Tag Archives: scratch

Baking, Food, Recipes

Recipe: Vegan Zucchini Muffins and Zucchini Recipe Resource!

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Finely Shredded Zucchini.

I love Zucchini, and it seems to be one of those garden veggies that simply thrive no matter where I’ve seen it grow around the Pacific Northwest. I prefer the delicate young ones for eating with pasta, or on the grill. Once they get bigger and tough skinned, the only way I like to eat them is in a baked goodie. So, this recipe has been a staple for a few years now. Once we discovered our daughter could no longer eat eggs and dairy, I modified it to this current one. These muffins are just as tasty! I think muffins last about 2-3 days before they need to get tossed in the compost bin. But, we never have them sitting around here that long. I’ve also frozen them and found they are delicious once thawed out. Okay, onto the recipe:

Recipe: Vegan Zucchini Muffins

Ingredients

– 1.5 Cups Flour (I like to use a 1:3 ratio of Refined and Whole Sprouted Spelt Flour)

– 1/4 Cup Sugar (Regular, Sucanat, or Turbinado is great)

– 1/4 Teaspoon Salt

– 1/4 Teaspoon Cream of Tartar

– 1 Teaspoon Baking Soda

– 1 Cup Finely Shredded Zuchhini

– 1/3 Cup Applesauce (unsweetened, plain or with Cinnamon)

– 1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice

– 1/4 Teaspoon Lemon Zest

– 2/3 Cups Water

Mix the wet ingredients with the dry.

Mix dry ingredients in a bowl and in a separate bowl mix the wet, then combine. You can fill lined or greased muffin tins – this recipe makes 12 regular sized muffins, or 24 mini-muffins. It also fills a 9×13 Cake sheet for making cake like bars (I’d recommend lining it with Parchment paper first). Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes. Enjoy!

Feel free to add a cup of crushed Walnuts or Pecans. Dried Currants or Cranberries are another nice addition to this recipe. I’ve also successfully used Brown Rice Flour or Whole Grain Flour, but find a ratio with Refined Flour suits our tastes. And, I’m happy to share that you can substitute the Apple Sauce for 1/4 Cup Butter, or 1 egg for the 1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice if you want. This recipe is really an easy, flexible one that can be modified for whatever dietary sensitivities you may have.

Mini Zucchini Muffins ready to eat!

Zucchini Lovers Recipe Resource:

I was delighted to find a local blog, Seattle Seedling, with a whole page dedicated to Zucchini Recipes! There’s 13 and counting recipes from Zucchini Risotto to Chocolate Chip Cookies (I never would have thought of that).

p.s. Shared on Simple Lives Thursday – recipe, real food info round up.

Food, Recipes

Recipe Review: Artisan Bread in 5 Min a Day!

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Fresh, Easy Artisan Spelt Bread

In my quest to make food from scratch, bread was the one thing that daunted me. I imagined a laborious process of kneading, kneading and more kneading. Plus, the family was pretty happy with home made Tortillas and Crackers. So, I didn’t have any pressure. But, my Aunt linked to this recipe on Facebook, and so I decided to check it out.

Honestly, I doubted the “5 Min a Day” claim, but after looking over the recipe and talking to my Aunt, I learned that it takes about 3-4 hours from start to the finished result of eating a slice of bread. Or, you can keep the bread dough in your refrigerator and make a fresh loaf in the morning after about 5 minutes of shaping it (hence the name). The recipe is from FrugalLivingNW.com – they do a great job of lining out the process and include a YouTube video for more instruction. So, no need for me to repeat it here. Instead, I want to share what I have done with it.

Important note: Warm water = 100 degrees.

First Try: I made a slight alteration and used refined Spelt Flour instead of regular Wheat Flour. And, I didn’t have 6 cups of flour, so I halved the recipe and shaped 2 loaves instead of 3.  The result: small, tasty fresh bread with lovely hard crust and a moist center – but, it didn’t rise very much. Fortunately, I made my first loaf in time for a play date with my cousin and her little kids. She had experience making this recipe and gave me some good advice: make sure the “warm” water is at 100 degrees. Adding that suggestion to my notes make the loaves actually rise more.

Another tip: The recipe says it yields 3 loaves, but they are small. They’d serve just 4-6 people as a complimentary addition to a meal. As my cousin also suggested, you can remedy this by using the full recipe to make 2 larger loaves. I like this approach, because I can actually get sandwich sized slices out of it.

Since that first try, I have made this bread many times and just last week used the dough to make pizza. It was perfect! All we did was to knead it with additional flour after the rising step. That way it was less sticky as we shaped and flattened the dough out before adding our toppings.

I’ve also used a 50/50 ratio of Refined and Sprouted Spelt Flour and find it tastes even better. So, if you want to use Whole Wheat or combine flours, I think it would work out just fine. If anything, it might not rise as high.

Makes a great Pizza Dough!

We love the bread so much that when I make it, the challenge become to not eat all of it in one day. So, I don’t make bread every week because it nearly doubles our grain consumption.

Do you have a favorite easy bread recipe?

I’m looking for a great Sourdough recipe and a non-Artisan recipe – feel free to link me to it, or pretty-please do share it in the comments.

Food, Recipes

Recipe: Quick and Easy Zuchinni Soup

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Zucchini Soup

These Spring days in Seattle inspire me to eat soup. We have small doses of sunshine, then evenings of rain and a chilly wind. The problem is that I don’t like buying canned soup or pre-made soup.

Why? Well, I have my Grandmother to thank. I spent a lot of time with her after she had Triple By-pass Heart surgery. No, soup was not to blame, but it became very clear that she needed to change her eating habits and avoid Sodium (her cupboards were full of canned soup). Most mass produced soup is loaded with Sodium, whether Organic or not.  I know there are low-Sodium options out there now. But, another reason why I want to make my own soup is because I want to know what all the ingredients are. Often soup labels simply say “spices” without listing what they are, not to mention some preservatives that I cannot pronounce. Okay, getting off my podium and moving onto the recipe…

Quick and Easy Zucchini Soup

This soup takes 20-30 minutes to make from start to finish – literally serving it up to eat. Most soups made from scratch take at least an hour or longer for the flavors to blend together.  That is why this recipe was created. I love soup, but don’t always have 2 hours to wait for it to be yummy. The best thing about it is that you can create a vegan version and simply add Olive Oil when you serve it up, or use Ghee as a vegetarian option or good old Chicken or Turkey Stock.

Ingredients:

– 4 Small or 2 Medium Zucchini (Enough to yield 4 cups Finely Grated)

– 6 Cups Water

– 1/2 Teaspoon Dried Thyme

– 1 Teaspoon Salt

– One clove Garlic

– 2 Table Spoons Ghee /Butter/Poultry Stock/Poultry Drippings (the yummy goop you get at the bottom of a baking dish from Chicken or Turkey)

Fill soup pot with water, add Salt and Thyme and turn the burner onto a High temperature. Finely grate Zucchini and add to the pot, cut Garlic clove in half (if you want to fish it out and avoid eating it) or dice it up fine. Once the water warms up, add your choice of fat (Ghee/Butter/etc). Bring the soup to a boil, then reduce to a Medium temperature for about 10 minutes. Soup is ready as soon as the Zucchini looks less bright green in color. Add additional salt to taste – this will vary depending on what else you serve with it. Serve with some cheese bread, or home made crackers sprinkled on top.

Zucchini Soup with rice and home made mini crackers!

This soup is very flexible – you can add more things to it depending on what you have on hand. We’ve enjoyed adding about a cup of left over rice, some True Cod or Turkey and diced Carrots.

Let me know how you like it or what modifications you create!

p.s. Our 2-year-old loves this soup, but our 4-year-old refuses to eat any kind of soup.