The Raw Vegan Princess

BDWMs - Beautiful, Delicious, Wonderful, Magical Banana Date Walnut Muffins
and a smoothie

Moving away from the past few weeks when I have been getting really creative and inventing muffin recipes as I go, this week I sort-of followed this recipe of Susan's for Banana Date Walnut Muffins, with the following changes:
-to start with, i only made half the recipe
-less salt (just a sprinkle)
-regular soymilk, with a splash of vanilla essence
-less sugar
-blackstrap molasses in place of agave nectar (but a little more)
-more walnuts
As Susan says, you can leave the dates and/or walnuts out and change the name accordingly - i was going to cut down on the fat by leaving out the walnuts but I didn't, and I'm glad. I think you could leave out the dates and the muffins wouldn't suffer too much, but the walnuts are essential! My muffins didn't rise up quite as much as I was hoping but they are YUMMY! I actually missed the density I usually have and I feel a bit guilty about the quantity of refined flour, but I keep telling myself that there is hardly any sugar or fat in these muffins - that's how much they taste like 'normal' muffins. If you are looking for fat free vegan muffins that don't taste vegan or fat free, these are the answer to your prayers. I recommend them!

Yesterday morning, I decided to make a smoothie. I have had a banana hanging around in the freezer for a week, and it was time to use it. I wanted to make asmoothie with out the refined-ness (and added fat) of soymilk, so on Friday night I put some slivered blanched almonds and rolled oats (equal to 1/8 cup or so) in 1/4 cup water in my food processor bowl and left them to soak overnight. In the morning I blended them up and added the banana, plus I juiced about 1/3 punnet strawberries and stuck that in there. Then I added about 1/2 tsp blackstrap molasses and had a little taste test... not bad, but bland and boring. So I decided I would have to add some soymilk and then for consistency i stuck in about 1 tbsp silken tofu. Then I chucked in a date, for sweetness. Still not exciting. So, inspired by Ms Mercedes, I threw in an (albeit small) handful of baby spinach... and it was delicious! Seriously, this was a yummy smoothie! If you don't enjoy having to chew your smoothies a bit this probably isn't for you, but I loved it!


Sorry my blogging is a bit sporadic at the moment... there are only three weeks of semester left before exams and I have a million things due so all my internet time seems to be spent doing research!

posted by Freedom @ 2:09 pm