Making vegan breakfast muffins

Look! I made my first Veganomicon recipe. I made this Almond Quinoa Muffin recipe because, as you know, I'm on a quest to find winning breakfast muffins.


Check out the ingredient list, and you'll see why I made these. The recipe calls for cooked quinoa. Woah. Also, I love apricots.

The final product was a little bland, but I think I can work with it. Since my success with the peach muffins, I'm convinced that cooking with fresh fruit is the way to go.

I should note that I used almond milk instead of soy milk. Also, almond meal is expensive!

Cute parents

I have one last summer event to document before I give up and get on with autumn plans: in August, our parents hosted a Saskatoon wedding open house/barbeque for us. Since we had a small wedding, it gave us a chance to celebrate with family friends and extended family. We ate potato salad. We drank sangria. We looked at photos from the big day.

Our parents took care of everything, and Michael and I had a chance to visit with folks that we only see at Christmas. It was fun! There are more photos on Flickr, including a few that I just added today.

Making peach breakfast muffins

I've been looking for a good breakfast muffin recipe, and I love the first one I tried. Sadly, it works best with fresh peaches, and they won't be around for much longer. Maybe you should make a bunch of them and freeze them for a wintery day!


Those moist peaches look a little gross in this photo, but they really are great. I followed the original recipe in my first attempt (pictured here), but the cinnamon sugar topping didn't stick. I think my modifications will please you.

One other thing: you really need to like molasses to like these muffins. If you don't like it, you're crazy.

Peach Breakfast Muffins
Adapted from Mr. Breakfast

Ingredients:

• 1 cup old fashioned oats
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup applesauce
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 2 eggs
  
  
• 1 and 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
  
  
• 1 and 1/2 cups fresh peaches, diced
  
  
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 cup chopped pecans
  

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

In a large bowl, combine oats, buttermilk, brown sugar, applesauce, molasses and eggs.

In a separate bowl, sift flour, baking soda and baking powder.

Stir flour mixture into wet ingredients until just moistened. Fold in peaches.

Spoon batter into prepared muffin tin.

Combine sugar, cinnamon and pecans for the topping. Sprinkle over muffins.

Bake for 18-20 minutes.

Price Tags

I admired Gordon Price when he was a Vancouver city councillor, namely because he was committed to using public transit - an important presence to have on any municipal council, but one that is often missing. Now I'm a fan of his blog Price Tags. There's something about city planning that makes my heart beat faster. I'm interested in how communites are formed, how we interact in shared spaces, how we get around, how we experience our neighbourhoods - that sort of thing. Maybe you're interested too?

Summer schemes

As you'll see, the tentative plans that I fulfilled during the summer months weren't ambitious. Basically, they can be summed up with one tentative plan: take advantage of summer, already. I owe a lot to the amazing weather (don't be fooled by the toque in the camping photo) and a four day work week (I'm back to five days now, sadly). It also helped that I didn't have any big events looming over me (like, I don't know, a wedding or a trip to Europe).

Here's a sample of my accomplishments:

Go camping. Check.

Make a smore. Check.

Eat a smore. Check.


Have a picnic in a park. Check.

Eat as much local produce as possible. Check.

Pick your own berries. Check.


Bike to work. Check.

Bike to work after your office moves, even though you have to bike through more traffic than you'd prefer (at least you can also bike over a trestle bridge). Check.


Kayak on the Gorge. Check.

Float on multiple lakes on an inflatable mattress. Check.

Go to the nude beach at Prior Lake. Check. (Lament the fact that Prior Lake is nothing like Wreck Beach. Check.)

Bike to Thetis Lake more than once. Check.

Go to the Saanich Fair. Check.

Wear sun block, but spend enough time outside that you also get a tan. Check.

Don't worry about writing about all of these things as they are taking place; there'll be plenty of time come September. Check.

Saanich Fair

I talked up the chickens on the way to the Saanich Fair, but my heart belongs to the bunnies. Especially bunnies that spoon.