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.... :-)

"Steak" anyone?

Just wanted to post real quick on this dinner that I had last night. Last weekend I prepared a new batch of seitan and shaped then sliced it so that it came out looking like "steaks". My plan was to grill some of them and make a really yummy sauce for them.

Done!

I just had to give it grill marks.

The sauce was inspired by Alton Brown's meatloaf sauce. I made that meatloaf recipe a couple of months ago and fell head-over-heels in love with that little sauce he makes.

I left out the Worcestershire sauce and honey.  What I did to substitute was look at the ingredients in Worcestershire sauce and replace with some of the key ones. So I added about 1/2 tsp. of black strap molasses, about a tsp apple cider vinegar, a little garlic powder. Also threw in a few dashes of soy sauce. And then for the honey I used honey-flavored agave nectar instead.

(I have a problem - I only measure for sure when I do any baking of any kind. As far as savory stuff goes, a lot of times it's to taste when I cook. Hence I don't always measure stuff. So you're gonna have to play and experiment if you want to reproduce any of my stuff.  Playing and experimenting are what I did, after all!)

Together with my sides, this was the final meal:

The potatoes were sauteed in olive oil, seasoned with Mrs. Dash Southwest Chipotle seasoning, and topped with Daiya cheddar cheesy shreds. The broccoli was just steamed, seasoned with the same Mrs. Dash seasoning, and topped with Smart Balance light spread (hey, that one's vegan!).

When I made this batch of seitan I kneaded it, let the dough rest, then kneaded it again. I wanted to see if that caused a change in texture. It most definitely did. This seitan is not spongy-fluffy like my first batch. Instead it has a stronger texture. It's chewier and gummier.  So how many times you knead makes a difference. This should come as no surprise to anyone that makes bread regularly (yours truly included here!). I always hear about how it's the gluten in flour that gives bread its elasticity and how if you overstir batters made with all-purpose flour you run the risk of developing the gluten too much, such that your product may lose some of the desired delicate texture as a result. It was neat to see that concept in action here, with this being straight gluten and all.

And Daiya cheese? I really like it. It melts slower than regular cheese. But it melts and tastes great.

Yum!

"Cheat" balls anyone?

OK, so I'm perusing YouTube for ideas and inspiration. So many ideas, so little time!!

I came across this video for seitan "cheatballs". So interesting how she put tomato paste in with the vital wheat gluten during the making of the dough. These look like they would taste really good on their own.

What about sautee'ing these in olive oil instead of baking? I've always liked me a browned meat ball. Hmmmm.... but they certainly look like they'd be flavorful.

Then there's these, where she uses wheat germ instead of vital wheat gluten and ground-up walnuts, among other things. Creative! Then she fries them to brown them (now we're talking!) then bakes them in tomato sauce. Makes me want to try this one, too!

Check out all the stuff that she puts in for this recipe!

I can't decide! I want to try all of them! :-)

Sunday homemade goodies

Running low on my first batch of seitan, it was time to make more. I've so been looking forward to it, since I've been wanting to try some different things on my next batch.

The recipe on this blog for Vegan Korean Bulgogi Style Seitan gave me inspiration for my next seitan experiment.  This time I didn't want to go with just a few herbs and powdered stuff. So I decided to add chopped veggies. I stayed in my comfort zone and chopped onions, bell peppers, and carrots using my blender's chopper attachment.

I also added a little liquid smoke as I read on someone's blog that it can help make it taste more "meaty". I checked the ingredients and nothing really stood out as potentially coming from animal products. I still also added the garlic powder, plus included Hungarian paprika and black pepper.

Another thing I did differently this time was I did a first kneading, let the dough rest for around 10 minutes or so, and then kneaded a second time.  I've seen a lot of recipes on the web where they do this, even though the recipe on the package didn't say to do so.  I had to try it and see if it'll make a difference in texture.

I also wanted to cut it differently this time, so as to make it more like little seitan "steaks". I can always cube these or slice like strips as well before using in a dish.

So, this is what they looked like before simmering:

Seitan "steaks"

I also wanted to change the flavorings in the water. I don't want the seitan to end up with a bias towards any flavor profile in particular, so I just went with 3 cups water and 3 cups vegetable broth.
It simmered for an hour, and this is the result:

In retrospect, I could have also put some liquid smoke in the water. I might do that next time.  I can't wait to grill these and make a little barbecue sauce for them. Mmmmm!!!! All stocked up for the week now.

I also played around with tofu today, making me a mix of veggies, nuts, and extra-firm Nasoya tofu for brunch, along with a couple slices of my homemade French bread.

This was so good!!! Oh, and this was my first time trying Daiya cheddar. I really like it!!  It does melt nicely and I don't know how they got the flavor right, but it tastes a lot like cheddar cheese. If the veggies look familiar, that's because it's the same combo that I put on the seitan above. I just chopped them a little more coarse for this dish, finer for the seitan. I also added a couple of handfuls of my nut mix (almonds, peanuts, hazelnuts, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, flaxseeds). I cooked all this in Earth Balance vegan butter, seasoned with soy sauce and a little powdered ginger, and I have to say it came out pretty darn good.

For dinner, I also made a homemade spaghetti sauce with TVP using my slow cooker. I hadn't played with TVP yet - it was time!

I reconstituted it with vegetable broth according to package directions. I totally love the stuff!  On spaghetti sauce and chili it's a must.  Also I want to look into maybe making some "cheatballs" with it.

The sauce was pretty basic - canned tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste, garlic, dehydrated onions, and herbs to taste (I used oregano, rosemary, thyme, a little cayenne pepper, and lots of dried basil from my yard). Also put in some evaporated cane juice to cut on the tomato acidity.  I used no salt since a) I'm kind of 'anti-salt', and b) the canned tomato products have enough salt of their own.  I added the TVP about halfway through and also used an immersion blender to break up the whole tomatoes.

I had this with whole wheat linguini and - GASP! - I think I was so hungry (by then it was around 7:30pm) that I just sat down to eat and didn't take a picture of my final product. Hahaha! However, it still looked just like regular spaghetti sauce with ground meat in it, despite being vegan and all.

I did try a couple of parmesan cheese alternatives on it:  Galaxy Food's Vegan parmesan, and nutritional yeast.  I didn't mind the Vegan parmesan too much, but nutritional yeast (or, as I'm going to start calling it because it looks so much like it - fish food flakes) has a slight tanginess that makes it the winner in my book, at least for this purpose.

So today I played with tofu, TVP, and made seitan. Quite a productive day in my now vegan kitchen. :-)

On animal fats and flesh

A friend of mine sent me a link to a very informative video.  A lecture by a physician, it's a 1-hr education on the negative aspects of eating an animal-based diet.

The Effect of Animal Fats on the Human Body

Truly enlightening. Just yesterday I was posting about animal abuse in animal food farms and how there must be some good places out there, but the hard part is knowing the difference. This video gives me yet more to think about as to whether or not we even need to be looking for those good places in the first place.

Priorities

I've never been and don't plan to be a member of PETA. I am a scientist and have done research with mice. Thanks to this type of research, drugs to help treat diabetes, hypertension, cancer, etc have been developed, diseases that have plagued my family as they have millions of others. You will not get me to think this is wrong no matter how hard you try.

But that doesn't mean the treatment of these little 'saviors' has to be inhumane. There are very strict guidelines at research institutions as to how to conduct this research humanely. Things like how many animals per enclosure, the proper way to sacrifice an animal, anesthetic and pain killer use during surgical procedures, all of these are part of what is known as an animal research protocol. All animals are monitored daily by bona fide veterinarians. Investigators are not allowed to conduct research if they fail to follow these guidelines, and they cannot perform procedures unless they are contained in each investigator's animal protocol, a protocol that must receive approval by staff veterinarians prior to its implementation. Any health problem - even so much as weight loss - is reported back to the investigators following daily monitoring by veterinary staff, and action is required to remediate the issue. Things like a tumor burden have a limit; if the tumor reaches the threshold size for that animal species, either you sacrifice the animal (to give you the opportunity to collect tissues for studies) or the staff will. Anything above that size would be deemed too much of a tumor burden for that animal. The welfare of research animals is an important issue in animal research.

Likewise, raising animals for human consumption doesn't mean it can or should be done without ANY regard for the welfare of those animals. Farms, hatcheries, etc should not feel like they have a 'green light' as far as how to treat these animals. Their welfare should be made a priority, and the way in which the animals are handled in their "final hour" should be humane. It should be no different from the human considerations we pet owners carry out when a beloved pet has developed a terminal illness that significantly diminishes its quality of life - it doesn't mean this can't be carried out humanely, inflicting little to no pain if at all possible. Of course it can. I disagree with those that think 'humane sacrificing' of an animal is an oxymoron. It doesn't have to be.

There's probably a lot of farms in the U.S. that follow humane practices. But there have been enough undercover investigations to show that they don't all do. So when you buy a quart of milk, 3 lbs of ground chuck, or a dozen eggs, how do you know whether or not you're giving the inhumane ones continued sustenance, or whether or not those products came from a conscientious, humane operation? How do we know where our food comes from?

When I first watched videos like this one, I was traumatized. YouTube is full of them. As a dog owner and all-around animal lover, I was quite disturbed. You have to wonder the mental state of people that act like what you see here. But furthermore, I had to wonder how much of the meat, dairy, eggs, etc that I've consumed since I was born came from places like this, or if it came from a conscientious place. I don't know, because I don't know where my food comes from.

Warning:  EXTREMELY GRAPHIC FOOTAGE

OF ANIMAL ABUSE

This is a short documentary under 12 min long by a group called "Mercy for Animals" titled "Farm to Fridge".  You may or may not be able to stomach the whole thing. I did but it was difficult. Towards the end the graphic nature of the footage wasn't the only reason I couldn't see it, eyes flooded with tears. Truly traumatizing.

But just like there's that, there's this. Lisa Ling did a documentary called 'Inside a Slaughterhouse', documenting cleaner, more humane practices in the cattle industry. It serves to give one hope that for every so-many bad slaughterhouses and hatcheries, there are consciencious ones. But what's the ratio - how many good ones? How many bad ones? And how do you know? How do you know that your food comes from a place like the one Lisa Ling documented, or from places like the ones in the video from Mercy for Animals?

Going vegan, like the Mercy for Animals video suggests in the end, is certainly one option. But it's a hardcore one, perhaps deemed "drastic" by some, and one that I'm sure a lot of Americans will not go for. This is too much of a "meat and potatoes" society. Is it possible to buy grass-fed meat, cage-free eggs, etc? Yes. But then you get into issues like the free-range issue pointed out on this CBS News report. So do your homework. Make informed choices. Read labels carefully. Is this stuff pricier? Yes. But the bigger question then is, which price is really the highest.

I wish all chickens had it like these:

There ARE good places out there. The problem is.... how do you know. It's a challenge for sure.