Eat Well, Feel Well: #blissfulblueberry

Blissful Blueberry Banana Muffins
Vegan, gluten free, refined sugar free

My apologies for the lack of posts friends, I've finally caved and started Netflixing... so bad. 

Anyway...

Blueberries, bananas and walnuts oh yes please!  I was browsing Oh She Glows website one day and I stumbled upon these delicious looking muffins.  I was ecstatic when I saw that I had all of the ingredients (I was low on groceries).

Recipe By Oh She Glows

Yields: Approx 12 regular and 12 mini (I only have one regular sized muffin tin) OR 18 reg or 36 minis

3/4 cup Mashed Bananas (approx 2)
3/4 cup + 2 tbsp Unsweetened Almond milk
1 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar
1/4 cup Maple Syrup (the good stuff!  Not the Aunt Jemima madness)
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1/4 cup Coconut Oil, melted
2 cups Spelt Flour
6 tbsp Coconut Sugar
2 tsp Baking Powder
1.5 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Fine Grain Sea Salt
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 cup Walnut Pieces, chopped
1 cup frozen or fresh Blueberries

Preheat oven to 350F and lightly grease the muffin tin (if you don't have parchment cups).  If you do, just use parchment cups

On a small cutting board, mash your banana with a fork.  I find this a lot easier than fumbling around the bowl.  Place the banana into a medium bowl with the almond milk, apple cider vinegar, maple syrup and vanilla.  No need for stirring at the moment.  Set it aside.  

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, coconut sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and baking soda.

Stir the coconut oil into the wet mixture.  Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until JUST combined!  You do not want to over mix this.

Gently fold in the walnuts and then the blueberries, again do not overmix.  The right picture is what my batter looked like before I added the walnuts and blueberries.

Spoon about 1/4 of the batter into each parchment cup; it'll be about 3/4 full.

Found him like that while I was baking haha #boss .

Bake for 23-27 minutes (I did approx 25) until you prick a toothpick in the center and it comes out clean.  I only had one large muffin tin, so I did end up making some minis too and I stuck some chocolate chips inside them.  Cool in the muffin tin for about 5 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack.

These were quite delightful and make great snacks!  I did use fresh blueberries but if you do only have frozen blueberries, make sure they're kept in the freezer right up until you add them into the batter to prevent bleeding.  They were moist, cakey and burst from the blueberries.  As you can see. I took some before taking a picture hehe.  They were hard to resist.

Enjoy!

Eat Well, Feel Well: #tofuinmypie

Chocolate Fudge Pie

Hello beautiful people!  I was going to wait a bit before I posted this, however, I was feeling down in the dumps and did not want to stare at my endless lecture notes any longer... Yay Finals week.

So instead of studying yesterday, I made a chocolate fudge pie with it's main ingredient being TOFU!

Whatttttttt?  Yes, Tofu!  And you know what it tastes great!

Recipes by Oh she Glows and Chocolate Covered Katie

Crust: for 1 9-inch 

3/4 cup raw almonds

1/4 cup coconut oil (melted)

3 tbsp Maple Syrup

1/4 tsp fine grain sea salt

1/2 cup Oat Flour

1 cup Rolled Oats

*Tip:  Read the instructions before you go ahead and begin mixing everything together...... =)

Filling: 

12.3oz Firm Tofu (I may try medium firm next time so it's more mousse like)

1 1/2 tsp Cocoa Powder

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

2 tbsp Almond Milk

Pinch of salt

1 and 1/3 cup of Chocolate Chips

1/3 cup Coconut Flakes**

1 tsp Coconut Extract**

**I wanted some coconut flavour.  Definitely need to increase both amounts next time.

Preheat oven to 350F.

Lighty grease your 9 -inch pie dish with coconut oil.  Put the almonds into the food processor and grind until a flour forms.  Ad the coconut oil, maple syrup,salt, and oat FLOUR and grind until a dough forms.  Pulse in the Rolled oats so there's still texture to the crust. 

The dough should be sticky.  Put the dough evenly over the base of the pie dish.  Beginning at the center, press the dough firmly into the dish, slowly moving outward and upward.  Push hard enough that it will stick together.  Poke holes with a fork so that air can escape when you bake this.

Bake for 10-13 minutes, until golden brown and you smell them almonds.  Cool for 20 minutes.

That block...

Melt the chocolate with a double boiler or microwave.

Till it's silky smooth. 

Put everything except the coconut flakes into the food processor and bend until smooth.  Pour the mixture into a bowl and fold in the coconut flakes.   

Put the mixture into the pie crust and chill in the refrigerator!  

Delicious!  You won't even know there's tofu in it. 

Garnish with fruits, yogurt, peanut butter or red bean!  The possibilities are endless!

For those who are feeling down at the moment, smile!  Keep it positive and do not fret over trivial things... which is what I will try to do. 

Enjoy!

Eat Well, Feel Well: #blackbeanpeanutbuttertime

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

Chocolate chunks of goodness with the main ingredient being black beans!  With black beans, it gives you the consistency of a fudgy moist brownie along with other lovely benefits for your body other than gas.

Recipe from Kumquat Blog

1 (15 oz) canned Black Beans (rinsed and drained)

2 tbsp Cocoa Powder

1 tbsp Vanilla

2/3 cup Peanut Butter

1/3 cup Honey

1 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 cup Dark Chocolate Chips

Preheat your oven to 350F.

Combine all of the ingredients except the chocolate chips into a food processor and mix until very smooth. 

Transfer the mixture to a bowl and stir in the chocolate chips. 

Scoop the dough and place on parchment lined baking sheet.  Press lightly.  Bake for 10-12 minutes.  

These were an absolute hit!  I hope you gives these fudge like cookies of deliciousness a try!

Enjoy!

Eat Well, Feel Well: #chchchchiadonut

Chia Donuts!

One of my favourite go to snacks without the guilt ;).  I recently started my practicum placement at a lovely facility and I wanted to essentially kill two birds with one stone.  Have an excuse to bake more healthy creations and blog about it; now I can give it to people rather then finishing it all myself.

This lovely recipe is from the Oh She Glows book!

Yields 6

For the Donuts:

3/4 cup Oat Flour (I ground up rolled oats in the food processor)

1/2 cup Chia Seeds

1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder

1/4 tsp Fine-Grain Sea Salt

1/4 tsp Ground Cinnamon

1/3 cup Maple Syrup or other liquid sweetener

1/3 cup Almond Milk (any milk; I used Coconut Milk)

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

Preheat the oven to 300F.  Lightly grease a donut pan with some baking spray.  Set aside.

I was making 3 separate batches because I only had one donut pan :(.  

In a large bowl, combine oat flour, chia seeds, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.

Add your maple syrup, milk and vanilla and stir until well combined.  The batter will be runny, that is just fine!

Spoon the batter into the donut pan, filling each to the top.

Bake for 20-22 minutes until firm to the touch.  You can also use the toothpick test.

Cashew Cream:

*So if you want to drizzle it on I would use 1/2 cup of cashews that were soaked over night (or if you're in a time crunch, soak them in boiling water for 2 hours) and blend it with 1/4 cup of water and you can get the nice lines.

However, I was not sure who would like it or not so I made a more solid Cashew Cream that they could spread on top themselves!

3/4 cup Soaked Cashews

Approx 2/3 cup Water (gradually add until it's at your desired consistency)

1 Tbsp Coconut Oil

Blend everything together!  This made a lot so I would probably half this next time!

|They were a hit!  Hope you give these little guys a try.

Enjoy!