Tag: vegan

My First Sourdough

Rather than doing what most people do when they want to try baking sourdough bread, I just jumped right in and developed my own starter. And, despite the fact that I have no idea what I’m doing, it worked! I mean, I can read a book as well as anyone else. But my practical bread building experience is almost nil. The starter took an extra day or two beyond what The Bread Baker’s Apprentice had set as the standard schedule. But then, there’s really nothing standard about developing a wild yeast starter. So I didn’t worry too much, just followed the suggestions and kept plugging away. Here are a few starter shots as I went along:

sourdough starter

sourdough starter

And here’s the barm. The white tape marks the beginning level. I’d say that’s some active yeast, eh?

sourdough barm

The finished loaves were far from perfect. The bottom is a bit too brown and the top not quite brown enough. I need a proper tool for the cuts in the top. (I used a box knife. No really.) I need to work on setting up my boule a bit better. Needs more surface tension. But after doing two I now have more of a feel for it. The taste seems just about right. Good sour taste. Probably could be a little more sour. But that will probably develop as the starter matures. I wish they had risen more. And I wish my oven wasn’t so sketchy. There’s no keeping an even temperature. At least I have an oven thermometer so I can keep adjusting, but I know it’s all over the place. Also, I think I had them too far down in the oven, but I needed to leave space at the top for the steaming water. Anyway, here’s a loaf and a slice:

sourdough loaf

sourdough slice

Vegan Waffle Cones & Bowls

We had the perfect opportunity to work out the waffle cone maker yesterday when our friends had a vegan ice cream social at their store to celebrate the 1 year anniversary of the retail location of Cosmo’s Vegan Shoppe. The recipe we used last time turned out cones that were a little too hard. So after a bit of googling, I found one that didn’t rely on a ton of eggs and was easily veganizable. And they turned out perfect.

box of vegan waffle cones and bowls

I think there were about 16 total, and they went fast. Hey, I ate one. I’m not shy about stuff like that. No one wants to be the first at the buffet, etc. I don’t mind getting things started.

vegan waffle bowl sundae

Turnout was crazy. Seriously, who were all those vegans packing the store for at least two hours? Pretty good for one of the top 10 least veg friendly cities, eh? *cough*vegnewssux*cough* Others were taking pictures of actual people, so those should show up on the intarwebs soon enough.

Oh, yeah, there’s a recipe too! It’s adapted from the one I found here. And yeah, you do need a waffle cone maker. Oh, and in case you’ve ever wondered, you can indeed put regular granulated sugar into a food processor to make powdered sugar.

Vegan Waffle Cones

1 box SoyaToo Topping Cream
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1 ½ cups powdered sugar
1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon cornstarch
Oil, for the iron

In a bowl with a whisk, whip the SoyaToo Topping cream with the vanilla until thick. Beat in the remaining ingredients to make a batter. Let the batter sit for 30 minutes.

Heat up waffle cone iron and brush with a little oil. Pour some batter in and close the lid to bake and brown. Open the iron and remove the browned batter and fold over itself, overlapping it, on a wooden cone-form into a cone. Or, throw over an upended flat bottom bowl, lightly press it to the shape, and remove when cooled enough to be firm and cool on a cookie sheet or rack.

Or, if you’re lazy, you can just get cones from Let’s Do Organic. They have regular vegan and gluten-free sugar and cake cones and bowls. You can even get a party pack that includes bowls and sprinkles.

Eating Vegan in the Bahamas

Or at least on Paradise Island and in Nassau. We stayed at Atlantis and ended up eating most meals there. If you can completely ignore how much stuff costs, you will probably be okay there. Even so, I’d suggest bringing in provisions. Here I’ll just tell you what we did. Hopefully it’ll be helpful to someone.

We got in Tuesday around lunch time. Atlantis has a Johnny Rockets on site, so we just hit that. A little shy on veggies, but it got the job done. Plus it was really filling. So when we had a function with hors d’oeuvres later, we ate the one we could eat and were good with it.

Wednesday morning we had our first diving lesson, so we wanted to eat light. Okay, I’m about to launch into a testimonial for Pro Bars about now. I already knew they were tasty. But I didn’t know they’d really hold up as a meal replacement, even through a bunch of physical activity. And they were the perfect thing to have if you don’t want a big ol’ full stomach. 

I think we just snacked a little in the afternoon and played in the water. For dinner, we went to Carmine’s in the Marina Village. It’s Italian food served family style. The waiter was very accommodating. The menu was not exactly veg friendly, but we were able to piece together something. Apparently they make their pasta, so it’s all eggy. But they did have some dried pasta on hand. I think it was gluten free. They tossed that with oil and garlic. It was okay and filled the tummy, but not even close to as good as something I could whip up at home. They have sides of veggies you can order. If you ask for steamed it’ll be vegan. So we got broccoli. I chopped some up and tossed it with my pasta. They also had an appetizer we could have which was actually really good. It was grilled portobello mushrooms on a bed of spinach (although the menu said arugula) tossed with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. I’m not a giant portobello fan, but these were really nice.

Thursday, we weren’t diving until the afternoon so we got room service. They do have soy milk, so I had granola. Kevin had plain bagels with jelly. Oh, and there are at least 2 Starbucks at Atlantis so you can get your coffee and soy milk fix. Before diving, we just had Pro Bars for lunch. Again, they held up through the activity just fine.

Thursday night we decided to venture across the bridge into Nassau for dinner. We saw an Indian restaurant, Clay Oven, on the way in from the airport and decided to try that. We’re a little spoiled when it comes to Indian food since we have some really amazing restaurants here in Atlanta. But this was good, if dumbed down a bit. But they were really nice and had a number of things they could make vegan for us. Kevin had Aloo Ghobi (potatoes & cauliflower) and I had Vegetable Korma. And we were able to have Roti as well.

Friday morning we snacked on provisions and ate leftover Indian for breakfast. I don’t remember eating lunch, but we headed into town again that night, this time to Thai Lotus. We stepped in there after Indian food the night before to see if they had anything we could eat. Again, we had options. They had tofu and would basically sub it into any of the dishes. And they were cool about leaving out the fish sauce. We had vegetable spring rolls and then Kevin had a Stir Fry Ginger with Tofu which was good, but was a pretty standard stir fry. I had the Thai Green Curry with Tofu and it was as good as any I’ve ever had. Afterwards, we headed to the ice cream shop in the Marina Village and had some sorbet.

thai lotus bahamas

Saturday morning we were diving again, so bars for breakfast. After diving we went to Johnny Rockets again for lunch. Dinner was a function. The resort caterers seem to think vegan = flavorless. But it was the veggie burgers from earlier were filling enough to carry us through so we weren’t starving.

So that’s what we ate. There’s also the Sivananda Ashram Yoga Retreat right down the beach from Atlantis. They have a vegetarian buffet you can get for brunch or dinner. We didn’t try it because the woman sounded a little sketchy about what may or may not be vegan and gave the impression that we’d have a hard time finding out about the ingredients. But it might actually be a good option. 

 

Seitan Sausage & Hot Dog Bun Payoff

So it seems like a month ago or something that I put out tweets that I was making seitan sausages and buns from scratch. It seems kind of weird to say “from scratch” considering that’s about how I cook everything. Anyway, I usually don’t go so far as to make my own hot dog buns. But then, here they are:

hot dog buns

I used Bryanna’s Fluffy But High Fiber Hamburger and Hotdog Bun recipe. For the first ingredient, I used EnergE Egg Replacer because I didn’t have the other things and it’s mostly potato starch anyway. Seemed to work fine. These are all full of whole grains and yet not heavy. I’m not sure I’d call them fluffy exactly, but they are really nice. One thing they don’t do is keep a little “hinge” when you slice them like store bought hotdog buns. I didn’t really think of that. In the future, I’ll experiment with shaping these so the sausage can be wrapped in bread. Even so, the sausages weren’t too messy to eat.

The sausages? Right, I made the steamed seitan sausages that every other vegan food blogger did months ago and probably already has a freezer full of them. I just used Julie Hasson’s original recipe. Next time I’d probably punch up the seasoning a little. I like a really spicy sausage. These had great flavor though. Steaming them was no problem. I just used one of those metal steamer baskets that you fit into the bottom of a pot to steam vegetables. Even though the bottom is rounded and not flat, I was able to stack all the sausages from this recipe into my pasta pot without a problem. 

Don’t be freaked out when you first unwrap these from the foil. They’re still moist on the outside but dry out pretty quickly. I’ve had them both right out of the fridge and into the George Foreman grill and frozen, defrosted partially, then into the grill. It’s crazy convenient to have these just hanging out in your freezer. Sometime soon I’ll incorporate them into some other recipe rather than simply eating on a bun.

seitan sausage cabbage kale salad

Oh, and that’s the Cabbage Kale Slaw from Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen next to it. And here’s a slaw extreme close up:

cabbage kale slaw

I had the slaw a couple of days later for lunch at work with sunflower seeds sprinkled on it. It held up just fine and possibly got a little better.

Yes, there’s more food. Asian Baked Tofu from The Candle Cafe Cookbook, Teriyaki Quinoa from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan, and some stir fried baby bok choy.

asian baked tofu teriyaki quinoa baby bok choy

Jimmy Crack Corn Crack from Alternative Vegan and Chipotle Kissed Red Bean Sweet Potato Chili from Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker.

sweet potato chili

Sometimes you just need chocolate cake

Eating healthy raw food is great, but sometimes, about one week a month, a girl just needs some chocolate cake. So while we had a lovely, healthy raw dinner of Sunflower Seed Paté on celery sticks and Gazpacho from Raw Food Made Easy:

sunflower seed pate

gazpacho

Afterwards, there was cake. I had bananas I needed to use so I asked the interwebs about chocolate banana bundt cakes. I found Memmaw’s Vegan Chocolate Banana Cake. To make it even more chocolaty, I made a half batch of the ganache from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World and drizzled it on top. The cake is moist and lovely with little chocolate chip bombs throughout. I like the texture but will warn you that it’s slightly non cake like, or at least not what you’d expect in a bundt. Maybe it’s all that banana. Anyway, it’s good, but if you’re looking for light airy cake, this isn’t it. This is moist, fudgy intense chocolate yumminess.

chocolate banana bundt

I still dig Vegan Italiano, especially for quick food. The Fusilli with Beets is practically instant beyond cooking the pasta. Obviously these aren’t fusilli, but I liked the idea of little beet cubes ending up inside these guys, so that’s what I picked up.

pasta with beets

And it took me a while, but I finally busted into Healthy South Indian Cooking. It’s been sitting around here for a while waiting for me to get to it. I finally got to Taj Mahal Market last week and picked up prepared Rasam and Sambhar spice mixes just to make life a little easier. This is the Carrot Sambhar and it was lovely. And I even had to leave out fenugreek seeds because I didn’t have any. I used to so I’m not sure where they ran off to. Anyway, it was bright, lovely, complex, not terribly hot. Enough dal to give it some substance, but not so much that it gets heavy.

carrot sambhar

And the “Butter” Tofu made another appearance.

butter tofu