I set mine for 400 lately and it shoots up to 450. Se la vie.

Without further ado...

I think it's the bread flour that did it, but the un-beet muffin is light and fluffy with a beautiful top. Delicious. Then I made a second batch for myself. The same recipe as above, but puree 2 beets to replace the apple sauce. I think mine was a bit thick and could have used a bit more non-dairy milk, but they turned out equally delicious. I would seriously say that these are the best home made muffins I think I have ever made, vegan or not.

I only have one set of silicone molds so I made the second batch without anything and I wish I had some paper lines because the bottoms lost their beautiful pink color. Hope you enjoy!

A Veggie Kind of Weekend

Lately I have been feeling a little sluggish and tired so I have been trying to decrease my sugar and up my veggies, beans and grains. What follows is my trip on Friday to the grocery store. I usually get most of my veggies at the farmer's market, but since I had nothing to do on Friday night, I really wanted to pick some stuff up to make to eat over the weekend. It had been a long time since I had just gone crazy in the produce section of a grocery store and I really ended up going a bit crazy.

Green Leaf Lettuce
Red Chard
Red Grapes

Brussel Sprouts
Kale
Romain Lettuce
Broccoli
Celery
Mango

Bananas
Lemons
Kiwis
Garlic
Pears
Onions
Limes

I have made a couple of green smoothies over the last week. Kale, soy milk, protein powder, ground flax, banana, a date, some ice cubes and one time I used frozen blueberries. Really good.
I have been having oatmeal for breakfast a few days. I used to eat steel cut oats but this week I have been eating rolled oats because I can cook them quickly.

1/3 cup water, 1/3 cup oats. Cook for 1 minute. Add 1/3 cup oats and microwave for 30 seconds more. Separately microwave a banana until it gets all melty. Add that, a handful of chopped pecans, a pinch of salt, some frozen blueberries, some ground flax, a little protein powder and a tiny bit of maple syrup. This has been really a surprisingly delicious breakfast though I find that I am hungry a few hours later.

I used a small portion of this broccoli to throw together a salad I brought to a family get together yesterday. The salad took less than 10 minutes to throw together and was quite a hit. Unfortunately I do not have a picture but there are left overs so maybe I'll take one later. And then give you the recipe.

These grapes were delicious!

I mixed this sliced kale with some garlic infused olive oil and balsamic vinegar and then let it marinate. And if you can see in the back there, those are presoaked garbanzo beans ready to be cooked. I'm not sure if I have mentioned it here (I probably have) but I am madly in love with my pressure cooker. I used it three nights this week to make beans after work. It is genius.

Love.

My boyfriend recently brought me a bunch of tangerines from the tree at his moms house. Most of them sat in my fruit bowl for a long time as they had a number of seeds and were quite a pain to eat. I decided to juice them and make the orange glazed beets from Vegan with a Vengeance. The glaze never really set up, but the beets were great none the less.

My dinner last night consisted of:

Previously mentioned marinated kale topped with some sliced grapes
Tangerine Beets
Shredded Brussel Sprouts

This recipe was modified from one I found on the internet but I changed it so much that it does not even really resemble the original recipe except that it contains shredded brussel sprouts and toasted walnuts.

I melted some earth balance in my cast iron skillet and then added in the brussel sprouts that I put through my food processor and a tiny bit of liquid smoke. (The original recipe called for bacon) I cooked them for about five minutes and then removed from the heat and mixed in some toasted walnuts and a dressing of apple cider vinegar and a little sugar. I topped my serving with some nutritional yeast. This was a very delicious and nutritious dinner.

And that's mostly what I have been up to the last two days. Got any good ideas for some vegetables? Especially broccoli or chard? How about a smoothie recipe? Or oats combos?

Left you hanging...

Sorry about that folks.  Sometimes dinner and a good tv show that we are currently obsessed with via netflix streaming win out over posting everything.  As for what was in this blender here:

Beets and a banana!  One time a while back I made brownies where I replaced the apple sauce with pureed steamed beets.  In this second attempt I tried using a recipe that called for banana and apple sauce.  While it turned out decent, this time it was not as good.

Pre-bake

Looks like brownies, right?

They were definitely better warm and would have been delicious along side some ice cream but I didn't try that.

Today I got started in my soon to be garden.  I purchased stuff to make starter soil and I bought seeds!  Too many I am sure, but I got excited.

I will try to post about my plans tomorrow if I have time.  Have a great rest of the weekend!

PS: I have been noticing that no matter how hard I try to get my spacing before and after pictures right, it just doesn't seem to work.  For now I am going to just let it post however it chooses to.  If anyone has any tips on how to fix this, please let me know.  Thanks!