I don’t really have much to say about this, except that the recipe is from Veganomicon, it’s suppper easy to make, it’s delicious and I make it quite often.

It’s also low-fat, if that tickles your fancy at all.  I kinda dig that if you replace some of the oil in a recipe with apple sauce, you can also usually decrease the amount of sugar without noticing a difference.  I don’t like things to be super sweet, so that makes me happy.

Also, this recipe doesn’t use any unusual ingredients, which I like.  Some vegan baked goods require a specific egg replacer or something that you might not already have on hand.  But the great thing about banana bread is that the bananas themselves bind the recipe.  Also, you can sub out the molasses for another tbsp or so of apple sauce if you don’t have it on hand.  It comes out a bit lighter in color, but it still tastes great.

Ok so I guess I did have a few things to say about this banana bread.

I want to share with you these great cranberry orange muffins I made last night.  I’ve had a lousy couple of days and these totally made me happy.

Sometimes you have to stress eat, okay?

These are on the healthier side, so I didn’t feel too bad about it.  They are also super festive with Thanksgiving coming up tomorrow.  The color is outstanding.  They are quick to make, so these would be great as a last minute addition to your vegan thanksgiving menu.  Or be weird and plan ahead to make them for Christmas.  They would also be yummy as a brunch option while you’re cooking up a storm of veggie goodness.  I hope you give them a try.

Vegan Cranberry Orange Muffins

Makes 12 muffins

Ingredients

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 tbsp Earth Balance
• 1 navel orange
• 1 tbsp ground flax seeds
• 1 cup fresh or frozen cranberries

Preheat oven at 400 degrees.

Grease a 12-cup muffin pan (or two 6-cup muffin pans).

In a large bowl, mix all of the dry ingredients dry ingredients.

Zest the entire orange.  Reserve 1 tbsp for the muffins, and save the remainder in the freezer closed tightly in a freezer bag for another purpose.

Melt the Earth Balance and pour into another mixing bowl.

Juice the orange into a measuring cup.  Add water until you have 1 full cup of liquid.  Add the orange juice mixture to the mixing bowl with the Earth Balance.  Add the orange zest and flax seeds to the mixing bowl.

In a small bowl, combine the cranberries and add 2 tbsp or so of the dry mixture, just enough to lightly coat the cranberries.

Combine the wet and dry mixtures, and stir just until they are mixed.  A few dry spots of batter are fine.

Fold in the cranberries.  Divide the batter evenly between 12 muffin cups.  The muffin cups should be generously filled so that you get that yummy muffin top!

Bake for 25 minutes, or until the tops are lightly golden brown.  Cool on a wire rack in the tins until the muffins are room temperature.

Happy new year!

I have a lot of things to share from the month that I’ve been away from the blog, so I guess I’ll try to break it all up into different posts.

I’ll start with the baked goods I gorged myself on while at my moms house.

First up: gingerbread men.  Because it’s Christmas, which means you eat gingerbread men.  Nuff said?

As usual, I did a pretty lousy job decorating them:
Note the angry one in the middle, and the deformed fella on the bottom.

I made a Syracuse Orange man (heh. heh.) but he turned out pretty dopey looking.

Next, we have my favorite food in the world: Mom’s Apple Pie.  It’s really something special, and I beg my mom to make it every time I go home.

She made me one while I was there, and I watched her like a hawk to figure out how she makes it so good.  I made one myself while I was there, but it wasn’t as good as hers.  Ah well, the food someone makes for you always tastes better than the food you make for yourself.  Here’s my photo diary of the pie making process.  Note: my mom uses store bought pie dough.  It rocks.  And it’s easy.  Don’t hate.

The magic recipe.  It’s really nothing fancy, but it’s amazing in its simplicity.
The dough.The apples.

Fill ‘er up!

Action shot!

Make sure you put the excess flour + sugar + cinn from the bottom of the bowl on top.

Dot with butter.  I’ve always thought it was funny that placing pieces of butter on top of something it called “dotting” it.

Voila!  (Pronounced phonetically, of course.  Who speaks french anyway?)

So good even the dog wants a nibble.

I’m going to post the pie recipe on the recipe section of the site.  I’ll throw up a link in Part 2, where I will share a recipe for savory bread pudding and homemade peppermint patties and almond joy/mounds bars!  Part 3 will be a recap of the fabulous meal that I had at Wolfgang Puck Cafe in Downtown Disney. So much yum coming up!