Baking With a Bread Machine

I love my bread machine and use it to make my pizza dough, high fiber multi-grain bread, and basic wheat bread.  This week I had a craving for cardamom, so I tossed together apricot chunks, pecans, wheat flour, and cardamom et voila:  le pain.

Using white/basic with a light crust setting, add these and bake according to the instructions:

Liquid:

1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups Silk Vanilla Soy Milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tb Earth Balance, cut into pieces
1 tb olive or canola oil

Dry:

3 cups of AP or bread flour
1 cup of whole grain wheat flour
2 tsp salt
4 tsp sugar
1 envelope dry active yeast
1 to 2 capfuls of cardamom

2/3 to 1 cup dried apricot chunks
1/2 to 2/3 cups pecans whole or pieces

Add liquid ingredients first, make sure they are warm to activate the yeast.  Add dry ingredients and start the mixing process.  My bread machine's settings are not adjustable, and I found that substituting that 1 cup of AP flour for whole wheat made the dough ball a little dry.  I added extra milk and it came together, but i had to restart the process so that it would mix the dough again.  This was not a problem for me, but check your machine's settings.

Make sure you scrape down the sides of your bread pan during the initial mixing, this may reveal dry dough and allow you to add that extra 1/4 cup of milk if you need to before the dough comes together.  A good dough ball is spherical and evenly moist, not runny, flaky, or lumpy.  Add the fruit and nuts according to your machine's settings.

This recipe is not sweet like raisin cinnamon bread, but can be made sweet by toasting it and serving it with jam.  I prefer it steamed (in the micro) with a pat of Earth Balance to bring out the savory side of cardamom.  Substitute the fruit, nuts, and spices for your favorites and add more sugar if you like it sweeter.

Sjaak's Vegan, Organic, Fair Trade Chocolates

Thank you Vegan Cuts for including a chocolate caramel from Sjaak's in your snack box last month.  I used the coupon included in the box when I ordered my chocolates.  I bought the large Holiday box and a sampler box of 3 Eli's Earth Bars to share with my non-vegan friends.  The shipping box included ice packs for $5, which I'm glad I got first because it's been in the eighties this past week, and second because even though my local UPS received my order on Thursday morning, the box didn't get delivered until Monday morning.

Aside from the chocolates being vegan, organic, and fair trade, they are absolutely delicious.  The dark and milk chocolate are equally decadent.  The caramel is rich and tastes like I remember.  The various nut fillings are smooth, creamy, and well seasoned without being overly salted.  The cherry filling surprised me as it is sweet, but not syrupy sticky sweet and was just so luscious I want to live in it. I haven't had chocolates like this in many many years so I was very happy that these are just the perfect fulfillment of my memory of fine chocolate.

I have had one of the Eli's Earth bars so far:  The Dream Big Bar.  It was heaven in a plastic wrapper and I expect that the others will be just as amazing.  I will definitely order more for any festive occasions I have in the future and hope to keep a few bars around the house, although maybe after I start enforcing my New Year's resolutions.

Kite Hill Cassucio

I love their White Alder, but this, this soft, salty, tangy cheese is such a delight.  I'm assuming this is what goat cheese tastes like.  I have only eaten hard goat cheese from Mexico and that was over 20 years ago.  I want to spread it on toasted baguette with fruity olive oil and a smear of fig jam, and serve it with a nice glass of chilled white wine.  Or maybe broiled over figs in red wine, or maybe stuffed into a gigantic olive and served in a dirty martini. Decision decisions. Get yourself to +Whole Foods Market  and buy up all you can and serve it at your next holiday party, if you don't eat it all first.  I can't wait to see what they'll do next.

Ideas for Quick Treats

I know that most of my recipes are kind of labor intensive, but I think it makes a big difference in the taste and nutritional content of my food.  That being said sometimes I am exhausted and just want something fast and tasty.

1.  Smear a tablespoon of +Peanut Butter & Co. heaven on a piece of Divine Chocolate.  It's fair trade so it's good for your soul too :)  A piece this big should be shared with someone else.

2.  Chop celery and saute in butter to add to 2 cans of lentil soup.  Add a bag of frozen spinach.  Extra vitamins, yum!

3.  +Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market really helps make things fast, fresh and healthy.  I bought a bag of chopped washed kale salad, added to a tray of pre-cooked quinoa, and a bag of +gardein Sizzling Szechuan Beefless Strips with sauce et voila!! Dinner with protein, fiber, vitamins and leftovers.  It took me 10 minutes with a microwave and a little coking pot.

4.  Make your own microwave dinners for work or at home.  I added +gardein Turkey Cutlets with some of the gravy, cut asparagus, and a scoop of Amy's Vegan ice Mac & Cheeze to my reusable containers so I could freeze them for later use. I do this with different frozen vegan protein and veggies over the weekend to leave at work.  It's a great time saver since I'm always running late.

Halloween Cookies!!

I love making cookies for any occasion, but Halloween is especially fun. I have a huge box of assorted cookie cutters so I make them in different shapes and sizes.

For these cookies I made last year, I used Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix and followed the instructions for roll-out dough.  Using Betty Crocker is questionable for some vegans, so if you have any info on the source of the ingredients, or have a fool proof roll out cookie dough recipe, I'd appreciate the feedback. For Christmas I use the low-fat gingerbread recipe from my copy of The Joy of Cooking and veganize it. 

The icing is basic buttercream:  2 sticks Earth Balance, 1 lb. powdered sugar, a tb. Silk Vanilla, vanilla-adjust quantities for consistency-whip and chill.  I put the icing into bowls and tinted it with food coloring drops. I used mini tubes of writing icing for detail, but you could thin some buttercream and use it from a piping bag. 

Happy Halloween :D

Tuna Sandwich

I got this can of meatless tuna in my +Vegan Cuts  box last month so of course I was gonna try it and talk about it.  I never liked any kind of seafood when I ate meat, so this was a bit of a leap of faith for me.  It was really easy to prepare, open can, drain, put in a bowl, dress and serve.  Okay so very much like real tuna in that respect.  The pieces were small, but not flaked.  The quantity was just right for a taste, and the nutritional content is amazing:  full of protein, but not a lot of carbs or fat.

I dressed my tuna with FYH Vegenaise, of course, and tapenade from +Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market , which is where I got the awesome rosemary loaf and butter lettuce.  I toasted the loaf, added mayo to one side, topped with lettuce, topped with tuna, cut it in half and wrapped it up to share at work.  So the meat eater said I overpowered the tuna flavor with tapenade.  Which is kind of what I wanted to do, but I could definitely taste the tuna.  It is very close to the real thing.  If you miss tuna, you're gonna love this product, and it's good for you.

Product Reviews: Kite Hill White Alder and Louisville Vegan Jerky

Kite Hill White Alder

I used to love cheese, but I stopped eating it when I was so young that I never got to try anything interesting like brie, gouda, stilton, etc.  So when I saw the box at +Whole Foods Market of course I grabbed one.  The cheese is creamy, mild, and sort of fluffy.  I really liked the taste and would recommend pairing it with something that helps the two foods you choose complement each other.  I served mine on rosemary rolls with olive oil.

 






Louisville Vegan Jerky

+Vegan Cuts offered a sampler pack of this jerky at a great price so I bought some.  It's great.  Chewy, savory, spicy, a little too salty for my taste, but it's full of protein.  I used the crumby bits at the bottom of the bag of Bourbon Smoked Spicy Chipotle to make some quesadillas.  It was wonderful.