Banana Streusel Muffins

When it's not apple, pear, or mandarin season, I like to keep a stash of muffins in the freezer to bring in to work for a mid-morning snack. Andy eats his with his lunch, but I'm usually starving by about 9.30am. I try to hold out till 10 or 10.30 so I don't get hungry for lunch too early, but regardless, I would be nowhere without my morning muffin.

Last weekend I decided, after some serious deliberation, on Banana Streusel Muffins - combining an adaptation of the streusel recipe from the 'Pecan Streusel Coffee Cake' in Urban Vegan with an adaptation of 'Wolffie's Banana Blueberry Muffins' from La Dolce Vegan.

But then, a hiccup. We didn't have enough flour. Andy offered to pick some up on his way home from Bunning's, the hardware store mega-chain.

But then, another hiccup. We remembered the grocery stores don't open till 11am on Sundays. This was at about 9am, and we had people coming over for lunch at 12. I decided to just go to the shop afterwards, but Andy saw my determination  to bake and called his friend Tom, who was coming for lunch, to borrow some flour.

Thanks again, Tom! (I repaid him in a muffin.)

I'm glad we did borrow the flour, because I wouldn't have felt like walking to the store in the afternoon. And these muffins were a delicious success, so it would have been tragic not to make them. Andy and Tom both thought they had apple in them - I guess because the flavours are all typically paired with apple. But just bananas here!

Banana Streusel Muffins

1/2 c. chopped walnuts
1/2 c. raisins
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. flour
3 Tbsp. grapeseed oil

2 c. flour (I used half white and half wholemeal, so I could call them muffins instead of cupcakes and feel like I eat healthy)
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
3/4 tsp. salt
3/4 c. sugar
2/3 c. non-dairy milk
2 lady finger bananas, or 1 large banana (I used bananas from our tree!!)
1 tsp. fresh grated ginger
1/4 c. grapeseed oil
2 Tbsp. molasses

To make the streusel, mix all the ingredients in a bowl and set aside.

Then preheat the oven to 190 (375F). Lightly oil a 12 cup muffin tin. In a large bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, and sugar - make sure there are no lumps left. In a jug with a stick blender, or in a proper blender, combine the milk, banana, ginger, oil and molasses and blend until smooth. Add the banana milk to the flour mixture and stir until combined.

Drop spoonfuls of batter into the muffin cups, filling a bit less than half full. Then put a spoonful of streusel mix. Top with another spoonful of muffin batter.

Bake for 22 minutes, give or take a few, until they are golden and cooked through. Probably put your muffin pan on a baking tray, because when I made these, this happened.

Andy seemed to enjoy scraping the hot toffee off the pan and eating it, and after letting the muffins cool for about 20 minutes they came out pretty easily. My advice is to loosen the edges while they are fresh from the oven, but don't take them out until the streusel hardens up a bit - otherwise you will lose your tops!

Fitness Friday: Eating for Exercise

I'm stealing the idea for Fitness Fridays from Kari.

My 2013 resolutions included some fitness goals. I have been travelling fairly well - I've done push-ups every week, pretty much always cycle to work, and run a few times a week. But all this exercise makes me really hungry. And I'm doing it to be fit, rather than to lose weight, so I haven't been cutting calories. But I was not really very strategic about my eating until fairly recently. Reading Bianca's posts about the Thrive Forward cleanse got me thinking about it. I signed up for the site, but didn't participate really. What it gave me, instead, was some ideas about the most efficient ways to fuel myself.

So now, I pop a Direct Fuel Bite before my run. I shape them into balls and store in the fridge, so I can grab one quickly as I blearily put on my shoes and get Tika's lead so very early in the morning. Before discovering Direct Fuel Bites, I ate nothing before running. These are made with dates and coconut oil (and I add crystallised ginger to mine, which is yummy), and supposedly the glucose in the dates gets turned into fuel pretty much immediately, and the fatty acids from the coconut oil are another source of quick energy. I do notice a difference - I feel less tired by the end of my (still short) run.

Straight after my run, I drink plenty of water while one of us gets breakfast together. I tend to have granola with soy milk, which is fairly high in protein thanks to okara, seeds & nuts, simple carbs thanks to dried fruit, and complex carbs thanks to oats and other grains. So I get an immediate re-fuel, as well as more long-term, low-GI energy. To make it more filling, I usually top with chia goo (1 tsp. of chia seeds with about 1 Tbsp. of hot water, let sit for 3 or 4 minutes) and fresh fruit if we have any.

Or I have a smoothie. I make mine filling by including oats, which I soak in a bit of water or soy milk in the blender jug overnight. In addition to that, I either have peanut butter & banana, or tropical fruit (whatever is on hand) with almond meal for protein.

But even with a filling breakfast, I get hungry again in the mid-morning. Andy and I try to keep bananas around for morning tea, and if I'm really starving I'll have my banana with a rice cake and almond butter, which I keep in my office for hunger-related emergencies.

If, for some reason, we don't have bananas (or other snack fruit) on hand, we put a batch of muffins in the freezer. They stay super fresh, and thaw out by the time we're hungry for little lunch. Since beginning to exercise more consistently, I have tried to maximise the nutrition in these snacks. This recipe for banana muffins that I made last week isn't the healthiest ever - I used white flour and sugar - but they are high in protein, oil-free, and most importantly, delicious. The recipe is very loosely based on Dynise's Blueberry-Banana Bread from Urban Vegan, but only very loosely.

High-Protein Banana Muffins

2 tsp. chia seeds
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. bicarb soda
1 1/2 c. plain flour
1/4 c. quinoa flakes
3/4 c. sugar
pinch of salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp. rum
1/2 c. wet okara (or sub yogurt, or mashed silken tofu)
3 large bananas, mashed
1/3 c. soy milk
3/4 c. chopped nuts (I used half macadamia, half walnuts)

In a large bowl, stir together the dry ingredients. In a separate, smaller bowl, mix up the mashed bananas with the rum, okara and soy milk. Add this to the dry ingredients and stir until just mixed. Spoon into lightly oiled muffin cups and bake at 180 for 28-30 minutes. Let them cool in the pan for a minute or two, and then carefully take them out. Cool fully on a rack, and then (if you want to keep them super fresh for up to a month) put them in a bag and freeze. Take out one muffin at least 30 minutes before you want to eat it.

I'm still, really, an exercise novice. I'm no endurance athlete, and I run in a week what a lot of people do in a day. But even a little bit of proper exercise is super duper good for you, especially when it's matched with good, nutritious food.

One Dish Round Up

For the past few months, I have been testing recipes for Carla's in-the-works cookbook about one-dish meals.  Andy and I tested a bunch of recipes around christmas, and then took a few weeks off from testing, before another big spurt in the last few weeks.  Carla has recently discussed a slight change in direction with her publishers - so I won't be testing any more.  However, I have really loved the recipes we have tested, so I'll post some photos here to give you an idea of the excellence that Carla manages to come up with.

 

 White bean peanut dip tastes like yummy peanut sauce, in dip form.  What else could you want?

Carla's spiced oven wedges have become a popular side dish, like here with sausage rolls.

Baked lemon tofu with green beans reminded me of an excellent flavour combination that I haven't taken advantage of in a while - lemon pepper.  Duh, but yum.  

Cream Sausage & Tomato Pasta was really easy to pull together, and very yummy.

The sauce, bubbling away on the stove after maybe 10 minutes of prepping and cooking.

 

Franks & Beans, which we actually served as "Bangers & Beans" using sausages, was super tomatoey and hearty.  Served with a side of creamy mushrooms, and some toast, this was almost brinner.

One of our favourite recipes is Carla's Crumbed Seitan.  The crumb mixture is a lot more interesting than our usual, so we've had this a few times.

 All fried up, these schnitzels are crispy and tasty.

We had them once with garlic mashed potatoes and mushroom gravy.

Then another time we served them up with mashed sweet potatoes (the ones with purple-red skin and white insides) and Easy Cheesy Gravy from Ultimate Uncheese.

And the leftovers from that were turned into parmas - a jar of enchilada sauce and some leftover cheesy gravy, and popped in the oven for a few minutes.

Two cuisines meet in Ethiopian Sweet Potato Stew, which matches the spices of Ethiopian cooking with the peanut stews of Western Africa, with sweet potatoes and chickpeas.

Seitan, marinated overnight in Thai BBQ marinade and then baked with some veggies and frozen spring rolls, made for a really yummy and really easy weekday dinner.

Red Seitan Curry required more effort than the last meal, but was well worth it on a Sunday evening.  The seitan is cooked in the curry itself, so it is full of flavour with a texture that is quite different to typical seitan.

Corn bread scones were simple to make, full of flavour, soft and delicious.  Declared by Andy to be the best corn bread I've ever made.

We served our scones with Kidney Bean & Sweet Potato Chilli, a thick and herby stew which we topped with jalapeno slices.

We made the chilli with a mix of orange sweet potatoes, and these beauties with an ugly white exterior but a brilliantly violet inside.

The chilli was reincarnated later in the week as Chilli Muffin Loaves, light little muffins with chunks of sweet potato and bean throughout.

Home made tofu is beautiful when marinated and baked, and Carla's Pan Pacific Marinade didn't disappoint.

My advice is to keep your eyes peeled for Carla's cookbooks, because if the recipes I've tried are anything to go by, they will be excellent.

Branana.

When Andy is home, we do most of our fruit & veg shopping at the local farmer's market (the one at Willow's, if anyone is interested).  Especially at this time of year, most of the produce is grown locally by people you can have conversations with, and it is very often better tasting and cheaper than what you get at the supermarket, or even at the fruit & veg store.

One of my favourite things about shopping at the market is when the sellers throw in a few extras for free -- usually overripe, damaged, or tiny produce that is still perfectly fine.  We were recently sent home with a few free very ripe bananas.  With a fair few bananas already in the freezer, I wanted to use them up quickly.  Anyways, we like to have muffins in the freezer to take to uni as a snack during the week.  So I concocted these "Branana Muffins".  They are based on the recipe for 'Jam-Filled Oat Bran Muffins' from The Joy of Vegan Baking, which Andy has made once before.  That time, we didn't have oat bran so used ground up oats.  The result was yummy but heavy and a bit chompy.  This version is much better.  Healthy tasting, but much lighter with a pleasant texture, and a surprise inside.

Branana Muffins

2 cups Oat Bran

1 cup Unbleached All-purpose Flour

1/2 cup Organic Brown Sugar

4 tsp Baking Powder

1 tsp Cinnamon, Ground

1/2 tsp Salt

1 1/4 cups Almond Milk

1/3 cup Canola Oil

1/3 cup California Walnut Baking Pieces

3 tbsp Strawberry Preserves

Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/recipes/jam-filled-oat-bran-muffins/#ixzz0x1C9DqKi

2 cups Oat Bran

1 cup Unbleached All-purpose Flour

1/2 cup Organic Brown Sugar

4 tsp Baking Powder

1 tsp Cinnamon, Ground

1/2 tsp Salt

1 1/4 cups Almond Milk

1/3 cup Canola Oil

1/3 cup California Walnut Baking Pieces

3 tbsp Strawberry Preserves

Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/recipes/jam-filled-oat-bran-muffins/#ixzz0x1C9DqKi

2 c. oat bran
1 c. plain flour
1/2 c. brown sugar
4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
1 large banana, mashed very well
1 1/4 c. non-dairy milk
1/3 c. rice bran oil (or other neutral-tasting veg. oil)

Filling:
1 large banana, mashed very well
2 T. peanut butter

Heat oven to 210 (425), lightly grease 12 muffin cups.  In a large bowl,  combine oat bran, flour, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.  Mix until no lumps remain.  In a separate bowl, combine mashed banana, milk and oil.  In a third, small bowl, mix filling ingredients.  Add banana-milk-oil mixture to dry ingredients and combine until just mixed.  Spoon batter into muffin cups, filling them not quite half full.  Then put a tsp or so of filling mixture into the center of each muffin tin.  Spoon remaining batter on top, and then bake.  The recipe says 15-20 minutes, but mine took almost twice as long, so check them after 20 minutes and see how they are going.  Cool in the tins for a few minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Banana-PB filling!  It doesn't stay very gooey, but it is a moist flavour burst in the centre of these muffins.

2 cups Oat Bran

1 cup Unbleached All-purpose Flour

1/2 cup Organic Brown Sugar

4 tsp Baking Powder

1 tsp Cinnamon, Ground

1/2 tsp Salt

1 1/4 cups Almond Milk

1/3 cup Canola Oil

1/3 cup California Walnut Baking Pieces

3 tbsp Strawberry Preserves

Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/recipes/jam-filled-oat-bran-muffins/#ixzz0x1C9DqKi

Between seasons.

April is usually my favourite month in Townsville.  After several months of humid, 34 degree days, the April average of 30-ish feels wonderful; the rainy season has ended but the landscape is still lush and green.  Basically, it is what earns Townsville its status, in my opinion, as a freaking great place to live.

This year April hasn't been so great, though.  I don't know why, but the rain hasn't quite let go.  We've gotten a few heavy washes, and a few days of stupid drizzly weather.  Monday it was 22 degrees, which felt practically frigid.  But we have had some nice days, the kind of days I associate with April.  As a result of this funny back-and-forth weather, our meals have been shifting back and forth as well.

Wintry:

Sunday Roast Drumsticks from Vegan (see my review of this cookbook here).  These weren't super accurate, as we didn't know what tinned chestnuts are like so had trouble guessing on a substitution, but they were good anyways.  On the side, roasted brussels sprouts & green beans; just-wilted Ceylon spinach; and porcupine potatoes.

Summery:

Veggie Burgers with chips!  Andy picked up a pack of EatWell lentil burgers reduced-to-clear so we made bread rolls to have a proper burger-bar dinner.

I used my new pottery (more on this to come) to lay out a spread of beetroot-carrot slaw, guacamole, and salad.

Andy made Cajun-Spiced Chips from Vegan with a Vengeance which were amazing.

The result was a decidedly summery meal.

Wintry: 

Pumpkin Soup.  Actually, this is Pumpkin-Daal Soup from Urban Vegan and it was delicious.  Rich and creamy and amazingly flavoured, this warmed us up one cool evening.

On the side we had some sauteed brussels sprouts with rocket and balsamic.

Summery:

Morroccan Millet Bulgur Timbales, from Urban Vegan.  Topped with Easy Tahini Dressing from Urban Vegan.  Light and room temperature, with cold seitan roast on the side.

Wintry:

Pumpkin baked goods.  Following the recipe for The Best Pumpkin Muffins from Vegan with a Vengeance, I made muffins as well as bread.

Summery:

Coconut-Crusted Tofu with peanut satay sauce, based on a conglomeration of Urban Vegan recipes.  Although this was oven-baked, it was very tropical and felt light and summery.

Wintry:

Porridge.  

I kind of don't mind that the weather has been so variable, because it gives us a lot of variety with our meals!

City Mouse -- Country Mouse

It’s no secret that I am not a city mouse. They are crowded and I feel out of place in cities. I definitely feel at home in small towns, and although I occasionally complain about the lack of fun in Townsville, I do love living here (if anything, it's a little too big).

But, although I don’t feel at home in urban environments, I am in love with the new cookbook, The Urban Vegan: 250 Simple, Sumptuous Recipes from Street Cart Favourites to Haute Cuisine. You may remember that I was a tester while Dynise was developing her cookbook, and I loved all of the recipes that I tried. Now the book is here. I’ve had it for just over a week and we’ve made seven recipes from it (only one of which I had tried during testing).

My first impression of the book—it’s pretty. The cover is colourful and eye-catching, and the layout feels sophisticated. The index is well-done (an important feature in cookbooks, if you ask me). The blurbs before each recipe are entertaining and give you an idea of who Dynise is, which I like. The intro material is also helpful without being verbose or prattling on for too long. We’ve taken Dynise’s advice to heart, particularly the bit encouraging experimentation with recipes. We have a hard time following recipes exactly at the best of times, and since we are in a decidedly un-urban environment we have a hard time finding certain ingredients—so we make do.

Now onto the food...

The first day we got this book, Andy made one of the recipes for dinner. The recipe was for Foil-Roasted Beets with Wasabi Vinaigrette, but we didn’t want to wait the hour that beets would take to roast whole, so we cut them up pre-roasting. This made the cooking process quicker without affecting the flavour at all. The wasabi vinaigrette was a surprisingly perfect companion to the slightly sweet, earthy beetroot. Best of all, this recipe was very easy to make, perfect for the end of a tiring week.

When we went sailing last weekend we wanted to try out one of the lunch recipes, and settled on Sandwich Mousse, with a few substitutions. Borlotti beans stood in for pink beans, but a splash of beetroot juice brightened up the colour. We also used roasted garlic instead of raw, and dill instead of the other herbs, because that’s what grows in our garden. This was a perfect sandwich filler, and it made enough for Sunday lunch plus a few sandwiches throughout the week. Andy liked it so much he’s requested it again for this week’s lunches.

A fantastic side dish from the cookbook is Couscous Mosaic. Full of flavour and simple to make, this recipe made enough to last a few dinners. First, we had it alongside eggplant schnitzels with onion gravy and a veggie salad.

It also went well paired with a dhal burger, Cumin Fried Potatoes from La Dolce Vegan, and another veggie salad.

Chocolate-Chipotle Chilli was a delicious Friday night meal. A lot of ingredients (this isn’t even all of them)...

But with only a few steps for the actual preparation. In place of chipotle, I used a mix of smoked paprika and cinnamon, and some mango-ginger hot sauce stood in for the chilli powder and tamarind. Simmered for a while, and topped with a dollop of guacamole this was declared by Andy to be the best chilli I’ve made. The chocolate gave it a deep, earthy darkness which was lightened up with the sweet corn, the chewy tvp and the black and kidney beans.

For Saturday breakfast, I turned to Better than Buttermilk Pancakes, using the suggested Banana Walnut variation. In batter form I was a little sceptical—the batter had a slightly squicky flavour I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I thought maybe the utter lack of sugar in the pancakes was to blame, but when they were cooked up I had no doubt that they were fantastic. I realised I was picking up on the taste of the uncooked soy bean flour, which I hate but which luckily goes away when cooked. These were perfect pancakes—thick but fluffy. Andy wasn’t impressed with the walnuts in the pancakes—too crunchy—but I thought they were great.

To go with hotdogs and baked beans, Andy whipped up a batch of focaccia, half roasted garlic and half avocado. We made the dough in the bread machine, which is very easy, and were very pleased with the results.

Finally, we like to keep muffins or cupcakes in the freezer to take to uni for morning tea throughout the week. I flipped through and settled on Ninja Ginga Bread, in cupcake form. This time, I used pumpkin puree in place of the apple sauce (which you can’t actually taste at all) and upped the cocoa powder instead of using espresso powder. We ate one warm from the oven, and it was very sophisticated, complex and spicy. I’m looking forward to eating them throughout the week.

All up, I’m so far very impressed with this cookbook. I love that the recipes don't rely too heavily on processed ingredients and mock meats (although they are in there, for the occasional treat). I can’t wait to try out some more.