Savory Pumpkin Applesauce Muffins

Savory Pumpkin Applesauce

Muffins

(yum! -vegan baking is easy)

I have frozen roasted pumpkin puree and frozen home made applesauce in my freezer.  The pumpkin needs to be used so I can roast more pumpkin and squash this season for  2013/2014 baking and soup making.  I looked online for a good vegan pumpkin applesauce muffin recipe.  I used a combination of several online sources to make these yummy savory muffins that were delightful with coffee in the morning.  They are not too sweet and the "pumpkin pie" spice flavoring is not overpowering at all.  All in all this is an easy recipe to whip up if you've got pumpkin puree and applesauce on hand.

I froze large containers of pumpkin puree and I'm glad because I ended up making 2 large batches of the muffins and freezing the extra muffins.  Frozen muffins are easy to thaw and even reheat and they lose very little of their yumminess.  Throw them in a gallon zip lock bag and take the extra air out - voile'.

This is an easy recipe to follow because you simply mix the dry ingredients in one bowl and the wet ingredients into another bowl and then combine and stir gently.

The wet ingredients mixed together.

Adding the wet ingredients to the dry a little at a time.

Almost 2 dozen yummy muffins ready to be popped into the oven.

Pumpkin Applesauce Muffins

(makes 1 dozen)

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour

1 cup of all purpose flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

1 cup pumpkin puree

1/2 cup applesauce

1/2 cup canola or other oil

1 tablespoon vanilla

1.  Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

2.  Combine flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and pumpkin pie spice into a large mixing bowl.  Stir together and set aside.

3.  Combine pumpkin puree, applesauce, oil and vanilla.  Stir.

4.  Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until just mixed.  I did this in 3 steps - a little bit at a time and just stirred to combine.

5.  Spray muffin tins with spray oil. 

6.  Fill muffin tins about 2/3 - 3/4 and bake for about 15 - 18 minutes in a 325 degree oven.  I turned the muffin pan half way through for more even cooking (but my oven is almost 30 years old!)

Finished muffins with a few missing!

-----  I didn't have any pumpkin pie spice so I put together a mixture of cinnamon, ginger and cardamon.  Now I have the real mixture and I liked it much better in the second batch.

----- I froze a bunch of these muffins in a big ziplock bag and they thawed beautifully and tasted really fresh.

----- Try to time the cooking of these muffins with a cup of coffee or tea because the warm steaming muffin with hot cup of something is about the best thing!

----- Enjoy!

And finally.. here is what we hope is a bomber of a garden box with the right kind of gopher resistance!  It's filled with 12 broccoli plants, 18 kale plants, 6 chard plants, 6 spinach plants, and 6 snap peas.  I'm crossing my fingers that this lovely box can help get us through the winter with green vegetables!

Eat green, stay healthy, and practice gratitude!

Hearty Fall Soup with soy sausage

Hearty Fall Soup

(white bean, kale, carrots, yam and soy sausage)

Harry is my big old man dog (nearly 11) and he is happily saying "I'm tired after running on the beach.  Don't I have a HUGE tongue?!"  Like most of us, as he has aged, Harry's slowed down and doesn't do as much chasing squirrels into the forest or endless rounds of tennis ball repeats!  The consequences of this are... he's getting kind of fat.  With his aging arthritic joints I need to be careful to exercise him enough but not so much that he ends up limping! One of the lessons I learn from him and my other two doggy beasties is to just enjoy every darn day whether you limp through it or not!  Amazing teachers.

Yesterday I had a big work day with a 2 hour slot in between my morning yoga class and a 3 hour Inversion workshop I was teaching in the afternoon.  I came home and put together a hearty fall soup between those two events so that dinner would be ready when I got home.  It's not that unlike other soups/stews I have made with lots of vegetables and beans.

I decided to chop the carrots really big this time so they would be more "stew-like" chunky.

 I used basic seasonings - garlic, thyme, oregano, and salt and pepper.

I was extremely generous in my use of kale.  I rough chopped about one and a half bunches.

Great Northern White beans were the beans I choose.  I used canned beans this time.  I usually freeze a portion of whatever crock pot bean I make during the week but it seems I haven't made any white beans lately!  Pintos or garbanzo beans (plenty of frozen baggies living in the bottom drawer of my freezer!) just didn't seem like the right fit for this soup.

I decided to use big chunks of yam in the soup rather than potato.  It's fall and the color reminded me of the leaves on trees right now and I had several yams just waiting to be used. 

 Sweet potatoes are so good for you!  Full of fiber and phytonutrients.  You can bake a yam in the oven for about 35 - 40 minutes and throw in on a plate next to a pile of quinoa, beans, and greens.  It's a mighty meal  ----- and a mighty simple meal.  Add some tahini dressing drizzled over the quinoa and greens or a side of salsa next to the beans, maybe even some kim chee and you got yourself something special! But here I am off topic again.

Recipe for 

Hearty Fall Soup

Feeds 2 of us at least 4 times or more/huge soup pot full

1 - 2 chopped onions

4 - 6 chopped garlic cloves

4 - 8 chopped celery stalks

6 - 8 large chopped carrots

2 large yams, chopped

1 and 1/2 bunches of any kale, rough chopped

2 cans of Northern White bean (or bean of choice)

2 soy sausages, chopped into bite sized pieces

4 cups vegetable broth

4 - 8 cups additional water

1/2 cup or more tomato sauce, canned tomato, or chopped  fresh tomato

1 Tablespoon thyme

1 Tablespoon oregano

salt and pepper to taste

1.  Saute on very low heat the onion, garlic, and celery until cooked through and very soft (maybe 10 or more minutes)

2.  Add chopped carrots, thyme, and oregano, some salt and lots of black pepper and cook another 5 - 10 minutes

3.  Pour in the vegetable broth (have I spoken to you about how easy it is to make your own vegetable broth and keep it in the freezer?  So worth it!  Most store bought broth is full of salt and really, do you know what they used?  My homemade stock is full of the vegetables I purchase at the Farmer's market and off the organic refrigerator shelves at the grocery.  Making stock is well worth it! )

4.  Layer in the kale, soy sausage, white beans, yams, tomato sauce, canned tomatoes or fresh,  and add water to cover. Bring to a boil and then turn the heat down and simmer for another 30 plus minutes until the carrots are soft.

Recipe Notes:

----- Have I spoken to you about how easy it is to make your own vegetable broth and keep it in the freezer?  So worth it!  Most store bought broth is full of salt and really, do you know what they used to make it, where the veg came from?  My homemade stock is full of the vegetables I purchase at the Farmer's market and off the organic refrigerator shelves at the grocery.  Making stock is well worth it! I'll blog it soon.

----- I think the yams might work a bit better if they went in about 10 minutes or more after the other vegetables.  Our yams broke down a bit. Perhaps cooking the carrots for a bit longer before adding all the other stuff is a way to go too.

----- I used a lot of kale.  I would make this soup again for us or for my friends Deb and Bryce or Laurie and Bob or my niece, Julie, but regular folks who don't eat kale like we all do might think there is a wee bit too much in this soup!  Cut back a bit if you think you might scare someone with kale. But remember... kale is a super food.  A super duper food and you should probably eat some each day!

----- This soup is sort of sweet.  Thank you, yams.  If you'd rather, use chopped potatoes.

----- This was a big whooping pot of soup.  I would add another soy sausage.  There is a certain snappy spice to the soy sausage that mixes well with the kale and the sweet yam.

----- Be creative.  Use leeks instead of onions, add some winter squash, use chard instead of kale, add some parsley.  It's soup with vegetables and beans so go crazy with creativity.

----- I added a few splashes of balsamic vinegar to my bowl of soup prior to eating.  It gave the sweetness just a bit of "acid" and saltiness and was really yummy.

Here's the finished product.  A big bowl of goodness.  Eat and enjoy!