tabbouleh

i've been eating the heck out of store-bought tabbouleh (from trader joe's), so i thought i'd try making my own. very easy to do, but prepping the parsley is a little time consuming. bulgur can be found in the bulk bins at whole foods (pretty affordable way to buy your grains!) this recipe is adapted from mark bittman's tabbouleh recipe in "how to cook everything vegetarian" (he used more olive oil & scallions instead of red onion). 

Tabbouleh

½ cup bulgur

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil (or more as needed)

¼ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 cups chopped parsley, leaves and small stems only

1 cup chopped fresh mint leaves

½ cup finely diced red onion

 several cherry tomatoes, chopped into small pieces

1) soak the bulgur in almost-boiling water until tender, 30-45 minutes. Drain well in a sieve, squeezing out as much water as possible. Toss the bulgur with the oil and lemon juice and season with salt & pepper.

2) Add the parsley, mint, onion and tomatoes and toss gently. 

Pumpkin Muffins

cooking and food blogs are ripe with pumpkin-related recipes this time of year, so now it's my turn to add something. i'm not vegan, but i've been exploring more and more vegan blogs lately (out of boredom and curiosity) and have had luck with a vegan cranberry apple cake in the past. thought i'd try these, from the "post punk kitchen". normally i don't take any liberties or make substituions the first time i bake something, but i made some subs. THEY ARE AWESOME.  Perfect texture & consistency. Not super sweet. Perfectly replicates non-vegan baked goods - you wouldn't even know the difference.

Here's what I did:


Vegan Pumpkin Muffins

Ingredients
1 1/4 cups flour 
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup sugar 
1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup pureed pumpkin (fresh or from a can)
1 tablespoon vanilla soy yogurt
1/2 cup almond milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon "ginger people" syrup + a little bit of molasses (original recipe calls for 2 tbs molasses, i wanted to try that syrup out! I found it at World Market for $2.99. You could probably leave it out altogether...)

1. Preheat oven to 400 F*. 
     *my oven runs hot, so i had mine set to about 325.
2. Grease muffin tins with vegetable shortening or spray on oil.   
3. Sift together dry ingredients (flour through cloves). 
4. In a separate bowl, wisk together wet ingredients (pumpkin through molasses). 
5. Pour wet into dry and combine. Fill muffin tins 2/3 of the way. 
6. Bake for 18-20 minutes, till a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. 

I also whisked together some softened Neufchatel (1/3 less fat cream cheese), some pumpkin puree, pumpkin pie spice and powdered sugar to spread on top.  Kinda like this, but i really just threw things into a bowl...