Golden Monkey Muffins, or How I Spent my Saturday

Ok, first things first. We finally gave a kitty a forever home!  Last week I talked about getting a cat from PAWS, and on Friday we finalized the adoption process and brought our little lady home. Everyone, I'd like you to meet Ms. Gracie LaRoux. 

Her previous owners abandoned her, and she was so sad at the shelter. I can't understand how anyone could abandon her. She's petite, and full of style and grace, and really just an all-around swell gal. She seems happy and content in her new home, already claiming the papasan as her own. But the best part of the whole process? Watching Ken, my "I don't really like cats" boyfriend, slowly fall in love with her. Although, you'd have to be heartless to deny this much adorable. Also, if you're thinking about adopting a cat or dog, try PAWS first. There's so many sweet animals there waiting for a forever home!

Gracie and I spent all day Saturday getting to know each other, and it was just wonderful. Pocket pies are on my 'to-do' list for the Punk Rock Flea Market, and I found an interesting recipe on Vegan Yum Yum. Now, pies are my specialty, and I've got a pie crust recipe that works beautifully for me every time. This recipe called for a Pate Brisee, and though I'd never tried it before, I figured I'd branch out and give it a go. And since Gracie is French, she offered to help.

I guess there's a lot of things that could have gone wrong with this recipe. It's a vegan recipe, so there's no actual butter. I used the food processor, which I never usually do. Maybe I didn't add enough water. Maybe it was too hot in the kitchen. All I know is, I couldn't get the dough to roll. It kept cracking no matter what I did. It was really quite infuriating. Especially for someone who thinks pastry is her specialty and has never had such problems before. 

And everytime I'd ask Gracie for her help, she was all like, "Oh, I'll be back in one second, I just need to check on something." And 20 minutes later, I'd leave the kitchen frustrated and all covered in flour, to find her comfy and sound asleep. 

This happened repeatedly. 

Gracie, I'm sorry to say that you're fired as sous chef. However, there's an opening for adorable mascot, and I think I'll hire you immediately.

I spent a really long time fighting with this dough. Too long. And for the hours I spent on this endeavor, I only got two pocket pies out of the deal and they cracked and leaked and generally looked like they had just come back from war. 

A quick web search eased my stress, as many people appeared to have issues with this recipe, including Deb over at Smitten Kitchen. That really made me feel better. So, I scrapped the rest of the dough, cranked the AC in the bedroom, and took a catnap with my new best friend. When we woke up, we made banana muffins to brush off the morning pastry FAIL. And these muffins are a total WIN.

Guys, I hope you're ready, cause I'm about to give you my vegan banana muffin recipe. This is my go-to recipe. I've stolen hearts and blown minds with these muffins. 

It started with a banana bread recipe from How it All Vegan that I've altered over the years. This recipe makes a sweet, light and moist muffin that you can throw just about anything into, or leave plain. Since I was out of nuts and wasted all my blueberries on botched pocket pies, golden raisins were all I had left. And so I give you, the Golden Monkey muffins.

Golden Monkey Muffins

adapted VERY loosely from How it All Vegan

3 ripe bananas, mashed

1 tbsp lemon juice

1/2 cup oil

1/2 cup vegan sugar

2 cups flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup golden raisins

Preheat oven to 375. Grease muffin pan, or line with muffin cups. In a medium bowl, mash bananas. Add lemon juice, oil and vegan sugar and whisk together. In a large bowl, sift flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Fold wet ingredients into the flour mixture and gently stir with a wooden spoon until just mixed. When almost done mixing, fold in raisins. DO NOT OVER MIX. Some lumps are OK.  Pour into muffin tins and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Makes 12 regular sized muffins, or six large muffins.

*Notes: If golden raisins aren't your thing, feel free to substitute blueberries, chopped walnuts, dates, or whatever you have on hand and tickles your fancy. Then let me know how it works!

*Also, vegan muffins and breads work best when you mix much less than you think you should. You want to mix until you don't see any more flour, and lumps be damned. When pouring the batter into the pan, don't bother smoothing or smooshing it down either. Just scrape the batter in, and let it fall as it will. This helps to keep the muffins light, instead of dense and gooey.

Kitties and Flea Markets

Exciting things are happening around here. The temperature's gone down, so baking is a very real possibility again. Which is good, because my summer schedule is really filling up with baking orders for which I need to start trying new recipes. I'll be making a lot (13 dozen!) of muffins for a scooter rally on the 4th of July, and I've got some savory corn muffins I'm planning to try. Oh, and did I mention I'm making the desserts for my friends' wedding? Don't worry, you'll be hearing more about both of these soon. 

I'm also doing the Punk Rock Flea Market again! The summer version is happening this July, and unlike the Christmas one, I'm starting to plan way in advance. I'm thinking about what I should make, and I've got lots of ideas. Cookies are always a big seller, and my chocolate peanut butter cups went really fast at Christmas. I'm also thinking about homemade pop tarts and pocket pies. Cupcakes and brownies. Lots of ideas swimming around my noggin' right now. 

And while I'm brainstorming and preparing signs and packaging and business cards, I thought I'd give you guys a chance to put in your two cents. So, what do you guys think I should sell at the market? Or, more importantly, what do you guys want to buy from me? I'm interested to know!

But the most exciting news of all? I finally broke Ken down, and there's a very real possibility that we'll be giving a kitty a forever home by the end of the week! I've been looking on the PAWS website at all of the sweet little cats that need a good home, and I want them all. I'll have to settle with one (for now), but I'm still really happy about it (this little guy in particular seems to be calling my name). 

I'll keep you posted on the new addition to the fambly! And while you're waiting for that, leave me a comment with your flea market goodie suggestion!

Snackin' in Scranton: Gold Crown pizza

My kitchen's still an inferno and I haven't turned my oven on in over 2 weeks. So, while I'm itching for a baking fix, here's a little something to distract you check out from my Scranton trip. I apologize to Nicole Snyder in advance, who will now probably be craving pizza for the rest of the day:

We've discussed this before. I'm from Scranton, and I frequently travel home to see friends and family eat pizza. Sometimes it takes up my whole visit. Thankfully, it's pretty easy to round up a group to head to Gold Crown for pizza and beers. It's a two birds, one stone kinda thing in the most delicious way possible.

Now, before anyone gets their panties in a bunch, let me clarify. Gold Crown is not actually in Scranton. It's in Dunmore. Which is near Scranton. But just like a Japanese man would be offended if you said he was Chinese, Dunmoreans are proud of their borough. And I've got too many friends that live in Dunmore to start angering them. OK, now that's out of the way, let's talk about the pizza.

On this particular venture, we got a tray of plain and a tray with olives. I don't have much to say about Gold Crown other than it's extra yummy, in a very NEPA-pizza kind of way. Crispy bottom crust, slightly sweet sauce, gooey cheese blend. 

Their pizzas are smaller than normal trays, but not quite personal-pan size. I've thought about finishing one on my own, but I've never actually done it. Two pizzas will very easily feed 4 people, and you might even have left-overs. But you'll probably find yourself justifying that third, and sometimes fourth, piece. Do it. It's worth it. Also, I find their pizza is best while still warm, and looses some deliciousness the longer it sits. All the more reason to have that extra piece, love handles be damned. 

Yeah, yeah, I know. I shouldn't be eating cheese anyway. Ken reminds me all the time. But there are some things that are worth the pain. Pagash is one. Gold Crown is also on that list.

Gold Crown has a bar on one side, kitchen on the other. You can eat in, or take out. They only serve pizza until around 10pm though, so you need to get there before beer o'clock if you want to enjoy the gooey awesomeness. The bar stays open till 2AM, so you can continue drinking your calories. They've got a pretty good bottled beer selection for a NEPA bar, so if you're a beer lover and you find yourself stranded in Dunmore, it's not such a bad place to be.

Gold Crown is definitely on my top ten list for NEPA pizzas. It's good snackin'. 

Gold Crown Pizzeria

634 E Drinker St

Dunmore PA 18512

570-346-4481

Road Swallows: A Pilgrimage to Vegan Treats

It's approximately eleventy-billion degrees in my apartment. Between how crazy stressed I've been and the extreme heat, I haven't even thought about turning on my oven this past week, and can't imagine doing it anytime soon. Luckily for you, I'm behind on posts and I've got a backlog of pictures and goodies to write about to hold us over until the temps go down or I get an industrial fan. 

Two weekends ago I visited Scranton, and on the way up the turnpike I made an impromptu stop in Bethlehem. Yeah, Bethlehem, PA. Why? Because it's the holy land for vegans and the lactose intolerant. Stay with me here. 

If you're a vegan with a sweet tooth in the Northeast, Vegan Treats is your Mecca. Everyone makes a pilgrimage at some point or another. If traveling for treats isn't your style, they deliver to lots of restaurants from NYC to DC. I've tried some of their cakes before in Philly, and you may have too if you've ever had vegan dessert at the Royal Tavern or Cantina Los Caballitos. They can also be found at New Harmony Vegetarian, Kingdom of the Vegetarians in Chinatown, and lots of coffee shops like Last Drop and Mugshots. For a full list of locations in Philadelphia, or your town, that carry Vegan Treats, check out their website. They've got a google map feature that will help you get their goods in your belly. And trust me, you want these in your belly.

I decided to try a little bit of everything, and dropped around $20 on a mixed bag of treats. Then I shared them over the weekend with all my favorite people in Scranton: those wonderful peeps at Eden, Amanda over at The Fanciful Fox, and of course, my favorite Italian Carolyn. So, let's take a closer look at what we tried.

The Pumpkin Whoopie pie was ENORMOUS. I had it for dessert after another delicious meal at Eden- A Vegan Cafe. I shared it with about 8 people. It tasted like fall, and had everyone nervous that it might not be vegan. That's how good it was. Also, whatever it is that Vegan Treats is doing to get that filling so light and subtly sweet and delcious, I need to know. I. NEED. TO. KNOW.

These donuts blew my mind. Probably the best donuts I've ever had in my life. The one on the left is boston creme; the one on the right is chocolate with sprinkles. After the first bite, I immediately regretted not buying a dozen assorted donuts. I'm not a huge fan of donuts, but I'd eat these every day. The chocolate donut with sprinkles in particular had a really great texture, not too cakey, but soft and chewy. It was very chocolately and not-too sweet. I bow down to the bakers at Vegan Treats.

(Side-donut note: I shared half of the chocolate sprinkles donut with Amanda at the Fanciful Fox, and I totally made her week. We started talking, and I had this pseudo-celebrity moment where she was all like, "OMG, you're Sweet Swallows!?" And I was all like, "yeah, you want a muffin and some donut?" and she was all like, "YES!" and then she tried to convince me to move to Scranton and set up a vegan bakery on Adams Ave. I'm still considering it. Also, expect to hear more about the ladies and the goods at the Fanciful Fox soon. Their products are vegan and fair trade and awesome.)

I waited till the next day while baking with Carolyn to try anything else. We did a tasting of the rest of the items, and left the rest for her family to enjoy. First up, we tried the truffles.

I thought I had bought cookies and creme truffles. I guess I heard wrong though, because these tasted like mint cake truffles. When you're expecting dark chocolately truffles, and instead get a minty, chewy cake, it's a pretty big let down. Carolyn and I were both a little disappointed in these.

We tried the brownies next. I had gotten two different kinds, cookies and creme and peanut butter bombes. The brownie itself wasn't much to write home about. It was a little dry, very thin, and not as fudgy as I like. If you've been following along with the blog, you'll know I've been in search of the perfect brownie recipe, and it actually made me feel a little better to know that these brownies weren't great either. The cookies and creme topping tasted like a light buttercream mixed with crushed up Newman's O's. It was ok, but not amazing. The peanut butter bombe, on the other hand, was over the moon dreamy! Light-as-air peanut butter mousse, covered in a chocolate, and a peanut butter drizzle all over. Holy Moly, was that delicious! 

Last, we tried a little Lemon Strawberry cake. It looked adorable, the cutest little size (about 3", maybe). The taste was pretty under-whelming. Keep in mind that I'm not a big fan of cake to begin with, but the cake was much to dense for my liking. The strawberry filling was very good, but because the cake was so small, there was not much filling to be had. The icing was similar in taste and texture to the icing on the cookies and creme brownie. Like most of the treats I tried, it had a nice light texture and wasn't too sweet. Unfortunately, this cake failed to impress me. 

Overall, the trip was DEFINITELY worth my time, and I'll probably do it again soon. Some final thoughts:

• Carolyn and I both agreed that the donuts and the whoopie pies were the best. Truffles were the least favorite. 
• I thought that some items were over priced, but some were a great deal. The mixed box all balanced out in the end. 
• The shop was really cute, the display case looked beautiful and there was a big variety of treats to choose from.
• However, nothing was labeled in the case, and no prices were displayed, so I had to ask about everything.
• The girl working behind the counter was as friendly as she needed to be, but not very helpful. I explained to her it was my first time there and asked for advice on what I should try. She was pretty vague and failed to excite me about anything. I mean, I get it, you're working and would probably rather have Saturday off. But I feel that if you work in a bakery that's been written about in national publications, has been lauded by the press, and is carried by restaurants in major cities on the east coast, you could muster a little enthusiasm, and tell me one or two things that I should definitely try. Maybe I'm just spoiled by the service I get at Eden.
• I hear they deliver donuts to some coffee shops in Philly. I need to do more research on this...

Vegan Treats

1444 Linden St

Bethlehem PA 18018

website: www.vegantreats.com 

phone: 610-861-7660