Tag Archives: besan

currypotpie0

Yes, I have gotten quite bad at keeping up with Vegan MOFO, and this will be the last prompt that I will make a post for. I technically will be posting a review of How It All Vegan, which was suppose to be my favorite vegan cookbook. But this post was for the prompt “What was your first vegan meal?” Truthfully I probably had some vegan meals before I went “vegan.” I had spaghetti and tomato sauce plenty of times. But, when I first started my vegan journey in college, I remember making many meals from How It All Vegan and The Garden of Vegan.

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So this dish is from The Garden of Vegan, and it has been altered a lot over the years. My culinary skills have gotten better, and my pantry has gotten larger. But this use to be my impress a person type of dish. Back in the day I use to live on 16th and Webster in Philadelphia. It is funny seeing how much it has changed, at the time we had a rowhome that had no neighboring buildings. It looks like there are now buildings sitting next to it. I was about a mile away from my classes, and even further from a lot of the grocery stores. I needed a bike pretty badly.

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My roommate’s boyfriend was really into biking culture, and had a spare bike to give her. She had no intent of actually biking around, and the bike was much too tall for her. So like any college student, I chimed in if he was interested in giving me the bike…. for free. We struck a deal, he would give me the bike if I made him a vegan dish. He really couldn’t think of anything that didn’t have meat, cheese, or eggs in it. Naturally he loved the meal.

I still have my bike, though it is reaching the end of it’s usefulness. I hate biking in the suburbs because no one treats you properly on the roads. Plus we have a storage issue with the bikes, and I need to fix the wheel, which I am putting off. 

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As mentioned before, there has been lots of alterations with this dish. For starters, the pie cuts best when it has time to sit. In fact, these photos were taken the next day when the pie was really cold. You can also play around with all the veggies you pick for the inside, use whatever you have kicking around in your fridge and adjust cooking times. 

I also have altered the pie crust quite a lot. I remember taking the dough and just squishing it around to fill in any holes in the past. But as I make more pie crusts for desserts, I’ve learned a few tricks. Mostly upping the fat and adding some besan instead of all flour. Sadly, I didn’t chill the dough long enough and didn’t flour the surface enough, so the pie crust is a little… funky looking.

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zucchinimuff0

It has happened guys- I am featuring a recipe on the blog! The last time I posted a recipe was in March– which I am a little shocked about. I thought my last recipe was from Vegan Mofo 2015. But part of me hiding away from recipe making has been because I’ve had a little mental block. When I first got pregnant I was just mentally and physically drained. Then when hunger started to kick in, I got pretty tired of sugar fast. Why? Sugar was in almost all snacks that were quick to eat on the go.

Snacking in a healthy manner can be hard. Especially since I have lots of specifics. I work in framing and it is important that my hands are clean. I work with lots of historical documents, works of art, and sometimes completely worthless junk. But something like an apple I have to sit down, eat, then wash my hands. Hummus and veggies? Oh please. Way too messy and time consuming! So I often will snack on a clif bar, crackers, or worse- candy. So I am constantly trying to think of something to eat that is dry but has no sugar.

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So I started to think about zucchini bread. Most zucchini bread in the USA are sweet. I have even posted a chocolate zucchini muffin on the blog way back in the day. I searched high and low for zucchini quick breads, and usually found savory recipes that used yogurt or different types of cheeses in them. I made one since I had leftover yogurt. But, I wanted to make a recipe that didn’t need a “fake” vegan food. Plus, the recipe made a whole loaf, and I figured if you are making zucchini bread, it is probably summer, and you don’t want the oven on for an hour. Muffins it would be.

I think I made 3 different batches before nailing this recipe. The biggest problem was that the muffins were too dry. The flavors were always amazing. But it would be painful to eat, and crumbs would get all over the place.

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So if you make these muffins, you can use cupcake lines if you are like me and are lazy about cleaning up. Or you can oil your muffin pans, which probably would give better results. Just make sure your muffins cool ALL THE WAY DOWN before taking off the cupcake liners. Otherwise they’ll just stick to the paper (ie. don’t do what I did for that photo. Wasn’t worth it for the sexy steam shot.)

Nutrition? Well, they are a great quick little snack. They are about 160 calories per muffin, and pack 5 grams of protein. If you used enriched all purpose flour and fortified nutritional yeast, the stats are pretty nice. 65% of B1, 54% of B2 (riboflavin), 30% B3 (Niacin), 45% of B6, 15% Folate, 7% Vitamin C, 17% Vitamin K, 10% calcium, and 8% of iron. You can see more of the stats here, I skipped the macros partly because it will be heavily influenced by what type of pesto you use. I used a avocado based pesto, so the fat content is different than the one I plugged into Cronometer (which is probably a traditional basil-olive oil based pesto)

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So what makes these muffins so full of B vitamins? A mix of flours. I bought a bag of kamut/khorasan flour awhile ago since it was on sale. This isn’t gluten-free, but an older variety of wheat. Which kind-of means it is packing a lot of natural vitamins that have been lost with modern varieties. But it does have a certain texture so I mixed it with some regular whole wheat flour and all purpose flour. And help give a savory flour I also mixed in some chickpea flour which helped give a more complex nutritional profile as well. Truthfully I think the flour is more nutritious than the zucchini.

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