Mmm, Muffins and jumping the shark

We’re finally starting to adapt and adjust. I wondered why I wasn’t posting anything yet, since I am cooking, and realized I was taking more pictures of my food than my new baby. That came after watching the video from this NPR story. As my friend who shared it said, ” the video jumps the shark about half way through.”  I had to look up jumping the shark. And I fully agreed, but the first minute or so made me reconsider the uses of my camera.

My kids are watching more television than ever, my baby sleeps on my chest rather than in his crib like he “should” and I’m snitching snacks I won’t let my kids eat – not because they’re bad necessarily, but because I want to hog all of the calories in my house that are tasty!

My little chunk is chunking up nicely and sleeps happily when held. I can’t believe I made this little person and want him to stay small, even with his baby acne forever. We have my stepmom in town to help out and as a result had my “little” brother and his cute wife up for dinner Monday night. We did put out cheese to go on the veggie burritos, but other than that it was all plant food. And you know what? Not a single person asked where the meat was and most people had seconds, and some even had thirds! I wasn’t even tempted after dinner to partake of the ice cream (we have to use it up somehow and company loves treats!) and sent them home with a nearly full bag of Costco chicken thighs and a pork roast since they’d been talking about doing the Cafe Rio pork barbacoa. I have loved the feeling of not craving the foods I used to love, but I’m still working towards more salads and raw foods.

As a result, I still have a thing for treats, but am trying to do it a bit better than the normal. I couldn’t stop eating Somer’s no-bake cookies after making a half-batch just for myself.  And sadly, I find myself snacking on cereal and granola at night when I fear that 2am is going to put me into calorie deficit from feeding my small tanker. But all that aside, I eat muffins. And I only call them muffins so I can feel good about them, but when they are called Banana Chocolate Chocolate Chip muffins, I’m hard pressed to not call them cupcakes. But I won’t, because then I’d have to try to feel guilty eating them. And I won’t, you can’t make me.

Banana Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins recipe

Adapted from The 30-Day Vegan Challenge by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau

Makes 18 large, 24 mini muffins

• 4 cups (+2T for elevation) whole-wheat pastry flour or unbleached all-purpose flour
• 2ish teaspoons baking soda (adjusted for Utah elevation)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ½ c. cocoa powder
• 1 ¾ (or less) cup granulated sugar
• 2/3 cup canola or grapeseed oil
• 8 ripe bananas, mashed (this is important – well mashed gives a more moist muffin)
• ½ cup water
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (and/or 1 cup walnuts)

Preheat the oven to 350 (360 for Utah) degrees. Lightly grease your muffin tins. Mix together the flour, baking soda, salt and cocoa. In a large bowl, beat the sugar and oil together, then add the mashed bananas (or add bananas and use mixer to mash them!). Stir in the water and vanilla and mix thoroughly. Add the flour mixture, along with the chocolate chips, and stir to mix.

(Alternatively, you may just peel the bananas, break them into a food processor, and puree them along with the sugar and oil. Add the water and vanilla, then transfer to a bowl. Stir in the flour combo, and add the chocolate chips.)

Fill each muffin tin halfway with the batter. Bake full size muffins for 24-ish minutes, 18 for mini muffins, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

How i spent my spring break …

I haven’t been cooking food much, and now our lovely friends are all trying their hands at whole foods plant-based meals for us, for which we love them!

At 9 lbs, 13 oz, a triple chin, two neck rolls, roly poly thighs, perfectly healthy, and a zen labor (that’s another story for another day), I would like someone to ask me again if we were getting everything we needed from plants (and a few minor deviations) during the latter half of my pregnancy. I can’t wait for recovery foods!

Surprisingly Fullfilled

I am on day 13 of whole food/plant protein diet and I realize these last two weeks I have felt very “satisfied.” Not only is my belly full, I feel full. In the past it seemed like I could stuff myself with protein and still not feel satisfied–I was still looking for something. The past two weeks, I have made the Smokey-cheesy-spicy Black bean soup, The Lentil soup and the African peanut stew. Every dish has not only been delicious but also beautiful. I especially love the colors in the African peanut stew. My body feels so happy!

We had friends over for dinner Sat night and I fixed Coconut Curry soup. I have made this one a few times, it is a favorite. Our friends are meat eaters, but loved it, four of us finished the entire pot. We followed it with some coconut ice cream (recipe adapted from the vitamix recipe book)

Coconut Curry Soup

Adapted from “reader recipe” by Tina Washburn

4 C water

3 c spinach (I did 5 to up the greens)

½ lb snow peas  trimmed and cut crosswise (I didn’t have any snow peas this time so I used snap peas, it was good, but I prefer the snow peas)

1 (5 3/4 ounce) package pad thai noodles (wide rice stick noodles)

1T canola oil

¼ c thinly sliced shallots (I left these out)

2 t red curry paste

1 ½ t curry powder (I have some I bought with my Vitamix I used)

½ t turmeric

½ t ground coriander

2 garlic cloves minced

6 cups broth (I used “Better than Bullion Vegetable base”)

1 (13.5 ounce) can light coconut milk

1 brick firm tofu  ½ cubed

½ c chopped onion

2 T sugar (I used evaporated cane juice)

½ cup chopped fresh cilantro

Lime wedges

Bring 4 cups of water to boil in large sauce pan. Add spinach and peas to pan, cook for 30 seconds. Remove vegetables from pan with a slotted spoon, place in large bowl. Add noodles to water, cook 3 mins. Drain add noodles to spinach mixture in bowl.

Heat canola oil in pan over medium heat. Add shallots and the next 5 ingredients (though garlic) to pan, sauté 1 min stirring constantly. Add broth to pan, bring to boil. Add coconut milk to pan, cook for 2 mins. Add tofu, onions and sugar cook for 2 mins. Pour broth mixture over noodle mixture in bowl. Stir in cilantro Serve with lime wedges. Yields 7, 2 cup servings

The former South Beacher gone Vegan (maybe)

I have been eating vegan for 10 days now and I am FREAKING out over the carbs. I jumped on the south beach diet wagon10 years ago and have more or less eaten that way since. I don’t want to gain weight, I also want  to be healthy. I started South Beach to lose weight, but stuck to it for the health benefits. There are so many “right ways” to eat, how do you know which one is right? ie Gluten is bad, meat is bad, carbs are bad, fat is bad AHHHHHH!

I am sticking to the vegan way for now, but, as I said, FREAKING out.  I made the Spicy-Smokey-black Bean soup for dinner yesterday. It was DELICIOUS. I also enjoyed some Black bean, Quinoa Bread. Love this bread, very easy to make, just dump everything in my Bosch, rise and then into the oven.

Quinoa Black Bean Bread

(this is the last 1/8 of the loaf—I told you I love this bread)

Ingredients

¼ c fresh ground black bean flour

1 C hot water

½ c sour dough starter (mine is from my mother–supposedly came across “the plains” but you can order on Amazon and sour dough has lots of health benefits not to mention tasty!)

½ c cooked quinoa

4 T olive oil

2 t salt

4 T maple syrup

1 T yeast

2-3 cups fresh ground whole wheat flour

Place all ingredients in mixer, add ½ the flour and sprinkle yeast over top. Start mixer and add flour until dough pulls away from edges. Knead for 6 mins, remove from mixer, form free standing loaf (big ball) let rise on baking pan until doubled. Bake at 350  degrees 20-25 mins

Smokey Vegan Split Pea Soup

My mom emailed me and asked me for a split pea soup recipe a month or so ago. I had always made split pea in the past with a ham bone and didn’t know how I could make one without it that would compare. So I forgot and never emailed her back. I was looking in my pantry last night, saw the split peas and thought, why not? I concocted this recipe for last nights dinner.

I hit the vegan fake meat flavor jackpot! My daughter said “Mom, I thought we weren’t eating meat anymore, why does this have HAM in it?!” HA! My son said, “Good soup Mom” and then ate every bite and licked his bowl….A rare occurance around here! I liked it so much I ate it again for breakfast this morning. Ok, enough bragging, here it is:

Smokey Vegan Split Pea Soup

1 red onion, diced

4 carrots, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 large russet or red potato, diced with peel on

1 t. dried thyme

8 C. water

2 T. Better than Bullion’s NO chicken base

1 T. Liquid smoke (yes, it’s vegan)

16 oz. (1 lb) green split peas

1 bay leaf

Water saute the onion, carrots, garlic and potato and thyme in large saucepan with 1/2 C. water until the onion is translucent. Add all the other ingredients. Simmer over low heat with the lid on for 30-40 minutes, until peas are very tender. Remove bay leaf. Serve as is, blend until smooth or pulse a few times with a stick blender (my favorite method) for a slightly thickened but still chunky soup. The liquid smoke really gives it the ‘ham’ flavor! It is much thicker the next day, those peas keep expanding!

This recipe can also be made in a Crockpot. Just stick in all the ingredients and let it cook all day.