Punk Rock Flea Market- Summer 2010

I know, I know. I've been slacking on pies in July. I haven't gotten that crust tutorial to you yet. (It's almost done! Really! There's just so much I want to share!) But I've been preoccupied. The Punk Rock Flea Market is this Sunday, and I've got a table.

Are you in Philly, or can you easily get to Philadelphia? Then you should definitely be there. Don't let the name fool you. It's more than just punk records and old ramones t-shirts (though you probably will find plenty of those). There's tons of vintage clothes and accessories, hand-made items, screen-prints, art, random old appliances and decorations, and all of that regular flea market fair.

R5 has a bigger location this year, so it's going to be huge. There's over 250 tables. You won't find any grandmas selling ceramic nicknacks, but you will find cute girls peddling delcious treats. Like me. This is why you should come. I'll have things like this:

and this:

and this:

and some of these:

definitely these:

and maybe, if you're lucky, some of these:

And a couple of other things I don't have pictures of. It's probably going to be ridiculously hot there, so I had to ditch cupcakes, peanut butter cups, things dipped in chocolate, and any other baked good I figured would be too delicate. But I'll still have some pretty delicious stuff for you to choose from!

So seriously guys, no excuses. This is the best flea market in Philly. It's worth the trip. And when you're weary from looking at all that stuff, come find me. I'll have a donut waiting for you.

Punk Rock Flea Market- Summer Edition
Sunday July 25 10am-5pm
At the Punk Rock Flea Market Dome (461 N 9th St- Right across from Starlight Ballroom)
Just south of the intersection of 9th and Spring Garden
All Ages to Enter/ 250+ Vendors/ Re-entry all day long!
$3 Admission Donation

I Survived Muffinpalooza!

Happy Independence Day to all! And welcome, scooter rally peeps! Let's talk muffins.

Ok, so I've been talking about these damn muffins for weeks now. I'm sure you're sick of it. But fear not gentle reader, because today was the big day!

A couple of months ago a friend of a friend contacted me about making muffins for the Hostile City Scooter Club's Philadelphia Independence Day Scooter Rally. She was responsible for breakfast, and thought my blackberry corn muffins looked tasty. I believe my response was something to the effect of "OMG Hell yes! and Thankyouverymuch!"

12 dozen muffins, 4 different varieties, all to be dropped off the morning of the 4th of July. Slightly daunting, but mostly exciting! My first big order! Exclamation points!

The varieties?

Strawberry Rhubarb, also dubbed the Summer Love Muffins. Share one with your sweetie in the morning. (wink, wink.)

Blueberry, which I'm calling the Midnight Murder Muffins. Seriously, the way those berries burst, they look like they didn't make it out of an 80's slasher flick.

Banana Nut, also known as the Nutty Monkey Muffins. Too cute? Probably. Deal with it.

And last but not least, a savory corn muffin with sundried tomatoes and chives. I didn't come up with a cute name for it. Feel free to suggest one.

Scooter enthusiasts, I hope you liked them. I hope you loved them. I hope you NOM NOM NOM'd them all and didn't leave a crumb. Feel free to leave some comments below and let me know just what you thought. Inquiring minds want to know. Also, don't hesitate to follow me on the Facebook or the Twitter. Social Media, ho!

And of course I need to give a big shout out to Ms. Poliana who set it all up. Girl, you rock my face off! Thanks again!

Strawberry Love Muffins

My last entry was long, silly, scattered, and probably a little too "crazy cat lady" for most of you (or, more honestly, everyone except Nicole and Sarah). So I'll keep this short and simple.

It's a muffin-palooza around here these days. Remember how I mentioned I'm making 12 dozen (!) muffins for that scooter rally in Philly? Well, the 4th of July is approaching quickly, and I'm fine-tuning recipes and freezer-testing, and generally trying to make sure I don't drive myself last-minute crazy like I always do. How responsible and completely atypical of me. I like it!

One of the muffins on the list is Strawberry Rhubarb. My last attempt at a Strawberry Rhubarb muffin yielded lukewarm results, and I've been hunting for the perfect recipe ever since. Because, seriously, I just can't get enough of that S&R combination. And just when I thought I had figured out the perfect recipe... I couldn't find any rhubarb. Not at the supermarket, not at the farmer's market. Not Awesome. 

Thankfully, strawberries are very in season, and every farmer's market stand in the city is overflowing with bright, juicy, sweet berries of the not-freakishly large (read: normal-sized) variety. If you can stop yourself from eating the whole container, pickup some berries at the market this weekend, and make these muffins for brunch. Thank me later.

Strawberry Love Muffins
adapted from Bittersweet

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup ricemilk (or your favorite non-dairy milk)
1/3 cup canola oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup fresh berries, chopped (if you use frozen, make sure they're thawed. But why would you use frozen strawberries in June???)

Preheat oven to 375 F and grease or line 12 muffin tins.

Whisk dry ingredients together (sugar is considered a dry ingredient for this recipe). In a seperate bowl whisk together non-milk, oil and vanilla, then add your wet ingredients to the dry. Fold gently with a wooden spoon until just mixed; a few lumps are totally OK. Remember, when it comes to mixing vegan muffins, LESS is always more! Gently fold in strawberries. Fill muffin cups 3/4 full, and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out dry. Let cool in pans for about 10 minutes before removing and placing on wire rack to cool completely. These muffins are just as good same-day and slightly warm as they are at room temp the next day. Store in an air-tight container. DO NOT refrigerate.

*Note: I like my fruit muffins on the sweet side, so I added more sugar than called for in the original recipe. I still thought they needed a little something extra, and next time will probably add some lemon juice or zest, and some sanding sugar or a simple glaze on top. Or RHUBARB if I could find the gosh-darn things! If you spice these up, let me hear about it!

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.

Blackberry Corn Muffins

Oh hai Tuesdee. Thanks for being a lot nicer than Monday. And thanks, Technology, for finally deciding to cooperate. Here's what I planned to tell y'all about yesterday. 

Sunday was quite a gray day. Cold and rainy and mopey. Know what made it worse? I had to be at work at 8:30 AM. For a meeting. Double yuck. 

8:30 am Sunday meetings should be illegal. It's cruel and unusual and downright inhumane. Such is the world of retail, I suppose. To ease everyone's pain, I decided to bring my coworkers some muffins to nosh on as we all miserably watched too many poor-quality corporate videos through half-open eyelids. 

And, like I often do, "maybe i'll make some muffins" turned into a muffin-palooza. 3 batches, 36 muffins. (There's not even 20 of us that work there). I wish I had taken a picture of the basket-o-muffins. It was pretty ridic. 

I stuck with my standard vegan banana muffins, half with and half without nuts, for one batch. They're a crowd pleaser. And some of my co-workers are pretty picky. 

The others, I figured I'd just see what was good at the market. I went to the Whole Foods on South Street, and they were having some kind of earth day festival on the block with lots of eco-friendly vendors and live music. Very nice. Once inside, I found some delicious smelling strawberries on special, and some (slightly beat up) rhubarb hanging around, so I decided to attempt a strawberry rhubarb muffin. They were OK, but mostly disappointing. A little dry, and not sweet enough. They've got potential though, so I'll try again and report back at another time.  

And then I saw some blackberries for real cheap, and got it into my head that blackberry corn muffins would be AMAZING. And they were. 

Oh lordy, are these babies delicious! 

I'm a pretty big fan of a sweet corn muffin. The gritty, but soft texture makes me feel a little naughty. But I didn't have a standard corn muffin recipe. I've made sweet potato corn bread, but not a regular, simple corn muffin recipe with which to play with. So I hopped over to the post punk kitchen, to see what Isa (of Veganomican and VCTOTW fame) had to say about them. This recipe got great reviews, and since she's yet to steer me wrong, I ran with it. 

Let me warn you guys, these things are like crack. They're a little sweeter than I'd normally like and I'll probably cut back on the sugar next time, but otherwise they're perfect. The texture is great, soft yet slightly gritty. They're crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside, and not too crumbly. And the bit of lemon zest added at the end makes all the difference. Dreamy, really.  Just like Andrew McCarthy in Pretty in Pink or Mannequin. 

These muffins got a one-way ticked to the "make as often as possible" list. For realsies. 

Blackberry Corn Muffins

adapted from the Post Punk Kitchen

1 cup flour

1 cup cornmeal

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar

1/2 cup corn or vegetable oil

3/4 cup soymilk

2 tablespoons soy yogurt

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

1/2-3/4 cup roughly chopped blackberries

Preheat oven to 400. Line muffin tins, if you plan to do so, now. In a large bowl, sift together dry ingredients (flour through sugar). In a seperate bowl, wisk together wet ingredients (oil through vanilla). Fold wet into dry, halfway through mixing add lemon zest and blackberries and distribute well.

Spray muffin tins w/ non stick cooking spray if not using liners. Fill each tin 2/3 full. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Serve warm. 

If making in advance, you can warm these up in the microwave later for about 10-15 seconds, and they're still as tasty. (Don't microwave them for any longer, especially not a whole minute, or your whole apartment will smell like burnt muffins for at least 2 days. Ken, I'm looking at you.)