I was totally uninspired tonight. Matt took Emma to the park to play some soccer, which gave me the opportunity to throw something together. For some reason, breakfast seemed much easier to cook than dinner did (why? it’s the same amount of work), so that’s what we had!

Low Fat Blueberry Banana Muffins

(veganized from this recipe)

1 cup all purpose flour

1 TB baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/8 – 1/4 tsp allspice

1 cup fresh blueberries

1 1/4 cups mashed ripe bananas

1/3 cup sugar

1/4 cup Tofutti BTSC

1 1/2 tsp Ener-G Egg Replacer (whisked with 2 TB warm water)

2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, combine wet ingredients and add to dry. Stir until just combined. Pour into greased or papered muffin tins. Bake for 10-15 minutes.

These were SOOOOOOO good. In place of the sour cream, you could probably use a soy yogurt. And in place of the egg replacer, you could probably use a few TB of applesauce or some ground flax seed.

With our muffins, we had a tofu scramble. I threw in whatever we had lurking around the kitchen, which turned out to be some kale (yes, I’m on a kale kick right now), a potato, a green pepper, and some onion. If you make yours with a potato or the kale, remember that they need a head start, meaning that they go in the skillet about 10 minutes before any of the other veggies (unless you are adding other veggies that need extra cooking time too). When the potatoes are cooked through, add in the peppers and onions and cooked until they are tender. Crumble in the tofu and let it brown a bit on all sides. When the tofu is browned up, add some salsa (the amount you add is up to you) and some S&P. I think it’s important to let it brown up because it won’t get mushy when you add the salsa, just FYI.

While browsing the dried fruit section of the grocery store yesterday, a tub of figs jumped into my cart. The figs then convinced a tub of dates to follow. Actually, I bought them intentionally, knowing that I had no clue what to do with them once I got them home. Emma really likes fig cookies (newtons, newmans, whichever), so I thought I would look around for a recipe to make them myself.

My sous chef (Emma) and I went to work this morning whipping up this recipe for a very healthy sounding fig bar. The sky was very overcast outside and it sounded like the perfect indoor activity. The entire recipe was incredibly easy to make, although I had to add a little bit more water than the recipe calls for to thin out the filling enough for my food processor to, I guess, process it. I also used maple syrup in place of the agave nectar. Other than that, I followed the recipe exactly.

These turned out really tasty, although, I think Emma preferred the uncooked version. After licking the spoon clean, she said it was:

While my figgy bars were baking, I thought of the tons of bananas in my freezer taking up valuable space that I should try to use up. I buy a big bunch of bananas every time we are at the grocery store and, when they start getting brown and spotty, I peel them and freeze them. I probably had 3 bags of frozen bananas to use up and, since my kitchen was already a mess, why not whip up some muffins too?! My sous chef abandoned me for her legos and I was left to tackle this challenge all on my own.

I’ve made this recipe for banana bread before and thought it was “very, very good,” but all that non-dairy butter is probably not too good for my thighs. I decided to substitute 1/2 cup homemade applesauce in place of the 1/2 cup margarine. I followed the recipe exactly, other than that one substitution. After filling my muffin cups, I pressed a few walnut chunks into the tops of the muffins for a little extra crunch and some Omega-3s. Baking time was about 20 minutes, and I got 12 good sized muffins from this recipe.