And the mystery recipe is....Stuffing? In April?! Oy Vey...

I'm browsing through one of my new vegan cookbooks, Color Me Vegan, and BAM, there it is... a recipe for stuffing. Mmmm... okay, now I want some stuffing! So all I can think about is stuffing, and I started thinking back to past Thanksgiving and Christmas feasts, remembering how much I enjoyed the stuffing David's mom always prepares... using muffins in place of stale bread!! Delicious! Last Christmas I actually made the muffins for Jacki's stuffing and it was as good as ever!

This time though I was ready to take on my own stuffing. I tried making stuffing once before; not bad, but not great either. Let's putting this way, I wouldn't go out of my way to make it again. So I decided NOW was the time to master stuffing (yes I'm a big dork), with two goals in mind: 1.) Use Muffins and 2.) 100% Vegan! Where would I get these vegan muffins though? What could be better than making homemade muffins using recipes from The 2011 Cookbook Challenge! That's right! 

So I decided to make three kinds of muffins: corn, apple walnut, and pumpkin spice! I wanted to try something new - the addition of pumpkin bread into stuffing was intriguing!

I made a fantastic stuffing! Normally I'm not so confident about my recipes but this was seriously delicious! I found that making the stuffing moist enough was the key to making this so wonderful!

So here's the recipe! I used the recipe from my vegan cookbook as a base and changed it up the way I wanted it. I hope you enjoy it! If you want the vegan muffin recipes that I used feel free to let me know and I'll send the recipes your way!

 

Apple, Cranberry, and Walnut Stuffing

Ingredients

• 6 regular-sized corn muffins, cubed or crumbled
• 3 large (or 6 regular-sized) pumpkin muffins, cubed or crumbled
• 6 regular-sized apple walnut muffins, cubed and crumbled
• 1-2 tbsp grapeseed oil
• 1 large yellow onion, chopped
• 3 stalks celery, finely chopped
• 2 tsp dried sage
• 1 tsp dried rosemary
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme
• 1/2 tsp dried tarragon
• 1/2 tsp dried parsley
• sea salt, to taste
• fresh ground black pepper, to taste
• 1 tart apple, cored, chopped, and unpeeled
• 5.2 oz container dried cranberries
• 1 cup walnuts, chopped
• 1-1/2 - 2 cups vegetable stock, or more if needed
• 2-3 tbsp nondairy butter (Earth Balance, soy-free), melted

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
2. In a large bowl, combine all of the muffins. Set aside.
3. Heat oil in a large skillet and add the onion and celery. Cook on medium-high heat for about 10 minutes.
4. Add the sage, rosemary, thyme, tarragon, parsley, salt and pepper. Stir to combine.
5. Remove the skillet from the heat and transfer the mixture to the bowl of bread.
6. Stir in the apple, cranberries, walnuts, and vegetable stock. Mix thoroughly.
7. Add more vegetable stock if mixture is not moist enough.
8. Transfer mixture to a casserole dish and drizzle with melted butter.
9. Bake for aproximately 1 hour , or until the top is a golden-brown color.
10. Serves 8-10.

Yummy!!

Now for those of you who do not like all the fruity/nutty stuff (a.k.a. David), I also made a vegan traditional stuffing! I made it the same exactly way except the bread consisted of 6 corn muffins and 1/2 loaf of French bread, omitting all the fruity muffins, chopped apples, cranberries and walnuts. Still great! 

April 2, 2011 Recipe #11: Apple Walnut Muffins

I'm on a roll with The 2011 Cookbook Challenge! And ooooh, don't these look yummy?! The original recipe was actually "apple pecan muffins" but due to a slight allergy to pecans, I used walnuts instead. Aside from the walnut substitute, the only change I made was the use of grapeseed oil, rather than canola oil. Grapeseed oil can be used for baking and frying. Want to know a little more about it? Check out these websites:

Grapeseed oil
Wise Geek: What is grapeseed oil?

I liked this recipe because it used half whole wheat and half all-purpose flour, as well as a limited amount of oil. This recipe used unsweetened applesauce, which is actually a healthy substitute for oil. I went with a Granny Smith apple since it's a tarter apple and good to use in baking!

So guess what? These muffins were ALSO used in the mystery recipe that I have been talking about for the past couple of blog entries! Don't worry, I promise, the next recipe will be the revealing of the tasty, fabulous mystery dish I can't stop talking about!

April 2, 2011 Recipe #10: Corn Muffins

Leave it to The 2011 Cookbook Challenge to give me something to complain about. I can't complain about this recipe too much, because everything worked out in the end, but something did go very wrong. Since I was making these muffins with the mystery recipe I will be sharing with you very soon, I decided to omit the addition of corn as well as the suggested addition of blueberries. I used a flax/water mixture for the egg stubstitute which I think may have been my problem. The original recipe called for Ener-G Egg Replacer, which I didn't have on hand, so when I made the "flax eggs" I don't think I made enough of an egg-like consistency. The flax to water mixture probably could have used a bit more water. My batter ended up being too dry, making it difficult to incorporate the dry with the wet ingredients. Grrr. I had also substituted the flour, originally calling for all-purpose flour, but I did half whole wheat and half all-purpose. I don't think this substitution would make the batter too dry though. Anyway, I went with what I had and contined on to baking them. The muffins baked for a shorter amount of time, but when they were done baking you could tell they seemed a bit too dry. Fortunately, they were perfect for the mystery recipe! Stay tuned! And well, you live and learn, right?

April 2, 2011 Recipe #9: Pumpkin Spice Bread or Muffins

You can't go wrong with pumpkin muffins! Yum! In the past when I've made pumpkin bread, I only used cinnamon, but this time, as part of 

The 2011 Cookbook Challenge, I decided to follow the spices exactly: cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg! These smelled delicious and were nice and moist when they came out of the oven!

Now I did make a coupe of changes. The recipe called for 2 cups granulated sugar. Instead, I used 1 cup raw sugar and 1 cup brown sugar. Also the original recipe recommended using 1-1/2 cups applesauce or 1/2 cup applesauce plus 1/2 cup canola oil. I took the equal parts of oil and applesauce, but decided to use grapeseed oil in place of the canola as well as homemade unsweetened applesauce that had been sitting in my freezer waiting to be used in a recipe. I also used ground flaxseeds and water to make the equivalent of eggs, but rather than follow the directions, I mixed the two together and let the mixture sit for 10-15 minutes until it was thickened, looking more like an egg consistency. Last but not least, instead of using all-purpose flour, I went with whole wheat flour and the remainder of whole wheat pastry flour that I had on hand. Mmm, mmm, mmm.

Unfortunately, I can't tell you how these tasted, alone; however, I incorporated them into a recipe that will be coming soon! And let me tell  you - you aren't going to want to miss this one! Amazing!

The pumpkin muffins here do not have any extra add-ins because of how I was using them in the recipe to come, but nuts and/or chocolate chips would be a delicious addition!

Enjoy!

March 8, 2011 Recipe #6: Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

Here's another great recipe from The 2011 Cookbook Challenge! Banana chocolate chip muffins - could this get any better?! Well yes it can! I added cinnamon (because when you have bananas, you have to have cinnamon - they just pair so well together!) and some shredded unsweetened coconut. Yummy! Even the non-vegans loved this recipe!

This muffin recipe called for unbleached all-purpose flour, but I decided to change it up a little bit. Instead, I used whole wheat pastry flour, which some people tend to use instead of all-purpose flour. It's definitely a healthier option! When making muffins, this substitution works great, but not for all recipes, especially cake/cupcake recipes (I'll fill you in on a future post). 

The addition of banana has two purposes in this recipe: 1) flavor and 2) binding of the ingredients to create a moist muffin (no one likes a dry muffin!). I used turbinado (raw) sugar rather than granulated sugar and there is a limited amount of vegetable oil. I happened to find nondairy semisweet chocolate chips at a health food store, which are quite yummy, and walnuts topped off this great muffin! Enjoy!

January 15, 2011 Recipe #1: Blueberry Lemon Muffins

The very first recipe of The 2011 Cookbook Challenge! Yay! Blueberry Lemon Muffins!

Okay, so I kind of cheated... rather than start with the first page number listed from the random sequence generator, I picked this recipe... ONLY because I had some blueberries I needed to use. But from here on out I give you my word that I will be making the recipes that fall on the page numbers given by the random sequence generator! I didn't have to tell you I cheated but I felt guilty for listing a rule I already failed! David has called me a "goober" for mentioning this to all of you. Hey, at least I'm honest!

Breakfast: A blueberry lemon muffin with fresh fruit!



Well the blueberry muffins passed! They were delicious! I did however make a few little changes. The addition of cinnamon into the batter was wonderful and I doubled up the amount of lemon extract, instead of using  lemon zest the recipe had called for. I also couldn't resist sprinking a little cinnamon-sugar mix on top of the batter before popping them into the oven. Amazing! I decided to change the baking temperature too, which originally called for 400 degrees F. In my opinion, and with experience, muffins should be baked at 350 or 375 degrees F. A couple of months ago I baked muffins at 400 degrees F and after carefully watching them and making sure the inside of the batter was cooked enough, they ended up being a little more well done on the outside than I would have liked. Unfortunately, I haven't had a good experience using that temperature for muffins.

But cheers to the first recipe being a hit! I will be happen to post the recipe if anyone is interested! Enjoy!

Freshly baked muffins for Jacki's special, and may I add incredible, Christmas Day stuffing! Yum!

So last year Jacki, David's mom, made this fantastic stuffing to go with the turkey for Christmas Day dinner. I was so excited about it that I just had to ask her how she made this stuffing. Turns out, she had seen one of Rachael Ray's stuffing recipes where she had added some flavorful muffins to her dish. So Jacki decided to use this idea into her own stuffing! Using a combination of stale bread and moist muffins, as well as the essential stuffing ingredients, the stuffing turned out wonderful!

 

Since I just loved Jacki's stuffing so much last year, I asked her if she would make it again this year! She was happy to do it, but this time I asked if I could help out by making the muffins she would be adding to the stuffing. I decided to make a variety of muffins: Cornbread - of course, the sweet kind; apple cinnamon with walnuts, thanks to Baking Bites; and cranberry orange with walnuts, thanks to For the Love of Cooking, a blog I recently started following. To the basic stuffing ingredients of sauteed onions and celery, seasoning, butter, and broth (rather than the normal chicken broth, she used a white wine and herb broth), Jacki also added a couple of cinnamon streusal muffins, chopped apples, spices (cinnamon & nutmeg) and walnuts. She decided to only use muffins this time (rather than a combo with stale bread), and the moistness of the muffins made up for a lot of the chicken broth she normally adds to her stuffing. Well the stuffing turned out great! The stuffing came out of the oven and not only smelled delicious, but had a nice, crisp top layer. And yes, I attacked it on Christmas day :)

 

Here are the recipes for the muffins used in the stuffing:

 

Apple-Cinnamon-Walnut Muffins (Original Recipe)

 

Ingredients

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 2 tbsp butter, melted and cooled
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 2 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and shredded
• 1/2 - 1 cup walnuts, chopped
• 3 tbsp coarse sugar
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Lightly grease (or line with paper liners) a 12-cup muffin tin .
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together brown sugar and egg. Whisk in melted butter, vegetable oil and vanilla. Working in two or three additions, alternately stir in flour mixture and buttermilk, ending with an addition of flour and mixing only until no streaks of flour remain visible in the batter. Stir in shredded apple and chopped walnuts.
4. Divide batter evenly into prepared muffin cups filling each to the top, or slightly over.
5. In a small bowl, stir together coarse sugar and additional 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon. Sprinkle generously over muffins.
6. Bake for 15-18 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean and the top springs back when lightly pressed.
7. Cool muffins on a wire rack.
8. Makes 12. 

Cranberry-Orange-Walnut Muffins (Original Recipe)
 

Ingredients

• 1 cup (6-oz pkg) dried cranberries
• 3/4 cup fresh orange juice
• 2 cups flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 - 1 tbsp cinnamon
• 1 tbsp orange rind
• 1/4 cup canola
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 - 1 cup walnuts, chopped
• Coarse raw sugar

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (see note*). Coat a 12-cup muffin tin with cooking spray.
2. Place the dried cranberries and the freshly squeezed orange juice in a small sauce pan and heat over medium heat for 5 minutes. This helps plump up the dried cranberries.
3. Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, baking soda, cinnamon and orange rind together until well mixed. In a separate bowl, add the orange juice, cranberries, canola oil, and egg and mix together. Pour this mixture into the dry mixture and stir until combined. Fold in chopped walnuts.
4. Pour the mixture evenly into the prepared muffin tin. Sprinkle a bit of course raw sugar on each muffin top. Place into the oven and bake for 15 minutes or until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on a rack for a few minutes.

* Note: I do not recommend baking these muffins at 400 degrees F due to higher risk of burning outer part of muffins before inner portion is completely baked. Recommended temperature: 350 degrees F, but will require a longer baking time of 20-25 minutes.

 

Links to Rachael Ray's Stuffing:
Cranberry Orange Stuffing
Corn Muffin Stuffing

 

Thanks again Jacki for making a fantastic stuffing!

Delicious, chocolatey muffins: Yum, yum, yum!

For quite some time now, David has been requesting these fabulous double chocolate muffins! Whenever I am baking I am always sure to check out Diana's Desserts. This lady has a collection of amazing recipes! I found the raisin challah recipe on there too.

So I decided to bake these muffins just for David! I made a double batch (24 muffins total) and sent them to work with David to share with his coworkers. They always get my baked goods! And I don't think they have ever complained either!

We can't keep any sweets in the house or else we would have a problem! Again, I have a horrible sweet tooth! So I'm sure you understand the point I'm trying to get across!

Double Chocolate Muffins (Click on the link to view the recipe)

Ingredients 

• 3 ounces unsweetened chocolate 
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• ½ cup unsalted butter, softened
• 2 eggs
• ½ cup sour cream
• ½ cup milk
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• ¾ teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 (12-ounce) bag semisweet chocolate chips
• Additional semisweet chocolate chips, for topping muffins (optional)  

Directions 

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a 12-muffin cup pan or line with muffin/cupcake liners.
2. In a Pyrex bowl, melt chocolate in the microwave on medium-high heat for 25 second intervals, stirring in between, until smooth. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl of an electric mixer, cream sugar and butter. Beat in eggs, then add sour cream and milk. In a small bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Pour flour mixture into butter mixture and stir together by hand. Stir in melted chocolate, then chocolate chips.
4. Fill each muffin cup about three-quarters of the way full with batter, and if desired sprinkle some chocolate chips over top of batter. Bake for about 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer muffins to wire rack to cool completely.
5. Yield: 12 standard-sized muffins 

I think the trick to these delicious, moist muffins was the addition of sour cream to the batter!  Try them out! Just make sure you have a nice, big glass of milk to go along! Enjoy!

A special request: Chocolate chip muffins

I am always open for requests! Any thoughts, ideas, suggestions, requests, I would love to hear!

This time the request was simply chocolate chip muffins. I found a basic recipe that worked out great! I really think you can make many variations with this kind of muffin recipe. Just play around with it using different flavors and add-ins! The chocolate chip muffins turned out nicely and made our townhome smell lovely! I love to sprinkle raw sugar cane crystals over the top of the batter before popping the pan in the oven. This creates a hardened, sweet top – yum, yum, yum!

If you want to see the original recipe: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Chocolate-Chip-Muffins/Detail.aspx

Here is the recipe with the few alterations I made:

Chocolate Chip Muffins

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour

• 1 cup white sugar

• 3 teaspoons baking powder

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1 cup milk

• 1/2 cup vegetable oil

• 1 tsp vanilla

• 1 egg

• 1 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

• Raw sugar cane crystals (Demerara Sugar)

Directions

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease bottoms of 12 muffin cups or line with baking cups.

2. In a medium bowl, combine flour, 1 cup sugar, baking powder, chocolate chips, and salt; mix well. In a small bowl, combine milk, oil, vanilla and egg; blend well. Add dry ingredients all at once; stir just until dry ingredients are moistened (batter will be lumpy.)

3. Fill cups. Sprinkle tops of muffins before baking with raw sugar.

4. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 1 minute before removing from pan. Serve warm.