Chocolate chip cookie attempt #2

While my first attempt at veganizing chocolate chip cookies didn't go too badly, I still need something better.  I wasn't crazy about the aftertaste from Ener-G egg replacer, plus I didn't feel the cookies had enough depth of flavor.  So on with my search for a better vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe I went.

Surfing and googling led me to this recipe for vegan chocolate chip cookies that looked promising for several reasons. First of all, no Ener-G egg replacer; instead it calls for 1 flax "egg" (1 tbsp ground flax seeds mixed with 3 tbsp water), so it hopefully won't suffer from that chemical-y aftertaste.  Second, the flour component is a mix of all-purpose and whole wheat pastry flour - I was interested in what extra flavor interest the use of whole wheat pastry flour might impart, plus with a lower gluten content relative to all-purpose, I wondered how it might also enhance texture. Third, it calls for cinnamon and molasses - great ways to improve the depth of flavor which was lacking in my previous attempt. Very promising recipe!

It's very straightforward in assembly. No biggie there. My only substitutions were regular vegan cane juice sugar for the brown sugar it calls for, so I added a little bit of extra molasses to create "instant brown sugar" in the mixer. It also calls for vegan buttery spread, but since I had Earth Balance in stick form I used that instead.

After 14 min (just as advised on the recipe if you're baking them on a Silpat), they were ready.

Texture-wise, they were chewy and moist without feeling too greasy, unlike my veganizing of the Nestle's Toll House cookie recipe. I'm not sure that the whole wheat pastry flour made a huge difference as far as texture goes. These weren't any lighter than a regular chocolate chip cookie, which in itself isn't a tough cookie at all to begin with (well, unless you over-bake them).

Flavor-wise, I was very pleased with these. The best way I can describe the cinnamon is "I could hear it in the background, at a distance." These were not cinnamony, which I was glad for because I tend to be a traditionalist for traditional things - too much changing around of a classic and it's no longer the classic; call is something else, then.  I felt the same way about the molasses. Both of these ingredients weren't the least bit overpowering to where they took center stage. But together they added a certain depth of flavor that made these anything but bland. The flaxseed "egg" could be detected but again, nothing overpowering. The cookie had a very nice, hearty flavor, and not too sweet, either.

If I were to change anything about these, I would change baking soda and use baking powder instead to see if they would rise a little more.  After all, the original Toll House recipe calls for baking soda but it also calls for eggs which contribute to leavening. While the flax "egg" helps with texture and binding, as far as I know it doesn't contribute anything in the rising department.

Overall, I found these better than the straight veganizing of the Toll House cookie. I'm hanging on to this printout!

Tahina!

One of the things I love most about my line of work is the opportunity to meet, interact and build friendships with people from all over the world. Over the years I have come to know people from France, Lebanon, India, Italy, Nigeria, Turkey, Israel, Argentina, Egypt, Venezuela, Palestine, Mexico, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, China... This may not be listed among the formal list of benefits by my employer but it is the one I cherish the most thanks to being in science.

People have great pride in their country and the evidence for this is never lacking. Whether it's during down time in the lab while you're waiting for an incubation or while setting up something repetitive which may not require strenuous concentration, we engage in conversation about customs, habits, holidays, history and most certainly food from their country of origin. And if you're sitting down to lunch with them, they waste no time in sharing little glorious tidbits of their ethnic foods with you for you to try.

One such sharing happened this week with one of my coworkers, who comes from Israel.  I noticed an interesting little dip he was using. He offered some for me to try but it looked so creamy and silky white that I had to quickly point out that I'm vegan so don't do any dairy. I was certain that it must have had either sour cream, yogurt, or some other such dairy product since it looked so rich and creamy white. Nope, I was wrong! Tahina is made from ground up sesame seeds. Certainly I could taste it, then. Oh!! :-)

After much oohing and aaahing over it (it was so yummy mixed with my brown rice and veggie stir fry), he later sent me the recipe, along with some pictures of the starting base to purchase. That same night I made myself my first batch of tahina.

The Tahina base

Getting the brand he recommended, I came home that night with my own bottle of the base. A few ingredients are added and pretty soon you have your own dip for pita bread, flatbread, chips, or to put in just about anything, like my coworker does.

To this base you add the juice of 1 lemon, water, 2 or 3 crushed garlic cloves, and paprika.

Tahina base with lemon juice just before stirring. 

To measure the water, just fill the now empty Tahina jar, cover and shake (that way you can also rinse off the base that stays behind coating the inside of the jar). You'll need to add the water a little at a time, then whisk it in. Measuring the water this way, it takes almost the whole jar of Tahina base in water. You want it to get thick and creamy, like a thick ranch or blue cheese dressing. After that you then add the crushed garlic and paprika to taste. And voila! Tahina for you!

My finished Tahina.

 

The total yield came out to be around 2 1/2 to 3 cups or so, judging from the 4-cup container in which I stored it. 

Next, what to have with it? I felt like the rosemary flatbread recipe I discovered a few months ago and which I make frequently would go really well with it. It's so quick and easy to make, so why not?

Within a half hour, I had the whole flatbread recipe all baked and ready to be broken into pieces for dipping.

 And with that, I had me my own little Tahina party.

Maybe I'll have some with my brown rice for lunch today, while feeling so lucky and thankful for this wonderful benefit of exposure to cultures from all over the world that comes with my line of work.

Interesting ingredient

A few weeks back I ended my post titled "Sunday randomness" with a picture of a vegan parmesan cheese I found at Whole Foods which includes 'love' as one of its ingredients. In what seems to be a trend of wholesome, loving foods, imagine my delight when tonight I discovered yet another loving product:

Abdallah's wheat pita bread

At first glance, perfectly harmless, wholesome pita bread. But look closely:

Ha! This one doesn't just contain love, but centuries of it. I wonder how many more calories per serving that comes out to.

Another perfectly vegan product. :-)

(You'd think that after listing stone ground whole wheat flour and untreated wheat flour that the whole "contains wheat" thing would be self-explanatory.)

Boca burger

OK, so Boca burgers have been around for a while. They're not as obscure as some of the other stuff I've been eating. So why haven't I had one yet?!

Boca has a whole variety of meatless patties and crumbles, but I gravitated towards the safest choice:

I like how it's the perfect size for a standard hamburger bun, and not too thin.  I'd definitely do these on a skillet to give them some crispiness.

Sizzling with a little olive oil.

Best thing is, they don't shrink like meat burgers do.  With this, you pull out something that looks like it's going to fit perfectly on your bun, and that's how it stays.

I used Vegenaise, ketchup, and a slice of Galaxy Nutritional Foods Vegan cheese, american flavor, which I melted on the patty in my toaster oven. This cheese doesn't melt nearly as well as Daiya does. In fact, it kind of puffed up and it ended up looking like a square pillow on my burger. I wish Daiya made sliced versions of their vegan cheese. I might just sprinkle Daiya shreds on it next time and melt those.

On a whole wheat bun with a little Vegenaise, first went the burger with cheese, then a little romaine lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, onions, and more romaine.

So... did it taste good?

I got ZERO points for presentation tonight.

Honestly, I thought it was pretty good. I think they could up the ante a little more with herbs and flavorings, though. I have to find a Morning Star equivalent and compare, because I've been a fan of the latter brand of vegetarian morning sausage patties for ages. But these are perfectly doable.  I can live with them.

First vegan cake

OK, so technically it's a cupcake. But if I were to pour the batter into a single large pan, then it'd be a cake.

I found this recipe for vegan vanilla bean cupcakes with chocolate ganache that looks really good and which I've been anxious to try. So finally today this baker got to make her first vegan cakey thing!!

They were super easy to make, though the batter came out way runnier than I'm used to.  Instead of a vanilla bean I used the equivalent of vanilla bean paste, which is 1 tablespoon. It worked great.

I also welcomed the lack of Egg Replacer, which is another reason why I was so curious about how this recipe would turn out. I'm not crazy about that chemical-y aftertaste Egg Replacer imparts on stuff. This recipe uses cornstarch as a thickener, and canola oil for the fat. It leavens not only with baking powder but also with baking soda and almond milk curdled with apple cider vinegar.

As the recipe promised, it would yield 12 cupcakes, and that's exactly how much batter there was. Using an ice cream scoop is the way to go when pouring batter into cupcake cups.

After 20 min, out from the oven they came.

Although they look a little 'wet', they were all nicely cooked through.  I just haaaaad to taste one right away to check for things like moisture, texture and, well... flavor.

These cupcakes are super-duper moist. So much so that the paper cupcake liner comes out a little saturated with oil. I don't see the need to spray them with non-stick spray. And the vanilla paste worked great as far as taste goes.  They're also not very sweet. These are the type of cupcakes that you can just eat directly, without having to make an icing or anything for them, they're that moist. A sprinkling of vegan powdered sugar might have even been enough. I really enjoyed their moisture level and that nice and strong vanilla bean taste.

For the ganache I used vanilla-flavored coconut milk instead of the almond milk in the recipe. I finished the almond milk carton for the cake, had the coconut milk carton already open, and I love the mix of coconut with chocolate.  So I thought "What the hay, use coconut milk." I used vegan chocolate chips and pure maple syrup like the recipe calls for.

I'm not sure why but my chips didn't melt as evenly as I would have liked. I don't know if it's because they're vegan chips, or maybe my heat was too high, or what. Normally classic ganache is made by bringing cream to a boil and adding it to the chopped chocolate (or chips if that's what you're using) and then mixing so that the chips start to melt right away from the hot cream.  These were melted into the boiling milk at low heat. So I'm not sure if it was the vegan chips or just something about the amount of heat, or maybe that I used coconut milk instead of almond milk.

I did love the way maple syrup gave the ganache sweetness and cut into the bitterness from the chocolate without making the whole thing taste like chocolatey pancake syrup. I thought the use of maple syrup was perfect.

Chunky ganache. Gotta work on that.

Despite my chunky-ish ganache,  taste and texture-wise these vegan cupcakes were really, really good. I'm impressed with the moisture and texture of the cupcake. I'd be curious to try melted Earth Balance butter in place of the canola oil.

Oh, and I need to work on my vegan ganache some more.  :-)

Jam-packed stir fry

After having grocery-shopped this weekend I came home with so much produce that I filled 2 "crisper" drawers and the one wide, "party platter" drawer in my refrigerator and I still had to store stuff out on the shelves. It's time for a stir fry.

I also wanted to try the Bragg Liquid Aminos that I bought this weekend.

The final mix of vegetables that went into this:

1. broccoli
2. cauliflower
3. carrots (these 3 from a frozen mix)
4. green onions
5. asparagus
6. onions
7. red bell peppers
8. green bell peppers
9. Napa cabbage
10. mushrooms

For my "protein":

1. seitan
2. tofu (firm)

For cooking/seasoning:

1. extra virgin olive oil
2. garlic
3. fresh chopped cilantro
4. hot sauce
5. Bragg Liquid Aminos
6. garlic powder
7. freshly ground kosher salt
8. Mrs. Dash "Southwest Chipotle" seasoning
9. vegetable broth
10. blue agave nectar

First, my protein. I sliced seitan from my last batch (with the Italian Blend herbs and liquid smoke) and the tofu into little strips. This was sauteed in a little olive oil with garlic and green onions. To that I added Mrs. Dash seasoning, a few dashes of hot sauce, a little garlic powder, and a small handful of the chopped cilantro. Tossed and tossed then transferred to a bowl where it waited to be added to everything else.

Moving on the the veggies. I worked in my Dutch oven just because I didn't feel like hauling my heavy wok (it's an iron wok brought straight from China). I did have so many veggies that I had to cook them in batches so they'd cook evenly.

Starting in the same way as for my protein, I heated olive oil with garlic and green onions. The first batch was the onions, both kinds of bell peppers, Napa cabbage, asparagus and mushrooms. In went the liquid aminos, hot sauce, Mrs. Dash, garlic powder, chopped cilantro, vegetable broth and agave nectar, with a little kosher salt to taste. Then transferred to a bowl to wait after they were done. I had to do 2 batches of these.

Then the broccoli - cauliflower - carrots mix was treated in exactly the same way, transferred to a bowl to wait once they were done.

All of the seasoned, brothy mix remaining in the pan was then brought to a boil and reduced a little. Meanwhile, in a great big bowl all of the veggies were mixed together, and finally in went my seitan and tofu.  To top it all off, the reduced flavored broth was drizzled all over and they were all tossed a few times to finish the dish.

As for the liquid aminos, I found its flavor much more subtle than soy sauce, and not as salty.  With brown rice, whole wheat orzo, quinoa, or couscous, this stir fry is sure to be a hit.

Latest new products installment

Another trip to Whole Foods, another set of new goodies to try.

Apparently somebody couldn't wait to try the chocolate flavored So Delicious cultured coconut milk. :-) They had this in vanilla and strawberry as well, so had to bring one of each home to try. It's labeled "greek style" and has the consistency of regular yogurt. Pretty good! Also got a container of their drinkable cultured coconut milk in strawberry to try - sounds perfect for my smoothies!!

I've also read a lot of good things about Bragg's Liquid Aminos, so finally remembered to get a bottle. The label says it's like a seasoned soy sauce, except that this isn't made from fermented or heated soy beans. Can't wait to try it on my next stir fry, and possibly in my next batch of seitan.

Another item I had my eyes on was Almond "cheese" shreds in mozzarella and cheddar flavors. I already tried the cheddar tonight on some burritos and I have to say, I think I still like Daiya a little better. These aren't bad, though. I may try the mozzarella tomorrow either on a homemade pizza or on a Boca burger and see how that one compares to the mozz-flavored Daiya (when are they gonna make sliced versions?).

My love affair with all these wonderful milks has grown larger with the addition of vanilla-flavored 7-grain milk. Really, I mean, how many of these nut and grain milks are there? I'm crazy about all of them!

So much fun trying all these new, different things!!

Veggie and tempeh tacos

Tonight on my way home from work, this idea popped in my head. What about a chunky, "chutney-esque" vegetable mix with a chipotle-style dressing, tempeh crumbles, Daiya cheddar cheese shreds, on a whole wheat tortilla? Convincing myself that it would be the perfect quick dinner, I made a quick stop at Whole Foods for a few ingredients then got myself home, anxious to get started putting this together.

For the veggie mix, I decided to dice the following:

• tomatoes
• red onion
• cucumber

Then to this mix I added canned black beans (after washing all the goop off) and corn.  How much of each depends on your preference. I kept all of them more or less even in amount. In retrospect, I should have picked up some cilantro, but I didn't think of it until I got home. 

For the dressing:

• organic vegan ranch dressing (I use Organic Ville)
• Vegenaise (reduced fat)
• hot sauce
• Mrs. Dash Southwest Chipotle seasoning mix (I'm nuts about this thing!)

I started out with about 1/4c. of dressing. Wanting to make it a little richer in texture I added one heaping tablespoon of Vegenaise to it. After that, a couple of dashes of hot sauce went in. This gets whisked together and then it was time to add the Mrs. Dash. I added quite a bit, tasting along the way.  As with the hot sauce, the amount of this seasoning would be to taste. I can't have enough of this Mrs. Dash mix.

Oh yeah, the tempeh. This is pretty quick - just take some organic smoky tempeh strips (a.k.a. Fakin' Bacon) and brown in a little olive oil. Drain in a paper towel and crumble up once they're cool to the touch.

After stirring a little of the dressing in with the vegetables and adding the tempeh, it was starting to look exactly as I envisioned it.

Meanwhile out came the whole wheat tortillas (the kind made fresh at Whole Foods), which I just heated in the microwave a bit.  On them I placed the Daiya cheddar shreds so that the 'cheese' could warm up a little from the hot tortillas. A couple of big dollops of the veggie mix completed the taco.

I would have loved some chopped cilantro in this, but otherwise I'm nuts about this mix!  I'm thinking of making a dessert version with various diced fruits, mixing in some of that awesome coconut yogurt (kind of like an ambrosia), all on a homemade sweet crepe on which I've spread a little bit of melted vegan chocolate chips. But first I gotta figure out how to make vegan crepes.

In the meantime, these tacos are a definite keeper!

Best seitan yet

I'm reminded of the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears where, common to all things she tries after entering the bears' home was that the first two were always extreme opposites but the third thing was always just right.

My first batch of seitan was too spongy and fluffy. My second batch was a little too chewy. But aahhh.... this third batch of seitan is juuuust riiiight.

I used 2 cups worth of vital wheat gluten, as always. To that I added about 2 tablespoons of a dried Italian herbs mix. It's got all the basics: oregano, basil, rosemary, thyme, savory, marjoram.... Also added were 2 tablespoons of garlic powder and dehydrated chopped onions, about 2 tablespoons. Liquid smoke went into the mix as well, the equivalent of... oh, about 2 tablespoons. I guess it was '2 tablespoons' day. I started the mixer with the dough hook attached and, while still running, added vegetable broth a little at a time until the mixture achieved elastic dough consistency and it started pulling away from the sides of the bowl. Let it knead for around 5 or 10 min. and it was ready to boil.

This time I decided to slice some of the dough, and cut the rest into small chunks.

This time I didn't do two kneadings with a resting period in between. I just did a longer, single kneading, mostly with the mixer but also finishing up with some kneading by hand.  Between the liquid smoke and the great herb mix, this batch smelled great even before it was cooked.

For the boiling, this time I used 6 cups of water with soy sauce, liquid smoke, and about a teaspoon of molasses, simmered for about 1 hour.

And voila, my best seitan yet:

I tasted a little piece and it has the best flavor of the three batches I've made to date.  The texture also isn't too gummy, but not as spongy and fluffy as my first batch. It's a nice compromise.

It almost looks like meat, doesn't it. ;-)

A few new products

There's a few new (to me, anyway) products I've tried recently. I didn't take a picture as soon as I brought them home but consumed them nonetheless AND.... they're awesome.

Hazelnuts are my favorite nuts on the planet. I'm a huuuuge fan of all things Nutella and Gianduja chocolates. So imagine my excitement when, upon closer inspection of the health food section at my local Kroger, I discovered they carry this little jewel. It almost brought tears of joy. I think I did let out a little squeal of happiness. This was heavenly... like drinking liquid Nutella. Mmmm.....

We had our monthly 'cake and ice cream' at work to celebrate the birthdays of the month. Being vegan, eating the regular cake and ice cream (Kosher and all as I usually get for the group) would have been a problem. As much as I planned on making me a little batch of vegan yellow cupcakes so I could have something to munch on along with the rest of the group, I didn't get around to it. However, I thought it'd be the perfect excuse to try something from the So Delicious line of ice creams. This brand strikes again. I'd go out on a limb and say that anything these people make is just awesome.  The ice cream is fantastic, with a little hint of coconut, and the cookie dough chunks were a nice size and abundant. On top of that they also put in chocolate shavings. This was an AWESOME ice cream, again making me have problem deciding which version I prefer, regular dairy or this one. It's amazing.

It's been so much fun trying all these new products. :-)

Vegan chili

So I had all this leftover bean mix from a salad I made recently, and kept thinking "What to do, what to do with these".... chili, of course. :-)  Now, why y'all debate whether with or without beans is 'correct', I'm just gonna make me some vegan 4-bean chili with TVP.

So out came the slow cooker... and in went a large can of diced tomatoes, 2 cans of tomato sauce, 1 can of tomato paste, and vegetable broth. How much? Until it looks right. :-)

As for flavoring, in went chili powder, cumin, dried oregano, liquid smoke, garlic powder, ground red pepper flakes, black pepper, Louisiana hot sauce, and summer savory. How much of each? Until it tastes right. :-)

Meanwhile, I reconstituted 2 cups of textured vegetable protein with close to 2 cups of vegetable broth. The ratio is 7/8c. boiling liquid for each cup of TVP, so there's the math for ya. After about 10 min or so, it was all reconstituted so in it went.

I then went ahead and pressed about 5 cloves of garlic, and chopped about 1/2 a large onion. I sauteed these in a little canola oil on medium-high heat until the onions became transluscent. And in it all went.

Lastly, I rinsed and freshened up my 4-bean mix: kidney, pinto, black and garbanzos. I think I must have put around 3 or 4 cups-worth of bean mix. In it went...

And then it steeped.... and slow-cooked.... and simmered.... I checked flavor often, tweaked and added what I felt was needed. Cook to taste; it's an art form. Be creative.

Then finally, after about 5 hrs, it looked like this:

Looks like regular chili, doesn't it.

Finally, some Daiya cheddar shreds on top, nuked for about 30 sec. to melt the shreds, and it was time to dig in!

Flavorful, chockful of protein, and hey, not a spec of grease.

Vegan flatbread pizza

Time to veganize some flatbread pizza!

I've tried this recipe for crisp rosemary flatbread before in my omnivorous days. I love the simplicity of it - great to throw together even on a workweek evening and still have pizza from scratch - and how nice it comes out. It's put together very quickly especially since there's no yeast or rising cycles involved, so it's become my standard recipe to use for flatbread pizza. It's also really nice to just make the flatbread, break it up, and use it for dipping into hummus, baba ghanoush, or a nice cucumber-dill dip. It smells so wonderful from the olive oil!

Working on parchment paper.

Olive oil applied on flattened dough with a Misto sprayer.

Veganization here was easy. I made a simple sun-dried tomato pesto out of tomato paste, sun-dried tomatoes, garlic powder, basil, oregano, a little paprika, and pesto amounts of olive oil.  As for toppers, I sauteed some of that yummy smokey "fakin' bacon" tempeh and crumbled it on top of the pesto, and then topped it all off with some Daiya mozzarella cheese shreds.

With sun-dried tomato pesto and tempeh crumbles.

 

Topped with Daiya on its way to the oven.

And after baking at 450F for around 10 minutes on a pizza stone:

Yum.

Daiya melts but the appearance is a little on the dry side. Nevertheless, it tastes pretty good, with the pesto going well with the smoky tempeh crumbles. The flatbread came out tender but not so much that when you lifted a piece it would droop down. Each piece held its shape nicely. I think if I were to want it crispier I might prebake the flatbread a little on its own first, then add the toppings and broil to melt the cheese.

Veggies would be great on this, as would a margherita version with halved cherry tomatoes and fresh basil leaves.  This one's definitely a keeper. Who said you have to give up the fun stuff when you go vegan. :-)

An American classic.... veganized

I had to take a stab at veganizing a sweet treat. It's time. And what a better place to start than the one and only, the classic Nestle's Tollhouse chocolate chip cookie.

:-O

Aw, it'll be OK.

The 'veganization' agents:

The protagonists.

The forgotten protagonists. (Forgot to include these in the picture above. Oops.)

Perhaps you've lived under a rock your whole life and have never made these cookies. Hey, perhaps you're new to the U.S. For that reason, here's the recipe of this American classic. I, like many Americans, have made these cookies a bajillion times. Enough to prefer them with half the salt and twice the vanilla. Now, that's not veganizing, that's just personalizing.

As far as veganizing:

• 1 cup of Earth Balance vegan butter in place of regular butter
• 2 egg equivalents of Ener-G egg replacer in place of 2 eggs
• vegan semi-sweet chocolate chips in place of regular chips
• 1 1/2 cups vegan sugar (evaporated cane juice) in place of 3/4 c. sugar + 3/4 c. brown sugar
• ~1 tbsp. molasses - to "create" brown sugar in the mix
• butter flavoring - decided to add this after the batter was made to add extra buttery flavor

The rest of the ingredients stay the same.  Procedure also stays the same as the original.

Ready for the oven.

The finished product.

 So here are my thoughts after having veganized chocolate chip cookies for the first time.

1. Vegan chocolate chips taste pretty much like non-vegan ones. They melt really nicely. They just don't have any chemicals derived from animals, milk proteins, whey proteins, etc. But they're pretty much like the real thing.
2. Vegan butter provided the same level of greasy gooeyness as you get in the regular cookies, so texture-wise they weren't lacking in anything. They were still very moist and fairly gooey-chewy.
3. They rose, but not as much as the original cookies can. Now, my dough was room temperature. I have leftover dough which I've frozen, so the next batch will be with cold dough to see if it allows the leaving agents to do their job a little more before the butter totally melts in the oven and brings the cookie down too fast.
4. Taste - here's where the biggest difference was noted. I would add a) more butter flavoring, and b) more vanilla. You don't know the richness of flavor that eggs and butter impart until you've done something like this. I did welcome the molasses, I could detect them subtly and they added a nice depth of flavor. But at the very least, as much as I had already doubled the vanilla, I would maybe have to triple it. That, or use vanilla bean paste - I think this would be a great thing to try. 
5. Egg replacer - I noticed a slight "chemically" after taste. I'm guessing that was the egg replacer. Here's a cookie that may benefit from an alternative, more natural binder rather than this stuff. Maybe some ground up flaxseeds mixed with a little water and/or applesauce, perhaps. 

Overall, not bad at all. For my taste they need a little more depth of flavor, that's all. I'm in the "you can never have too much vanilla" camp, so that's where I'd start. Maybe a little nutmeg, cinnamon.... it needs more notes. But texture-wise, they were still great, chips and all.

Sunday randomness

Fakin' bacon in the house!

Just thought I'd post a pic of my whole wheat pasta dinner with homemade marinara sauce with TVP, topped with nutritional yeast and - yup - fakin' bacon smokey tempeh crumbles. I LOVE those.

The crumbles add such a nice crunch. I've become a big fan of those!! By the way, I can't put too much nutritional yeast on this stuff.  Love me some 'fish flake food'.

I also found the coconut milk yogurt, so I got one container to try on smoothies. Wow.

I think I may have finally found my first vegan product which I actually prefer to the regular version!

I vary the milk I use when I make these. I use soy, almond, oat, rice, hemp, or coconut milk, and always vanilla-flavored. I use either honey-flavored or plain blue agave nectar for sweetening. These are super delicious. I have one (sometimes the small cup) every morning and every evening after dinner, as dessert.

While shopping at Whole Foods Saturday night, I decided to browse the parmesan cheeses. While looking at ingredients, much to my surprise I discovered that one particular brand includes one of the most important ingredients to life:

Sorry for the fuzziness - trying to get close, plus it's a cell phone pic.

Definitely vegan.

Vegan whole wheat bread

My meanderings on the internet looking for a vegan whole wheat bread recipe suitable for making sliced sandwich bread led me to this recipe, which I had to make today.  What attracted me to it was the use of molasses. I made half a batch, and this was the result:

I did my little "cheating" step with my bread machine. I add all ingredients in the correct order needed when using a bread machine (at least as far as my bread machine instructions say to do): all liquids first, then all dry, and keep salt faaaar away from the yeast (I dissolve it in the liquids, and add yeast last of all, in a little hole in the flour mound). Then I set it on the dough cycle, forget about it for an hour and a half and go do other stuff. When the cycle ends, I turn the dough out onto a heavily-floured counter where, using a dough scraper, I incorporate just enough flour for the dough to be kneadable. This, because after the dough cycle has completed in the machine the dough comes out sort of "pourable" and sticky, so you couldn't possibly knead it unless you want your fingers to become part of the dough itself. After incorporating 'just enough' flour and kneading then I give it whatever shape I want or set it in the corresponding pan for its 2nd rising, usually for about an hour. Oh, and as for the yeast that I use, I started this bread machine dough shortcut with quick-rise but have tried regular active dry yeast on a lot of recipes and it works fine. (This vegan bread was made with regular active dry). It seems that 1 1/2 hr gives it enough time to rise optimally. It helps to measure the temp of the water to make sure it's around 105 - 110F to "wake up" the yeast without scorching it. I've also tried blooming the yeast first and adding it to the liquid ingredients, then adding the salt at the end in the flour. That works well in this bread machine shortcut, too. I've also made ciabatta bread using this method adding the 'biga' starter first, salt last. Most commonly I use this short-cut method to make my French bread, which I make just about every other weekend.

OK back to the vegan bread. I sprinkled rolled oats and flaxseed on it before the 2nd rise in the pan. I was hoping that as the dough rose these tidbits would sort of 'encrust' themselves in the dough. After baking, however, the flaxseed came right off. Lesson learned: flaxseeds don't stick. Ironic, seeing how according to many a vegan cooking site ground flaxseed mixed with a little water provides one of many alternatives for an egg-like binder in vegan cooking (I haven't tried this yet myself). So ground flaxseed? Apparently gooey after wet. Whole flaxseeds? Not so much.

I let it rise in the loaf pan for 1 hour and came back to a dough that was starting to spill over the edges of the pan hahaha! So at least in my kitchen, 50 min. may be enough next time. Or maybe even less than that. Or get a bigger loaf pan haha! Then when I took it out of the draft-free place where I had it rising - the microwave (not running) - it sort of sank a little in the center. It was so risen.

If you don't like a rich molasses flavor, you might want to tone that ingredient down. Personally I really enjoyed it. Although the recipe does call for what seems like a lot of molasses, it makes the bread a little sweet and very hearty. Mmmmmm.

I was also really happy with its texture. For a whole wheat bread, it's very nice and delicate.  I'd watch what I put between 2 slices of it when making a sandwich. If really thick stuff is used, the bread might flatten more and more with every bite. A nice French bread is always better for those situations anyway, don't you think? 

Great toasted with some Smart Balance light (vegan) spread. :-)

Favorite products so far

This will by no means be as refined and decadent as Oprah's list of "Favorite Things", but it's my little list of favorite products so far. And there's still so much more to try!

1)  Coconut milk and products made with it:

So far I've only tried vanilla-flavored coconut milk and the French Vanilla coconut milk creamer. I think they're both very, very good!  I'm planning to try their yogurt and maybe their ice cream (and I say maybe only because I'm not a big ice cream eater).  I'm trusting that anything from the So Delicious line of products is bound to be very good.

2) Kashi GoLean Crisp! Toasted Berry Crumble:

I really like all things Kashi, but this one - technically vegan - is fantastic! It has the perfect amount of sweetening, wonderful crunch and awesome flavors. The dried berries like to stick to your teeth, but it's a small price to pay for how delicious this cereal is. I like it best with vanilla-flavored hemp milk.

3)  Daiya cheesy shreds:

I've bought both but so far have only tried the cheddar one. It's amazing how well they got the flavor. The stuff also melts very nicely and has the feel of cheese, though I find it takes a while longer than regular cheese to melt. Nevertheless, it's a fantastic alternative.

4) Lightlife's Organic Smoky Tempeh strips:

I tried making a dish with tempeh recently but didn't blog about it because it didn't come out right. I didn't work with the tempeh correctly. Then I was introduced to this variety of tempeh at work. I joined a vegan/vegetarian group that meets once a month to cook, share ideas and recipes, then enjoy what was cooked for lunch for a small fee to defer food costs. Run by a registered dietician, her choice this month was to make a pasta dish with tempeh crumbles on the side to add on top if you wished. Wow - this stuff is great! The coolest thing is how much this stuff really does smell like bacon as it cooks. It's very aptly nicknamed "Fakin' Bacon"! It's even cut into thin, long strips resembling bacon hahaha. Just brown in a little oil until it gets nice and crispy. Crumbled over the pasta we also had, this was so delicious.  Just watch any additional sodium you add to whatever else you're cooking, as this stuff is cured with soy sauce.  This stuff is awesome.

Let's see what else I add to that list.... :-)