vegan Archives - Page 70 of 82

New beefy, porky stuff

This week Kevin picked up some of the Match Meats that Cosmo’s is now carrying. He got the ground beef and ground pork versions and here’s what we did with them. Since I had no idea how these things worked, I figured I’d just follow recipes that they give. The first one we had was the ground beef, in stroganoff form. The recipes are on Match’s website, but I don’t see an easy way to link to individual recipes, so go have a look if you’re interested. There were some extra steps in this recipe that other ground fake meat doesn’t require, but I think it gave it a better texture. Basically you had to spread it out on a baking sheet, bake it for a while, pull it out, crumble it, bake it some more, then use it in the recipe. I don’t really miss the texture of ground beef enough to go through all this on a regular basis. But it was pretty convincing and might be just the thing for you if you’re trying to find a meat substitute that your omni friends and family will like. Okay, it kind of looks like dog food here, but really, it was tasty!

The ground pork got formed into a tenderloin, rolled in seasoning, seared on all sides and then covered and cooked on the stovetop until it was heated through. I had trouble getting it to stay in log form but did manage to keep tube-like. The seasoning on the outside didn’t really come through. So I think next time I’d try something that involved mixing seasoning in. The texture felt like it might make a good pulled pork style bbq. Here it is with its best friends garlic mashed potatoes and roasted asparagus.

If I was more into fake meats in general, I’d probably rave about this a bit more. Both were really tasty. The beef version probably seemed more real than the pork one texture and taste-wise. But really, how would I know? I haven’t eaten meat in, like, 12 years. Good grief, now I’m seriously just rambling. Anyway, it’s a little different than any other products out there, so it’s worth giving a try to see how you like it.

Adventures in laminated dough

Okay, I’m a little behind here. A while back, I made a big ol’ chunk of laminated dough. Because really, it’s a pain in the ass, so you might as well make a lot and then bake it off in batches as you feel like it. The big takeaway here is that when you’re dealing with Earth Balance, it’s not going to firm up after a couple of hours in the fridge. You probably want to give it at least overnight. Otherwise, this will happen:

See all that goo on the pan? That’s most of the Earth Balance. The resulting croissants were tough, not at all flakey, deep fried in Earth Balance on the bottom, and just wrong.

I thought the dough itself was a complete failure. But I still had 2/3 of it left, so rather than throwing it away, I continued with my experiments. It got to rest in the fridge for a day or two and then I made cherry cheese danishes. Yes, vegan cherry cheese danishes. I posted a tease pic from my iPhone a while back, but here they are in all their glory.

cherry cheese croissants cooling — cherry cheese danish cooling

There’s still a little bit of leakage. But then, it’s summer in Georgia and I don’t keep my thermostat below 75. But starting with a well-chilled dough seems to have made a huge difference.

Seriously, look at those layers! And here it is all pretty on a plate moments before I shoved it in my face.

But I’m not done yet. There’s still a third of the dough left plus some more cream cheese mixture. Time to try another shape and another fruit! How about an apple cheese danish?

And again, about to go in my mouth.

Vermont Sourdough

There was much more to baking day last Saturday than the Rustic Bread. It was time to jump back into sourdough. My first attempt was using my own starter which I ignored and then finally threw out because the smell freaked me out. I probably could have just fed it a lot and kept it going, but ended up ordering some starter from Northwest Sourdough instead. Also, I didn’t take into account my crappy oven so ended up with a pale top and almost burnt bottom. Hey, that’s what practice is for, right? Oh yeah, and my 2nd attempt was rising in the oven when I forgot it was there and preheated the oven. D’oh!

So, this time, I decided to make the same recipe, the Vermont Sourdough from Jeffrey Hamelman’s Bread using two different starters, Australian and Danish Rye. Just to see the difference and as an excuse to make even more bread. I mean, if you’re gonna heat up the oven for 4 loaves, might as well make it 6!

The difference between the two was subtle. In the end, I think the Australian wasn’t quite as sour. The rise and crumb seemed to be about the same. These are the loaves with the Rye starter, but the other looked about the same:

vermont sourdough rye starter

Here is the crumb from the Rye starter:

vermont sourdough rye starter

The crumb of the Australian starter. As you can see, I fear my oven going crazy and shooting up in temperature and burning my breads, so I have a habit of taking them out as soon as the internal temperature reaches 205-210 degrees F.

vermont sourdough australian starter

And here is a slice of each side by side. The Australian wasn’t actually flatter than the Rye, I was just further into the Rye loaf when these were cut.

vermont sourdough slices

All in all I was really happy with both. Obviously there’s lots of room for improvement, but I think I’m doing pretty well for someone that has no idea what she’s doing. 🙂

How did I use all this bread? Gave a bunch away, of course. Ate it sliced with Earth Balance. Sliced with peanut butter. Toasted with EB alongside Lentil and Pastina Soup. Made French Toast with it and had with tofu scramble and obligatory green vegetable, broccoli. And had this morning toasted with EB and pomegranate jelly and with leftover scramble.

Coming soon, experiments in laminated dough, or, OMG I’m covered in Earth Balance. Ewww!

Cajun Tofu & Jackfruit “Carnitas”

I’m usually too lazy to cook something that involves this many pots & pans. So it should be considered a treat. This is the Cajun Tofu from Yellow Rose Recipes. It’s actually baked, not fried, so it’s good for you and shit. The potatoes are your basic red & purple potatoes, chopped up, tossed with olive oil, salt & pepper and roasted til they’re done. The spinach is just sautéed with garlic, onions, and a pinch of red pepper flakes. Also in olive oil. And look, there’s one of those sourdough biscuits! By the way, the leftover tofu on one of the biscuits made an amazing little sammich.

cajun tofu potatoes spinach biscuit

I saw this recipe for Jackfruit “Carnitas” Tacos a while back and knew I’d eventually get around to trying it. I was right! I ate them with sautéed mustard greens, taking advantage of the opportunity of Kevin being out of town to enjoy some bitter greens. I’m post the recipe of what I did because it deviates a bit from the one linked to above. The spice amounts are approximate as I just eyeballed it and starting tossing stuff in there. I felt like it was a little acidic, so a vegan cheese or sour cream might be especially nice. I just “suffered” with avocado.

jackfruit carnitas tacos

Jackfruit “Carnitas” Tacos

2 20 cans young green jackfruit in brine rinsed and drained
1 7oz can mexican green sauce
1 11oz can whole tomatillos drained
½ large onion chopped
2 cloves garlic minced
1 teaspoon chile powder
1 teaspoon cumin powder
½ teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon smoked paprika
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
½ teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon fresh lime juice
18-24 small corn tortillas
2 avocados

Drain & rinse the jackfruit throughly. With your hands, press the moisture out of each piece & add it to the crock pot.

Toss all of the spices in the crockpot with the jackfruit. Stir around until jackfruit is coated.

Add onion and garlic to the pot. Dump in green sauce. Add tomatillos squeezing between your fingers to bust up as you add them. Stir everything around.

Cook for 7-9 hours on low. Before serving, smash jackfruit with a spoon. It’ll shred into stringy pieces. No need to be thorough, just want to smack the chunks down a bit.

Dry fry tortillas in a cast iron or other heavy pan until they get some brown spots on each side. Spoon some jackfruit “carnitas” into a tortilla all soft taco like, squeeze a little lime juice on top, toss on a few pieces of avocado and then add whatever it is you like to add to tacos.

Sourdough Cast-off Biscuits

If you have any experience at all with sourdough starter, you will know that you need to remove some starter each time you feed it, unless you have the ability to store gallons and gallons of the stuff. You can give it to a friend to develop their own starter, toss it, or make something with it. There are a few recipes floating around for pancakes, waffles, etc. But I choose this Fluffy Sourdough Biscuit recipe because it was the most versatile for me and, bonus, it was already vegan.

I’ve made these twice now, both times with a rye starter. Since I mixed it with all purpose flour, the rye didn’t really come through in the biscuits. But the flavor of these things is amazing. You can see in the recipe, there isn’t much by way of flavoring except for the starter, but they taste like they’re full of butter. Also, true to sourdough form, they hung out in a bag on my counter for a few days without a hint of getting stale. They didn’t rise as much as I’d like, but they were in no way dense.

fluffy sourdough biscuits