Monday Muffin Madness!
Ahhh, today was loooong. And I didn’t get a workout in ]: I’m pretty ticked at myself for that. After school, my mom & I had errands to run – I didn’t get home until 4:30 ish. As a snack, I had too many pretzels with Athens (I think that’s what it’s called) Roasted Red Pepper Hummus. I really need to make my own hummus – that was a terribly uneconomic purchase. Alongside that, I had a medium Granny Smith Apple. I always end up splurging on after school snacks – cause I don’t eat lunch!! Stupid of me, but it really is inconvenient.. Anyway, that turned out to be about 280 calories. Ugh, I can’t wait until I feel comfortable enough to stop counting calories… (I gained five or so pounds in the last few months due to little bites of this & that and big portion sizes, which is why I returned to calorie counting.) It’s a bit stressful.
I just baked two batches of ‘The Best Pumpkin Muffins‘ from VWAV with raisins. A dozen for my dad and a dozen for a friend who sampled one and loved it. Hopefully her family won’t be too dismayed at a dozen ‘weird’ vegan muffins in their kitchen…
I’m not sure if you can see it in the pictures, but the liners I used are Spongebob Squarepants, lol. I asked my mom to pick me up some the other day & the only ones she could find were these. 
I made these with the full fat version of the recipe, mainly to see how they differ from the lower fat version I typically make. These ones aren’t for me – the 1/2 cup of oil freaks me too much. My dad wouldn’t have touched the last batch had he known they were low fat – the fact that they were both whole wheat and vegan already scared him!
Dinner tonight is stir-fried veggies, brown rice, and last night’s tofu. Although it’s marinated Italian, I’m sure it’ll go alright with this dish. I had a teeny triangle (or three) earlier and it tastes even better today!
I’m starving. I might post later, maybe not.
Au revoir!<3
Vegan with a Vegeanance!
I received the book about two weeks ago from my lovely cousin/best friend; a belated birthday/ Christmas present. I’ve been really into baking lately, mainly making recipes from The Joy of Vegan Cooking, so tonight I broke in VWAV a bit. I’ve made the Best Pumpkin Muffins – my dad ADORES them, I need to make another batch. I added raisins, too, and switched out 1/2 cup oil for 1/3 cup applesauce. This made them extra moist. I also made the Lemon Gem Cupcakes. I made them mini – 36 mini cakes as opposed to a dozen regular sized. These I wasn’t the biggest fan of -they didn’t stay together well. I subbed out 1/3 cup of the sugar for 1/3 cup calorie-free sweetener so perhaps that’s why. After sitting a few days, they got more lemon-y. I did not frost them.
Anyway! Earlier, I pressed a block of firm tofu. I’ve only prepared tofu myself once and it went terribly, so this was pretty scary. I cut it into slices width wise, then halved them, then sliced the halves into triangles. Then, I marinated it in Isa’s Italian Marinade, baked it for 30 minutes (flipping after 20) and it turned out pretty good – EXTREMELY flavorful, pretty chewy, and pretty crispy.
My mom made chicken for the rest of the fam and ‘smashed’ red potatoes, seasoned and with Earth Balance & soy milk (gotta love her for veganizing an old recipe!). Right before I was going to steam two pounds of Brussels Sprouts, my mom blew up our microwave! VWAV came to the rescue – in fifteen quick minutes I whipped up the Roased Brussels Sprouts with Toasted Garlic. I love how long & fancy the name is when it is really the simplest recipe.
Please excuse the terrible cell phone picture! I didn’t have my camera on hand. It was all much more appetizing to look at than this picture leads you to believe.
I ended up eating half the tofu, maybe less, and had seconds on the mashed potatoes. I forgot how filling tofu is – all that damn protein.
My walk today was lovely – an hour of about 4 mph walking up hills and all around my town. It was the perfect temperature and I enjoyed myself so much!
Watching the Oscars and getting sleepy – waking up at five am for school tomorrow…Oh, I’ll probably have a Lemon Gem mini cupcake (mine came out to be 60 cal each) or a little teeny ice cream cone with Soy Delicious – chocolate peanut butter flavor! Or…both. ;]
Aw, I love Anne Hathaway.
Au revoir!<3
