Super Blueberry Crumb muffins

Very loosely based on a Betty Crocker recipe. Use margarine instead of butter for vegan muffins.

Ingredients:
2.5 cups blueberries
1 cup almond milk
1 cup soy milk
1/2 cup canola oil
About 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon lemon extract
1.5 cups unbleached white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1.5 cups old fashioned oats
1/2 cup Bob's multigrain cereal with flax
1/4 cup agave nectar
1/4 cup blackstrap molasses
2 tablespoons baking powder
2 pinches salt

*crumb topping if desired
1/2 cup sliced almonds
1/2 cup unbleached white flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup Bob's multigrain cereal
1/4 cup butter (firm)
Hearty amounts of cinnamon
Mix with fingers until crumbly

Method:
Mix wet ingredients. Add dry ingredients, folding into the batter slowly. Add baking powder and salt almost last. Fold in fruit. Plop into muffin tins, top with crumbs.

Bake 20-25 minutes at 400.

Mine deflated and I didn't watch them properly because I had an important conference call. But these ugly things... The whole two dozen... Could be the tastiest muffins I ever made

Lunchy dinner

My daughter looked at me so earnestly last night and asked for blueberry jelly to go on her blueberry bagel for breakfast. Target carries plenty of strawberry, grape, raspberry and blackberry jelly, orange marmalade and a few other fancy schmancy preserves hovering at the $4 mark. They had a Smuckers orchard's finest blueberry preserves, 12 ounces for $4.29.

I bought it-- very good stuff.

For dinner tonight, we made tuna sandwiches since I didn't feel like cooking. My husband added cheese and crackers for some reason. We served with sides of veggie booty and my spiced peaches. Almond milk to drink and for dessert-- vanilla ice cream with the rest of the spiced peaches. I finally tasted them and they are really yummy.

Perfect for a peach sundae.

Vegan Blueberry Steusel Muffins

This is based on the recipe from the Betty Crocker 25th anniversary cookbook.

I love muffins. They freeze easily, transport easily and feed an empty belly in a hurry. I normally add nuts for protein but this time I didn't because of my broken teeth.

Heat oven to 400.

Make streusel topping.

Streusel topping:
- 1/4 cup flour (I used a hair more)
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar (as if I measured)
- 2 tablespoons firm margarine
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon (I used more)
Mix in bowl until crumbly. Now, I always overmix my crumbs and they get soft so then I mix in oats to fix the texture.

For the muffins:

- I cup 'milk' (I used plain soy today. I would also use vanilla soy or almond or rice)
- 1/4 cup canola oil
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla (I didn't measure, and I always use real vanilla. You could also use lemon or almond extract to give the batter more flavor. Putting half lemon and half almond _if I remember correctly_ will replicate a coffee cake flavor)
- instead of 1 egg use 4 tablespoons applesauce. Normally I use natural, unsweetened. Those single serve packs = 1 egg (especially good if you bought a flavor for packed lunches and it was deemed gross) This time I used cinnamon.

Mix.

Dump in dry ingredients:
- 2 cups flour (normally I do half unbleached white and half whole wheat but I ran out of wheat)
- 1/3 cup sugar (I used 1/4)
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt

Stir.

Fold in blueberries. I used 1.25 cups frozen, not even thawed.

Scoop into tins. Top with crumbs. Bake 20 minutes.

I made 16 small muffins and could have doubled the crumb recipe.

Peanut Butter and Blueberry Muffins

For lunch today I served my daughter two of my super-duper blueberry-banana-walnut muffins with peanut butter, and a side of chocolate soy milk.

Blueberry Banana Nut Muffins

The starting point:
http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/banana_nut_muffins/

Because baking is only fun if you break the rules and do your own thing:

• 2 large ripe bananas
• 1.5 sticks butter, melted
• 1 cup and a little more unsweetened applesauce
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg beaten
• 2.5 tablespoons coffee
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 pinches iodized sea salt
• 1 cup wheat flour
• 1 cup unbleached white flour
• 1 cup regular flour
  
• (I should have added some oats but forgot)
• 2 cups walnuts
• about 1.5 cups fresh blueberries

1 Preheat the oven to 350°F. With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl.

2 Mix in the sugar, egg, applesauce, coffee and vanilla.

3 Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in.

4 Add the flour, mix until it is just incorporated. Fold in the walnuts and blueberries.

5 Pour mixture into a prepared muffin tin. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Check for doneness with a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin. I made about 26 muffins.

Blueberry pancakes for dinner

We're making blueberry pancakes for dinner.

Here's all my pancake variants:
http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/search/label/pancakes

Another yogurt mix-ins platter

I am so disappointed that I got yogurt products with artificial sweeteners. I think they taste nasty and I don't approve of putting those chemicals into my daughter's body. I try not to make foods that have preservatives, so why I earth would I approve of artificial sweetener?

My daughter is calling this trail yogurt, because I compared it to trail mix. Since we had eggs and sausage an hour ago, I had to find a hearty snack that would tide my daughter through kindergarten.

So, I made a yogurt platter. Which she mixed everything into her vanilla yogurt:

• blueberries, from the freezer, and the juice
• rainbow sprinkles
• raisins
• chopped dates
• graham cracker
• one oreo cookie

Blueberry Crumb Bread Pudding

My daughter seems to have the plague we've all been harboring, so I gave her some trail mix with extra cashews and dark chocolate powder-coated almonds to tide her until I got something hot and comforting whipped up.

This is what I thought I'd make, the apple crisp bread pudding, but with blueberries as we have a big bag of frozen blueberries from the warehouse club. Here is the original recipe:

http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/2009/11/apple-crisp-bread-pudding.html

But, as one should anticipate, I have a tendency not to read the entire recipe before cooking... I ended up improvising more than I thought and what should have been a nice 11 x 13 pan of pudding ended up filling a cake pan.

So, here goes:

In a large skillet, combine

• 3 cups blueberries
• 1/4 cup blue curacao
• 3 tablespoons butter

Let come to slow boil and reduce heat.

Now, I used a good 14 cups of bread chunks, because I started with a two-day old baguette from Wegmans, ran out, and used the remaining breadchunks I had in the freezer... the same ones I used for my homemade stuffing.

I buttered the bottom of my cake pan and sprinkled with about 1 tablespoon sugar. Then I added the bread hunks from the baguette. I poured most the blueberry mixture over this and spread it around as best I could.

Then I added the frozen bread to cover it and sprinkled about 1 cup of frozen blueberries on top.

Now, the custard:

My custard was...

• 7 eggs (it was what I had)
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup 2 percent milk
• almost 2 cups vanilla soy milk

Whisk until a nice even texture. Pour onto bread, pressing down with a spoon to make sure the bread absorbs the liquid.

Now, the oven should be preheated to 350 degrees. I layered a thin layer of brown sugar on top and then added about a cup of my mother-in-law's pie crumbs on the very top. She always makes extra when she makes a pie and usually throws them away, but I freeze them.

Bake for 40 minutes or until set.

I hope it works...

We had the first serving after 40 minutes in the oven and it was incredible! I put it back it for another 15 minutes because it didn't seem quite set enough...

More of an update:
Now what? I have made a ridiculous amount of bread pudding. This is where 'cheap' comes in. We each had about 1.5 cups for breakfast. It accounted for about 1/6 of this pan. I scooped an equal amount into a Tupperware container for tomorrow's breakfast.

There are several approaches for the rest...

1. Eat until we are disgustingly full. (Wouldn't be cheap or healthy.)
   
2. Share. (No one really to share with)
3. Store.

I opted to freeze. Bread pudding is already mushy, so it shouldn't affect the texture too negatively to freeze it. And I placed approximately three servings in each one quart freezer bag. So each bag will serve my whole family for breakfast. I ended up with four bags, which I will place inside a large freezer bag once the little ones cool. I have them in my unheated mud room so it shouldn't take long.

Now, a dessert that required a lot of eggs, bread and blueberries will serve a family of three for six comfort food breakfasts. Serve with a side of vegetarian sausage and I think that's a great start for a winter day.

Yogurt mix-ins

My daughter is having yogurt with mix-ins this morning. We selected generic peanut butter crunch and fresh blueberries...

I have no idea what to serve for dinner. Leftover pot pie is lunch.

Yogurt Parfaits

For dinner, my husband took this morning's leftover decaf and made iced coffee with raw milk. For dinner, we had some Klein Farm lemon yogurt with my own homemade granola from the other day with fresh pineapple, local cherries and blueberries.

Blueberry Muffins

I have bread dough rising. My husband packed salads with organic spring mix, apple, blueberries, peeled carrot and cheese for himself and my daughter. I embarked on blueberry muffins...

Let me remind you that most recipes calling for egg in cakes or muffins can be "veganized" using 4 TBS applesauce instead of the egg.

Years ago, I asked my mother-in-law for a generic muffin recipe and today I turned to that instead of my Betty Crocker cookbook. The generic recipe from my mother-in-law was given to me over the phone and apparently I never wrote down the flour. I totally blanked out on what book contained my usual blueberry muffin recipe. And I couldn't believe something that basic wasn't in my binder. But it happens...

So I made it up. And they are currently in the oven... They could be yucky. The dough was slightly thick, but seemed about right.

Angel's Blueberry Muffin Experiment

1 egg  

1 single serving cup natural granny smith applesauce

1/2 teaspoon lemon extract

about 3/4 cup oats (plus more for top)

about 1 cup flour

about 1 cup wheat flour

1 1/4 cup milk, maybe slightly less

1/4 cup sugar

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt  

1/3 cup plus a little more cooking oil

about two cups blueberries

I had my daughter mix all this stuff up. We got 15 muffins. Then we had some crumbs from a pie in the freezer, so we sprinkled the top with those and oats. We put in the oven for 15 minutes at 350. 

I'll let you know how they turn out.

They have been in the oven 20 minutes and they have failed the spaghetti test. These are dense muffins.

The verdict: 25 minutes and SCRUMPTIOUS.

Cheese Platter

I wanted to take some chicken with fruit out of the freezer for dinner, especially since a small crisis came up at work destroying my plans to swing by the grocery store. But my daughter wanted to go to the store anyway... I was hungry and tired, but my husband agreed to go... He said he's have no idea what to purchase. I suggested a cheese platter. He wanted to go out to Wegmans. I suggested if he planned on going that far that he go to the warehouse club as I've wanted to try their brie. It's French, only double cream, but worth a shot.

He got a massive container of blueberries, what appears to be 5 lbs of apples, a tray of the airy Americanized croissants (nice try on his behalf, but sure ain't the real thing), the brie, tuna, organic spring mix for the tortoise, the bog old block of cheddar... for $40. Then he stopped at the liquor store and bought TWO bottles of Vouvray. $25.

He prepared the cheese platter and set the table with peanut butter and various mustards as well...

Microwave cobbler

I got out of my Intro to Political Theory class at 3 today. I left campus at 3:05 and was home before 3:15. I have to leave my house by 4:23 to return to campus to get my husband when he gets off work so that left about an hour. I ate a handful of trail mix, poured a cup of coffee and sat to check my email. Then, I told my daughter if she wanted we could make a cobbler. She was thrilled.

This cobbler can be a real life saver! And it's so adaptable. I snagged the recipe in one of my vegan cooking courses at Northampton Community College. The instructor, Eileen Breslin, had adapted it from a newspaper clipping. She made it vegan, but it certainly doesn't have to be.

One quick side discussion before I reveal the secret to the 30 minute start-to-finish fruit cobbler. If you're looking for a vegan, non-hydrogenated margarine that mimics real butter in flavor and cooking, try Earth Balance. I love it, but lately I have not been able to afford it.

Commercial done. Now, the recipe:

Microwave Blueberry Cobbler

1 cup flour

1 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 cup milk or soy milk

1/2 cup butter or margarine

2.5 cups blueberries

Mix dry ingredients in 8 x 8 microwavable pan. Stir in milk. Melt belter and pour over batter. Drop in fruit. Microwave 12-14 minutes until batter sets and butter dries.

Now my version today was a peach cobbler and I didn't have quite as much fruit. My ingredients were more like:

Angel's peach cobbler

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup wheat flour

3/4 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tsp honey

1/3 cup margarine

1 small can peaches

cinnamon

I drizzled the honey on the batter before the margarine and sprinkled cinnamon on the peaches before cooking.