The first farmers market of the year

Well, not the first, but our first visit to the farmers market this year.  Not much in season.  But, there were these 1.5" diameter mandarins!

Some slightly green tinged, all fresh and wonderful.

Also, I made more muffins for a party.  Pumpkin muffins from VwaV.

And some oatmeal-apple butter muffins.  They're still waiting for their recipe.  It's in-progress.

I packed them in a soda box.  They fit quite well.  :D

Also, my Freund sent me this that she made out of clay...

Badass, no?

It's a raptor claw.  Yes.

Vegan MoFo: Walnut Butter Swirl Banana Muffins

Tasty food can sometimes be seriously ugly.  Observe!

I made my favorite banana bread recipe (always half the sugar or use less, it tastes more banana-y that way) and intended to add a streusel topping with walnut butter, sugar, and margarine.  Instead, the walnut butter melted through the muffins and made tasty crunchy swirls!

Sad looking, but so tasty!  Not that it would improve the appearance of these ugly muffins, but I can't wait for my new camera!  It's so hard to take photos in the evening or early morning when there is no natural light.

Pumpkin Bran Muffins and Birthday Weekend

Ahoy!  I still do not have a camera, but I did take some photos this weekend ... And it was the anniversary of my birth or something.  I was feeling kind of low, but it ended up being a decent weekend.  The boy took me to the newly opened zpizza near our house.  Was very tasty, and they didn't skimp on the vegetable toppings the way many pizza places do!

The boy also veered toward tradition and brought home a bunch of roses for me (d'aw).

Purty, but I was so happy just to spend some time with the boy - he was gone the rest of the weekend working like crazy.  Grad student life, eh?  Poor fella.

I was alone the majority of the weekend, so I had plenty of time to experiment with a new recipe: pumpkin bran muffins!  Oh yes...and they are low sugar (not super sweet, but you could increase the sugar for a more traditionally sweet muffin) and low fat.  I just felt like something somewhat healthy after so much greasy pizza.

Pumpkin Bran Muffins

1 c unbleached AP flour
2 c wheat bran
3 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground ginger
3 T brown sugar (increase to 1/2 c if you want these to be sweeter)

Combine all of the above, then add:

1 c pumpkin puree
1 c soy milk
1 T canola oil
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 tsp cornstarch/egg replacer + 1/4 c water, whisked
(chopped walnuts or dried cranberries optional)

Mix until just combined.  Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.  Makes 12 muffins!

So delicious.  I've made three batches of these muffins so far, tweaking and adjusting... they're still a work-in-progress, but mmm!

ALSO!

I received some awesome presents this weekend... they were... kitty kisses!  I started volunteering at Irvine Animal Care, a municipal shelter that is full of cats, rabbits, dogs, and the odd reptile.  Although having a pet is not a commitment my boyfriend and I can make right now, I'm really happy to be able to help animals in need.  And it's so rewarding to work with these animals!  :3  It is easy to become jaded...believe me, I know (especially now that I'm working in the non-profit sector)!  If you have spare time, please give volunteering a try - be it with a shelter, a non-profit, helping humans, helping animals... everything helps.

Raisin Walnut Bran Muffins

Hello, muffins.

Last weekend, in between waiting for the split peas to cook down, I made bran muffins from The Joy of Vegan Baking.  I added some walnuts.  I wished I had molasses and not just piles of agave.  I wished I had giant, fresh blueberries instead of the recommended raisins.  But then I ate a muffin.  And then I ate a couple more.

Bran muffins are another one of those things that I hadn't had until going vegan.  My family tends to be "anti veg" and "anti healthy."  After I went vegan, my white grandma informed me that "if it's not made with real butter, it's not worth it."  I didn't really know what to say.  That visit also entailed a lot of "our family eats meat," comments.  I don't know what they were trying to tell me.  But if it was that I'm out of the family, that's fine.  I guess they won't get any muffins!

What I'm really trying to find and/or create is a recipe replicating a fabulous "omega" muffin piled with flax and raw sugar and blueberries and walnuts and possibly cranberries that I had at a fabulous coffee shop in Appleton, Wisconsin.  This coffee shop was rad, and its name was equally rad: Brewed Awakenings.  Its organic coffees were never watery, and its selection of vegan baked goods was diverse and delicious.  This recipe is a good start.

Here's hoping these muffins freeze well.  I need one and some coffee please.

Chocolate Chip Muffins

Many of my friends were born without the chocolate-loving gene; whether this is a defect or the absence of a defect will require further study.  Even the boy won't eat a super chocolatey brownie, preferring applesaucey vegany mildly chocolatey brownies to the ueber fudgy concoctions I will occasionally make.  So, I went in search for a gentle chocolate chip muffin, nothing double- or ultra- or otherwise prefixed.

This morning, I made these, which were these but with a tsp of instant coffee and a half cup of wheat bran thrown in to make them more breakfasty.

And, I took a shitty webcam photo--complete with the shadow of my laptop--of one before I ate it.

Good-bye, breakfast muffin.