Easy Vegan Banana Bread Muffins

My child care kids made these muffins this morning and then they devoured them.  Fun to cook with kids!!

I use all whole-wheat flour but you can use a blend.  If you use whole-wheat, keep in mind that it is a little dry fresh out of the oven.  Let the muffins cool and cover them for a few hours (or cook the night before) for your whole-wheat to moisten up.

I also use ground flax as my egg substitute in this recipe.  Put the ground flax in the water and let it sit while you measure the other ingredients.  Then add it to the wet bowl.  You could use other egg substitutes, but I like the addition of flax to these for health purposes.

EASY VEGAN BANANA BREAD MUFFINS
3 c. whole-wheat flour (or a blend of whole-wheat and white)
2 t. baking powder
2 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt

2 T. ground flax stirred into 6 T. water
1 1/2 c. sugar
4-5 banana, slightly mashed (we like banana chunks in the muffins)
2/3 c. oil (or do half oil and half applesauce to cut the fat)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Mix dry ingredients in one bowl and wet ingredients in another.  Combine together just until moistened.  Bake in muffin pans using papers or non-stick spray. 

Cook large muffins about 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in middle comes out clean.
Cook mini muffins about 12 minutes or until toothpick inserted in middle comes out clean.

Sauteed Green Beans and Mushrooms

Had a great supper last night with lots of fresh produce from friends' gardens and the farmers market.  Easy, too.  I had a lot of onions and peppers that I sliced up and sauteed in a little garlic-infused olive oil with some baby portabellos. Then I steamed some fresh green beans and tossed those into the mix with a splash of white wine, salt, fresh cracked black pepper and Italian seasoning.  We had baby red potatoes on the side (boiled and tossed with a little vegan butter, salt and parsley).

I also baked some lemon pepper tofu.  I pressed the tofu and sliced it about 1/2 inch thick.  Marinated in garlic-infused olive oil and fresh lemon juice.  Then I put it on a cookie sheet and seasoned with salt and fresh cracked black pepper. I baked it at 375 degrees for about 25 minutes, turning it once in the middle.  I don't have a picture of the tofu because my family devoured it too quickly for me to snap a pic. 

It was a simple, fresh meal and everyone loved it.  The only complaint was that there wasn't any leftovers for lunch today!

Meal Plan

This week's meal plan is listed here.  For those new to the blog, WELCOME! and a few notes.  I provide in-home child care, so I list all snacks and lunches.  My day care kids eat mostly vegan, but do occasionally have cheese or yogurt products.  My family eats vegan here at home.

I hope to add the Asian Salad recipe this week with photos.  The sweet potato quesadillas are vegan and are a version of the Forks Over Knives recipe.  The Pea Guacamole is also a take-off of a FOK recipe.  I will try to add my changes to those, too. 

There are little family notes under each day just for you to see our plans.  For instance, on Monday we have both swimming practice for our son and soccer practice for my daughter.  I have two personal training clients that night as well.  So I will make the sweet potato filling and guac early in the day (during kid nap time) and the beans are my crock pot version from an earlier post.  That way it is just a couple minutes to have dinner ready when we all meet back up at home.  I don't usually share my family schedule, but I thought it might help for you to see how I make that happen.

I often times try to cook ahead of time or cook A LOT once and then freeze the extras for future meals.  I have that "EXTRAS" spot at the bottom just in case our schedule doesn't work out some day.  Those are freezer meals that I cooked and saved in serving sizes in the deep freeze. It saves us a lot of time and money going out to eat when we can just grab a freezer meal and throw it in the microwave.

 

As always, if you would like any of the recipes just let me know.  Have a great week everyone!! 

Date	Breakfast or  Morning Snack	Lunch	Afternoon Snack	Supper	Plan/Notes
Monday   (Swimming, soccer, PT, PT)	Cereal   Homemade applesauce	Roasted veggies, brown rice, peach salad	Oatmeal cookies or bagels	Refried beans, sweet potato quesadillas, pea guacamole	Freeze extra pea guac and sweet potato filling
Tuesday   (Field trip, PT)	Cereal or Muffins	Tacos, beans, fresh fruit	Chex Mix	Green beans w/ mushrooms and red potatoes, Grilled Tofu
Wednesday   (Swimming, football game)	Cinnamon toast or bagels	Tomato soup w/ breadsticks, green beans, fresh fruit	PB on rice cakes	Asian Tofu and Cabbage Salad, Edamame
Thursday   (Swimming, PT)	Cereal or bagels	Veggie burgers, peas and carrots, fresh fruit	Granola and dried fruit	Goulash, Spinach salad	Make goulash ahead of time
Friday	Tofu scramble, Toast   Granola and yogurt	French toast dippers, fresh fruit, veggie dippers	Smoothies, graham crackers	Make your own pizza subs, salad
Saturday   (Soccer game)	French Toast dippers, cereal	Leftovers	Kettle corn	Dinner out
Sunday   (Teach Sunday School)	Rolls at church	Chickpea Pitas, leftover veggies and fruit	Chips and Pea guacamole	Popcorn and Smoothies
Extras	Boca burgers, stir-fry veggies and rice, White beans in freezer, Chili in freezer

 

Vegan Fry Bread

This post goes out to all my junk food vegan friends!  I appreciate your support!

Fry Bread is one of those dishes that IS vegan, but IS NOT a health food.  This is fried, white refined carbs.  Oh, and salt.  Nothing good for you, but yet they are OH, SO GOOD.



Served with beans, guacamole, tomatoes, lettuce, limes and jalapenos.

Some of you have eaten Sopapillas, a Mexican fried bread with cinnamon and sugar and/or honey and/or chocolate sauce and/or fruit.  They are a dessert bread that puffs up when fried.  Fry Bread is very similar, but I think it has many more uses.

Fry Bread can be used instead of taco shells or tortillas for a great meal or game day dish.  Eat it like a taco or a tostada or taco pizza crust. I really love fry bread with fajita veggies!  Fry Bread can also be a dessert item. It is good plain, with a little salt, or with sugar, cinnamon, honey, etc.  Experiment a little with it and see what you like.

We made Fry Bread last night to go along with refried beans, guacamole, TVP taco meat, lettuce, tomatoes, jalapenos, and onions.

My recipe for refried beans is here:
http://voyagetoveganism.blogspot.com/2012/05/vegan-refried-beans.html

I like to pile everything up on top of my fry bread and eat it with hands, fork, spoon and plenty of napkins.  My son prefers to eat the fry bread dipped in the beans and guacamole.  You can decide for yourself how to eat it. 

It really is pretty easy to make.  Get your dough kneaded together until soft, and while it sits you can heat up the oil.  I use a frying pan with about 1 1/2 inches of oil in the bottom.  I don't know how much that is, but it's enough. I just use a plain canola oil.  I think olive oil would smoke too much since you need this over a higher heat.  I also don't want my fry bread to taste like olive oil.  Use something with no flavor of its own.

FRY BREAD
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 t. baking powder
1 t. salt
1 cup warm water (as hot as you can get it out of the tap)
oil for frying

Dough ball, then rolled out with hole in middle.

Mix the flour, baking powder and salt all together then stir in the warm water and mix.  Knead until dough is soft and not sticky, adding in a little more flour or water as necessary.

Puffing up as it drops in the oil.

Form the dough into a ball and place in a bowl, cover, and let sit for 15 minutes.  Heat oil in a heavy pan or large skillet until about 375 degrees.



After the flip, side one is perfectly golden.

FOR TACO/TORTILLA SIZE BREADS: Divide dough into 12 equal-sized balls.  Roll out to about 5-6 inches across and poke a hole in the middle of the dough. Dough should be about 1/4 inch thick.

FOR MINI OR DESSERT SIZE BREADS: Divide into 24-36 balls.  Roll each ball out to 1/4 inch thickness.



Eat it separately for dipping in the beans and guacamole, or pile it on!

 

Drop the breads carefully, one at a time, in the hot oil and fry until golden. This should take about 1 minutes per side, but watch them that they don't get too brown. They will puff up considerably, so allow room in the pan for that. Place fried bread on a paper towel or towel to drain off the oil and cool.  Salt lightly if you want.

Minis with sugar or cinnamon and sugar.

Last night I made 10 balls into large breads for the main dish, the took the last 2 balls and cut them into 4 pieces each.  I fried those up as mini breads and served some with sugar and some with cinnamon and sugar.













Kid Cooked (again)

I was so proud last night when I saw my son skipping home off the bus with a baggie of fresh vegetables.  His elementary school started a community garden last spring and his class visited it yesterday.  They worked in the garden a bit and they got to harvest some to bring home. I was brought to the point of tears just seeing how excited and proud he was to share his produce with us!

His harvest was a few green beans, a large carrot, a couple sweet onions, cherry tomatoes and a banana pepper. It was only a small bag, but with a few extra carrots and green beans from another friendly garden (thanks, Brigette!) we ended up with a complete meal that was beautiful for many reasons.

My son (4th grade) cleaned the veggies, snapped beans, sliced carrots, sliced tomatoes, and peeled onions.  He boiled, he steamed, he seasoned.  And then we all ATE!  The best part was he even helped with the dishes. : )

The carrot was boiled and seasoned with dill and a little vegan butter.  The beans and onions were steamed and seasoned with fresh cracked black pepper.  The tomatoes, banana pepper, and one tiny sweet onion were put into a salad with some of our own fresh basil, sea salt, black pepper and a splash of balsamic vinegar. Rice on the side.

This menu fits perfectly with our "God makes good food" motto.  We believe in keeping things simple and as close to their natural form as possible.

So today I said an extra little prayer thanking God for my kids, for love, good friends and good food!

Vegan Black Eyed Peas and Coconut Rice

When I take my kids grocery shopping, I encourage them to pick out a healthy choice for us to try.  My 4-year-old picked out dried Black Eye Peas last week.  (I love her so much!)

I searched and searched the internet for recipes that didn't have meat and that still looked yummy.  I ended up combining a few, revamping a few, and veganizing a few and came up with a recipe that we will definitely eat again and again. 

I made the beans separately from the rice so I could freeze off the extra beans and eat the leftover rice as a snack the next day. (Some recipes had everything cooked all together in one big pot, which is typically my preference. But not this time.) By themselves, the black eyed peas were a little bland.  But with the coconut rice, it was AWESOME.  I had 3 bowls.

I started from dried beans.  Washed and sorted out, then soaked overnight.  I then drained and rinsed them and started from there.  You could start with canned beans if you prefer.

BLACK EYED PEAS AND COCONUT RICE
This particular recipe made enough for two full meals of beans and one meal of rice for my 4 vegan/bean-eating family members.  I froze the extra beans for a meal next week.

For the beans:
2 c. dried beans, sorted, soaked overnight, drained and rinsed
6 c. vegetable broth (possibly more as needed)
2 c. diced tomatoes
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 large onion, diced
1 small bunch fresh parsley
1 t. crushed red pepper flakes
Salt and Pepper to taste

Saute the onion and garlic until soft but not brown in a couple teaspoons of the broth. Add in remaining ingredients and bring to a boil.  Turn heat down and simmer with the lid tilted for 1 1/2 - 2 hours until beans are cooked to your desired consistency.  Stir occasionally to keep them from sticking on the bottom of the pan.  These should end up slightly thickened.  Add more water or broth as they cook if it gets too thick.

For the coconut rice:
1 1/2 c. brown rice
2 c. coconut milk
2 c. water
2 T. flake coconut
1 t. salt

Add all ingredients into a large pan.  Bring just to a boil.  Immediately turn heat to low and cover with a tight fitting lid.  Cook for 1 hour.  Do not remove the lid.  Turn the heat off and let sit an additional 15 minutes.

Serve beans over the rice, then top with more flake coconut if desired.

(Note: the coconut rice is very good COLD served with fresh mango or peaches as a dessert.  So don't throw away those leftovers!)

Up On My Soapbox

This was lunch today for my family and for my child care kids.  Tuscan white beans and spinach served over whole wheat pasta shells.  Fresh veggies and fruit.  The kids also had a little garlic bread with theirs.

I overheard someone last night say that their "picky" child only ate cheese pizza with no sauce.  It just makes me cringe to hear that.  And so many people ask me how I get the kids at my house to eat such healthful foods. 

There are two things you need to do to get your kids to eat healthful foods: 

#1.  Make sure your kids are hungry, and

#2.  Feed them good, healthful food.

It really IS that easy.  Kids who sit around in front of the TV or computer all day are not working up an appetite.  Kids playing video games all day are not working up an appetite.  I took my child care kids out for a long walk this morning and then they played in the yard.  By the time lunch came along, they were hungry. 

I know it's different in a child care setting than in your own home.  I understand that kids behave differently for me than for their parents.  That's just the way life goes.  But I highly recommend thinking of your home like a child care.  Set it up on a daily schedule of activities and meal/snack times.  Routine is so important for kids (and many adults). 

My kids eat about every three hours. I offer a healthful breakfast when the kids get up. If they don't eat it, then they wait until snack time.  I offer a healthful snack.  If they don't eat it, then they wait until lunch time.  I offer a healthful lunch.  If they don't eat it, then they wait until snack.  I offer a healthful snack.  If they don't eat it, then they wait for supper.....  Do you see the pattern?  They don't pick and nibble all day in-between meals.  They eat at appropriate times of day. 

Now, I'm not totally crazy.  If I feel like the kids have done a good job of eating balanced and healthful foods during the day (or for a couple days), then I offer a special treat--maybe a chocolate chip muffin or a rice crispie bar or some other sweet snack.  But that is not an every day event. 

Kids WILL eat good, healthful foods.  They WILL NOT starve themselves.  They WILL whine and cry and throw a fit.  For a day or two.  But if you stick to it, they will eventually eat and try new foods.  And it will be even easier if you involve the kids and let them choose healthful options and help to cook and prepare them.  Make it an adventure to choose something new and exciting.  And just DON'T give in to the cheese and crackers or nothing but peanut butter sandwiches.  They will not starve themselves.  They won't.  Set a good example by eating healthful foods yourself. You are strong and you are the parent who is in charge of raising strong, healthful, responsible offspring.  You can do it!