Muffins x2

Today I spent almost the entire day in the kitchen. We are taking off on a little camping trip tomorrow (well, not really camping, more like RVing) so I spent the day getting ready for that. Mostly I made a lot of old favorites like Giardino Burgers, Snack bars, hummus, Black bean and quinoa salad and of course pasta sauce so my spaghetti lovers can eat their spaghetti. Vegan camping with children (read picky children) is quite a bit of work. I mean, it's not like my kids are going to set down and eat a bunch of grilled veggies, etc. And, after long days of hiking, biking, and hopefully horseback riding they are going to need some serious refueling come dinner time. Therefore I thought it prudent to bring along some of their favorite meals so we can assure adequate eating at dinner. I also gathered plenty of healthy snacks for the afternoons....lots of fresh fruits, raisins, soy yogurts, whole wheat crackers and smooshed fruit.

I also made some muffins for us to have as a quick grab and go breakfast option. There were a couple of really ripe bananas sitting in my fruit dish, so first up was banana oat muffins. The recipe is adapted from a VegWeb.com recipe.

Whole Wheat Banana Oat Muffins

2 large bananas, very ripe

2 Tbs olive oil

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/3 cup + 2 Tbs plain soy milk

1 1/3 cup white whole wheat flour

3/4 cup turbinado sugar

1 Tbs baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp cinnamon

3/4 cup quick cooking oats

Preheat oven to 350. In a small bowl smash bananas. Mix in oil, vanilla and soy milk and set aside. In large mixing bowl combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon. Add the wet mixture to the dry and mix just until combined. Stir in oats. Spoon mixture into oiled muffin tins. Bake for 20 minutes or until lightly browned.

Next up were these deliciously decadent Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins. They definitely aren't the kind of thing you'd want to serve for breakfast on a weekly basis. But they'll be a great treat for our camping trip, and would make a nice item on a brunch buffet. It's always easy to impress your non vegan friends with a bit of chocolate-y vegan goodness!!

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins

1 1/2 cup unbleached all purpose flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1/2 cup turbinado sugar

1 tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

1 cup + 2 Tbs soy milk

1/4 cup canola oil

1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350. In a large mixing bowl combine dry ingredients. Add soy milk and oil and mix until just combined. Fold in chocolate chips. Fill oiled muffin tins and bake for about 20 minutes, or until skewer inserted in center comes out clean.

Piña Colada Muffins

I was in an experimental mood this afternoon, so I started looking around the kitchen for what I had that I could throw into a muffin. I had some left over crushed pineapple hanging out in the refrigerator, as well as about 1/2 bag of unsweetened shredded coconut. Voilà, piña colada muffins were born!

Piña Colada Muffins

1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour

1 tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut, plus more for sprinkling

3/4 cup vanilla rice milk

1/8 cup canola oil

1/2 cup crushed pineapple, drained

12 dried cherries

Preheat oven to 350. Combine dry ingredients. Add wet ingredients stirring just to combine. Fill oiled muffin cups about 1/2 full. Sprinkle batter with shredded coconut, press one dried cherry into the center of each muffin. Bake for 27 minutes.

To Satisfy My Chocolate Craving

All last week I was having a major chocolate craving, and with no dairy free chocolate in the house it just wasn't getting satisfied. There was a massive snow storm predicted for Friday and Saturday, so Thursday night I stopped by the store to pick up some dairy free chips. I wasn't going to get snowed in my house with no chocolate around!!

I had to go to our local, small town grocery. Dairy free chocolate chips were scarce, but I did manage to find one brand, that happened to be an "off" brand, and not a big name brand. What's in a name anyway, right?

So, Friday evening I baked Dreena's Homestyle Chocolate Chip Cookies, from Vive Le Vegan. These cookies have the Toll House recipe beat, hands down. I've not had a more delicious chocolate chip cookie, ever! My only complaint......there weren't enough!! I ate mine dunked in some vanilla soy milk.....YUM. And, in our haste to eat them, I forgot to take pictures until we had only one lonely cookie left setting on the plate!


I also made some chocolate chip muffins for Saturday morning's breakfast. With the snow falling by the inch it seemed like muffins would be a good way to start the day before we headed out in the snow. I just used my regular recipe for blueberry muffins, only subbing in the chocolate chips instead. They turned out really well, only they need to cook about 2 minutes less than the blueberry one's, so they were a tad on the dry side.

Veggie Pot Pie and, who says vegan muffins don't rise??

Tonight I made the veggie pot pie that I blogged about in my very first food post. This time I didn't have any cauliflower or fresh green beans so instead I used frozen green beans, frozen peas, and frozen corn. On the top crust I sprinkled a little paprika, and voila, it's pot pie. Just as delicious and comforting as last time. Tonight we just had it with a simple side of cottage cheese.

The kids did a bit of a role reversal on us tonight. Stella just picked at her dinner, eating on the crust. Mairin on the other hand ate nearly her entire serving. It seems that Mairin may have turned over a new leaf for the new year. She's been eating like there's no tomorrow, I can't seem to keep the fruits, veggies, and yogurts in stock these days!!

On a different note, I tried my hand at some baking tonight (I do very little baking). With Stella's limited elimination diet, I've been feeling in a rut when it comes to breakfast, so I thought I'd cook up a big batch of muffins so we could have something besides cereal and oatmeal for a change. Well, of course, with no eggs, no soy and no dairy, these had to be vegan muffins. Everywhere I looked I kept seeing over and over again "fill the muffin cups full to the top because vegan muffins don't rise"........well, they do. Just look at these monsters......the muffin tops were bulging over the cups (which is fine by me because I like the tops the best anyway........anyone remember that Seinfeld episode?)

I can't remember where I got the recipe that I finally settled on, so I'm posting it without acknowledgement.

Vegan Blueberry Muffins

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

3/4 cup rice milk

1/4 cup oil

1 cup frozen blueberries

Preheat oven to 400. Grease muffin tin. Mix dry ingredients until combined. Add in wet ingredients and mix until just moistened. Fold in blueberries. Spoon batter into greased muffin tin and bake for 25-30 minutes.