vegetarian Archives - Page 69 of 80

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

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

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.