When You Feed an Alligator Muffins...

Perhaps it should be mentioned my photography is less than creative, and the lighting is sometimes funny-looking, and the angles are a bit odd.

Perhaps it should be said that I am one lazy kid and more often than not, I forget to bring my sad, little cherry-red Nikon with me on baking excursions.

It should also be known that, perhaps, I will leave readers (will I have any now that I've told you of my lacking photography?) a gift or two in the form of typos. They are a part of my life, no matter how hard I try to kick them out.

So, now that you know a little bit about me, you should also know that today is the first day of Vegan MoFo 2011. Oh, yes, it's exciting!

This is my first year participating, and as such, I had a bit of a pickle thinking of what my theme will be. I don't mean to be boring, so pardon my lack of imagination, but I decided my theme would be something along the lines of 'a day in the life of a vegan', and a new vegan, at that. I'll be doing a lot of baking so expect many baked goods and recipes by the side of a not-so-flattering photos (if I remember). Additionally you'll catch a couple of product reviews, lists of whatever I find wonderful and vegan, and stories.

Time to kick this off with some muffins, because everyone appreciates muffins.

But do you notice the little specks of green embedded in these dense, chocolate morsels? That would be avocado. I know what you're thinking, and you are correct: avocados + muffins = weird. Strangely enough, it works. These muffins are wonderfully moist and dense (not in a bad way, of course) like a muffin should be. They aren't too sweet and all you can taste is chocolate. No avocado taste what-so-ever.

In fact, they are so good, that I question you if you don't try making these. I just slightly adapted this recipe by using dutch-process cocoa, only 1/2 teaspoon of salt (1/2 a tablespoon seemed a little overboard) and using 1 cup all-purpose with 3/4 cup whole wheat flour as I cannot for the life of me find whole wheat pastry flour.

Don't you think these look a little Halloween-ish with their green spots? Let's go ahead and say I did that on purpose. Now who's creative?