Blueberry, oat and rose muffins (Vegan)

This recipe is taken from the book “The Enlightened Kitchen. Eat your way to better health” by Marie Oser.  If zero grammes of cholesterol and only 2g of fat per muffin sound good to you, try them out.

Heat oven to 350F or 180C.

You’ll need 1 1/2 cups of whole wheat pastry flour, so if you always mill your grains fresh in the TMX, you’ll need to do this first and then set the flour aside for later.

Then prepare a prune puree in the TMX. Marie Oser explains that prune puree is a good fat replacer in baked goods. Place 2 cups of ready to eat prunes, 3/4 cup of water and 4 tsp of vanilla extract in the TMX (I used 1 tsp vanilla powder). Puree until smooth. Put 1/2 cup of the prune puree aside for this recipe  and then fill the rest in a container, close and store in the fridge for the next baking day.  Quote Oser “Because prune puree is very high in sorbitols, a natural preservative, it will keep in the refrigerator for more than two weeks.”

Coat your muffin tray with fat to stop sticking (I used paper muffin cases).

Add the following to the TMX:

1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry

3/4 cup rolled oats

1/3 cup yellow cornmeal (next time I’ll mill this with the wheat)

2 tbsp soy flour

1 tsp non aluminium baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp sea salt

1/2 cup prune puree

3/4 cup evaporated cane sugar (I used 1/2 cup agave syrup)

2 tbsp egg replacer (I used extra 2 tbsp soy flour)

1/2 cup cold water

1/2 cup plus 1 tbsp vanilla soy milk

1 tsp rosewater

Mix in the TMX until you get a homogenous mixture. Add 3/4 cup dried blueberries (I used chopped, ready to eat apricots). Stir a few times on reverse to mix in. Pour mixture into muffin tray, sprinkle  1/4 cup soynuts on top  (I cannot get them here, next time I’ll used chopped almonds).

Bake 25 minutes or until tester comes out clean.

Very filling, very delicious;) As DH said “They’re great but they are not muffins….” Very cake-like consistency and worth a try.

French lentil soup (Vegan)

This recipe is taken from the book “Voluptuous Vegan” by Myra Kornfeld. I ordered the book today and thought I’d try out the lentil soup. You’ll find the recipe online under: www.myrakornfeld.com/recipes.php

This is my first attempt at restructuring the recipe for the Thermomix 31. Yes, experienced users would probably have got this soup quicker on the table but I had oodles of time, it’s Sunday, it’s snowing (yet again) so I don’t mind spending a little more time in the kitchen.

Start with the tomato sauce:

1. Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in the TMX 1.5 minutes, 100C, soft stir. While the oil was heating, I cut 2 medium onions (about 2 cups)  into small dice and minced 3 garlic cloves. You could chop these in the TMX first and then set aside while you heat the oil but I preferred to chop the vegetables myself.
2. Add 1/4 tsp hot red pepper flakes, the onions and garlic to the TMX and cook about 8-10 minutes on 100C/speed 1 (I left the MC off). Then add 1/2 cup of red wine and cook on 100C/soft stir/MC off for 5 minutes until it reduces a little.

3. Then add 1 tbsp tomato paste and 1 tin of tomatoes (400g). Cook for  a few minutes more (I cooked them for about 10 minutes on 100C/soft stir). Blitz for 3 seconds on speed 5 to break up the chunks. Pour the tomato sauce into a large bowl and set aside while you cook the lentils.

4. Pour 6 cups of water and 1 cup of puy lentils (I used normal brown ones) into Thermomix. The recipe states you should cook the lentils for about 25-35 minutes or until the lentils are soft. You’ll also need to add a bouquet garni of 5 fresh thyme sprigs, 3  rosemary sprigs, 1 bay leaf, and 5 flat leaf parsley  stems to give the lentils and the broth more flavour. I set the timer for 30 minutes/100C/reverse/soft stir. (I chose reverse because I was afraid the lentils would turn to mush on the normal setting). Remove the bouquet garni.

5. Add the tomato mixture to the TMX along with 1 1/2 tsp salt and black pepper to taste. Cook a further 5 minutes/100C/reverse/soft stir to allow the flavours to marry. Taste and add more salt if desired.

6. Add 3 cups chard leaves with1 tsp finely chopped fresh rosemary
1 tsp finely chopped fresh thyme.  Allow chard to wilt for 5 minutes in the hot soup, stir through, adjust seasoning if necessary and  serve hot. ( I used frozen, chopped organic spinach and just tipped it into the soup at step 5, mixed on speed 5 for 1 second and cooked for the extra 5 minutes).

This turned out to be a delicious soup, much lighter than a “normal” lentil soup. It also looked beautiful with the specks of green in among the lentils.

Since I had no fresh herbs, I added dried thyme, dried rosemary, frozen parsley and a bayleaf to the tomato sauce while cooking. Before blitzing I removed the bayleaf. At the end of cooking the soup I added a little more thyme and rosemary.

Now I can’t wait to get the book;)

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