Seeded No-Knead Bread

Seeded No-Knead Bread

The other day, I was looking at a collection of recipes. The link is here:

https://www.budgetbytes.com/category/recipes/vegetarian/vegan/

One recipe in particular stood out to me so I made it; here is the recipe link:

https://www.budgetbytes.com/seeded-no-knead-bread/

This bread is so good and it’s actually really easy to make.  You just have to plan ahead to make bread like this because the dough needs to sit for at least 12 hours before you bake it.  Is it weird that I took so many photos of this bread from a variety of angles?  It’s just such a pretty loaf of bread!  The bread has an amazing crust because it’s baked in a Dutch Oven.

5 from 10 votes

Seeded No-Knead Bread

This simple Seeded No-Knead Bread is packed with seeds for extra texture, flavor, and nutrients! 

Prep Time13 hrs

Cook Time40 mins

Total Time13 hrs 40 mins

Total Cost: $0.68 recipe / $0.17 serving

Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsp rolled oats $0.02
• 1 Tbsp chia seeds $0.16
• 1 Tbsp hemp seed hearts $0.17
• 1 Tbsp ground flaxseed $0.04
• 1/2 cup warm water $0.00
• 1 cup all-purpose flour $0.08
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour $0.10
• 3/4 tsp salt $0.02
• 1/8 tsp instant yeast (or bread machine yeast) $0.02
• 1/2 cup room temperature water $0.00

Instructions

• Place the oats, chia seeds, hemp hearts, and flaxseed in a small bowl. Add 1/2 cup warm water and stir to combine. Let the seeds soak for 1 hour.
• In a separate large bowl, combine the all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, salt, and yeast. Stir until very well combined. Add the soaked seeds and then stir until they are as combined as possible (the mixture will be fairly dry). Add about 1/2 cup water, or just enough to form a sticky dough. The dough should be wet enough that there is no dry flour left on the bottom of the bowl, but not so wet that it appears slimy. It should be sticky to the touch. 
• Cover the bowl of dough loosely with plastic and let it sit at room temperature for 12-18 hours. If you can not tend to the dough within 18 hours, you can press "pause" on the fermentation by transferring the bowl to the refrigerator.
• When you're ready to make the bread, the dough should have expanded and have an almost fluffy appearance. Sprinkle it liberally with flour and scrape it away from the edges of the bowl. Turn the dough over on itself in the bowl a few times, adding more flour as needed to keep it from sticking to your hands, until it forms a smooth ball and is no longer quite as sticky.
• Transfer the ball of dough to a piece of parchment paper and let it rise for one hour. About half way through the rise time, place a Dutch oven, with its lid, into your oven and set it to bake at 425ºF. Allow the Dutch oven to preheat inside the oven for 30 minutes.
• Once the dough has risen a bit on the parchment (it will tend to spread out and not so much up), it's time to bake. Carefully remove the Dutch oven from the oven, remove the lid, and then lift up the entire piece of parchment with the dough and place them inside the Dutch oven. Place the lid back on the Dutch oven and carefully return it to the hot oven.
• Bake the bread in the Dutch oven for 30 minutes, then carefully remove the lid and bake for another 10 minutes so the top can brown. When finished baking, carefully pick up the parchment to lift the bread out of the Dutch oven and allow the bread to cool slightly before cutting and serving.

Vegan Banana Bread

Vegan Banana Bread

I started following a new vegan cooking blog on Facebook. It’s called “Connoisseruvus Veg”.  Don’t ask me how to pronounce that.  The logo on the blog is a dinosaur so that might give some clues as to pronunciation.  On Facebook the other day, an easy vegan banana bread recipe was posted.  Since I had three overripe bananas on my countertop, the Universe was telling me I needed to drop everything and make this banana bread.  Typically I make a vegan banana bread from a blog called “Cookie Madness” (see link HERE), but I thought it would be fun to make a new recipe.  

Both recipes are great.  I think the recipe I made this week has fewer ingredients than the Cookie Madness recipe.  Aside from that, I think the flavors are very similar.  Both recipes call for three bananas.  This is not a complaint; it’s more of an observation.  I wish banana bread recipes would reflect an actual measurement for amount of banana needed (ie. 1 cup mashed bananas).  My bananas were on the small side and I worried my banana bread would be dry.  I ended up adding in a few tablespoons of almond milk to be on the safe side. I had considered adding in a little unsweetened applesauce which I think would have been a good idea as well considering my bananas were small.

Here is the super easy Vegan Banana Bread recipe I made this week. I added in about 1/2 cup of toasted walnuts which is always a great addition in my humble opinion.

Check out the recipe here:

https://www.connoisseurusveg.com/vegan-banana-bread/

Sorry these are not the best photos.  The banana bread is good plain (above) and also good with peanut butter (below).  So good!

Vegan “Bran” Muffins with Flax, Applesauce, and Chickpea Flour

Vegan"Bran" Muffins

I've been having fun experimenting with a new ingredient: chickpea (garbanzo bean) flour!
A blog called "Power Hungry" has a lot of good recipes using this ingredient so I decided to give chickpea flour a try.  Turns out this blogger has literally written the book on chickpea flour; you can see the book HERE.

My first version of this recipe was a flop but that was entirely my fault. I had some HUGE frozen blueberries in my freezer and I was wanting to use them up.  I put way too many of the frozen berries in the batter. When I went to take the muffins out of the pan, they fell apart and I noticed there were areas around the berries that just did not bake.  It occurred to me that I should have let many of the ingredients come to room temperature and that would have probably allowed the muffins to bake all the way through.  I used almond milk, flax meal, and chickpea flour all right out of the refrigerator and frozen blueberries; room temperature would have been better.



Here is the original recipe:
CLICK HERE

I wanted to try this recipe again but I was out of bananas.  I decided to use unsweetened applesauce in place of bananas and the muffins turned out good the 2nd time around.  I also used maple syrup in place of the molasses since I used up the last of my molasses when baking the muffins which were an under-baked flop.  These muffins really are not "bran" muffins but the ground flax meal in the batter makes the muffins taste and feel like bran muffins.

Vegan "Bran" Muffins with Flax, Applesauce, and Chickpea Flour
Adapted from "Power Hungry"

Ingredients

• 1 cup chickpea flour
• ¼ cup flaxseed meal
• 1-3/4 teaspoons baking powder
• ¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
• 4 ounces unsweetened applesauce (1/2 cup)
• ½ cup nondairy milk
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil or melted coconut oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Spray or grease 8 cups of a standard size muffin pan.
2. In a small bowl, whisk the chickpea flour, flaxseed meal, baking powder, cinnamon and salt until blended, being sure to break up any and all lumps in the chickpea flour.
3. In a large bowl, stir together the banana, milk, maple syrup, oil and vanilla until blended. Add the flour mixture, whisking until blended and smooth.
4. Divide batter evenly between the prepared cups.
5. Bake in the preheated oven for 16 to 20 minutes until the surface of muffins appears dry and a toothpick inserted near center of muffins comes out with only moist crumbs attached.
6. Cool in pan on a cooling rack for 10 minutes. Remove muffins from pan and serve warm or cool completely.

Healthy Double Chocolate Zucchini Muffins

Healthy Double Chocolate Zucchini Muffins

Healthy Double Chocolate Zucchini Muffins

Recipe from "Ambitious Kitchen"

Link:  http://www.ambitiouskitchen.com/2014/07/healthy-double-chocolate-zucchini-muffins/

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour or white whole wheat flour
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons coconut oil, melted and cooled (I used extra virgin olive oil)
• 1/3 cup honey or agave nectar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 egg
• 1 egg white
• 1 cup shredded zucchini (about 1 medium)
• 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce (you can also use greek yogurt!)
• 1/2 cup Almond Breeze Unsweetened Almond Milk
• 1/2 cup regular or mini chocolate chips (I used a little less)

Instructions

1. Preaheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 12 cup muffin tin with cupcake liners and generously spray inside of liners with nonstick cooking spray.
2. Squeeze shredded zucchini of excess water with a paper towel. This is important, so don’t forget!
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt; set aside.
4. In the bowl of an electric mixer, add coconut oil, honey, vanilla, egg and egg white; mix on medium-low until smooth and well combined. Add in zucchini, applesauce, and almond milk; mix again. Slowly add in dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Gently fold in chocolate chips.
5. Evenly divide batter into prepared liners. Bake 22-25 minutes or until toothpick inserted into middle comes out clean. After 5 minutes, remove muffins and transfer to wire rack to finish cooling. Enjoy!

Notes

To keep muffins dairy free, use dairy free chocolate chips.

I love adding a few extra chocolate chips (2-3) on top of each muffin before baking to make them look pretty, but it's up to you!

3.2.2807

It's a cold and snowy April day in Southern Colorado.  Despite there being leaves on all the trees, as there should be this time of year, we have wet, gloppy snow coming down.  Hopefully we don't lose any tree limbs and hopefully we don't lose heat and power with limbs falling on above ground power lines.  We briefly took the dogs for a walk this morning, but it was cold, wet, and WINDY.  When I came home from our brief morning walk, cranking up the oven seemed like a really good idea. I made these Healthy Double Chocolate Zucchini Muffins from www.ambitiouskitchen.com.  These muffins are delicious and taste just like cake.  My muffins are a little crumbly but I am not complaining.  Did you hear me say... "they taste like CAKE?!?" 

Carrot Cake Flourless Blender Muffins

I've been craving carrot cake.  I've especially been craving the kind with a big old layer of cream cheese frosting up on top.  Around Easter, I found plenty of carrot cake and carrot cake cupcake recipes on line and they looked amazing.  I decided to go for a healthier carrot cake muffin and basically added grated carrot and some other ingredients to the flourless blender muffins I've been making for months.   

The base of the muffins is always oats, eggs, bananas, applesauce, honey, Greek yogurt, salt, baking powder, and baking soda.  I've made a number of different varieties by adding in ingredients such as zucchini, coconut, nuts, coconut, chocolate chips, and so on.  Ordinarily the recipe makes 12 muffins, but since I add over 1 1/2 cups of extra ingredients in this recipe, it's better to make 14 or 15 muffins out of this recipe.  I made 12 muffins this time around and the muffins took much longer to bake and it was difficult to tell when they were done.  The other thing I noticed about these muffins is that, when the muffins first come out of the oven, it's hard to get the paper liners off of the muffins cleanly.  The next day, however, the paper liners come off much more easily.  Foil muffin liners may work a bit better and of course you can avoid this problem all together by not using muffin liners at all (just make sure you have a good non-stick surface and you use non-stick spray in your muffin pans).

Carrot Cake Flourless Blender Muffins

Yield: 12 muffins

Ingredients

2 cups old fashioned oats (use certified gluten free oats if desired)

2 ripe bananas

2 eggs

1/4 cup Greek yogurt or light sour cream

1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

3 Tbsps honey

1 1/2 tsp baking powder 

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/8 tsp salt

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/3 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

1/3 cup raisins

2 finely grated carrots, small to medium size (about 1 cup)

Optional:  additional chopped nuts to sprinkle on muffins before baking

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  In your blender, pulse together all ingredients except for the chopped nuts, raisins, and grated carrots. Pause to stir if ingredients do not blend well at first.  Blend until well combined.  Pour contents of blender into a large bowl.  Add in chopped nuts, raisins, and carrots; gently fold in ingredients until well incorporated. 

2. Pour batter into muffin pans lined with paper cups. Makes 14 - 15 muffins.  If desired, sprinkle additional chopped nuts on top of the muffins.  Bake for 12 to 15 minutes until the tops are puffed and golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Avocado Toast Day 4: Bacon and Egg

Avocado Toast: Bacon and Egg

Having Avocado Toast four days in a row was a lot of fun: I enjoyed thinking about different ways to top it!  The reason I had this four days in a row is because I used just 1/4 of an avocado each day so it took me four days to eat my way through one avocado.  What a bargain considering the avocado was on sale for $0.88.

On Day 4, I mashed up my avocado with a little salt and black pepper and spread it on some toast.  I topped that with some torn up cooked turkey bacon and then topped all that with hard boiled egg slices.  This came together quickly and easily since the cooked turkey bacon and hardboiled eggs were already made up and in the refrigerator.

I went shopping the other day and bought a very under-ripe avocado. It's sitting on my countertop getting nice and ripe so I'll be able to have avocado toast again soon.  If I come up with any more great toppings for avocado toast, I'll be sure to share.

Avocado Toast with Basil Pesto

Avocado Toast with Basil Pesto

I am having fun planning my breakfast each morning. This week, I am having avocado toast four times; each day I am having one slice of toast (Dave's Killer Bread Thin Sliced) with 1/4 of an avocado (sliced or mashed up) and then switching up the toppings.  Today: Basil Pesto!

There is so much inspiration on the internet for various toppings.  I was really wanting to have turkey bacon and tomatoes today on my avocado toast, BUT we are having a BIG SNOW STORM in Colorado today and the grocery stores are RIDICULOUSLY crowded when we are expecting snow. So I had to come up with alternative toppings today since I did NOT want to go to the grocery store yesterday.  Yes, it's that bad!

This couldn't be easier.

1 slice of toast

1/4 avocado, mashed with a fork and seasoned with a bit of salt and black pepper

topped with hard boiled egg slices

finished off with a little drizzle of prepared Basil Pesto (I used Kroger "Private Select" brand)

I am not sure what toppings I'll have tomorrow.  I don't think I'll be going to store so I may have to get creative, but I love that!

Avocado Toast... with Indian Spice

Avocado Toast with Indian Spice

I am only using 1/4 of an avocado on my avocado toast each morning so it's going to take me four days to eat one stinkin' avocado.  Today, my avocado toast was super easy to assemble.  I just mashed up 1/4 of my avocado and stirred in a pinch of kosher salt and some freshly ground black pepper.  I smeared that over a piece of toast (again, I am using Dave's Killer Bread Thin Slice).

I sliced up a hard boiled egg with my handy dandy egg slicer and made pretty rows over the avocado covered toast.

I finished it off with a sprinkle of Garam Masala.  This is a spice blend used in Indian cooking; I got a small sample of it to try out in recipes from one of my favorite spice shops.  I loved the taste and texture of this meal.  It was a lot like the texture of egg salad.  I might just have this again for breakfast tomorrow morning. I liked the hard boiled egg better than the over easy egg on top of the avocado toast, which is what I had yesterday.   

Banana Chocolate Chip Zucchini Coconut Pecan Flourless Blender Muffins

Banana Chocolate Chip Zucchini Coconut Pecan Flourless Blender Muffins (Gluten Free)

For some reason, I feel compelled to list every special ingredient in the title of the recipe.  These muffins are full of goodies.  Once again I found myself with over ripe bananas on my counter top.  I find that my bananas seem to be under ripe one day and then over ripe the next day.  This explains why there is a wide assortment of flourless blender muffins in my freezer.  This week, I have been craving a little chocolate and this treat resolved that craving.  This past summer I made some cookies with zucchini, chocolate chips, coconut, oats, and nuts, so maybe that's why it occurred to me to pile all these ingredients into muffins. Whatever the case may be, I am enjoying these muffins. They are only slightly sweet from a touch of honey and ripe bananas. If you like your muffins on the sweeter side, you may opt to add in a bit of brown sugar to make them sweeter.  You could also use sweetened coconut and/or sweetened applesauce to make things a little sweeter too.

Banana Chocolate Chip Zucchini Coconut Pecan Flourless Blender Muffins

Yield: 12 muffins

Ingredients

2 cups old fashioned oats (use certified gluten free oats if desired)

2 ripe bananas 

2 large eggs

1/4 cup plain Greek yogurt

1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

3 Tbsps honey (may substitute maple syrup)

1 1/2 tsp baking powder 

1/2 tsp baking soda 

1 tsp vanilla extract 

1/8 tsp salt 

1/3 cup semi sweet mini chocolate chips

1/3 cup unsweetened coconut

1 cup coarsely grated zucchini

3/4 cup chopped pecans (or walnuts)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  In your blender, pulse together all ingredients except for the chocolate chips, coconut, zucchini, and pecans.  Pause to stir if ingredients do not blend well at first.  Blend until well combined.  Stir in the chocolate chips, coconut, zucchini, and pecans  

2. Pour batter into a 12-cup muffin pan lined with paper cups.  (If using a silicone pan, you can skip the paper cups or generously spray muffin tins with non-stick cooking spray).  Bake for 12 to 15 minutes until the tops are puffed and golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. (Mine were done at 14 minutes).

More Flourless Blender Muffins: Zucchini, Walnuts, and Raisins

Flourless Blender Muffins:

Zucchini, Walnuts, and Raisins

I've been enjoying Flourless Blender Muffins for the past several weeks.  They freeze really well; I just thaw out a few here and there.  I've made some with bananas, nuts, and mini-chocolate chips (see HERE) and I've made others with bananas, nuts, and spices so the muffins are similar to banana bread (see HERE).  Today, I thought I'd try to make some with zucchini, walnuts, and raisins.  They turned out good, but they are NOT very sweet (if you like sweeter muffins, you might want to add in a few tablespoons of brown sugar).  My muffins just have a little honey for sweetness, with additional sweetness coming from the raisins and the bananas.

Flourless Blender Muffins: Zucchini, Walnuts, and Raisins

  

Yield: 12 muffins

Ingredients

2 cups old fashioned oats (use certified gluten free oats if desired)

2 ripe bananas

2 eggs

1/4 cup Greek yogurt

1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

3 Tbsps honey

1 1/2 tsp baking powder 

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/8 tsp salt

1/8 tsp ground allspice

1/8 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Add in: 2 to 3 tablespoons brown sugar if you desire sweeter muffins

3/4 cup grated zucchini

1/2 cup raisins

3/4 cup chopped walnuts (if desired, reserve some and sprinkle on top of muffins just before baking)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  In your blender, pulse together all ingredients except for the zucchini, raisins, and walnuts. Pause to stir if ingredients do not blend well at first.  Blend until well combined.  Stir in the zucchini, raisins, and walnuts. 

2. Pour batter into a 12-cup muffin pan lined with paper cups.  (If using a silicone pan, you can skip the paper cups or generously spray muffin tins with non-stick cooking spray).  Sprinkle with reserved chopped nuts, if desired.  Bake for 12 to 15 minutes until the tops are puffed and golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. (Mine were done at 12-13 minutes).

Blender Muffins: Flourless Banana Nut Bread Muffins

Flourless Blender Banana Nut Bread Muffins

After having such great success with Blender Muffins earlier this week (click HERE if you missed that recipe), I just had to make another batch. My husband did not care for the initial recipe since he did not like the combination of banana and chocolate chips.  He thought they'd be better if they were more like Banana Nut Bread. So this batch of muffins is for him.  He said they are great!

This week, I was out of Greek yogurt. The first blender muffin recipe I made called for 1/2 cup Greek yogurt. I ran out of Greek yogurt so I used 1/4 cup Greek yogurt and 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce with great results.  Since I was out of Greek yogurt this time around, I used 1/4 cup light sour cream and 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce. It seems that playing around with these ingredients is working, which make this such a great, flexible recipe. I love that the yogurt, applesauce, or (in this case) light sour cream all take the place of butter or oil in the recipe.

Flourless Banana Nut Bread Muffins

Yield: 12 muffins

Ingredients
2 cups old fashioned oats (use certified gluten free oats if desired)

2 ripe bananas

2 eggs

1/4 cup Greek yogurt or light sour cream

1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

3 Tbsps honey

1 1/2 tsp baking powder 

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/8 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 scant cup chopped nuts (I used a combination of pecans and walnuts)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  In your blender, pulse together all ingredients except for the chopped nuts. Pause to stir if ingredients do not blend well at first.  Blend until well combined.  Stir in all but 1/4 cup chopped nuts (reserve some to top the muffins before baking). 

2. Pour batter into a 12-cup muffin pan lined with paper cups.  (If using a silicone pan, you can skip the paper cups or generously spray muffin tins with non-stick cooking spray).  Sprinkle the reserved chopped nuts.  Bake for 12 to 15 minutes until the tops are puffed and golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. (Mine were done at 12-13 minutes).

I hope you give blender muffins a try.  As you can tell, I am a big fan. They are so easy and they don't make too many dirty dishes.  I like to think of these as a healthier version of a muffin.  I am baking and freezing these muffins so that I can enjoy them for a few weeks and also keep the portions in control a bit.  Such a yummy treat!