pop! pop! poppyseeds!

I make rolly buns most weekends. Why? Because I love the form of cinnamon buns, but don't much like eating a giant roll of buttery (or vegan equivalent thereof) sugar to start my day, either in terms of taste or in terms of the inevitable sugar crash an hour later. But what could be better than a bun with the spread rolled in? These are bread, not pastry. Mmmmmm... homemade bread. What could be sillier, prettier, and more decadent coming out of the oven on Saturday morning (and then re-heated, all toasty and crisp on Sunday)?

For 4 buns

Dough:
The night before, mix together
2.5 cups spelt flour
0.5 cups soy flour
tbs wheat gluten
pinch salt
a sprinkle of cardamom
1 tsp quick yeast
1 tbs lemon zest

Stir in about 3/4 cup warm water (add a bit more if you need to, but start with that)- you want a slightly wet but not sticky dough. Don't bother kneading it. Form the dough into a loose ball in the bowl and let it sit there while you prep the filling.

Filling:
also the night before, mix this all together into a paste:
1/2 -1 cups black poppy seeds, ground (I use a vitamix dry jug)
3/4 cup almond pulp (leftover from making almond milk, or just use almond meal + a few tbs of nondairy milk)
a few drops stevia or a few tbs brown sugar
1 tbs brown rice syrup (agave is too runny for this)
the rest of the zest from that lemon above. Or the zest from a whole new lemon, depending on how much you love lemony goodness. I used a whole new lemon.
optional cardaomom or cinnamon. I use cardamom.
1/2 tsp almond extract
pinch o salt

Now, roll out your dough on a generously floured surface. Spread with the filling. Roll up, place in an oiled and floured pan (or a floured silicone pan - which is what I use), cover, and leave to rise overnight in the fridge if you live somewhere warm, or on the counter if your kitchen isn't much warmer than the inside of your fridge at night. I use the counter.

The next morning, remove the buns from the fridge (or gaze at them lovingly on the counter), and preheat your oven to *damn hot* with a metal glass of water in there. When it's heated, drop the heat to 200C, pop the buns in, and let them bake for 20 mins. After 20 mins, remove, brush with soy or almond milk spiked with a little sweetness, and eat them.

Poppyseed rollybun music: Jane Birkin. Arabesque.

fun things to do with millet

Dinner of the vegan whore! Ahem. Or, more politely, putanesca-inspired millet bowl.

Toast your cumin (1 tbs) and millet (1 cup) in a dry pan and then add water (1.5 cups), sundried tomatoes (3-5, cut in strips) and turmeric (1/2 tsp). While that does it's thing, get going on the rest.

Separately, in a pan:

a goodly amount of white wine
6-8 cloves of garlic (preferably smoked garlic), chopped
1 deseeded red chili, chopped
1 tbs capers, chopped
a giant handful of kalamata olives, pitted and chopped
1 preserved lemon, chopped
a splash of the olive brine
(let all that simmer a bit)

2 small heads broccoli, chopped
1 small handful parsley, chopped

Stir in some nooch at the end if you are so inclined. I was so inclined, and it was yummy.

Would you like to know a secret? To make pitting olives faster if you're going to chop them, squish them with the flat of your knife - the pits should just come out, or at least be loose enough that you can cut the olive in half and it will just fall out.



simmer along with Yo Yo Ma, voice of the tango.

comforting rolly buns

These taste like ovaltine. Just the thing in winter.

Now, repeat after me: carob is yummy. It it not a chocolate substitute, but it is yummerific in it's own right. Just let it be carob, okay? The salt in the filling makes this taste a little like ovaltine and caramel apples. Breakfast win.

2c malthouse bread flour (or just use whole spelt). Also works great with half and half spelt and barley four.
pinch salt
1/4 cup fine polenta
1/2 cup teff flour
tbs gluten powder
2 tbs carob powder
2 small apples, grated
1 tbs quick yeast

2 tbs barley malt syrup in 1/2 cup hot water + 1/2 cup soymilk

Mix dry ingredients. Mix wet into dry, and add more flour until you have a wet, but not sticky, dough. Let rise 1hr. Dump onto a floured surface and roll out (how thick is up to you, but I roll it out to about the thickness of my fingers). drizzle about 2-3 tbs of malt syrup over it, sprinkle a tiny pinch of salt and another 1-3 tbs of carob over that, and then top everything with 2 more chopped up apples. The moisture from the malt syrup and the apples will turn the carob powder into paste, worry not. Roll up. Cut into 4 - 6 buns and place them in the pan that you will cook them in. I find it best to schmear the pan lightly with coconut oil and then sprinkle that with cornmeal so that the buns don't weld themselves to it overnight. Let rise overnight in the fridge.

In the morning: take the buns out of the fridge and preheat the oven to 225C for 30 mins, preferably with a pan of water in there. It seems to work best if you preheat the oven with the fan assist, but then turn it off just before putting the buns in. Pop the buns in the oven and bake 40-60 mins (this will depend on size of buns and if there is any space between them... I like mine to squish up against each other, so it's basically the same as baking a loaf of bread, so it takes almost an hour. If the buns are well-separated, it takes more like 40 mins). Remove from oven and brush with soymilk. Cool briefly before eating.

I wanna be a chocolate god post (large number): spiceh!

Okay, so you know how sometimes I make chocolate tea? Then I'm left with boiled nibs. Also, I make almond milk, leaving me with almond pulp. This uses up the nibs and pulp and is super yummy. And spicy. And fun. They're very, very coffee-dippable and highly addictive. Just warning you. For those of you who aren't plagued with leftovers from chocolate tea and almond milk: I can't help you. Work out your own substitutions. Or just get into chocolate tea and almond milk. Trust me, it's not a bad combo, especially if you have these cookies to dip in them.

So, I have this idea that there are three main lineages of cookies: persian, italian, and american. Persian cookies are the sweet, halvah-ish ones that are meant as rare indulgences. Italian cookies are dry and not so sweet and decidedly grown up, meant to be dipped in vin santo, or strong coffee. American cookies are child-like and moreish. If I had to vote, I'd go with italian. These cookies are what would happen if turkish coffee careened into chocolate biscotti. And frankly, I hope that such happy accidents happen more often.

1 and 1/3 cups simmered cocoa nibs, drained and ground
1 cup almond pulp (leftover from making almond milk, or just use ground almonds mixed with almond milk or water to form a paste)
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 soy flour
1 tsp baking powder (not soda!)
pinch salt
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1/2 tsp ground anise
1 tsp pul biber or similar chili
1/2 cup finely chopped coffee-infused bitter chocolate (optional, or use plain chocolate and add a tbs of instant espresso to the batter)

Combine all ingredients. Using a teaspoon and wet hands, form into balls. For extra points, roll in sugar. I do not need extra points. Place balls on a greased cookie sheet. Smoosh carefully to desired thickness. The cookies won't change shape much as they bake. Bake at 200C for 15 mins, then drop the heat to 150, and bake for another 30 mins. Let them cool for a bit on the cookie sheet, then gently lift them onto a cookie rack and cool completely. They keep for frikkin' ever, in theory. In practice, they get eaten long before that.

kitchendancing along to: C is for Cookie, sung by none other than The Cookie Monster.

persimmon rolly buns

I impulse bought many persimmons. I couldn't help it. They were perfectly ripe, and calling out to me, and really, really cheap. Soooo... persimmon rolls, anyone? On the weekends when I am home (or sometimes even when I'm at other people's houses and they don't mind me taking over the kitchen), I make rolly buns for breakfast. I have a made-up (and deeply silly) song that I sing while I make them. Every week is different (both the song and the buns), and I usually just make 'em up (both the song and the buns) as I go along. Anything, really: green tea, almond, red bean, pear, aniseed-fig, pumpkin, chestnut, date, olives and herbs, smoked tofu... nothing is safe from my rolly-bun plots and schemes. This week, it's persimmon. And because I love y'all, I actually wrote down the recipe as I went along.

I love persimmons, but I don't usually like persimmon bread. These fruits are so sweet and delicate, it seems overwhelming to add sugar to them, and then weigh them down with piles of oil. These buns are light and chewy, and the cherries make things interesting without falling into the realm of sticky-sweetness. You can easily substitute coffee for the tea, if you've only got coffee on hand. In that case, I'd recommend using cinnamon, or even a sprinkle of grated chocolate, in place of the rosewater. You could also add grated apple to the buns... just spread it on the dough along with the cherries if you want.

dry:
2 1/2 ww spelt flour
3/4 c chickpea flour (or soy flour)
1 tbs gluten powder
1 tsp ground cardamom
2 tbs assam tea leaves
1 tbs instant yeast
pinch salt

wet:
pulp from 5 very ripe persimmons (big ones)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

rolly:
rosewater
1 cup dried sour cherries (or 1/2c dried cherries and 1/2c walnut pieces)
soy or almond milk

Mix together dry ingredients. Add wet ingredient. Stir until you have a dough but don't bother kneading it. This will be a wet dough, and look more like a quickbread than a yeasted bread at this point. Cover with a clean dishcloth and leave to rise in a cool place overnight. For those of you who live in countries where it's actually warm, or have discovered the wonder of central heating and insulation, you may want to put the dough in the fridge.

The next morning, dump out your dough on a heavily floured surface. Knead briefly to incorporate enough flour that the dough holds together. This will be anywhere from 1/2 to 1.5 cups of extra flour. Roll into a rectangle. Mine was smaller than a standard rectangular cookie sheet, but just. I usually roll my dough out on a silicone baking mat, which saves me having to wash the countertop afterwards. Plus, then I know that to make 4-6 buns, I need a square of dough that just barely fits on the mat. See? Easy peasy. The important thing is that the dough should be about as thick as your thumb. Brush with rosewater and then sprinkle with cherries (the rectangle of dough, not yourself, unless you have extra rosewater and cherries). Roll up the dough so that you end up with the shorter, fatter cylinder rather than the longer, skinnier one (though you could always make tiny buns by ignoring me here). You can either make 4 ginormous buns, or 6 normal size ones, depending on where you stand on eating baked goods that are larger than your head. Personally, I find that eating anything larger than my head is a bad idea. Place rolly buns in a greased pan that you have then sprinkled with cornmeal (or flour), brush with soy or almond milk, and let sit for 30-40 minutes. During this time, preheat your oven to damn hot (250C). When the oven is hot, put a metal cup of water in there, and then your buns. Disarm the fan assist if you have one. Learn from my mistakes (and burnt rolly buns). Bake at high heat for 10 mins, then drop the heat to 180C, and bake for another 25-35 minutes (depending on the size of your buns). When you take the buns out of the oven, brush them again with milk spiked with a bit of rosewater. Let cool for a few minutes, and then gently extract them from the pan. These are a real treat if you eat them still warm, and hold up well to toasting the next day.

singing: the rolly bun song. You'll just have to make up your own when you cook them. Go on. You know you want to.

two-toned yum

Two tone yum!

A nice light dessert that screams "IT'S STILL THE HOLIDAYS DAMMIT!", and is perfect when heavy foods are just sooo last week. Plus (for those of you in the UK), I'm pretty convinced it counts for two of your five a day.

cranberry layer:
1 - 1.5 bag (4-6 cups) fresh or frozen cranberries
75 mL apple cider or redcurrant vinegar
3 whole star anise
5 whole green cardamom pods
1/3-2/3 cup agave (1/3 if you're using redcurrant vinegar, 2/3 if you're using apple cider vinegar)
1/2 tsp
splash lime juice
1/2 tsp aniseed, crushed (optional)
1/2 tsp guar or xantham gum

Put cider vinegar and whole spices in a pot and simmer until reduced by half. Add cranberries and cook until you have a glorious mush. Allow to cool. Fish out the whole spices, add the agave, lime juice, aniseed, and guar or xantham gum and then blend until creamy. Start with a little agave, taste, and then add more until it's as sweet as you want. The blood orange layer is quite sweet, so you might want to leave the cranberry layer a little tart. Push through a fine sieve if you are so inclined. I am not so inclined, especially since my vitamix pulverizes cranberry skins to nothingness anyway. Plus, life is far too short to be pushing things through fine sieves, but I'm not going to stop you if you are more of a kitchen perfectionist than me, and let's face it, the bar is low in terms of perfectionism in my kitchen. Anyway, after that harrowing decision, pour your unstrained (or strained) goo into a freezable container where your cranberry layer will fill it up halfway. Freeze. When the cranberry layer is frozen (say, the next day), do the blood orange layer:
2-3 cups blood orange sections
1/4 cup elderflower cordial
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/8 cup rosewater
1 tbs vanilla
splash lemon juice
agave to taste
1/2 tsp guar or xantham gum

Blend! Blend! Blend! Go through the whole difficult "to strain or not to strain" rigamarole again, then make peace with your decision and pour the blood orange goo on top of the frozen cranberry layer and replace in freezer until both layers are frozen. Remove from freezer about 10 minutes before you plan to eat it. Slice. If you are feeling extremely fancy, drizzle with caramel sauce, or maybe decorate with a bit of candied lemon peel, or even some mint and basil leaves. Admire briefly. Devour. Be pleased.

Two-toned music: two-toned skuds theme, on the All Skanadian Club...

I choose Yum

I remember, way back when, living with roomates in Montreal. One of them was a wonderful silly woman with a keen interest in not only food, but also Buddhism. And at some point, there was a book, maybe on temple cooking, maybe on food, maybe on life in general, but the point is that I have a vivid memory of the two of us sitting in the kitchen and her reading out loud something like this: "There are two approaches to life: yuck and yum. I choose yum." And then the two of us sat in the kitchen chanting Yum instead of Om and giggling. And then laughing. And then cooking together, and eating together and laughing some more. The key bit being together.

Lately, I haven't blogged much. A lot of that is about me not having time, dammit. But some of it is about my mixed feelings on the food blog world. You see, so much of cooking is about being social in a real-life way. And so much about blogging is about monologue, and I just don't think of cooking, or food, as a monologue. Lately, I"ve been writing less down about food, and leaving the camera in it's case, and focusing more on the people that I'm breaking bread with rather than spending solitary time in front of my computer writing about the bread itself.

We need food to live, but it's so much more than that. Food has always been a social activity. It's how we welcome people into our homes. I don't remember very many solo meals (though there are some), but I do remember sitting at the table at my parents house as a kid, and later as an adult, with friends (theirs or mine or both), and it's the memory of the people that makes the food stand out. The excitement of the holidays isn't really about the food, but about celebrating my sisters and friends being around (food is part of the celebration, but only part, and if the wild mushroom ragout in pastry that I'm planning doesn't come out perfect, I will not care, because everyone will be around the table, there will be a fire in the fireplace, and there will be much laughter and good conversation). And would you like to know my I'm-a-bad- food-blogger secret? I make chocolate bars or truffles thinking of who I'll give them to, not about the chocolate itself. And we all know how much I love chocolate. But guess what? I love time with my friends and family more. I wouldn't make chocolate bars if I were the only one eating them, and quite often, I forget to put any aside for myself. All the chocolate posts start with "I wanna be a chocolate god", but truth be told, all that chocolate isn't really about chocolate. Chocolate just happens to be a very yummy matrix in which to embed love.

Which makes me wonder if food blogs kind of miss the mark sometimes. The point of food is communion with our loved ones, or outreach to strangers, or conviviality with acquaintances and coworkers. Food, though beautiful, is not about staging a perfect picture and then sitting down to your meal alone and shouting out into the void about it. I know that bloggers have families and friends as well, but ... it seems to me that food blogs are all about the photography. Real food rarely looks like that. We all know this. So oddly enough, getting back into cooking after my autumn of travelling way too much has made me blog about it less. I just don't want to worry about lighting when I could be actually interacting with people I love. I don't want to monologue over dinner. I want to sit down and have a conversation, dammit.

So the holiday cookies at my house won't be pretty, because we're going to sit around the table cutting them out freehand all afternoon while rocking out to some sort of elvis-based music, and for some reason, we always end up making monster shapes. Everyone will make cookies, and many of us are so bad at freehand drawing that we will have to label them with icing so that other people know what they are (nobody ever recognizes my godzillas!). Furthermore, it will be dark outside, because this is Edinburgh in winter, and we will have a roaring fire in the fireplace, so the lighting will suck for photos but be just about perfect for cozy cookie-making. So, if I remember to snap a few photos, they will be bad, because I choose yum.