Todays breakfast and dinner.......

I had been wanting muffins for a minute.  I'm not big on baking but since these are so simple (I know you guys are thinking to yourselves, "she says that about everything") I decided to go ahead and bite the bullet and make blueberry muffins.  I don't know what my hangup is about baking.  I'll do chocolate chip cookies and muffins and that's pretty much the extent of it for me.  I haven't been able to find chocolate without milk in it, with the exception of bakers chocolate so when I make cookies I just chop that up and use that instead of chips.  They turn out just as good, if not better.  Yummy.  Now I think I want some cookies.

 

We bought this book awhile back and although all the recipes aren't 100% vegan the one's in there that aren't I will just substitute the ingredients.  You all know I'm good for that.  Lol  I love a good dessert.  Ok who am I kidding.  I love food period.  

I love these muffins.  I always use a few more blueberries than the recipe calls for because I love a lot of fruit in my muffins.  I've used this same recipe and made raspberry muffins and a mixed berry muffin.  So delicious! Prep time is pretty quick...I keep forgetting to time it, but I would say ten minutes max and then 22 minutes to bake. 

The ingredients and process:

Most of these are staples in our household

Adding the blueberries

completed muffin mix

they say it makes 12 but it ALWAYS  only makes 11

Finished muffins

I had a ton of things to get done today and knew I wouldn't have time to come home and cook dinner after picking girlie up from school so I decided I would go ahead and start dinner and get that out of the way.  Blogger/twitter Canadian buddy Angela actually posted these little mini lasagne cups on her food blog and I couldn't resist.  I wanted to run to the grocery store the day I saw them and make it for dinner that night, they looked so good. 

I haven't had lasagne since we gave up dairy almost about 2 years ago I think.  I am a pasta fanatic and lasagne was probably one of my favorite foods but what's lasagne with out cheese?  Spaghetti I think.  Lol  I found a cheese called Daiya about a year ago, and it took some getting used to.  I can eat it in quesadillas, burritos and a few other things but using it in large amounts like you would need for lasagne or pizza just wasn't very pleasing.  I tried it on pizza and although it melted it didn't quite melt the way cheese did and had a weird oily slimy texture.  I know, NASTY right?  So I kind of hung up the idea of having lasagne. Oh woe is me. Well, that is until a few days ago. 

When I found this recipe I figured, because the cups are the size of muffins you would only need a little bit of cheese in each cup...THAT I can handle.  I have yet to find a vegan ricotta cheese or cottage cheese so I did substitutions like I ALWAYS do.  Lol.  I don't even know if it's possible to make either of those cheeses vegan, but you never know.  I was surprised to find vegan sour cream and cream cheese.  Who knew?  So that's what I chose to use instead.  So I'm going to need you all to be open minded for a sec. Ok?  Ok!  

I ended up melting some of the cream cheese, mozzarella, and sour cream into the sauce.  The cheese melts really well that way and actually thickened the sauce a little bit.  When I DID eat dairy, I would use that also along with ricotta and the other cheeses and it was always a hit.  I'd get requests for my lasagne constantly. 

I cheated using store bought marinara sauce because I was a little pressed for time and didn't feel like making my own sauce.  I have to say it turned out pretty good.  I'm not going to post pictures of the process because I got lazy and there really wasn't much to it.   The recipe called for wonton wrappers but the only brand I've ever seen has egg in it so that was out. I stuck with lasagne noodles, which was frustrating because those jokers are forever sticking no matter what I do.  If someone has a magic trick to resolve my little cooking dilemma PLEASE let me know.  I dumped so many noodles it was pitiful. 

So here they are:

Filled and ready for the oven

Out of the oven

Close up

See what I mean about the cheese not really melting?  They still look amazing to me and I'm anxiously awaiting dinner time.  It's taking all the discipline I have to not sample one.  

Alright....that's it for me.  Back at you all soon.

Peace and Blessings.