Friday, November 9, 2012

Heart Healthy Vegan Dark Chocolate Mini Banana Muffins...damn that's a long ass title!

I fucking love to bake.  I have indescribable urges to measure flour, stir in the wets with the drys and of course... lick the bowl.  This is all fine and dandy until the delecitable little warm treats come out of the oven and I want to devour the whole effing batch.  So I bake only when it is for others and I can quickly get rid of the goods.  This being said, I am constantly on the lookout for opportunities to get my fix for mixing the wet with the drys in.  So when my wonderful new boyfriends poor dad ended up in the hospital with heart problems I seized the opportunity and whipped up these heart healthy bad boys.  I used a basic recipe for banana bread I found online and veganized, heart healthified them and added dark chocolate:).  I was super pleased with the results, moist, sweet but not too sweet and a nice nutty texture from the walnuts.   So here is the recipe...


2 cups whole wheat pastry flour (or any flour you would like) 
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 2/3 mashed banana (preferrably the super ripe variety)
1/2 cup apple sauce
2 egg substitutes (I used ground flax, 1 tablespoon flax to two parts water and let it set and viola, fucking eggs!)
6 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup dark chocolate chunks
3/4 cup chopped walnuts

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix the flour, baking soda and salt in a large mixing bowl.

2.  In a seperate mixing bowl mix the banana, applesauce, egg substitute, olive oil and sugar.

3.  My favorite part... wait for it... mix the wet with the dry.  Don't go getting mix happy either!  You know better!  That shit makes some funky ass tough muffins.  Mix just until combined then add the nuts and dark chocolate.  

4.  Then spoon the mixture into the muffin tins carefully, the little muffin tins fill quickly.  I filled them just to the top.  Bake for about 15 minutes.

Note:  You can bake this in whatever shape you would like but just factor in that different shapes will take different amounts of time (i.e. a loaf pan might take like 50 minutish apposed to 15 minutes for mini muffins).  I don't time my baked treats because I am so at one with my baked goods that I intuitively know when they are done, no joke.  But if you are a normal person that needs to use a timer then I would say for the mini muffins about 15 minutes should do it.  If you need to check with a toothpick please do so, nobody wants raw insides, yucko!

Gluten-fucking-free Crustless Pumpkin Pie


So I took off for a month doing some crazy soul searching and guess what?  I came back the same crazy bitch.  Don't get me wrong it was life changing and I will never look at things the same way... but I am who I am and that just happens to be a crazy bitch.  Wait, I know what you are thinking, "that sucks, what was the point of taking off like that?".  It's actually an amazingly beautiful and transformational thing to be a crazy bitch and fully accept it... to love it... to radically accept yourself... crazy bitch and all.  To learn what it means to trully be in the moment both with yourself and the world around you... its easy when things are going good but the real transformation comes with sitting with the ugly and like I said earlier, radically accepting it.  So, show your inner crazy some love, maybe a little cuddle sesh with your demons or plung into the ugly and swim for a bit and see what you find, you might be suprised what a little acceptance can do.  Ok, enough Buddha talk, now on to what we're all here for, the food!

So I am finally back home and in the kitchen and does it feel fucking amazing.  My first big cooking adventure since I have been back was cooking tamales with my best vegan cooking buddy Emily.  It was epic.  I grew up making tamales... there is just something about spreading the masa in the corn husk just warms my heart:)  Anyways, I got way ahead of myself that day.  We made three kinds, two with homemade sauces.  Yeah, it was a shit load of cooking.  I could write the most beautiful heartfelt book about this glorious day but guess what?  My dumbass didnt document anything, no recipes, no pictures, no nothing... which means no blog for you beezies, sorry:(  But, I did roast a pumpkin on that very same day and had the vision of this beautiful crustless pumpkin pie.  It is actually hella better than regular pumpkin pie and guess what?  Gluten-fucking-free! Yes, so for all you wheat adversed beezies this one is for you:)

Pie Filling

1 3/4 cups or 15 oz can pumpkin
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 block firm silken tofu
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon clove
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons cornstarch

Topping

3/4 cup oats
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup chopped nuts (I used pecans and walnuts but you don't have to be as fancy as me)
2 tablespoons gluten free flour of your choice
2 tablespoons vegan butter
1/4 teaspoon salt

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix all the ingredients for the filling in a blender or food processor and pour into a greased 8 inch pie pan.

2.  For the topping measure everything into a bowl and use the back of a fork to mix the butter in.  It will take a minute if the butter is good and cold.  Then pour over the pie and place in the oven for about 45 minutes.