As my many donut and dessert posts can attest, I'm not what you'd call a "clean eater." I don't ascribe to any particular diet, but I can appreciate vegetarian and vegan things. I'm still a little iffy on what exactly the Paleo diet is, but, (insert some sarcasm here) thank goodness, there are a bajillion websites that I can visit in order to get a better grip on it, if I feel so inclined.
This is all to lead in to this post on okara, which is something you only ever had to deal with if you've made your own soy milk or tofu. In Korean, it's called (kong)biji, but on all the blog sites, they call it okara which is the Japanese word for it. It's just the ground up soy beans that are left over when you've finished making your soy product of choice. My mom was making a ton of soy/black sesame/peanut milk to take to an ailing friend and I asked her what her plan for the leftover biji was. She normally just made kongbiji-jjigae, which is ground soybean stew with kimchi, but I asked if I could try something else.
Enter my quest to find an okara recipe that didn't require a dehydrator or a trip to the grocery store to grab agave or coconut flour or dates or some such. It was an uphill battle, lemme tell you. Because I'm not a raw foods person or a vegan or a Paleo dieter, I also don't stock a lot of the stuff that they included in their recipes. That's not to say I shouldn't, just that it would be inconvenient for me to run out for a specialty ingredient that I might use a couple of times and then would linger in my pantry (xanthan gum, y'all, what is that even?). In the end, I just ended up using this whole wheat carrot muffin recipe as a base. I added and substituted ingredients like crazy, and I think I came up with something pretty good.
I wanted to make something low-sugar, because my dad is diabetic and my mom watches her sugar intake carefully as well. I used a muffin tin to scoop the batter into, because I wasn't sure if I would end up with a muffin, a cookie, or a mess.
Thankfully, I ended up with a moist, muffiny cookie--a muffie! My dad is very critical of low-sugar baked goods because so many of them end up being dry and bland. He really loved these and I was properly chuffed. It was such a success that my mom ended up making another batch of soy milk the next day, just so I would have the okara necessary to make more muffins to freeze for later.
If I were making these just for me, I'd have added raisins, but I didn't want to shoot my parents' blood sugar through the roof. This is a simple recipe if you're looking for ideas to use up your leftover soy remnants (I think almond milk leftovers would work too). I guess this means I need to post a recipe on how to make soy milk soon?
This is all to lead in to this post on okara, which is something you only ever had to deal with if you've made your own soy milk or tofu. In Korean, it's called (kong)biji, but on all the blog sites, they call it okara which is the Japanese word for it. It's just the ground up soy beans that are left over when you've finished making your soy product of choice. My mom was making a ton of soy/black sesame/peanut milk to take to an ailing friend and I asked her what her plan for the leftover biji was. She normally just made kongbiji-jjigae, which is ground soybean stew with kimchi, but I asked if I could try something else.
Enter my quest to find an okara recipe that didn't require a dehydrator or a trip to the grocery store to grab agave or coconut flour or dates or some such. It was an uphill battle, lemme tell you. Because I'm not a raw foods person or a vegan or a Paleo dieter, I also don't stock a lot of the stuff that they included in their recipes. That's not to say I shouldn't, just that it would be inconvenient for me to run out for a specialty ingredient that I might use a couple of times and then would linger in my pantry (xanthan gum, y'all, what is that even?). In the end, I just ended up using this whole wheat carrot muffin recipe as a base. I added and substituted ingredients like crazy, and I think I came up with something pretty good.
I wanted to make something low-sugar, because my dad is diabetic and my mom watches her sugar intake carefully as well. I used a muffin tin to scoop the batter into, because I wasn't sure if I would end up with a muffin, a cookie, or a mess.
Thankfully, I ended up with a moist, muffiny cookie--a muffie! My dad is very critical of low-sugar baked goods because so many of them end up being dry and bland. He really loved these and I was properly chuffed. It was such a success that my mom ended up making another batch of soy milk the next day, just so I would have the okara necessary to make more muffins to freeze for later.
If I were making these just for me, I'd have added raisins, but I didn't want to shoot my parents' blood sugar through the roof. This is a simple recipe if you're looking for ideas to use up your leftover soy remnants (I think almond milk leftovers would work too). I guess this means I need to post a recipe on how to make soy milk soon?
Okara carrot muffins
(makes 18 small muffins)
Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease two muffin tins with cooking spray.
In a small bowl, stir together 1 2/3 cups whole wheat flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp ground ginger, 1/4 tsp nutmeg, and 1/4 tsp salt. In a large bowl, beat one stick (1/2 cup) softened unsalted butter and 1/4 cup honey. Add one egg and 2 tsp vanilla extract, beating until well-mixed. Add the flour mixture in thirds, beating it in until incorporated. Add one cup grated carrots and one cup okara,* beating in until just mixed. Stir in 1 cup chopped pecans.
Scoop the batter into the muffin tins. Bake in the oven for 15-18 minutes, until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.
*If you don't have okara, I've seen several blogs suggesting you could use mashed white beans? I don't know, I think a mix of applesauce and coarsely ground nuts or almond meal would work better.
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