VeganMOFO: Hurricane Sandy Muffins

Hello!  We're starting off this week with a good old-fashioned hurricane! Just kidding, there is nothing good about this. Hurricane Sandy is barreling towards the East Coast at this very moment, and NYC is shut down completely. Seriously, all the subways and busses, the New York Stock Exchange, Grand Central Station, airports, local businesses, everything. They're even shutting down the Holland and Battery tunnels this afternoon. President Obama declared a state of emergency. There was a mandatory evacuation of all Zone A residents, by the waterfronts, last night. I'm in Zone B, and Zone C technically starts across the street, so I think I'll be okay. I'm not sure I have ever seen the city this serious about a storm, and I have to admit it is making me a bit nervous. It's SUPER windy outside and we've seen a little rain. Parts of the city have already started to flood and Sandy hasn't even touched down yet. The big surge is supposed to happen this evening, during high tide (and it's a full moon too!) where a 6-11ft surge of water is expected. So yeah...nervous!

I weather-stress-baked last night and made some apple spice muffins and a loaf of Green Monster bread. Nik and I are just trying to keep busy working today and anxiously looking out the window. Hopefully we don't lose power... Stay safe East Coast friends!

VeganMofo 2010: Muffins for the sick

I almost said PHOOEY to today's 'MoFo post, since I have been dragged down by the plague sickness all day today and I'm working on a big project. I'm being dramatic. I just have a sore throat and it's making me whiny!  

I did bake muffins this morning though, because that's what I do when I'm sick and busy. Ha!  

I super-love the recipe for Cranberry-orange muffins in Vegan Brunch, and it is my "go-to" muffin base recipe, mostly because I always have the base ingredients on hand. I rarely make it "as is" though, usually subbing in apples or whatever fruit or nuts I have on hand for the cranberries, and using soymilk + 1 tsp. apple cider vinegar if I don't have OJ (which I don't usually, but today I did!)  Works everytime!  I like this recipe because it is super-basic and doesn't require any soy yogurt or applesauce or other things that I don't usually have laying around. I like instant muffins!  I like to mix up the flours sometimes too, throwing oats into the mix.  Woo!

Anyways, I think I'm babbling. Bedtime!

Apple-cinnamon muffins with some oats thrown in there somewhere too.

In-progress

'Lil Hippy Bears in love:



Bodum is so pretty, yeah? I heart this teapot.

Snowglobe day

I made a pita puff!! So exciting! Only half the batch puffed, but still! Better than last time! There was no rhyme or reason to the puffs either. Some happened on the top shelf on a baking sheet and some happened on the bottom shelf of the oven on the pizza stone. Happy nonetheless! They were super-strong too, not like the whimpy dry pitas that you buy in the store that break if you put anything saucy in them. I made some homemade lemon hummus (with dried beans! I'm trying to be good about not buying canned.) and homemade falafel! Everything took way long to make, but it was way worth it. I made up a quick dill-veganaise dressing and a red cabbage/carrot/scallion/olive oil/apple cider vinegar/spices salad to go alongside and in. I used the non-puffed pita's the next day as leftovers and made a mini falafel-hummus-olive pizza.



Tonight, I made Joni's BLT and Avocado Burger. Stuffing avocados into things is brilliant.


I'm not gonna lie. I was disappointed when I started peeling my Tie-Dye potatoes, that I scored at the farmer's market, and they weren't tie-dyed inside.

Baked potato and greens soup with french fry crouton! From Veganomicon and SOOO YUMMY. It was 50 degrees out yesterday, but was a snowglobe outside all day today. Soup was welcomed.


I had a sudden sweet-tooth urge at 11:30pm the other night, so I made mini-muffins. Chocolate-chocolate-chip-walnut. mmmm. I cooked them a bit too long, so they are a little crispy, but still yum! I used AmyArgh's blueberry muffin base, and just added in some cocoa, choc. chips, and walnuts. Bite-sized!




And lastly, I got a treasury tonight!

Roasted Butternut Squash and Kale White Lasagna and Apple Brown Sugar Muffins

First Butternut Squash of the season! I got it in my CSA last saturday and have been dying to eat it all week. Last night I finally got around to peeling it ('cause honestly, that's the only thing that holds me back from eating winter squash). I decided to make a white lasagna (I'm all about the homemade vegan cheese lately for some reason...super-comfort food?) with roasted butternut squash and some kale.

I chopped up one whole butternut squash and drizzled some olive oil, sea salt, and pepper over it and roasted it in the oven until tender (25 min.?) In the meantime, I boiled half a box of lasagna noodles and made the cheese sauce. This has verrrry very quickly become my new default cheese sauce; sooo goood! It gets really thick too (can be thinned with water). I carmelized some onions in the pan before I started to mix in the sauce ingredients. You'll only like this sauce if you are a big nooch fan though (which I am!) Super-noochy! Does the word "nooch" remind anyone else of Jay and Silent Bob?

When the squash is tender and done and delicious, mash up in a bowl. I just layered all the ingredients in a pan, noodles, mashed squash, raw kale leaves, cheese sauce. Repeat. Top with some chopped chives. Bake for 25-30 minutes at 350 degrees, or until the noodles start to get a bit crispy on top.




I still have a bajillion apples that I need to get rid of (and 5 more lbs. coming on saturday!!!), so I made super-awesome muffins tonight. I had a sweet tooth and was getting really sleepy-eyed, so I needed something to fix both of those problems. Sleepy-eyed-ness was cured by getting off my butt and going into the kitchen. I have a default muffin base that I use, which modify with a different fruit and spices. It comes from AmyArgh's Blueberry Muffin recipe (which I know that I have raved about before). It's super-simple and you just throw everything in a bowl and mix.

Apple Brown Sugar Muffins
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup veg. or canola oil
2 ENER-G eggs
1/3 cup soy milk
a few shakes of cinnamon
1 apple, chopped tiny

Topping:
1 apple, cut into 12 slices
brown sugar

Mix all the ingredients together into a bowl, adding apples in last (should be cookie dough consistancy). Spoon into lightly oiled or greased muffin pan. Sprinkle each muffin with brown sugar (it gets all melty and carmel-like after it's done baking, mmmm) and top with a wedge of apple. Bake for 25 minutes!



I've been hard at work on 12 new paintings. I reached the half-way point tonight, and hope to bust my ass this week to finish them all. They are going to go into my 2009 calendar and will eventually become individual prints for my shop. They are making me really happy so far!

VeganMoFo Day 6: Plum-Pear Muffins

I have had some pears and plums sitting around for almost two weeks now and they were very near rotten, so I had to do something PRONTO with them. Muffins it is! They are pear-plum with an (accidently) candied topping of almonds and walnuts. YUM. I based the recipe off of Amy Argh's Blueberry Muffins (because those are my most favorite muffins in the world!). This is what I did:

In a large bowl combine:

1 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup oats
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder

Then mix in:

1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 ENER-G eggs
1/3 cup unsweetened soy milk

Mix it all together, and then fold in 1 cup mix of pears and plums (add about a TBS of water if dry)

Spoon this into lined muffin tins, and then in a smaller bowl with a fork, mix:

1/4 cup Earth Balance
3 TBS sugar
3 TBS slivered almonds
3 TBS walnuts

Sprinkle the mix over the muffins and pop in into a 400 degree preheated oven for 25 minutes.

Let cool FULLY before removing from pan or they will completely fall apart (ahem, this may have happened to me). Also, I completely forgot to add the flour to the topping part, but it was a happy accident resulting in a super-addictive candied nut topping.

I've been listening to Liz Phair and The Breeders all day long

I made seitan piccata (from Veganomicon) for 4th of July dinner for Nik and I. Steamed asparagus and carrots as a side. The sauce was soooo yummy and my seitan came out perfect (I used the Seitan Cutlet recipe, also from Vcon, but then baked it afterwards to make it firmer). I used the leftover sauce (a white wine sauce with green olives, capers, and pimientos and some herbs) for a salad dressing tonight!



This weekend I also made some blueberry muffins, using the blueberries that I received in my CSA this week. This is the recipe I used


Painted a bit tonight. Started working on a BIIIG painting (well big for me; about 20"x24") of a lovely moth-girl. Also did some more sketches for my new series, but I can't show those yet!