healthier bran muffins

Despite the reputation muffins have for being healthy-ish, many bakery and supermarket muffins are nutritionally on par with a slice of birthday cake sprinkled with bran. White flour, shortening, lots of sugar...

I have been working on this bran muffin recipe to make it a little bit healthier, but still keep the muffins light and tasting like traditional muffins. There are lots of healthier baked goods recipes around based on beans, almond flour, coconut flour etc. but I find they are often very dense and don't resemble their original versions very much. 

I wanted to meet in the middle by using some flour, and converting it to whole wheat, and adding in chickpeas for a bit more protein. I also used whey protein powder to bump up the protein a little more, which isn't necessary if you don't generally use protein powders, but it's a nice extra if you have trouble getting enough protein as I do. I used molasses in place of part of the sugar to increase the nutritional profile. The combination of flour, bran and chickpeas as the base of the muffins tastes like traditional, flour based muffins, while making them a little more nutritious. 

bran muffins

Neatly, evenly filled muffin cups.

I really love my cookie scoop for filling muffin tins. I am a bit neurotic about filling them evenly and making sure they are exactly the same size and using the cookie scoop makes them perfect. It also makes less mess. You can use an ice cream scoop that has a little spring release function. I use a large sized

cookie scoop

, which I find to be too big for cookies, but perfect for muffins.

Bran Muffins:

• 1 cup chickpeas

• 2 tbs coconut oil

• 1 cup plain yogurt

• 2 tbs dark molasses

• 3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour

• 1/2 cup wheat bran

• 5 scoops unflavoured protein powder (optional)

• 1 tsp. baking soda

• 1/2 tsp. salt

• 1 tsp. vanilla

• 1 tsp. cinnamon

• 1/4 cup butter, soft

• 1/4 cup brown sugar

• 2 eggs

• 1/4 cup raisins

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. In a food processor, blend chickpeas and coconut oil until smooth. Add yogurt and molasses and mix until well combined. In a medium bowl, combine flour, bran, protein powder if using, salt, baking soda, vanilla and cinnamon.

3. In a stand mixer cream butter until light and fluffy and add sugar, mixing until well combined. Add eggs one at a time, mix until just combined and scrape down the bowl after. Add the chickpea mixture, mixing until just combined.

4. With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture and the raisins. Mix until combined, scrape the bowl down.

5. Line muffin tins with paper liners and fill 3/2 full of batter. My scoop is 3 tbs, which is the perfect size for me and yields 16 muffins from this recipe. Bake 15-20 minutes, until the tops are deeply golden brown and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

roasted yam and goat cheese wraps

I didn't get absolutely everything I wanted in my new house, but I did get my gas range.

 I love it. 

First of all, I'm sorry for not posting anything in ages; I am in a bit of life chaos right now that is eating up all of my time and energy. I moved into a much smaller apartment and I am currently unpacking/panicking about having way way too much stuff and not knowing quite what to do with it.

In my moving and stress haze, I have been trying to eat things that are easy to make and at least sort of healthy, since my tendency during times like this is to eat as much pasta and bread as humanly possible and then I feel gross. I have been eating different versions of these wraps with yams and greens and cheese mostly everyday, sometimes more than once. They have lots of vegetables, so I feel a bit healthy, but creamy cheese and enough carbs to feel a little indulgent.

Also, I needed something I could eat with my hands because I couldn't find my forks.

Wraps are one of the foods that often seem fake-healthy to me; things like fast food muffins and smoothies that are sold as healthier options but are really just as bad as any other fast food if you look closely. I try to find wraps that are whole grain and free of preservatives and other dicey additives. Usually they are in the refrigerated section of the grocery store.  I bought some sprouted wheat ones, which were great, but corn and other gluten free grain choices are tasty too.  

Note: there are no amounts, this recipe is flexible enough to use however much you like of everything. 

Roasted yam, goat cheese, kale and chickpea wraps:

Roast halved sweet potatoes, cut side up, brushed with a little olive oil, in a 400 degree oven until the surface is brown and the potato is soft when pierced with a fork. Set aside to cool. 

Finely chop kale and shred a carrot or two. Toss in chickpeas. 

Combine olive oil, balsamic vinegar and mustard and toss with greens and carrots, adding just enough dressing to coat the greens. 

Slice yams and place slices down the center of the wrap, topping with salad and add a few slices of goat cheese and salt and pepper to taste. Fold up the bottom and then sides of your wrap. 

keep on hand: garlic confit

I try to always have garlic confit in my fridge. Garlic confit is similar in flavour to roasted garlic, but it prevents the overcooked or burnt bits you sometimes get on the outside of roasted garlic. It is so useful to have garlic prepped and ready to go. I use my garlic confit everyday, in almost every savory recipe. I make the oil into vinaigrette, use the garlic in pasta, mash it into a spread, put whole cloves on pizza, pop them into sandwiches, mash them into hummus....you will use it up faster than you think so make extra. This is a good way to preserve a lot of garlic; garlic confit lasts a long time in the fridge. If you have a bumper crop of garlic, confit it!

Saftey note: Garlic in oil should always be stored in the fridge. Garlic can carry botulism from the soil and if it's stored in oil, at room temperature, it creates the perfect conditions for botulism to thrive. Even though the garlic gets boiled in this recipe, it's best to keep it in the fridge to be safe.

Garlic Confit
a lot of garlic, twenty bulbs or more, peeled
enough olive oil to cover the garlic

Put the garlic in a medium saucepan, cover with oil and place on medium high heat. As son as the oil boils,  reduce the heat to low. Continue cooking on low heat until the garlic is very soft, stirring frequently to avoid browning the garlic. Once the garlic is soft, pour into a mason jar and store in the fridge once cool.

Prepare to repel vampires and maybe some other creatures.

make some butter

I really love making butter. It seems magical to me. The process of transformation from cream to butter is always exciting; alchemical. If you find yourself with a glut of cream that you don't know what to with, this is the project for you. I advise you to recruit a friend or two to help you shake the cream; your arms will be very tired if you do this on your own.

Put heavy cream (whipping cream) in a mason jar or any container that you can easily shake that has a good seal. Anything that might pop open and spray cream everywhere is a bad idea. 

After a couple minutes of shaking, the cream will take on the texture of a heavy, dense whipped cream. Keep shaking.

In a couple more minutes the cream will clump together into one big lump. Keep shaking.

In a couple more minutes, milk will begin to pour out of that solid lump. Your jar now will contain some solid lumps that look a little like scrambled eggs sitting in milk. You made butter! Keep shaking a bit more, you need to smash as much milk out of your butter as possible. Then strain off the milk. You can use that for whatever you like, it's just milk. Even though it is buttermilk (milk leftover in the butter making process) it is not buttermilk like you would buy in the store, which contains special cultures, so you can't substitute it for that kind of buttermilk.

Run very cold water and massage your butter in the running water. You want to get all the remaining out as milk will spoil the butter faster. Once the water runs clear, remove the butter from the stream of water and squeeze it a bit more to get as much water out as possible. I wrap my butter in parchment or waxed paper and freeze it at this point, but you can store it in a glass container in the fridge as well. Salting it will make it last longer; you can work a pinch of salt into the butter with a spatula in a small bowl or massage it in with your fingers.

Ta da! It's butter. 

salmon, arugula and kamut bowl

I have been eating different versions of this meal a lot lately. I swap out a different grain, green or protein to keep it interesting. There is a similar idea over

here

, to give you more ideas. I like to keep all the components on hand for a couple days' lunches: some cooked grain, some washed and chopped greens and some cooked salmon, to throw it together fast. I sometimes eat it hot and wilt the greens a little, sometimes cold like a salad. Infinitely variable.

Cooking note: I didn't include the amounts in the recipe; it is very flexible. I use about 1/2 of a salmon fillet per serving, about 1/2 cup of grain and a big handful of arugula. Use as much of each as you like!

salmon, arugula and kamut bowl:

salmon fillets

large handful parsley

2 cloves garlic

1/4 of one preserved lemon

kamut, cooked until tender, but still

arugula 

olive oil and lemon juice

crumbled goat cheese

Puré parsley, garlic and lemon in a food processor into a paste. Place salmon fillets on a large piece of parchment paper, smear salmon with parsley paste and wrap parchment around salmon into a bundle, fasten with twine if you like. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes, or until salmon is flaky in the thickest part.

In a large bowl, place kamut, a large handful of arugula and a half a fillet of salmon. Drizzle with oil and lemon juice. Sprinkle goat cheese on top. Season with a little salt and pepper if you like.

I want this green house room

I am apartment hunting right now and I have an increasing list of unreasonable demands. A gas stove, a yard I can garden in, pet friendly, a dishwasher, washing machine...oh yes and very cheap, reasonable rent. I realise that I can't necessarily get all, or even any, of my wishlist but I do really want to get a greenroom/solarium.

Pictures from apartment therapy

I love the idea for this one I saw on apartment therapy. If I possibly can, I want to find a lovely sunroom like this one, paint it light green (a slightly less yellow, more minty shade maybe) fill it with loads of plants and eat my breakfast in it every day. If possible a little daybed for a reading, catnaps and tea drinking area. I love how the green walls and the green plants combine to filter the light in a way that feels like being under a leafy canopy.