The Smiling Onion

Vegetarian and Gluten-free Cooking

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Banana Spice Muffins

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I didn’t plan to bake today. But sometimes, inspiration just strikes and the mixing bowls have to come out. Of course, knowing your baking triggers can be helpful when it comes to acceptance. Here are mine:

-Rain or snow

-The remnants of rain or snow (snow-covered trees, clouds of fog, etc.)

-Waking up early without an alarm

-A clean kitchen

Today, waking up at 7 to a light dusting of very pretty snow and realizing that I had the morning free set my internal baking clock to “Go.” And why fight that? Especially when it resulted in these surprisingly healthy (you wouldn’t know it from the taste) banana spice muffins that happen to be gluten-free, dairy-free, and refined-sugar free. Yum!

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Cranberry Cookies with White Chocolate and Ginger

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Unless you are super Type A or enjoy making shared family spreadsheets (and does anyone really enjoy that?), chances are there will be some oversights or duplications in your Thanksgiving shopping. Especially when multiple people are bringing ingredients/food. Last year, for example, I somehow ended up with four bags of organic cranberries and only eight people to feed. Despite having multiple cranberry sauce fanatics at the table,  nobody is going to eat quite that much of it, especially with all the Thanksgiving standards to load up on. So I decided not to use all four bags.

But then I had a new problem – what could I do with so many cranberries? Cut to a few days post Thanksgiving, when the last slice of pie had been eaten and the glorious array of leftovers was almost gone. I wasn’t ready to give up having a kitchen stocked full of treats just yet, so I decided to make some cookies. (I mean, I needed to use those cranberries, anyway, so this was really the responsible choice, right?) Okay, maybe responsible is a bit of a stretch, but the decisions was definitely a good one. It yielded these cookies! And I’ve been waiting a whole year to share them with you.

Perfect for including at your Thanksgiving table or for munching on after the fact (people with extra cranberries, I’m looking at you!), these cookies have such a holiday flair. The tartness of the cranberries goes perfectly with the sweetness of the white chocolate and the lovely chunks of candied ginger. I’ve used finger millet flour for these, which is a darker variety of millet flour that helps temper all the sugar a bit and lends a lovely earthy quality that is perfect for the cold weather. That said, if you are unable to find finger millet flour (I order it online from Pure India Foods), you can use regular white millet flour (actually pictured above) and the cookies will still turn out. If you go this route, I would suggest cutting the sugar slightly (try a scant ½ cup) as the white variety turned out much sweeter.

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Savory Waffles with Caramelized Cabbage

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It took me a while to get on the waffle train. Give me a hefty stack of pancakes any day but I never got the fuss about waffles…weren’t they just like breadier pancakes, except NOT fried in butter? What was the point?

Once I got a waffle maker of my own, however, I didn’t just get on the train – I may have taken a turn in the driver’s seat! I think I made a different type of waffle every day for the first week – cornmeal, raspberry-chocolate chip … if you can think it, I probably made it. What makes them so satisfying? It’s hard to say. My waffle maker makes ginormous waffles – like seriously colossal – which definitely helps: sitting down to a gorgeous piece of bready goodness that takes up your whole plate certainly makes for a dramatic meal. Unlike pancakes, waffles also have this fantastic crispy-on-the-outside (if I let them cook a tiny bit past the “ready” light on my machine) soft-and-fluffy-on-the-inside thing going on. And one of the best things about waffles, in my humble opinion, is that you don’t have to stand by the stove frying them OR worry about making them come out the same size and shape. With a waffle, everything goes right into your handy dandy waffle maker, and they are guaranteed to come out beautifully cooked and perfectly shaped every time.

I was so waffle-happy, in fact, that I decided to create a savory waffle that wouldn’t be confined to just breakfast. Don’t get me wrong: these waffles do make a fantastic breakfast, but they are equally lovely for lunch, dinner, afternoon snack, late-night snack, you name it. They will dress up each and every occasion to put food in your mouth, period. The mix of teff, sorghum, and millet flours gives them a hefty dose of protein and whole-grain goodness as well as a wonderful flavor that I’ve spiked with thyme, herbes de provence, and parmesan: think pizza goldfish but swap out the mass production and junk food aspects with artisan bakeries and a dose of elegance and you’ll be halfway there. (I know that’s weird but you’ll see what I’m talking about when you make them!)

You can top these beauties with any number of delicious toppings, but my favorite is the caramelized cabbage in this recipe (which you should really make even if you have no intention of making waffles – it is seriously the best way to eat cabbage!) along with a poached egg. The cabbage is oh-so-buttery and sweet, delicately spiced with dill, paprika, and just a touch of allspice. And when you cut into the whole ensemble, that egg yolk will run all over your waffle and form the perfect sauce.
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Mystical Applesauce “Bran” Muffins

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My favorite thing about bran muffins is their nutty, whole-grain flavor. What I’m not such a fan of is that dense (and sometimes dry) texture you’ll sometimes experience in a less-than-perfect bran muffin. As such, trying to create a gluten-free “bran” muffin was a bit of a task, as dryness is something you have to be extra careful to avoid when there’s no sticky gluten involved!

After a couple tries (I was really muffined out for a while there),  I managed to create a delicious gluten-free muffin with a “bran” like flavor but with a texture that is lighter and cakier than a traditional bran muffin. They are so pleasantly light, and so wonderfully moist, in fact, that you can eat quite a few of these guys before realizing just how many you’ve eaten!

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