Vegan Knitting...and then some

Cranberry Orange Nut Muffins

Another muffin recipe from Vegan Brunch.  Another success, this time even more so than the blueberry muffins.  These light, fluffy muffins are soy-free, using no nondairy milks; instead using orange juice for liquid and flavor, along with some orange zest for pep, and almond extract to blend well with the cranberry flavor.

I'm allergic to the pecans in the recipe, so I substituted sliced almonds.  There aren't fresh cranberries available now, so I subbed frozen berries.  Last, I subbed whole wheat pastry flour for about 1/2 of the regular flour.  These changes all worked very well, and you couldn't tell there was any WW flour before.

These are currently my favorite muffins besides pumpkin, so I can't wait to make them again.

Bakery-style Blueberry Muffins

Last week I picked up a copy of Isa Chandra Moskowitz's new book, Vegan Brunch, and this morning I happily made the Bakery-style Berry Muffins.  They were easy to make, and turned out fantastically!  I cooked them for the exact time specified in the book and the browning on the bottom and sides is perfect, and the crumb and flavor very much in tune with the non-vegan bakery muffins I used to get.

I gave two to our vegan neighbors and there are only three left.  I used Trader Joe's wild blueberries, which are smaller than the typical frozen blueberries, rolled in flour to prevent too much "greying" of the muffin.  I refrained from altering anything in the recipe so that I know what the "target" muffin should be like.  Now if I want to experiment with anything like using some whole wheat pastry flour in place of some of the white flour, or lowering the sugar content, I'll know how my changes have affected the original muffin.

I can't wait to make more recipes from this book.  The font and layout are extremely easy on the eyes, with the ingredients presented in the order used in the recipes, as well as grouped by which are mixed together.  This makes following the recipes very easy, and since I always check back multiple times as I cook, I can easily see what comes next and make sure I didn't miss anything.  That last part is really important as I've been known to leave out key ingredients like the baking powder (hard, flat biscuits), half of the flour (very thin pancakes), or the salt (flat flavor).  The text has much larger line breaks and font than typically found in cookbooks, which makes reading while cooking very easy.  Finally, Isa gives very clear directions, so that I know, for example, how full to fill the muffin tins and how long to leave them in the pan after removing them from the oven.  These little details, such as letting the muffins cool for 5 minutes before removing them from the pan, can really make or break the recipe's success, and I am always grateful for their inclusion.

DIY Month - Project 3: Baking Bread II

As I wrote about last week,  we've been baking bread in our bread maker.  Once we experimented and found a recipe that works well for us, we've still had a few challenges.  The last loaf had too much yeast and fell in the middle.  The breadmaker booklet recommened decreasing the yeast by 1/2 tsp, which, as you can see, did the trick.  It rose just the right amount and the texture of the bread is wonderful.  We adjusted the crust setting to "light" so that it's no longer hard on the top.  However, you can see there's still a problem!

What is causing the loaf to be several inches higher on one side than the other?  I made sure to put the ingredients in evenly.  The machine is level.  But as Ms. Clavel said, "Something is not right!"  I'll be calling Zojirushi once they return from their holiday break but in the meantime, I'm open to suggestions!

Even with it's leveling issues, I'm so happy we have gotten this far.  It's so nice to wake up to fresh bread.

DIY Month - Project 3: Baking Bread

This is Mr. Breadmaker.  Zojirushi BBCC-V20 to be precise.  We got it from someone on Craigslist last year who had gotten it as an unwanted wedding present.  It sat new in the box until we moved to Portland. About 2 months ago, I got it out and we've been trying to create the perfect bread recipe.  This is recipe #4 and the closest yet!

As you can see, the bread rose too much so it fell, creating a ugly shape.  However, the 3 parts unbleached white flour to 1 part whole wheat bread flour seems to be the perfect match.  The bread is tasty, has a flavor you notice, and after it cools, holds together really well for slicing and toasting.

Here it is this morning with homemade tempeh bacon.

And here it was yesterday used to make sandwiches with a chickpea "tuna" salad from Joanna of Yellow Rose Recipes.

I'm so glad to be making my own bread.  A loaf from the store costs $5 for organic bread, and I estimate that my loaf, made with Bob's Red Mill organic flour (on sale in 5 lb bags at my local store for $3.99) was about 50 cents.

Our house in the snow

As those in Portland know, we are having some snow!  I'm very excited - it's my first snow since living in CA for 6 years and I am enjoying many aspects of the winter here.

To make the best of my time indoors with relatives visiting, I made some Pumpkin Cranberry Scones from Veganomicon (a resounding success),



finished the pair of Diamond Waffle Socks I've been making for my husband,

And am reading some books and practicing the piano.  I'm also working intermittently on my MA thesis, which I'm defending in two weeks.  It needs some more work but I did a lot in the past two days so today I'm taking the day off of it to spend with my family and relax.

Cookie Exchange!

Wednesday I hosted a cookie exchange party at my house.  It was the first time I've had a group of friends over.  Originally, about 16 people were going to participate but with the awful weather (that didn't end up really affecting my neighborhood but affected the SW strongly) there were just 6.  We had a great time, though, and there were just enough places for all of us to sit and the big dish of macaroni and cheese I made was enough for everyone to share.

A close-up of the cookies:  chocolate peanut butter bees, coffee shortbread, matcha mint, sesame flax, ginger, pfeffernusser, and chocolate mint.

As for the macaroni and cheese, I made it a new way this time, which has been my favorite (and cheapest!)  I made a batch of almond ricotta using the cashew ricotta recipe from Veganomicon, but with 8 oz of tofu instead of 1 lb so there's a higher proportion of almonds and garlic to tofu. 

Chop 1 large onion finely and sauteed it in olive oil until very soft and caramelized.  Add 1 cup of soymilk, a bit of "chicken" bullion, and a bunch of spices (tabasco, black peper, sage, nutmeg, salt, basil, and thyme) and heat it until it's simmering for about 5 minutes.

Pour into a bowl and mix in 1/2 C nutritional yeast and 1 big squirt of yellow mustard.  Whisk with whisk or fork until smooth and creamy.  Add in the ricotta and a few TB of olive oil and mix until smooth.

Mix the cheese into 1 lb of cooked pasta, add 2 cups of thawed frozen peas (optional but very tasty!) and bake at 350 for about 25 minutes with foil on top until hot and steamy.  I drizzled a bit more olive oil and soymilk over the top before baking it so that it didn't dry out at all.

This was definitely my tastiest mac n cheese so far and I will be making it again this weekend as we have relatives visiting!

Vegan MoFo 20: Better late than never, esp. with Halloween dinner photos!

I just returned home earlier today from a lovely weekend at the Oregon coast with a bunch of knitter friends, and I'll have a nice long post about that tomorrow.  Also, I wanted to thank anyone reading this who might have gone to the House of Dreams Holiday sale.  They made over $6,000 for the shelter!

In the meantime, here is a photo of dinner I had with friends earlier this week with a Halloween/fall theme.  At the top is squash soup, from Sarah.  Below is Pumpkin Ziti with caramelized onions and sage breadcrumbs.  This is a recipe I've been wanting to make for months but it always seemed like it was complicated or would take longer than I liked.  That's probably because I usually wait until right before dinner time to choose what to make.  I started this this afternoon so that I'd have plenty of time to make it without feeling rushed, and leave a big hot portion for my husband before I left.  The ricotta was ridiculously easy to make.  I'm allergic to cashews so I subbed slivered almonds instead.  I also used Cassarici pasta instead of Ziti since I have it on hand.  Below that is Extoplasm dip with finger bones and hip bones (aka Edemame with carrots and homemade pita chips.)  Not shown are some really tasty gingersnap cookies.

Vegan MoFo 16: Currant Scones

This year for my birthday, I was lucky enough to get Nava Atlas's Vegetarian Soups for All Seasons in the new version:  Bountiful Vegan, and Colleen Patrick-Goudreau's The Joy of Vegan Baking from Catherine, of Albion Cooks.  Woohoo!  I have looked at Colleen's book many times in the bookstore but hadn't yet picked it up.  So yesterday, I began by making the Currant Scones from The Joy of Vegan Baking.  I choose the "flaky crust" option, which involves leaving some of the margerine in pea-sized pieces, and made my cup of currants overflowing so they'd be extra curranty.  I also sprinkled cinnamon and a little bit of sugar on the top of each one.  What do you think?  I thought they were the best scones I've ever had.

Vegan MoFo 14: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread

I made this up at Lake Tahoe, and then again this afternoon for a nice cold weather treat.  It's just the Best Pumpkin Muffin recipe from VWAV but with only 3/4 C of sugar and 1 TB of molasses, and 1/2 C of chocolate chip and 1/4 C of almond meal added.  It's still quite sweet but not as sweet and the meal gives an extra bit of protein and body.  Next time I'll try even less sugar.

Vegan Mofo 4: YRR Zucchini Bread with raisins and lemon zest

I beg your pardon for the lack of an inside shot.  This bread was made using Joanna Voight's Zucchini Muffin recipe from her cookbook Yellow Rose Recipes.  I had already made the Apple Pie muffins and so I wanted something else besides muffins.  I put the batter into a 9x9 metal pan lined with parchment paper and cooked it for 30 minutes instead of 20.  It was delicious!  I've never made zucchini bread before.  The zucchini came from my back neighbor's squash patch, just picked the day before.  The bread was moist without being too moist or oily (a downfall of most similar vegan sweetbreads I've had), not very dense, and the raisins and lemon zest give it a really peppy flavor.  We ate about half of it the first day (shared with friends) and the second half toasted with Earth Balance on the next day.

Vegan Mofo 2: Apple Pie Crumb Muffins

These are the Apple Pie Crumb Muffins from Vegan with a Vengeance.  It's the first time I've made them.  They were quite tasty.  Next time I will not add so much flour in the topping, (when I followed the recipe, it was too gooey so I added a bunch more flour.  too much.) and I will put a bit more apple inside, and a little less cinnamon.  Quite good, though!

Tomorrow morning, I'm undergoing oral surgery to remove all 4 of my wisdom teeth.  The food I will be eating with NOT be post-worthy, so I will use some prepared posts as well as blog about some products.  Wish me well!

Local Fruit Tortes

This week I attended a vegan picnic and a local park and  the theme was "local produce".  So I turned to my backyard (can't get more local than that!) and found that my Italian Plum and apple trees are ripe.  I've been itching to veganize the famous New York Times plum torte recipe, so for the picnic I made one plum torte and one apple torte.

On the tree

In the torte!

On the tree

In the torte!

I will be making these again this week.  I simply substituted Earth Balance Buttery Sticks for the butter, used unrefined sugar, and used Ener-G egg substitute for the two eggs plus a little almond milk so that the batter was moister.  I used a 9" springform pan for the apple torte and an 8" square cake pan for the plum.  The springform worked better as it was much easier to extracate the torte after it was cooked.  However, I still should have greased the pan even though it's non-stick.  And I also felt like the batter was still very thin as I like the cake part and I will try it again with more batter.  The edges are really crusty and tasty and both fruits worked very well.

Currant scones with marionberry/raspberry jam

Last week I returned to Sauvie Island Farms with Isa and Kim for a wonderful day of picking, cutting flowers, being rained on, getting stung by a yellow jacket (Isa), finding tiny green frogs amidst the berries, learning about peach sap, and then returning to Isa's house for an orgy of baking and cooking.  I did not take any photos but click on the links to other people's photos of what we did.

We made:

Blueberry Ginger Jam
Marionberry Raspberry Jam
Blueberry Chipotle BBQ sauce
Raspberry bleeding Hearts
Lavendar Marionberry Scones
Blueberry Corn Pudding

Then I returned home and froze marionberries, blackberries, and peaches.  During the week, I have used fruit for smoothies, eaten jam on toast, and used squash, zucchini, and corn for Mexican food.

This morning, inspired by our scones, I made black currant scones, local Stumptown coffee, and ate the scones with some of the jam.  I'm in heaven.

Chocolate Raspberry Cookies

These were from Veganomicon.  The texture is just perfect, nice and chewy.  But the almond extract overpowers both the chocolate and the raspberry.  I might try making them again without it, and perhaps even without the raspberry if I found a good wet substitute for the 1/2 C of raspberry preserves.  I think they'd be great as chocolate cookies with white chocolate chips (yes, I have vegan ones!)

Cooking with my mom II: cupcakes

These are the gluten-free chocolate cupcakes from VCTOTW, made into ginger-chocolate with the suggestion in the regular chocolate section - 2 TB of ginger powder into the batter, some chopped candied ginger in the batter, and a piece of candied ginger on top.

They had a really good flavor but were too dense.  I think it was my fault because we added some extra flour and cocoa powder based on my experience with the regular chocolate cupcake recipe.  When I make them again, I will still add the extra cocoa powder but nix the extra flour. Also, my new oven temperature is not accurate at all (knowledge thanks to my oven thermometer) and I wonder whether it was stable enough.

Choc-Orange Cupcakes

This afternoon I went over to Catherine's house for a Superbowl Party.  She made her famous Vegetarian English Sausage Rolls, among other tasty treats, and I made Chocolate Orange Cupcakes from VCTOTW.

• Recipe:  Basic Chocolate Cupcake with Orange Buttercream Frosting
• Alterations:  I added 1/3 C of flour to make them a bit drier (batter is much too goopy otherwise, I think) and I also upped the cocoa powder quantity from 1/3 C to 1/2 C to make them more chocolatey. 
• Fancies:  These had 3 surprise chocolate chips in the middle of each cupcake, and were topped with fancy frosting, and organic chocolate sprinkles.  Catherine's daughter helped me to decorate them.  Here are a few more:

Cupcake Madness!!!

Today I went to the grocery store and bought:

• cooling rack
• pastry cutter
• oven thermometer
• sifter
• organic sprinkles
• more unbleached all-purpose flour
• organic shortening

::Evil cupcake laughter:::

Mexican Hot Chocolate Cupcakes

From Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World - where else would I get a cupcake recipe at this point?  I made these yesterday and they were really fun to make.  The almond meal (which I made from blanched almonds blended in the food processor), cornflour, and flaxseed powder makes it a bit grainy just like Ibarra hot chocolate; the almond extract and meal, vanilla extra, cinnamon, and cayenne give it the right flavor.  The batter was sooo tasty!

Isa is right, though, you need an oven thermometer.  These were a bit too moist when done, even though I cooked them the full 25 minutes and let the oven preheat for 20 minutes.  If I don't get a thermometer before I make another set of cupcakes, I'll up the cooking time a wee bit and leave out a bit of liquid.  Luckily, when we ate some today, they'd firmed up a bit.  When the husband picked me up from work, he said he'd eaten three this morning.   I brought one to Catherine who said that she wouldn't have known they were vegan.  That leaves just two.  Because of course, I'm planning the next batch.  Choc-Orange anyone?

Editing to Add:  The cookbook suggests that you simply top the cupcake with a layer of powdered sugar, then cocoa, then cinnamon.  Which makes sense as it does NOT need any icing.  However, the problem with that is that when you go to bite into the cupcake, you inhale a bunch of cinnamon, thus choking and coughing as you attempt to eat the cupcake.  This happened to me, my husband, and Catherine (who even held her breath since I warned her, to no avail!)  So I would suggest simply topping with powdered sugar and leaving it at that.

All right, all you pumpkin muffin fans - here's the recipe!

All right, all you pumpkin muffin fans - here's the recipe!

These are adapted from Pumpkin Bread, in the Quick Breads section of the Joy of Cooking.

Pre-heat oven to 350.  Prepare either a 6 jumbo muffin pan or an 8 regular muffin pan (grease it, or add paper cups, or do nothing if it's nonstick.)

Ingredients:

1 1/2 C all-purpose unbleached flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda

Spice blend:You should have about 3 tsp of spices altogether - some combination of nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, allspice, or other sweet baking spices.  Here's what the recipe called for:

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp ginger

I didn't have cinnamon so I used premade pumpkin pie spice instead.

1 cup pureed pumpkin, yam, or squash
3/4 C sugar
1/4 C brown sugar
1/3 cup non-dairy milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
6 TB Earth Balance or other vegan margerine (at room temperature)
2 eggs' worth of egg replacer.  I use Ener-G (3 tsp powder mixed with 4 TB warm water for two eggs)

Instructions:

1.  Mix flour, spices, and baking soda and powder in a small bowl.

2.  Blend sugars into margerine and stir until creamy.

3.  Add squash of choice and blend until creamy.

4.  Add egg-replacer and blend.

5.  Add flour mixture and milk (just pour the vanilla into the milk), alternating between some of each a few times until the batter is well-blended and creamy.

6.  Pour into muffin pan and bake for 50-60 minutes.

Let it cool in the pan for about 10 minutes and then remove to rack to cool for at least another 20.  If you try to eat them before they cool properly, they will seem uncooked in the middle.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I've finished the first Broadripple sock but I want to finish weaving in the ends before I take a photo.

In the meantime, here are the cookies I made after we returned from Tahoe.  These are the Awesome Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies from Vegan Family Favorites.

Going into the oven...

Ready to eat!

My review of them is that they'd be better with a 50/50 blend of WW pastry and white pastry flour instead of 100% WW pastry flour.  I cut down the sugar to 1/2 C instead of 3/4 C.  I also think they'd be chewier with an egg replacer instead of just a bit of soymilk.  However, I thought I did very well for my first adult cookies ever made.  I will make them again with the adjustments listed above.

I'm going to bake something tonight - I don't know what yet!