Tasty Little Muffins

100% Whole Grain Vegan 10 Grain Banana Chocolate Chip Walnut Muffins

Yesterday I made these tasty little muffins. Here's a recipe.

2 Bananas (mashed)

1/2 Cup Pure Maple Syrup

1 Tablespoon Barley Malt

1/2 Cup Earth Balance Spread

1 Cup Whole Grain White Wheat Flour

1 Teaspoon Sea Salt

1 Teaspoon Baking Powder

1 Teaspoon Baking Soda

1 Cup of 10 Grain Cereal Mix

3/4 Cup Plain Soy Yogurt

3/4 Cup Soy Milk

1/3 Cup Grain Sweetened Vegan Chocolate Chips

1/3 Cup Walnut pieces

1/3 Cup dried currants

1 Teaspoon Cinnamon

1 Teaspoon Pure Vanilla Extract

1 Tablespoon Flax Seed Meal

Earth balance shortening (to grease the muffin pan)

The instructions are fairly simple. 

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. While preheating, 

Mix the dry 10 grain cereal with the soy milk and yogurt. let sit while you mix the other ingredients. 

Mix together all of the dry ingredients. (The flour, salt, baking powder and soda, 

cinnamon, flax seed meal, chips, nuts, currants etc...).  

Mash together (I used a potato masher) the ripe bananas with the earth balance, once very well incorporated add the barley malt, maple syrup, and vanilla extract. 

At this point grease the muffin pan with Earth balance shortening. 

Mix together the wet and dry ingredients and lastly add in the 10 grain soy milk yogurt mixture. 

Stir together to incorporate the wet and dry ingredients. 

Equally distribute the mixture into the greased muffin pan. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and let the muffins cool for a few minutes before carefully removing them from the pan. 

Store for up to 1 week outside the fridge in an airtight container. 

Don't forget to eat one (or all of them) right after they've cooled off a bit! 

Enjoy! These are especially good sliced in half, toasted in the toaster oven, and spread with a little earth balance spread.

Things to come

here's some things that may happen on this blog this week:

tofu pumpkin pie (done!)

vegetable stock

meatless loaf (done!)

cherry almond chocolate chip oatmeal cookies

10 grain muffins (done!)

zucchini lemon egg soup (done!)

vegetarian barbeque baked beans

kinpira gobo

Kinpira Gobo Preview

I am just going to dive right into whatever meals I have been preparing and eating lately...

So tonight's dinner is going to be my first post.

Tonight I am making a simple traditional Japanese recipe that is one of my very favorite dishes to prepare and eat: Kinpira Gobo.

Kinpira is a style of Japanese cooking where you braise the food in a hot oiled pan and after the food is partially cooked you add some water, cover it, and let is steam and simmer until the food is finished cooking. It is a wonderful way to lock in flavor and makes for a wonderful base style for many ingredient combinations.

Gobo is called "Bardana" in Italian. In English we call it Burdock root. It is a long root, with a sweet, deep, earthy flavor. I tell people that it is like a cross between a carrot and a potato. It is related to globe artichokes, lettuce, chicory root, and a south america root vegetable called "yacon."

RECIPE to follow...

Grandma Upstairs

Today I am starting something that I have thought about doing for a long time, blogging about my adventures in, what is possibly my most cherished creative space, the kitchen.

A key motivator in my creative process as a ceramic artist is the intense hands-on process pottery making involves. In many ways, the major I chose to pursue at RISD (Textiles), and my choice to move on to an even more hands on medium as an artist: pottery, were I believe, in hindsight, fated to happen. I think my deep connection to process came from my early introduction to the inner workings of my grandmother's kitchen.

I don't remember a time when I was too young to help my grandmother Nancy prepare a meal. My brother and I called her "grandma upstairs," since she lived with my grandfather, Angelo, in the apartment above ours in our two family house in Brooklyn.

My cooking has come a long way from what my grandmother taught me: early learnings about making "gravy," (what Italian-Americans call pasta sauce), steaming mussels, cleaning shrimp, cooking pasta, or making eggplant parmigiana. I owe so much of my creativity to my grandma "upstairs." After all, she planted the initial seeds of cooking in me, from which sprouted the creativity that has simply taken over my life!

So as we said at our Sunday dinners... Salute! (Cheers!) Salute a mia nonna!