I made these for a friend's vegan potluck last weekend. Mostly because I picked the blueberries from a local farm, the blueberries aren't sprayed, and darn it, baked blueberry goods are just tasty. Sure, they aren't exactly vegan, having both eggs and butter in it; but I wasn't about to sub out the eggs for ground flax seeds for the "goo" part and what's wrong with butter?? Those vegans just don't know how to live it up.
This is an ordinary muffin recipe and has been modded to include fresh blueberries.
Ingredients
crumb topping:
1 c. unbleached all-purpose flour
3 tbsp light brown sugar
2 tbsp granulated sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp sea salt
6 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
muffin batter:
1 3/4 c. unbleached all-purpose flour
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 c. granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 c. olive oil
3/4 c. milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 c. fresh blueberries, about 5-6 blueberries per muffin
Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
For the crumb topping:
In a separate bowl, combine the ingredients together until coarse crumbs form. Set aside.
For the batter:
1. In a bowl sift together dry ingredients. Beat together eggs, oil, milk, and vanilla extract. Mix well with dry ingredients. Batter will be thicker and heavier than pancake batter.
2. Grease with butter or olive oil, or use paper muffin cups, a 12-cup muffin pan. Excess batter can be spooned into 4 oz buttered ramekins.
3. Fill each cup with 1 heaping tbsp batter, add 5-6 fresh blueberries, spoon a little batter on top of the blueberries, then top with some crumb topping. It's a much faster process if you fill all the cups first with batter.
4. Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown. Allow muffins to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before serving.
I'm liking this slow roasting technique a lot. The flavor that comes out from the vegetables is very much like what you'd get at a restaurant so I can see why these foods can command such a menu price.
A 13" x 9" roasting pan doesn't seem like it'd be enough for the tomatoes that are about to be roasted. Most of the romas I halved and put in cut-side-up in the pan. A few of the romas were sliced lengthwise then eighthed, and the rest were cut into slices.
To this, I poured a bit of olive oil on top of the tomatoes then added fresh thyme leaves and garlic cloves.
Preheat oven to 225 degrees F. Bake for 3 hours.
These are intended for sandwiches, for a salad, or eaten as is.
I put the Peruvian in parathesis in the title because quinoa originally comes from Peru. At least the country is the top exporter in the world, followed by Bolivia and Ecuador. It's like saying American hotdogs or Chinese dim sum. It is neither a grain nor a grass, but rather more like amaranth seeds. And, per cup serving it is also very high in protein (13% per dry weight) and it makes a great complement to other foods. This recipe adaptation is not my own and is one that I got from a potluck this year. This is a perfect summer time dish and is very easy to make.
1 cup dry quinoa = 2 cups cooked quinoa
Ingredients:
1-2 cups dry quinoa
2-4 cups water
For the salad:
1 cucumber, diced
2-3 small tomatoes, diced
1 jalapeño, cut into small pieces (or use 1/2 jalapeno if only making 2 cooked cups of quinoa)
1/4 cup fresh lemon (or lime) juice
salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
To cook the quinoa, add quinoa to a pot of boiling water (or add the quinoa to a pot of water then bring to a boil, it really doesn't matter). Cook on medium heat until all the water has been absorbed. Remove from heat and let cool before mixing in salad ingredients.
Toss well with cucumber, tomatoes, jalapeño, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Serve.
Roasting bell peppers seems simple enough, so why blog about it? Because tastes are individual and this ratio and process works for my oven. ;) For this recipe I used Himalayan pink salt. Maybe one day I'll try it with Sicillian sea salt which also is in the pantry. Also, when I roasted the peppers the first time, I used parchment paper with a baking sheet; but alas, that did not work so well.
If you're going to use a baking sheet, you need to butter or lightly grease it so that the carmelized peppers do not burn or stick to the sheet.
Materials
An oven-proof glass or ceramic baking pan large enough to accommodate the peppers
Ingredients
Fresh bell peppers, whole or sliced, any variety
Olive oil
Salt, any variety
Directions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Add whole or sliced peppers to baking pan. Drizzle olive oil on top of peppers. Sprinkle with salt.
Bake for 30-40 minutes, turning the peppers at least once.
Remove from oven and add to other recipes or enjoy as is.
This is bing as in a bread-styled appetizer found in Chinese cuisine, such as shao bing ("small bread" kind of like a pita), jian bing (crepes), cong you bing (pancakes), etc. This recipe comes from the book of unintelligible Chinese recipes. Basically, it comes from a recipe book written entirely in Chinese from my mom's cookbook collection, none of which I can actually read.
Ingredients
5 c. all-purpose flour
1 c. water
1 3/4 lb ground pork
2 tbsp soy sauce
8 tbsp water
dash of sea salt
2-3 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp minced fresh ginger
10 small shitake mushrooms, minced
3 stalks green onions, minced
Directions
1. Except for the flour, combine all the ingredients in a large bowl and mix well.
2. In a separate bowl, combine flour with 1 cup of water. (Note: if you're using whole wheat flour, you'll need more water). Stir to combine and knead until it comes together as a dough.
3. Form a log and slice into equal chunks. Roll out a dough chunk into a 5" diameter circle.
4. Fill with 2 tbsp of pork mixture and roll the dough up like a pouch. It's better to have the dough in one hand and crimp the edges with the other.
5. Fry on low heat until golden brown on both sides.
View pics.
