More Muffins and Crispy Sweet and Sour Seitan. But First........

Breakfast wasn’t too exciting yesterday morning, I just cut up some fresh fruit (diced apples, diced pear, sliced bananas, sliced kiwi fruit, and orange segments), I splashed the cut fruit with some fresh squeezed lime juice. I use the lime juice for a bit of flavor, but more importantly, it keeps the fruit from oxidizing. I sprinkled on a little sugar and had this yummy fruit with a bowl of vegan granola and soy milk. You know one of the many things I love about fruit? It looks (and tastes) pretty all on its own, you don't have to do anything to it at all, its like one of those women who can roll out of bed, do nothing, and still look amazing - the words of a true fruitaholic.

Moving on. I was excited from my success with muffins on Saturday, I decided to make another batch of a different flavor yesterday. I think I am starting to get this whole muffin making thing down, because these turned out good as well. I ended up making one batch of batter and doing it two ways. Part of the batter was turned into Apple Cinnamon Muffins; the other portion was turned into Apple Cinnamon Raisin Muffins. Nothing really special or different about the two except raisins, but both were very good. The muffins turned out sweet, but not overly so, and were nice and moist. They go very well with coffee for a nice light breakfast (this also happened to be my breakfast this morning).

I usually like to use applesauce in place of oil wherever I can, but yesterday ran out of applesauce and ended up doing half applesauce half oil instead. You could always replace the additional oil in this recipe with applesauce.

Apple Cinnamon (Raisin) Muffins
1/4 cup Earth Balance (melted)
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
cinnamon (to taste)
just a dash of nutmeg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup soymilk
2 peeled diced apples
Raisins (as many as you like)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In a mixing bowl, combine all dry ingredients. Add the moist ingredients and then slowly fold in the apples and raisins.

Fill muffin cups (or greased muffin tin) about 2/3 of the way full and bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.

For dinner last night, I made a modified version of VeganYumYum’s Crispy Sweet and Sour Seitan and it was so, so, so good. The next time you get an urge for something sweet, sour, crispy, and a bit spicy, give this a try. It satisfied even the “super particular when it comes to vegan food” omni, also known as Brett.

I followed her recipe for preparing the seitan exactly, but deviated on everything else. I made some modifications to the sauce and added some veggies and served it all over brown Basmati rice.

Sweet and Sour Sauce
2/3 cup veggie broth
6 tbsp brown rice vinegar
6+ tbsp sugar (Brett likes things pretty sweet, so I put more than this in there, but for everyone else [who is not a hummingbird] start with this and add more if you need more sweetness)
2-4 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp ketchup (next time I am going to try tomato paste)
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1 clove garlic, minced
dash cayenne or crushed red pepper flakes
pinch salt
corn starch mixed with water to thicken

Combine all ingredients except for corn starch and water mixture and heat, stirring frequently.

Turn up heat to where sauce is boiling and add corn starch and water mixture to sauce. Stir frequently until at desired consistency. Remove from heat immediately.

Crispy Sweet and Sour Seitan with Veggies over Basmati Rice
VeganYumYum’s Crispy Seitan recipe
Sweet and Sour Sauce
Chopped onions (I cooked them with the seitan)
Broccoli, cooked
Cauliflower, cooked
Hot, cooked brown Basmati rice

Prepare rice according to package directions.

Prepare sweet and sour sauce.

Start cooking broccoli and cauliflower.

Make the crispy seitan and add the onions while cooking.

Serve crispy seitan, veggies, and sauce over brown Basmati rice.

I really liked the way the seitan was done for this recipe. It gave it the flavor of a fried mushroom. I am going to be thinking about other things I can do with this crispy seitan as the flavor and texture are wonderful. It took Brett a little while to grow to like tofu in anything except a scramble, preferably a scramble stuffed into a tortilla, but he has warmed up the seitan very quickly. I can probably thank this recipe for that.

Well, that’s all for now!