Autumn is kicking in

Our favourite afternoon snack since regular, reasonably priced bread is out of the question temporarily: Baked sweet potato fries and decaf coffee. I just cut a sweet potato into large fry-like pieces, coat them in a few tsp of rice bran oil (depending on how much I'm making), liberally apply fresh cracked sea salt and bake in the oven at 220 degrees C for about 45 minutes. I like to make the edges a little bit burnt so I sometimes just leave it in til the coffee has finished brewing or something. At (still!) 49c a kilo, this is one cheap snack, that's much better for us than our toast with margarine and jam :)

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Now, about the gluten thang.

Nadine decided she wanted to the Quantum Wellness Cleanse (a book by Kathy Freston, find it here on FishPond) so naturally I would do it with her (makes food prep easier and all that) which is basically going without sugar, alcohol, gluten, caffiene and animal products for 3 weeks. Why not? I'm sure my body could do without those for a while, particularly the caffiene. We weren't going to do the gluten part in the first place, but then I heard from a coworker that someone she knew (who wasn't a celiac, OR intolerant OR allergic to gluten/wheat) decided to try going gluten free to fix up her skin which was dry and excema-y. And of course it worked very well and her skin cleared up really quickly. So I thought, hmm. My hands and forearms are covered in dermatitis. And it hurts. And it's really gross. Maybe gluten could be the problem.

So there you have it, I'm seeing if gluten is aggravating the dermatitis. After the three weeks if it has cleared up (I am starting an indoors job soon so that should help too) I will start eating gluteny things again and if it flares up, well, then I'll know. It'll suck, but it's a small price. Who knows, it could be soy, or sugar, or some random unlikely fruit or vegetable. (I could just go to the doctor and get tested, but I don't want to, and they tend to just prescribe cortisone - been there done that, don't want to have to use that again.)

So anyway, today's lunch was just delicious. I made the curried pumpkin soup I found on Scandi Foodie and splurged on some gluten free bread to eat it with.

I was going to make my own bread but I got a bit lazy.

You have to spend a little bit more to buy gluten free bread that is also vegan. A lot of gluten free bread uses eggs and milk - I believe it helps with binding and rising. I say pish posh to your eggs and milk. Unecessary.

This loaf is pretty good, and the ingredients are nice excpet one - palm oil. I mean, really? That'll be my motivation to bake my own when this loaf runs out ( I predict tomorrow). It toasted up really well, though I tried to defrost one piece just to eat as bread and it kind of went all squishy in the microwave. Maybe if I just leave it out until it's ready...



Been baking up a cyclone lately.

First, it was the bagels. (I also baked some carrot muffins on the same day as the bagels that I've posted about before).

And now I am foraying even further into the vast world of Bread.

With these pumpkin scrolls I found randomly somehow on veganbaking.net. Actually, they are called Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls but to me they are scrolls. I've always called this type of thing scrolls. I opted out of the rum icing, because I had no rum (and whiskey would not suffice this time) and I don't really like icing. *get's shot by fellow bloggers* Besides, this bread is so sweet and so moist and so delicious it doesn't need any. When I make these at Christmas I'll probably put some on, you know, for presentation.

These are surprisingly easy to make. I only made a few substitutions: wholemeal plain flour + 1 tbsp gluten flour for the All Purpose, and rice syrup for the barley malt syrup.

These turned out so soft and like something you'd buy at a bakery. It tastes and has a texture like it was made with soft white flour. They taste to me like a perfect hot cross bun - I might even use this recipe for my buns next Easter. No one will notice they are orange...or they could just be pumpkin hot cross buns! They are sticky - I don't know how I'm going to manage one at work tomorrow, but we shall see.

So this is what I do when I chuck a sickie have a mental health day. Tell ya what, this business of breadmaking is very relaxing.

Homemade bagels!

You know, I don't know if I've ever eaten a storebought bagel before, but the idea of making my own has always been attractive...I'm just fairly lazy. I mean, they look like doughnuts but you put stuff like cream cheese on it. Or marmite. Mmm. All bagel recipes seem to be pretty much the same, but here is what I did.

Whole wheat bagels

Makes 8 smallish bagels

Ingredients

3 cups wholemeal plain flour (I use organic stoneground w/m plain flour, I buy it in bulk for $3.50/kg)

1 tbsp gluten flour

3 tbsp raw sugar

1 1/2 tsp dry yeast (instant)

1 tsp salt

1 cup warm water (I actually use a candy thermometer to check - 100 degrees F)

Method

Mix together flour, gluten, yeast and salt in a med-large mixing bowl. Stir 1 tbsp sugar into the cup of warm water. Add water to flour mixture and stir until a dough forms.

Turn out onto a floured surface and knead for about 10 minutes or until smooth. Put in an oiled bowl and let rise in a warm place for an hour. (I always turn my oven on for a few seconds, then turn it off and put it in there).

Meanwhile, fill a stock pot with water and stir in the remaining sugar. Bring to a boil when dough has risen.

Divide dough into 8 pieces, and knead lightly. Poke a hole through the middle and make into smooth bagel shape. Let rest in warm place for 15 minutes. Preheat oven to 200 degrees C.

Once water is boiling,  drop bagels in about 3 at a time (or however many fit in your pot) and boil for 30 secs, flip, and boil for another 30 secs. Drain.

Once all bagels have been boiled, put on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Bake for about 10 minutes (check after this to make sure - my oven is gas powered and dodgy).

Remoe from oven and cool on a wire rack. I hope that all makes sense. I'm so tired I've lost my eyes.

Serve with whatever you like to eat on bagels! I first put peanut butter and rice syrup on mine, then tried one with plain ol' nuttlex. Both awesome. Next time I'm going to make at least a double batch so I can freeze them. or eat all of them at once. The flour I buy makes everything so smooth. I first found it at Mrs Flannery's (and it made me realise that the white wings wholemeal flour may be unbleached, but it isn't actually a whole grain...it's white with bran mixed through.) But found it at a local bulk food shop for much cheaper.

Bob is a laydee.

And I am very sad. I left the plate I used in the top photo on the arm of the couch...and Charlee broke it :(.

It seems a sin to toast freshly baked bread..

As you can see the cheeze doesn't really melt - it softened though. And the toastie tasted amazing.



After a second rising

I've discovered something that makes my bread less dense and rise a little more - blackstrap molasses. I always knew sugar feeds yeast but I was unwilling to put it in my bread, but then I thought, wouldn't molasses do the same thing? And at the same time my bread would get a little bit of added iron and calcium and other good things? Indeed.



Mmm.

Just follow the same recipe as my bread from before, just add 1.5 tablespoons of molasses to the water before you warm it up. (I just went and looked at my recipe, and discovered I haven't even been following it - I use 500g flour now for some reason. )

Seedy bread

Makes 1 loaf

Ingredients:

500g wholemeal flour

50g gluten flour

1/2 tsp salt

2.5 tsp instant yeast (you can buy this in a big tube at woolies - keep it in the freezer.)

1.5 tbsp blackstrap molasses

Seeds of choice (I usually use 2 tbsp each of: sesame, flax, poppy and sunflower. I also like adding pumpkin seeds.)

about 1 1/2 cups warm water

Method:

Mix together flour, gluten flour, salt, seeds and yeast. Make a well in the center and pour in the warm water and molasses mixture (start with one cup).

Mix the dough, adding more water until a firm elastic dough is achieved.

Turn onto a floured bench. Knead for 5 minutes or until smooth. Place in an oiled bowl and let rise for about an hour or until double in size.

Knead again lightly. Press out dough gently to about the length of your loaf tin and roll it up. Place the rolled up dough in the tin with the 'seam' side down. Let rise again until doubled.

Bake at 200 degrees C for 30-40 minutes or until brown and sounds hollow when tapped.

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I always grind my flaxseeds before doing anything with them - you can't digest them if they're whole, and therefore would not get all the nice nutrients from them! You know, like omega 3.

Anyway, this is about my sixth loaf of bread I have made at home since the last time I bought any at the shops. It's awesome. I'm getting quicker at just whipping it up when I get home from work if we've run out :) Though I usually do it on Sunday afternoons and make all the neighbours jealous at the smell of baking bread wafting through the air!

Homemade steamed buns!

As with a lot of things I make in my kitchen, I've been wanting to try my hand at making my own steamed buns for ages now. I've had about a cup of dried azuki beans in a jar for months. Everytime we go into an Asian supermarket (rarely) I buy a packet of the frozen red bean buns. They're always good, but you know, have numbers in the ingredient lists and way too much sugar!

Anyway so today I cooked up my cup of azuki beans, and when they were nice and mushy, drained off most of the water, added almost half a cup of dark brown sugar (all I had left - is enough) and mashed them all up into a paste. It was the perfect oppurtunity to make these buns as I had just the right amount of white self raising flour to use up before the weevils arrived. (By the way, I keep my flour unsealed in the original paper bags next to my stove/oven, and I haven't had a weevil infestation yet.)

I used this recipe I found while looking for one on google, and made only half of it. I also ignored the savoury filling recipe.

They were really very easy to make!

They were really tiny when uncooked and just twisted up, but during steaming expanded to at least twice as big (obviously because of the yeast and self raising flour). I was worried they wouldn't hold together but they were just fine. We had them with a cup of tea :)

Half the recipe makes 12, but I only cooked up four, opting to freeze the rest uncooked. I'll get back to you on how they turn out - I should imagine they'll be right. I also had an extra half cup of red bean paste and I froze that too, so I can whip some more up when I run out! I also bet custard buns would be good. I bought one by accident when I was at uni and didn't like it, I think because of the egg, but if I make my own custard they should be delicious!

Mmm fried bread

I bought a 1/4 green cabbage at Woolies the other day because it was only 74c and I didn't quite know what to do with it until I saw this recipe for Spiced Cabbage Flatbreads on Allotment2Kitchen.

I didn't follow the recipe almost at all, but I was certainly inspired by it.

In mine, I put green cabbage, grated purple carrot and their greens, onion, minced garlic and minced ginger. Then I mixed up a peanut sauce out of peanut butter and soy sauce and mixed it through before making up the breads. I also had some tempeh (found it at Coles for about $4 yay!) so I made a sort of tempeh bacon with it (essentially soy sauce, malt vinegar, smoked paprika and cayenne pepper).

The filling was so good by itself without even the peanut sauce! I could eat it all day. The bread was surprisingly easy to make, and they didn't even fall apart like I thought it would. I was thinking next time I'll cook it in my sandwich press instead of frying in a pan - no oil and a time saver! I could do four at once, and cook both sides at the same time. Maybe it'll work! I also used wholemeal plain flour.

I divided the dough into 8, and we ate 3 each for dinner and one was leftover for lunch the next day. These are also pretty good cold! They would be perfect for an appetiser at a dinner party with friends, and could be made smaller again. Go nuts with the filling!

Hot Cross Buns recipe and a little catchup on some mending

So I took another sick day at work. Hopefully I have enough hours to get paid for it! Anyway, I ended up making a lovely spicy chickpea dish from Stephanie Alexander's Kitchen Garden Companion called 'Chickpea and Tomato Curry' for dinner last night. I won't post the recipe because I followed it pretty much exactly, but it was basically chickpeas, tomato, onion, garlic, ginger and a delicious spice mix made from whole peppercorns, cardamom, garam masala, cinnamon, chilli powder and tumeric. So good, yet simple and fairly quick to make (if you don't count the hours it takes to cook dried chickpeas!)

I had just a small bit which took me ages to eat, with some brown rice. For some reason 2/3 cup uncooked rice made enough for 3! I usually do 1/2 cup each. Odd. We figured out I had a light fever so I opted then to stay home from work today whether I felt fine or not.

So in order not to waste my day, I randomly decided to start my mending! (I have a huge list). The first thing I picked up was my favourite winter hat (I don't know what it's made from; I got it years ago from a friend). As you can see it has a big...gap? tear? what would you call that? that needs fixing. It's been like that since I got it, pretty sure.

So I got out a crochet hook and fixed it! You can hardly tell, no? Since it's getting cooler now I should really start crocheting things again. I haven't done any for ages and I do enjoy it. I still have a half finished bolero I was making for Nadine about 3 years ago!

On to the Hot Cross Buns! As you can see, the crosses melted into the bread. Oh well. But anyway they turned out really soft! I was quite surprised.  I made a half batch so only 8, but I've been sitting around all day in my fat pants (so comfy) eating toast and these buns with heaps of margarine, so for next week I'll make at least double.

Hot Cross Buns

Makes 8

Ingredients

1 sachet of instant dried yeast

1/6 cup caster sugar

1/2 cup warm soy milk

1/2 cup warm water

2 cups plain wholemeal flour

1/2 tsp allspice

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

heaping tbsp vegan margarine

1/2 cup currants

1 tbsp chia seeds mixed with 1/4 cup of water

1 tbsp caster sugar and 1/4 cup water for the glaze

Method

Mix together all dry ingredients. Add margarine and rub in with fingers. Stir through chia goo and slowly add in warm milk/water until a soft dough is formed.

Turn out onto a floured surface and knead until dough comes back when pressed.

Put into an oiled bowl in a warm place for 1 hour or until doubled in size.*

knoack back dough gently and divide into 8 even balls, and set out on a baking tray. (I used my pizza pan.) Let stand in a warm place until double again (doesn't matter if they touch). Turn oven to 200 degrees Celcius.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until buns sound hollow when tapped.

Make a glaze by boiling the sugar and water until sugar dissolves. Brush onto warm/hot buns.

Eat when cooled down a little!

I, of course, had a few when they were fresh from the oven, but today I toasted them under the grill.

They were sweet and a little sticky from the glaze, just like they should be. I didn't bother with buying any fruit peel because I never use it all. I only just through out the rest of the bag from last year! I won't bother with the crosses next time, maybe. They worked last year (I did it differently) but maybe I just can't be bothered. Ha.

*I turn on my oven for a few seconds then turn it off. Perfect breeding ground for yeast!

Crumpets!

I made crumpets from scratch today for our breakfast! I love Saturdays.

I used this recipe, shared by Mangocheeks at Allotment2Kitchen.

I made some substitutions,, as per always! I used homemade hazelnut milk in place of dairy and wholemeal plain flour in place of white. It took a few goes before I got the hang of making them. The first few I put too much batter in the egg-ring so it turned out doughy and not bubbly, but they started to work well after I realised that! My egg rings are quite small so I could make many more than 12.

I love the little holes. I cooked them up last night, put them in the fridge, and stuck them under the grill this morning to heat through.

Yuuummm. On ours we had lots of nuttelex margarine, jam, and a fruit syrup in place of honey. I ususally buy rice syrup but the shop ran out so I got this instead. It doesn't taste nearly as much like real honey as the rice syrup does, but it does the job. I also think a cream cheese (Tofutti or something similar) would be delicious! I'm going to make some more sometime soon and freeze them.

Spiced Bean and Bulgur burgers with Silverbeet Stem Chips



Do you love my trashy stubbie holder as much as I do? Hahahaha

I made these the other night partly as a way to use up a heap of crap I have had lying around in my 'pantry' (I don't have an actual pantry so space is valuable) for too long, and partly because I haven't had a good vege burger for absolutely ages. The silverbeet on the side is a variation of a recipe I found in the Silverbeet chapter in the Kitchen Garden Companion (such an inspiring book!). It is truly an excellent way to use up those stems that always get left behind in the fridge to go soft! You CAN eat them, and they taste like the leaves, only subtler.

Anyway, to the recipe:

Spiced Bean and Bulgur burgers with Silverbeet Stem Chips
Makes 8 burger patties

Ingredients
For the Burgers -
2 1/2 cups cooked beans (I used a mix of white beans and black eye peas)
1/2 cup raw cashew nuts
1/2 cup bulgur/cracked wheat, soaked in 1 cup of boiling water until soft. Drain any excess.
1/2 cup mashed sweet potato
2 tbsp nutritional yeast
1 tsp garam masala
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 large garlic cloves, crushed
1/2 tsp curry powder, chilli powder, and ground coriander seed
1/2 cup whole meal flour
black pepper

For the silverbeet chips -
Enough silverbeet stems to serve who you are feeding (I used the stems of 1 bunch for two of us)
A few tbsp chickpea flour
Dried herb of choice
Juice of half a lemon
Oil for shallow frying

Method

In a food processor, combine the beans, cashew nuts and sweet potato. Blend until smooth (or if you like chunks, leave some chunks). Transfer to a large bowl and stir in the rest of the ingredients until well combined.

Shape into 8 flat patties and put in the fridge to firm up.

Meanwhile, slice the silverbeet stems into sticks. Bring a pot of water and the lemon juice to a boil. Boil the stems for 5 - 10 minutes. Drain and run under cold water to stop cooking and dry with a paper towel.

Put the dried stems in a bowl and toss with the chickpea flour and dried herbs.

Heat some oil in a frying pan and fry the stems in batches until crispy. Place on a paper towel lined plate in a warm oven.

You can either fry or grill these burger patties. They are good either way :) I fried mine in the oil left over from the chips, until brown on both sides. For lunch the next day I grilled them for 10 minutes on one side, 5 minutes on the other.

Serve on bread rolls with salad and sauce of choice :) tahini-mustard-sweet chilli sauce was pretty good :)

I made my bread rolls myself - I used the exact same recipe as the bread I make, but divided it after it's first rising into 6 balls before rising again. I think I cooked them for 25 minutes at 200 degrees, but check them after 15 just in case. They were pretty damn good!
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All these ingredients I found lying around my kitchen. The potato was in the freezer begging to be used, I always have beans in the freezer, cashew nuts and bulgur were the last of their packets...Any nut could be used instead of cashews, cous cous, quinoa, buckwheat or rice would be a good replacement for the bulgur wheat. (I have had the bulgur in a jar for over...2 years now. Shame! I can't remember why I had it in the first place.)

I am definately cooking my silverbeet stems this way again next time I have them. I usually just chuck them into a curry or stir fry, but this way of cooking  them preserves their flavour a bit more.

Homemade Kalamata Olive and Herb Bread

Nadine and I often buy fancy bread from the European bakery that's conviniently open across the road for weekend breakfasts, and our favourite is the kalamata olive loaf.

However, it costs $6, it's made from white flour and also has a million unescessary other ingredients in it's long (vegan, I checked, the poor guy at the counter was very flustered haha) list. Sugar, preservative numbers, this, that, the other. But damn it is a tasty bread.

But since I can't afford that sort of money for bread anymore (or their delicious traditional German pretzels homg) or ever really could, I decided one weekend to just make some.

*drool*

It turned out pretty awesome.

Kalamata Olive and Herb Bread
Makes 1 loaf

Ingredients

450g wholemeal flour
1 sachet of instant dried yeast (this is about 2.5 tsp)
1/2 tsp salt
50g gluten flour (vital wheat gluten)
2 tbsp (or more!) or mixed dried herbs or your favourite
100g chopped or sliced kalamata olives (make sure there are NO pits! it's not worth losing a tooth over)
Enough warm water to make a firm moist dough

Mix together flour, gluten flour, salt, olives, herbs, and yeast. Make a well in the center and pour in the warm water (start with one cup).

Mix the dough, adding more water until a firm elastic dough is achieved.

Turn onto a floured bench. Knead for 5 minutes or until smooth. Place in an oiled bowl and let rise* for about 1/2 an hour or until double in size.

Knead again lightly. Press out dough gently to about the length of your loaf tin and roll it up. Place the rolled up dough in the tin with the 'seam' side down. Let rise again until doubled.

Bake at 200 degrees C for 30-40 minutes or until brown and sounds hollow when tapped.

Try to let it cool down before you slice it or eat it!

*I have a gas oven at home so I light it for a few seconds then turn it off and leave the dough to rise inside. It works perfectly.

In this particular loaf I made I put in too much water, and it didn't rise as much as my regular whole grain bread. But next time I'll remember about the water! I also didn't bake it long enough, it was a little doughy in the middle. And I sliced it while hot. I got impatient. Don't get impatient, it's better when cooled down!!

But the overall result was awesome, and next time we want a fancy bread for breakfast I'll make it again!

The possibilities are endless. Maybe I'll add chilli, or caramelised onion next time.

Home baked whole grain bread

It turned out really well!! Not too dense or heavy. It wasn't as soft as I'd like for sandwiches but it was just fine.

Straight out of the oven

Next time I'm going to put more seeds in it. I bought a bag of poppy seeds, and I've also got sesame, sunflower and flax seeds. So good. And the recipe I used didn't have any sugar in it, which was good. I adapted it from Squirrel's New Vegan and Vegetarian Cookbook.

Makes 1 smallish loaf, depending on how big your loaf pan is

Ingredients:

450g wholemeal flour

1 sachet of instant dried yeast (this is about 2.5 tsp)

1/2 tsp salt

50g gluten flour (vital wheat gluten)

Seeds of choice

Enough warm water to make a firm moist dough

Method:

Mix together flour, gluten flour, salt, seeds and yeast. Make a well in the center and pour in the warm water (start with one cup).

Mix the dough, adding more water until a firm elastic dough is achieved.

Turn onto a floured bench. Knead for 5 minutes or until smooth. Place in an oiled bowl and let rise* for about 1/2 an hour or until double in size.

Knead again lightly. Press out dough gently to about the length of your loaf tin and roll it up. Place the rolled up dough in the tin with the 'seam' side down. Let rise again until doubled.

Bake at 200 degrees C for 30-40 minutes or until brown and sounds hollow when tapped.

Try to let it cool down before you slice it or eat it!

*I have a gas oven at home so I light it for a few seconds then turn it off and leave the dough to rise inside. It works perfectly. I probably don't need to do that since it's summer here now, but I do anyway.

I discovered after looking through endless recipes for bread online that the reason wholemeal/grain bread is much denser than white bread is because it doesn't have as much gluten in it. Interesting. Then I found the recipe in the squirrels book and gluten was an extra ingredient! Whaddya know. Shoulda looked there first. :)

Also, try not to oil the loaf tin too much. Next time I'll use baking paper. I let my loaf cool in the pan before I took it out and it soaked up all the oil I'd greased it with, so the bottom few mm or so of my loaf was soggy. It did dry out though, but still!

This bread freezes well. You just have to fight a little to pull apart the slices, just like when you freeze fresh bakery bread.

Finally some sun

This weekend has been the first sunshiny weekend since I can remember so I took the oppurtunity to go and repair my tiny little garden and nearly walked into this lovely spider and a baby her teeny tiny man-friend It had created a huge web stretching from my hills hoist clothesline to my lemongrass, which reached my waist. So I left it there and went around (through our lawn which also almost reaches my waist) and weeded and planted some new butter beans.

Bob glared while we had iced soda water and lemon on the back stairs.

Speaking of lemongrass, it was growing over the footpath so I cut it back and am drying it on the back of our kitchen door. (We share the yard with neighbouring units). When it's completely dry, I chop it up in tiny pieces with some scissors, and put it in an empty spice container. 1 tsp makes a good cup of lemongrass tea. Grate some fresh ginger into the pot and it's the best lemongrass and ginger tea ever :) My lemongrass seems to be loving the Brisbane climate. Almost as soon as I planted it out from it's pot it took off. When I figure out how to harvest the stalks, I'll use it in cooking. Ha.

We had a delicious lunch after gallivanting around to shops to buy storage stuff. We now have a shoe rack. It's magnificent. Anyway I made Robin Robertson's 'Very Veggie Burger's from Vegan on the Cheap a while ago to have on sandwiches for work. I didn't really like it because they are too soft, but I thought maybe they'd be better freshly grilled and hot on a burger bun. They are definately better eaten right after cooking! Haha. We had it on wholegrain bread rolls with a spinach/kale salad mix, red capsicum, tomato, kalamata olives, basil pesto and tomato sauce. I also cooked up some potato chips on the side :) I sliced up 1 small potato with skin on each into chip shapes, steamed them until they could be pierced with a fork and then fried them til crispy in a bit of rice bran oil. Pretty damn good.

I am baking some bread right now. If turns out good I'll post it :) This is my third time attempting bread by hand. The last 2 times the bread tasted fantastic but was like a brick! We ate the whole lot at once. This time I'm attempting a sandwich loaf. If it works I'm going to be so excited haha.