Oatmeal Breakfast Muffins

Every day for breakfast I have a smoothie filled with all sorts of nutritional goodness from greens, berries, banana, homemade almond milk and flax seeds. Some days though, I want something different and I will make oatmeal topped with banana, grated apple, cinnamon, a few walnuts, some almond milk and a touch of maple syrup. Kinda hard to eat a bowl of oatmeal on the run or if you’re in a hurry though, and impossible to eat out of your hand (not that I’ve tried). So, I set out to make a super healthy muffin that would be like a bowl of oatmeal disguised as a muffin. These muffins have the same ingredients as my hearty bowl of oatmeal with delicious toppings. They are dense, hearty and satisfying and best of all – easy to make!

Notes:

* You need a 6-cup muffin tin for this recipe as it makes larger muffins than the 12-muffin pans. You can purchase here:Jumbo Muffin Tin. You could use a regular 12-muffin tin and make smaller muffins – just cook them for less time, 30-35 minutes.

* If your bananas are super ripe you can omit the maple syrup as the ripe bananas will add just enough sweetness.

Potato and Cauliflower Samosa Patties

If you’ve ever eaten a samosa at an Indian restaurant (or Whole Foods salad bar for that matter), you know those delectable little things are deep fried. These patties have that mouth-watering samosa flavor, without all the fat and flour.

This recipe is adapted from Rouxbe, the on-line plant-based culinary school I’m attending. The first time I made these I followed the recipe to the letter but felt they could be improved and made to be lower in fat. The family actually preferred my version. Score!

Keep in mind the heat of these will depend on how much of and the type of curry powder you use. I’m a total wimp when it comes to spice so I only used 1 TBS curry powder (half Penzey Sweet Curry Powder and half Madras Curry Powder). Use more, or some cayenne, if you like the heat. They have tons of flavor regardless. Enjoy!!

Lemon-Tahini Dressing

It’s been a long time since I posted a recipe! Not that I haven’t been creating in the kitchen – I’m always doing that. Just life. You know how it is. Anyway, I love tahini dressings but they are usually so high in fat. Tahini, or sesame seed paste, is high in fat of course because seeds are high in fat. Tahini, and other seeds and seed pates are very healthy but can easily be overeaten. However, there is a way to use tahini in dressing, still get that flavor, and cut the fat. The secret is in the BEANS. Yes, beans. They not only help cut the fat, they add creaminess, body, nutrients, fiber and protein.

I made this dressing with a salad in mind, but I ended up pouring some over my steamed kale and sweet potato, and it was tasty! You can use any kind of soft, white bean. I had made my own flageolet beans the day before because I like to have a batch on hand, but you can use cannellini, great northern, etc. If you use canned be sure to rinse and drain them. NOTE: I get a lot of my dried beans from Rancho Gordo. They sell the BEST heirloom beans! You can purchase from their website at ranchogordo.com.

Chickpea Curry Lettuce Wraps with Tamari-Lime Sliced Almonds

If you’ve ever made my Mock Chicken Salad you’ll already have an idea of how this dish is made – it’s the same process. I set out to make the Mock Chicken Salad but I was feeling creative and wanted to change it up significantly. I absolutely LOVE what I ended up with. SO delicious. And, it’s really easy to make!! No cooking required for the filling. Though, if you would like it warm and/or find raw celery and onion too crunchy or strong, feel free to sauté those first. I made these for lunch on a fairly warm day but I think the warm/cooked filling would be nice on a chilly day or at dinner. It’s up to you! Experiment….I did!

Feel free to use this filling for a sandwich instead of lettuce wraps.

They are only a garnish, so a small amount is used, but the Tamari-Lime Sliced Almonds are AMAZING here.

Happy New Year AND my guest blog post at Yummly.com featuring my delicious Zucchini Oat Muffins Recipe

Posted on January 2, 2014 by Shelly Detken

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! I hope you all had wonderful holidays and are getting back into the groove, ready to take on 2014! It sure got here quickly, didn’t it? For those of you who have made a resolution to eat better (and, let’s be honest, who hasn’t), I’m hoping you will utilize my website more often. I have big plans to revamp and improve it, making it easier for recipe searches, etc. As well, I begin my plant-based cooking school this month and hope to come up with lots of new dishes. Let’s get things started off right with a low-fat, gluten-free, vegan, tasty zucchini muffin recipe (see below).

I came up with these on a Sunday morning when I was feeling that creative cooking bug that pokes at me so often. Seemed like a good time to create a muffin of some kind. I opened the fridge to seek inspiration only to have the zucchinis practically throwing themselves at me. Hence this Zucchini Oat Muffin recipe was born. Many recipes I come up with require tweaking and a second or third go around before I can share, but not this one! I got lucky first time around. And now you’re getting lucky!

For this recipe, I used a combination of gluten-free flour (I really like Trader Joe’s brand) and oat flour made with certified gluten-free oats. You can make your own oat flour by using your blender to grind the oats. Super easy! These muffins are only slightly sweet and are especially delicious warmed, with a TINY bit of vegan butter if you’re feeling dangerous, (and I was). 🙂 I find these keep best refrigerated after the first day, wrapped in a cloth napkin. Also, if you are feeling adventurous, sub some of the zucchini with carrot!

Feel free to leave out the walnuts if you don’t like them or are eating an extra low-fat diet. I love their flavor and texture in this dish, and the nice dose of Omega 3’s they (and the chia seeds) provide. Enjoy!!

I’ve posted this recipe to Yummly.com as a guest blogger. Please visit my post at http://blog.yummly.com/blog/2014/01/healthy-vegan-gluten-free-zucchini-oat-muffins/ Enjoy!!

Approximate nutritional info: with walnuts – 153 cals, 3.75 fat grams; without walnuts -125 calories, 1 fat gram.

UPDATE: I made these muffins with ALL oat flour when I was out of gluten-free all purpose and they were great!!

Chocolate Cran-Cherry Granola

There is no shortage of granola recipes on-line, though I’d never heard of a chocolate variety so when it popped into my head as I was working out, I jumped on it. Many of my recipes come to me during exercise – weird. Anyhow, I got the idea to use cacao nibs and cocoa powder to make the granola chocolatey. Sure, I could use chocolate chips but this is granola, it’s supposed to be healthy!

For those not familiar with cacao nibs, they are basically raw chocolate, pieces of cacao beans that have been roasted, hulled and prepped to the point where all that there is left to do is process them into bars. Like dark chocolate, they are somewhat bitter and they are very pure with no added sugar. I like them in the granola however because there are plenty of other sweet elements. The bitter, nutty flavor of the nibs with the cherries, cranberries and maple syrup and/or date paste is delicious. Best part? Your milk in the bowl ends up like chocolate milk! Who doesn’t love that?

Cacao beans, and thus cacao nibs, are one of the best dietary sources of magnesium — a mineral needed for more than 300 biochemical reactions in our bodies — with 272 milligrams per 100 grams. Cacao nibs are very high in antioxidants, and have about 9 grams of fiber per 1 ounce!

Since they will melt like any other type of chocolate, you need to wait until the granola is cooled before adding the cacao nibs.

Spicy Butternut Squash Soup

Spicy Butternut Squash Soup with Lemon-Maple Brussels Sprouts

Most butternut squash soups are a little sweet for me. Honestly, I’ve got a major sweet tooth but some things, like my soups, I want to be more on the savory side. So, this soup is still sweet of course, but the jalapeño and cooking sherry (or white wine) create some interesting flavors that help offset the sweetness. And, while I don’t generally cook with oil, I added a tiny drizzle of truffle oil before serving – YUM. Since I was a little heavy-handed with the jalapeño (by my definition – remember, I’m a spice wimp), I dumped my Lemon-Maple Brussels Sprouts in the soup to offset the heat. Delicious! In the future I will leave the seeds out of the jalapeño – this time I used half of the seeds and the soup was really spicy.

Cinnamon Vinaigrette

Posted on November 16, 2013 by Shelly Detken

One of our favorite vegan restaurants in our area has an amazing fall salad with a cinnamon vinaigrette that I absolutely love. It’s lighter than most, however as is standard operating procedure for most restaurants, the dressing is oil-based. Oil-based dressings can add an extra 300-500 calories to an otherwise healthy, low-calorie salad, so we try our best to stay away!

Anyway, I set out to recreate the dressing without using oil, and I succeeded!! This will go beautifully on our Thanksgiving salad.

Cinnamon Vinaigrette

1/3 cup plain soy yogurt
2 TBS brown rice vinegar
1 TBS maple syrup (you may need more if your yogurt is unsweetened)
Juice from 1/2 lime
1 tsp low-sodium tamari or soy sauce
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp smoked paprika
pinch ground cloves
1 TBS cashew butter or about 2 TBS soaked raw cashews
water for thinning, if desired

Combine all ingredients in blender and mix until smooth.

5’n’5 Apple Cookies – 5 Ingredients & 5 Minutes!

Yep! These nummy cookies only have 5 ingredients and take about 5 minutes to throw together. They’re just about the healthiest cookie you could eat, and probably the easiest to make. Since they don’t have added sweeteners they are only mildly sweet, but the raisins help with that. I’m calling them a cookie because of their shape but classifying them as a snack since they’re so good for you (don’t panic – they’re good)! Granted, they are no Oreo cookie, but that’s not the goal here. They are soft in texture but hold together just like a regular cookie. I spread a little bit of peanut butter on one – what a delicious snack!! *choose certified gluten-free oats

Pumpkin-Spice Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Pumpkin-Spice Cupcakes. Vegan. Gluten-free. Oil-free*

I know. It’s getting a little ridiculous. Another pumpkin recipe. I can’t help it! I told you I love all things pumpkin. The season is short – I must embrace it!

So, I made a pumpkin-spice cake for my sister’s birthday this past week. It was really good. The next day I tweaked the recipe just a bit and made delicious cupcakes. The next day I tweaked it even more, making them gluten-free, and a sharable recipe was born!

If you don’t care to make these cupcakes gluten-free, whole wheat pastry flour is fine. Also, use 1 TBS pumpkin pie spice if you’d rather not bother measuring out the cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, ginger and cloves.

I don’t generally make or eat things that are frosted due to the high fat content of frosting, even if it is vegan, but I’ve managed to keep the fat pretty low on these by only using no more than 1 tablespoon of frosting per cupcake, which is plenty and just right. Still, these are a treat and not something I’d recommend be eaten regularly. 🙂

*Oil-free if left unfrosted. The cupcake itself is oil/fat-free but Tofutti Cream Cheese is made with oil.

Plantiful Wellness

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