Zucchini Apple Muffins (Vegan)

Oh hey, I’m back!

What better way to spend a rainy Veteran’s Day holiday than to fill the kitchen with the smell of apples baking, stock up for breakfast/snacks for the week and snuggle away from the cold?

I wasn’t intending on blogging this, mainly because I was planning on following Dana’s muffin recipe and only playing around with the flavours (zucchini instead of carrots). I was also tempted with Ella’s version that included a delicious oat crumble on top.

But of course, as per usual, I didn’t have all of the ingredients for either of these recipes! I usually shy away from improvising with baked goods (much more of a novice with baking than with cooking), but my vision of a warm morning with coffee and muffins was too hard to resist.

So I stuck mostly with Dana’s recipe but upped the fruit proportions and played around with the sweeteners, liquids, and spices to make sure that I’d get the right tastes and consistency. The result was spectacular:

These muffins are moist inside, crisper on top, and communicate subtle tones that hint at zuccchini, apple, maple syrup and cinnamon. It was hard not to eat them all right away- they misted up my camera when I tried to get a close up and so how I could I resist…?

INGREDIENTS:
Makes 12 muffins.

• Flax egg (1.5 tbsp ground flax seed, 3 tbsp water)
• 3/8 cup maple syrup (Or 1/4 cup plus another splash!)
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup almond milk
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• Pinch of salt
• 1.5 tsp baking soda

• 1/2 cup zucchini, grated (~3 mini zuchs)
• 1 cup apples, grated (~ 2 small ones)
• 2/3 cup oats
• 1.5 cup all purpose flour

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Mix ground flax seed with water and set aside for a few minutes. After 5-10 minutes, mixture should have egg-yolk type consistency.
2. Preheat oven to 375 F.
3. Add flax egg into mixing bowl and stir in wet ingredients in above order, from the maple syrup to almond milk.
4. Add in spices and grated apple and zucchini.
5. Mix in oats and flour slowly, adding in 1/3 of a cup at a time and folding it into batter.
6. Dole out batter into a greased muffin pan and bake for 25 minutes until edges are brown and pulling away from the pan.
7. Remove and allow to cool (or not, and devour them immediately).

They store well too- reheat batches in subsequent days and top them off with a little sliver of butter!

Doubledecker Baked Nachos (Vegetarian)

These are “nacho” ordinary chips.

Usually, I try not to take too many food pics in public. Or be too fickle with the way things are presented on a plate…or the lighting…or the garnishes.

But when my friend and fellow blogger Viola (check out: Stylish Wanderers and Wanderer’s Pantry) drops by for the weekend, food pics are part of what we do. Cooking meals together is also what we do. So after a long day of walking ALL up and down Cambridge/Somerville, and shivering in the non-summer weather, it’s time for a Saturday night in: Nachos, wine, and Netflix.

These beauties are super easy to make, loaded with veggies, and taste better than those sad restaurant nachos where after a few exciting cheese-filled bites, you’re left with naked tortilla chips. The trick? Tuck in some filling between 2 layers of chips, and top it all off with some more beans, cheese, and the works.

Throw it in the oven for a couple minutes until the cheese gets all gooey and you’re good to go!

INGREDIENTS:

Serves 2-3 (Meal sized servings)

• 3 Cloves of garlic
• 4 Green onion bulbs
• 15-20 grape tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons of canola oil
• 1 Can of black beans
• Approx.¼ chopped cilantro

• Approx. half a bag of tortilla chips of your choice (I mixed it up using two different types of chips including Trader Joe’s Vegetable Flax Seed and Black Bean Quinoa Chips)
• Approx.¼ cup of salsa (I used Trader Joe’s Double roasted salsa)
• Approx.½ cup of grated cheese (I used Gruyere since that’s all I had!)
• Guacamole, to taste

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 425 F.
2. Mince up the garlic and cilantro. Divide chopped cilantro into 2 halves, one for each layer of filling.
3. Slice up the green onion and divide into halves, roughly separating the bottom ends (onion) from the top ends (shoots). Further divide the shoots into two halves, one for each layer of filling.
4. Slice grape tomatoes in half and rinse out the canned black beans.
5. Add oil to a frying pan and heat on medium high. Add in garlic, onion-y portions of the green onion and fry lightly (3-4 minutes). Add in tomatoes and green beans and cook for 10 minutes, or until the tomatoes are softened. Using your spatula, press down on the beans to “smush” them a little.
6. In a baking dish (we used a glass pie plate), layer tortilla chips on the bottom.
7. Spoon on half of the bean mixture, and half of grated cheese, salsa, chopped cilantro and onion shoots.
8. Layer on more tortilla chips atop the mixture and repeat step 7.
9. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes or until the cheese is melted.

Lay out some salsa and guac (and libations) so that people can help themselves. Bon appetit!

DISCLAIMER: 

Not sponsored by Trader Joe’s. Just live really close to one.

Rosemary-Olive Beer Bread (Vegan)

Yup, you read that title correctly.

For the weeks when you have midterms, late meetings or apartment-viewings (or all of the above). For when you don’t have enough time to make breakfast, lunch AND/OR dinner: This recipe’s for you. A loaf of this will last you a week, and serve as a great base for versatile meals, including open-faced sandwiches (more on those later) and pairings for soups or salads.

I first had beer bread at the Rabbit Hole Cafe in Montreal: a vegan pay-what-you-can cafe tucked in the basement of The Yellow Door. So beer bread brings back special memories of Friday lunches with friends, taking refuge from classes and the dead of winter, and sharing tea, piano songs and laughter.

Because I like my bread to have stuff in it, I amped up the classic recipe with rosemary and olives, and a sprinkling of pumpkin seeds and oats. And while most beer bread recipes call for lagers, I used an ale (Sam Adams Cold Snap) because I was intrigued by the “blend of exotic fruits & spices including orange peel, plum, hibiscus & fresh ground coriander” … and because it was the only beer I had lying around.

The result was a dense and fragrant bread. The top was firm, the middle a little crumble-y and cake-y and the flavours subtle enough to complement whatever you may put on top.

INGREDIENTS:

Bread:

• 2 ½  cups of all purpose flour
• 1 bottle of beer of your choice (I used Sam Adams Cold Snap*)
• ⅓  cup of extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• ½  tablespoon of maple syrup
• 1 – 2 teaspoons sea salt

Mix-ins: 

• 2 tablespoons of fresh rosemary
• ½ cup of sliced olives (Both canned and fresh work)
• Roasted pumpkin seeds, to sprinkle
• Oats, to sprinkle

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. In a mixing bowl, sift and combine flour, salt and baking powder.
3. Add in the olive oil and mix coarsely.
4. Crack open a bottle of beer and pour it into the mixture (If you sneak in a sip or two, you’re forgiven!).
5. Wait a few seconds for the fizzing to stop, and mix the beer in thoroughly, until a batter-like consistency is reached.
6. Drizzle on the maple syrup and mix into the batter.
7. Chop up the rosemary** and the olives and add to mixing bowl.
8. Fold in the mix-ins with a spatula.
9. Transfer dough to baking pan**. Sprinkle on oats, pumpkin seeds or other toppings, pressing lightly onto the top of the dough.
10. Bake for 50 minutes until the top is browned and the insides are cooked.

*DISCLAIMER:

 We are not endorsed by Sam Adams or anyone else. We wish we were.

**NOTES:

• Before chopping the rosemary, try to break apart or crush the leaves with your hands. This will release the natural oils and lend to more fragrance. After doing so, run your knife over the leaves to coarsely chop into smaller pieces.
• Please use a bread pan  and/or avoid filling up the baking pan the whole way like I did. Otherwise you’ll get a weirdly shaped loaf like mine. And if the rising loaf is not contained by the baking pan, rogue pumpkin seeds may fall off in the hot oven and cause you to fret over the house burning down.

…Veganish: experimenting and (occasionally) making mistakes, so that you don’t have to.

Wild Berry Egg Tarts (Vegetarian)

If you’ve ever been to Hong Kong – or Vancouver, or any Chinatown for that matter – you have probably stepped into a Chinese bakery. There is something comforting about the combination of stark fluorescent lighting, that distinct sweet buttery aroma, the click of plastic tongs and trays, and the curt mid-Menopausal cashier that rings up your order before you have time to grab your wallet.

But for those who don’t have the luxury of such an experience in the vicinity, or prefer avoiding the outrageous $1.30 price tag on these treats nowadays (they were 33 cents back in the 90s!), you can now turn your own kitchen into said bakery.

You may have noticed that many of my recipes contain (frozen) blueberries. One of the perks of living in the ‘burbs is that I’m at the nexus of residential and agricultural land. In other words, there is a blueberry farm a 5-minute walk from home! Can’t beat picking fresh berries as a post-dinner digestion aid. So we do a lot of that in the summertime, then freeze ‘em up for baking the rest of the year.

Now, you may not have a blueberry farm next to your house, but maybe some wild blackberry bushes nearby, or a backyard ready to host some fruit trees or veggies, and most likely a farmer’s market in your ‘hood. (A few months ago, my dad and I set up our backyard garden, and we’ve got tons of yummy produce ready to bloom. Be on the lookout for a post on gardening!) Whatever your local flava – add it to the mix! Veganish is all about experimenting, so I encourage you to customize these recipes to your taste and the bestest, freshest goods in your reach.

I must admit, this recipe is super simple largely because I use pre-made tart shells, which you can find at most grocery stores (I got mine at Superstore / Loblaws). The toughest part of this whole process is getting the egg tarts into the oven without spilling! Seriously, requires zen Qi-gong hands. Just imagine you’re moving through a giant block of jello. If you manage to make these tarts sans spillage, I will personally mail you a gold star.

INGREDIENTS:

Makes 12 egg tarts

• 3 eggs
• 150ml milk
• 1 tbsp sugar
• ½ cup blueberries & blackberries
• 12 frozen tart shells

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Lay out tart shells onto baking rack.
2. Beat the eggs, add milk and sugar and stir until smooth.
3. Place 3-4 blueberries & blackberries in each tart.
4. Pour mixture into shells.
5. Carefully place baking rack into the oven.
6. In a toaster oven, bake at 350 F for 20-25 minutes until tart shells slightly brown.
7. Share and enjoy!

Blueberry Lemon Breakfast Muffins (vegetarian)

There’s a saying French that starts off with “déjeuner comme un roi” and another in Mandarin that goes “早饭吃得好”. They essentially say the same thing – dine like a king in the morn, so that you’re booted up for the rest of the day. When I lived on my own, breakfast always consisted of a bowl of oatmeal with a sliced banana, another fruit (usually apple, kiwi, or berries) and a sprinkling of nuts and raisins. Excellent for the clearing the digestive tract ;). Now that I’ve moved back to a household of 5, meals are all about economy of scale. Without sacrificing the nutrition and taste, of course. Breakfast at home typically consists of healthy pastries with a cup of warm soy or almond milk (the warmth may be an Asian thing… supposedly it aids digestion). So you’ve got your starchy energy and liquid protein. Mid-morning, after my bike ride to work and answering emails, I like to top it off with a nice ripe banana – can’t do without that potassium and fibre! The family recently went down to Cali for spring break, and we visited some old friends in their gigantic LA mansion. The pool, built-in slide, and basketball court were alright, but my favourite part was their citrus trees! They had oranges, grapefruit, and lemons growing right in their backyard. Organic, of course. And they were amazing.

We brought a couple fruits for the road, and I just so happened to find one of these giant lemons sitting in our fridge the other day – literally the size of my hand. Naturally, I thought – lemon muffins! This was a fun recipe to make. The best – or worst, depending on how clean you like your kitchen – is getting the batter into the tins! If you have an ice scream scoop, make use of it! Either way, get ready for some zesty splatter.

INGREDIENTS: For 12 large or 24 medium-size muffins  

Wet ingredients:

• 1 cup plain soymilk / almond milk
• juice + zest of 1 large lemon (or 2 small lemons)
• ¾ cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup sugar
• ½ cup applesauce
• 3 eggs

Dry ingredients:

• 2 1/3 cup all-purpose or whole wheat flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• ¾ tsp salt

Mix-in’s:

• 2 cups blueberries
• 1 cup nuts for extra crunch (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Grate your lemon for zest, then squeeze out all the juice.
3. Beat the eggs, then combine all the wet ingredients in a bowl. Mix until smooth.
4. In a separate bowl, combine all the dry ingredients.
5. Mix your dry ingredients into the wet bowl. Mix until smooth.
6. Stir in the blueberries.
7. Line the muffin tins with compostable liners or vegetable oil. Spoon in your batter with an ice cream scoop or a large spoon.
8. Bake for 15 minutes. The top should be slightly browned and a toothpick should come out clean.
9. Cool, share, and enjoy!