Category: Food

No Tricks, Just Treats

Were you to dress up in a funky costume and start harassing your neighbors in search of sweet treats right now, you would probably get a few nasty words and a door in the face instead. However, when the treats come to you via mail, it’s never too early to start celebrating Halloween! Such is my luck that I can do just that, thanks to Melisser who sent me some homemade vegan candy corn just the other day.

Seriously, vegan candy corn. Meaning, no honey, gelatin, or egg whites? Meaning, the impossible confection that has never previously existed, no matter how far and wide one would search? It’s a dream come true! I had been craving those sugary little mock-vegetables for ages and complained to just about anyone who would listen, and now you’re telling me that I don’t even need to follow the miraculous recipe that Melisser has so generously provided, seeing as she offered to send some instead? Well, how could I refuse! The hardest part was waiting patiently for the package to arrive, and I suppose I didn’t even do that well. Checking my mailbox for the second time yesterday, I jumped for joy to discover that little pink slip indicating a larger parcel was waiting for me to pick up at the desk. Envelope secured, it was the most I could do not to tear it open on the spot and just shove the entire contents in my mouth (No, this is no exaggeration- I kept pawing at the tape even as I power-walked back to my dorm!). Self-control sorely tested, I knew that I would at least need photographic evidence to prove that they really existed, since I could still hardly believe it.Snapping a few quick pictures in the fading daylight, a glance at the clock sent a shock wave through my body. Crap, I have class now! Hurriedly, I packed the corns back up and tossed them deep into the back of the fridge for safe keeping. Racing off regretfully without having even the tiniest taste, I knew I was in for one long, arduous class.

Finally, after watching all 60 minutes slowly, painstakingly tick away on the antique clock that loomed over our rickety table, I skipped back to the room with uncontrollable glee- Candy corn! Vegan candy corn! I still couldn’t believe my luck. Flinging open the refrigerator door and snatching up my prize, I was about to just dump the whole bag into my mouth when I noticed it felt a little light… Had some fallen out in my haste? Searching about frantically for some poor fallen candy corn, it was then that I noticed some sly thief trying to make a getaway out the window!

Caught red-handed, he still couldn’t contain his grin- Truly, there’s something about candy corn that just brings out a smile in everyone, and even such a thoughtless leech like him couldn’t resist their sweet siren song. I don’t blame him… Honestly, I would have probably done the same had I discovered vegan candy corn elsewhere! Feeling that this treasure truly was best suited to be shared, as it was so generously shared with me in the first place, I allowed him to keep that one corn, and together we both enjoyed this old childhood favorite. I know that these candies won’t ever make it to see Halloween, let alone next week, but they really made the holiday perfect for me already. Thank you so much Melisser, we both simply loved them!

Hannah (BitterSweet)16 Comments

Muffin Mayhem

Considering how many people talk about the dreaded “freshman 15,” you would have to assume that there’s actually good food to be found in college, right? Well, maybe on some campuses, but that’s certainly not the issue here. No matter the time of day, trips to the dining hall prove futile, yielding a wilted salad of pale greens and perhaps a few sad slices of cucumber, but little more. Despite their desire to be vegan-friendly, the dining services are anything but, and I’ve been forced to scavenge for meals elsewhere. Of course, I’m sure it’s been obvious by my lack of food posts that this quest could hardly be considered successful by a long shot. Lacking either ingredients or equipment to cook with, baking has been a pipe dream, since regular cooking has been about as easy as performing brain surgery with a dull sewing needle.

Hungry not only for the finished product but for the process that I find so soothing, the alchemy of turning flour and sugar into delicious works of art, even the most impossible odds couldn’t prevent me from trying to bake for long. Smuggling out some ripe bananas from the cafeteria one day, I realized that I could finally scrape something edible together, provided those unreliable ovens in the dorm would cooperate. Starting with a basic banana muffin recipe from VegWeb, it wasn’t long before the mad baker in me was tinkering around again, not content to leave well enough alone even with the barest minimum of ingredients on hand. Luckily, when I saw that the batter was mixing up into a somewhat dry concrete-like substance, I happened to have a jar of pumpkin butter on hand, and a delicious new recipe was born, just like that.

Rising to the challenge both figuratively and literally, the perfect mountains of batter gave me hope for the dismal dining situation. Sure, banana bread has been done a million times in a million different ways so I could hardly say this is anything to write home about, but after such a severe deficit of baked goods, just one bite made a whole month of miserly meals worth swallowing. With just a bit of ingenuity, patience, and a whole lot of sugar, perhaps this arrangement can still work after all… And considering the note that was left on my door after sharing these around the dorm, it seems that the other girls think so, too.

Yield: Makes 6 - 8 Muffins

Banana Pumpkin Spice Muffins

Banana Pumpkin Spice Muffins

Tender and fluffy yet substantial and satisfying, these muffins are the best parts of banana bread and pumpkin bread combined.

Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Additional Time 5 minutes
Total Time 5 minutes

Ingredients

Muffins:

  • 2 Medium-Sized Ripe Bananas
  • 1/4 Cup Dark Brown Sugar, Firmly Packed
  • 1/4 Cup Olive Oil
  • 1 Teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
  • 1/2 Teaspoon Salt
  • 1/4 Cup Whole Wheat Flour
  • 1 Cup All-Purpose Flour
  • 1/2 Teaspoon Baking Powder
  • 1/2 Teaspoon Baking Soda
  • 2/3 Cup Pumpkin Butter

Topping (Optional):

  • Rolled Oats
  • Ground Cinnamon

Instructions

  1. Preheat you oven to 350 degrees and either line a muffin tin with papers or coat it with cooking spray.
  2. Mash your bananas thoroughly and add in the sugar and oil, stirring to combine. Toss in the cinnamon, salt, both flours, baking powder and soda all at once, and mix just enough to moisten all of the dry ingredients, but there’s no need to be too thorough. Finally, add in the pumpkin butter and stir that well, being careful not to over-mix. The resulting batter should be rather thick.
  3. Spoon the batter into your prepared tins, mounding it up generously in the centers. Sprinkle oats and cinnamon on top as desired, and bake for 15 – 25 minutes until golden brown, and a tooth pick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Let cool on a wire rack and enjoy.

Notes

This makes a small batch since I don’t have tons of pans with me, so I got 6 standard muffins and 4 minis, but feel free to double this to make more than a dozen. Also, I can’t say that this oven is completely trust worthy since there’s no internal thermometer, so I would just keep a close eye on your muffins while they bake.

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Nutrition Information:

Yield:

8

Serving Size:

1
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 225Total Fat: 7gSaturated Fat: 1gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 6gCholesterol: 0mgSodium: 245mgCarbohydrates: 38gFiber: 3gSugar: 15gProtein: 3g

All nutritional information presented within this site are intended for informational purposes only. I am not a certified nutritionist and any nutritional information on BitterSweetBlog.com should only be used as a general guideline. This information is provided as a courtesy and there is no guarantee that the information will be completely accurate. Even though I try to provide accurate nutritional information to the best of my ability, these figures should still be considered estimations.

© Hannah Kaminsky
Cuisine: American / Category: Quick Breads and Muffins

 

Hannah (BitterSweet)32 Comments

Real Food

What does “real food” mean to me?

Confronted by such a seemingly simple question posed by the Real Food Blog on Yahoo, I found myself at a loss for words. Technically, anything edible could be considered “real” by the fact that it’s physically there, tangible, and therefore part of our reality… But I know in my heart of hearts that it’s not as easy as that. If you had asked me this a week or two ago, I might have hemmed and hawed over the validity of this assumption, and then talked about chemically enhanced and modified food and how they don’t qualify for various reasons… And while this is still true in my eyes, being forced to scrape together the most minimal meals thanks to constraints on budget, time, and availability, “real food” has now taken on new meaning to me. Eating my way through boxes of questionable carbohydrates, the ambiguity of those contents left me hungry- Both physically and mentally- For something of true substance.

When you can look at a cooked or raw dish, any dish, and identify the individual components- That’s real food. If you look into some cold metal can, puzzle over the indistinguishable shapes and smells, well, that’s something else entirely. Even if these ingredients are all natural, vegan, “healthy”… How could it possibly be real if you can’t even figure out it’s true identity? Still, that definition is rather shallow and unsatisfying in my mind. Real food is something that you know where it came from, has a story, has a history, means something to the eater beyond simple sustenance. Anyone can make something borderline edible and take energy from it, live a full and happy life, but to have food that you can enjoy and appreciate, that you can trace back through generations or even just through your own hands and the creativity borne of your own mind… That’s the kind of “real food” that I want to eat. Food doesn’t just happen- It’s a process, and if you remove yourself from that process, then who’s to say that the materials going into your mouth and body truly are what they claim, and can be considered “real”?

That’s what I think.

And maybe I’m not so far from the truth, seeing as the above photo of mine is now featured as Real Food Image of the Week! How exciting!

Hannah (BitterSweet)9 Comments

What Crepe

It seems as though I’ve finally met my culinary match…

My crepes are really more like craps. I know that it shouldn’t be that hard since I’ve seen loads of vegan crepes floating around on various blogs and such… But how? Anyone have suggestions as to technique or recipe?  I need your help on this one!

Hannah (BitterSweet)22 Comments