Cranberry Banana Bread

Cranberry Banana Bread

I purchased more walnuts, pecans and cranberries than I needed for my Christmas baking, so I decided today that I would do a bit of baking to use them up.

I made two loaves of this bread, one with walnuts and the other with pecans.  We will keep one of the loaves for ourselves and take the other to my Dad's house tomorrow for my son's family  birthday celebration.

The first thing you need to do is pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees.   My oven is really slow to heat up, so I can have a cup of tea while I am waiting for it to get up to the required temp.  It doesn't take long to mix this bread, so you will want to wait until the oven is ready.


In a large mixing bowl, place 1 and  2/3 of a cup of flour.  You can combine all-purpose flour with whole wheat flour if you like.  This is a forgiving recipe.

Add 1/2 teaspoon baking soda and 1 teaspoon baking powder

Then add 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon of ground nutmeg and 1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger.   Add 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

Then add 1/2 cup of vegan-friendly granulated sugar.

Add 1/2 cup of chopped dried cranberries, or 1/2 cup of chopped fresh cranberries if you like a loaf that has tart bits in it.

Finally, add 1/2 cup of chopped nuts.  I put walnuts in one loaf and pecans in the other.

Stir your dry ingredients together.

In another large mixing bowl, mash three ripe bananas.  You need about 1 1/4 cups of banana, and I have found that three bananas is the right amount for that.

Add 1/2 of unsweetened apple sauce - this is the egg substitute.
OR
Use a homemade or commercial egg replacer such as Ener-G - this is what I do now!

And 3 tablespoon of canola oil.

Mix these wet ingredients together well.

Other tasty additions to his batter could be raisins, or currants or coconut, candied citrus peel - the list is endless, really.

Pour the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and stir until well combined, and until there are no pockets of dry ingredients lurking in the mixture.

You can use a stand mixer or a hand mixer for this, but I stirred by hand.   It will seem like a dry-ish batter for a little while, but it does come together nicely after some stirring.

Prepare a loaf pan in your usual way - I used canola oil in a mister to spray my pans.

Carefully spoon the batter into your loaf pan, and place it on the middle shelf of the oven.  Oven temperatures can vary greatly I have found.   The loaf takes anywhere from 45 minutes to
1 hour to cook.   I set my timer for 50 minutes and do the first doneness check at that time, and if it needs more time I check at 5 minute intervals.

Your loaf is done when a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean and dry.

Allow your loaf to cool in the pan on a wire rack for about ten minutes, then carefully slide it out of the pan to continue cooling on the wire rack.   When the loaf is perfectly cool, you can wrap it in waxed paper.  It will keep nicely, if wrapped,  for a few days.  That's the theory.   In practice, the loaf is unlikely to last that long because it will be eaten within hours, if not minutes!

Sausage Rolls

This is an update of a post that I originally made in September.  I am updating it because I can now add photos (which I could not do on the day of the original post) and also, I have found a vegan puff pastry that is pre-rolled, which is a collossal time-saver.

Imagine my delight when I discovered that tenderflake makes vegan puff pastry. I can buy it in my local Loblaws. I use it for making crusts on fruit pies and on savoury casseroles.

One of my favourite uses for puff pastry is for making sausage rolls. My Mum used to make them when I was young, and they were something I missed when I became a vegetarian and then a vegan.

With this puff pastry, I am happy to say I am again enjoying sausage rolls. Even if pre-rolled puff pastry is unavailable I have a good rolling pin and pretty good rolling technique so I don't mind rolling it out myself.

These little gems make a great appetizer but they can also be part of a dinner along with a nice savoury vegetable. I also like them cold the next day for lunch!

 Sausage rolls

Pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees

1 package vegan puff pastry (either pre-rolled, or roll-your-own!)

1 package of the vegan sausages of your choice - I use Field Roast Apple Sage sausages - they're fantastic.

finally, you will need some dijon mustard

Directions

 1. Thaw your puff pastry for at least eight hours in the fridge, or overnight in the fridge

 2. Thaw the sausages until they can be handled without freezing your hands off, then take them out of the plastic sheath that they come packed in.

 3. Gently cook the sausages in a frying pan or in the oven until they are about half done, then set them aside to cool.

 4. Sprinkle some flour on your rolling surface and place one block of the puff pastry on the surface and roll out the dough until it is about 12 inches square, or unwrap your pre-rolled puff pastry and unroll it on your work surface.  I use a silicon rolling mat to work on.  It's very handy, cleans easily, and is a good size.



 5. Place two sausages at the far side of your square of rolled-out dough.

 6. Spread a line of the mustard along the top side of the sausages, then roll the sausages and the dough towards you. Make sure you roll the sausages so that the dough goes around them at least one and half times.

7. Cut the roll of sausage and dough into one inch pieces and place on a parchment covered cookie sheet.

 8. Lightly brush the tops of the sausage rolls with soy milk or other non-dairy milk. This will help the sausage rolls develop a nice brown top.

 9. Repeat with the other two sausages.

 10. Cook for about 18 minutes but check for brown-ness at the 15 minute mark.

Jam Thumb-Print Cookies

These are another of the cookies that my Mum used to make at Christmas, and they are a family favourite! The duty of making them now falls to my sister Leslie, who has veganized the recipe so that everyone in our family may enjoy these wonderful little gems.  Leslie really should operate a vegan bakery - her cakes are wonderful, and are all of her own invention, and her cookies are fantastic.

This is a fairly labour intensive cookie - you can't just drop these guys onto a cookie sheet!

You will need to do a bit of prep before you begin - you will need to grind up enough walnuts to give you between 3/4 of a Cup and 1 Cup of finely ground walnuts.   Unless you are a whizz with a knife, you will want to use a food processor to do this job.

You will also need to prepare about a 1/2 cup of flax seed meal with a cup of warm water,  and mix it  well, and allow it to stand for at least 30 minutes.  An hour is better.  As it stands, it will thicken nicely, and can then be substituted for the eggs that would normally be put in the recipe.

Pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees.

To make the cookies, mix together thoroughly:
1/2 Cup of Earth Balance buttery sticks
1/4 Cup of packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon of the prepared flax/water mixture (see above)
1/2 teaspoon of Vanilla

In another bowl, sift together
1 cup of flour
1/4 teaspoon of salt

Pour the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix well.

Roll the dough into balls that are just slightly less than 1" in diameter.

Dip each ball into the remaining flax/water mixture, and then roll in the finely chopped nuts.

Place each nut-covered ball about 1 inch apart on an ungreased or parchment covered cookie sheet, and bake for five minutes.

Remove the cookie sheet from the oven, and with your thumb or another finger, gently press into the top of each cookie.

Return the cookies to the oven and bake for another 8 minutes longer.

Allow the cookies to cool, and then spoon some raspberry jam into the indentation in each cookie.

This recipe makes about 2 dozen cookies.  They fly off the cookie tray like they had their own little wings, so you might want to make a double batch.

Variations:  instead of chopped walnuts you could roll the cookie dough in finely chopped pecans or almonds, or in coconut.

No Butter Butter Tarts

As part of my Christmas baking I made butter tarts.  My tarts are vegan, so they contained no butter, but if I do say so, they were fantastic.   Again, I was using my mother's recipe, but I omitted the butter and the eggs.

Butter tarts are a uniquely Canadian pastry - this is something that I did not know until recently.  It is also something that I find a bit surprising, considering that Americans have pecan pie, which to me always seemed like a gigantic butter tart.

I was reading an article in a Toronto newspaper this summer that mentioned that bus tour companies have started offering butter tart tours though small towns in Ontario, each town claiming to have the best butter tarts in the province.  Contests have been held to determine the best butter tarts in the province.   Some people like their butter tarts to be runny, some like raisins but no nuts in their tarts, some like nuts but no raisins, some prefer tarts with neither raisins nor nuts.  My tarts are not runny, and they have both raisins and nuts in them.   They are excellent tarts.

You will need about 24 tart shells.  You can make the pastry yourself and then roll it, cut it and put it in a tart tin (like a muffin tin, only shallower), or you can buy pre-made tart shells and use them.   There are many vegan brands of  tart shells available in supermarkets today, and most of them are quite good.  I used a house brand from my local Loblaws store.

Start by pre-heating your oven to 400 degrees.   Prepare your tart shells by separating them, and placing them on a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet.   The parchment paper will protect your cookie sheet from spills when you are filling the tart shells, and from boil-overs when the tarts are in the oven.

Place a half a teaspoon of chopped walnuts or pecans in each tart shell.  Follow that with a half a teaspoon of raisins in each tart shell.

In a large mixing bowl, combine 1 cup of packed brown sugar,

1/2 cup of melted Earth Balance margarine,

1/2 cup of corn syrup  or Lyle's golden syrup (I use Lyle's golden syrup, which is not made with corn),

1 teaspoon of vanilla,

and one tablespoon of white vinegar.

Add the equivalent of two egg's worth of vegan egg replacer.  I used Ener-G egg replacer.

Stir the ingredients until they are well mixed.  In the traditional butter tart recipe, eggs are used to bind and thicken the mixture, so that after cooking, the tart contents hold together.  I could detect no difference between these tarts and the kind my mother used to make with eggs and butter.

Spoon the mixture into each tart shell - you will need slightly more than a tablespoon in each tart shell.  If you put too much of the mixture in each shell, the mixture will spill over in the oven and this makes the tarts next to impossible to get out of the tart shells in one piece.



Place the tarts on a rack in the middle of the oven and bake for 10 to 12 minutes.   Check your tart shells for doneness at about the eight or nine minute mark.  The filling will be bubbling and hot when you take the tarts out of the oven, but will settle down once the tarts cool.

Date Squares

Date Squares

Date squares were always my favourite Christmas treat when I was a child.   My Mum had a recipe that she had tweaked and perfected and it was part of a cook book that she gave to my sisters and me many years ago.   These date squares take me right back to my childhood and all the wonderful Christmas memories of that time.

My sisters and I divide up the Christmas baking between us, and I always opt to make the date squares and the butter tarts.   It is a joy to make them.

I left my Christmas baking a little late this year to minimize the temptation factor - it didn't work.  The only way for me to remove the temptation is to not make them at all.

So here is my Mum's recipe:

Pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees.  Grease and flour a 9" x 13" pan.


The date filling

You will need three cups of chopped dates.  You can use medjool dates in a tub, or you can use a block of pressed dates, which is what I used.  Whole dates are great for stuffing with almonds or turning into date caramel, but considering that these dates are going to be cooked and turned into a paste, the block of dates is a fine option.

Place the dates in a saucepan along with one and a half cups of water and a quarter cup of sugar.

Cook over a low heat, stirring frequently until the dates are soft and the water is all absorbed.  There should be no hard bits of date left at this point.  Set the dates aside to cool.

In the meantime, as the dates are cooking (and you are keeping an eye on them!), mix three quarters of a cup of vegan margarine ( I used Earth Balance Buttery Sticks) with one cup of packed brown sugar.

When this is all mixed, add one and three quarters cup of flour, one quarter of a teaspoon of baking soda and a half of a teaspoon of salt.  Mix until this is all combined well with the butter and sugar mixture.  You will have to scrape down the sides of your mixing bowl a few times.

Now add one and a half cups of rolled oats to the flour mixture and mix them in.

Scoop slightly more than half of your flour and oats mixture into the bottom of your prepared pan, and press the mixture firmly into the pan.  You want the bottom layer to be firm so that it will hold up to being sliced and handled.

Spoon your cooled date mixture down the middle of the pan and use the back of a spoon to spread it evenly from side to side in the pan.

Evenly sprinkle the remainder of the flour and oats mixture onto the top of the dates.   Gently press down so that the topping is pressed into the oats just a bit.

Place your pan into the oven and cook for 22 to 30 minutes, until the top layer is golden brown.
In my oven, I find that the lower end of this time range is best.  Of course, every oven is different so you will want to keep your eye on your date squares if this is the first time you make them.

These treats are lovely with tea or with hot chocolate!

Add More Protein to Your Soup

This evening I made a nice squash soup.   I put onions, garlic, a touch of ginger, squash, carrots and a handful of small potatos into a pot with low sodium vegetable broth.  For spice I added freshly ground pepper, Trader Joe's Everyday Spice Mix, and Herbes de Province.

I brought the veggies to a hard boil for five minutes then simmered them for about twenty minutes.

I drained a can of cannellini beans and rinsed the beans in a collander, then added the beans to the soup pot.

Using my very handy Kitchenaid immersible blender, I pureed the whole pot of soup.  The potatoes added creaminess to the soup, and the beans added protein.

I know some people find this unappetising but I like to have soup like this with cubes of pressed tofu.  Failing that, I will add a can of drained, rinsed black beans to the pot before I serve it.   It isn't a good idea to puree the soup with black beans in it because the colour of the beans will make the soup look unpleasant.

Why I don't put my photos on Pinterest

Many bloggers have links to other social media sites such as Instagram and Facebook and Pinterest, and this makes sense if a blogger is looking to increase her visibility, with the thought of possibly making money from blogging.

I have an instagram account and I post my pictures there, but so far I don't have any followers other than a few family members.  I'd like more followers.  I know I will have to make more posts and just keep putting myself out there.

One platform I won't be using is Pinterest.   A major investor in Pinterest is Rakuten, a Japanese company which invested over $100,000,000 in the site.  This kind of financial input makes it hard to say that Rakuten is a minor player in Pinterest.   Rakuten is the world's largest retailer of whale meat and elephant ivory.  I'm a vegan for ethical reasons.  I do not want to be associated in any way with whale killers and ivory poachers, and I imagine most vegan bloggers are not aware of Rakuten's interest in Pinterest because if they did, they would likely not want to use the service.

Liebster Award

I've been nominated for a Liebster Award by Rosie from Rosie's Vegan Kitchen, whose blog you can find at http://vegan-in-wales.blogspot.com, and also by Jen from Deer Run B & B, whose blog you can find at http://www.happyvegans.blogspot.com/

Liebster Awards are a fun way for bloggers to promote small blogs that are just starting out, like my blog.  To be nominated, a blog has to have fewer than 200 followers on any platform, so that fits my blog to a T considering I only have one follower, and it's me, using one of my other email addresses!

If a person is nominated, she must answer the questions that have been provided by the nominator and think of ten new questions to ask blogger that she then nominates.  A nominee can't nominate the person who nominated her.  The person has to tell her nominees that they've been nominated.  I guess this is the equivalent of a blog chain letter, but it is a way for a person to get free publicity for her blog.

So here are my answers to Rosie and Jen's questions.   I hope it's not considered un-cool to answer both nominators' questions in the same post, because that's not my intention at all.

I will answer Rosie's first:

1. If you could bring any one animal back from extinction, what would it be?
All extinction stories are tragic, but one which has always resonated with me is the Passenger Pigeon,  and I always kept in my mind the image of Martha,  the very last one of her kind,  languishing in the Cinncinati Zoo until she died.   At one time numbering in the billions, these pigeons were killed very quickly.

2, What would you say is the dish you cook most often?
I make a very nice cream of squash soup, with no cream in it.   It has just the right combination of veggies and spices, and I puree it with my trusty Kitchenaid immersion blender to make it smooth and creamy.   I love it, and everyone who has tried it loves it.  I hope that didn't sound too immodest.

3. If a zombie apocalypse was imminent and you could only take 5 store cupboard staples in your bag before fleeing, what would they be?
I know this might not be anyone's idea of a staple, but I would grab some Lay's potato chips - when you are running for your life, you might want a salty snack, plus Lay's are one of the foods I always said I'd take to a desert island (Lay's and my mum's apple pie).  I would also take Christie's Premium Plus Saltine crackers.  I love them.   President's Choice Original Soy milk would be in my escape kit as well.  I would also take President's choice teriyaki tofu and some fresh veggies.

 4. Tell me about your favourite restaurant, and your favourite dish there.
My current favourite vegan/vegetarian restaurant is Norman's Coach and Horses in London, England.   I have had two dishes there, both fantastic, both vegan, impossible to choose between them.  The first dish I had there was  Tofish and chips - deep fried tofu wrapped in a sheet of nori and dipped in batter - and the chips were fantastic too.  I went back the next day and had a burger and fries.  The burger was the best vegan burger I have ever had in my whole life, and I regret not having one every day I was in London.  I wrote to the pub when I returned home to Canada and asked if they were willing to share the hamburger recipe and I promised not to publish it, but they didn't even reply to my note.  So now I'm on the hunt to recreate that burger.

5. Are you a cat or dog person.
I have three cats (my oldest cat died in January sadly), and I love them to bits,  but I would like to get a dog when I retire, to help keep me active and going for walks.  The cats don't care for the harness and lead at all.

6. What animal do you think you are most like in personality?
I'm tempted to say I'm like a cat but I'm not graceful.   I think I'd have to say I'm like a dog - faithful and loyal and a good friend, and I eat way too much when I get the chance.

7. What new ingredients have you discovered that you love since going vegan?
I love Earth Balance margerine, and Vegenaise in all of its flavours.  I love vegan aioli, and creamy things made with cashews.   I love vegan caramels.  I love tofu scrambles.

8. What are your favourite resources for getting inspiration for vegan food?
I read blogs and magazines and cruise the internet for inspiration.  I also look to the food I ate when I was not a veg-head and I try to veganize it, and I've had some pretty good results.

9. What has been your biggest fail in vegan cooking and have you managed to resolve said fail?
I made a bean stew that was kind of tasteless.   I made it again but doubled the number of onions and garlic cloves, added lots of black pepper and other spices and you would not have known it was the same stew.

10. Do you have a non-vegan childhood favourite food that you have managed to re-create to be sfv?
Yes I do: my mum's apple pie.   She used to make apple pies with Wealthy apples, a variety that is, as far as I can tell, no longer in cultivation.  But I have found other cooking apples that make a wonderful pie, and I make the pie shells without lard of course, and the pies are fabulous.


And now here are my answers to Jen's questions:

How long have you been vegan?  I have been vegan since 2008.
2. Have you ever "fallen off the vegan" wagon, why, and what brought you back to being vegan?  When I was a vegetarian I fell of the wagon when my mother passed away, and my father's sisters came to his house to cook Italian foods for us.  I got back on the wagon as soon as they left, but I've never knowingly fallen off the vegan wagon.
3. Do you have many vegan family/friends?  One of my sisters and my niece and nephew are vegans.  My other sister, my brother and my father are breaking my heart by their refusal to see what they are doing to animals and themselves by eating meat.
4. What kind of music do you like to cook and bake to?  I confess that I'm a baby-boomer - I listen to the Beatles.
5. Have you ever been to a VegFest, and if so, which one… did you have a favorite? This year I went to the VegFest in Toronto.  It was great.  When I retire, which will be soon I think, I will go to veg fests in other cities and countries.
6. What one piece of advice would you give to someone who wants to go vegan, but cannot find their way?  I would tell that person to think of the animals whom they are directly saving by not eating meat, the cruelty that is not happening by not eating meat.
7. Do you share your life with any companion animals, if so, who are they?  I currently have three cats, all of them rescues.  My oldest cat passed away in January after a four year battle with leukemia.  He as a week shy of his twentieth birthday.
8. Where you live, is it relatively easy to get a nutritious, creative vegan meal while eating out? I live in Toronto, and there are plenty of great vegan places to eat here, even in the far flung suburbs where I live.
9. Sweet or savory? Sweet.
10. What would your "dream job" be?  I'm lucky - I'm doing my dream job - I'm a school teacher!


And here are my questions:

 Did you come to veganism slowly and gradually, or did it come to you like a lightening bolt?

2.  What kitchen appliance could you not live without?

3.  Have you lost any friends because of your vegan lifestyle?

4.  Have you made any new friends due to your vegan lifestyle?

5. If you were invited to a pot-luck, what vegan meal/salad/dessert would you bring to try to win converts to the cause?

6.  Approximately how many times have you been asked "But where do you get your protein?"

7.  What are your favourite vegan shoes?

8.  If I were to sneak a peek into your lunchbox on a work day, what would I find in it?

9.   What are your top five vegan cookbooks?

10.  What was the best part of vegan mofo for you, and would you be interested in trying it again next year?



Now here are the blogs that I nominate for the Liebster Award.  These are all great blogs! Check them out!

http://nouveauveganquebec.blogspot.ca
http://salaamvegan.blogspot.ca
http://maythevegbewithyou.wordpress.com
http://elizaveganpage.blogspot.ca
http://www.downhomevegan.com
http://kittensgonelentil.blogspot.ca
http://rogueavocado.blogspot.ca
http://jessicatcooks.wordpress.com

Banana Cream Pie

I found out this afternoon that we had been invited to our next door neighbour's backyard BBQ this evening. Knowing that there would be very little vegan food at this shindig I thought I would donate a pie to the festivities. And what an easy pie it was! All of the ingredients were either purchased pre-made (the graham cracker pie crust was vegan) or easy to mix. There was actually nothing to "make".

 Easy as Pie Banana Cream Pie

You will need one ready-made graham cracker pie crust, two bananas, one package of silken tofu (I used Mori-Nu) and one package of Mori-Nu Vanilla Pudding mix. That's it!



Here's what you do:  Slice the bananas into the pie crust.



 Put the tofu into a mixing bowl (or food processor) and whip it until it is smooth.



 Add the vanilla pudding mix and whip for about two minutes. You will have to scrape the bowl down a few times. Pour the pudding mix into the pie shell and put it in the fridge to firm up - it takes at least two hours.





 That's it! If you wanted to jazz it up you could put sliced bananas on top of the pie as well as at the bottom.

A Different Kind of Fruit Cake

A Different Kind of Fruit Cake

I think I'm a member of a fairly small club: people who like, no, love, fruitcake.  I am aware, however, that not everyone shares my love of these dense, delicious cakes.

I saw an interesting recipe last year, then lost it, for a different type of fruitcake, and I have tried to recreate it here.  This cake is like a pineapple upside down cake - the fruit is stirred into a melted brown sugar/ earth balance mixture and placed in the bottom of the pan, with the cake batter poured on top and then it's baked in the oven.

The cake recipe is my sister's creation.

Cake

Dry ingredients
1 cups flour
3/4 cups sugar
.5 tsp salt
1tsp baking soda
1/2 tspbaking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 of a 450 gram package of glace fruit

Wet ingredients
1cups soy milk with 1 tsp of apple cider vinegar -set aside to curdle
1/3 cup of oil
1 tsp vanilla

Topping
1/3 cup of Earth Balance (or other vegan butter)
1 cup of packed



Direction for the Cake

Preheat oven to 350. This makes a small single layer cake
Mix dry ingredients together til all mixed up.
Add all wet ingredients and mix well.
Lightly grease the sides only of an eight inch round or square cake pan.


Directions for the topping
MIx the sugar and Earth Balance and heat in a saucepan until the Earth Balance is melted and the brown sugar is well mixed in.  Stir in the glace fruit.


Assemble the cake
Pour the fruit mixture into the cake pan and spread it evenly over the bottom of the pan.
Pour the cake batter over this mixture and bake it for 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the cake comes out clean.  Allow the cake to cool in the pan on a wire rack for about 15 minutes.

Place a cake plate or cake stand over the cake while it is still in the pan and carefully invert the pan and the cake plate.   The cake should come out on its own, but if it needs a little help, you can tap the bottom of the pan with a woodn spoon.  If some of the glace fruit mixture is left behind i n the pan, you can scrape it out and carefully place it on the cake.

Pumpkin Muffins

It's a glorious first day of autumn here in Toronto.   The temperature has climbed to at least 24 degrees Celsius (which is just over 75 degrees Fahrenheit), and once the rain stopped the day was fantastic.

Looking out in my back garden, I can see the signs of winter coming - the leaves are turning on our trees and our plantings are starting to look a little sad in places.  We purchased what we thought was a squash plant at the garden centre this spring, but it certainly looks like a pumpkin now - big and orange and round.   It made me think of pumpkin soup, pumpkin pie, and all things pumpkinny, and so I though I would make my pumpkin muffins which I adapted from a recipe on the PETA website:  http://www.peta.org/living/food/pumpkin-muffins/

Pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees

1 3/4 cups of all purpose flour
1/4 cups of rolled oats (not steel cut)
1/8 cup of hemp hearts
1 tablespoon of non-aluminum baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon of ground nutmeg
3/4 teaspoon of ground ginger
3/4 cup of chopped walnuts

1 1/4 cups of pureed pure pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
1/2 cup of soy milk (I used soy milk but I have made this recipe with almond milk and rice milk)
1/3 cup of mild vegetable oil (I used canola, but sunflower oil would work)
3 tablespoons of maple syrup

Prepare your muffin pan: if you use paper liners, place them in the muffin pan.  If you prefer to cook without liners, lightly grease your muffin pan with your favourite oil or shortening.

Put all of the dry ingredients, except for the walnuts, in a large mixing bowl and stir them together.



Here is the flour waiting to be joined by the other dry ingredients.




Here I've added the oatmeal.



The rest of the dry ingredients.

Put all of the wet ingredients into a medium mixing bowl and stir them together until they are well mixed and the oil is completely incorporated and not floating on the top.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix until you don't see any white flour sitting at the bottom or on the sides of the bowl.

Add the walnuts and stir them in.

Fill your muffin cups to the top, put the pan in the oven and bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until a tester inserted into the muffins comes out clean.



Variations - you can use pecans if you prefer them to walnuts.

I usually add cranberries but I forgot I used them for the cookies I made last week, so I was all out of them.

A handful of shredded coconut is also nice in these muffins

Squash Soup

It was cold and rainy when I got home from school yesterday.  It seemed like the perfect day to have soup for dinner.

Last week one of my neighbours gave me a squash from her garden. At the time, I cut it up and put it in the freezer, thinking I would use it next month for Thanksgiving, but I decided instead that it would become the base for my soup.

I placed my  enameled cast-iron Dutch oven on the stove, added about 1 tablespoon of canola oil and switched the stove on to heat up the oil.

Putting on my onion-cutting goggles (I hate the fumes that make my eyes sting), I chopped an onion into chunks, and put it the pieces into the pot to cook.






While the onions were cooking, I grated some fresh ginger, about a tablespoon, and added it to the pot with the onions.  Next I coarsely chopped about three cloves of good garlic and added the pieces to the pot.



When the onions were translucent, I added the squash (it was a big squash, so if you were buying acorn squash, I would suggest getting two of them!), one chopped carrot, and  1/2 chopped sweet potato to the pot, and I added enough vegetable broth to cover everything.  I added about a tablespoon of freshly ground black pepper and about one teaspoon of Trader Joe's everday spice.   I let the contents of the pot come to a boil, then I put the lid on, and let it simmer for about 20 minutes.



At this point all of the veggies in the pot were very soft.   Now comes the fun part.  Using my immersible hand-held blender (it's a Kitchenaid with ten speeds - super handy!) I pureed the soup in just about fifteen seconds.  This is much quicker, neater and safer way to puree a pot of soup: there is no need to be moving hot soup around the kitchen to put it in and out of a blender or food processor.





I served it into bowls and we ate it in the living room sitting in front of our fake fireplace.