IMBB 27 + SHF 20 = The Joy of Soy!

Can it be? Are we really up to IMBB 27? And SHF - didn't that start a couple of months ago? SHF 20??? I knew I had skipped a few of these events, but am horrified to find I've missed ten of each. This month Reid - the nicest guy in Hawaii - is hosting both events concurrently. There is no way I'm missing this one!

And if the fact that Reid is hosting this double-header weren't reason enough to participate, the theme this month is soy. Though I know little about soy and seldom cook with it, I've always been fascinated by its infinite incarnations - soy milk, soy flour, tofu, tempeh, TVP, "soysage", soy cheese, soy bacon, etc. Soy can do it all.

I didn't go too far from my comfort zone for this occasion (tempeh wouldn't really fit in with the SHF theme, now would it?). It's that time of year when I'm (happily) inundated with blueberries, so I took my favorite blueberry muffin recipe and swapped in some soy flour and changed up my new favorite smoothie recipe by using soy yogurt. Both are delicious and together make for a nutritious breakfast with lots of protein, fiber, and nature's sweetest little brain food morsels - blueberries!



Blueberry Muffins
adapted from "Maida Heatter's New Book of Great Desserts"

1 cup fresh blueberries
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup soy flour
2 tsps baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
2 Tbs vegetable oil
1/2 cup skim milk
finely grated rind from one orange

Preheat oven to 375 F and grease muffin pan or line with paper cups.

Stir together the dry ingredients in a large bowl, then stir in the blueberries. In a small bowl, beat the egg lightly then mix in the oil, orange rind, and milk. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir with a spatula until just mixed. Spoon into muffin cups. Sprinkle tops of muffins with a generous amount of sugar. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Makes 10 muffins.

Note: Reid reminded me that one of the benefits of soy is that those that are lactose intolerant (which I think is, believe it or not, most of the adults on this planet) can use it to replace milk products. I have substituted orange juice for the milk in this recipe before and I'm sure substituting soy milk would work equally well.

A few tips about substituting soy flour: baked goods made with soy flour will brown more quickly than those without, so you may need to lower the oven temperature and/or reduce the cooking time. Because it has no gluten, you cannot replace all the flour in a recipe with soy flour and expect similar results. You can swap in soy flour for a quarter to one third of the flour. Soy flour can also be used as an egg replacer (one tablespoon soy flour + one tablespoon water = 1 egg). Interestingly, baked goods made with soy flour keep better.




Banana Blueberry Smoothie made with Soy Yogurt

I happened upon this recipe while watching an episode of Everyday Food a few weeks ago. It looked so good and sounded so easy, AND I had everything I needed to make it. The next morning I tried it and was hooked. I've since made it with strawberries (I put some fresh ones in the freezer the night before) and now with soy yogurt. It is so good - rich and creamy and surprisingly sweet, given that it has no added sugar. If you've got some flavorful blueberries, you can throw in your ugliest old banana and it will still be amazing. I've also made this without freezing the berries, and while it's not quite as thick and certainly not as frosty, it's still mighty good.


Looking back over this post, I see now it looks more like the Joy of Blueberries than the Joy of Soy, but I really did enjoy my soy - honest! Thanks to Reid for hosting this round of IMBB and SHF. Watch for his round-up later in the week over on 'Ono Kine Grindz. I'm sure it's going to be fantastic!

Technorati tags: IMBB27 SHF20

Niki's Jam & Memories of Breakfast in Vermont

A few weeks back I received a tasty little package from Niki at Esurientes - The Comfort Zone: candy (yay - I finally got a taste of Violet Crumble!), crackers, the cutest little platypus pin, a bookmark featuring a picture of Wattle (Australia's national flower), and Niki's own homemade jam. It was so sweet of her to send me all these goodies, but I was especially touched that she had included a jar of her own jam. She made it last January (summer for her, the depths of winter for me!) with plums and nectarines from her grandmother's trees. This was her first time making jam and I'd say it was a huge success! When I first tasted the jam I had a very pleasant surprise - I had expected sweet and tangy, but Niki's jam is also warmly spiced. It has the most fantastic flavor, not to mention wonderful chunks of fruit... just heaven!

I thought this special jam deserved something homebaked for its debut and last weekend I finally got around to doing some baking. I made some muffins, which are rather plainly named, Make Ahead Muffins. This is a recipe that my Mom got ages ago from a friend in our old neighborhood. I was reminded of these a couple of months ago when I spent a weekend in Vermont with Bob and Chuck. They had some muffin batter in the freezer that a friend had brought the weekend before. We baked off the rest of it for breakfast Saturday morning. When I got back I asked my Mom for her recipe, which I suspect is very similar to the one Bob and Chuck's friend had used.

I just love these muffins - they're very moist and slightly sweet. They have a flavor that is hard for me to describe, but one that is apparently etched in my memory. They are great for breakfast and are also wonderful alongside some soup for dinner. They were also the perfect foil for Niki's jam since they have a subdued flavor and aren't overly sweet. So here's the recipe for the muffins, maybe Niki will share her recipe for the jam... hint, hint!

I tweaked my Mom's recipe slightly. The original calls for All-Bran cereal, but on examining the package in the store I discovered All-Bran contains not just bran, but high fructose corn syrup, among other things. I replaced the All-Bran cereal with plain old unprocessed bran and a little extra sugar. I also replaced the shortening with oil, which I figure is healthier, easier to use, and cheaper (cheaper because I have taken to buying the kind of shortening that is not hydrogenated). This makes a huge bowl of muffin batter which will keep in the refrigerator for a while or which you can freeze. The recipe claims the batter will keep in the fridge for three weeks.

Make Ahead Muffins

2 cups oatmeal (I used quick oats)
1 3/4 cups unprocessed bran
2 cups crushed shredded wheat biscuits
2 cups boiling water
2 3/4 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
4 cups (1 quart) buttermilk
5 cups flour
5 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

Combine the cereals in a large bowl and then pour the boiling water over the cereal. Set aside. Combine the flour, baking soda and salt and set aside. In a mixer with a large bowl (I think mine is 5 qt, and it was just big enough), beat the eggs slightly then add the oil and sugar and beat just to mix. Add the dry ingredients alternately with the buttermilk, then add the cereal mixture. Beat briefly to break up and distribute the cereal. Bake muffins at 375F for 15 to 20 minutes. Yield: 4 dozen muffins

Here's a photo of our breakfast that Saturday morning. I love the lighting in the picture - we had breakfast on the porch and you can tell it was quite early in the morning. It was the start to a really wonderful weekend... wish I was there now!

SHF3 – Auntie Bee’s Cardamom Apricot Muffins

Sugar High Friday has rolled around again. Hosted by Zarah Maria of Food & Thoughts, the theme is “Spice Up Your Winter!” Participants were asked to include cardamom, nutmeg and/or allspice in their sweet creations.

I didn’t have to think about this very long before deciding that I would focus on cardamom. My great aunt, Auntie Bee, who passed away many years ago but still is very fondly remembered by my entire family, once told me that cardamom was her favorite spice. I don’t remember that she told me why, but I believe that she had a fascination with all things Swedish (probably because Uncle Ted’s family was Swedish) . This fascination apparently included Swedish cooking, because one of the cookbooks I inherited from her is titled “Good Food from Sweden”. Cardamom is commonly used in Scandanavian baked goods.

I looked through Auntie Bee's Swedish cookbook for recipes using cardamom. I found a couple that were possibilities, but the instructions all started with “Wash and dry butter.” I had no idea what that meant, although I’ve since found some instructions on-line for washing butter , and I suspect it is not necessary with the butter we purchase today.



Having ruled out the recipes from the Swedish cookbook, I was briefly at a loss as to where to turn next but then remembered that I have Auntie Bee’s recipe boxes! I looked through her recipes for cookies, cakes and breads and came up with several recipes using cardamom. There were recipes for a Coffee Braid, Holiday Cardamom Bread, Margo’s Danish Pastry, and Cardamom Fruit Muffins. I’d eventually like to try the other recipes, but for this occasion I went with the easy one – Cardamom Fruit Muffins. It is actually a variation of a recipe called “Rich & Sweet Muffins” that calls for the addition of ground cardamom and candied fruit. I swapped dried apricots for the candied fruit, cut the recipe in half, and added a cinnamon icing (an idea I got from the coffee braid recipe). The muffins were really wonderful. I don’t think I’ve ever made muffins with butter before. My usual recipe for blueberry muffins calls for melted butter, but I’ve always substituted vegetable oil. What a difference the butter makes! The crust is tender and crunchy-crumbly and the muffins live up to their name – they are rich and sweet!

Auntie Bee’s Cardamom Apricot Muffins

makes 6 – can be doubled

1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
1/8 tsp ground cardamom
¼ cup softened butter
¼ cup sugar
1 egg
¼ cup milk
¼ cup chopped, dried apricots

Preheat oven to 375 F. Butter a 6 cup muffin tin. Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and cardamom and set aside. Cream the butter with the sugar and then beat in the egg. On low speed add half the flour mixture, then the milk, and then the rest of the flour mixture. Add the apricots. Spoon batter into muffin tin and bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Allow to cool a little, then drizzle with cinnamon icing (strained confectioner’s sugar and a bit of cinnamon mixed with a little milk or cream). I used a sandwich bag with a corner clipped off to drizzle the icing.

Pumpkin Corn Meal Muffins

The other day Clotilde’s post on Chocolate & Zucchini was about corn muffins she had made from a mix. She asked if anyone had from-scratch recipes for corn muffins to recommend. A recipe for Pumpkin Corn Meal Muffins submitted by a reader was really tempting, so I copied it into my recipe software (Living Cookbook). This evening I was having leftover chili for dinner and I thought I’d make the muffins to go with it.

When I had first seen the recipe, all I had really noticed was the pumpkin and whole wheat and I’d thought “ooh -- yummy and healthy!” Looking at it again, though, I noticed it had ½ cup of butter, ¾ cup of brown sugar, and 4 eggs. I went back to Living Cookbook and calculated the nutritional data. Ouch. Each muffin had 248 calories and 10 grams of fat.

Emboldened by a couple of recent successes in modifying and creating recipes, I decided to try my hand with lightening this one. I took the things I liked from the Pumpkin Corn Meal Muffin recipe (pumpkin, whole wheat flour, brown sugar, and spices) and used my regular corn bread recipe as a guide. I was worried about the muffins being too heavy, so I used half all-purpose flour and half whole wheat. I also added a little ginger.

On paper they looked good - 160 calories and 6 grams of fat. Not exactly diet food, but still quite a bit lighter than the original. Now the only question was, had I completely messed up the recipe? I headed down to the kitchen to find out.

I’m happy to report that I got very lucky and came up with something I liked on the first try! They’re only slightly sweet – perfect as an accompaniment to chili. If you want them sweeter, you could increase the sugar or serve them with apple butter or jam.


Pumpkin Corn Meal Muffins

1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup milk
2 eggs
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
1/2 cup flour
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 tbs baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground ginger

Heat oven to 400° F. Lightly coat 12-cup muffin pan with vegetable cooking spray.

Whisk together dry ingredients (flours, corn meal, brown sugar, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger and cloves) in a large bowl. Use your hands to break up the brown sugar if necessary.

In another bowl, whisk the eggs briefly. Whisk in the oil, then the pumpkin, and finally the milk.

Using a rubber spatula, stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients just until they are blended together.

Spoon the batter into the muffin pan. Bake about 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into a muffin comes out clean. Remove from pan and cool on a wire rack.

Servings: 12


Pumpkin Corn Meal Muffins