Vegan MoFo Day 8: Banana Pumpkin Spice Ice Cream

When I first learned of one-ingredient banana ice cream, my mind was blown. Just blend frozen bananas in a food processor and it turns into ice cream? Impossible! Well, I tried it and it really is incredible. It tastes like bananas, has the wonderful lickability of soft serve, and is 0 points on weight watchers. But it gets boring. Sometimes you want different flavors. So I thought, what about pumpkin? Would it taste good with banana? YES. It does. 

Banana Pumpkin Spice Ice cream

2 ripe bananas, cut into 1-inch pieces and frozen
1/3 cup pureed pumpkin
1 tablespoon maple syrup
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

Blend banana pieces in a food processor for a minute or so until it becomes soft and creamy. Add the rest of the ingredients and blend again to mix it up. Serve in cones or cups or just grab a spoon and eat it right out of the food processor bowl. Just watch out for the blade!

Melty ice cream + playful mood kitty = terrible pictures

Sleeping kitty - melty ice cream = adorable pictures

Vegan MoFo Day 7: Chocolate Pumpkin Mousse

I got a day off from cooking! Today's post comes to you from my wonderful housemate! We baked and pureed the other pumpkin I had and she used it to make mousse. The recipe is originally from Must Have Been Something I Ate by Peggy Kotsopoulos and was posted online here at A Foodie Stays Fit. It's really good! And the chilling is essential. It starts off with a pudding-like texture and magically becomes light and airy.

Chocolate Mousse

2 cups cooked, pureed pumpkin*
1/3 c unsweetened cocoa powder
1/3 c pure maple syrup
1/2 c coconut oil, melted
1/2 t ground cinnamon
1/2 t vanilla extra

Mix all ingredients together and let it chill for a couple of hours or overnight.

Sleepy kitty is pleased that I brought him a kitten head sized cup of mousse.

Vegan MoFo Day 6: When life hands you crumbly muffins...

...you make cake muffin balls! All but one muffin were reduced to crumbles yesterday, so I went with it. My housemates ate about half the muffins in crumbled form. I crumbled the remaining 6 or 7 muffins and turned them into muffin balls!

Failed muffins become fabulous balls

Pumpkin Muffin Balls

6 or 7 messed up pumpkin muffins, crumbled
1/4 cup Toffutti Better Than Cream Cheese
3/4 lb dark chocolate, cut into small pieces (I like the Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Pound Plus bars)

Mix the cream cheese into the muffin crumbles until it forms a thick dough (you may need to use your hands to get it really mixed).  Form balls about an inch or an inch and a half in diameter and place on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Refrigerate or freeze until firm.

In the meantime, melt the chocolate in a double boiler (or a bowl placed over a small saucepan). When the balls are ready, drop them into the chocolate one at a time. Use a fork or spoon to carefully take them out and place them back on the cookie sheet. If you want to make the pretty little squiggles, put any remaining chocolate in a plastic bag, snip off the corner and draw lines over the balls. 

Note: If there's still some melted chocolate left, mix in some almonds, pretzels, peanuts, or Oreo pieces and drop in mounds onto a piece of parchment paper. Just don't let it go to waste!

 Makes 19 or 20 kitten ear-sized balls

Vegan MoFo Day 5: When good muffins go bad

 
I can't go through a month of pumpkin without making The Best Pumpkin Muffins from Vegan With a Vengeance (with added walnuts, of course). And, lucky for me, this was the perfect recipe to use the remaining cup of pumpkin I had in the fridge. I used some whole wheat flour to make myself feel a little less guilty about using 9 Weight Watchers points plus on a muffin.

My brilliant idea for these muffins was to quickly mix up the batter last night, pop it in the fridge, and bake the muffins early this morning while I got ready for work. Something went wrong along the way. Maybe it was because I let the batter sit in the refrigerator overnight? Maybe I did something wrong because I made the batter in a rush because Glee was about to start? Maybe it was because I filled the cups too much? Every other time I've made these, I get 18 but this time I just divided the batter between the 12 cups in hopes of getting a pretty muffin top. Whatever went wrong, it's not a complete travesty. They are still delicious, but only one actually came out of the pan intact. With the rest, the tops just popped off and the bottoms have to be scooped out with a spoon. So grab a spoon, there are muffiny crumbles for all!

This is what most of the muffins look like

The Best Pumpkin Muffins
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground or freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup pureed pumpkin
1/2 cup soy milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons molasses
1 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 400°F. Lightly grease a twelve-muffin tin.

Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and spices. In a separate bowl, whisk together pumpkin, soy milk, oil, and molasses. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix. Fold in the walnuts.

Fill the muffin cups two-thirds full. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick or knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

 Makes 12 kitten-head sized muffins.

Vegan MoFo Day 4: Pumpkin Bagels

Bagels!! I worked in a bagel store for about seven years, so can someone explain why it is that I have never tasted a pumpkin flavored bagel? Actually, I'm not sure that I've even seen one. Did we sell them in our store and I just thought I wouldn't like them? I don't know. All I know is that when I saw that beautifully orange pumpkin puree staring at me, the thought of pumpkin bagels walked into my brain and I've been thinking about it ever since. I started with the basic bagel recipe in Vegan Brunch and then made some pumpkin-y adjustments. I added pumpkin (obviously) and some spices, changed the sugar to brown sugar, decreased the water a bit, and used half whole wheat flour. They came out fantastic, even if I don't know what they're technically supposed to taste like.

Pumpkin bagel balancing is a lot easier than rock balancing.

Pumpkin Bagels

1 to 1 1/2 cups lukewarm water (depending how much water your pumpkin has--I ended up using 1 1/4 cups)
1 packet dry active yeast

1 cup pureed pumpkin
3 tablespoons sugar
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 tablespoons vital wheat gluten
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon nutmeg
3/4 teaspoon allspice

Mix the yeast into 3/4 cup of the water in a small bowl. In a separate larger bowl mix together the other ingredients. Add the yeast and more water, as needed (trying really hard to resist a need/knead pun here) so that the dough is not crumbly and not very sticky. Knead for at least 10 minutes. You can do this by hand or use the dough hook on a stand mixer or use the kneading setting on your bread machine. Place in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and set it aside to rise for about an hour.


Put a large pot of salted water on to boil and preheat the oven to 425 F. Divide dough into 12 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a ball and poke a hole through the center. Gently stretch the hole out to make a bagel shape. If you want to make mini bagels, divide the dough into 24 pieces instead. Once the water is boiling, add three of the bagels (or as many as you can fit without them touching too much). Simmer for one minute on each side. Remove the bagels and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Repeat for all the bagels. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes. Let them cool at least 5 minutes (or as long as it takes to chase a kitten around the house and get him to pose with the bagels for a picture) before eating.

Makes 24 kitten-head sized mini bagels or 12 larger bagels. Or some combination of both