Do the Almond Mash

Tonight's baking extravaganza all started when Mike wanted some chai tea.  We had just finished our gluten free spaghetti with homemade tomato sauce and homemade bean/tofu balls.

"I wish we had some milk to go with our chai", he said.

So I got to work on making some almond milk for the chai (I must admit I was doing this mostly because I really wanted some almond milk chai, too!)

I just use my food processor to blend up the almonds and water to make almond milk (no fancy Vita-Mix for me...yet), so I have a good amount of almond pulp leftover when I strain the milk.

In the past I've usually used this pulp in cookies, but tonight I decided that muffins were in order.

Hence, the Banana Chocolate Almond muffins!

Banana Chocolate Almond Muffins 

2 medium bananas, mashed (about 1 cup)

1/2 cup packed almond puree*

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup canola oil

1/2 cup water

2 tsp. vanilla

 

1 1/3 cups brown rice flour

2/3 cups tapioca starch

2 tsp. xanthan gum

1/2 tsp. salt

1 Tbsp. baking powder

 

1/2 cup chocolate chips

 

*This is the almond mash leftover after making and straining almond milk. 

 

Preheat oven to 350F and line a 12-cup muffin tin with liners.  Mix together the banana mash, almond puree, oil, water, brown sugar, and vanilla.  In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, starch, xanthan gum, salt, and baking powder.  Carefully stir about 1/3 of the flour mixture into the banana mixture.  Then add another 1/3 of the flour and stir.  Finally add the last of the flour and stir.  Fold in the chocolate chips. 

 

Spoon the batter into muffin tin liners- I like to fill these pretty full for 12 big muffins.  But if you like little muffins, you'd probably get about 16 of them.  Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the muffins comes out clean.  Remove from pan to cool.

FLog #4: Cooking for an army

It's amazing how much food we can go through in a day when the kids are here.  Mike brought home a 5 lb. bag of russets today and we used them all.  There are 2 lunch-sized portions of dinner left over, but that still seems like a heck of a lot of potatoes for 4 people, right?

Wait.  Let's back up.

I should do this in chronological order.

Here's my day in food:

1 slice (a big fat slice) of whole wheat homemade bread with peanut butter

16 oz. water

[1 hour yoga]

1 clementine

16 oz water

1 cup of raw cabbage, carrot, and celery with my yogurt/veganaise ranch dressing

1 cup pinto beans

1 leftover cornmeal pancake

1 oz. Taza Chocolate Mexicano, vanilla variety

16 oz. water

2 Yves sausage patties (I ate these while cooking dinner because I was SO HUNGRY!)

a big ol' mess of roasted potatoes topped with broccoli and nutritional yeast cheeze sauce

1/2 cup pinto beans

Anytime I make roasted potatoes I think of this commercial where this totally clueless looking woman is shocked to find out that she can open a bag, dump the contents on a pan, and have roasted potatoes in half an hour.  Amazing!  

Even more amazing?  This works with actual potatoes, too!  Sure, you have the terrible inconvenience of washing them, cutting them into chunks, and drizzling with olive oil, salt & garlic powder... But the rest of the steps are the same.  450 F for about a half an hour.  And then your roasted potatoes aren't filled with:

Potatoes, Vegetable Oils (Sunflower, Cottonseed, Soybean and/Or Canola), Modified Food Starch, Contains 2% Or Less of: Rice Flour, Salt, Tapioca Dextrin, Yellow Corn Flour, Spice, Black Pepper, Leavening (Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, Sodium Bicarbonate), Dextrose, Garlic Powder, Cornstarch, Disodium Dihydrogen Pyrophosphate, Xanthan Gum, Annatto (Vegetable Color).

Yep, that's right.  You don't actually need to add any modified food starch or disodium dihydrogen pyrophosphate to make roasted potatoes!  Someone should tell Ore-ida!

FLog #3

I missed a few days of my food log.  My meals haven't been very inspired lately- I need to get my act into gear and do some cooking other than rice, beans, and bread.  

Here's what I ate today:

12 oz. smoothie (yogurt, almond butter, banana, flax seeds, maple syrup)

8 oz water

[1 hour yoga class] 

2 cups summer squash soup (homecanned)

16 oz water

1/2 cup salt and pepper cashews (so freaking good!)

1 1/2 cups  chai with soymilk

2 cups rice, tofu, kale, mushroom dish

*After eating my late second lunch/dinner I was craving something sweet really badly.  But with no baked goods and no ice cream in the house, I was forced to do something drastic.

This is chunks of banana drizzled with peanut butter and sprinkled with chocolate chips.  It was amazing.  I will probably do this again.

32 oz water

slice of whole wheat homemade bread with Earth Balance

1 cup of pinto beans 

Flog #2

When I have a class at night, I usually eat breakfast at home and lunch and dinner at work. Today I just ate one big meal in the middle!  You might also notice that I had 2 milkshakes today.  One was even before noon.  I just want to state that both of these shakes are entirely Mike's fault.  He practically forced me to buy ice cream and make shakes.  At least milkshakes get me to drink hemp milk! (I really only like almond milk for drinking and I need to make some more)

Today I ate:

A huge bowl (maybe 2 1/2 cups?) of potato soup

16 oz chocolate shake (vanilla Rice Divine with chocolate hemp milk)

2 Tbsp. cashews, 1/4 cup raisins, 1/4 cup dulse

1 satsuma orange

1 1/2 cups raw cabbage, carrot, and arame salad (from the deli!)

1 cup brown rice and kung pao tofu

1 8 oz coffee shake (decaf with vanilla rice divine and chocolate shavings)

What I Ate

Let's see...my last post was Saturday.  A lot has happened since then.

1.  My KitchenAid mixer broke.  I've already had to replace the motor a couple of years ago because I accidentally didn't tighten the screw that holds in the attachment cover and it got stuck in the beater and broke the motor.  This time it's a mystery- It just won't turn on!  No frosting until I can make it out to the repair shop that's only open while I'm at work.  Is this worth taking vacation time for?

2.  I delivered my first dishes to Mr. C and he really, honestly doesn't want me to cook for him.  Not because the food is bad, but because he'd rather eat his ramen.  I'd like to object, but if I were 90 years old and someone was trying to make me change my diet, I'd be pissed too.  We'll see if his friend talks him into changing his mind.

3.  I successfully went nearly 2 weeks without baking cookies.  That has to be a world record...okay, maybe just a Liz record.  I broke down last night and make some oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies, but forgot that 100% oat flour and rolled oat cookies don't hold together all on their own.  Duh.  So we had to peel the one huge too crispy/undercooked cookie off the silpat mat and eat them right away.

4.  I taught a class tonight about transitioning to a vegetarian diet and/or eating less meat.  It was good because it forced me to brush up on my nutrition...and evaluate my own diet.  I think I'll copycat fellow food snob Catherine tonight and do a "flog" (food log) to make sure I'm on track.

Today I ate:

2 corn pancakes with a Yves sausage patty and slice of vegan rice cheese in the middle and maple syrup on top

(yes, like a breakfast sandwich on pancakes.  I promised these to the kids)

[1 hour yoga class]

2 16-oz glasses of water

1 16-oz smoothie with soymilk, banana, and peanut butter 

(the juice bar special this month!)

2 cups of black eyed peas, brown rice, kale, red peppers leftovers

1/2 organic candy cane

a few orange slices and almonds

16 oz water

About 3 cups of stir fried cabbage, celery, and carrot with ginger and garlic and Bragg's

About a cookie's worth of leftover disaster oatmeal chocolate chip cookie

*My eating isn't over for the day.  I came home and realized that we only have a few veggies and condiments in the fridge, so I threw together the stirfry so that I could think enough to figure out what else to cook.  Just veggies won't hold me over for too long!

It's interesting to see how I eat written down.  I really do graze all day!

Double Tomato Black Eyed Pea Soup

Today was a really great day.  I can't nail down any one particular thing that made it great, but combination of sleeping in, playing Risk with the family while eating popcorn and chocolate before noon, having lunch an awesome friend, and cooking for Mr. C (my new personal chef gig!) is making me happy.  The only stressful part of my day so far was when I gave my step-babies' momma and kids a ride home- Not stressful because of the company but because the slightly grey day turned into an icy sleety dark day really quickly.  But when I got home I found my Netflix movie waiting for me!

So right now I'm cooking for Mr. C.  I hope this works out okay.  It's always tricky cooking for someone else- especially when the person who hired you is not the person you are cooking for.  He insists he is just fine eating ramen noodles and canned food, but his friend thinks otherwise.  My strategy is to win him over with cookies, roasted apples, broccoli stir-fry, baked tofu (his fave), and some Double Tomato Black Eyed Pea Soup.  

I'm giong through a phase right now where I'm obsessed with roasted red peppers.  So far I've eaten some every day this year.  

I'm testing the recipe for this soup today to make sure I wrote things down right last time I made it.  I'll share soon.

First Breakfast of the New Year

Well, I started this new year off by sleeping 11 hours- until noon!  At least I stayed up until midnight on New Year's Eve.  Sometimes I only make it until 11pm.  I do love my sleep!

Once I enjoyed my morning routine of feeding the animals and bribing crazy barking Hannah dog back into the house with banana pieces, I got to work on making a rocking good breakfast.

This is a variation on the wheat free corn cakes I made for Christmas breakfast.  Except...I undid the whole local thing by serving them with California spinach, avocados, and jarred roasted organic red peppers.  Oh, well!  These cakes are super versatile- they can be sweet like pancakes or savory!

I just wilted some onions and spinach in the cast iron skillet after the corn cakes were all cooked and tossed together some avocado chunks with 1 roasted red pepper, a little cilantro, minced onion and salt.  This felt like a pretty darn healthy brunch with the good avocado fat, spinach, and whole grain flours in the corn cakes.  

Now I've got to run to the co-op to pick up some black eyed peas!  How could I have forgotten to get them yesterday?  That was a close call.  I've eaten black eyed peas on New Year's Day for as long as I can remember.  I remember one year when we ran out of black eyed peas at the co-op and I had to go from store to store trying to find one that was open on NY day!  I'm just a little superstitious...