Vegan Banana Bran Muffins
I‘ve been in the process of cleaning out my cupboards and freezer in preparation for our big move in January so I had some ingredients I had to base a recipe around or throw them out (ei. frozen ripe bananas and wheat bran). It’s been a long time since I’ve made muffins, and they are one of the only baked goods I have not yet imposed my vegan experiments on. These muffins are full of bananas, and walnuts, I found the original recipe somewhere online (can’t remember) but have changed it quite a bit to make it Vegan and use what I had on hand.
Cmac’s Vegan Tourtiére
Posted by admin in Food, Main Course, TVP on November 6th, 2009
It all started with a plan to make a vegan shepherds pie, and ended with a vegan tourtiére. I haven’t made tourtiére’s since I was a hardcore carnivore the traditional meat pie is as it sounds, ground pork, ground veal, ground beef, and a little bit of veggie. Tourtiére is a traditional french Canadian dish especially served around Christmas.
There is a lot of history behind the Tourtiére being that it was originally made around 1611 with the now extinct Passenger Pigeon (tourte in french). Now there are many varieties depending on the family, region, and supply of ingredients, and some of the french coastal families even make it using fish rather then ground meat.
Anyways enough history the point is I wanted to make a Tortiére and wanted to make it vegan, happily I was successful and it turned out to be the best Vegan meat pie I’ve every made.
Now onto the Recipe.
Moved Servers
Posted by admin in Other Stuff on November 5th, 2009
I’ve moved servers to a new more reliable (I Hope) green host. I am currently working on migrating the site to be as it was on the old host so there may be a few hiccups in the meantime but hopefully it will be all worked out by the end of this week and I can get back to posting recipes.
Yoplait giveaway results
Posted by admin in Other Stuff on November 2nd, 2009
I’m a little late on announcing the winners of the Yo-plait packages so here they are. Comment #5 by JC is the first number drawn by random.org, and the second winner is Comment #2 Lethea Benson. I will be sending out the Prizes as soon as I receive mailing addresses for the winner.
In the meantime things are a little crazy here in the Test Kitchen, between my school, being a stay at home dad and the upcoming January move to San Francisco, cooking and recipe making have been the last things on my mind. I do have a few recipes I’m working on that will be posted soon but at this point its looking like I’ll be struggling to make two new posts per week.
On another note early this month the blog hit 10,000 visits that was quite exciting. If anyone would be interested in doing a guest post occasionally just shoot me an email cmac (at) cmacskitchen.com the only requirements I have are that the recipes are from a real home cook, good picture, vegetarian or vegan, and somewhat original or a nice take on an old classic.
Well that’s all my blabbering for now, this week I’m hoping to post my homemade pasta sauce recipe, and vegan banana nut bran muffins.
Cmac’s Simple Pan Seared Lemon Tofu
Posted by admin in Food, Main Course, Tofu on October 28th, 2009
With the slow process of going Vegan I’ve been playing around with delicious ways to use tofu, the problem I’ve been finding is most of my tofu recipes take a lot of time and prep. So here is my first installment of quick and simple Vegan dishes, for the last minute chef. With just 5-10 minutes, a block of prepared tofu, and a few common vegetarian pantry ingredients you can have yourself this zesty crispy tofu that almost resembles battered fish.
Kidney Bean Chocolate Cake???
Recently I stumbled across a recipe for Kidney bean chocolate cake, this I had to try. I have always been a glutton for trying weird recipes and experimenting with unusual ingredients or unusual complimentary ingredients but this was just pushing it (or so I thought). In the end I had the easiest and best tasting gluten free recipe I’ve ever made. This recipe makes the most delicate moist chocolate cake.
The future of this recipe will be to make it Vegan, I wanted to play with the kidney bean part before I changed it up to much. I found the original recipe on Eating well, Living Thin of course the recipe has been slightly modified to work with what I had on hand.
Now onto the Recipe.
Cmac’s Yummy Pickled Beets
Posted by admin in Dips, Spreads, Condiments, Food on October 22nd, 2009
One of my wife’s and my favorite preserves is pickled beets, that sweet taste with a little bite can’t be beat. In combination with my beets from a CSA, the farmers market and a friends garden I ended up with an overload of beets this year so I decided it was time to dive into beet making.
This recipe is for North American pickled beets, whereas through my reading I discovered in Britain they like them a lot more like a dill pickle, with less sugar and spice and more vinegar and salt. This batch made about 8 Jars you’ll have to play around with the measurements a bit to allow for how many pounds of beets you actually have on hand. Now lets get down to the recipe.
Cmac’s Gourmet Mac & Cheese almost from scratch
Posted by admin in Dairy, Food, Pasta & Grains on October 14th, 2009
I decided to taste test my home made Gouda at day 20 instead of waiting till day 25 and it was amazing. The Gouda was a bit more curdy like cheddar (I think from not pressing it enough) and slightly saltier than normal Gouda, but it still knocked my socks off. As I said in the past I started making the Gouda for a trial run of the upcoming Mac & Cheese from scratch challenge some time next year, so I made Mac & Cheese almost from scratch with the cheese. This is a culmination of a few other recipes I found with some of my own special additions. My wife gave it two thumbs up, and you could call her quite a Mac & Cheese Connoisseur so I would definitely call this a passable recipe. As with most of my recipes the ingredients are just a guideline you can substitute and play around as you like, after all this is the Test Kitchen. If you made any successful changes to the recipe or just want to share your experience comments are welcomed and appreciated. Now on to the Recipe..
Walnut Sweet Pepper Quinoa with Pomegranate molasses.
Posted by admin in Food, Main Course, Pasta & Grains on October 12th, 2009
Had some issues with layout of the pomegranate molasses but the taste made it worth sharing.
I recently received a case of Pom Wonderful Pomegranate juice to give a try so I decided to come up with some recipes that would suit it. This is my second attempt the first I would call a failure but still edible (won’t be posting it), but this one was a success aside from me not thickening up the molasses enough in a crunch for time. This recipe has a nutty but sweet taste, between the toasted walnuts and quinoa, then the addition of sweet peppers, and topped with a pomegranate molasses to bring it all together. Now onto the recipe.
Yogurt Giveaway
Posted by admin in Baby Food, Other Stuff on October 8th, 2009
I’ve recently been sent some Yoplait Trix – watermelon burst, and strawberry punch yogurt to try out, so my daughter and I each had a cup of it. My daughter seemed to like it and I didn’t mind it a bit. The texture was creamier then most baby yogurts and didn’t fall off the spoon which is a major plus for me when I’m feeding her.They also now make Yoplait less sugar yogurt for those concerned about their child’s sugar intake. Its nice to see companies cutting down the sugar in kids foods for once since sugar has always been an easy and cheap way to raise the calorie count on the labels.
Yoplait not only sent me a coupon for the free 6 pack of yogurt but it came with a nice little cooler, a place mat with games on it, 2 spoons, and a tangle toy. They have also been nice enough to give me two extra packages to give away to my readers.
How this giveaway works: Just leave a comment on this post and on October 31st I will draw a random number using Random.org then I will email the winners to find out mailing information.
Disclaimer: You must be a U.S. resident, and this coupon offer for a free six pack of Yoplait Kids yogurt is not valid in some states, including Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Jersey, North Dakota and Tennessee
That’s about it, now get posting your comments.
Making homemade yogurt is easier than you think.
Tofu from scratch
