"Vegan" Blueberry Muffins

Ideally I'd like to be a vegan. I am, however, married to a meat-and-potatoes man, so veganism doesn't really work very well in our house. I strike a vegetarian-ish compromise for myself, while trying to get him accustomed to a more varied palate. He also really LOVES all things that come out of a box, can, or package. I am desperately trying to lessen my use of all things packaged, while still preparing his favorite fare.

This brings us to blueberry muffins. Try making vegan blueberry muffins that taste just like Duncan Hines. Go ahead, try. Real blueberries just don't come close to the taste of his beloved canned DH blueberries. I am determined, however, to try to make something he'll love to eat that I feel good about him eating. Last week I made a vegetarian version of some blueberry muffins I found on a great vegan blog. She called for soy yogurt but I used greek vanilla flavored and used a real egg instead of the egg-replacer that she used. I have a thing against egg-replacer, though I am not sure why. It just seems to defeat the whole "real-food" concept. (I don't want to use eggs, but until I find a suitable replacement, I will just continue. More on that to come.) Anyhow, the muffins were SUPER tasty! Daniel liked them pretty well and I felt semi-proud of them.

But that wasn't enough. That wasn't "vegan" enough for me. I couldn't just stop at a good recipe. I had to take it a step further. Enter silken tofu. Now, I had seen my dad make a yogurt like substance out of silken tofu so I figured it couldn't be that hard to replace

the vanilla yogurt in the recipe with the silken tofu. Just throw it in the food processor with some vanilla extract and bam! Right? Wrong. First of all, I couldn't get my massive bottle of vanilla extract open. I suppose some of the vanilla had crusted at the top and sealed it shut. I gave up and went to the cupboard to see what else I could use. Why not almond extract and some maple syrup? Well, it probably wouldn't have been bad, except that I lost control of the almond extract and poured WAY too much into the tofu. It smelled awful and tasted even worse.

Most people would stop here. Most people would reevaluate and think of another solution. Not me. Nope, I just cringed and essentially closed my eyes as I poured the silken tofu disaster into the batter. As they were cooking all I could smell was the almond extract. They were pretty much dripping with it. They looked quite beautiful though. I held my breathe as I took a bite. Not bad. Now for the real challenge: the Hubster. Will it pass the Daniel test?

After dinner, he sat down with two blueberry muffins and a diet Dr. Pepper. I waited patiently for the verdict. "Well, they taste different." That's all he said. I pressed him on it and the conclusion was, "I mean, they aren't as good as what you made last time, but I will eat them."

And the search continues......