"Pretty Much Vegan" Zucchini Muffins

As I explaind in my Homemade Rice Milk post, I have started to eat "pretty much" vegan. I know some of the breads I eat are made with eggs or milk and I just don't worry much about it. And chocolate, well, I'm never going to give that up, and I have no desire to seek out only vegan chocolate or eat carob or whatever. So, "pretty much" vegan is good enough for me.

These muffins came from a vegan recipe that I made some changes to and added chocolate chips, hence the "pretty much" label. If you leave out the chips or add vegan chips or carob chips, you don't have to call these "pretty much". As is often the case, I can no longer find where I got the original recipe before I changed it up.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 cup applesauce (unsweetened)
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup oil
2 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 cups shredded zucchini
1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Whisk flours, salt, baking soda, spices, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

Whisk applesauce, sugars, oil and vanilla. I used original applesauce (not unsweetened) because this is what I had on hand, so I reduced the sugars in half and that worked well.

Slowly add the dry mixture into the wet mixture and blend on medium speed until incorporated. The mixture is much thicker than a typical muffin mix.

It was so thick, I was worried I had messed up a measurement.

Fold in the zucchini and chocolate chips.

I sprayed my muffin tins with baking spray with flour, you could also use cupcake liners. This muffin does not rise much, so I fill the tins 3/4 of the way up or more. This made about 20-22 muffins. The pictures are from a double batch I did which made 36 regular size muffins and 12 mini muffins.

These muffins go really fast in our house. I made the double batch Monday morning and we only had a couple left by Tues evening. My husband, who said he doesn't like zucchini muffins (I doubt he ever had one), really likes them. My daughter takes bags full of them to school (some for breakfast at the bus stop, snack and lunch).

The original recipe called for 3 cups all purpose flour. I substitute half whole wheat flour. You can definitely taste the wheat, so if you don't like that, you could just use all white flour. Alternately, they would be even better for you if you used all wheat flour.

I use my regular cheese grater for the zucchini which creates kind of a big piece. The kids have asked what the "green stuff" is, but it doesn't stop them from eating them. I think the chocolate chips are totally necessary (although not in the original recipe).

Overall, they taste like a healthy muffin in that you can taste the wheat and they are not too sweet, but they are not at all like choking down a bran muffin (sorry if you love bran muffins). They look like a healthy muffin too which may make some kids not want to try them, but they are really tasty and all of my kids like them (even the picky one that only likes oatmeal and macaroni and cheese). And they are way more moist than the zucchini muffin from Starbucks.

Hope your family likes them as much as we do :)

ENJOY!

Homemade Rice Milk

At the start of lent, I gave up meat with the intention it would evolve into being vegan at some point. Starting this week, I have stopped eating milk, eggs, cheese etc. I still eat bread that I know is made with eggs and I am sure there are other products I have had that have hidden milk or eggs or whatever in them. So, I'm "vegan enough".

I am not a milk drinker, although I do have it in cereal on the rare occasion I eat cereal. So, having a milk alternative is not imperative to me. However, we have recently begun experimenting with limiting milk and milk products for one of our children since we suspect she may have an allergy or intolerance or whatever. Here is where the homemade rice milk comes in. She eats cereal pretty much daily and also enjoys drinking glasses of milk. I know there are all kinds of milk alternatives on the market (soy, coconut, almond, rice etc) and they are readily available at the regular grocery store, but they are pricey and I'm a bit of a freak and like to do things like make my own.

So, here it is.

Rice Milk:
1 cup organic, long grain brown rice
8 cups water (for cooking)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp agave nectar
1/3 whole vanilla bean, split

I added the agave and vanilla to mine, but the original recipe I found just had the rice, water and salt.

Wash rice and strain. Bring 8 cups of water to a boil over high heat, add 1 cup brown rice:

And 1/3 whole vanilla bean, split lengthwise

Cover and lower heat to simmer, cook for 3hrs. It will look like a thin rice pudding/porridgey kind of stuff

Fish out the vanilla beans (store in a baggy if you want to try to reuse them, like me :). Let cool, stir in salt and agave nectar:

In batches, fill blender half with rice mixture and half with water. I did up to the "2" line with rice, then the "4" line with water, so my blender was not full to the top and had room to blend.

Blend until very smooth, stopping and scraping sides etc to make sure it's all blended. Then strain over fine mesh strainer twice.

If you are a freak like me, you can save the rice that you strain off and add it to your homemade dog food (more on that later).

After straining, the milk is still pretty thick like cream. I added about 1/2 cup of water before pouring into the jars.

Even with the added water, it's thicker than my taste, so I add more water to it at the time of using it. Store in the refrigerator in glass jars and drink up!

As far as how this tastes, it's hard for me to say. I'm not a milk drinker and I don't enjoy a nice cold glass of milk alternatives either. It has a nice vanilla scent, but not so much vanilla flavor. I may add vanilla extract as well next time. It is also not sweet at all, so if you want a sweeter milk, add more agave nectar (or real sugar or honey or whatever). I have not yet tried it with cereal myself, but the 3 little girls in our home have all tried it and they drank it just fine. I have cooked with it and it has been perfect for that use. I mixed chocolate syrup into it and the kids all liked it that way. I think it would be great in baked goods, so I plan to use a lot of it that way. So, it will for sure get consumed, but not sure it cuts it for a daily milk alternative (at least not in our home).


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