Maybe it’s because it’s winter, but we’ve had a real yen for warm, creamy foods, lately. That’s extended to dessert, too. Our latest fixation? Rice pudding. These chilly days and evenings just call out for it, you know? It’s like a Snuggie in a bowl.

Just to keep it interesting, I’ve been playing with the accent flavors, too. And what could be better than a promise of sunshiny summer in that comforting little dish? I speak of course, of mango. You can find dried mango wherever you are, in the dried fruit section. Combine it with a touch of sweet, aromatic cardamom, and you’ve got the best of all seasons!

Mango Rice Pudding
(serves about 4)

Ingredients:

4 cups milk (your choice)
1 cup long grain rice
1/2 cup coarsely chopped dried mango
2 – 3 Tbs. sugar
1/4 tsp. ground cardamom
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract (optional)
pinch of table salt

Preparation:

Put the milk and rice into a large deep saucepan and bring it to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon to keep a skin from forming. Add the rest of the ingredients, stir well, cover tightly, and reduce the heat to low.

Simmer for about 40 minutes, stirring about every 5 minutes or so. Adjust seasoning, if necessary, and cook uncovered for about another 5 minutes, or until the rice is very soft and the desired texture is achieved. If the texture is too tight for your taste, add a little additional milk and stir continuously until it’s absorbed and the pudding is creamy.

Allow to cool a few minutes and serve while warm.

Notes:

Oh, sure, you can go the prosaic raisins and cinnamon route, if you want to. In fact you can substitute any dried fruit you like. But the combination of the mango and the cardamom give it such a warm, tropical feeling and aroma, why wouldn’t you want that in the middle of a cold, dreary winter?

Okay, this is pretty funny. I must have posted this photo here, instead of my Twitter feed, but that’s okay. I’ll just tell you about it.

This is Eleanor Hoh. Eleanor is known on blog and Twitter and around town as the WokStar. For very good reason, I might add. She’s one of the Miami food bloggers who actually cooks. Eleanor enjoys teaching people about wok cooking, and taking the mystery out of doing it successfully, much as I enjoy getting in the kitchen and trying new recipes, new challenges, and telling you guys all about it.

I just recently connected with Eleanor on Twitter (we exchanged pancake recipes, I think), so when she tweeted this afternoon that she was going to be teaching a free class in my end of town, I lost no time in calling MJ and asking if he wanted to come with me.

When we arrived at the Whole Foods in Pinecrest, Eleanor was just completing her set-up. She greeted us warmly and I gave her some of my Grand Marnier Blueberry Peach Sauce and Blueberry Mojito Jam.

It was a nice, small group (about 20 or so). We had a great time and learned a lot about stir-frying and why we failed at it so miserably in the past. As I get more into Asian cooking in the near future, I hope to share some of that technique with you, too. Till then, visit Eleanor’s blog for the real deal, and see how a real WokStar does it!

It was a pleasure to meet you, Eleanor – hope you enjoy the jam!

Hate to burst anyone’s bubble, but Corned Beef & Cabbage is not a traditional Irish dish. And, up until the last 20 or 30 years or so, St. Patrick’s Day was not really all that big a deal in Ireland, either. In fact, St. Patrick’s Day was regarded pretty much as a minor saint’s feast day.

No, all that changed here in America. We made St. Patrick’s Day what it is today, and likewise, today you can find St. Patrick’s Day celebrations and corned beef & cabbage in Ireland, because we expected it.

Nonetheless, if you really want to celebrate with traditional Irish fare, try some Colcannon alongside some poached salmon or tarragon-scented chicken. Oh, and don’t forget the Guinness!

Colcannon
(serves 6-8 as a side-dish)
Ingredients:

approx. 1 lb. cabbage or kale
2-3 lbs. potatoes
2 leeks, washed & sliced thinly (white & pale green parts only)
1 cup milk
1 stick butter (preferably Irish)
salt & pepper to taste

Method:

In separate pots, cook the cabbage or kale and the potatoes in salted water until tender (approx. 12-15 minutes).

In the meantime, cook the leeks in the milk over medium heat till the leeks are tender (approx. 8-10 minutes).

Chop the cabbage or kale and mash with the cooked potatoes, add the milk with leeks and the butter, salt & pepper to taste, mashing and stirring till well-blended. What you want is a smooth mashed potato consistency with interesting bits of cabbage and leeks throughout.

Make a small indentation on top and put an additional “knob” of butter in it to melt into a little pool.

Notes:

If you have a pasta pot with a vegetable steamer insert, I boil the potatoes in the pot and steam the cabbage simultaneously.

For extra authenticity – if your friends are single – you can hide a small ring in the Colcannon. Whoever finds it will be the next to marry. Traditionally, the Irish are fond of hiding things in certain foods as portents of things to come during the year. Of course, that’s an optional “ingredient”.

Enjoy!

I came home late from work the other night, and even though the temptation was great to order in pizza or take out Chinese, I resisted. I had just baked these light and fluffy burger rolls with the Soft Whole Wheat Bread dough recipe from Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, and was really eager to try them. So, in the interest of time – I was so hungry I could have chewed the arm off the couch – I grabbed some ground beef and some of my favorite cheats, and had supper on the table in literally, fifteen minutes! That’s less time than you can get a pizza – or even decide on your toppings!

This quickie meal blends the gentle heat of a favorite chili, the fun of a Sloppy Joe, and the goodness of whole wheat. By the way, this would make a great addition to your Super Bowl menu, too! Ready? Start your stopwatches:

Black Bean Chili Sloppy Joes

Ingredients:

2 Tbs corn oil
1 lb lean ground beef
1 16 oz jar Oxford Falls® Fried Green Tomato Salsa (or any tomatillo-based salsa)
1 15.5 oz can black beans (drained and rinsed)
1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes
8 whole wheat or whole grain hamburger buns (toasted, if you like)

Preparation:

Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Brown the ground beef. Add the jar of tomatillo salsa, stir, bring up to a simmer. Add the black beans and the diced tomatoes, including its liquid. Allow to simmer until most of the liquid has cooked off, about 5 minutes.

Serve over sliced burger buns. Serves 8.

Told you it was a cheat. A tasty, even pretty healthy cheat, at that. Want to make it even healthier? Change out the ground beef for ground turkey, or even ground chicken.

And those burger buns? They sprang from this edition of the HBin5 Challenge:

To review, Michelle over at Big Black Dog, organized a group to bake from the book by Dr. Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe François, Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day.

The current challenge is to bake 3 different things using the Soft Whole Wheat Bread Recipe: a loaf of bread, hamburger or hotdog rolls, and Apple Strudel Bread.

First, the straight-up sandwich loaf:

This is actually the second loaf I made. The first one was made with the original recipe from HBin5, and was a great hit. So much so, that the loaf was eaten before I could photograph it! This is an excellent sandwich loaf – soft, tight texture, and holds together, even sliced very thin. But I couldn’t help but wonder if I couldn’t make it even healthier for my borderline-diabetic husband.

In this version, I substituted light agave nectar for the honey as the sweetener, and substituted an 8 ounce carton of Egg Beaters (roughly the equivalent of 4 eggs) for the 5 eggs called for in the recipe. I also added 1/4 cup of flax seed meal, and to lighten it up a bit more, substituted white whole wheat flour for half of the whole wheat flour. While MJ detected only the slightest difference in taste from the original, it wasn’t anything pronounced, and I was instructed, “Don’t lose this recipe!” The highest praise.

Next up, were the burger buns you met at the top of this post. I used my kitchen scale to make these buns all the same size. They baked up soft, beautifully textured, yet sturdy. Delicious!

Last, but not least, is the Apple Strudel Bread. The same whole wheat bread dough is rolled out and rolled up with chopped apple, walnut, and (in mine) dried blueberries instead of raisins, all mixed with raw sugar and cinnamon. Yum.

This was perfect for the Jewish holiday, Tu B’Shevat, essentially our Arbor Day. As the 3 of you regular readers should know by now, a Jewish holiday doesn’t exist that doesn’t have certain food traditions attached to it and this is no exception. Traditionally, foods that contain tree fruit and nuts are served on Tu B’Shevat, and the apples and walnuts in this, definitely qualify.

Check out the other participants in the HBin5 Bread Braid to see what everyone else came up with!

Come back Tuesday for my first sponsored giveaway! Here’s your hint: Whether you’re a man or a woman, gourmet cook or home cook, you need this, and I’m betting most of you don’t have one!

For me, the main reason to live in South Florida is the ability go out in the winter and early spring to the local U-Pick fields to do our produce shopping. The downside to that is, it never fails that our eyes are bigger than our plans and we wind up picking too much. After all, as you know, there’s nothing better than a tomato, or other veggie, picked and eaten the same day – preferably, the same hour – but then what?

I’ve always been intrigued by the concept of long-term food preservation – that is, boiling water canning, but it scared me to death! What if something goes wrong? What if I poison myself, or G-d forbid, someone else?!? I’ve owned books on the subject for years, but never actually dared to try it. The whole process seemed so, well, arcane.

Then the stars aligned in the heavens. First, MJ showed me all this canning equipment in some folksy holiday catalog, and with my hesitant consent, ordered a funnel, a jar lifter, and a lid rack to hold the lids while sterilizing. Purely by coincidence, almost immediately after that, Michelle of Big Black Dog asked if I was going to participate in Tigress’ Can Jam. After some persuasion (and knowing I had this pile of stuff coming), I agreed, and at literally the last possible moment, I asked Tigress if I could join. With that, I have officially joined the ranks of the “Canners”!

Once a month, someone will pick (you’ll excuse the expression) a theme produce item that’s in season and/or generally available locally, and all the participants will choose a canning recipe appropriate to the selected produce. This month, citrus is in season, and that’s our assignment. Well, hello! I live in Florida, you know – that’s a gimme!

Ever holding to the principle that “more is better”, I made two different marmalades.

The first recipe I tried seemed pretty simple – Ruby Red Grapefruit Marmalade out of The Complete Book of Year-Round Small Batch Preserving by Ellie Topp and Margaret Howard. Easy enough: Zest the grapefruit and a lemon, boil the zest, remove the bitter white pith, throw it in the food processor, boil some more, etc. But they never mention anything about the inner membranes, so I took it upon myself to filet them (I think the right phrase is something like “cut supremes”, but believe me when I tell you that there was nothing “supreme” about The Great Grapefruit Massacre of 2010!). Here’s the end result:

Flavor-wise, I think it turned out a little strong. Despite my careful zesting & fileting, it’s still got an “edge” to it that needs some moderation. On buttered toast, totally yummy. Even better with cream cheese!

But there was one other recipe in Small Batch Preserving that intrigued me, the Five Fruit Marmalade. Lemon, lime, orange, tangerine, and grapefruit. But again, there was all that zest this, but not that. Boil the piths with the zest, but don’t use the lime pith. Fish out all the pith and… well, you get it. I don’t have that kind of concentration. I knew I was going to screw something up.

As luck would have it, one evening I caught an episode of Good Eats on Food Network. Guess what old Alton was talking about. C’mon, guess! Preserving! He was making orange marmalade! And he wasn’t zesting and pithing and chopping – he was using a mandoline! What if I could adapt this recipe to his method? Hmmm….

So, I pulled out the old cut-glove and the little hand-held slicer I gave MJ for Christmas, a couple of years ago, and with apologies to both Alton Brown and Mesdames Topp and Howard, I give you

Four (and a quarter) Fruit Marmalade
(yields about 7 cups)

Ingredients:

1 large lemon
2 large limes
2 medium thin-skinned oranges
3 clementines
1 key lime (optional – because I had one)
4 cups water
1/4 tsp. baking soda
5 1/2 cups sugar

Preparation:

Wash all fruits thoroughly. Slice off the stem-end of each fruit, far enough to reveal the flesh.

Using a mandolin or hand slicer, slice each fruit as thinly as possible, until you get to the point where there’s more pith & rind than flesh. Do this over a bowl (like a flat soup bowl) to catch the fruit and juices. Take care to remove seeds as they appear. If you get any large slices, take a knife and quarter them. You should wind up with about 5 cups of fruit.

Place the shaved fruit in a large saucepan (4 quart capacity) along with the water, bring to a boil, and boil rapidly for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add the baking soda, lower heat and boil gently for another 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. The baking soda will make the contents foam up rather suddenly, so don’t be alarmed.

Add the sugar, mix well, and raise the heat. Boil rapidly, stirring occasionally, for about 30 minutes, or until the mixture passes the “gel test.” (See notes, below)

Ladle into sterilized jars and process (boiling water canning method) for 5 minutes.

Notes:

Gel Test – Place a couple of small dishes in the freezer during the last phase of cooking. About 5 minutes before the end of the approximate cooking time, take the plate out of the freezer and put a small spoonful of the mixture on it. Immediately return the plate to the freezer for 2 minutes. Remove the pot of food from the heat during the test time. At the end of 2 minutes, take the plate out of the freezer, and with the tip of the spoon, push the mixture on the plate. If it’s thick and “wrinkles”, you’re good to go! Move on to the processing stage. If it runs, return the food to the heat and boil for another 2 minutes and test again.

When slicing the clementines (you could probably substitute tangerines), about 3/4 of the way down, the skin will loosen and pull away. At that point, don’t worry about the skin, just dig out the remaining flesh and go on to the next thing.

Isn’t she a beauty?

Oh, and the “quarter fruit”? My poor little Key Lime shrublet had just one little fruit on it and it was ripe and ready to go. I had no clue what to do with one key lime (they’re about the size of a walnut), so I decided to add it to the mix. I don’t believe it necessarily added much of anything, so don’t knock yourself out trying to find one just for this.

You guys, this worked out so well, I can’t begin to tell you. Using the mandoline shaved loads of time off of the prep process. No pun intended. The result was fine, even shreds which allowed the sweet liquid to permeate every cell, and no bitterness.

Okay, I’m hooked! Can’t wait to find out what’s in store for February!

Yes, I know it’s Tuesday. That happens a lot around here.

In case you hadn’t heard, it’s been downright frigid around these parts for the last week or so – at least frigid for us! And unless you’re living south of the equator, it’s pretty darn frigid where you are, too, I’m betting. Time for some hearty 5 Bean Barley Soup! Want some? It’s easy-peasy!

5 Bean Barley Soup

Ingredients:

1/4 cup Great Northern or Navy beans
1/4 cup Roman (a/k/a Cranberry) beans
1/4 cup Small Red beans
1/4 cup lentils
1/4 cup split peas
1/4 cup pearl barley
1 medium onion, roughly chopped
2 large carrots, cut into 1 inch chunks
2 Tbs. canola or olive oil
4 cups broth of your choice (vegetable, chicken, or beef)
8 cups water
2 tsp. kosher salt (or more to taste)
1 tsp. ground black pepper

Optional: 1 large dried chipotle chili pepper or
2 tsp. Liquid Smoke

Preparation:

At least eight hours before cooking, rinse the beans, lentils, split peas, and barley and put them into a large bowl. Fill the bowl with cool water to cover by about 2 inches. Leave to soak overnight or for 10 – 12 hours. Drain, then rinse again.

In a 5 – 6 quart pot, sweat the onions and carrots in the oil over medium-high heat, till the onions are translucent, about 10 minutes. Add the beans/barley mixture, give it a stir, and add the broth, water, and seasonings. Raise the heat to high and bring to a boil, then cover partially (leave the pot lid a bit askew) and simmer on low for approximately 2-1/2 to 3 hours, till slightly thickened. Toward the end of the cooking time, taste the soup and adjust your seasonings – you may want to add a bit more salt and/or pepper – or even more Liquid Smoke.

Notes:

Stir occasionally during the cooking time to keep from scorching, and to scrape up any yummy bits that might have stuck to the bottom – they add flavor!

You can use whatever beans you happen to have, but keep in mind that cooking time varies according to the age and size of the dried beans you’re using.

Don’t have any broth handy? Use the equivalent amount of water and crumble in bouillon cubes or packaged dry soup mix!

Obviously, this makes a lot of soup – intentionally. The leftovers freeze beautifully – just thaw on your counter or in the microwave, add a little water or broth to thin it out a bit, and heat. There are two of us, and enough soup left over for 3 more meals! How’s that for delicious, satisfying, and budget-friendly?

Didn’t I tell you it was easy?

I’m serving mine here with pretzels I made from the Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes Whole Wheat Master Recipe.

To review, Michelle over at Big Black Dog, organized a new bread baking group, baking from the new book by Dr. Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe François, Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day. The current challenge is to bake 3 different things using the Whole Wheat Master Recipe: a loaf of bread, an epi (you’ll see), and crackers. Only I didn’t feel like making crackers, so I made pretzels!

It all started with the loaf:
I made a boule topped with sesame and flax seeds. Here are a couple of slices topped with my homemade Ruby Red Grapefruit Marmalade – my very first effort in canning! But that’s a story left for next week’s “Can Jam” post.

This is an epi:
Isn’t it cute? Okay, so very non-pro, but fun to make – you just form a thin baguette and snip it with kitchen shears! It was a lot of fun to eat, too, breaking off the “leaves” and dipping them in our soup! The epi came out very crispy and crunchy, and became the inspiration to make pretzels.

I made different sizes of pretzels – the smaller ones were made with balls of dough about the size of a ping pong ball, and the larger ones from dough balls about the size of a golf ball. I rolled them between my hands into long, thin snakes, twisted the ends a couple of times, and folded the twisted part over the loop of dough on my baking sheet. I misted the pretzels lightly with water and then sprinkled coarse sea salt on them, and baked in a 400º oven for about 20 minutes.

They came out golden brown and crunchy – and a perfect topping for my hearty soup!

Enjoy!

Here’s a quickie post for your Holiday pleasure – a favorite of mine, since introduced to it by some of my Cuban-American co-workers during the days before Christmas (when no one really cares if you’re a tad shit-faced at work!) – Oops! Did I say that out loud?

Crema de Vie (Cuban Eggnog)

1 cup water
2 cups granulated sugar
1 can evaporated milk
1 can sweetened condensed milk
2 – 6 egg yolks, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup rum (or to taste – use light or dark rum, your preference)
(I used nearly 2 cups, but that’s just the kind of girl I am!)

Combine water and sugar and boil for 3 – 4 minutes until it becomes syrupy. Let cool slightly.

Whisk egg yolks till frothy. Add both milks and vanilla extract to yolks. Whisk well. Add the still-hot syrup in a thin stream while still whisking. Add rum. Mix well again. Strain the mixture through cheesecloth or coffee filter. Pour into one or more decorative bottles with tight seal. Refrigerate.

Serve in small apéritif-style glasses… okay…who am I kidding? Serve in whatever glasses you want with a light grating of fresh nutmeg (optional). Just be forewarned – the stuff is addicting and potent!

This is the only recipe I know of where you can fool with the egg quantity. Just depends on how yellow & eggy you like your eggnog. I’ve seen recipes calling for up to 8 egg yolks, but that’s too close to “American” eggnog for this style, in my opinion.

*Variation: Add a 13.5 oz can of coconut milk, combine thoroughly, and you’ll get the Puerto Rican version of this holiday classic: Coquita. Adjust rum accordingly, if necessary. Also, muy delicioso!

The Crema de Vie is best made well ahead of time – my co-worker’s mother makes this in early November! But it will be extremely delicious even after just a few hours and ice-cold.

Enjoy – and Happy Holidays to All!

Lured in by @Vindee, @lifesafeast, and @ShelleyBakes, – new friends of mine on Twitter – I accepted the challenge to bloggers and Twitterers all over the world to attempt to make that delicate filled sandwich cookie, the French macaron.

Not to be confused with the macaroon, the French macaron is an airy cookie made of meringue and ground nuts. Sandwich a yummy creamy filling between two of them and you have the macaron.

Making macarons is not as easy as it sounds, and in the end, I must admit defeat. As in de feet. A proper macaron has a smooth, crispy outer shell, a chewy interior, and a rough”foot” from which it rises a bit. Well, two out of three ain’t bad.

I ain’t got no feet. But they are delicious!

Pistachio Macarons with Chocolate Almond Butter Cream – 3rd attempt

Hazelnut Macarons with Coffee Cream – 4th attempt

And you know what? I’m good with that. My second attempt (failed for other reasons) was a recipe for chocolate macarons out of A Passion For Chocolate by Maurice and Jean-Jacques Bernachon (adapted by Rose Levy Bernabaum for the American kitchen). In a photo illustrating their macarons – guess what? – no feet! But as MJ said when I gave him one to taste: “They don’t need feet to get ‘em to my mouth.” I love him. Anyways…

So, whether to blame the humidity, oven temperature(s), or any of the other minute variables, I can’t tell. And under the circumstances, I’m not going to share these particular recipes. But do visit Jamie at Life’s A Feast and see how she and other food bloggers (in whose company I am most humble) who took up the Mac Attack challenge, did!

I am an absolute fiend for Chipotle. Chipotle anything. As one of my birthday gifts, last year, MJ went online to one of our favorite exotic spice purveyors and, among other things (like Szechuan peppercorns and turmeric fingers!), got me some dried chipotle peppers and chipotle chili powder. Mmmmm!

Saturday was rainy and stormy, and when I woke up from my nap, I had a yen to create something chipotle. I love meatloaf – it’s one of the perfect comfort foods – but the real star here is the sauce. You can use your own favorite meatloaf recipe – just add 1/2 – 1 teaspoon of chipotle powder, or you can use mine. But the sauce is what makes this, and as a bonus, it’s fat-free and vegan. So you can use it on anything you want to pep up with a little smoky chipotle zip!

Chipotle Sauced Meatloaf

For the Sauce:

1 26.5 oz. Pkg. Pomi Chopped Tomatoes or 2 cans of any chopped tomatoes
2 – 3 dried Chipotle peppers (depending on your heat preference)
1/2 cup boiling water
1 tsp. Kosher salt
1 tsp. Garlic powder
1 Tbs. dried chopped onion
2 Tbs. apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup black coffee (prepared) – because, well, I like coffee.
4 Tbs. honey

In a small dish, soak the peppers in the boiling water for about 15 minutes. Saving the water, remove the peppers and chop finely.

Put all ingredients, including the pepper soaking water, into a medium saucepan (preferably non-stick) over medium heat. Stir occasionally until it begins to boil, reduce heat to low. Allow to simmer slowly while making your meatloaf, about 1-1/2 hours.

For the Meatloaf:

2 pounds ground beef
3/4 cup oatmeal
2 eggs or 1/2 cup liquid egg substitute
4 Tbs. Ketchup
1 tsp. Kosher salt
1 – 2 tsp. Chipotle chili powder (to taste)
2 tsp. Garlic powder
2 Tbs. dried chopped onion

Preheat oven to 375°. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil. If using a higher fat-content ground beef, place a rack on top.

In a medium bowl, combine all ingredients (come on, use your hands!) completely. Shape into a loaf and place it on the prepared baking pan. Bake for one hour, or until it reaches 165° internal temperature. Let rest for about 10 minutes before slicing.

You can make the sauce ahead of time – just let it cool, pour it into an airtight container and refrigerate. You can reheat it on top of the stove or in the microwave, or serve it at room temperature, too.

And don’t forget to save any leftover sauce, ’cause it would also be awesome on grilled or baked chicken, grilled tofu, or even as a dipping sauce. Use your imaginations!

Speaking of mangoes…

I was inspired last week by Elle’s Brown Butter Maple Blueberry Muffins, to try and make a version with less sugar and more good stuff that MJ (the hubs) can snack on that won’t completely sabotage his diabetes type II diet (he’s down 35 pounds and 2 pants sizes!). Please don’t make me use the word healthy. Makes it sounds like it’s made out of bark, or something. Anyway, thus was born the MultiGrain Blueberry Maple Muffin. And if you remember, I threatened you with a mango version.

I’ve been waiting all week for the mangoes to come in, and finally! I got several that were perfect! So, without further ado, I give you

MultiGrain Mango Ginger Muffins

1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup ground oatmeal
4 Tbs flax seed meal
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup Splenda for Baking (or 1/4 cup sugar &
1/4 cup Splenda)
1 tsp. ground ginger
1 cup ripe mango, cut in small dice
1/2 cup Canola oil
1 cup soy milk (I use plain, unflavored, but you can use what you like)
3 eggs (or 3/4 cup liquid egg substitute OR 2 eggs and 1/4
cup egg substitute)
1/2 tsp salt
4 Tbs candied ginger, finely chopped (optional)

Heat oven to 375, and lightly grease a muffin pan.

In a large bowl, sift together the flours, flax seed meal, baking powder, ginger, and Splenda.

In a smaller bowl, toss the diced mango with 1/4 cup of the flour mixture.

In another bowl, whisk the oil, soy milk, eggs, and salt.

Pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture, mix until just barely combined, and fold in mango and candied ginger (if using).

Fill the muffin cups about 3/4 full and bake for 20-25 minutes.

A toothpick poked in the center should come out clean.

Makes 12

Damn you, Elle, for getting me on this muffin kick! Okay, not really…