Jelly Donut Cupcakes and a Simple Yummy Dinner

Tuesday night I made something yummy and simple for dinner. Inspired by my trip to the farmer’s market, I decided to make something with kale–so, I rooted through my cabinets and realized I haven’t done anything with the wild rice mix I got from the bulk bins at Ho Foods a couple of months ago. I (fortuitously) just bought a can of kidney beans, and decided that they would be delicious with the rice. Thus a meal was born!

But would I be satisfied with just kale and rice with beans? Nay! I also decided to try my hand at baking up some potato fries, because I had a potato begging to be julienned.

The end result? A quick and yummy dinner–though I was later told that the rice was bland (I didn’t think so!), so I added “salt and pepper, to taste” to the recipe just in case!

Laurin’s Wild Rice with Red Beans

1.5 cups wild rice mix

3 cups veggie broth (or water–or water with bullion/stock in it)

1 (15oz) can kidney beans, drained and rinsed

salt and pepper, to taste

Bring the broth to a boil, add rice. Stir and lower to low heat once it begins to boil again. Cover after lowering heat. Let the rice cook for ~20-25 minutes, until all water is absorbed (You may taste-test it when that much time has elapsed to see if maybe some water needs to cook off instead).

When the rice is done, add the drained/rinsed beans and stir it all up. Let it cook for a little while to heat it through (still at low heat) and to allow the flavors to combine. Season with salt and pepper, to your taste.

Serves 4-6, depending on portion size.

Kale

I made the kale according to this recipe, from VeganYumYum. I started it after I added the beans, since it takes such a short amount of time to cook.

Baked Potato Fries

I just sorta winged this one– I sliced up one small-medium sized russet potato into fry sizes and baked them on a greased (with olive oil) cookie sheet in a 350 degree oven for ~20 minutes. I would recommend that you shake them around or flip them over halfway through so that they don’t a) stick to the cookie sheet, and b) cook too thoroughly on just one side.

In any case, I would start the fries once the rice is covered and cooking. You can leave the fries in the oven (turn off the heat!) until everything is ready. Also, be sure to wash your potato(es) really well if you’re keeping the skin on like I did.

And now……………..

Jelly Donut Cupcakes.

As you can see, they look like muffins with jelly on top of them. This would be mostly correct. According to the Veganomicon, the jelly was supposed to be amoeba’d into the cupcake, but this obviously didn’t happen. This could be due to the fact that I didn’t use cheap jelly like they recommended, or any other random thing–but I followed the recipe exactly. And Isa said explicitly that you don’t need to push the jelly into the batter, or pour batter over it because the baking would take care of it.

Obviously not! And next time I make these I will be sure to push it in there!

On another note, the cupcakes are very yummy, even flawed as they are They do give you the donut feeling/taste, sort of, and I think they would be very yummy with cupcake frosting on them (of the non-chocolate variety) if you don’t like jelly. Also confectioner’s sugar might help (which is mentioned in Vcon).

Anyway! Sorry for such a hiatus, but I haven’t made anything worth blogging about since the last post. I did make the Coconut-Lemon Bundt Cake from Vcon again for a vegan potluck last weekend, but I already posted about that…So I guess I’ll go til I make something else yumtastic!