Chocolate Bread

For some reason I just had to have chocolate bread tonight, despite it being 9:15 and close to my general bed time. I scoured the internet- surely there is a quick and easy recipe? Finally, in the depths of vegweb.com I found Cocoa Applesauce Bread. I wasn't sure I had enough flour or sugar, then I double checked and I was good to go. Until I got almost through and realized I only had, maybe 1/4 cup applesauce. Ooops. I made several changes to the recipe, partly to cover for my lack of applesauce and partly because, well, that's what I do.

Chocolate Bread

1 2/3 cup flour (can use 50-50 whole wheat)
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/3 cup cocoa
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup applesauce
1/4 cup canola oil
2 TB flax in 6TB water

Mix all of the dry ingredients together. Add wet, being careful not to overmix. Bake in loaf pan on 350 for 50 minutes. Let cool.

Well, all my substitutions/changes could not exactly save this bread. It didn't really rise so it came out log shaped. But the taste is delicious- it's not cakey or overly sweet (probably because I cut the sugar in half), but it's definitely chocolatey.

I'll try it again when I have all of the ingredients.

Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Pretzels (Dog and Human Treats)

Today my lovely Tara turns 8! In celebration I wanted to make some dog-friendly and people-friendly treats. Pretzels seemed like the right way to go. I did my googling, but didn't use vegan since I thought it might be easier to veganize it myself. But, the first entry for "peanut butter prezel" was this vegan recipe. I had all of the ingredients and it seemed easy enough.

These are the ingredients I ended up using:

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
2/3 cup soy milk
3 tablespoons natural creamy peanut butter
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon vegan sugar
1 teaspoon salt

I mixed it all together, split into 2 balls, and then pinched off little bits and rolled into long chains with my hands. Since Tara is 8, I twisted them into figure 8's. They cooked 20ish minutes on 400 degrees and I took them out when they started to get brown.

I was a little worried initially about the consistency- would they be super soft? hard? Well, they came out sort of both. I may have overcooked them, which made them a little crunchy, perfect for dogbart and alright for humans. Then I nuked .5cup vegan chocolate chips for about a minute and dipped some of the pretzels into it. I put them on wax paper and placed them in the fridge to cool, about 30 minutes. These are clearly for humans only.

To make them better for dogs, you just leave them in the oven for several hours once you turn it off. They get nice and crunchy (too hard for humans), perfect for doggies. I would have taken a photo, but the camera batteries died the other day while I was taking a movie of Tara stalking a housefly.

Overall, as human treats the pretzels were not amazing. They seemed a little bland, although I could see them being good as more savory treats (herbs and cheeze, maybe). I might experiment with them again, but they're definitely not going to be used for impressing anyone.

Indian Night In

Around 5pm I decided that all I wanted for dinner was beer bread and hummus. I had ingredients to wing a hummus but not enough flour to make the bread. I could a. walk across the street to the corner grocery and get some flour or b. fork over a little more cash for the real stuff at Lebanese Taverna conveniently next door to the grocery. It took me 15 minutes to come to the conclusion that I didn't want to leave the apartment at all, my kitchen was actually fully stocked, and I probably need to have a little more caloric discression after a week of binge eating. After a conversation with someone this afternoon about being fiscally responsible, I decided to use what I had in the kitchen.

I opened the fridge and was completely uninspired. Kale. Tomatoes. Butternut Squash. Mushrooms. Yuck. I couldn't come up with anything remotely interesting and could only see each ingredient in a silo when, out of nowhere, I had a flash of inspiration. I opted to make a kale/chickpea concotion and did a little Googling for some assistance. Apparently I wanted to make something similar to Balti. Evidently my strange concotion has probably been made many a time by many a generation. Does that make me brilliant for discovering something on my own that had already been discovered? Yes.

My yearning for whole wheat bread something was consuming me, so I rememered that I could make Roti. Jennilicous and I were just talking about roti as we shared her first Indian feast in which we both tried to see how much we could shove into our bodies before our stomachs would explode. And then we added a little more.

So it nicely came together for me. I mixed a cup of whole wheat flour with some water (maybe 2/3 cup? I started with .25 cup and added more until it was firm/stiff). Once I made it into a dough ball, I added in some chopped garlic and let it rest for 10 or 15 minutes with a moist cloth atop. It must be amazing if it has to freaking rest.

Meanwhile I sauteed a large red onion in some olive oil (1TBish) until transparent, then I added some garlic for a minute or two. I cut up 7 plum tomatoes, which are my favorites, and added them in along with some of the liquid from a can of chickpeas. I threw in some salt, curry powder, the chickpeas (sans liquid), and a gigantic 16oz bag of fresh kale and cooked until the kale was done. My brother inspired me to buy the kale since he mentioned it several times while I visited him last week. Good job, bro!

While that was going I made 3 little balls out of the dough and flattened them out into little circles that were not thick but not really thin. I am a chump and can't succecssfully use a rolling pin, so I used the palm of my hands. And it worked like a charm. I put the last remaining drops of garlic olive oil into a frying pan and put it on medium. Then I realized that this was pretty stupid because olive oil has a low smoke point and I really needed the temp on high. Oh well. I turned the heat up a little more but not all the way and cooked both sides of the roti until they were brown. It's much more fun to make them when you have a gas stove because the next step is to put the roti on the open flame for a few seconds per side. But, considering my history with heat sources, it's probably better that my kitchen is lame.

The kale mixture made 3 large servings- more than I expected, which was a nice surprise. I can't wait to try it reheated when the curry has had time to mingle more with the other ingredients. And the roti were the perfect accompaniment. The garlic chunks inside it were super amazing. I'm now delightfully full and overpoweringly odorous.

Christmas Recap

Since my grandmother is still recovering from her April cancer diagnosis and subsequent treatment, I spent Christmas in Georgia with her and my parents. To ease my mom's constant burden of being her caregiver, I thought I'd cook dinner. Little did I realize, however, that I'd have no access to internet or cell phone because I was back in 1955 rural Georgia. Let's just say my improvisational skills were really tested.

I settled on:
Stuffed acorn squash- I cooked barley and lentils in some veggie broth and added some cranberries, cilantro, and hot Mexican-style chili powder, then stuffed it into the squash. The colors were delightful and very Christmas-like
Pecan stuffing- I made stuffing with a little extra margarine for flavor and some pecans since my grandmother has a pecan orchard and they were fresh off the trees
Sweet potatoes- I added roasted garlic, chives, and margarine to some boiled (w/skins) sweet ptoatoes
Sauteed spinach with caramalized onions
Beer bread

I also wanted to make some gingerbread cookies, but alas, no blog access for the recipe, and I didn't want to buy molasses because I knew no one else would ever use it and it would just get tossed. So I searched my computer and found this recipe for Chocolate Chip Walnut Pumpkin Cookies that I luckily had saved. I omitted the eggs, forgot the baking soda, subbed unsweetened apple sauce for the oil, used pecans instead of walnuts, and added a cup of cranberries. I think it had too much chocolate (blasphemy!) and I'd probably leave it out altogether if I was going to make it again.

I ate these damn things left and right as if I was going to die if my stomach wasn't completely full with cookies. Every 10 minutes I'd scarf down 2 more to the point where I wanted to vomit. Yet I kept eating...

I've Been Waiting All Day to Make This Pizza

Because I haven't been feeling well (jetlag from my ridiculous LA overnighter), I decided to cheer myself up with food. I need to overdose on veggies since I am not feeling well, and I wanted to sneak in a little protein that is not peanut butter. What's better than pizza?

I used my onion-herbed beer bread recipe (3c flour, onion, herbs, 1 bottle beer) as the basis for crust. I flattened it out into 4 mini-crusts on a greased cookie sheet. I put it in a 375 degree oven for a few minutes while I assembled the sauce, which is strangely similar to my creamy tomato soup- 3 regular tomatos, 2TB tomato paste, 1 package of firm silken tofu, 4 cloves garlic, and salt/pepper- using my handy dandy immersion blender. I slapped the sauce on the pizza and put it back in while I made the other toppings- spinach (2pkg frozen), mushrooms (10 white), and thinly sliced red onion (.25c). I added those to the pizza and put it back in while I chopped up 2 roma tomatoes and 10 black olives. Last time out, I added the tomato slices, olives, and capers (the greatest ingredient ever). I let it cook a few more minutes then turned the broiler on for a few more so the tomatoes would roast a little.

I had to write the blog while it cooled, otherwise I'd have burned my mouth. It's pretty good- though the sauce could have been stronger (more salt/tomato paste maybe?. And I used frozen spinach, which made the crust a little soggy in the middle because I didn't strain it very well.

Still hit the spot.

Herbed Onion Beer Bread

I realized that I spend entirely too much time inside cooking. But that's ok.

For dinner I made one of my favorites- roasted Brussels sprouts (add some olive oil and put in a 375-400 degree oven until brown and toasty and sprinkled with the last remaining morsels of salt I could find in my kitchen). I also decided to use up that one bottle of Anchor Porter that's been in my fridge for...about 5 months now. What a better way than making beer bread?

I added 2 cups whole wheat flour, 1 cup white flour, lots of Italian dried spices (basil, oregano, marjoram, thyme, and rosemary), 1/3 large onion chopped/minced, a touch of sugar, and a touch of baking powder. I put it in the bread pan and baked on 375 for about 50 or 55 minutes. When I first took it out of the oven after 45 minutes, I got scared it wasn't done in the middle since I made that mistake once, so I let it go a little bit longer.

After waiting an agonizing 10 mintues for it to cool on the rack, I cut it into thirds. One third is about 450 calories, and since I did a lot of hiking today with the dog, I felt it was worth it. I topped 2 slices with some Earth Balance Soy Butter and dipped the other two in olive oil, only because I was watching something on food on TV today and they mentioned that you eat less if you eat bread with olive oil than with butter. And olive oil is amazing.

The last time I made this bread, I forgot the herbs, salt, sugar, and onion. Oops. But I ate it anyway. This time, I forgot to add some salt, partly because I have none. This time it came out much better. I wish I'd added more onions, but it's probably sufficient for more people. I also could use more herbs, but again, it's probably about right for most. There is a fantastic crust on the top and bottom of the bread. It's really easy to make and quite tasty.

Now I just need to put it away before I eat the entire loaf...