Sweet, tender, filled with fresh fruit, Classic Breakfast Muffins, one of the many recipes you will find in “Dining At The Ravens” cookbook, no one will guess they’re egg free!
Imaging you are atop an ocean buff, the bay on one side, the ocean on the other, taking long leisurely walks along the trails, browsing shops and galleries, tasting the salty air and feasting on beautiful food.
You can experience all of this at the Stanford Inn by the Sea, a Mendocino Resort which overlooks Mendocino Bay and the Pacific ocean. You can enjoy meals prepared with passion and love at The Ravens Restaurant which is located in the Inn. The restaurant uses produce from the Inn’s on-site USDA Certified Organic garden and serves it up in plant-based dishes.
Now the founders, Jeff and Joan Stanford have written a cookbook, “Dining At The Ravens”, which brings over 150 of the Ravens Restaurant vegan recipes into our homes.
Jeff and Joan Stanford came west to Carmel, California to find careers in education, agreeing to help manage a small inn while looking for work. Jobs were scarce, the United States was in recession, and they found themselves enjoying their guests and rehabilitating the property they managed. Looking to the future, they chose to continue inn-keeping, and by 1980 they were in Mendocino starting a family. Joan ran the front, while Jeff remodeled the inn and created their certified organic farm on the site of what had been known as the China Gardens during Mendocino’s logging era.
The Inn allowed both of them to return to their former interests. Passionate about early education, Joan trained as a Montessori teacher which led her to discover the power of art to transform human experience. She enrolled in psychology at Sonoma State University and received an MA, specializing in Art Therapy. Today she is a registered art therapist, collagist, and educator.
Jeff recognized that the “state of realization” that so many sought in the movement of the 1970s and 80s must come from a new relationship with life, beginning in the kitchen, where decisions affect the practitioner and the planet. He became vegetarian as a first step to honor all life, not only the lives of his family, friends, and pets. He and Joan sought to create an inn that sat softly upon the earth. They created one of the first “green” bed and breakfast inns without realizing they were doing so.
Understanding that their Inn was a destination, Jeff and Joan wanted to provide the highest quality food to their guests, which Jeff began cooking in the early 1990s. The restaurant followed their philosophy serving a whole food, plant-based dishes designed to rival the cuisine found at the highest rated restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area. They discovered that many cooks can create great food, and they created a co-creative kitchen where all are invited to comment and tweak dishes. The final arbiter is Jeff, but the process is dynamic and assures that each person in the kitchen can express their creativity. Learn more at ravensrestaurant.com and stanfordinn.com.
I was gifted a copy from BenBella Books and I have thoroughly enjoyed trying several of the recipes. One of my favorites is “Classic Breakfast Muffins”.
This is a very quick and easy recipe, it uses ground flax mixed with water as a binder, however, I got ahead of myself and mixed the ground flax in with the dry ingredients, instead of mixing it with the wet, it didn’t change the outcome — delicious!
[tasty-recipe id=”9732″]
To experience more of Dining at The Ravens and some of their delicious recipes, check out the #RAVENSBLOGTOUR, see the list below. If you would like to have a copy of “Dining at the Ravens”, you can purchase it at BenBellaBooks or you can enter my giveaway below.
I wish I had some of those muffins right now! I love making healthy recipes like this and find that I like them a lot more than others. They’re so much more filling! The addition of flaxseed as a binding agent is genius! Flaxseed is one of my favorite ingredients and I’m always looking to use it in recipes. I’ll be pinning this for later. And I entered the giveaway, thanks for hosting it!! 🙂
Hi Gina, Hopefully you will love these as much as I do. It’s hard to have just one for breakfast or an afternoon snack.
Good luck and have a nice weekend.
This recipe looks so delicious! Hi, I’m Anita visiting from Link Party Palooza.
Thanks Anita, I hope you have a chance to try it soon.
Thanks for visiting.
Happy Friday Celeste…these muffins look so moist and I know they’ve got to be tasty. The Ravens looks like my kind of restaurant. We were out in that area 2 summers ago; wish I knew about it then.
Thanks for the delicious recipe.
Have a great weekend.
Lynn
Hi Lynn, I think that this inn would be the best place ever to visit. Hopefully one day soon!
Hope you are having a wonderful weekend.
These muffins look so delicious and I really enjoyed reading the history of the Inn.
I think it is a wonderful place and wonderful people. Hope to visit soon.
Oh my, I would LOVE one of those muffins right now. How delish and to think they are egg-free too! I hope to go to The Ravens someday soon, what a fabulous place to visit!
I wish I lived closer to The Ravens, but hopefully I’ll have a chance to visit in the fall.
I love muffins for breakfast but most recipes are full of fat and sugar and not on our plan. I am so glad to see a healthy muffin recipe. Thanks.
I hope you have a chance to give these a try soon.
Have a great weekend.
These look delicious! Your images are gorgeous, too! I am for sure pinning these to save for later! Yum!
Blessings and smiles,
Lori
Thanks Lori,I hope you are having a wonderful weekend.
The Ravens Restaurant looks absolutely beautiful… I can’t believe everything is vegan!! And an eco resort sounds right up my alley too. It looks like my perfect getaway!
Yes, it a wonderful place, I’m trying to schedule a trip in the fall.
Thanks Sarah for visiting.
wow these muffins look delicious and looks like a fab giveaway too! I love finding new cookbooks!
Thank you Kathryn, I hope you are having a great weekend.
Good luck!
Mmmm! I spelled your muffins a million blogs away, yummers! I love the Ravens Resturant, a Vegan’s paradise!!! Great post!!
Muffins are a favorite, can’t wait to give them a try!
Thanks Susan, enjoy!!!
Yum! Thanks for the great recipe! Thanks for sharing at Merry Monday!
You are welcome Sara!
Thanks for hosting the Merry Monday Link Party.
Buggers,, I missed the deadline for the cookbook! But I love the story behind Ravens, that is so cool that they started a green bed and breakfast without even knowing it was a thing. They were just trying to do the best by the people that trusted them, and they started something pretty incredible. I’m going to try your recipe, I do have ground flax at home I keep forgetting to add it when I’m cooking or baking. Duh!
Thank you for joining Delicious Dishes Recipe Party!
Thanks, I always like a good party!
Hi Celeste,
What a tantalizing word picture your painted in your story of the Raven Inn and Restaurant and the wonderful plant-based food they serve. I look forward to getting a copy of “Dining At The Ravens”and enjoying the Ravens Restaurant’s vegan recipes. The recipe for classic breakfast muffins looks so moist and delicious. It is just the recipe I was looking for to make some tasty, low-cholesterol breakfast muffins for my husband. He is very picky and doesn’t like desserts that taste “healthy” so this yummy recipe might just do the trick while protecting his health. Thanks for sharing Dining at the Ravens and classic breakfast muffins with us at the Healthy Happy Green & Natural Party. I’m pinning and sharing.
We love muffins, making sure they are healthy is important to me but there are just so many options. Thanks for sharing!
These are so delicious Marissa, I hope you give them a try.
Hi! I had a question about the recipe, is the flaxseed used whole or ground? And if I don’t have lemon juice, can I sub lime juice or just leave it out all together? So excited to try this recipe! 🙂
Hi Desiree, the flaxseed used is ground, I will go in and change to make it more clear. Thanks for leaving the question. I hope you make this one and enjpy it as much as we did in my house.
Desiree, for the other part of your question, I would use lime to replace the acid form the lemons.