Grab Bag - A Slow Week for Baking

Apparently, being employed full time is quite a bit different from being employed part time and being a student part time.  The difference being that you can bake while you're studying.  When I was in school, it always seemed like I was keeping the craziest hours - the commute was long, plus, if I worked and went to class on the same day there was dead time that wouldn't exist if I just went to work for 8 hours.  Wow.  I was really mythologizing my old work schedule!  I'm still commuting nearly an hour each way to work.  I'm working a bit of overtime.  And, ALERT, when you have to wake up at 6am EVERY DAY (not just a few days a week or when you want to get a little extra studying in), you have to go to bed at a reasonable hour EVERY NIGHT.  I'm not claiming that I didn't work hard, or that I got very much sleep in law school, but I did have a bit more freedom to tinker with my schedule.  Since I've been temping, and also making an attempt to visit the gym, I've barely had time to cook a healthy dinner by the time I get home, let alone launch into a four hour baking extravaganza.  This weekend, I took a little much-deserved baking time:

I turned to a couple of old stand-by's.  One out of convenience, and the other out of my total love of fall.  On Sunday afternoon I whipped up a batch of Parker House Rolls.  Not the most thrilling, or even the healthiest, the Parker House Rolls have the advantage of being fast and providing me with sandwich bread for a week.  When I'm busy and hate to buy lunch out, the convenience of the basic sandwich can't be overlooked.  Still, it was probably the least thrilling baking I've done all month!

Luckily, I also had time to mix up a batch of my delicious (to the point of being weirdly addictive) fall muffins.  These muffins are most addictive (I think) because they don't taste nearly as healthy as they are.  I use a recipe of my own creation (although loosely based on a recipe for vegan zucchini bread that I found on the internet a year or so ago).  It's a little free form, so it's hard to write down, but here goes:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

• One mashed banana (I prefer them just ripe, but not overripe)
• Some quantity of pureed cooked pumpkin or squash - the amount depends on how much you have on hand and how pumpkin-y you're feeling.  I'm always feeling really pumpkin-y. 
• 1 cup (or less) of sugar (mixture of white and brown is tasty)
• about 2/3 cup applesauce and 1/3 cup vegetable oil - sometimes I use soy yogurt and skip the oil altogether, but watch out for the sweetness of the yogurt
• 2 teaspoons vanilla

Mix the first five ingredients, then add:

• about 3 cups of flour - this will change depending on how much pumpkin you used.  I also like to use a mixture of white and wheat flour, plus some oats and some ground flax seed.  All of this will affect how much flour you need.
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 to 3 teaspoons cinnamon - I like to just open the top of the cinnamon and shake until it feels right.  Sometimes I mix in a little nutmeg or allspice too, for fun.

Once you've got that all mixed together and feeling like a thick batter, or just wetter than a moist dough, mix in:

• about half of a large pear or apple, diced and roasted - I usually roast the fruit in the toaster oven while I'm mixing the rest of the ingredients and preheating the oven.  I wrap the diced fruit in tinfoil and set the toaster oven to 350 or 400 degrees.
• a handful of finely chopped nuts (walnuts taste best, I think)
• a handful of chopped sultanas

Scoop the batter into a muffin tin that you have greased or lined with muffin cups and bake for about 45 minutes, or until they're done.  Because they'll already be brown, it's hard to tell when they start to brown on top, but they typically get somewhat firmer as they finish cooking.  These muffins turn into hard tack when overcooked, so I always opt for taking them out earlier when in doubt.  If you've really undercooked them, they'll fall apart when you try to take the wrapper off, so I sometimes test one and then pop the rest back in if the first one disintegrates.  For reference, the muffins absolutely rise better when you use soy yogurt, but I personally like the taste better without it. 

The number one thing about these muffins (well, other than the facts that they're high in fiber and have a full serving of fruits and vegetables) is the way they make my whole house smell like fall.  Roasting pumpkin and cinnamon are two of my favorite aromas.  Adding a baking pear to that is just about the best thing ever.  Plus, making these muffins lets me get all the enjoyment from these scents and flavors without the guilt of eating pumpkin pie for breakfast for a week.  Although I would love that.