Muffin Meals

No, these meals won't be muffins but Muffin is one of my nicknames. Besides, it sounds cute! After viewing the Vegan Lunchbox site, religiously, my Husband wants me to post my own menu. I will try to post one meal each day. I hope I inspire people to have creative and healthy home cooked meals. I think that even if you aren't a vegetarian, you'll like the meals I present. I do feature dairy products and eggs in my food from time to time, but will try my best to present vegan dishes as well.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Pumpkin Pie, a picture story

Sigh.....

If it isn't one thing, its another. My batteries kept dying on my camera everytime I wanted to post!!! Well now I have a nice sweet picture story for you.

Take a Pumpkin. Cut it in half. Pull out all of the seeds. The best way to do this is with a spoon. However, the most fun way, as any cute muffin will tell you, is with your hands!! Add a little silliness to it, like seeds on noses, ears, or all around messiness. Trust me, the pie will taste better!

Now, once your pie halves are nicely cleaned, bake them in the oven at 350. The time it will take will vary, according to your pumpkin, but a half hour is a good starting point. You want your pumpkin to be soft. So check it about when you can smell it. When done, remove from oven and let cool.

After the pumpkin is cooled, peel the outer skin off. If you have a champion juicer, perfect. If you don't, find some other way to puree your pumpkin. Puree it til it is like babyfood. You will need about 2 cups of this, so put the rest aside for the freezer or in the fridge for cookies or something.

Use the following recipe, and enjoy!

1 C packed light-brown sugar
1 T cornstarch
1/2 t salt
1 t ground ginger
1 t ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
2 C fresh Pumpkin Purée , or canned
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 C evaporated milk

1. Preheat oven to 425°. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside. In a large bowl, combine sugar, cornstarch, salt, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, pumpkin purée, and 3 eggs. Beat well. Add evaporated milk, and combine. Set aside.

2. Fill pie shell with pumpkin mixture. Transfer to prepared baking sheet.

3. Bake for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 350°, and continue baking for 30 minutes more. Cool on a wire rack.

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Odds and Ends, and reviews!

I have been so very tired. I don't' post on here because I think about it about midnight, when I'm too tired! But tonight, I am making myself. Its only 4 minutes before midnight, so I should have 4 minutes of energy left.

Here are some posts I ended to do near Rosh Hoshanah. But as you can see, that didn't happen.

Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year. And as every culture, we want it to be sweet. So we eat Apples and Honey to remind us of that! So here's my pic to show you all my wish that you have a sweet new year!

To go with the theme of Apples and Honey, one of my readers took my apple pie recipe and did exactly what I hope everyone does. She TRIED IT! Only, in true chef fashion, she modified it. Now that's my kind of cook!!

Here are her comments. "Your have posted a recipe for a one crust apple pie with honey. It sounds wonderful. I am bringing desserts to our holiday dinners and am bringing a honey cake with lemon syrup topping and want to make an apple crisp. Do you think this recipe would set up enough without the bottom crust or should I add more corn starch? Thanks." I replied to her that I believed it could as I've made apple crisp before with honey. And then after the fact. "The apple crumble (or whatever it was) came out great. My only complaint was with the apples I chose. The Granny Smiths softened more than I would have liked. But I do like the honey much better than sugar and will continue to use the honey from now on. Thanks"

I notice that if I don't use my GS apples while they are at their greenest and firmest, they do soften quite a bit. So, try it again with very firm apples (if yours weren't already), or go with another firm apple. I have no options with my apples, I'm allergic to all but GS and Gravensteins.

My last photo is of MiniB Muffin with her food creation from the children's class. Sukkot is the most recent holiday we were studying (there are Four happening this month!!!), and so to get the kids interested in class, and because messy food is fun, they made graham cracker Sukkahs! Those candies and marshmallow creme probably isn't even close to being vegetarian, let alone healthy, so she didn't end up eating much of her sukkah, but she she had fun making it!

Have a good evening and I hope to post again tomorrow!