Blueberry cornbread muffins

With a bounty of summer berries at my fingertips, it was about time I baked with them (something besides my famous blueberry cobbler, that is). I turned again to Vegan with a Vengeance, and reduced the fat a little bit in the sunny blueberry-corn muffins. I took these to my friends’ 4th of July cookout, so I made them red-white-and-blue (er, more like pink-yellow-and-blue, but it’s the thought that counts) by crowning each one with a plump little raspberry.

1 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1T baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
3/4 cup soymilk
2T soy yogurt
1 tsp vanilla
Zest of one lemon
1 1/4 cups blueberries
12 raspberries, optional

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Grease a 12-cup muffin tin with cooking spray. In a large bowl, combine the cornmeal, flours, baking powder, and salt. In a medium bowl, whisk together the sugar, oil, applesauce, soymilk, soy yogurt, vanilla, and lemon zest. I also tossed the berries in another bowl with a couple spoonfuls of the dry mixture.



Pour the wet ingredients into the dry, stirring with a wooden spoon until just combined. Carefully fold in the berries. Sorry for the blurry photo here...



Spoon the batter into the muffin cups, filling each about 3/4 full. Gently press a raspberry in the center of each, and sprinkle with a little sugar if desired.



Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool in the pan for a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.



These muffins are not too sweet on their own, so they’re great with a little Earth Balance or butter for spreading, and/or jam or jelly for smearing, and/or agave nectar or honey for drizzling. They’ve got just the right amount of crumble, and I like how each burst of blueberry complements the coarse, almost crunchy nature of the cornmeal. They’re perfect as handheld snacks, a light dessert, or (my personal choice) breakfast. No matter when or how you eat them, they make a summery, guilt-free treat.



Yield: 12 muffins. Per muffin: 155 calories, 5.4g fat (trace sat), 24.4g carbs, 2g fiber, 2.8g protein.

If you like this, you might also like...
Cherry almond muffins
Banana wheat germ muffins

Curry lentil crackers w/spinach-avocado dip

When I ordered Brendan Brazier’s The Thrive Diet from Amazon a couple weeks ago, I couldn’t wait till it came in the mail to try out one of his nutrient-dense dishes. A web search yielded this cracker recipe on the Vegetarian Times site. Curry + lentils? It was made for me! It also brought to mind another VT recipe for a great raw Indian dip I’d had my eye on for some time, and it just so happened I actually had spinach in my fridge (left over from my green smoothies). I knew they’d make a perfect pair.

For the crackers:
1/4 cup chickpea flour
1/4 cup cooked or sprouted lentils
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
2T balsamic vinegar
1T coconut oil
2 tsp curry powder
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp agave nectar
Salt to taste

For the dip:
4 cups (about 6 oz.) spinach leaves
1 large avocado, peeled, pit removed
1 1/2 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp seasoned salt
1 clove garlic, peeled
1/4 tsp curry powder
1/8 tsp minced fresh ginger
Dash chili powder
Dash cayenne pepper
Dash cumin

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. In a food processor, combine all cracker ingredients. If you don’t have chickpea flour (I happen to, since I cook a decent amount of Indian food), I’m sure whole wheat pastry or all-purpose would work fine.



Pulse ingredients together, then process until incorporated. It will still appear grainy.



Lightly grease an 11x15-inch baking sheet with cooking spray or extra coconut oil. Spread the mixture on the baking sheet as thinly as possible. I used a wooden skewer as a miniature rolling pin, but this was still the best I could do:



Not quite a full pan, to say the least. Oh well; just call it "rustic." Gently score it with a knife to mark desired cracker size before baking. I also sprinkled them lightly with salt. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool before breaking apart.



Meanwhile, make the dip. So as not to overload the food processor, I pulsed together half the spinach and half the avocado first, then added the other halves of each.



Once roughly chopped, add the remaining ingredients...



...and process until smooth. Transfer to a small bowl or container and refrigerate. The longer it chills, the yummier it gets. When the crackers have cooled completely, dip away! Is that a ridiculously vibrant green, or what?



The crackers are delicate, but hold up just fine against the lightly-textured dip. They’re hearty and filling (remember, all the saturated fat in these is coconut-derived), and the flavor is super-unique. I could pick out a faint taste of sunflower seeds, a tiny tang of balsamic, and just a whisper of curry and cumin. They’re salty, savory, and full of "umami." When the crackers are gone, there will be plenty of dip left, so plan to eat it with raw veggies, in sandwiches, on pita bread, as a veggie burger topping (which I tried; delicious!) or any other way you can dream up. Despite the seemingly minimal seasoning, it packs a massive flavor punch. I don’t see seasoned salt called for often in recipes, but I think it really made a difference here. And I’m telling you, this dip is downright silky. The luxuriously smooth avocado sends the spices spinning in all directions across your palate. And I couldn’t taste the spinach! Victory!



Crackers—Yield: 2 servings. Per serving: 258 calories, 17.6g fat (7g sat), 18.5g carbs, 6g fiber, 8.8g protein.
Dip—Yield: about 2 cups. Per 1/4 cup: 102 calories, 8g fat (1g sat), 8g carbs, 5g fiber, 2g protein.

If you like this, you might also like...
Indian spice hummus
Tuscan white bean dip

Rotini with walnut sauce (×2)

The first recipe I wanted to make when I bought Giada de Laurentiis’s third book, Everyday Pasta, was her rotelli with walnut sauce. As I was compiling a shopping list before leaving work one day, I googled the recipe so that I could pick up the goods on the way home. In my search, I came across Mark Bittman’s recipe for pasta with walnut sauce, from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian (which I also have at home). The two recipes were the same idea, but there were some subtle differences in ingredients and technique. I decided to play a little game—I would make a half batch of each sauce, and see how the two compare. Giada vs. Bittman! (My vegan interpretations of each, that is.)

One note before we begin: I cooked up a single box (13.25 oz.) of rotini and split it between the two sauces. I ended up wishing I’d cooked two boxes. These are half batches of sauce, but they made WAY more than was needed to coat the pasta. Maybe it’s just me—I guess when it comes to rich and creamy-ish sauces, a lot of people like their pasta swimming in it. I, being averse to most rich and creamy-ish things, do not, and it was just too cloying to me. I loved the flavor, but couldn’t handle that much of it. I’m sad to report that I ended up putting about 1/3 of the noodles in a colander, rinsing them clean, then mixing them back in, just to cut down on the heaviness. Such a waste! Unless you want walnut sauce with pasta instead of pasta with walnut sauce, make a full box of pasta for each half batch of sauce.

For Giada’s recipe:
1 box (13-16 oz.) whole wheat rotini
2/3 cup walnut halves, toasted
1T Earth Balance
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2T nutritional yeast
2T dry breadcrumbs
1/4 cup plain soymilk
1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley



Bring a large pot of salted water to boil over high heat. Add the pasta and cook according to package directions. Drain, reserving a cup of the pasta water. Meanwhile, combine the walnuts, Earth Balance, salt, and pepper in a food processor and pulse to combine.



With the machine running, drizzle in the olive oil in a steady steam. Once incorporated, pulse in the nutritional yeast and breadcrumbs. With the machine running, drizzle in the soymilk in a steady steam. Once incorporated, transfer the mixture to a large bowl.



Pretty, um...weird-looking, huh? Instead of adding the pasta followed by the pasta water, I put in about 1/2 cup of the water first so that I could smooth it out (and make it a little more appetizing/attractive).



Muuuch better. Add the hot cooked pasta and stir to distribute the sauce. Add the reserved pasta water, 1/4 cup at a time, until the sauce completely coats the pasta, using only as much as is needed (I didn’t need much extra, having thinned it out before). Sprinkle with parsley, toss and serve.

For Bittman’s recipe:
1 box (13-16 oz.) whole wheat rotini
1 small slice Italian bread
1/4 cup plain soymilk
1/2 cup walnut halves, toasted
1 clove garlic
2T nutritional yeast
2T dry breadcrumbs
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and black pepper to taste

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil over high heat. Add the pasta and cook according to package directions. Drain, reserving a cup of the pasta water. Soak the bread in the soymilk.



Let me pause for one moment here to tell you why I did what I did. Though I absolutely love bread, and am in fact a bit of a fiend for it, I almost never have it in my house. I’d say I buy, on average, 1-2 loaves of bread per year. Why? I just don’t use it IN things. I don’t eat sandwiches, so that nixes that. Though I love a good slice of bread toasted, drizzled with olive oil, and sprinkled with garlic salt, I get my fill of such things in restaurants, and I don’t want to have to eat a whole loaf of bread that way. As for recipes, I almost never make any that require bread. The last time I had bread in my fridge was for my white bean and broccoli pasta toss, which necessitated fresh breadcrumbs. And I struggled to use the rest of that loaf! So anyway, I generally don’t buy bread, and I certainly wasn’t going to buy any just to use one slice here. Instead, I did some off-the-cuff problem solving in the store, and grabbed three packets of these little Lance bread sticks off the salad bar. Since they were going to be soaked and ground, the texture difference didn’t really matter.

So, whatever kind of bread you have, soak it in the soymilk. Combine the nuts, garlic, nutritional yeast, and breadcrumbs in a food processor and pulse to combine. Then, with the machine running, add the oil gradually, using just enough so that the mixture forms a very thick paste. Add the bread-and-soymilk mixture...



...and just enough water to make a saucy mixture. Season with salt and pepper to taste.



Transfer to a large bowl and toss with the hot pasta. If the sauce appears too thick, thin it with the pasta water, a little at a time. Adjust seasoning to taste, and serve.

And now, the finished products, side by side:



Which is which, you ask? Well, I have a confession to make—I don’t exactly remember. I’m 75% sure that Giada’s is on the left and Bittman’s is on the right, but I can’t be certain. You know what, though? It doesn’t matter. They tasted nearly identical. Despite the extra 57 calories and 6.8g fat, Giada’s version was only marginally richer, and even that difference was barely detectable. Both were deliciously nutty and just barely creamy, with deep olive oil undertones and a hint of hearty "cheesiness" from the nutritional yeast. If I must pick a winner, I’d say the edge goes to Bittman, simply because his tasted just as decadent, but had fewer calories and less fat. Hooray for experimentation!

So after all that work of making two separate sauces, would you believe I ended up just mixing the batches together to pack up as leftovers?



Giada’s recipe—Yield: 6 servings. Per serving: 458 calories, 23.7g fat (3g sat), 54g carbs, 8g fiber, 13.2g protein.
Bittman’s recipe—Yield: 6 servings. Per serving: 401 calories, 16.9g fat (2g sat), 54.6g carbs, 7g fiber, 12.9g protein.

If you like this, you might also like...
White bean & broccoli pasta toss
Spaghetti with raw tomato sauce
Tofu parmigiana alla marinara

German chocolate cupcakes

My friend Mike and his girlfriend Emily recently brought their son Emery into the world, and per Emily’s request, I whipped up the German chocolate cupcakes from VCTOTW. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make it out to visit them before the cupcakes would have gone stale. I owe you guys! Instead, these became birthday cupcakes for my mom.

I used sweetened coconut in the frosting, so I cut out some of the brown sugar. I also used lite coconut milk, and it turned out just fine. In addition, as I may have mentioned in the past, I always use vanilla soymilk in baked goods unless otherwise specified; it adds that yummy extra dimension of sweetness. These too are calorific (as any German chocolate cake tends to be) but keep in mind that all the saturated fat here comes from the almighty coconut, whose medium-chain fatty acid goodness is not to be feared.

For the cupcakes:
1 cup soymilk
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

For the frosting:
1/4 cup soymilk
2T cornstarch
Pinch of salt
3/4 cup canned coconut milk
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/4 cups shredded sweetened coconut
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1 tsp vanilla
1T whiskey, bourbon, or Tuaca (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a 12-cup muffin tin or a 24-cup mini muffin tin with paper liners and coat with cooking spray. Combine the soymilk and vinegar in a large bowl and set aside for 5 minutes to curdle. Beat the sugar, oil, and vanilla into the soymilk. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.



Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients in two batches and mix until no large lumps remain.



Fill muffin cups 2/3 full.



Bake for 18-20 minutes for regular cupcakes, or 14-15 minutes for minis. When done, let sit in the pan for a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.



Meanwhile, make the frosting. In a small bowl or measuring cup, whisk together the soymilk, cornstarch, and salt. In a saucepan over medium heat, combine the coconut milk and brown sugar.



Cook, stirring occasionally, until mixture starts to boil. Turn the heat down to low and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 more minutes. Whisk the soymilk mixture once more and slowly pour it into the coconut milk mixture, stirring constantly.



Stir continuously till the mixture darkens again, gets very thick and smooth, and the cornstarch is cooked, about 6 to 7 minutes.



Remove from the heat and add the vanilla, whiskey or bourbon (or, in my case, since I don't like either—Tuaca!), chopped pecans, and coconut.



Stir till everything is coated and combined. Cool to room temperature before frosting the cupcakes.



The base chocolate cupcake recipe is tasty, but the coconut pecan frosting is the real standout. This stuff is RICH! The assortment of textures – creamy, crunchy, chewy – is delightful, and the use of coconut milk rounds out the flavors marvelously. Be careful; you might want to eat this frosting with a spoon.



Yield: 12 regular or 24 mini cupcakes. Per cupcake (regular): 294 calories, 16.4g fat (7g sat), 37g carbs, 2g fiber, 3.4g protein.
Per cupcake (mini): 147 calories, 8.2g fat (3.5g sat), 18.5g carbs, 1g fiber, 1.7g protein.

If you like this, you might also like...
Dreamy creamy tiramisu cupcakes
Hazelnut cupcakes w/chocolate mousse filling
Pumpkin chocolate chip cupcakes w/cinnamon glaze

Multitudinous June leftovers

I can’t believe it’s already July…but let’s not dwell. Instead, let’s ooh and aah at the many yummy things I ingested in June, which include, unusually enough, three pizzas.

I’d never had pizza at Zio’s before, so I gave it a try. They weren’t as "light" on the cheese as I had hoped, but it wasn’t bad. The toppings were red and green peppers and roasted garlic, and the crust was great.



Here is my favorite meal at the almighty Holy Land Café—crispy falafel with tahini sauce, the smoothest, creamiest hummus on the planet, and pita bread so tender I could cry.



At Bangkok Pavilion, an excellent and relatively inexpensive Thai restaurant, I had the panaeng curry. Sooo peanut buttery and good.



For dessert, Henry and Brian and I indulged in the "Thai stick"—light-as-air, fluffy fried doughnut-ish pastry with a heavenly coconut milk-peanut dipping sauce. The fact that they were speared with little pirate swords only makes it more delightful.



At the Daily Dose, I drank a mocha soy latté infused with vanilla vodka, mmm.



Henry, Tyler, Brian, and I attended Greek fest at the St. Dionysius Orthodox Church in Overland Park. It’s a yearly thing, but I hadn’t been in five years! You go through a buffet line and buy food by the item. I got green beans in a thick tomato sauce (fasolakie yahni), some awesome oven roasted potatoes with garlic, oregano, and olive oil, some grilled pita, and a little slice of honey cake (ravani). I’ve got no real problem with honey.



After that, we hit the pastry table. Many of these are butter-drenched and honey-laden, so vegan they are not. They’re a once-a-year treat, though. Clockwise from top left, we have a spiced walnut cake (karithopita), two types of rolled baklava, traditional baklava, a spiced nut cookie (melomakarona), and what’s basically a Mexican wedding cookie/Russian tea cake (kourambiedes). We were four happy people.



I finally tried Spin Neapolitan pizza, and I had a mini pizza, very light on the cheese, with extra sauce, roasted red pepper strips, and roasted garlic cloves. The crust is what people rave about, and I could see why.



My favorite dal makhani of all time (as well as some top-notch naan) can be found at Touch of Asia. The huge portions ensure plentiful leftovers (which are delectable eaten right out of the fridge).



Here’s what I’ve been eating for breakfast almost every day for weeks—I love berry season! This bowl is Fiber One (I like it with puffed kamut too) with strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, and bananas, in a pool of vanilla soymilk. It’s basically last entry’s smoothie, not blended.



I almost never get to go out for lunch, so a midday meal at Po’s last Friday was a treat. I had steamed veggies and tofu in a "white sauce" (which was more translucent than white). I dotted it generously with sriracha and ate it with brown rice.



Also just last Friday, I went to a wine bar in Brookside called Blue Grotto with my friends Rachel and Hillary. Hillary ordered a scrumptious-looking artichoke appetizer served with crostata, pesto, and tapenade.



In between glasses of wine, the three of us shared a rustic flatbread "pizza marinara" with basil chiffonade and (what else?) roasted garlic, partially topped with fresh mozzarella. Can you guess which half of the pizza was mine? ;P



Happy 4th of July, everyone!

Past leftovers...
May
April
March