Pear Oat Crumble Muffins

Tunes: 80’s Pop Hits

Tonight I finally made muffins!  I’ve wanted a muffin for at least a week now.  Originally I was going to make apple muffins, but then I realized I didn’t have any apples.  I did have pears though so I went with that and I am soooooo glad that I did.  They came out quite delicious!!

Yield: 12

2½ TBSP ground flaxseed + 3 TBSP hot water

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour

1¼ cups Country Choice Organic Multigrain hot cereal (rye, barley, oats and wheat) (I found this at Trader Joe’s.  Oats would work too)

¼ tsp fine sea salt

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp nutmeg

1/8 tsp cloves

¼ cup safflower oil

½ cup maple syrup

1 cup oat milk

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup diced pear

Streusel Topping:  ¼ cup multigrain hot cereal

¼ tsp cinnamon

3 TBSP date sugar

2 TBSP Earth Balance olive oil buttery spread

1.  Combine the ground flaxseed and hot water; set aside.  Line 12 muffin tin cups with cupcake liners.

2.  In a large bowl, mix together the flour, hot cereal, sea salt, baking powder and spices.

3.  In another bowl, whisk together the oil, maple, oat milk and vanilla.  Add the oil mix into the flour mix; stir to just combine.  Fold in pears.  Evenly fill muffin tin cups.

4.  Streusel topping: combine the hot cereal, cinnamon and date sugar.  Mash in butter with the back of a spoon to form crumbles.  Sprinkle over the top of the muffins.

5.  Bake at 375°F for about 20 to 30 minutes, when a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.  Cool in muffin pan for a bit then transfer to cooling rack to cool completely.

*Since they’re so fresh, I plan on storing them in the refrigerator.

*The streusel topping got a little bit dark, it could maybe get sprinkled on about half way through baking and be alright.

I will probably try these with some almond butter and try to get to my health food store to buy myself some vegan cream cheese to try on them, I think that would do quite nicely.

Buckwheat Pretzels

Tunes: Kerli – Love Is Dead

I made these a few days ago.  These are a work in progress…

Makes 16

2½ TBSP finely ground flaxseed

3 TBSP hot water

Safflower oil

1 cup buckwheat flour

½ cup whole wheat pastry flour

2/3 cup almond milk

2 TBSP Earth Balance olive oil buttery spread

½ tsp date sugar

½ tsp salt

Sea salt

1.  Combine ground flaxseed and hot water into a blender and blend until frothy.  Let sit while preparing pretzels.

2.  Heat oven to 400°F.  Grease 2 cookie sheets with safflower oil.

3.  In a bowl, combine the flours, milk, Earth Balance, date sugar and salt using a fork.  Lightly flour a work surface with whole wheat pastry flour and transfer dough to surface.  Gently smooth dough into a ball; knead ten times.

4.  Divide the dough in half.  Roll one half into an even 8-inch log and cut into 8 pieces.  Roll each of the 8 pieces gently into thin 12-inch-long strip.  Twist each strip into a pretzel shape and place, seam side down, on prepared cookie sheet.

5.  Add extra hot water to the ground flaxseeds, if necessary, and whisk with fork to thin out.  Brush each pretzel with flaxseed mix and sprinkle lightly with sea salt.  Bake for about 20 minutes or until pretzels are golden brown.  Remove from cookie sheet onto wire rack.

6.  Repeat with other half of dough.

It was a bit of a challenge to make the pretzel shape, lol.  I figure I’ll get the hang of it as I continue to make more.

*I think I would try this recipes again adding more date sugar or maybe another sweetener.

*Next time I may also try replacing the Earth Balance with crunchy peanut butter… Crazy Richard’s is a good one :)

*I would also try baking them a bit longer to make them crunchier.  I made them a few days ago and popped one in the toaster oven today and it was crunchier and I kind of liked it that way.

*You could probably just use water instead of the flaxseed mixed with water.

*I may also try to make less of them next time so I can make them bigger.

Guacamole

I am always looking for a good guacamole recipe... always.  I LOVE guacamole!
I bought a pack of 5 of the giant avocados from the store, they were real soft so they were on clearance and I thought, perfect, I'll make guacamole and just freeze some of it.
So, I bought the 5 pack.  One of them was no good but the other 4 were ready to go.  I made up this recipe as I went along.  I looked at a few recipes for inspiration and then went through my kitchen and used what I had.  Some of the greatest recipes come from this kind of cooking... random.
Here's what came together for me:

4 large very ripe avocados
1/2 celery stalk, chopped into tiny pieces
4 oz fire roasted diced green chiles (I used Trader Joe's)
1-1/2 tsp dried cilantro ( I didn't think I had any, but then found it hiding in the very back of my spice cabinet... whew!)
juice of 1/2 a lime
3 tsp powdered garlic
1-1/2 TBSP minced onion
1-1/4 tsp cumin

Mash it all together.  Add more or less of the spices according to your taste.

The flavor gets better as it sits.  When I first tried it I felt like there was too much lime and it overpowered things but then after it sat overnight, I thought the flavor was excellent.

*I used celery for the crunch factor that onion would have given it.  I can't eat raw onion, that's why I decided to put the celery in, but it would probably be good (for anyone else but me) with onion instead.

Almond Yogurt

Tunes: Frank Sinatra… ‘nuff said.

1 cup almonds

1 cup water

½ tsp probiotic powder - I used Renew Life Ultimate Flora Super Critical 200 Billion High Bifido Maximum Support: when I went to my health food store to look for a probiotic powder I didn’t really know what I was looking for so I asked for help.  So, the salesman helped me find them and then gave me a free sample which was enough for me to use so I didn’t actually have to buy anything.  I like free :)

1.  Soak almonds: place in a jar and cover with at least 3 cups of water.  Place a lid on it, not tightly.  I soaked mine for 22 hours (the recipe I based this off of said to let them soak for 12 to 24 hours).

2.  Drain and rinse the almonds.  Remove the skins.  It took me about 45 minutes to remove them, I just peeled them off.  I did find, about half way through, that if you snip the tiny tip off with your finger nails and peel from there, for the most part, the skins will peel right off… sometimes in one shot.  There may be a better way to remove the skin but I didn’t feel like researching it.  The recipe I based this off of didn’t call to do this but the last time I made almond yogurt there was just something about the taste and texture I didn’t like and I’m thinking maybe it was the skin.
3.  Place the almonds, water and probiotic into your blender: blend well, until creamy, about 6 minutes on low-med, adding more water if necessary (I added about ¼ cup more water to mine).

4.  Place the mixture in a jar and cover with a paper towel (I secured it with a rubber band).  The recipe I based this off of says to let it sit overnight at room temperature; I let mine sit for  about 16 hours and 15 minutes.  The top thicker part should be bubbly and there should be a liquid layer on the bottom.  After letting it sit, cover with a real lid and refrigerate.

*Before enjoying, stir to mix thick and liquid parts.

*Save 2 tablespoons of the yogurt to use as a starter for the next batch.

I did like this a lot better then the last time I made almond yogurt.  I made this original batch last week and it was really delicious.  I made a second batch of it this week using the 2 tablespoons of yogurt in place of the probiotic powder.  I didn't have to add extra water when I was blending and it came out looking good... I haven't actually tried it yet but I'm confident it also tastes delicious :)

September Vegetable Soup

Tunes: Hawk Nelson: mix of albums – something upbeat to really get me going :)

I made this in my Crock-Pot, since I do love using it!

32 oz unsalted vegetable cooking stock (I used one made by Kitchen Basics)

32 oz water

16 oz 17 Bean & Barley Mix (Trader Joe’s makes a great one)

½ cup chopped sweet basil

8 cloves garlic, smashed and coarsely chopped

2 cups chopped carrot

2 red onions, chopped

1 yellow onion, chopped

1 cup cut green beans

3 cups chopped broccoli

1 cup chopped celery

½ cup chopped sun-dried tomatoes

2 cups chopped white button mushrooms

1 cup cut bean sprouts

3 cups packed chopped collard greens

1 cup frozen peas

1.  Start heating the vegetable stock, water and bean & barley mix with the Crock-pot on high.

2.  While those heat up and cook for about 1½ hours, prepare the rest of your vegetables.  Forty minutes in I added the basil; and then the garlic 40 minutes after I added the basil.

3.  An hour and a half into the total cook time, I added the carrot, onion, green beans, broccoli and celery.  Then ½ hour after that I added the sun-dried tomatoes, mushrooms, sprouts, collard greens and peas.

4.  Five hours on high was the magic number, all the vegetables and beans were a perfect tenderness!

I had a bowl of this for dinner and I was quite happy with it.  It has a minestrone taste to it.  If you like things to have more spice flavor, experiment with some herbs… maybe a bay leaf or two, rosemary, more basil.  I like the natural taste of things, so I tend to not spice too much on dishes like this… now give me a curry and I’m spicing things all up!!

I would normally make my own vegetable stock.  Come to think of it, I may have some in the freezer… hmm, haha, too late now.  But it does take time to make and I really just wanted to make the soup, so I found the Kitchen Basics at Shop Rite and it’s just vegetable based, no additives, so that made me happy.

You could probably just add all the vegetables in at one time so you can actually utilize it being in a Crock-Pot and leave it.  I added here and there depending on what vegetables I felt needed to cook longer.  Definitely give the beans that 1½ hours cooking time since they’re dry and need time to really soak and simmer.

I have a 6 quart capacity Crock-Pot and this filled it up almost to the brim.  If it hadn’t, I probably would have added more stock or water.

Cashew Yogurt

Success!!!

I have been wanting to make cashew yogurt for over a month now.  I bought the cashews... I opened the bag... and then life happened and I have been unable to be in my kitchen cooking in waaayyy toooo loooong.

Tuesday night I was going to make soup but I didn't have all the ingredients I wanted.  Since I could actually be in my kitchen though, I decided it was time to try making the cashew yogurt (yay!).

I started out using one recipe that I had found online, so I soaked the cashews for about an hour since the recipe called for soaked cashews.  Sometime during that hour, however, I realized that I could not use that particular recipe (it called for using my dehydrator as an incubator of sorts, which I was like, cool, but then I realized that I cannot remove the trays from my dehydrator so it would be useless to me to make yogurt, not cool).  This dilemma ended with a trip to the library where I knew there was a recipe which I had discovered some time ago in a book: “Go Dairy Free” by Alisa Fleming.

Here's what I did:

1.  Place 1 cup of RAW cashews into a glass jar.  Add 3 cups cold filtered water and cover with lid; let soak for 1 hour.

2.  Drain cashews, reserving water, and pat dry (or air dry, I did both).

3.  Place cashews in a food processor and process until they are the texture of a coarse meal.  Place cashew "meal" and 1 cup of reserved water in a blender; blend until the mixture is smooth and the consistency of heavy cream.  Place in a glass jar.

Now, I made my own “incubator” using a 2 gallon drink cooler.  I heated up some water on the stove and poured about 2 inches of water into the cooler, let the temperature drop to just below 100°F and then placed the glass jar, covered with a paper towel and secured with a rubber band, into the cooler (making sure that the edges of the paper towel were not in the water).  I put the lid on and let it do it's thing.

 

The mixture sat out for about 30 minutes between the time I blended it and the time that I put it into the "incubator".  Once in the "incubator", I left it for 20 hours and 30 minutes.  Time will vary depending on the temperature it's kept at (keep it in a warm place between 70 and 100°F).  I checked it after about 9 hours but then I had to go to work.  It's supposed to form bubbles and a layer of liquid on the bottom.  Mine had some bubbles after the 20 hours and 30 minutes so I made the decision to go ahead and put a real lid on the glass jar and move it into the refrigerator.

I would suggest letting it refrigerate overnight before eating it.  I ate some of it yesterday, probably about 2-3 hours after putting it into the refrigerator and it was good... but then I had some more today and the flavor was much better.  Just make sure to stir it up before serving it up :)

If you want it sweet, I would try mixing in some pure maple syrup or some agave.

I mixed mine with some fruit and muesli: delicious!