Grilled Vegetable Salad & Fruit Smoothie

We have a problem. The significant other and I tend to buy way too many Groupons & Livingsocial deals…and then forget about them until right before they expire. We bought a voucher for $30 worth of organic, local vegetables delivered to our door like three months ago…and got out veggies this morning! The tub was packed full of leafy greens, potatoes, corn, broccoli, eggplant and carrots. Now to find a way to use all this!

Lunch was easy to throw together. I salted and let eggplants slices sweat for about 30 minutes. I sliced some zucchini squash and heirloom beefsteak tomatoes and let those marinate in garlic powder, salt+pepper, balsamic vinegar and olive oil while the eggplant was sweating. The grill was then fired up and everything thrown on for about 10 minutes. Grilled Vegetable Salad!  The great thing about marinating vegetables is that the leftover marinade doesn’t go to waste, unlike when you marinate meat stuffs. Leftover marinade = lazy man’s salad dressing. The salad was gorgeous and bright BUT unfortunately, the eggplant was SO BITTER! Such a bummer. I know salting/sweating helps with the bitterness, but wow, it was pretty much inedible. It made my mouth hurt so much! Oh well! I devoured the rest of the salad and ended up pitching the eggplant. Not sure what went wrong, maybe just a bad aubergine?

I also made a fruit smoothie to add a bit of sweetness + daily serving of fruits to the meal. LOVE smoothies, especially on hot summer days! We try to buy and use fresh fruit as much as possible, but sometimes it’s too expensive or not available! When fruit is on sale, we buy a lot of it and freeze it. Perfect for smoothie making because you don’t need to add any ice. This smoothie consisted of: pineapple slices, strawberries (with the greens still on top), blueberries, and orange juice. Simple, but so sweet and refreshing!

 

Super excited to be seeing one of my all-time favorite bands, Incubus, at Red Rocks Amphitheatre tonight! Just hoping the thunderstorms roll right on past us Have a wonderful Wednesday!

Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins and Raspberry Oatmeal Muffins – Vegan!

Hearty and super simple vegan muffins!

I was craving a muffin as soon as I woke up this morning. It just seemed right. With frozen blueberries and fresh raspberries waiting for me in the fridge, everything came together. I found this great recipe on VegWeb (awesome resource for new and old vegetarians/vegans alike) and threw these muffins together within 10 minutes. I had never had raspberry muffins before and was feeling daring, so why not? I imagine you can make a muffin out of anything…

I ended up making two batches of this basic muffin recipe. The first batch were blueberry muffins using entirely whole wheat pastry flour and no applesauce. The second batch were raspberry oatmeal muffins that pretty much followed the recipe below verbatim, but with 1/2 of rolled oats added.

Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins (adapted from VegWeb recipe)

• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
• 1 VERY RIPE mashed banananana
• Grated peel of one lemon (optional)
• 1/2 cup honey, maple syrup, agave nectar, or your favorite sweetener (See Notes)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup nondairy milk (used light Almond Milk)
• 1/4 cup applesauce
• 1 cup frozen or fresh blueberries (OR whatever fruit your have! nectarines? peaches?)

Preheat oven to 385 degrees.

In a small bowl, mash the banana. Add your lemon peel, sweetener, milk, applesauce (if using) and mix together well.  In a separate bowl, mix all dry ingredients except for the berries. Slowly work the dry ingredients into the wet, being careful not to over mix. Fold in your berries!

If you’re using MUFFIN tins/papers/whatever they are called, great. If not, remember to spray your muffin pan otherwise IT WILL BE VERY DIFFICULT TO WRESTLE THEM OUT OF THEIR MUFFIN CAVES.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until tops become nice and brown. DEVOUR.

 

Notes & Variations:

- Using only one banana really doesn’t make these muffins taste like banana (which is what I was going for). There’s a faint flavor, but it doesn’t overpower the lovely blueberries!

- Sub 1/2 cup of the whole wheat pastry flour with all-purpose flour for a slightly (but not much) lighter muffin.

Soft muffins! Not too heavy either, considering they are whole wheat.

- Need more fiber? Who doesn’t? Add 1/2 cup (or more) of rolled oats. Remember to account for how rolled oats tend to suck up liquids!

- Looking at this recipe, it appears that there really is a lot of liquid in the muffins. Remember, I’m at 5,280ft above sea level here in Denver. Stuff always dries out on me, so I tend to add a little more liquid. My first batch of muffins I left out the applesauce completely–they stilled turned out great! The second batch with the raspberries were a tad more moist.

- Some vanilla might have been good in this…of course I think of it after I’m done baking!

- Nuts! need to remember to throw some walnuts in next time

These really turned out great. A hearty breakfast that you won’t feel too guilty about! Whole wheat and no oil always sounds good to me!

Since I used lemon peel in this recipe, I’m really craving something tart and sweet…lemonade might be in the near future…