Currently viewing the tag: "bread"
Getting into the swing of my cleanse, I spent Day 3 embracing it. I set the hammock up in the backyard to peruse the newspaper and then headed to the nail salon for a low-cost massage. My achey neck and shoulders certainly needed it. After juice #4, I began to break cleanse. I felt ready. And I also wanted to introduce solid good gradually and not be so restricted over the weekend.
So was it worth it? Definitely. I feel clean and fresh. That’s the only way I can describe it. The detox was for the benefit of my internal organs. Of course I can’t see the difference in my organs, but I really do feel it. I feel light and efficient, like I had a tune-up. Other benefits: I can tell that I did lose a few pounds. Although my activity level was minimal, I barely sweat. The end of the day low-grade musk was none existant. My oily skin and hair, which barely goes a few hours before greasing up, was not at all oily. I feel good. I can say that a dozen more times.
I am, however, a bit worried about transitioning fully back to solid foods. Saturday is, of course, bagel day. My weekendly toasted everything bagel with Earth Balance and Bonne Maman four fruits is one of my favorite parts of the week. I’ve had a lot of time to think about what I wanted to eat after this cleanse and I’ve had a lot of cravings during my cleanse. Carbohydrates, mostly.
The poor carbohydrate, always associated the refined flour, sweetener-pumped industrialized food product mega-processed food corporations dare to call “bread.” My general rule about bread is if it’s sold in the everyday supermarket, it’s crap, like most of what’s in there. Even the supermarket’s bakery pumps their bread with chemicals and sugars. That stuff should get a bad wrap, even more so the ones with catch-word of the day health claims printed on the bag: “Low Fat!” means a bunch of fake stuff added and some unnatural processing. “All-natural!” means absolutely nothing. “Whole Grains!” means, if they are in the everyday supermarket, that those are genetically engineered whole grains that have a host of harmful associations and, for the most part, remain untested and unlabeled. Sorry, I can rant on and on about how advertising pedals lies and products that are killing everybody… Back to carbs, I like my carbs like I like my movies, complex. Complex carbohydrates are the good guys.
I didn’t mean to veer off on that carb tangent. Nutritional ignorance is very harmful and yet advertising doesn’t allow us to know what is behind the products they make. They paint bogus images of farmers and pastures. But it’s mostly test tubes and dirty assembly lines. I will eat my bagel. Because it will be stale by the end of the day and that is normal and natural. Because it’s sweetened with molasses and that is normal and natural. My diet is mindful and healthful, with sprinklings of decadence… and that’s where the Earth Balance comes in.
No more juice!
Trying to get to Boston’s True Bistro for brunch before the wedding hadn’t worked out. And unfortunately so. This all-vegan restaurant has one spectacular brunch menu. Considering there was no way I was leaving Boston without trying their delicious-reading menu of high end fare, we had to make a b-line from the ceremony to Somerville before their Sunday closing time, as Monday they were closed. To our surprise, the place was hopping when we arrived at 8:30.
A basket of bread was delivered promptly with some olive oil for dipping. Though it was not the freshest, few things beat a bite of bed saturated with a good olive oil. And this was a really good olive oil.
I opted for a small plate of pea and leek ravioli in a lemon-thyme cream though I had my mind on their Seitan Piccata since I first glanced their menu. The ravioli were so very good, tender and flavorful. It is so nice to have a cream sauce like this–lite and with no mouth coat. The quality of ingredients and chef’s skills are crystal clear given this one small plate. I must return for a full dinner.
Here is a close-up on the pea and leek ravioli cross-section. It was so difficult not to eat these in one inhalation.
For dessert, and maybe because I wasn’t able to eat one at the Shoreline Diner the day before, I had the Napoleon. Layers of paper-thin sugared pastry with a fantastic subtly sweet cream (I would guess cashew-based) and fresh, sliced strawberries. Mmmm! Dip into that sweet strawberry sauce and it’s even more delicious.
I struggled with how to attack Napoleon.
Max ordered their gluten-free dessert option, the ‘Death-by-chocolate’ cake topped with creme anglaise and crunchy shattered caramel. And he polished it off so quickly I didn’t have a chance to try it! I would have loved to try the caramel (foreshadowing alert… more on vegan caramel later).
My buddy and I woke up to the chime of my phone. 10 minutes before I received the NYC Alert text, The Electrician delivered the sweet, sweet news of the snow day. I texted the other 5th grade teachers and went back to bed, lulled by the exclamations of the ambitious shovelers outside and the spinning wheels of snow-trapped vehicles. Too soon I woke with a caffeine withdrawal headache and needed to trudge the fresh snow to Lula Bean for a large black.
The snow enveloped cars in white mountains, trimmed winter sticklings like a lush coat and brightened up the mismatched colors of apartment buildings down my street. With my pajama pants tucked into my huge 80′s-style Hoth moon boots, I enjoyed my walk in the snow. The day was brimming with opportunity and I was hoping not to squander it. Coffee will help.
My first endeavor, nutty wheat bread. It’s been a while since I last made bread. I was discouraged by uneven slices, impatient about letting it cool thoroughly after a 4-hour session in the bread maker and plagued by too much bread left over. But these are easy fixes! I reduced Nutty wheat above to a 1.5lb loaf, subbing curdled soy milk for buttermilk and some Earth Balance for the butter, and got a reasonably sized loaf. I added in some mixed fancy nuts I’ve been meaning to get the heck out of my pantry. Pantry turnover, as well as lunch for all of next week, was my mission.
Having a capital-S Slew of fresh dill in my possession, I made a vegan dill mayo with some sprigs and the remainder of my Vegenaise. This will top my lentil burgers. I am happy to announce that the green lentils have left the pantry. What a relief! They were bothering me in there. I am neurotic, yes.
I also made a simple wheat berry salad as an accompaniment to my lentil burgers. Just some wheat berries, raisins and some splashes of olive oil, fig balsamic vinegar and some red wine vinegar. To the right, the cooling lentils for my patties. Did I tell you that making this patties also killed the rest of the bread crumbs in my pantry? Booyah! Anyway, the patties were quite easy: lentils, onion, carrot and some spice and heat. I also added corn for color.
I miss my good camera, my SLR. While my baby is getting a preventative maintenance and cleaning, here we are. This ol’ point & shoot 6 mega-pixel is hardly the powerhouse it was years ago. And so in the midst of January Pantry Turnover, an annual purge of dry goods and ingredients taking up too much space in the pantry, when my cooking is not based on pizazz but on what’s lying around, excuse my drab and flash-gleaming photos. Trust that all of this truly does taste better than it looks.
Cranberry Nut Bread: A cup of sugar makes everything better. Here I used the orange-flavored cranberries I’ve had since my wonderful students and their parents brought in KZ-friendly snacks for my birthday in October. Being monogamous with tropical dried fruit, these sweet and tart crimson lovers lay neglected since in my pantry. The dough was more scone-like and I realized, as my serrated knife made a mess of my loaf, that they’d be better off drop-biscuits. Oh well, they’re going to get chewed up either way!
Meat loaf, beat loaf I hate meat loaf! But a lentil loaf? Yes sir. Though extremely unattractive and shaped like an Easter egg, this recipe is so darn delicious and sure to keep me satisfied during the week. I used this recipe from My Vegan Cookbook. Make it and shape it better for a very impressive meal that gets better as the days go by.
Tune into the the continuation of the pantry turnover when I try to make use of:
- a can of vegetarian duck from an Asian mart (I’m thinking a curry to also use up the Jasmin rice)
- chocolate chips… banana… coconut. need I say more
I have finally picked up a breadmaking book: The Bread Book by Sara Lewis. It’s a gorgeous book with tons of innovative bread recipes that are very easily veganizable. Yes, it isn’t an exclusively vegan cookbook. I don’t believe there are any bread ones! (Can someone get on that?) This week’s loaf is a courgette (uh, zucchini in American), tarragon and lemon bread.
Look at those colors! Here shredded zucchini, chopped fresh tarragon and the zest of one lemon sit in a pool of shallow olive oil and wait to be spooned with 4 1/2 cups of flour. I ran out of bread flour and subbed in a cup of dark rye flour and a cup of all purpose flour. Luckily the texture did not suffer.
There she is all ready to be dressed, a speckled green and golden crusted canvas!
It has been a while since I made bread. It has been a while since I made anything besides breakfast actually. Knowing that I need a solid bread foundation if I am ever to return to the kitchen to whip up my own meals, I made a huge loaf to inspire the remainder of the week… a huge loaf of spiced potato and onion bread. This savory yellow darling has got a base of mashed Yukon potatoes and diced union spiced with cumin and fennel seeds, turmeric and paprika. Ain’t it gorgeous? 
I have a real problem with running out for Thai lunch specials during the work week. In hopes to quell the nagging whim, I thought I ought to make something I’d want to eat come 12:10. With a recently expired tub of tofu to utilize, I opted to whip up a traditional tofu scramble, incorporating some lemon-pepper tempeh strips and a hefty handful of cilantro. After all, I am partially obsessed with product turnover. So much that I was a few seconds away from incorporating the remainder of my blueberries into the scramble! Maybe next time…
Check out the spice blend. And the deep orange turmeric, how I love you and your ginger relatives. 
Here’s my scramble. I crumbled up the tofu a bit too much. I can’t help it. When it’s in my hands I just want to squeeze and squash it. A cast-iron skillet would yield a better skin on my scramble. I’ll just have to deal with a bit more mush. Now, to just get it in the container without eating it all… like I almost did with the tempeh while the garlic cooked.
Some kinksters apply whip cream to their lovers, but why the heck not a pile of carmelized onion? Ok, I’ll just incorporate it into a loaf of rosemary and olive oil bread. I experimented with this loaf in the old breadmaker and came out with a magnificent 2lb block sure to satisfy a carb craving.
Ms. CandyPenny recently tried her hand at making bagels from scratch, de la Vegan Brunch. In an effort to channel her spirit back to New York, I thought I’d give it a go myself.
Rise, rise, rise… is one of those words that starts to look misspelled when you type it several times.
Everything: Hawaiian red sea salt, caraway seeds, sesame and milled garlic
Cut dough
After the simmering bath, a plash of seeds
Holy smokes, I made bagels!
Aren’t they gorgeous?
And while my face is bloated with flour, here are some rye and saukraut croutons
A week and a half out of the classroom and I was a bit irked I had nothing to show for it in the refrigerator. Realizing the end of my free time was near I rose at the crack of dawn to beat the day mayors to the supermarket and maneuver my double-decker cart gracefully through empty aisles. Food shopping! I mapped out my needs and supplied myself with the goods for a loaf of bread, a sandwich stuffer and a sweet: three necessities for the week.
I decided on a whole wheat flax bread, using this recipe. Here is the pile of yeast within a blend of bread flour, whole wheat flour and vital wheat gluten, among other more viscous ingredients underneath. (Ok, I just wanted to say “viscous”.) Let’s also admire the ground flax seeds invading the yeast crater. I ground these up although the recipe was calling for whole flax seeds. I wanted to lessen the probability said seeds would hide under my lip, like they sometimes like to, only to cause embarrassment later. Does this happen to you? I eat a lot of flax.
I also made a batch of eggless “egg” salad for the week! I got the recipe from the first vegan cookbook I ever bought many moons ago: Easy Vegan Cooking. The book, by British author Leah Leneman, is out-of-print here in the states. I rarely use it. But with time enough to flip through a book languidly before bed, I found plenty recipes I’d like to tackle. Many of the adapted traditional British dishes strike me as a bit odd but worthy of experimentation, like creamy banana risotto, the Toad in the Hole (see Bone Shaker’s version here) and potato scones. The egg salad below was a super-easy concoction. I added some freshly ground black salt for some enhanced sulphuric eggyness and a boat-ton of one of my favorite garnishes–green onion.
Next up, the sweet for the week. Having most of what I needed for Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar‘s Cowboy cookies, besides the nuts and chocolate chips, I created my own nut-free version with chocolate bottoms. Since I didn’t flatten out my golf-sized dough balls, they baked a bit macaroon-shaped. With a mix of light, dark and granulated sugars, the cookies came out sublime. Sweet craving preemptively satisfied? Check.
And here is the best loaf of bread I have made thus far. I know, I know. I keep saying that! But cutting a warm slice of this soft and supple bread and smearing it with Earth Balance and my strawberry-mango jam, I was in heaven. Oh, the simple pleasures in life! Now if only I had a bread-slicing machine. I wouldn’t have to suffer through messily uneven jagged cuts that jeopardize the integrity of a sandwich… deliciously.
Here is my latest breadmaker creation: Black Forest Pumpernickel bread. How cool does that sound? It makes me think that the bread absorbed the deep and dark evening in the forest, that small trolls had been stomping about it, imprinting their little foot paths into the porous exterior. But perhaps if more knew the etymology of “pumpernickel”, less would enjoy this bold rye bread. Basically it translates to goblin fart in German. Oh, those Germans.
Mr. and Mrs. Claus brought me a breadmaker this year and I am determined to never buy a loaf of bread again. I am pretty good with “never” doing things ever again when I am feel it necessary. Whether it be my strong will or my inherited stubbornness, when I’m amped enough to make a declarative statement, it lasts. So I’ve been looking into buying bread flour bulk and using the 50-lb sacks as spare kitchen chairs and contemplating a new shelf system to support me in my quest. I’m also ready to test estimations on the shelf-life vs. quantity of 5 lbs of active dry yeast. I can sometimes go overboard, diving headfirst in new endeavors, yes, but only because I am predisposed to go underboard. It’s a defense.
I made my first loaf last night with great results! A big, buoyant rosemary olive oil loaf that stunk the apartment up with yeast and scared the cat with the hums and gurgles of its production. The end result was delicious. You can’t mess up bread, right? But I’m gonna try!
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