Vegan Sweet Potato & Quinoa Muffins

I'm sure it is quite obvious that I love carbohydrates so I made another attempt to at least put a little bit of "health" into my carbs.  I had a lonely sweet potato that had been left out of my quiche with sweet potato crust so I decided to make vegan sweet potato & quinoa muffins.  *Nomnomnom*  Of course I ended up with left over quinoa so a savory quinoa recipe will follow this one.  

Vegan Sweet Potato & Quinoa Muffins

1 & 1/4 cups wheat flour

2/3 cups brown sugar

1 ts pumpkin spice
1 ts baking powder

1 ts salt
3/4 cup cooked quinoa
1 cup almond milk
1 sweet potato, cooked & mashed (skin discarded)

4 tb Earth Balance spread, melted
2 ts vanilla extract
1 tb canola oil

Topping

1/3 cup slivered almonds
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tb wheat flour
1/2 ts pumpkin spice
2 tb Earth Balance spread, melted 

Makes 12 muffins.

- Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.

- Combine wheat flour, brown sugar, pumpkin spice, baking powder, & salt in a bowl.

- Thoroughly mix sweet potato, almond milk, Earth Balance spread, vanilla extract, & canola oil in a separate bowl.  

- Slowly mid the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.  Stir until just combined.

- Fold in cooked quinoa.

- In a separate bowl, combine all the topping ingredients.

- Either grease & flour a muffin pan or use cupcake liners.

- Fill 3/4 of each compartment with the batter & top with the almond topping.

- Bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into a muffin comes out clean.

Yuuuummmmmm!!!

Blueberry Lemon Oatmeal Muffins

Hi, y'all!  Boy, am I glad to be back & connected with the rest of the world!  We've had quite the week up here in the PacNW.  I've been put under house arrest by the weather with snow & ice storms since this past Sunday.  On top of that, we lost electricity for two days & just got it back this morning.  Thank you to all those who braved the dangerous weather conditions to bring it back!  It's been quite the little adventure & being at home without electricity sure does make you think.  It makes you realize how dependent we are on electricity - without it we have no light, heat (unless you have a gas or wood fireplace), television, internet, & etc.  You are basically stripped to the bare necessities - there's no iPad to entertain you or cellphone to connect you with the rest of the world once the batteries run out.  It made me find new ways of entertaining myself & respect generations past that much more.  It is quite a sobering dose of reality to when your neighbors' children end up complaining that they are bored out of their minds with nothing to do because their iPad has run out of batteries or there is no xBox to play games on. 

But on the bright side of having no electricity, a "disaster" such as this definitely brings all the neighbors together.  For the lack of anything better to do, we would all gather & huddle in the center of our street to chat about what's going on in each person's life, how each family is faring with the weather, advise & help one another out with any home concerns (what to do to keep pipes from freezing, how to turn on a gas fireplace & etc), share rumors from the "outside world" dispensed by sporadic contact with loved ones across the world, & etc.  This weather really brought our community together & taught us all to appreciate what we took for granted, like my oven.

I began missing my oven a few hours after the power outage & now I am so glad to have it back that I couldn't wait to whip up some yummy goodness.  During the outage, we had to bury all of our refrigerated & frozen food out in our yards to prevent spoilage.  For the most part, everything fared well & stayed frozen with the exception of our many pints of ice cream (which is another little story in itself) & frozen blueberries.  The blueberries had become quite mushy & most people would probably toss them out but I couldn't bear to toss out my hard labor as I had picked them all during blueberry season last year.  So instead of tossing them out, I decided to attempt to save them & make blueberry lemon oatmeal muffins.  I have another gallon bag of blueberries left so I will probably make jam out of them but I'll save that for another day.  Anyway, the muffins are vegan & healthy & turned out really scrumptious!  I used a little less almond milk than called for in the recipe since the mushy blueberries were already leaking out its juices.  

Blueberry Lemon Oatmeal Muffins

1 cup almond milk (I used a little over 3/4 cup due to melted blueberries)
2 tb flax seed powder
2 tb applesauce  

1 ts grated lemon peel
1 ts vanilla

1 & 31/2 cups old fashioned oats

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup almond meal
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tb baking powder
1 cup blueberries (Preferably fresh or frozen)

 

Makes 12 muffins.

- Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

- Line muffin pan with cupcake liner or grease pan.

- Combine almond milk, flax seed powder, applesauce, grated lemon peel, & vanilla in a large bowl.

- Add remaining ingredients, minus the blueberries, & mix well.

- Gently fold blueberries into the batter.

- Fill each cupcake liner with the batter such that it is no more than 3/4 full.

- Bake for about 20 minutes.




Doesn't it look absolutely divine?

Almond-Quinoa Muffins

I bought the Veganomicon book a couple of months ago and came across a recipe for almond-quinoa muffins yesterday.  It intrigued me quite a bit because I adore quinoa so I thought I'd give it a whirl and see how it turns out.  The muffins didn't puff up as much as I thought they would but that's okay.  The texture was good (if you don't mind quinoa) and are really moist.  However, I wish I had added another 1/4 cup of apricots to make the muffins sweeter - maybe next time around.  Here's the recipe for anyone else who wants to try it.  Let me know what you think!

Almond-Quinoa Muffins

1 cup vanilla soy milk (I used almond milk)

1 tb ground flaxseeds

1/4 cup canola oil

1/4 cup agave nectar

1/2 ts vanilla extract

1 & 1/4 cups flour

1/4 cup almond meal

1 & 1/2 ts baking powder

1/2 ts salt

1/2 ts ground cinnamon

1/2 ts ground cardamom

1 & 1/4 cups cooked quinoa

1/2 cup finely chopped dried apricots (I'm using 3/4 cup next time)

Makes a dozen.

- Preheat oven to 350F and grease muffin pan.

- Whisk together soy milk and flaxseed.  Allow to sit for 1 minute.

- Whisk in oil, agave nectar and vanilla.

- Add flour, almond meal, baking powder, salt, and spices and mix until just incorporated.

- Gently fold in cooked quinoa and apricots.

- Pour batter into muffin tin & bake for 21 minutes.

Elvis Muffins

I recently watched "Lilo & Stitch" & was inspired to make something with chocolate, peanut butter & banana so I whipped up some Elvis muffins for a healthy breakfast to go.  Trust me, these are so healthy & yet, so tasty!  

Elvis Muffins

2 cups minus 2 tb whole wheat flour

1 ts baking soda

1/4 sea salt

1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1/2 cup peanut butter, chunky or creamy is fine

2 & 1/2 cups mashed overripe bananas

1 & 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Makes about 16 muffins.

- Preheat oven to 350F and line muffin pan with cupcake liners.

- In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda & sea salt.

- In a separate bowl, mix apple sauce, brown sugar, & eggs.

- Add peanut butter & mashed bananas.  Mix until well combined.

- Add flour mixture & mix until well combined.

- Fold in chocolate chips.

- Fill each cupcake liner until batter is just below the top of each liner.

- Bake for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.