Chili Lime Slaw with Corn and Edamame

If you’re looking at this and you’re vegan or vegetarian, you’re most likely asking, “why would I want to come to a cooking site for a salad recipe?”  If you’re not vegan or vegetarian, you’re most likely asking, “why would a vegan or vegetarian come to this site for a salad recipe?”  Either way, you’re here now, and this salad is the best.  Might as well read on.  I’ll make it quick.

I am sure every reader of every vegetable persuasion will agree:  marinated cabbage is delicious.  Chili and lime together are delicious.  Corn. Edamame.  Delicious.  So there you have it.  Let’s go.

Ingredients

a small head of green cabbage, sliced into long thin strands

a cup of chopped fresh cilantro, lightly packed

a medium sized carrot, course shredded

a cup of shelled edamame

a cup of sweet corn (it’s corn season…fresher is better)

juice of one serious lime, or juice of 2 non-commital limes, about 1/3 cup

3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1/2 tsp. ground cumin

1/2 tsp. green chili, chopped fine, seeds removed

1/4 tsp. red chili flake or tabasco sauce

1 tbsp. salt

Method

It’s a salad, so it’s pretty simple.  With this one, unlike with tender mesclun greens or other types of lettuce, you want to let it marinate for a little while.  Chop up your cabbage and cilantro and toss with a bit of olive oil until it’s covered but not saturated.  Sprinkle with some kosher salt and toss around.  Let it sit while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.  Grate your carrots, rinse your edamame and have fun grilling up your corn, if you’re lucky enough to have access to the fresh stuff.  Toss it all in and prepare your dressing.  Juice your lime(s) and add in your spices and chilis.  Add in the olive oil and whisk to emulsify.  Pour it over your salad and give it another toss around.  Cover it and let it marinate in the fridge for at least an hour, but you can leave it even over night.

Note:  If you’re someone who thinks cilantro tastes like soap, just replace it with fresh dill.  It won’t be the same flavor sensation, but the texture and color will have similar effect.

Vegan Quiche Alsace-Lorraine with Sprouted Bread Stuffing Crust

Wow!  How about that for a snobby title?  But just hold on.  Before you get all indignant about something that is both vegan and French at the same time, let me just ease your humble and hardworking mind:

This recipe contains bacon bits.

Seriously.  How snobby can it be?  The thing with this recipe is, it kind of contains all the goodies that vegan chefs believe to be a bit gauche within vegan cuisine.  Not only does it contain bacon bits, but it also has a silken tofu base with nutritional yeast to boot.  (to boot?  what does that mean, really.)  Somehow, I remain comforted by the fact that even the staunchest vegan foodie still craves a little comfort food now and again, and  silken tofu certainly warms a weary soul.

This whole thing came about in a similar way to Benjamin Franklin’s discovery of electricity.  Well, not exactly, but it’s a fun comparison.  A few night ago, I made a version of stuffed mushrooms with a sprouted bread stuffing.  I didn’t post the recipe yet, because I am not yet satisfied with it, although it got eaten quickly with no complaints.  I had about half of the stuffing left, and while wondering what I could do with it, came up with this recipe with what I had in the fridge.

As you know, Quiche Alsace is made with carmelized onion, while Quiche Lorraine is made with bacon.  This one’s got a bit of both flavors, plus cauliflower, and therefore bears the name of the mid-mid-nineteenth century disputed province.  There’s another point against its snobbiness score:  quiche is the francophone version of the German word for cake, kuchen.  But we’re not here to drudge up old emotions on the Franco-Prussian war, so let’s move on.

Sprouted Bread Stuffing

Ingredients

2 slices of sprouted bread (I used the crusts and an end piece for added texture)

1 long spring onion, cut into thin rounds

1 small carrot, grated coursely

2 tbsp. almond milk

1 tbsp. safflower oil

1 tbsp. corn starch

1/2 tsp. fennel seeds

1/2 tsp. salt (to taste)

Method

Toast your 2 slices of sprouted bread, then cut into cubes.  Add bread cubes, fennel seed, corn starch and salt to your mini food processor and pulse until course bread crumbs form.  In a medium sized bowl toss spring onion and grated carrot into your sprouted bread crumbs mixture.  Then slowly stir in oil, then milk.  Put it into the fridge while you prepare your quiche filling.

Alsace-Lorraine Quiche Filling

Ingredients

10 oz. firm silken tofu (the fresher the better, of course)

1 tbsp. nutritional yeast

2 tsp. ground turmeric

1 tsp. ground nutmeg

1 tsp. salt (give or take, you know what you like)

1 medium onion, cut into long half moons

1 cup of chopped cauliflower florets

2 – 3 cloves garlic, pressed or chopped fine

2 tbsp. bacon bits, which if you’re lucky enough to find in your local supermarket, is great, but if not, you can follow this recipe, for fancy home made vegan bacon bits.

Method

Preheat your oven to 400 F. In a smaller frying pan, heat a couple tablespoons of oil and sautee your onion, when the onion starts to brown, turn the heat down really low and add your cauliflower and garlic and a pinch or two of salt.  When your onions start to carmelize, nice and even brown with their syrupy goodness starting to stick to the bottom of the pan, add in bacon bits, turn off your heat, and cover.  In a glass bowl, put your silken tofu and blend until smooth.  I used a pastry cutter, but a fork or stiff whisk would work too.  When the tofu becomes smooth, thick and creamy, add in nutritional yeast, turmeric powder, nutmeg and salt.  Blend in your dry spices until they are a smooth part of the tofu.  The mixture should have a very pale yellow color.  When the pan with the onions has cooled to about room temperature, stir the mixture into the tofu until it’s all well coated.  Turn your pepper grinder over it a few times and stir it in.

Now you’re ready to put it all together.

Take a 9-inch pie plate.  Take your sprouted bread crumbs from the fridge and using the back of a fork, form them into the pie plate into an even crust.  Bake the crust in the oven at 400 F for 15 minutes.  After your crust is baked, take it out of the oven and pour your quiche mixture into the pie plate.  Smooth it out with the back of a spatula so that it’s all even in the plate.  Bake it at 400 F for another 20 minutes.  It should be a bit browned on top and the yellow color should saturate by another 3 shades or so.  After 20 minutes, remove it from the oven and let it cool down for a little while.  Then slice it up like the glorious peace pie it is.

Note:  I have it from good sources that real men do, in fact, eat quiche–even after working second shift in a diesel factory.  Sources indicated these real men also politely excused themselves after a slice to go for seconds, asked for the recipe, and took leftovers for the 20-minute dinner break the following day, while resentful fellow shift mates grumbled huddled over the vending machine.

Hand Rolled Bagels

When I first started typing the title of this post, I had to hit the delete key quite a few times.  I kept typing in superlatives and words like ‘totally’ followed by phrases such as ‘even moreso.’  As I came to my senses, I thought, for the purposes of search engines, that something straight to the point might work better.  This is what you get.

These are hand rolled bagels, my friends.  I hate to break the news to you, but today I discovered that bagels are not made of magic.  They are actually a quick and easy way to impress your friends for Sunday brunch, since no one’s going to be impressed with these photos.  Here’s how it’s done:

Ingredients

1 1/2 – 1 3/4 cups warm water (between 90 – 110 degrees F)

2 tsp. active dry yeast

1 tbsp. safflower oil

1 1/2 tbsp. sugar

2 tsp. salt

4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1/2 cup yellow corn meal

1/4 cup poppy seed

1/4 cup sesame seed

Method

When water has reached the correct temperature (90 – 110 F), whisk active dry yeast into it in a small bowl, slowly adding in the sugar, salt, and oil.  When all of the ingredients have dissolved into the water, add the mixture into the 4 cups of flour in a large glass bowl.   Blend the flour mixture (I used my hands) until it is firm and all the dry flour has been taken from the sides and bottom of the bowl.  You may have to add a couple more tablespoons of warm water for this to happen.  Once you’ve achieved this, take the dough out of the bowl and knead it on a large wooden cutting board or counter top until it is smooth, maybe 5 – 10 minutes.  Once the dough is smooth,  use a large knife to cut it into eight equal parts and round out each part.  Let the dough balls rise for about 15 – 20 minutes.  Heat your oven to 425 F.  After 15 – 20 minutes, take one dough ball at a time and roll it into a bagel like this:

1st:  roll the dough ball, using one hand, into a rope almost twice the length of your palm.

2nd:  place the middle of your palm onto the end of one side of your dough rope.

3rd:  use your other hand to twist and wrap the dough rope around your palm and gently pinch the two ends together in the middle of your palm.

4th:  roll your hand across your smooth surface to form your bagel-in-waiting and set it aside

Do this to all eight of your dough balls.  When all eight have been rolled into cute little bagellings, let them sit and rise for the amount of time it takes you to set a pot of water boiling.  I used a pretty small pot to boil two at a time and they turned out really nicely!  This means that even a smaller pot’s boiling time is even for the bagels to rise.  Once your pot is rolling with boiling water, take a bagel with a slotted spatula or spoon, set it into the boiling water.  Let it boil for one minute on each side, then remove it, roll in in yellow corn meal on one side and poppy seed and/or sesame seed on the other side.  Bake your bagels on a lightly oiled baking sheet at 425 F for 10 – 12 minutes on each side.  Cool them for 5 – 10 minutes on a rack and prepare to indulge!

Honestly, these are the best bagels I have had, maybe ever.  It’s kind of worth having my childhood dreams of bagels growing from magic bagel plants in far away lands destroyed, knowing that I can convince others that I, in fact, am made of magic and have been granted the secret knowledge of bagel-making.

At least until they read this…

Kaju Vegetable Pulao and Palak Paneer

I might have mentioned that I recently returned to my home state of Connecticut after being away for pretty much a decade.  I’m in an urban area, which doesn’t let anyone forget that this is the #1 state in the country in terms of income disparity.  It deeply troubles me when I hear someone distilling all of CT into a pair of tasseled loafers, and I feel the black bile in me rise up and infiltrate my speech with lots of lots of potty words.

This comes to mind for a number of reasons you might suspect.  Last weekend, I invited a couple of my oldest friends over for a meal.  I was thinking maybe something breakfast like, since they’re not vegetarian, but one friend in particular was really excited that I’d been in India for a year, so she wanted me to cook Indian.  Having been outside of India for a couple of months now, I can once again get excited about basmati rice and garam masala, so I agreed.  It was really fun and the food went quickly.  It went so quickly that I have no photos to show for it, which is why I didn’t post it.  I didn’t post it until they both asked, and are still asking for the recipes.  How nice!  Apparently, all my attempts to accommodate the non-veg are working nicely to convert them.

These things have to be done delicately…

Kaju Vegetable Pulao

My friends in India, while not poking fun at my fairness or clumsy way of eating with my hands, loved my love of color in a way I had never really seen in myself.   This recipe shows it nicely.  It’s gorgeous with saturated color.

Ingredients

1 cup white basmati rice

1/2 cup raw whole cashew (kaju)

1 small-medium sized onion, sliced into thin half moons

1 medium-sized carrot, quartered and sliced thin

2-3 cloves of garlic, minced or grated very fine

1″ fresh ginger, peeled and minced or grated very fine

1/2 cup whole green peas (I used frozen, rinsed with warm water to thaw)

1/4 cup raisins (use the purple raisins for this recipe.  The color contrast is really nice.)

1 tsp. ground cumin

1/2 tsp. ground coriander

1/2 tsp. turmeric powder (Indian turmeric has the best yellow color.  Others have that sort of macaroni and cheese yellow that just brings back certain memories of hydrogenated oil…)

1 tsp. garam masala (found at Indian grocers, but I got mine at Edge of the Woods in New Haven.  If you can’t find garam masala, then common spices you may have can be substituted, but won’t be the same.  In this case, try adding 3 whole cloves and 1/2 tsp. cinnamon)

2-3 whole green cardamon pods

3-4 whole cloves

1-1 1/2 tbsp. salt, and/or to taste

fresh cilantro (coriander leaf in India) to garnish

Method

Heat ~2 tbsp. oil in a medium sized pot.  I used safflower, which is known to be highest in vitamin E absorption and best tasting.  If you don’t have it, please don’t use a standard “vegetable oil” blend.  Try canola or corn.  When oil is hot, lower heat and brown the cashews.  Move the pot around to get them as evenly browned as possible.  Then add the onion and do the same until they start to brown.  Then add your garlic and ginger.  Adjust heat as you add more food.  When you start smelling the garlic and ginger, add in your carrots, stirring to evenly coat with the oil.  Then add your peas and raisins and stir quickly.  When they are also coated, then stir in your rice.  When you smell the nuttiness of the rice start to rise, add two cups of water.  Adjust heat a bit so that it’s a bit steamy.  You want it to come to a boil soon.  When this is done, stir in your ground spices:  cumin, coriander, garam masala and turmeric and salt.  Cover tightly.  The thing with pulao, and most other rice dishes, is that it has to create a steam environment for full effect.  If your lid doesn’t fit tightly, too much air will escape and the bottom of the pot will burn.  Now, watch your pot until it starts to boil.  When this happens, lower your heat.  Don’t uncover it at any time.  The more air that gets at it, the more likely the bottom will get browned.  We’re not cooking Persian Tadik here, so let’s make sure that doesn’t happen!  It should cook within 15-20 minutes, depending on your heat.  Check it after 15 minutes to see.  If the bottom seems to be sticking, fear not.  Just add 1/4 cup more water and don’t stir.  Just cover it again and wait.  When the rice is good to the teeth, turn the heat off and keep it covered for at least 10 more minutes.  The steam environment has still got it going on in there, so let it be.  After 10 minutes or so, open it up and give it a gentle stir, making sure you don’t destroy any of the peas.  After stirring, cover it again until you’re ready to serve it up.  And check out that color!

Palak Paneer

Just to clarify, palak means ‘spinach’ and paneer means ‘cheese.’  The thing is, in southern India, a lot of things having nothing to do with dairy are referred to as ‘cheese’:  such as ‘guava cheese’, and for our purposes, ‘soy cheese’, which we outside of India would refer to as simply bean curd or tofu, and not the rubbery stuff some of us might attempt to melt on our pizzas.  So, by including the word ‘paneer’ in the title of this recipe, I want to make it clear that I am not advocating dairy cheese.  I use firm tofu in this and cashew as the creamy substance of the blended spinach, which goes nicely with the Kaju Vegetable Pulao described above.

Ingredients

10 oz. washed fresh spinach (I used baby spinach, but any spinach will do.)

10 oz. firm tofu (not extra firm, not silken…just right), cubed

1 small onion, diced

3 cloves garlic, peeled and grated

2″ fresh ginger (about the size of your thumb), peeled and grated

1/4 cup whole raw cashews (soaked for at least an hour, but longer is better)

1 green chili pepper, seeds removed and minced, OR 1 tsp. canned green chilis, you can find in the Mexican food isle.

1/2 cup almond milk

1 tsp. ground turmeric

1 tsp. garam masala

1/2 tsp. ground cumin

1 tsp. ground coriander

1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper

1 tbsp. salt, to taste

Method

Heat 2 tbsp. oil in a shallow and wide pan.  Fry onion until they become a bit clear, then add in garlic and ginger and coat with oil.  When the smell of the ginger and garlic rises, add in cashews and spinach and cover a 2-3 minutes until the spinach releases its water and turns to a dark green.  Remove from heat and blend with your hand held immersion blender until a pale olive green color is achieved.  Return to low heat.  Add in almond milk.  Stir in ground spices and salt.  The color should be an even bright olive green.  Then gently stir in your cubed tofu and gently toss into the spinach until nicely coated.  Let it simmer for another 5 minutes or so, and it’s ready to serve.

I fed 4 hungry adults with this amount, and had a few leftovers to send people home with.

Yummy!

Thai Yellow Curry with Tofu and Vegetables

Tonight I met a really sweet couple here for their first week from Indonesia by way of Singapore.  First thing I thought was, “What do I know how to cook from Indonesia?”  I realize that gado-gado is served as a full meal in Indonesia, but I thought I would practice my curry skills too before I invite them over.  As you know from last night’s post, it’s getting close to the time when I have to visit the market.  I’ve set a sort of challenge for myself to see what I can do with what I have left in the cabinets and fridge, saving the two lonely zucchini for last.

I usually think of tofu as emergency food, so as you might presume this means I had some in the fridge.  This, along with one onion, one potato, and a couple of carrots.  This is really a lot of food!  Here’s how it went:

Ingredients 

for curry sauce

1/2 – 1 tsp. cayenne pepper

3-4 large cloves garlic

1 tbsp. ginger garlic paste

1 tsp. ground coriander

1 tsp. ground cumin

1/2 tsp. cumin seed

1/8 tsp. nutmeg (or cinnamon, in a pinch)

1 tsp. turmeric

2 tbsp. brown sugar

10 – 13 oz. coconut milk

1 tbsp. lime juice (about 1 lime)

1 tbsp. tomato paste

salt to taste

for substance of the dish

1 medium sided potato, cubed or half-moon cut

1 large carrot, cut cross-section, then sliced on a diagonal

1 medium sided onion, cut into half moons

8 – 10 oz. firm tofu, sliced into diamonds or triangles

Method

In a wide, shallow pan heat a tbsp. safflower oil.  Lower heat and add onion and potato.  The idea here is to cook them really slow so that the most flavor comes out.  So what you do is maneuver the onions to the outer borders of the pan while the potatos, which take longer to cook, form the inner section of the pan.  Add your sliced carrot on top and sprinkle with about a tsp. salt.   Let that sauttee and sweat for a while on low heat.  Meanwhile, you can prepare your curry.  I used a small food processor, but you can do it with a mortar and pestle.  If using a food processor, you can just put all the curry sauce ingredients in and blend them until the color is even.  It should be a pale yellow.  If you’re using a mortar and pestle, add wet ingredients to the dry, then stir the coconut milk into it in a small bowl.  When your sauce is blended, take a look at your veggies.  You’ll see, without even moving the vegetables around, that they’re releasing a lot of moisture and the smell will tell you that you’re on the right track!  Since the carrots are on top, you’ll see the condensation gather on them, and when they start to release their sugars, they bow up a bit at the ends.  All this should take around 20 minutes or so.  When all this happens, stir in tofu and peas gently so that they don’t break.  Then cover everything with your curry sauce and raise the heat slightly.  Simmer for another 5 – 10 minutes and adjust the salt to taste.  I prefer this dish served with plain medium grain brown rice, but served it up tonight with some ginger-garlic scented pulao.

Serves 4.

Grocery Week Dal Makhani

Meals get really creative the few days before a trip to the market.  Tonight, I’m down to two lonely zucchini’s and a head of iceberg lettuce, and I have to make it last until the weekend.  It’s a good time to forage in the beans and grains cabinet.  Lucky for those who have to eat tonight, I’ve got a bag of dried lentils in there and some basmati rice.  Added to this, it’s a rainy and cool summer evening, making an ideal setting for dal makhani!

During all the time I spent in India, between Hyderabad, Delhi and Chennai, I never had it.  My favorites were always idly sambhar and Shimla mirch masala.  The first time I returned to Brooklyn from a trip to India, everyone was all excited to eat at our apartment, and one friend from India asked specifically for dal makhani.  I sort of panicked and said yes then, and stalled her with pakora and pulao.  But like I said, tonight is a special challenge, so I am rising to the occasion.

I think the best thing about this recipe is the raw cashew cheese stirred into the already creamy lentils, adding an awesome, creamy, totally decadent texture that assists in the recipe living up to its namesake of makhani (buttery) dal (lentils) while eliding the nigh emptiness of the fridge.

Ingredients

1 cup black/green lentils (urad dal)

1/4 cup red kidney beans

2 tbsp. tomato paste

2 tbsp. raw cashew cheese

1 cup almond milk (unsweetened)

6 – 8 whole cloves garlic

3 small bay leaves

1 tbsp. ginger garlic paste

1/2 tsp. cumin seed

1/2 tsp. ground cumin

1/2 tsp. ground coriander

1/2 tsp. turmeric

1/2 tsp. chili flake

1/2 tsp. black pepper

1/2 tsp. garam masala

salt to taste

Method

Heat about 2 tbsp. safflower oil in a shallow pan.  Peel garlic and sautee in hot oil until they start to brown.  Add cumin seed.  When they start to splutter, stir legumes into the oil and cover in twice as much water, or as much to cover the top knuckle of your finger as your fingertip touches them.  Add the bay leaves and simmer until the legumes become soft and create a thick stew.  At this point, you can start using a potato masher or bean masher to the beans.  Don’t worry, the texture will remain in tact.  Stir into it the ginger-garlic paste.  Stir in dry spices  and tomato paste.  When it starts to simmer and thicken again, slowly add in the almond milk until the color changes about 4 or so shades.  Stir in raw cashew cheese as last ingredient and allow to simmer and thicken again.

I served it with ginger-garlic scented pulao, but you can also serve it with naan, which is my next adventure.  As you’ll see, it’s not really party food, but perfect for a rainy evening when you’re low on veggies in the fridge.  This recipe will serve 4.  Enjoy!

There Will Be Blueberry Crumb Cake

I was feeling particularly vulnerable during the beginning scene of “There Will Be Blood” where, you know, he’s going to fall into the hole and they’re going to show it, so I decided to get up and avoid the whole thing because I’m a big baby, by making blueberry crumb cake.  I adapted it from a recipe calling for eggs, and it came out so good.  If it didn’t, you’d never hear a word of it.

My photos at this stage are flamboyantly bad, since I am mostly using my smartphone with the under-the-stove-range light.  From here, you really can’t tell how beautiful this cake really is.  The berries form of perfect layer in the center between the cake and the crumb with thin layers of vibrant blue mixing in with the dough bits above and below. I seriously need to get better photos up here.  Any volunteers?  Free cake involved!

Here’s how it went:

Ingredients

for cake

1 1/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

2 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 cup safflower oil

1/4 cup apple sauce (unsweetened)

1/2 tsp. salt

1 – 2 cups fresh blueberries (I used 2, which might be considered by some to be over the top)

for topping

1/2 cup turbinado sugar (I used Jamaican brown sugar)

1/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

3 tbsp. cold earth balance (or other vegan butter)

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg

Method

Okay, it’s very simple.  Mix together the dry ingredients with a fork.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and combine until a thick batter.  Then add the berries, but be gentle.  Blueberries are delicate.  They’ll move around as they bake anyway, but you shouldn’t mangle them on their way in.  Pour the berries and batter into a lightly oiled square cake dish.  Then prepare the topping by stirring in cinnamon and nutmeg into the flour and dropping cold ‘butter’ into the spiced flour.  Take a fork and mash the butter into the flour until it looks like course (really course!) bread crumbs.  Then sprinkle this on top of your cake batter.

Bake it at 400 degrees F for around 35 minutes.

Do I really need to tell you to let it cool down a little bit before digging in?  Meh.  I won’t bother.

Braided Scali Bread Round

Should I tell you that this is my first solo attempt at baking bread?  Living in Brooklyn, my roommate and I had a real rhythm going in the kitchen.  Without a word, he’d prep and I’d cook or I’d prep and he’d cook, each taking turns throwing things into varying pots and pans simmering on the stove.  And it would turn out to have something to do with barbequed tempeh and red cabbage surrounding a brown rice tower, or a three-layer coconut cake with blueberry glaze, or something experimental and otherwise unidentifiable, but sometimes, it was simply, pizza. Oh, and once, yes once, he made a braided challah…ahhh, it was absolutely geshmak!  The thing is, he’d make the dough fresh and to me, this was a lot like baking bread, and an irrational fear always overtook me.

Tonight, having left the shadow of brooklyn, my roommate, and my former self, I have overcome my fear of bread baking.  Wow, I’m feeling satisfied.  It’s a serious self-confidence booster, so in my non-clinical opinion, I’d suggest it for anyone suffering from a breakup, low quantitative GRE scores, low paycheck, low tolerance for corporate bread mongers, or otherwise procrastinating sweeping the floor, because this could get messy.

The best thing is, if you don’t fit any of those criteria, throw the dough in a loaf pan, or, if you’re particularly suffering from lack of attention for having returned to your otherwise negligent home after a decade, you can do something ostentatious, like braid it.

It’s the perfect size for sharing with a carefully selected number of loved ones as your teeth glint from the corner of your side smile with a capital D.

Ingredients

2 cups almond milk (original with added sweetener is good, or if using unsweetened, add 2-3 tbsp. sugar)

1/2 cup safflower oil

2 1/4 tsp. active dry yeast

2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

3/4 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 tbsp. salt

1 tbsp. molasses

1/4 cup toasted sesame seeds

Method

for bread dough

Scald the almond milk (and sugar, if you’re using it) and safflower oil in a medium sauce pan until just about ready to boil.  When the milk has cooled to about 100 degrees F (give or take 10 degrees), add one cup of flour and 2 1/4 tsp. active dry yeast.  Stir together until nicely blend and a wet dough starts to form.  Then add the rest of the flour, saving 1/2 cup, and stir in until well blended.  It shouldn’t stick to the pan at all, so just keep blending it until it looks like dough.  Transfer it to a glass bowl.  Cover it for an hour with a towel in a warm spot (I left it on top of the stove and it worked nicely.).

After an hour, add the remaining 1/2 cup flour, 3/4 teaspoon baking powder, 1/2 tsp. baking soda and 1 tsp. salt.  Stir until well combined.  Using your hands tends to work best, but no real kneading is necessary.  Let it rise a bit again as the over heats to 400 F, about another half hour.

for braiding

It can be a bit tricky, so listen carefully.  I didn’t obsess over medieval geometry for naught.

Take your soft and fluffy bread-to-be and divide it into four equal dough balls.  Form each dough ball into a rope by rolling in between your hands and a cutting board while stretching it out.  Now you have four equal dough ropes.  Like this:

Make two sets of two, each perpendicular.  Then form an over-under-over pattern in the center.  Like this:

Then, after giving up the idea of trying to graphically emulate the process of bread braiding, describe the process carefully.  Like this:

Look at your over-under-over pattern.  Take an under, moving in the right direction, and place it over the next rope.  Then do the same with the next piece, that is NOT the one that’s underneath the first piece.  It’s every other until you’ve moved four pieces in the same direction.

Ok, when that’s done, start by doing the same thing in the OPPOSITE direction.  You should be able to repeat each direction twice.  Take the remaining dough rope nubs and gently fold them underneath and pinch.  I baked mine in a 9 inch round tin, but if you want it a bit more rustic, you can use a baking sheet.  For the wash, take a tablespoon of molasses and about twice as much warm water and stir.  Use a basting brush to cover your dough braid.  Then sprinkle with toasted sesames.  Bake for around 20 minutes on 400 F.

Let me know how it turns out!

Vegan Scene for Tweens

I’m not sure if this happens to you, but I often find myself checking Facebook at really odd hours.  The other night I was on at around 2 a.m. and my niece caught me on chat.  The chat went something like this:

Her:  Hi

Me:  Hello sweetie, what are you doing at this hour?

Her:  Drinking a slerpy, or however you spell it.

Me:  I think it’s “slurpee” and isn’t it written on the side of the cup?

Her:  Oh, wowz like I never looked before…

Ok, the fact that she never looked at how to spell slurpee before aside, she’s eleven years old and drinking one at 2 a.m.  I need not say more.  So, the rest of it summarizes to the following:  She goes to some emo or scene festival and somebody hands her a pamphlet about the horrors of factory farming and the benefits of avoiding meat.  She asks me, how can I become a vegetarian?  At this point, I forgive her bad spelling because I know her young brains will heal after I scar them with the fact that refined sugar is whitened with charred animal bones.  Poof!  No more slurpees!

I am a proud auntie.

At this point, I’m in the process of developing a sort of starter guide for young people who are transitioning on their own to an animal free lifestyle.  If you have any links you want to share, I welcome them all!

Byeez!

CitySeed

So, when I decided to move back to Connecticut, I started searching for food options to make me feel better about the lack of public transportation and general social malfunctioning that follows from that.  I was so relieved to find CitySeed, an organization in New Haven that facilitates FOUR weekly farmers’ markets all over the city.  One of which is across the street from our apartment.  You can actually see it from our huge factory-style windows, but this isn’t about our cute apartment, so stop interrupting!

Yesterday, I was out for a walk in the afternoon.  It was a good one, because not only did I find the last Polish importer remaining in New Haven, but I also found CitySeed.  So, if you ever need any information on the markets, like selling your product, finding a market, or volunteering, stop in like I did and speak to the lovely ladies therein.  But if you don’t think you’ll be near Grand Street in New Haven any time soon, then just catch them on email, or check them out online.

http://www.cityseed.org/city_markets/about/index.shtml

Can’t wait to stop by the market tomorrow and pick something up that’ll go with these sorrel preserves and fermented rye.

Do widzenia!