August 2009 Archives

Bread and water can so easily be toast and tea.
-Anonymous

I love to bake bread, but my loaves have a tendency to come out crumbly and hard-crusted, albeit delicious. The desire to remedy this, as well as to learn to make baguettes, lead me on a pilgrimage to the cooking section of Henderson's Books. It was among the towering shelves of hallowed tomes that I discovered The Bread Book by Linda Collister & Anthony Blake. This book promised not only to teach how to bake a basic loaf and the more difficult baguette, but also naan, pitas, doughnuts (things I've been wanting to make), and myriad other scrumptious edibles.

I tried The Grant Loaf out of my new cookbook. It's a great loaf for beginners: no kneading and only a half an hour of rising. This first attempt came out about like all my other loaves of bread: crumbly and hard-crusted. The "Common Problems in Bread-Making" chapter suggested I use too much flour. So I tried the Grant Loaf again, this time not adding a teaspoon more flour than the recipe said. I ended up with a sticky wet mess, which I plopped into two small bread pans. When they came out of the oven I had two delicious, somewhat crumbly, loaves. The adorable little slices demand to be eaten with honey and margarine. They scream to be used as sandwiches at Afternoon Tea. Preferably with cucumbers. And all homemade bread deserves a great herb butter.

Thus I now share with you the recipes for The Grant Loaf and for one of my favorite herb butters.


Honey and margarine for breakfast, PB and J for lunch. Side note: the jar of honey shown here is from Busy Bees, which is neighbors with Egress Studio where I intern.

The Grant Loaf (of Doris Grant, 1944)

Ingredients

2 1/2 c. lukewarm water (95 F to 105 F)
.6 oz compressed fresh yeast or 2 1/2 tsp. active dry yeast
1 tsp. packed brown sugar or honey
4 to 4 3/4 cups whole-wheat bread flour (the cookbook advises me that stone-ground flour is the way to go)
2 tsp. kosher salt or flaked sea salt

1. Put three tablespoons of the lukewarm water into a small bowl. Add the yeast and mix until smooth. Stir in the sugar or honey. Let stand for 10 to 15 minutes, until the mixture thoroughly foamy.
2. Mix four cups of the flour with the salt in a large bowl. The bowl should not be cold. Make a well in the center of the flour.
3. Pour the yeast and remaining water into the well. Mix with your hands for a couple minutes, adding flour from the sides. Add as much of the remaining flour in as necessary, a 1/4 cupful at a time. The dough should be elasticy and slippery, or in my case, sticky and wet.
4. Put the dough into a warm greased loaf pan and cover with a damp dish towel. Let it stand in a warm place for 20 to 35 minutes. The dough should rise to within a half inch of the top of the pan.
5. Heat oven to 400 F.
6. Bake the bread for 35 to 40 minutes. Transfer the bread to a wire rack to cool.


Herb Butters: Olive, Walnut, and Rosemary

Choose your favorite herb (chives are an excellent choice) and combine one part herbs to four parts butter or margarine. Or, step it up with this recipe:

Ingredients
1 c. pitted kalamata olives, drained
1/2 c. chopped toasted walnuts
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 Tbs. rosemary, chopped
1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
1 c. salted butter or margarine, softened

1. Add all but the butter to a food processor and finely chop. Add butter. Pulse until combined.
2. Place mixture on a sheet of plastic wrap and shape into a log. Roll in the plastic wrap and twist the ends. Chill until firm.







 

I'm something like a creative writing major, and lately I feel like I've been neglecting my writing in favor of cooking. So earlier this week I sat down to write a story about a baker. Mostly it's just descriptions of foods. The first thing my baker makes is almond oat scones and apple butter. It will not surprise you to discover writing about this made me hungry, so I had to bake it myself. We're all out of the apple butter we made last summer so I bought some from the store, but Kozlowski Farms makes a damn good fruit butter, and their apple is sweetened only with fruit. I sat down to a brunch of scones and coffee and finished writing my story while eating it. The scones are a little crumbly, but very delicious.

Cranberry Almond Oat Scones

Ingredients

2 c. flour, such as white whole wheat
3/4 c. oat flour
1/4 c. oats
2 Tbs. baking powder
1/4 c. Sucanat
1/4 tsp. salt
1/3 c. vegetable oil
1/2 c. soy cream (or soy milk.)
3/4 c. oat milk plus 2 tsp. apple cider vinegar
1 c. sliced almonds
3/4 c. dried cranberries

1. Preheat oven to 400 F. Grease cookie sheet.
2. Sift dry ingredients into a large bowl. Add wet ingredients. Mix until just combined. Fold in almonds and cranberries.
3. Drop by 1/4 cupfuls onto the cookie sheet. Pat them a bit to round them out.
4. Bake 12 to 15 minutes, until firm on top.

Reasons to Love Tempeh Bourgignon:

1. Loads of shiitaki mushrooms.
2. Marinated tempeh is delicious.
3. You get to drink red wine while you make it.
4. You can pretend to be Julia Child.

I recently saw Julie and Julia and not long after read the book. It's got me all gung ho to get in the kitchen and delve into Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child. I wanted to try boeuf bourgignon, one of the recipes Julia is famous for. I even wanted to try making aspics, which is like beef jello. The problem: French cooking wasn't made for vegans. Which is why I was super excited when I discovered that next to the sugar cookie page in my November/December 2006 issue of Vegetarian Times was a recipe for tempeh bourgignon.

A main ingredient in tempeh bourgignon is red wine. Being new to the ranks of those who can legally drink, I get a little lost in the wine section of the store. I tend to buy wine based on how pretty the label on the bottle is, since I don't know how else to decide. Once I bought a wine in the brightest shade of pink I could find. Luckily for me, the Vegetarian Times article specifies that Pinot Noir is a good choice for tempeh bourgignon, and $8 is a good amount to spend on a bottle of cooking wine.

The article also informs me that there are five basic tastes: sweet, bitter, salty, sour, and umami. Umami is a savory flavor, and tempeh bourgignon is full of it. Shiitake mushrooms, tempeh, tomato paste, and carrots all contain glutamate, which gives the umami flavor.

Tempeh Bourgignon

Ingredients

2 c. medium-bodied red wine such as Pinot Noir
8 oz. tempeh cut into 1-inch cubes
1 small onion, chopped (about 1 cup)
1 large carrot, diced into 1/2-inch pieces (about 1 cup)
3 cloves garlic, chopped (about 1 Tbs.)
3 Tbs. olive oil
1/2 tsp. herbes de Provence
1 bay leaf
1 Tbs. balsamic vinegar
2 Tbs. tomato paste
7 oz. shiitake mushrooms, sliced (about 4 cups)
3/4 c. water
salt and pepper to taste
fresh parsley or savory for garnish


Herbes de Provence, wine, sprig of savory. Herbes de Provence consist of winter savory, thyme, rosemary, basil, tarragon, and lavender. Katie likes it on crackers with Brie.

1. Combine wine, tempeh, onion, carrot, garlic, 1 Tbs. olive oil, herbs and bay leaf in a large bowl. Cover and refrigerate for one hour.
2. Strain vegetables and tempeh, saving the wine marinade.
3. Heat the remaining oil in a Dutch oven (or large pot, if you don't have a Dutch oven like me) over medium-high heat. Add tempeh and vegetables and cook 5 to 7 minutes. The goal is to brown the tempeh cubes on all sides. Add vinegar and stir quickly to coat the ingredients evenly. Add tomato paste; cook 1 minute. Stir in wine marinade, scraping the bottom of the pan to get the brown bits. Reduce heat to medium low, cover, and simmer 30 minutes or until the carrots are tender. Stir occasionally, and add water if it seems too dry.
4. Add mushrooms and 3/4 cup water. Simmer 10 minutes.
5. Remover bay leaf. Add salt and pepper. Garnish. Serve over rice. Bon apetit!


Tempeh and vegetables in red wine marinade.

Why ducks and hearts, you ask? Because those are the only cookie cutters we have. The pink frosting has maraschino cherry flavoring and the yellow has yellow food coloring.


On Friday I had a sudden impending visit from my brother Andrew. I thought, "Oh no, what am I going to feed a 17-year-old boy?" Especially since my brother has always been suspicious of my cooking. (Once I made sugarless jam-filled muffins, and Andrew told me they were gross. Meanwhile he was consuming several of them.) I need not have worried, however. Andrew recently spent nine months as a boarding student at Holden Village, where a kitchen staff provides the village with delicious often-vegetarian/vegan meals and fresh-baked bread. My brother came home with a broader appreciation of foods. For dinner he suggested we have pasta with feta and pesto, and he liked the tempeh I added in.

But enough of my brother's eating habits. I'd already planned to make cookies that day, and Andrew arrived at the apartment just in time for freshly-baked sugar cookies. I enjoyed turning our dining table into a cookie-decorating station for Katie and Andrew: plates of cookies, bowls of frosting, containers of sprinkles. And these sugar cookies will please even a finicky 17-year-old.

Vegan Sugar Cookies

Dough Ingredients

2 3/4 c. flour
2 tsp. baking powder
3 Tbs. water
1 Tbs. ground flax seed
1 1/2 c. plus 1 Tbs. sugar or Sucanat*
1 c. vegan margarine, softened
*I always prefer to use Sucanat over white sugar, but it makes the cookies darker.

1. Preheat oven to 325 D. Spray cookie sheet with cooking spray.
2. Mix water and flax seed in a small bowl.
3. Combine flour and baking powder in a small bowl.
4. Cream sugar and margarine in a bowl with an electric beater. Beat in vanilla, then flax seed. Beat until smooth. Add flour mixture and beat until a soft dough forms.
5. Divide dough into two balls. On a floured surface, roll out one ball to a 1/4-inch thickness. Use cookie cutters for desired shape and put on baking sheet. Repeat with second ball of dough.
6. Bake 12 to 15 minutes. Cool ten minutes on the sheets and then let them cool completely on a wire rack.

Frosting Ingredients
3 c. powdered sugar
3 Tbs. plus 2 tsp. vanilla vegan milk (right now I prefer oat milk, lots of calcium)
1/4 tsp. peppermint extract, or 1 tsp. maraschino cherry flavor, or food coloring, or lemon zest and juice, or anything else you think sounds delicious

1. Beat ingredients together. Add more "milk" if it's too thick.
2. Frost cookies! Add sprinkles!

 

While in Holden Village in July I went to a garden party. We wandered through Holden's flower and culinary gardens listening to the music provided by a harpist, sipping lemonade and lavender mint lemon-balm iced tea, nibbling crackers with herb cream cheese and lavender cookies. All the herbs came from the gardens.
People said the cookies were delicious. Not vegan though, loaded with butter. But they gave out the recipe a few days later and I snagged one. Brought it back to Bellingham and veganified it.

These cookies are delicious. Crumbly, buttery, and tasting of lavender (of course). Perfect for afternoon tea or your own garden party. We tried dipping them in macadamia creme (great) and Katie suggests dipping them in white chocolate. I was out of Sucanat the day I made them, but next time I'll try them with whole wheat pastry flour and Sucanat.

Ingredients

1 c. vegan margarine, softened
1/4 c. white sugar
2 tbsp. lavender, chopped (or mint, edible flower petals, or citrus zest)
5 tbsp. powdered sugar
2 c. all-purpose flour

1. In a large bowl, beat margarine until fluffy. Cream the sugars with the margarine.
2. In a small bowl, combine remaining ingredients. Add to the creamed mixture and beat until combined.
3. Roll the dough into two logs about 1 1/2 inches in diameter (it will crumble easily). Wrap logs in plastic wrap and chill for at least an hour.
4. Preheat oven to 350 F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Unwrap dough and slice into 1/4-inch-thick cookies*. Place an inch apart on baking sheets.
5. Bake until lightly golden brown around edges, ten to twelve minutes. Watch carefully; they turn brown and crispy all of a sudden. Cool completely.

*Optional egg wash:
Before you slice the logs, brush with an egg mixed with 1 tablespoon of cold water. Roll logs in 1/4 cup of sugar.