Vegan Carrot Muffins

I made these vegan muffins recently because my hens have stopped laying and I was too lazy to get eggs at the store. They turned out so well, Genevieve wanted the recipe, so here it is !

They are a delightful addition to breakfast or afternoon tea.

Vegan Carrot Muffins

 

Ingredients

1 cup oat milk

1/3 cup avocado oil

2 tsp. vanilla extract

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

1 ½ cup all purpose flour

3/8 cup nut flour ( almond, or other mix)*

½ cup brown sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

½ tsp cardamon ( or 1/4 tsp of cloves)

2 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 cup grated carrots

½ cup chopped walnuts

½ cup raisins

* If you don’t have or want to use the nut flour just use all regular flour or some whole wheat pastry flour in it’s place.

 

1)    Preheat oven to 350 F and line the muffin tin with papers, or grease them or use silicon baking cups.

2)    Stir together the milk, oil, vanilla and vinegar in a small bowl

3)    In a large mixing bowl stir together the flours, spices, salt, baking power and soda.

4)    Pour the liquids in the dry stuff and mix gently until combined.

5)    Fold in the carrots, walnuts and raisins.

6)    Divide batter into the muffin tins.

7)    Bake for 22-25 minutes or until the top springs back when touched gently.

8)    Allow to cool before removing from the tins.

 

 

Granola

Hey all you hippies out there, here's a granola recipe I tried recently.
My friend gave me some she had made with this recipe for Christmas, it had been a while since I had enjoyed a bowl of granola for breakfast. I liked her version, it's like a cross between muesli and granola due to the short baking time and small amount of oil. This recipe also has a higher nut to oat ratio which I like. Of course, I have put my own spin on it, changing it a bit here and there. Granola is very forgiving, use what you like in terms of nuts and seeds, add dried fruit after it bakes or leave it out. Allergic to coconut, no big deal,  replace it with something else, like those real hippy foods: flax and chia seeds.

Simple Granola

Ingredients

2 cups rolled oats ( not the instant variety)
3/4 cup whole almonds
1/2 cup coconut flakes
1/2 cup pumpkin seeds
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 tsp cardamon (optional)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup canola oil

1 cup dried cranberries added after baking.

1) Preheat the oven to 300 F, prepare a rimmed baking sheet with parchment, silicon baking mat or a light coating of oil.

2) Mix all the dry ingredients including the powdered spices together in a bowl.

3) Add the maple syrup and oil, combine together well.

4) Spread the mixture onto the baking sheet, bake for 10 minutes. Stir and bake for 10 more minutes.

5) Allow to cool, add dried cranberries and store in an airtight container. Enjoy.

In this batch I used some tiny raisins as well as the cranberries.

Here are a couple of other recipes from past posts.

Good Morning: Sour Cream Coffee Cake

A few weeks ago I attended a family weekend filled with games, walks, and of course, great food.
I know my host loves breakfast sweets and I had some sour cream in my fridge, it was time to make this sour cream coffee cake.  Warning: it is full of butter and sugar and sour cream, yum !!
This coffee cake is rich and dense and freezes beautifully, which is a good thing because it makes a huge bundt cake.


Sour Cream Coffee Cake

1 cup ( 2 sticks) butter at room temperature
3 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup sour cream
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cup sugar
3 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla

Cinnamon Walnut Topping

Stir together all three ingredients in a small bowl.

3/4 cup chopped walnuts
3/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon


1) Preheat oven to 350 F. Butter and flour a 9 inch non-stick tube pan.

2) Make the cinnamon walnut topping and set aside.

3) In a medium bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.

4) In a small bowl or measuring cup, whisk together the sour cream and baking soda. Don't worry if it foams up, that is normal.

5) (Don't do this yet !!)***The original recipe has you beat the butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla all together with an electric mixer.

Which is what I did...

The batter did not get "light and fluffy" as the recipe claimed it would even after more than 5 minutes.

***Instead I would recommend creaming the butter and sugar first for 5 minutes, then adding the eggs and vanilla and beating until that is fluffy.

6) With the mixer on low speed add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the sour cream mixture in two additions. Mix until just moistened.

7) Spread a third of the batter into the pan, then sprinkle on a third of the topping. Repeat ending with the topping.

8) Bake for 60 to 70 minutes. Cool in the pan for 30 minutes. Complete cooling on a rack.

I didn't get any photos of this beauty sliced, my bad...
I highly recommend making this coffee cake ahead of time, as I mentioned at the beginning, it freezes beautifully and is delightful toasted for breakfast, brunch or with afternoon tea.

You could also add grated orange zest to the batter or use pecans instead of walnuts.

Your Place, a restaurant review.

Your Place seems an odd name for a restaurant...the subtitle, Farm to Table helped to me to understand what the owners were trying to say. Their webpage states that they are inspired " by the rich availability of local organic produce, sustainable seafood and naturally raised beef..." Sounds good.

I have been wanting to try this place since it opened and one of my clients recommended it.
Last Saturday was wet and cold, so our usual yard sale date was a bust. The perfect chance to try out Your Place, it had been almost 30 years since Bob and I had been out to breakfast in Santa Cruz.

As we sat down at our table, we were greeted by the cute little set of salt and pepper shakers in the photo above. Each table had it's own charming set.

The wait staff was attentive when we first sat down, bringing us coffee, water and menus. I ordered tea and was not pleased with their selection, however their food menu had plenty of choices !
 Bob decided on the breakfast burrito with country gravy, which sounded horrific to me... it looks rather horrific too. He enjoyed the gravy and the sausage inside, his only complaint was the excess of large potato chunks.

I usually use French toast as my breakfast barometer, I wasn't in the mood for something sweet. I braved the hazardous world of omelets and scrambles. My scramble had bacon, baby spinach, mushrooms, bell peppers and Parmesan cheese. It was perfect and that saying a lot coming from a very fussy egg eater. I chose the hashbrowns instead of the country potatoes, I didn't eat them. They were not brown nor crunchy, it been a long time since I had tried hashbrowns. Bob claimed they were fine...and while I ordered wheat toast they brought me a biscuit. They did bring me toast once I pointed out the mistake.

They had their own toppings to go with the toast. The strawberry preserves were watery and not very flavorful, I am guessing they were trying to do a reduced sugar jam. The marmalade was much better with big chunks of peel and just the right tartness.
 














The decor was clean and kitschy fun with white tableclothes, real napkins and those cute salt shakers.

Your Place is located in a strip mall with a very unassuming front.

Bob liked this tabletop sign about the carbon offset of their cocktails.

Overall we enjoyed having breakfast out and would come back again to try more of their menu.

Coffee cake, Betty Crocker's Best

Genna called me the other day to complain that she could not find my coffee cake recipe on this blog. I realized it had been a while since I have made it. Lately waffles have been the fare on Sunday mornings.
So I dug out old Betty Crocker, the cookbook, of course.

I grew up with this cookbook. I can remember leafing through the pages to admire all the colorful baked goods.

Strangely the book opened to the coffee cake recipe ;-)

I went back to this cookbook after my hippie-whole-wheat-in-everything phase in the 70's.
Don't get me wrong I do love whole flour in many things but it can go too far. I found some very simple basic recipes that I modified to fit my own tastes, mostly baked goods.




Here's my version of the coffee cake.

Laurie & Betty's  Streusel Coffee Cake


Ingredients

The batter:
 3/4 cup sugar
1/4 canola oil*
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

The streusel:
1/2 brown sugar
2 tablespoons flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 tablespoons canola oil*
1/2 cup chopped walnuts of pecans.

* you can use melted butter if you prefer.


1) Preheat the oven to 375 F, grease a 9 inch square or round pan.
2) Mix together in a bowl: sugar, oil, and the egg.

3) Add the milk and stir.

4) Whisk together the flour, salt and baking powder.

5) Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir together.

6) To make the streusel, mix together in a small bowl: the flour, cinnamon and brown sugar.

7) Add the oil, mix well.

8) Add the nuts and mix again.



9) Into the greased pan, spread a little less than half the batter to cover the bottom of the pan.

10) Sprinkle half the streusel on the batter in the pan.

11) Now carefully spread or drop the rest of the batter to cover that layer.

12) Sprinkle the rest of the streusel on the top.

13) Bake at 375 F for 30 minutes.


 14) Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 5-10 minutes before cutting, if you can wait that long.

Rustic summer fruit tart, so easy !!

Recently my brother was here for a quick visit, he loves desserts. I had some very ripe Santa Rosa plums and lots of puff pastry in my freezer. Time for this very simple fresh fruit tart.

The hardest part of this recipe is finding frozen puff pastry in the summer. For some reason Trader Joe's thinks that puff pastry is a seasonal item. Well, I fooled them and stocked up in December. I am guessing that other stores may have different ideas about seasonality. Plus my brother claims puff pastry is not that hard to make, but for now find the frozen stuff.

I prefer to defrost puff pastry in the fridge overnight. You can also do it straight from the freezer to your kitchen counter. The box should give you tell you how long it will take.
You will want to have everything ready to work with before you unwrap the puff pastry. If it gets too warm it is hard to work with. Just chill it for a few minutes in the fridge.

Rustic Fruit Tart

Ingredients

1 sheet defrosted puff pastry
12-14 plums ( peaches, nectarines and other stone fruit work well too)
2-4 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 egg (for the egg wash)

1) Preheat oven to 400 F. Get a large baking sheet and a piece of parchment to fit it.
2) Prepare the plums, cutting slices on either side of the pit. (I describe this technique in my post about yellow plums.)
3) Make the egg wash by beating one whole egg.
4) Remove the puff pastry from the package and place it on the parchment.
5) Roll out the pastry, fold the edges.

 6)  Brush with the egg wash.

7) Sprinkle with 1-2 tablespoons sugar and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon.

8) Place the plums on the pastry, cut side up. Use a fork to press the edges down.

9) Sprinkle on the remaining sugar.

10) Bake at 400 F for 25 to 30 minutes.

This is best served warm and fresh from the oven. The pastry will get soft if you save it and reheat it.

This make a great breakfast served with yogurt or a not too sweet dessert served with whipped cream or  ice cream.

Goat Cheese and Chive Biscuits

This biscuits were recently posted by my good friend and fab food blogger, Mita.
I tried them soon after she posted them and Bob ate about seven in one sitting.

I made her recipe pretty much the way she has it in her blog. I didn't have chives but I did have some young green onions which worked perfectly, I am guessing some fresh herbs in a smaller amount than the chives would also be tasty.

Ingredients

2 whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup unbleached white flour 
3/4 cups butter
3/4 cup greek yogurt or sour cream
1 tbsp sugar
2 1/2  tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 egg beaten + (1 beaten egg, for egg wash)
3 tbsp cold water
1/3 cup chopped chives
3/4 cup goat cheese crumbled

Topping [optional]: salt, black pepper, paprika, rosemary mix 'em together.


1)In a large bowl mix the flours, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and pepper.

2) Using a pastry cutter cut in the butter.

 Until it is crumbly.

 3) In a separate bowl, mix together yogurt/sour cream, egg, and water. 

4) Crumble the goat cheese in a separate bowl.

5) Chop the green onions or chives.

6) Add the egg/yogurt to the flour mixture until it JUST comes together. Add in the chives and goat cheese, mix gently.

 7) Knead about 10-15 times. Then roll it out on a floured surface to about 1 inch thick.

8) Use whatever you have that's round [like a glass] to cut out the biscuits. I made them fairly small which worked out well.

9) Put them on a tray lined with parchment paper, and coat each one in the egg wash and the topping mixture lightly.

10) Bake them at 400F for 10-14 minutes. If they last that long you can freeze them for later ;-)
I served them with soup for dinner or with eggs for breakfast !!

Carrot Cake Pancakes

I don't remember what made us think of this...Bob has been enjoying pancakes on Sunday morning,
something planted the idea of making carrot cake pancakes in my little cooking brain.

Today I created these very simple tasty "cakes". I admit I did use a baking mix, I grew up with Bisquick, at least this is the Trader Joe's multi-grain version. Use whatever mix you like.

Carrot Cake Pancakes

Ingredients

2 eggs

1 cup milk

1/4 cup canola oil

1/2 finely grated carrots

2 tbsp shredded coconut

1/4 cup finely chopped walnuts

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cinnamon powder

2 cups baking mix

1) Mix together in a large bowl: 2 eggs, 1 cup milk,  1/4 cup canola and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract.

2) Finely grate 3 small carrots to make 1/2 cup well packed.

3) Add the 1/2 cup grated carrots, 2 tablespoons finely shredded coconut, 1/4 cup finely chopped walnuts and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon powder.

4) Mix together with 2 cups baking mix, let sit for 5 minutes.

5) Heat your pan or griddle, pour pancake batter. Genevieve found this fabulous cast iron griddle at a yard sale for me. I am finally learning how to use it correctly on my stove.

6) Flip those cakes.

7) Serve with warm applesauce and maple syrup.

8) Yum !! You could top with plain yogurt or add some raisins to the batter if you like.