blueberry oat muffins

This has been one of those crazy work weeks when I have so much going on at once that I can never get rid of the nagging feeling that there's something I need to do. At this time of year it's a disadvantage to work part time, because there just aren't enough hours to get everything done. Whether it's a busy work day or a just-as-busy day at home with Celia, I rarely have the chance to make a fancy breakfast. However, I still want something delicious and healthy for both of us. I'm addicted to these blueberry oat muffins for breakfast. They freeze well in a big Ziploc, and all it takes is thirty seconds in the microwave for breakfast to be ready. These have been my breakfast for a few weeks now, and I'm still not tired of them!

My mom and I have used the same blueberry oat muffin recipe for several years. When I decided to veganize it a couple months ago, I also made some changes that resulted in a lighter, fluffier muffin. Processing half the oats gives the muffins a light texture while retaining lots of whole grain nutrition and a nice oat flavor. If you're short on time, take a few minutes to prepare the dry ingredients ahead of time. I often assemble everything and combine the dry ingredients in a bowl, then return to make the muffins later. 

Blueberry Oat Muffins

Wet Ingredients:
2/3 C canola oil
2/3 C sugar
1 1/2 C non-dairy milk
2 Ener-g "eggs" (You could use real eggs and dairy milk for this, but I encourage you to try it the vegan way!)
2 t vanilla extract

Dry Ingredients:
1 1/2 C all-purpose flour
1 C white whole wheat flour
2 t baking powder
1 t baking soda

1 C rolled oats, finely ground
1 C rolled oats
2 C blueberries (fresh or frozen)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Place 1 C of rolled oats in a food processor. Process until veryfinely ground, almost to a flour. They should look like this:

Combine wet ingredients in a medium bowl. In a large bowl, combine flours, baking powder, and baking soda. Add the ground oats, then stir in the remaining cup of rolled oats and 2 cups of blueberries.

Fill muffin tins. This recipe is designed to make 2 dozen muffins, but I like mine a little bigger so I make 22 muffins. Bake at 400 degrees for 15-18 minutes, or until the tops start to turn golden and spring back when touched.

 

There are various options for activities to perform while the muffins are baking. Go ahead and lick the bowl. It's salmonella free and nobody's looking.

 You could build a sculpture with the dirty dishes. 

I made a banana boat :D

Boy am I a weirdo.

 

These muffins are healthy, delicious, and have a nice combination of light texture with a hearty oat flavor. Let me know if you try them!  

baked spaghetti mess (or: how to use of the dregs of a spaghetti box)

I'm just on a recipe roll, aren't I?

Know how you sometimes end up with a lot of broken spaghetti in your dry spaghetti box? Or with a couple boxes of mismatched broken up spaghetti, neither with quite enough for a full meal? Here's what you can do. There's nothing all that special about this recipe, but it did receive an unsolicited comment from Chris that it was really good. That means something.

Baked Spaghetti Mess
Gather enough dry spaghetti (from a couple different boxes, broken-up pieces, whatever) for four servings. (Or modify to as many servings as you want. Measurements don't have to be exact.)

Break up the spaghetti into short pieces (1-3 inches). Dump in the small broken-up pieces from the bottom of the box.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Grease an 8x8" baking pan. Bring a pot of water to boil and cook the spaghetti pieces until barely al dente. Drain the spaghetti. Take out your pasta sauce of choice.

Realize that the sauce is still mostly frozen.

Defrost sauce and continue with recipe. In the spaghetti cooking pot, combine spaghetti with as much sauce as you want. Stir in 1/2 C dairy or vegan mozzarella. Then stir in any add-ins. Garlic, sauteed peppers, sliced olives, or canned artichoke hearts might be good. If you're a meat eater, ground beef or pepperoni would be good too! I left mine plain because Celia doesn't go for the fancy stuff.

Transfer spaghetti mess to the baking pan. If you want to, sprinkle an additional 1/4 C cheese on top. Bake for 20-30 minutes, or until it's nice and hot and the spaghetti starts getting a bit crispy on the top in places. It's easy and tasty, and you'll have used up those pesky, mostly empty pasta boxes in the pantry.

And your husband will probably like it.

See you Monday!

raspberry vanilla multigrain muffins

How to make Raspberry Vanilla Multigrain Muffins:

Decide to make that new blueberry muffin recipe you made up. You're addicted to these blueberry muffins. Look in the freezer to find that you're out of blueberries, but have two bags of raspberries. Go online to find a raspberry muffin recipe. Nothing strikes your fancy. Decide to make up your own recipe instead. 

Wet Ingredients:
1 C non-dairy milk
3 1/2 T canola oil
1/2 C agave nectar
1 ener-g "egg"
2 t vanilla

Note: This is a vegan recipe, but you could always use dairy milk, a real egg, and honey instead of the vegan milk, egg replacer, and agave nectar.

Dry Ingredients:
3/4 C white flour
1/2 C white whole wheat flour (you could probably use a greater ratio of ww flour if you used whole wheat pastry flour, but I never buy it because it's so expensive around here)
1/2 C rolled oats, processed into smaller pieces
1/2 C cornmeal
1/4 C wheat bran
1 T baking powder
1/4 t salt
1 1/2 C frozen (or fresh) raspberries

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Process the oats in a food processor, to break them down a little. They should look a little like instant oatmeal oats:

Combine wet ingredients in a large bowl.

Combine dry ingredients in a separate bowl by adding oats, cornmeal and wheat bran to the bowl, then sifting in the other dry ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the wet, and combine.

Then fold in the berries.

Fill muffin tins (I made 12 good-sized muffins) and bake for 20-25 minutes at 400 degrees.

While the muffins are baking, survey the damage and clean up, you big slob!

Geez.

Your recipe will look like this, but don't fear.

You can re-write it.

When the muffins are done, make sure you try eating one before it's cooled enough. You'll have a burned tongue and leave half the muffin stuck to the paper.

When they're cool, stack them in pyramids and have a photo shoot. Then you can keep them out or freeze them for single servings. I've never met a muffin that didn't freeze well.

These are not as addictive as my new blueberry muffins (and I'll surely post that recipe next time I have blueberries in the freezer). However, they're good! Next time I would probably omit the cornmeal, grind up the 1/2 cup of oats more finely (almost into flour), and add an additional 1/2 cup of whole rolled oats. I think that would improve the texture. Ground flax seed would also be nice instead of the wheat bran. A teaspoon or two of lemon zest would also be very good in this recipe. I happened not to have a lemon handy.

Time to catch up on some blogs and get ready for Celia to wake up!

I'm linking this up to Sweets for a Saturday. Thanks, Lisa, for letting me know about it! I'll bet you can find all kinds of great baked good recipes there. 

crustless pumpkin pie adventures

I've been trying my hand at more and more vegan cooking and baking, and have learned a lot about what works when "veganizing" a recipe. This week I came up with a dessert that is traditional enough for any holiday meal (or just a regular old November dinner :D), delicious, and- oh yeah! Vegan! Allow me to present:

Crustless Pumpkin Pie Parfaits with Whipped Coconut Cream-

First, pull out the ready-made pie crust that's been sitting in your refrigerator for three months. Place in pie pan. Check the box and notice said pie crust is full of hydrogenated oils and is two months beyond expiration date. Throw pie crust in trash.

Assemble the following ingredients:
1 15-oz can pumpkin
1/2 C sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
heaping 1/4 tsp nutmeg
2 Tbsp ground flaxseed
6 Tbsp water
1/2 C non-dairy milk (I used almond- if you're not vegan, just use whatever milk you have)

Preheat oven to 375. In a small bowl, combine ground flaxseed and water. Let sit for a few minutes to thicken. This will be your "egg". In a medium mixing bowl, combine pumpkin and sugar. Add spices and mix well. Add flax eggs and mix well (really beat it to get it nice and light). Add milk and continue beating to get a light texture.

Pour into an 8x8" pan (individual ramekins would be nice too). Bake at 375 for 25-35 minutes (my oven runs cool so it was toward the longer end). You want it to start to firm up, like pumpkin pie, around the edges. It can still be rather soft though, because it's eaten more like a pudding. Allow pumpkin to cool before assembling parfaits. This can be made early in the day and sit at room temperature until mealtime.

Whipped Coconut Cream:

1 15-oz can full fat coconut milk
scant 1/2 C sugar (or to taste)
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract (or to taste)

Chill your mixing bowl in the freezer before starting. Open the can of coconut milk. Do not shake it first, because you're going to skim the cream from the top. It will look like this:

Gently remove all of the cream it will be about half the can) and place in your chilled mixing bowl. Add sugar and vanilla. Whip at med-high speed until the stiff peaks are achieved. This cream whips up very much like dairy cream. The volume will be a little less than if you used dairy cream.

Find a helper to lick the bowl. Be prepared for her to ask for more.

Assemble parfaits (this can be done a while ahead of time): In small dessert bowls, pretty glasses or ramekins, layer whipped cream on top of pumpkin mixture. Top with broken up toasted or candied pecans. The pecans really do make this. They add a lot to the texture with their crunch, and the nutty flavor breaks up the sweetness of the pumpkin and cream.

Note: Do not forget the pecans are in the oven when toasting them.

Refrigerate the parfaits until it's time to serve.

I'd say this would serve 4-6 people easily (4 servings would be large ones). This is a rich dessert, so small servings would not be a bad thing.

P.S. This would also be really really good warmed up with butter pecan ice cream on top :D

Finally, a word about flax eggs. Ground flaxseed is a fantastic replacement for eggs in baking. Flax "eggs" act as binding agents just like chickens' eggs do. I usually combine 1 Tbsp flaxseed with 3 Tbsp water for one "egg". Let the mixture sit for a few minutes to thicken up to an egg-like consistency. Even if you're not vegan, using ground flaxseed instead of eggs is a great way to increase the health factor of your baked goods.