Pear Berry-Jam Muffins

I know that fall is synonymous with apples, but pears are really the fruit that has always done it for me. Since they aren't grown locally, their season is sort of muddled, but now is when they're on sale, and now is when Trader Joe's sells a 1/2 peck of them for a few dollars. That, in my pear-loving book, is a deal.

I mostly like my pears unadulterated. Yes, a baked pear is nice, and they could be a nice addition to a salad, but for the most part, I just bite right in.

For this particular 1/2 peck of pears, I made an exception, and modified the Jam-Filled Oat Bran Muffins in Joy of Vegan Baking to include some of these perfectly ripened pieces of fruit.

Pear Berry-Jam Muffins (modified from JoVB)

2 Tbsp ground flaxseed

6 Tbsp water

2 cups oat bran

1 cup spelt flour (could sub any other flour, AP or WW, etc)

1/2 cup sugar

4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/4 cup unsweetened soymilk

1/3 cup sunflower oil (use any light oil)

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups chopped pears

1/2 cup blackberry preserves

I've been on a Trader Joe's 'kick' recently (I love the Chili-Lime cashews), and have been buying more and more stuff from them. One of my recent purchases was of my most favorite kind of jelly/jam/preserve, blackberry.

The fact that its low(er) in sugar makes it even better. The lack of sugar is definitely noticeable, but it actually lets the taste of the blackberry peek through a little more. I felt this would pair with my pears perfectly; the deep purple next to the light green is a beautiful contrast, plus...it tastes good.

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.

Whip the flaxseed and water to make your "flax egg" (I like to use a mini-food processor or my Magic Bullet for this job)

In a large bowl combine all the dry ingredients (even the sugar!): flour, oat bran, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, salt.

In a small bowl combine the wet: milk, vanilla, oil, flax "egg" mixture.

Stir the pears into the wet mixture, then combine wet with dry, stirring until just combined.

Take out your muffin tins and either grease or apply muffin cups.

Fill cups halfway with muffin batter.

Using a 1/2 tsp, scoop out a dollop of jam (about 1 tsp).

Nestle the jam in the batter, then cover the jam with another spoonful of batter.

Bake 15-20 minutes. I took mine out around 18 minutes.

These came out completely perfectly. Little chunks of pear in a muffin that is warm with whole grain nuttiness from the oat bran, and then the jam...who doesn't like something filled with jam?

If you want to get crazy, these probably wouldn't mind being highlighted with some walnuts too, nuts in muffins just aren't my thing.

I made a half batch of these, and I came out with about 9 muffins. So plan for 16-18.

Nutrition Information: 158.7 Calories; 5.5g Total Fat; 0.5g Saturated Fat; 0.0mg Cholesterol; 24.2g Carbohydrates; 3.5g Fiber; 3.4g Protein.

If anyone is wondering about the sporadic-ness of the nutrition information, that is because while I don't count calories, I liked to calculate in the past to highlight how healthy vegan food is. I don't necessarily have the time for that now, but if I do have time, or if I'm curious myself (as I was for these), I'll post it! And if there is anything where I don't post it, and YOU are curious, let me know, I'd be more than happy to calculate for you!

One last thing...Bianca posted about this the other day, and while I assume I must be the last to know, maybe this will light up someone else's life as it did mine...

Skittles are vegan! This makes me incredibly happy, as they were always one of my favorites (back in high school, I logged onto their website everyday at work to vote to keep the green lime, and not apple). If you buy a pack now, you'll see under the ingredients that they are Gluten Free and Gelatin Free. Pretty cool. Healthy? No. Fake fruit flavored sugary goodness? Yes. Granted, they're a "once in awhile" food, but its nice to know they're there, and they're animal-free.

Enjoy the rest of your Columbus Day weekend! Hopefully you have some festivals to go to, fall is in full swing!

Peanut Butter Cookie Monster

I love dessert.  I love eating dessert.  I love the idea of making my own dessert creations.  Truth be told, however, I rarely actually do that.  I would much rather search for a recipe, be inspired by a blog post, or buy a cookbook by someone who is clearly more experienced than I, and avoid being disappointed.  You’d think, as someone with a science background, that the science behind baking would intrigue me, but...tis not so.    

Luckily, I got two vegan dessert cookbooks for Christmas:  My Sweet Vegan by Hannah Kaminsky and The Joy of Vegan Baking by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau.  I have to say that one of my favorite things about both of these books is all the pictures!  They make the recipes so much more mouthwatering and memorable.    

I was also elated to be gifted with a Kitchen Aid food processor from my parents.  So, the first thing I did was make peanut butter.  This is good for a number of reasons.  First, I can’t control myself around an entire jar of peanut butter, so now I can make limited quantities.  Second...um...I like peanut butter?  I’m not sure why I said there were a number of reasons, peanut butter just rocks.  

   

Anyway, after making my peanut butter, I was flipping through My Sweet Vegan and found the peanut butter cookie recipe.  The best part, they are made with red lentils...not only did I have them in my pantry, but it would make them gluten free!!  

So, you’ll have to get the book yourself if you want to try them, but I will tell you that I woke up bright and early this morning before my yoga class to make them, and they are awesome.  I am pretty sensitive to the bean flour taste, but you can’t taste it even a little in these cookies; they are chewy and peanut buttery and even better than I thought they would be!  I didn’t have parchment paper, so I just used a bare ungreased baking sheet and removed them soon after taking them out of the oven so they wouldn’t stick.  I suggest flattening them a little before baking so they have that flat peanut butter cookie look.  I skipped that on the first batch and they weren’t as pretty.          

Peanut-Plus Cookies  

Nutrition Information:  112.8 Calories; 5.5g Total Fat;  0.9g Saturated Fat;  0.0mg Cholesterol;  11.7g Carbohydrates;  1.1g Fiber;  3.3g Protein

These were perfect with a nice glass of unsweetened soymilk (sweetened with english toffee flavored liquid stevia).  I had them for breakfast :)  You might want to save them for dessert, but I couldn’t wait until then.

So that’s it for the food.  My holiday was fine, kind of boring, although every single gift I received was fabulous, I feel quite spoiled this year.  I also got Veganomicon and Great Chefs Cook Vegan, both of which I am excited about.  Actually about 95% of my gifts were food related, so I’m sure they will be popping up on here in one way or another!  

I'm going to dinner at my friend's house tomorrow and I offered to bring two appetizers, because they are having non-vegan potato leek soup for dinner.  I'm thinking stuffed mushrooms, any ideas for a second app?

I hope everyone had (or is having, I don’t think Hanukkah is over yet?) a great holiday!  I’ll be able to catch up on everyone’s blogs soon, if I haven’t already...I feel so behind!   

Getting Figgy

 I spent most of today working on a big project I have to present to my professor in a one on one meeting Thursday.  I also have class from 4:30 to 10:15 on Tuesday nights, so it was a busy day.  

I packed myself dinner, which was red lentils, brown rice, coconut milk, lemongrass, curry powder, etc.  I cooked up some kale too.  It was okay, something was missing though.  I'll have to try it again.  

Packed and ready for class!

Nutrition Information:  366.3 Calories;  5.7g Total Fat;  3.2g Saturated Fat;  0.0mg Cholesterol;  64.5g Carbohydrates;  17.6g Fiber;  19.6g Protein

When I got to class, my teacher's kid was sick, so she only kept us for about 10 minutes.  Uh, hello?  I have class at 7:30 too, what am I going to do for 3 hours??  Answer:  Go Home.  I did stop at the natural food store that is by school.  I got some fun stuff!  

Someone asked about the PURE bar on the Vegan Bodybuilding and Fitness forums a week or two ago, and I had never heard of them...then I saw them today on the very bottom shelf!  I also got some flax tempeh (my favorite) and some Israeli couscous.  The Z sweet is erythritol, a sugar alcohol.  If anyone would like to read more about it, you can here.  I got Soya Kaas "cream cheese", because the Tofutti at this store is still partially hydrogenated, and I don't feel good about that.  The brown rice snaps are black sesame..they look cool, although they are a little salty for me!  

The best part about skipping my second class though, was that I had the time to make the Fig Date Bread from Joy of Vegan Baking.  I have been wanting to make this for a couple of weeks now, slowly gathering the ingredients every few shopping trips.  

    

I kept the flash on for the second picture, because I just couldn't get a good shot without the flash that showed how chunky and moist it is.  

Oh, did I mention I made it gluten free?  Yeah, I changed a few things.  I used the 1/2 brown rice flour, 1/2 buckwheat flour mix again.  I like this.  You can taste the buckwheat, but I think its a good hearty taste, so it works.  I subbed half the sugar with the erythritol and the other half was beet sugar.  Also, for the fat option (she suggests either vegan margarine or canola oil), I used Smart Balance Light.  I made a half loaf (we have little loaf pans).  

Regardless, for one serving (8 for me, 16 for a whole loaf): 

Nutrition Information:  179.9 Calories;  6.3g Total Fat;  0.8g Saturated Fat;  0.0mg Cholesterol;  218.8mg Sodium;  30.4g Carbohydrates;  3.8g FIber;  3.3g Protein.

This bread is so delicious!  Nice and moist, lots of chunks, just really yummy.  If you have the book, I highly suggest trying it!  

Oh!  Also, I added Xantham Gum, about 0.5tsp to the dry mix.  Seems to have worked perfectly!

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Edit Alert!  

I tried one of the PURE bars that I bought earlier, and I am totally in love.  I had the Cherry Cashew bar, and it was totally delicious.  

Nutrition Information:  200 Calories;  9g Total Fat;  1g Saturated Fat;  0.0mg Cholesterol;  5mg Sodium;  26g Carbohydrates;  4g Fiber;  6g Protein

It is a raw bar, similar to the Larabar and the others that I have tried, although it has more ingredients.  In this particular one there is:  Organic Dates, Organic Cherries, Organic Walnuts, Organic Agave Nectar, Organic Almonds, Organic Cashews, and Organic Brown Rice Protein.  Although this has sweetener in it, while Larabar is just dates and nuts, and sometimes other fruit, this bar has less sugar and more protein than most other raw bars.  This is by far my favorite raw vegan bar as of yet!  

Okay, now I'm really done :)