Vegan Strawberry Banana Muffins with Coconut Oil {recipe}

February 27, 2013 By 7 Comments
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Sunday marked the first week of the triodion, which means Great Lent is right around the corner.  I’ve been scouring my cookbooks for our favorite lenten dishes and adding them to my new handy dandy meal planning binder (details coming soon!).

On our most recent trip to a local farm for produce, the boys did some strawberry picking and I wanted to bake something with all of the deliciously fresh strawberries we brought home.  I had recently run across a recipe for these strawberry banana muffins on Love, Joleen Photography and they sounded simply delicious.  So, I whipped up a batch.  My favorite part of this recipe is that it calls for coconut oil.  I’ve been trying to cook and bake more often with coconut oil because it seems I’m hearing more and more about the benefits of it.  Plus, it’s great for non-oil days!

Vegan Strawberry Banana Muffins

(recipe yields approx. 18 muffins)

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Ingredients:

  • 2 cups whole wheat flour (can also use all-purpose flour or half and half)
  • 2 ½ tsp. baking powder
  • ½ tsp. baking soda
  • 1 tsp. cinnamon
  • pinch of salt
  • 2 large and very ripe bananas, mashed
  • 3 tbs. light brown sugar
  • ½ cup coconut oil, melted
  • ½ cup organic unsweetened applesauce
  • ¾ cup diced strawberries, stems removed
  • cinnamon & sugar for sprinkling on top (optional)

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Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. In a large bowl, sift and mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and the salt.
3. In a separate bowl, mix together the mashed bananas, brown sugar, coconut oil, and the applesauce.
4. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients. Pour in the wet ingredients and fold into the dry ingredients until everything is just combined. Fold in the strawberries. Do not over mix!
5. Line a muffin tin with muffin liners. Lightly spray them with a bit of cooking spray. Scoop the batter into each mold until each is about ¾ of the way full. Sprinkle some cinnamon and sugar on top of each muffin if desired.
6. Bake for about 13-15 minutes until lightly browned on top and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

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 I made these last week for our drive to Orlando and they were the perfect snack.  The muffins were not crumbly at all and the kids loved them!

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Lenten Cocoa Roasted Almond Biscotti {recipe}

January 25, 2013 By 2 Comments
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i’m a dunking kind of gal. i love to have my tea or coffee as soon as i wake up and something to dunk is almost a necessity. it’s so hard to find good lenten morning snacks though. don’t get me wrong, i can eat chocolate chip cookies and curious george bread till i’m stuffed, but sometimes i’m just in the mood for something different. it feels like i’m always eating the same things when i fast, so i’m usually on a mission to find new recipes.
biscotti are one of my all-time favorite snacks. always have been. and i have scoured the grocery stores looking for any kind that are vegan but i never have any luck. so, i googled for recipes and ran across a few but none that really made me think, yum! so i improvised. i took a couple of different recipes and combined them and then changed a couple of things around. the most important thing i changed were the almonds. i didn’t have any regular almonds, only the cocoa roasted ones. lucky me because they turned out super scrumptious! i wasn’t in the mood for anything super chocolate-y, so these almonds just gave the slightest hint of cocoa, which was perfect.
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Lenten Thanksgiving {recipes}

November 16, 2012 By 7 Comments
Vegetarian-Thanxgiving-dinner

For those of you planning on keeping the fast during Thanksgiving this year, I’ve compiled a list of some lenten (bka vegan) recipes to help you plan your menu.   Some of them I’ve already tried and loved, a few of them will be on our table for the first time this year.  Hope you enjoy the company of family and loved ones this and contemplate on all the blessings in your life. [Read more...]

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Fall Knitting & {lenten} Apple Cake Recipe

September 7, 2012 By 3 Comments
fall knits

Yesterday was the first morning that you could really feel fall in the air and I knew in a few short hours it would be gone, so I made tea for all of us and headed to the front porch.

The boys played on the playset and I sat on the swing and started working on this beautiful Fifth Avenue scarf. I am still on a NYC high, so the name made me smile and think back on our wonderful trip and miss all my wonderful ladies.

It was such a gorgeous morning; the sun was shining and the sky was a beautiful shade of blue. Combine that with a good cup of pumpkin creme tea and some fall knitting, and we’re talking serious relaxation time. For a little while anyhow…

Soon thereafter, I found myself sitting on the other side of the porch helping the GI Joes take down Cobra Commander. ;)
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Later that afternoon, I made a yummy apple cake. Come September, I’m all about apples and pumpkins. Considering it’s still at least 85 degrees here everyday, I have to make it feel like fall as much as possible until it finally arrives.

This is a very simple cake, especially now that I finally bought a new apple peeler corer slicer!

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Apple Cake Recipe

Ingredients:

  • 6 medium apples, peeled, cored, sliced
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 3 cups flour
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 2 teaspoons apple pie spice
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 cup oil
  • powdered sugar, for sprinkling
  • (You can also add 1 cup of nuts or raisins if desired)

Directions:

  1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Place apples and sugar in pot and simmer until sugar begins to melt. Do not boil apples. Remove from heat.
  3. Combine, flour, spices, salt, (and nuts & raisins if using).
  4. Add oil and vanilla to apples sugar mixture and blend well.
  5. Add to flour mixture and mix until well blended. Batter will be thick.
  6. Spread evenly in a greased pan (I prefer bundt pans for this cake).
  7. Bake for 45-50 minutes.
  8. When completely cooled, sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Enjoy!!

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Lenten Chocolate Doughnut Recipe

August 10, 2012 By 2 Comments
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Last weekend, we had company which consisted of nine children including my own, so I decided that snacks were in order.  For the adults, of course. [Read more...]

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Lenten Broccoli and Rice Casserole

June 27, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Broccoli and Rice Casserole

I know the Apostle’s fast is almost over and no one will want to think about lenten food for at least a month, but I made this broccoli and rice casserole by accident the other night and thought I’d share it anyway. [Read more...]

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Soda Pop Cupcakes

May 27, 2012 By 2 Comments
Soda Can Cupcakes

A couple of weeks ago while trolling Pinterest posts,  I discovered an awesome new cupcake recipe. [Read more...]

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Rustic Eggplant and Sourdough Bread Lasagna

April 5, 2012 By 5 Comments
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I recently made this recipe for eggplant lasagna and the whole family loved it!  It was a nice twist on your typical pasta dish because instead of using lasagna noodles, the recipe calls for sourdough bread.

[Read more...]

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Calamari Surprise

April 4, 2012 By 3 Comments
fresh+calamari
So, sometimes I forget that when you’re Greek and you ask a relative (in this case, my Papou) to bring me some fresh seafood, there is a very good chance that that seafood will have lots of extra parts still attached.  It sort of reminded me of the time I made my first turkey…lots of surprises. [Read more...]
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Chocolate Chip Cookies in a Muffin Tin {recipe}

July 30, 2011 By 2 Comments

Today we made a batch of these yummy chocolate chip cookies! You make them in a mini muffin pan and so they are thick and soft and simply irresistible! We made these a few times last year, but I can’t remember what site I found the recipe. I only have my scribbled down version, so I’ll share that with you. If anyone knows the original site, please post it in the comments!

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1/3 cup almond meal (also known as almond flour)
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 2 sticks unsalted butter, room temp
  • 1 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
  • 3/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 1/2 cup shredded coconut
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 cups chocolate chips

Directions:

  1. Chop the coconut either by hand or with a food processor until it is fine.
  2. In a medium bowl whisk together coconut, flour, salt and baking powder. Set aside.
  3. Cream butter and sugars in the electric mixer until fluffy.
  4. Add vanilla and eggs one at a time and continue to beat.
  5. Add the flour mixture 1/2 cup at a time and beat until blended.
  6. Stir in chocolate chips and refrigerate while preheating the oven to 375 degrees.
  7. Grease a mini muffin tin with cooking spray.
  8. Scoop batter into prepared tin until each cup is 3/4 full. (Don’t over do it or the cookies will sink in the middle.) Gently push cookies down into the tin and bake for 10 minutes or until golden brown on top. Remove from oven and let cool completely in the pan.
  9. Once cooled, use a butter knife to lift each bite sizer from the pan।

Yields approximately 4 dozen bite sized cookies.

NOTE: You can make almond flour yourself by chopping almonds in the food processor until they have a flour like consistency. With the Dormition fast beginning soon, you can also make these using the lenten chocolate chip cookie recipe.

 

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