EggPlant Pockets and Carrot-Coconut Muffin-Cakes

I was starving at the end of my day and had intentions of making some of the much blogged about carrot cake cup cakes, but I needed a little something else to go with them. I left work feeling pretty cranky - late night listening to the poorly engineered Tegan and Sarah, and then making the silly decision to run to work - cranky to say the least. But, once I started crafting a dinner plan in my head I felt bright and shiny. Ready for the most missing of essential ingredients or the most over-stuffed muffin trays. Bring It!!!

In the pursuit of slowly cleaning out the fridge in preparation for our Sunday departure for Slovenia, I decided to work on the premise of using the two eggplants I bought on Sunday. I didn't want curry, I didn't want fried (please remember the re-kindled love between me and my oven), so I opted for throwing together a new recipe that I am christening my Eggplant Pockets.

They were wicked yummy, and, given the middle eastern spices I used and the middle eastern nature of eggplant itself, I decided to serve it with some hummus and rice cakes (ok - so rice cakes aren't so middle eastern).

Ingredients:
-2 eggplants
-1 onion
-1 can of chickpeas
-cumin, coriander
-1 can of tomatoes
-a tiny bit of olive oil

How To:
I cut the eggplants in half (along the horizontal) and hollowed them out. I added oil to a pan (yes, I did have to use the stove top) and chucked in the onions, followed by the spices. I let this cook down for a while before adding the eggplant-innards, which I diced up. I added half the can of tomatoes (reserving the other half for later), and chickpeas and let it cook for about 15 minutes. Stuffing the eggplant shells was quite easy because they were still raw and firm. I cooked the four 'pockets' for 45 minutes - adding the remaining tomatoes across the top for the final 5 minutes.

My baking tonight was inspired by the various scrumptious looking photos posted by Happy Herbivore, Dr. Stonielove, and Pleasantly Plump Vegan. However much I wanted to taste the flavours being raved about on these blogs the dream of recreating a recipe was not to be had. Tweaking was necessary, when, after picking up what I thought were all the essentials, I realized that I was fresh out of apple sauce, or rather, I was fresh out of fresh applesauce. For, I had mowed down on all the organic sugar-free for breakie and had only a skanky, moldy bottle of apple sauce hidden away back behind some atomic mustard we bought on our trip to Ghent.

Hmmm...what to add. In the end, inspired by the title of P.P.V's recipe, I decided to add Coconut Milk to make up for the lack of apple sauce. I admit, my goodies aren't fat free - ahh well. The other little twiddle that I did to the recipe was...I didn't end up making cup cakes, so much as I made Muffin-Cakes. I guess I was a little too indulgent with my spatula and ended up adding a wee bit too much to each little cavity in the tray...and well, hey...they came out looking like muffins - but! the more yummy nummy good stuff to add my yogurt, coconut milk (why stop?) and maple syrup 'icing' to? My friend/colleague Britt is receiving a special Muffin-Cake treat tomorrow - she has had a hard week and needs a little vegan baking love.

Ingredients:
-1 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour
-1 tsp baking soda
-1 tsp baking powder
-1 tsp Cinnamon
-grated ginger
-2 grated carrots
-2 tablespoons of ginger and rhubarb preserves
-2 tablespoons of maple syrup
-1/2 cup of coconut milk
-2 tablespoons of olive oil
-1/4 cup of sugar

How To:

I added all the dry ingredients, mixed them up and then added them to the wet. I added the coconut milk until I had the consistency that I was looking for. I popped them into the oven at 350 for about 20 minutes.

Alright, two days of work await me before my holiday. Can't wait.