B-b-b-baking: Mini Guacamuffins

I'm going to be honest. I've been feeling pretty down lately, so I haven't ventured far from my books and bed. Today, I decided to ease my mind a bit with one of my favourite things to do - baking. I find it so soothing to bake things and watch them change over time in the oven. Let's face it; science is pretty cool.

I had a couple of avocados I picked up. I've been a little bit obsessed with the idea that they are a "natural butter". Good fats? Yes, please.

So it got me thinking...if avocados are basically butter, they can probably substitute for butter in a recipe for cakes or cookies or something of the like, right? Well. According to Google, yes they can. Luckily for me, I can justify my urge to bake tonight because there's some sort of baked goods potlucky thing at Job #1 tomorrow. Another great opportunity to create something weird that doesn't have gluten, eggs, nuts, or dairy. Challenge accepted.

Things I have learned today about avocados:
- Their creamy texture makes them easier to bake with than bananas (despite the fact that I used bananas as well).
- The taste of an avocado is so minute that you can hardly detect it in a baked good if only using the senses of taste or smell. Unless of course you are a professional food person. I am not, just like many people in the world who enjoy eating things.
- The only setback to baking with avocado is that the green colour sticks out unless you were to cover it with chocolate/cocoa. A lot of people seem to have done this, but I'm not as bothered about the green. The green is kind of faint... It can look really pretty when incorporated into a chiffon cake like Kirbie's Cravings did.

Today was all about trying new things...
I made mini cupcake/muffins.
I baked the mini muffins in candy cups. (Because I felt like I could buy a very nice dinner for the price of a Wilton 24 Mini Muffin Baking Pan.)
I used chia seed egg replacers. (Because flax is still gross.)
I made gluten-free, vegan muffins.

Serenity...

They came out looking kind of like little green brioches. I ate one to make sure it didn't taste bad. It didn't :)

Avocado Banana Mini Muffins (adapted from Gluten-Free Goddess)
*Celiac and Vegan-Friendly*
1 avocado
1 banana
1 cup golden yellow sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened soy milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 chia egg replacers
1 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup tapioca starch
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp table salt
1 1/2 tsp xanthan gum

*Of course, you can always use regular eggs or other egg replacers instead of chia seeds. As well, you can substitute other types of flour in place of the rice flour and starch. If you use any gluten-containing flours, you won't need xanthan gum.

1. Preheat oven to 375F. Line a 24 mini muffin tin or spread 24 paper candy cups on a cookie sheet.

• I was a little bit cautious because of all the new things I was trying all in one go, so I only baked 12 at a time in a deep dish (in case it exploded or something crazy like that).

2. To make chia egg replacers, put 2 tbsp of chia seeds in a cup with about 6 tbsp of warm water. Let stand until ready to add eggs.
3. Mash or puree avocado until smooth and creamy, and mix in sugar until combined.
4. Mash banana and add it to the mixture. (You don't have to add the banana. I was just unsure of how the pure avocado taste would come across, so I added the banana. I was thinking about leaving it out at first, but maybe green muffins are scary enough as it is.)
5. Add vanilla to chia egg replacer, stir, and add to wet mixture.
6. Sift all dry ingredients together into another bowl, and add half of it to wet mixture, folding until just combined. Add and incorporate 1/4 cup soy milk. Repeat with remaining half of flour mixture and soy milk.
7. Fill mini muffin tins/candy cups until level and bake for about 15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

• The first 5 minutes are kind of suspenseful because you don't see a whole lot going on. 7-8 minutes in, they start blooming from their cups.

8. Enjoy your gluten-free, egg-free, nut-free, dairy-free mini muffins!

-M

Cardio and Cooking: Summer Rolls Before It "Falls" (ba dum tish!)

I wanted to try something new today. I decided to pay tribute to summer before autumn officially hits, after being inspired by one of my new favourite food blogs, Broke Ass Gourmet. First of all, I love the title. Secondly, in addition to your typical recipe prep and cook times, the author, Gabi also provides her readers with the individual costs of each ingredient she has used. It goes to show that you don't have to spend that much to eat well and I like that idea :D

Things I have learned today about summer rolls:
- They are called summer rolls. I've always just called them salad rolls because that's what the English on menus in Vietnamese restaurants say.
- They are a super fast, easy, and inexpensive lunch idea! Ideal for students ;P
- They will magically transform into spring rolls if fried (or baked)!

I wish I could have put all the typical fixings in them (i.e. carrots, glass noodles, beansprouts, cilantro, shrimp, etc.) but I didn't have any of those things at home. I just decided last night that I wanted to make them, which is about as convenient as most of my ideas are. So. Mine were what you would call more...improvisational...and..."contemporary"...?

So, I saw that Gabi had used avocado in her rolls. I happened to have a ripened avocado~ (And I was not going to make the same mistake as last time where I put the whole thing into a blender and smoothie-fied it.) I also have this thing where I need to keep an aesthetic balance in terms of colour. I thought of using a peach instead of mango because it's...kiiind of similar? :/ And then, I wanted something orange-ish. I had no carrots at home, so I settled for...eggs. I don't like eggs, but it looks nice, no? So, there. I ate an egg today.

My first try at summer rolls. I need practice on folding them without tearing the rice paper...

Today's Summer Rolls Version 1.0
(Makes 5 rolls)
Half of an avocado
Half of a white peach
2 eggs
5 rice paper circle sheets (called spring roll wrappers or "Banh Trang")
Warm water

1. Boil your eggs. After they have boiled, place them into a bowl of cold/ice water until cooled. Then, peel the shell, and slice into halves, and then halves again.

• To boil your eggs, set however many eggs you want into a pot, and fill it with cold to room temperature water just an inch above the eggs' surfaces. Make sure that if you are making a lot, you only have a single layer of eggs in your pot. Don't stack them. Bring to a rolling boil without the lid for a 2-3 minutes, then remove it from the heat, cover with a lid, and set aside for about 12 minutes.

2. Pit, skin, and slice half of the avocado into strips.

• Of course, you can use the whole thing, but you'll just need more fruit, more rice paper, and more eggs. I knew already knew it would be too much, so I used the other half of my avocado and peach for breakfast. I pureed them together, spread that onto two slices of toast, and drizzled it with a teaspoon of honey. Sorry, I didn't take a picture because I was too hungry. It was good though. :)

3. Pit and slice half of the peach into strips.

• If you don't want the skin on the peach, you can blanch it. Do so by adding it to your pot of eggs when the water is boiling, and remove it with a slotted spoon after about 1 minute. Place the peach into a bowl of cold water for a bit before removing the peel, and it should come off very easily. You can do this for tomatoes as well, but tomatos are much faster and take only about 30 seconds.

4. Pour some warm water into a pie dish. Place one rice paper circle into the warm water for about 10-15 seconds until soft enough to use. Remove the rice paper and put it onto a plate to arrange your summer rolls. Don't leave the rice paper in for too long or it will get soggy and tear and die. I found that out the hard way today...
5. Arrange strips of avocado, peach, and egg in a row. And...roll and tuck like Peking duck!
6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 until all of your ingredients disappear. Serve with peanut sauce or hoisin sauce and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Et voila! C'est magnifique! (But not really...I would say put something crunchy inside too. All of my fillings were soft, so it wasn't as awesome as it could have been. :/)

• My peanut sauce wasn't very fancy. It was essentially melted peanut butter...

So there you have it! I will try again soon enough but with the real goods at some point because I now have a stack of rice paper circle sheet things in my pantry.

-M

Cravings: Thick Toast

I've been having serious munchies for toast lately. Not regular toast though. Fluffy, warm, gooey, thick toast. You know, the Asian comfort food kind.

I could have posted about one of my new favourite Asian snack places, Gama Store (10418-82 Avenue), but that will have to wait for another day because I haven't been pausing to photograph food before consuming it entirely. They happened to be one of my stops for thick toast, not that I have many options in Edmonton to begin with...

I made E take me for thick toast 2 days in a row. I could have taken the time to do some sort of comparison like a thick toast throwdown if only my appetite wasn't so barbaric.

On Monday, we went to Tasty Choice (#107, 2920 Calgary Trail) for toast. According to some other Edmonton food blogs, their toast was pretty good, but after mine and E's experience, I beg to differ. It wasn't bad per se, but it definitely want what we expected. We picked two kinds: I got Matcha and E got coconut. E made the wiser choice...the coconut was better. However, in both cases, they gave us two slices of your typical Safeway bread toast cut in half diagonally, drenched in butter, with clumps of Matcha or coconut topping stuff. E and I both agreed that it totally would have been fine if the toast was thick like it was supposed to be...but in their defense, the menu just said toast and not thick toast, and they did give you 2 slices of toast. Each order costed 3.50 (plus tax)...a little much for what we got :/ but enough to satisfy the munchies.

On Tuesday, we went to Gama Store and it was much better. I picked Coconut Taiwanese Toast, crossing my fingers. Then again, I've never had a poor experience at Gama as of yet. I will do a post on them the next time we go. Back to the story. The toast was thick just like it was supposed to be, rounded on one side instead of square, but I can live with that. The coconut spread was delicious and they gave you a good amount. The inky wilted thing was that the guy put chocolate sprinkles on top in such a way that it kind of resemble mouse poo. But yum. That was the toast that I wanted. Their thick toast is generally 2.50 (including tax!) and they know how to do it correctly, so I'd recommend going there if you're in the pickle I was in.

On Wednesday, we decided to go get a loaf of Texas Toast. Even though Gama had slightly cheaper thick toast, as usual, things are more economical if made at home. Luckily for us, it happened to be on sale at Safeway for 2/$4. I have peanut butter, condensed milk, and shredded coconut at home so I was pretty prepared.

Things I have learned today about thick toast:
- Thick toast is relatively easy and inexpensive to make. It would be even easier and more energy efficient to make with a toaster oven.
- Thick toast is good at any time of the day.
- There are only 2 places that offer thick toast that are not in Edmonton Chinatown. I haven't tried places in Chinatown. I don't even know where those places are, if they do exist.

I ended up making my peanut butter brick toast this morning for breakfast as you can see below. It was my attempt to stay in the lines but satisfy my craving all in the same.

Peanut Butter Thick Toast
1 slice Texas Toast
1 tbsp peanut butter

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Prepare a small pie pan with parchment paper.
3. Use a knife to score a "#" pattern onto the bread but not all the way through. Just enough to let the peanut butter seep everywhere.
4. Slather on the peanut butter across the surface of the bread.
5. Bake for 6 min.
6. Turn it 180 degrees and bake again for another 4 min. You can also take this time to throw on some chocolate chips or shredded coconut. I didn't have time, and that would easily add extra taboos into my breakfast. :/
7. Top with fruits or whatever else to your liking or eat it as is.

Mmm...toasty, smooth, fluffy goodness...

-M

Cardio and Cooking: "Clean out the fridge", he says.

I slept in a bit this morning by accident, so I needed to put together a quick breakfast. One of my summer go-to's has been the 3-cup cereal routine featuring blueberries! Boy, do I love blueberries...I am saddened that they are almost out of season...but that's why you selfishly stock up on them and freeze them. Frozen blueberries are great on their own, as additions to salads, smoothies, toppings on frozen desserts, and substitutions for ice cubes!

Things I learned today about blueberries:
- You should check to see if there are still stems in your blueberries while washing them so that you aren't surprised while eating your cereal.
- Blueberries might be the only things to get me to eat cereal. I suppose oats are a cereal too...in that case, smoothies will get me to drink cereal, but the chances are increased infinitely if there are blueberries in the smoothie.
- Wikipedia says that blueberries are native to North America! Yay us! :D

3-cup brekkie: 1 cup fresh blueberries (may contain stems), 1 cup Honey Nut Cheerios, and 1 cup unsweetened soy milk.

3-Cup Breakfast
1 cup cereal
1 cup fruit
1 cup milk (non-dairy for me)

Add all ingredients into a bowl and consume before the cereal gets soggy.

If I eat cereal and milk without fruit or other fixings, I will have two bowls - one for dry cereal, and one for milk. When eating it, I will sprinkle a single layer of the cereal onto the milk and eat all the pieces of cereal floating in the milk before adding another layer. I will continue doing this until all of the cereal in my bowl has disappeared. I do not like soggy things. To me, breakfast cereal only tastes good when it's crunchy. Putting oats into a smoothie is a different story because you generally blend the smoothie until it's homogenous and you don't have single gritty grains of oats. I am a very texture-y person. I like foods and objects based on textures.

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Pesto, like most foods, tastes better when consumed within three days of being made. I'd been working through the pesto for my lunches. On Monday, I tossed a couple tablespoons of pesto with a half cup of gnocchi, and the second half of the red bell pepper from my omelette that morning. On Tuesday, I tossed another couple tablespoons of pesto with the remaining half cup of gnocchi, and half of a zucchini, chopped and stirfried with some black pepper. As well, I packed pesto with some spaghettini and the other half of my zucchini for my mom (she likes pesto because she thinks it's super fancy). As an attempt to switch things up, I thought of using the pesto as a sauce for flatbread. My brother, V helped me assemble these beautiful personal pan pizzas for everyone's lunches tomorrow. This required the making of some flatbread...

Things I have learned today about flatbread:
- Flatbreads can be made quickly without yeast, although yeast would provide for an airier, more elastic flatbread. Buuuut...I still had piano practicing and reading to do tonight. (I did do it before writing in my blog, I swear.) Generally, the yeast-free recipes entail cooking the dough in a frying pan or griddle. I could try using the panini press for this too, I'm sure. I remember there being a setting called "griddle".

I think life would be easier with a toaster oven. Some day, when he's not looking, I will steal E's. >:)

My brother is good at topping pizzas. Mmm...

It's funny how the first one we made was the closest to a circle we had. The shape of each pizza became more and more irregular as we progressed... We'll just say they're Neapolitan! That's why no one pizza is the same! I learned that from Famoso. Don't get me wrong though - Famoso is awesome. :)

Quickie Personal Pan Pizzas (based on Griddle Flat Bread from About.com)
(Makes 4)
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting and shaping (remember when you follow a recipe that uses flour, that Edmonton is super dry.)
3 tbsp corn oil, plus more for cooking
1 cup water
5-6 ice cubes
2 tsp table salt
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
4 tbsp pesto (if you use another kind of sauce, you probably want more...It's just that pesto is rich, so less is better.)
4 slices of deli blackforest ham
*Of course you can add whatever toppings and however much your heart desires.

1. Measure 1 cup of water before adding ice cubes so that you actually have at least a cup of ice water, and set aside.
2. Prepare two baking sheets with parchment paper and preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.
3. Mix flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda in a bowl.
4. Incorporate ice water and oil into the flour mixture in small additions, until you have a soft dough. You may or may not need all of the water.
5. Divide dough into 4 equal sections. Flouring your hands in between, shape each dough section into a ball, and flatten it into a round disk with your palm.
6. Lightly brush both sides of each disk with oil and use a fork to stab holes on the both sides of each as well. This helps the dough puff up while cooking.
7. Cook each flatbread individually in a pan on medium heat until golden brown on each side, then remove from heat and place on a baking sheet. I put 2 flatbreads on each baking sheet for convenience and efficiency.
8. Once griddled, have your brother spread 1 tbsp of pesto on the top of each flatbread and also have him cut each slice of ham into smaller pieces to put on top of the pesto.
9. After he finishes artistically topping your pizzas, bake for about 8 minutes so that the parmesan in the pesto melts a bit, and the ham crisps up on the edges like..."healthier bacon".
10. Cut each pizza into 4 slices and set onto cooling racks until ready to put away into tupperware containers.

Things I cleaned out of the fridge today:
- Fresh blueberries
- Soy milk
- Deli blackforest ham
- Pesto

You're welcome, Dad.

- M

Cardio and Cooking: Little, But Large

This morning, I got up to run for an hour and a half to make up for my blatant overindulgence at last night's potluck. Then...I felt like rewarding myself with a decent breakfast.

I made use of the egg white from yesterday and made a scramble paired with 2 slices of toast and some juice. Somehow, my breakfast was still under 400 calories?

Things I have learned today about egg whites:
- Only cooking an egg white is almost like cooking nothing. About a third of the egg disappears when you take away the yolk!
- The gelatinous texture of the egg white makes you realize why they are in meringues, macarons, and all the light, fluffy things.
- Without the yolk, it looks like a blob of mucous.

A pretty full-looking breakfast: A glass of Oasis Wild Berry Pomegranate Juice (yay antioxidants), 2 slices of white toast with 1 tsp of margarine, and my egg white scramble.

Simple Egg White Scramble
1 egg white
Half of a red bell pepper
1 thin slice of deli blackforest ham
1 tsp corn oil
Salt and pepper

1. Prepare a pan on medium heat and add the oil.
2. Dice the bell pepper and cut the ham into smaller pieces as you would for an omelette.
3. Beat the egg white and add it along with the peppers and ham into the pan.
4. Scramble until just cooked. I like it when bell peppers are cooked, but still crisp.
5. I can sometimes have a blander palette than most, so be sure to adjust with salt and pepper to taste as needed.
6. Pop a couple slices of bread into the toaster, and pour yourself a nice glass of milk or juice to enjoy with your scramble!

Does anyone else know any good breakfast ideas made with egg whites? Or any good breakfast ideas in general? I'd love to hear about them!

-M