Weekly Rewind~Top 5 Recipes Edition

This week’s rewind is all about FOOD! These are the top 5 most viewed recipes on my site.

5th Place: Kitchen Scraps Homemade Vegetable Broth-I eat a lot of veggies and end up with a lot of vegetable scraps. I like to save money every way I can and I also like to have homemade versions of convenience items as much as possible. It is super easy and economical to make your own broth. I like to use veggie broth when I cook, either because the recipe calls for it, or to add nutritional value to things like pasta, rice, and other grains.

4th Place: Meyer Lemon Blueberry Muffins-The Meyer lemon in these muffins give them an incredible lemon fragrance and flavor that is unbelievable. This recipe would be great with raspberries as well.

3rd Place: Strawberry-Goji Muffins with Mini-chocolate chips-The recipe for these muffins came from Let Them Eat Vegan by Dreena Burton. The goji berries are used in a creative way and lend a depth of flavor to this healthy muffins while the mini-chocolate chips add a delicious hint of sweetness and indulgence.

2nd Place: Soft Pretzel Bites with Sesame Seeds-These pretzel bites are reminiscent of the big soft pretzels that you can find at the mall. They are super easy to make and highly customizable.

1st Place: Cookie Butter Banana Bread-It comes as no surprise to me that this is the most viewed recipe on my blog by a landslide! In my opinion, cookie butter makes everything better and this bread is no exception. If you haven’t made it yet, I highly encourage you to make it as soon as possible!

What’s your favorite recipe on my blog? What recipes would you like to see in the future?

Meyer Lemon Berry Muffins {vegan}

So I’d been seeing all these gorgeous recipes using Meyer lemons all over the blogosphere lately and was lamenting that I would most likely never get a chance to try one of the elusive Meyer lemons. You see, I live in a very small rural town. Most people have never heard of kale or beets or even avocado! To think that I would find a Meyer lemon at the grocery store seemed like a far fetched dream. So I browsed recipes and drooled and dreamed, one day maybe…

Imagine my delight and surprise when I saw a bag of Meyer lemons at the local Wal-Mart! I had to pick one up, there were so many recipes I wanted to try! I began pinning lemon recipes like a crazy lady and finally settled on a bread recipe as the first one to tackle. I was in the mood for muffins so adapted the recipe to my liking.

Meyer Lemon Blueberry Muffins
Adapted from Flour Mayhem

Ingredients:

• 2 cups bread flour
• 2 Meyer lemons, zested and juiced
• 1 cup frozen blueberries
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 unsweetened almond milk
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons agave nectar

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 425º F, you will turn the temperature down to 375º F after 5 minutes of baking the muffins. This “sky-high muffin” trick is one of Sally’s secrets to beautiful muffin tops.
2. Fill muffin tin with liners or spray muffin tin with non-stick cooking spray.
3. In a large bowl combine flour, baking soda, salt, and lemon zest
4. In a medium bowl combine milk, applesauce, sugar, agave and lemon juice.
5. Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until combined.
6. Fold in the blueberries.
7. Spoon batter into muffin tins, it will be too thick to pour. Make sure to fill the tins ALL the way to the top for best results.
8. Bake muffins at 425º F for 5 minutes then lower the temperature to 375º F for 18-20 minutes.
9. Remove muffins from oven and allow to cool.
10. Eat and enjoy with a pat of Earth Balance!

Strawberry Goji Muffins with Mini-Chocolate Chips {vegan}

I love muffins! But unfortunately most of the muffins that call my name at the bakery are not so healthy or good for me. Imagine my delight when I bought Let Them Eat Vegan by Dreena Burton and discovered that she had 7 muffin recipes, all vegan and all packed full of nutritious goodness.

As I was browsing the muffin recipes, the Strawberry Goji muffins caught my eye. I recently bought a bag of goji berries and had been tossing them on my salad. Using them in muffins seemed ingenious. Did you know that goji berries are the most nutritionally dense fruit on Earth? It’s true!

They are a member of the nightshade family (Solonaceae), which contains many other common vegetables such as potato, sweet potato, tomato, eggplant, and pepper, as well as some poisonous plants like belladonna and deadly nightshade. Native to the Himalayan Mountains of Tibet and Mongolia, the goji berry is now grown in many other countries as well.

Although they have only been introduced in Western countries in recent years, gojis have been used for thousands of years in Tibet and China, both as a culinary ingredient and medicinally.

Unique among fruits because they contain all essential amino acids, goji berries also have the highest concentration of protein of any fruit. They are also loaded with vitamin C, contain more carotenoids than any other food, have twenty-one trace minerals, and are high in fiber. Boasting 15 times the amount of iron found in spinach, as well as calcium, zinc, selenium and many other important trace minerals, there is no doubt that the humble goji berry is a nutritional powerhouse.

This amazing little superfruit also contains natural anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial and anti-fungal compounds. Their powerful antioxidant properties and polysaccharides help to boost the immune system.

Source: The Heatlhy Eating Site

Looking over the ingredient list I realized I had every item already at home. Dreena suggested adding dark chocolate chips to the muffins, so of course I did

Strawberry Goji Muffins with Mini-Chocolate Chips
Makes 12 Muffins
Recipe Source: Let Them Eat Vegan by Dreena Burton

Ingredients:

• 1 cup oat flour
• 1 cup sifted spelt flour
• 1/3 cup unrefined sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/4 teaspoon cardamom (or cinnamon)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup frozen strawberries
• 1/2 cup + 1 to 2 tablespoons plain unsweetened almond milk
• 1/4 cup dried goji berries
• 1/4 pure maple syrup
• 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon arrowroot powder (I used cornstarch)
• 2 tablespoons neutral-flavored oil, such as grapeseed oil
• 1/4 cup mini-chocolate chips, optional (I used Enjoy Life Brand)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 425º F, you will lower the temperature to 375º F after the muffins have baked for 5 minutes. I learned this trick from Sally, she calls it her sky-high muffin trick. I highly suggest you try it.
2. In a large bowl, combine the flours, sugar, salt, and cardamom, sifting in the baking powder and baking soda. Stir to mix well.
3. In a blender, combine the strawberries, milk, goji berries, maple syrup, lemon juice, and arrowroot powder (you may want to let these ingredients sit for a few minutes to help soften the goji berries). Puree until fully smooth.
4. Add the blended mixture, as well as the oil, to the dry ingredients. Mix until well combined. Fold in the mini-chocolate chips.
5. Spoon the batter into lined muffin tins, you want to fill them all the way to the top in order to achieve your high-domed muffin tops.
6. If desired, sprinkle some whole goji berries, sugar, or mini-chocolate chips on top of the muffins.
7. Bake at 425º F for 5 minutes then lower the temperature to 375º F and bake for 14 to 19 minutes, until the muffins are set in the center.
8. Remove from oven, let cool for a few minutes in the muffin tins, and then transfer the muffins to cool on a cooling rack.

Have you ever tried goji berries?