Daring Bakers April Challenge

Soft desserts are not my bag, especially when soft desserts are combined in some way with my old nemesis--meringue. Why oh why does the DBitS taunt me so? Perhaps one day I'll get the hang of it. The Daring Baker challenge this month was to make a maple mousse in an edible cup. The host for this month included a recipe for your standard eggs and cream mousse in a molded bacon cup, alongside a recipe for vegan mousse with some suggestions for cups made of nuts and chocolate. Obviously, since my blog isn't called "Omni-Squared," I opted for the latter. For the cup, I used a recipe for a thin, lacy, almond meal-based cookie, which was actually very similar to a florentine. These thin, flat cookies spread dramatically when baking, and while they're still warm from the oven, you drape them over a cup to shape them. They cool that way, and voila: edible cups. My cookies ended up being a titch more fragile than I had been hoping, so I managed only a subtle cupping shape, which I feel was nevertheless sufficient to this task. For the mousse, I used a recipe from vegweb, largely because I know exactly what you get when you whip silken tofu with maple syrup, and it doesn't approach anything that I would call mousse. Dip, yes. Mousse, no. For the inquiring minds among you, I used this one. I tweaked the recipe for a maple, rather than a coffee-chocolate, flavor and found it altogether pleasant. More like pudding than mousse, but pleasant all the same. It was particularly tasty with a bit of salted cookie, so that's how C and I ate it. It's not suuuper pretty, but we suffered through. It looks kind of like a weird egg, doesn't it? Harumph.

Sophie's Kitchen Vegan Calamari: A Meandering Review

Wow, is April a bananas month, dear readers. The world up here in SoCo is warming perceptibly, the daffodils have come and gone, and the roses and wisteria are flourishing everywhere. This year, though, I'm having a tough time focusing on all this craziness because I'm preparing for a two week trip to Eastern Europe. My mom and I are heading to Bulgaria for two weeks, so I'm in full-out twitch mode as I scramble around to locate my passport, check and re-check my itinerary, scrutinize my socks, and stockpile Clif bars like I'm preparing for the apocalypse rather than vacation. Don't get me wrong. I'm really excited. I've always wanted to go to Eastern Europe, and we plan to take the train across the country, wander the streets of Sofia and Plovdiv, and gaze out at the Black Sea from the sandy beaches of Burgas. Sounds pretty sweet, right? From my reading, via Lonely Planet and the internets, though, I fear I may starve. The only results for vegetarian Bulgaria come back as two places in Sofia, which I'm sure I'll hit hard at the beginning and end of our trip. Other than that, it might be beer and bread for me! If there are any surprising culinary delights, or I can track down a Hare Krishna and make him/her cook for me, I'll be sure to document. Otherwise, my foodlog might look depressingly anorexic! Don't worry, dear readers, I will promptly recultivate my piggish ways as soon as I return to the fattest country in the world. Holla, USA!

Perhaps because I'm staring down the barrel at two weeks of culinary deprivation, my own cooking has been pretty boring lately. I've been doing lots of soup and sandwiches. Not that I've been cooking soup or making my own vegan sandwich meats and cheeses. Nothing of the sort. I've mostly resisted the urge to wallow in a vat of pasta, but it's been comfort foods all the way. Speaking of which, I want to tell you about a new line of frozen vegan seafood products by Sophie's Kitchen. Their website is here. As I've said before, I think, the only non-vegan food product for which I experience anything like guilty nostalgia is seafood. In fact, the last non-vegetarian food I ate was calamari. I like seafood, but I don't eat it anymore. I think this is an important point because so many people seem to assume that vegans are vegan because we don't like the taste of meat. The truth of the matter is that ethical vegans don't forego animal products due to considerations of taste. An ethical vegan accepts that the pleasure one may or may not take from consuming animal products is dwarfed by the harm that those products and the conditions of their manufacture do to the rest of the world--the animals themselves, the environment, and other people. When you add to this the fact that vegans actually miss very little due to the excellent analogs and other products that are constantly under development for an increasingly conscientious eating crowd--they've made leaps and bounds, people, leaps and mother fucking bounds, the poverty of appealing to a selfish sense of what is easy and normal becomes strikingly apparent.

So, as I was saying, "Hurray for vegan seafood!" Sophie's Kitchen makes battered and unbattered seafood analogs of calamari, shrimp, and fish. I don't remember how many the package claimed to serve, but in my experience, the answer is 2. And it's a pretty spendy two-serving package. I think they were on sale at Whole Foods for about $5, so I just bought one to start. I feel like I know already what the shrimp will be like, but I'm really interested to see what they managed to accomplish with the fish fillet. When I get back from Bulgaria, wild-eyed with beautiful scenery and only slightly emaciated, I might dig into some fish fillet. I promise to report my results. As far as the calamari goes, though, I thought it was not wonderful, but quite adequate. The actual fish substance, which is apparently derived from some kind of mushroom, is only the tiniest bit fishy, but the texture is quite good. The rings yielded to the tooth while still having a slightly bouncy resiliency, which mimics the experience of eating the remarkably sensitive and intelligent squid. The breading was tasty, though rather too oily for me. All in all, this calamari will definitely do when I want to get my seafood on without contributing to the devastation of the world's oceans.

Daring Bakers March Challenge

As much as I'm enjoying the Daring Bakers challenges--being part of an online society with secrets is fun!, I'm beginning to suspect that the DBitS (Daring Baker in the Sky, if you recall) might hate me. There is no other explanation for all the time I spend, as an aspiring DBer, worrying about meringue. We saw this with the pavlovas, in particular, but this month is no different. The March challenge was a meringue filled coffee cake. When I saw this, I once again set about scouring the internet for new methods and recipes that just might produce something like that elusive fluff that can only come from the elixer of fetal birds. Finally, I found a few sites advocating the use of soy protein isolate and claiming that a bit of it can be whipped up with some cold water into stiff peaks and then baked on a pie or as meringue cookies. I splurged on all the ingredients to make this enchanting stuff only to be disappointed once again. I should have been more wary when the last comment on the blog was a person who had found her/himself in my position, whipping the protein isolate with water for 10, 15 minutes and having it remain stubbornly bubble-less. *sigh* Since the coffee cake was all ready to be filled at this point, I opted to just skip the meringue step altogether and fill it with sugar, cinnamon, sliced almonds, and chocolate. Had I been as wary as a vegan meringue project really justifies, I would have had a contingency plan of some sort--maybe some ricemallow fluff. Pride goeth before the fall, and all that.

In spite of this failure, the coffee cake was delicious and quite decadent, mostly owing to the high fat content of the cake. I had never made a yeasted coffee cake before. Coffee cakes, in my family's culinary lexicon, are quick bread sorts of things with a streusel-like topping. This yeasted coffee cake was actually very similar to the stollen from December. You make a rich dough, let it rise, fill it, roll it up, shape it into a wreath, let it rise again, and bake it off. Again, I'm not including the recipe here because I pretty much just veganized the one listed in the Daring Bakers instructions. If you are dying to make a rolled, yeasted coffee cake and think you can best me on the meringue step, by all means message me, and I'll share it. I am easily bested.

Irish Soda Bread

I thought I would round out my recent ventures into boiled dinners with a recommendation for a soda bread recipe. No self-respecting piggy would eat so much boiled cabbage without at least the prospect of a thick slice of buttery, savory soda bread on the side. For special occasions, I really like the whole wheat millet soda bread in Veganomicon, but it's a little too rich for everyday fare. I also tried, but didn't have much success with, an oat-based soda bread from 101 Cookbooks. I couldn't say fairly whether the recipe or my cooking skills failed me, but I won't be making it again. Instead, I want to heartily recommend to you the following recipe from the blog Cakewalker. You can find his recipe and check out his blog here. The blogger says he adapted it from a recipe in the Los Angeles Times, and I followed it with just a couple changes. I also cut the recipe in half since I was only making it for two. This small loaf would do nicely for four people.

Here's what I did:

1/2 c currants
1 cup ap flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 t baking soda
1 1/2 t baking powder
3 T raw sugar
3/4 t salt
1/2 t cinnamon
1 T toasted caraway seeds
3 T vegan margarine
1 T cornstarch dissolved in 3 T water
1 T molasses (I used blackstrap)
2/3 c buttermilk (1 T vinegar + unsweetened non-dairy milk)

Preheat oven to 375. In a small bowl, cover raisins with hot water and let stand 5 minutes to plump. In a small skillet, toast caraway seeds briefly, just until fragrant. In a large bowl, mix all the dry ingredients. Cut in margarine with a pastry blender or strong fork until no big pieces remain. In a smaller bowl, mix the cornstarch mixture, molasses, and buttermilk. Add wet to the dry, stir in plumped currants, and mix thoroughly. Knead the dough briefly with your hands, adding a bit more flour as necessary. Let the dough rest for 10 minutes. Shape into a round loaf and score the top with an "x." Rub a bit more flour onto the top of the loaf and bake for 45-50 minutes.b

Irish Coddle

They don't really get top billing as far as food-focused holidays go, but two of my favorites are St. Patrick's Day and Passover. I'm neither Jewish nor particularly Irish, but I enjoy having an excuse to dabble in flavors, methods, and seasonings that don't generally make it into my dinner repertoire. In past years, C and I have gone all out with briskets, rugelach, and colcannon. This year, contemplating a late St. Paddy's day repast of even more of that delectable potatoes and greens mash, I opted instead for Coddle. The Irish--or maybe broadly Northern European--way of boiling meats with potatoes and various cruciferous vegetables kind of captures my imagination. Another dish that has long been on my list of things to try, for example, is called Bubble and Squeak. I saw a recipe some years ago that looked very veganizable indeed, but then promptly lost track of it. The following stew is a one-dish answer to the culinary injunction of St. Patrick's Day. Here you have starch, protein, and vegetables boiled together in a simple and tasty dish. I should also mention that this Coddle is my version of the one posted by the fantastic Susan V from fatfreevegan.com. Check hers out here, and see mine below:

Coddle (Kinda)

1 pkg vegan sausage, sliced (I used Tofurky beer brats because I was having a lazy day like that and those nice people at Turtle Mountain are just so darned reliably delicious. On a more ambitious day, I might make my own.)
1 medium onion, diced
1 small head green cabbage, sliced
1 1/2 lbs yukon potatoes, cut into large cubes
2 T dried dill
2 1/2 c water
2 veggie broth cubes
1 t liquid smoke
horseradish and vegan bacon bits for garnish

Dissolve the broth cubes in 2 cups hot water. Set aside. Fry sausage in a bit of olive oil until nicely browned. Meanwhile, saute onion in a pot or large saucepan. When onion is translucent, add potatoes and dill and stir briefly. Deglaze sausage pan with a 1/4 c water to remove any bits that are sticking to the pan, and transfer the contents to the larger pot. Top the sausage with the cabbage. Add liquid smoke to the prepared veggie broth and pour the liquid over the cabbage. Cover but don't stir. Simmer for 15 minutes, then check the potatoes for tenderness. When they are cooked as much as you'd like, serve in big bowls topped with vegan bacon bits and a dollop of horseradish. You won't be sorry.

Quiche 2.0--Tempeh Bacon and Olive

 

I honestly thought I had the whole vegan quiche thing on lock-down, dear readers. I had it "dialed in," as my sister would say. Then, as with the universal tendency of everything to move from a state of order into one of disorder, my grip on quiche has loosened over time, slackened, weakened, entropificationed. The only thing to do in this situation is to take another run. Though sometimes, "another run," might mean returning to the drawing  board and starting from scratch--ditching your firm tofu for cashews and the like, it can also refer to a subtle but substantial tweaking: a little less of this and a little more of that, a pinch of something completely new.

Crust before baking.

I made this quiche, which as you recall I enjoy pronouncing as "quitch," because my sweet and smart niece used to say it that way, for a small dinner gathering at our friend Diana's house. She made a slamming apple-pear crisp and some brussels sprouts with squash, and our friend Joelle brought a lovely greens saute. C and I were charged with bringing the proteiny component of the meal. To be honest, most of our show-stopping repertoire that we tend to whip out for feeding (especially) omnis has something to do with seitan because, as we all know, gluten makes the best meat analogs. With tofu, I tend to get lazy. Pretty much I bake it, scramble it, blend it, and press it into quiches, and that's about it. Well, and put it in soup. And make stew out of it. Use it as an egg replacer. But you can see where I'm headed with this. I feel like most of those are pretty homey things and not the sorts of dishes I would take to someone's house for dinner. A quiche, on the other hand, is a nice, self-contained kind of unit. It heats up beautifully and is tasty with all kinds of fillings. While I tend to lean toward a sausage and mushroom filling, Diana's disinclination toward mushrooms and trouble with wheat pushed me toward thinking about other fillings: tempeh bacon and olive. These fillings along with this subtly different strategy toward flavoring the quiche really takes this dish to another level. Even if you're a fan of the earlier quiche recipe, I recommend springing for some black salt--yes, it's expensive--and trying it this way.

Crust:

2 c whole spelt flour
1/2 t salt
1/2 c canola oil
1/2 c apple juice

Mix together and press evenly into a pie pan. Prick the bottom and sides and bake at 400 for 10 minutes.

Tempeh bacon, fried and cooling a bit.

Filling:

Tempeh Bacon--you could buy the packaged tempeh bacon, but I made my own. I used the simplified bacon recipe in Vegan Brunch, which really is one of the best vegan cookbooks on the market.There are loads of vegan tempeh bacon recipes on the internet, though, and I feel confident that any of them would be tasty. While worshipping at Isa's feet is a perfectly good place for me, I know other cooks have their own idols.


1/2 c sliced black olives
1 pound extra firm tofu
1/2-3/4 c unsweetened soy milk
1 t black salt
1 T turmeric
1/2 t salt
1 c cheddar Daiya

In a large bowl, mash the tofu thoroughly. I use my hands. Then mix in the soymilk, turmeric, and salts until the desired color and flavor are reached. Don't over-salt because the olives and the bacon will contribute much in that regard. Crumble bacon into large pieces and mix into tofu along with olives. Press the whole mess into the pre-baked crust. Spread a healthy layer of cheddar Daiya on top and bake in a 350 oven for 45 minutes. Plan to let your quiche hang for a few minutes (10-15) for best presentation. 

Daring Bakers February Challenge

As I believe I've mentioned before, the thing I really enjoy about being a Daring Baker is the opportunity to make things that it really never would have occurred to me to try. This month is certainly no different. On the whole, the genre of "soft desserts" has largely eluded me. I like pudding as much as the next girl, but it isn't something that I think of making. Maybe it's because my mom used to make it for me as a treat when I was a kid. She would always make the Jell-O brand pudding that comes in the little cardboard box. I'm guessing it's mostly powdered milk, artificial flavors, and cornstarch, but I really loved it. In fact, if I may be forgiven a bit of compromising disclosure here, I think I have a story that illustrates in gritty, shameful detail just how much I loved pudding as a kid (or just how much of a blossoming fatty I was even then):

When my sister and I were little, like maybe first grade and kindergarten or thereabouts, she had a nasty flu. It wasn't anything more serious than the usual virus that kids are always picking up from each other--grimy little carrier monkeys that they are. My poor working mother in these cases always did her best to avoid cross-contamination, so that she wouldn't have two sick kids on her hands. Unfortunately for her, she has also made vanilla pudding for dessert on the night when my sister started really feeling poorly. Beth only made it through about half of her pudding before leaving the table. I don't remember exactly if she was feverish or pukey or what, but she was quite sickly. I ate my pudding and was soundly warned by my mother to stay away from my sister's pudding, which she promptly covered in plastic wrap and stored in the fridge, no doubt anticipating that my sister would be wanting some soft foods the following day. As soon as nobody was looking, though, I tucked in and helped myself to several spoonfuls. Of course, shortly thereafter I got sick, and I remember feeling only a little guilty for having brought the illness on myself by virtue of my gluttony. God help me, I could not stay away from that pudding. I think it was butterscotch.

As an adult, I suppose I still have a vestigial prejudice about pudding. I think the only real pudding comes in those little cardboard packages and my mom makes it for me. I'm sure those packages aren't vegan, and I can't remember the last time my mom made me pudding, but the prejudice remains. I didn't claim it was rational. Other than pudding, I did try my hand--successfully, I might add--at creme brulee before going vegan, and I've taken a few--largely unsuccessful--runs at ice cream. This is where the DB challenge comes in. I had never even thought to make panna cotta. Panna cotta is similar to creme brulee except it is traditionally coagulated with gelatin instead of eggs and/or cornstarch. Both are rich in fat. The obvious vegetarian substitution is agar, and I weighed a number of different recipes before deciding on one that used a mixture of soy creamer and soy yogurt. The result? Eh. I thought the panna cotta tasted like yogurt, and the proportions of agar to liquid were definitely off. Panna cotta is supposed to hold its shape, but be soft on the spoon. My panna cotta was like strained yogurt. If I had it to do over again, which given my above ambivalence for soft desserts I am unlikely to do, I would do something coconut based with vanilla beans and way more agar. The second aspect of the challenge was florentine cookies, which are delicious to dip into panna cotta, even an unsuccessful variety like mine. I messed these up by making the cookies too big, which didn't allow them to spread enough to be the thin and crispy sandwiches they should have been. As a happy accident, though, I had to substitute cinnamon sugar for half the sugar required by the recipe because I was out of the plain stuff. The mixture had been kicking around since I made Christmas cookies for my family. The cinnamon really kicked the flavor of these rich, oaty cookies up another level and made them something special. I'll welcome an opportunity to try these again, only thinner and crispier.