very Scottish rolly buns

...because they have oatmeal and brambles. Blackberries for those of you not lucky enough to live here.

Step one: Get on your bike. Remember to pack a tupperware container or three in your bag.
Step two: Bike to a bramble patch and pick as many brambles as you can. Remember that the brambles taste better if you have to climb over a fence to get them.
Step three: return home happy and triumphant with purple hands
Step four: make these rolly buns


Dough dry ingredients:
1:1:1 (approx) mix of oat flour, whole wheat flour and chickpea flour
pinch salt
sprinkle of brown sugar
(generous) dash cardamom
(stingy) half dash of cinnamon
a goodly amount of quick yeast

Dough wet ingredients:
okara
warm water
drops of almond essence
dribble maple syrup

Roll out the dough and then spread a mix of brambles and peaches tossed in arrowroot over it. The peaches are optional. I bought some dud peaches that were too cottony to eat, but just fine to cook with. Using them up like this (and as baked peaches stuffed with brambles and candied ginger) helped numb the pain of having substandard peaches mocking me from the fruit bowl. Now, back to the buns: Roll it up! Cut into buns! Let rise overnight. Bake the next morning and have the Best Fall Breakfast Ever.

I really didn't measure anything for these, so consider recreating the buns in this post to be an invitation to break free from the tyranny of the measuring cups!

blueberry almond rolly buns

It is cold and windy and raining and thoroughly demoralizing out there. So I present you with comforting yet quasi-springlike rolly buns for Sunday morning breakfast, hot out of the oven.

I'm beginning to love xgfx baking. You see, there are soooo many flavours and textures of flour out there to explore. It's wonderful fun, and I'm stunned that I didn't start in on it sooner. Even if/when I return to using wheat and other glutin-y flours, I'll certainly be bringing more different flours in on a regular basis. I made two *giant* buns today instead of the normal four smallish ones, because we were very very hungry.

the latest:

equal parts
3/4c millet flour
1/2c brown rice flour
1/2c arrowroot flour
1/4c soy flour
1/4c carob powder mix

1 tsp xantham gum
1 heaping tbs flax meal
pinch salt
pinch nutmeg
quick yeast

enough warm water to make dough with 2 tbs dark agave and 1 tsp vanilla extract dissolved in it (start with a cup - you can always add more)

The method is now like making cinnamon buns. Just roll the dough out gently on a well-millet-floured surface into a rectangle, and then and cover the rectangle with a layer of filling, and then 1/2 cup of dried blueberries, then roll the whole thing up and slice it into either two ginormous or four reasonably small buns. Put those in either an oiled and floured pan, or a silicone baking pan (I use a silicone pan).

Filling:
1 heaping c. almond pulp leftover from making almond milk
1 tsp agave
pinch nutmeg
pinch salt
1/2 tsp almond extract

Let rise overnight in a cool place, like my kitchen, or the fridge in a normal-temperature kitchen. The next morning, heat oven up to 250C with a metal pan of water in it. Turn the heat down to 200C (but don't wait for it to cool), and put the buns in. Bake for 40 mins (if you've made two giant buns), or 25-30mins (if you made 4 smallish buns).

practice pancakes

Confession: I got so excited about Pancake Day, that I accidentally scheduled it a week early. Luckily, there is nothing wrong with having a "practice run" of pancake day. Phew! These are weekday-dinner pancakes, meaning that you throw the batter together in the morning, and then leave it in your fridge all day and come home to deliciousness! I top them with caramelized red onions, apples (added to the onions so that they're cooked, but not mushy), fresh thyme and crumbled smoked tofu. They also work reheated and drizzled with maple syrup for breakfast the next morning. Yum. These are gluten-free, if you're into such things. I'm doing a bit of an experiment to see if xgfx is for me. I secretly hope it's not, but ... I'm trying to keep an open mind, which will be easy if I just eat these pancakes a lot. They're some of the best I've made so far! I looooove 'em, and even if I end up giving gluten the thumbs up, I think I'll stick with this as my new dinner pancake recipe.

Dinner pancakes

1 c buckwheat flour
1/2 c fine polenta
1/2 c brown rice flour
1/2 c full-fat soy flour
3/4 tsp xanthan gum
pinch salt
dash nutmeg
1 tsp quick yeast
1 tsp baking powder
2 tbs ground flax seeds in 2 c water (let sit for 10 mins)

Mix all dry ingredients. Stir in water/flax. Adjust consistency. Place in fridge (or on counter if your kitchen is cool) for the day. At night, pancakify! I find that it helps to cook these on slightly lower heat and for a bit longer than eggy pancakes (from what I remember... it's been over a decade since I confronted an eggy pancake), and cover the pan while they cook. Use either a well-seasoned cast iron skillet, or a nonstick pan. If gluten isn't a problem, sub beer for the water. As soon as I locate a gluten-free beer, that's certainly my plan!


dancing to: ladies and gentlemen, pop goes the world, by men with out hats!

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.

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.

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.

scavenged pumpkin buns

I really hate it when people waste food. This week at work, there were three perfectly good uncarved pumpkins that were going to get thrown out after being used as decoration for a Halloween party. This made me angry. What sort of people are we that we use food as disposable decorations? So I took one of the pumpkins home and made these buns, and also some pumpkin ravioli. Note that this is the kind of pumkin that you usually carve up for jack o lanterns, so it's not very sweet or tasty. I also used an apple from a big batch of them that I picked a few weeks ago that was well past it's prime, and wasn't very sweet. If you use a sugar pumpkin for these, cut down the sugar and spices. These are rather heavily spiced because the pumpkin mainly provides moisture and a bit of a pumpkiny taste, but there's no point trying to let an anemic pumpkin "shine through". You'd need a sweet winter squash or sugar pumpkin for that. If you don't use quick yeast, proof yours in some water and sugar beforehand and omit the hot water from the pumkin/apple mixture.

These aren't cinnamon buns in the cakey sense. I like to eat them for breakfast, where I don't want a sugar rush, or to feel weighed down afterwards. These are more of a bread, and would even go nicely with soup, especially one with north african spices. Mmmmmmm..... maybe I'll try that for dinner.

dry mix:
2 cups ww spelt flour
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cardamom
1 tsp nutmeg
dash black pepper
pinch salt
1 tbs quick yeast

blend together:
1/2 rescued (medium size) pumpkin, cut into slices and roasted until it begins to caramelize
1 apple, picked from an abandoned tree
2 tbs of okara or soy yogurt or ground almonds or almond butter. Pick one.
You should end up with a scant 1.5 cups of puree altogether. Reduce the water if you have more, or if your puree is very wet. Mine was the consistancey of very thick apple sauce.

mix into pumkin/apple
1/2 cup very hot water.

Add wet ingredients to dry, mix with a spoon, and then liberally dust a counter with either a cup more spelt flour or a cup of some other random flour (I used rice flour). I also liberally dusted myself with flour, but that's optional. Knead until the dough comes together, adding more flour if you need to.

For the filling (basically a sweet lemony creamy thing):
1 batch okara or 1 cup ground almonds
agave nectar to taste
generous squeeze lemon juice
1 tbs sweet white miso

Roll out dough into a square. Spread with filling. Sprinkle with raisins. Roll up and cut into 6-8 buns and place them in a pan that is lined with paper that you have sprinkled with cornmeal. Let rise overnight in a cool place, or for an hour in a warm place. Preheat oven to damn hot (250C) with a pan of water in it. Bake at 250C for 10 mins, drop temp to about 200, and bake another 5 mins. Take out and brush with a mix of soy milk, agave and cinnamon. Bake for another 5 mins. Take out and brush again. Let cool for about 20 mins. Eat!

Warm and comforting music: Nighbook.

rosey datey breakfasty buns

Yup. The title pretty much explains it. These are sweeter than bread, but not as sweet as cinnamon buns or cake. This recipe serves 2 hungry people, or 4 not-so-hungry people, or could conceivably make 6 itsy-bitsy snack-size buns for a lovely afternoon tea, if you're into such things.

1c whole wheat flour
1/2 c. soy flour (I bet chickpea flour would also work, but I'm not promising anything)
1/2 tsp vanilla salt (a bottle of sea salt in which you have cleverly placed a ground up vanilla bean several weeks ago)
2 tbs maple sugar
1 tbs quick yeast

Mix all this together, then mix up your wet ingredients

about 3/4 c. warm water
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract

Pour wet ingredients into dry and mix. Adjust water/flour ratio. Knead for about 5 mins. Roll out into a rectangle, and brush with rosewater, then sprinkle with about 1/2 tsp cinnamon and 1 tsp cardamom. Sprinkle with 1/2 c. chopped dates and 1/3 c. pistachios. Roll up as you wish, either making 2 really fat rolled buns or 4-6 smaller buns. Cut into buns. I made 2 giant ones, and the reason for wanting a giant bun will be clear shortly. Sprinkle your baking pan with cornmeal, and place the buns in it. Allow the buns to rise for about an hour (I went for a run in the foggy Sunday morning and Sweetums puttered around the house).

Heat up your oven to *damn hot*. Mine goes to 250C, so that's what I used. Brush buns with soy milk spiked with a little rosewater. For the love of sweet Jeebus, if you have a fan assist, turn it off at this point! Bake for 10 mins, checking that they don't burn. Brush again with soy milk, and drop the heat to 200C. Bake for another 10-15 mins. Remove from oven. Brush again. Decrease baking times by about for smaller buns. Serve with fresh fruit and bitter chocolate dipping sauce (good quality unsweetened cocoa dissolved in the leftover soy milk/rosewater that you were brushing the buns with).

Buckwheat-pear pancakes

These are substantial without being heavy, and are actually...dare I say it... fluffy. A perfect post-run brunch on a Sunday. This makes 9 small (ie, one hungry-person brunch size serving = 3 pancakes + fruit salad) or 3 huge, plate-sized (1 pancake = 1 serving) pancakes. I don't see the point in eating medium-size pancakes, but I won't stop you if that's your thing. I suspect it'd make about 6 of those.


-1.5 c buckwheat flour
-1/2 c ww spelt or wheat flour
-1/2 c muesli base (ie, rolled oats, rolled rye, flaked rice...whatever, so long as it's not "puffed" anything... just use plain rolled oats if that's what you have)
-1/2 cup soy flour (if you dont' have this, sub in more of the buckwheat or wheat, and use soy milk instead of water in the wet ingredients, but the soy flour + water works much, much much better)
-1/2 tsp guar or xanthan gum
-1/2 tsp salt
-1 tsp sugar
-1 tsp cardamom
-1 tbs baking power.

Mix dry ingredients. Add enough water to form a thick batter (2-3 cups, depending on your flours, your muesli base, etc.). Now, go take a shower and let the batter sit for about 15 mins.

Stir in
1 decent sized handfull chopped walnuts (uh... 1/3-1/2 cup)
2 smallish chopped pears (this is a perfect way to use bruised, overripe, or just plain sub-par pears)

Heat up a nonstick pan or griddle. I find the pancakes work best if you heat up the pan, then drop the heat to medium-low (I have a gas stove, which lets you change temp quickly), spray the pan with oil (these taste best if you use olive oil) and then cook them covered. To know when pancakes are ready to flip, look at them, when the top looks bubbly, they're ready to flip. Try to flip them only once, and don't fiddle with them while they're cooking, dammit. For those of you with non-vegan pancake experience, vegan pancakes (at least mine) cook a bit longer than omni pancakes, and on slightly lower heat, and do best if they're cooked covered. I've spent years figuring this out. Have fun reaping the rewards of my pancake experiments. Keep the cooked pancakes on a plate in a warm oven while you do the next batch. Cold pancakes, while wonderful as leftovers, are a bit of a disappointment in non-leftovers.

Serve with cinnamon coffee, fruit salad and maple syrup or apple/pear sauce or soy yogurt...surely you can make your own decision here.

spicy coffee cake

Before going to bed on Friday night, I usually set up some bread dough, usually green tea twirly buns of some sort. That way, I can have warm bread for breakfast on Saturday. Then, one Friday, tragedy struck when I found myself without matcha (which takes some planning to come by in Scotland). I did, however, have a whack of bananas that were past their prime. This bread has quite a kick and tastes like strong, sweet coffee with ginger and cardamom, like they serve in one of the lovely Sudanese restos in town. This is a very dense loaf, and the texture is somewhere between yeast bread and quick bread. Despite the sugar and bananas, this bread isn't sweet. That last sentence will make sense once you look at the list of spices. If you want sweet bread, add about 1/2c sugar and scale back the ginger and mustard (but don't leave out the mustard entirely until you've tried it, trust me). I don't want sweet bread. I want spicy bread. It is spectacular with orange marmalade. And it's better the second day, after all the spices settle in.

3 bananas, mashed
1/2 cup soy yogurt or 1/3 c. okara diluted with enough water to make 1/2 cup goo.
1/3 cup molasses
1/3 cup agave (or sugar)
3-4 tbs orange flower water
1/3 cup cocoa nibs
2 heaping tbs ground ginger
1 tsp ground dry mustard
2 tsp cardamom
1/2 tsp cinnamon
pinch cloves
2 tbs - 1/4 cup espresso powder (I just use normal espresso, not instant. the grind if fine enough that it doesn't make the bread grainy)
1/2 tsp salt (I used vanilla salt)

about 2.5 cups strong whole wheat flour (bread flour, not pastry)
1 package yeast (2 tbs)
+ about 1.5 cups more to knead in ( I used ww spelt)

Mash first group of ingredients together. Mix yeast with the 2.5 c flour (I used quick yeast, which you add directly to flour, otherwise, go through the appropriate rigamarole of proofing your yeast in some warm water + sugar, and just add a bit of extra flour). Mix yeast flour into mash. Knead in the rest of the flour. continue kneading and adding flour until dough is as wet as possible without still being sticky. Form into a round loaf and place in a bread or cake pan that you've sprinkled with cornmeal. Spray the top of the loaf with olive oil. All of the spices are going to just about (but not quite) kill the yeast, and the bread rises slowly so this does best if you let it rise overnight on the counter (my kitchen is fairly cool). You don't have to cover the bread. It's very moist, and the oil will keep it from drying out. Then again, I live in a very undry country, so this might not be true if you live in, say, Arizona. Use your judgement.

In the morning, heat your oven to 250C. Bake uncovered at 250 for 10 mins, then cover, drop the heat to 220, and bake for a further 15-20 mins. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Eat!

am vegan, will travel, part 2

I've posted before about traveling while vegan, and a friend suggested I actually show my little red travel bag. Here is it, packed, with a paperback thrown in for scale (actually, the paperback is just as important as the food). This bag is for a week-long working trip in Germany. See how little space it takes up? During the trip, I'll be able to hit a grocery store at the beginning, where I will buy a big bag of carrots, a big bag of apples, and a whack of dried dates or figs, which I will keep at work. Then it's cafeteria food for lunches (no restos nearby where I work, and it's a small harbour town on the north shore of Germany) and I'll be staying with a colleague, who is always awesome about making sure I have vegan eats for breakfast and dinner, and who always has a decent supply of fresh fruit and veg hanging around. So, this bag assumes that I'm going to be able to get bread and fruit for breakfast, and have access to a salad bar at lunch (but that's it.. there are no vegan options on the menu at that cafeteria. sometimes that means there's only lettuce and bread at the lunch for me. sometimes I can make an awesome salad with chickpeas, piles of veg and even some seaweed. depends on the day). And ... I know that I'll get dinner at the end of the day. So this is an "emergency lunch" bag, designed to deal with the dreaded all-iceberg lettuce lunch in the middle of an 18 hour workday. I don't know about you, but I can't work on no energy. I get cranky. And stupid. So this little red bag saves me.

The bag has 6x instant miso soups (I almost always have one with my lunch when i'm living on salad bar lunches and it's cold outside), some small packs of roasted seasoned nori, bag of apricot kernals, bag of soya nuts, bag of roasted dried chickpeas (all of these make lettuce into a good instant meal), bag of rice crackers (who can resist?), 2 lara bars (useful if you have to totally replace a meal at some point), 2 red bean paste candies, some licorice, a really frikin' good bar of chocolate, bag of goji berries and raw cacao beans, a few teabags, candied ginger. I'll probably also pick up some tofu jerky and maybe some soymilk at the grocery store there when I have a chance. I used to also travel with chocolate covered coffee beans, but no scientific institution is ever short on coffee. ever. I'm always caffeinated to within an inch of my life on these trips.

Things I know I'll be able to get there (like in vending machines or at the small convenience store near the research institute) so I don't bother carrying them, but I would if I were going somewhere more remote: nuts, vege yeast pate to put on bread (sometimes I love the german obsession with yeast spreads!), coffee, endless awesomely good german bread, beer (yays!), more chocolate.

That might look obsessive, but I like to be able to concentrate on my work when I'm working, not to worry about if I'm going to be hungry (and therefore cranky and not at my best in terms of concentration) if we have to work late and order pizza, which may or may not arrive without the cheese, no matter how nicely we ask (this is where the lara bars come in handy). Also, it takes the pressure off my hosts if they know that I have some "vegan food" with me. Some of it is also stuff to share (the chocolate, the rice crackers). I also bring a small thermos with me so that I can make my own coffee with soy milk before getting on long train rides, or don't have to use disposable cups. It's also nice for making soup.

Of course, the most important thing in this whole post is the book. There's nothing worse than being on a plane and having nothting to read. That and the nice chocolates and the duty free whiskey one picks up for one's hosts.

And I know I've said this before, but the best way to get people to accomodate you is to a) be gracious and b) be specific. ALWAYS thank people for setting up vegan food for you, even if you're eating pb sandwiches and pickles every day. If you whine about it, you're a loser, and a bad guest, and frankly, an ungrateful spoiled brat. And ALWAYS give people specific examples of easy-to-find things you can eat, rather than only focusing solely on what you don't eat. Do say what you don't eat, but make sure to provide positive information as well. Most omnivores seem to think that "vegan food" is a special subcategory of edibles that they can only find at great expense in specialized stores, which can make providing "vegan food" very stressful for your hosts, when really, it doesn't have to be a big deal at all. For example, it's a good idea to point out that dried pasta, all fresh fruit and veg, and peanut butter are vegan. So is pitta bread and canned beans. Point this out specifically. Name the foods. Don't make people hunt down hard-to-find ingredients ("gee, I really like sea vegetable tempeh and konnyaku with vegan worcestershire sauce and just a touch of fresh grated horseradish, do you think you could drive 50kms to find it for me?"), but do give them a specific list of easy-to-find, inexpensive stuff that you will happily eat ("If it's no trouble, could you pick up some apples, bananas, carrots, peanut butter and pitta bread for me? If you don't have time, can we swing by a grocery store together when I arrive?"), and make sure to thank them if they do it. Now is *not* the time to be picky about the variety of the apples or the shape of the pasta, okay? Be a good guest, make it easy, and remember, it's often not about the food. Trips like this are about seeing people, or getting work done. Keep things in perspective, and enjoy the pb&j and black coffee. Most importantly, enjoy the people.

Also, randomly: Plumbuns! Spicy cornbread filled with plums and some sort of cream cheezy concoction. I'm still working on this one, but will put a recipe up when it gets perfected.

red bean swirly buns

Life has been stressful lately. Bordering on insane, really. Consequently, I've been making food that's relatively easy in that it doesn't take much time, but that's really colourful and pretty and comforting. And what could be more comforting than warm homemade bread?

These don't take long to make. Only a few minutes to put them together the night before, assuming you have some red bean paste lying around (which we all should have, really), and the next morning they only take about 20 mins to bake. Mmmmmmmm.

Green tea red bean swirly buns. Apparently I just can't get enough of the Suessian-looking breads lately. A special but not sicky-sweet weekend breakfast. Bread part: whole wheat flour, a little bit of sugar (maybe a tbs for these 6 ginormous buns), yeast, salt, matcha, okara mixed with some water and almond extract. Mix, knead, roll into a giant rectangle. Cover with red bean paste (you can see this in the first picture), which is just aduki beans mashed with sugar and a smidge of salt... I like this not too sweet, so I make my own, but you can buy it ready-made if you want. Roll up like cinnamon buns and let rise overnight (second picture). The next morning, bake 5 mins at 220C, then 15 min at 180C, take 'em out of the oven, top with almond icing (soy or almond milk, icing sugar, almond extract) and devour (third picture, where you can see that I accidentally started devouring before remembering to take a photo).

Note: these aren't cake, or even remotely cinnamon bun like in texture. They're not very sweet (unless you drown them in icing), but they are very filling. They're dense and quite moist and yummy, and (without the icing) would go perfectly well with soup or a salad (I might have had one with miso soup for dinner later in the weekend). In fact, I suspect that these buns are what would happen if german-japanese baking ever happens.

A quick note on my obsessive use of okara in baked goods: I use it because I have it lying around. You can pretty much always sub in soy yogurt, or blended tofu. Or, if you want, soured soy milk (add lemon juice to soy milk until it curdles). You can also use ground almonds in water to make a yogurt-consistency paste, if you're so inclined.Note that these will make your baking slightly denser than the okara will, so you may want to step up the sugar (yeast food) and yeast. In this recipe, I have an okara-free version of the dough here, which just uses soy milk, and which makes a less cakey bread.

A quick note on the quick note: A good trick to make vegan baked goods rise more is to add a bit of baking soda (like half a tsp) to the dry ingredients, and then 2tbs of vinegar to the wet. Don't use this trick with yeasted breads, only with stuff you're putting in the oven soon after you mix wet and dry ingredients

Eat your leftovers.

I hope all the americans out there had a lovely thanksgiving. I'm not american, and I didn't celebrate american thanksgiving, but I do have a lot of fancy dinner parties. I kinda got to thinking about big fancy dinners, and wanted to remind you that almost half of our edible food ends up in the garbage. Please use your leftovers, okay? Being wasteful isn't a sign of celebration, it's a sign of stupidity and entitlement, neither of which is worth celebrating.

Now, on to the food:

The best part about weekends is having time to do stuff like this for breakfast.

Green tea and chestnut swirls: Green tea bread dough (spelt flour, matcha, sugar, salt, yeast, soy milk, little tiny bit of almond extract) with chestnut filling (okara, chestnut flour, maple syrup). I make the buns the night before and let them rise overnight. My kitchen is cold, so I just leave them on the counter, but if you live somewhere warm, or keep your heat on at night (and dammit, you'd better have a good reason for that one), you could let them rise in the fridge. This is a picture of the night before. I fogot to take a photo the next morning. The next morning, I bake them and have hot buns for breakfast. Served with icing (icing sugar, soy milk, almond extract). I like these because it looks like Dr.Suess made my breakfast.

For the leftovers, make bread pudding: cut up the stale bread or buns in chunks and soak overnight in just enough soymilk to cover them, with a tbs or two of flax seeds and some sugar (if you want it). The next morning, add almonds if you want 'em, dump the whole goopy mess into a greased cake pan and bake it up for breakfast. It will take about half an hour at 180C, which is just enough time to have a cup of coffee and/or make out with your weekend guest (brush your teeth first if you go for the second option). Once the pudding is done, sprinkle with matcha and/or sugar. You can do this with any stale bread, and it's especially good with these or old cinnamon buns/raisin bread. You can add chopped up pears and walnuts and a bit of cardamom (to plain white or whole wheat bread), chopped up apples (to cinnamon buns) or slices of bananas (to anything, as far as I'm concerned, but it's strikingly good with any kind of nutty bread), or if you're feeling really decadent, you can add chocolate chips to the puddings before baking them. Go crazy. There are no rules!

cold nights, warm soup

We spent day outside in the uncharacteristically sunny (but very cold) weather...until the sun set around 4. Then we came home and had this warming mushroom soup. I had some black eyed beans soaking, so I put them on to boil with two finely chopped onions and some bay leaves. When they were just about ready, I threw in a few cloves chopped garlic, some marmite, some white wine, sage and thyme and a whack of dried wild mushrooms, along with a bunch of leftover cooked brown rice. Then, just before serving it, I added a dash of tamari and a few drops of truffle oil. That's it. We ate it with salad (mustard greens, cabbage, fennel, pear in maple syrup/mustard/wine vinegar and pepper). This is really easy. You can use pretty much any combo of white bean and cooked grain you have lying around (wheat berries or barley are yum too). The only thing that you really *need* are dried mushrooms, or if you're lucky, a whole lot of fresh wild mushrooms. You don't actually need truffle oil, but if you're lucky enough to have some, use it for crying out loud. There is a special place in culinary hell for those who let truffle oil go rancid because they're continually "saving it for something special". What the hell are you waiting for? Oh, and go easy on the marmite/tamari, you don't want it to ovewhelm the other tastes...you can always add more at the end of cooking, along with some black pepper if your mushrooms aren't *ahem* very good. If you have some fresh parsely lying around, I'd strongly suggest stiring a good handful of chopped parsley in at the end, but I didn't have any and it was just delish anyways, thank you very much.

warm, comforting music: jazz lounge

Also, from a few days ago when I was far too stressed to post (or make anything requiring more than about 10 minutes of cooking), a superquick dinner. You see, I have a pumpkin problem. I love pumpkin. LOVE IT. And I accidentally bought one that was too big. I couldn't stop myself. It was just so... orange. So I baked it up (along with a few potatoes and some onions, cuz it never hurts to have those around) on the weekend and put in in the fridge and ate pumpkin stuff all week, which turned out to be a great thing, since I hardly had time to eat this week, let alone cook, I was so damn busy. This is from the last day of pumpkin. This is buckwheat crepes (buckwheat flour, ground flaxseeds, soured soy milk, water, salt) filled with mashed pumpkin, baked onion, nutmeg, pepper and nooch. Side of greens with *lots* of garlic and lemon.

music: guten tag. wir sind helden.

Pease porridge hot...

Comfort food at it's finest, as people have known for..oh... 5 or 600 years, at least.

Boil split peas, onions, basil, thyme, cinnamon, a smidge of dried ginger, some cloves, and a bay leaf in Rauchbier (smoked beer...which is an excellent way to sub that smoky richness that french canadian pea soup has. I find liquid smoke just doesn't measure up for this one. It's just too... thin... for lack of a better word). Salt. Nothing could be easier. Eat with irish soda bread (whole wheat spelt flour and oat flour at about a 3:1 ratio, baking soda, salt, soured soy milk...ie, soy milk with vinegar). We also had some baked cauliflour with this, both the flower and the big leaves. Just pop it in the oven with a little olive oil and salt while the bread bakes.

dance warmly to something much more modern: musique pour 3 femmes enceintes

Pancrepe scramble

You know, it all started off with one substitution too many. I decided to make crepes. I didn't have enough wheat flour, so I used rice flour. There may have also been some creativity with soy and coconut milk. It should have worked. I mean, I've made rice flour crepes before, but this time it didn't. They just lost structural integrity. Then I thought...these look....scrambled. It is one of the better kitchen rescues that I've done. I may never make unscrambled pancakes or crepes again. You see, if you accept that the purpose of pancakes is to be coated in stuff (maple syrup, usually), then it becomes obvious that scrambling them a) increases the surface to volume ratio of the pancake bits, allowing more stuff to adhere to each bit and b) introduces more nooks and crannies where sauce can get into the pancake, or bits of fruit can hold on to it. The word "velcro" springs to mind. Also, it's wonderfully satisfyingly messy-looking. The basic method is: pretend you are making pancakes, pouring out one giant pancake on your pan (my pancake recipe makes 3 giant pancakes, so I repeat this three times) but when it gets to the bit where you flip it over, just scramble it instead. There's a photo of a real live nude pancrepe being scrambled in a cast iron pan. Yum. Put all the scrambled pancake aside, and throw piles of chopped fruit or veg into the pan and heat through. Add scrambled pancake. Place mess in bowl. Douse with sauce. Eat.

Combo 1: rice-flour coconut/soy milk "crepe" with bananas, kiwis, cashews, pistachios, coco nibs. Sauce: soy milk, cardamom, cinnamon, sugar.

Combo 2: wheat flour/ almond milk pancakes with strawberries, blueberries, mango, kiwi, plum, fresh figs, nuts, ground green cardamom, sea salt. Sauce: fresh mint leaves, pomegranate molasses, lemon juice, maple syrup.

Combo 3: buckwheat/chocolate stout (spanky's homemade chocolate stout, no less)/flax seed crepe with onions,apples, capers, green pepper and smoked okara and almond cheese (okara, ground almonds, nutritional yeast, tahini, garlic powder, grated onion, dijon mustard, sweet/light miso, lemon juice, smoked salt, smoked paprika, thickened with kuzu)

I think I might try a vaguely mexican combo next...I'm thinking a cornmeal scrambled pancake with yellow squash, beans, smoked chilis and cacao nibs. ....

kale, spuds, chillis. what else do you need, really?

I wasn't planning on blogging this, but... yum!

Potato roti: About 3-4 spuds worth of leftover mashed spuds, or microwaved spuds that have been mashed. Mix in curry powder, mango powder, nutritional yeast. Roti dough: about a cup of whole wheat flour and a cup of ww spelt flour, sprinkle of crushed flax seeds, a nice sprinkle of white poppy seeds, dash of salt. Add water (enough that the dough is wet but not sticky), knead, and set aside while you make the greens. It is KEY to let the dough rest in quiet for at least 20 minutes, or you will rush it, which will upset the dough, and then it will retaliate and the roti won't be as wonderful as they could, all because you couldn't wait 20 minutes. So step away from the dough.

Kale: dry-roast a heaping tbs paunch poran, plus extra cumin, plus crushed chilli, plus asafoetida. Then add two large onions, chopped + water. When the onions have cooked through, add a handful of fenugreek (methi) leaves and um, 5 cloves of chopped garlic. Then all the kale you can handle and a few mushrooms if they're looking at you, all sad and excluded-feeling (like mine were). Cook the kale uncovered, you need to cook all the water off. ALL OF IT. When it's all cooked up, salt to taste, mix, and then add about half a cup of toasted chickpea flour. Mix. Turn off heat. Now, go back to your roti.

Repeat after me: The point of potato roti is to get as much potato product as humanly possible in the roti. Keeping this in mind the entire time, assemble your roti: Put a goodly layer of flour on the cupboard, or whatever surface you're using. Divide dough in 4. Take one chunk, knead, and form into a ball. The dryer you make the dough (ie, the more flour you knead into it), the harder it will be to roll out your roti. So knead just enough to make the dough unsticky. Squish the ball and roll it out in a smallish circle. Say.... the size of a saucer. Now, take a quarter of the spud mixture and put in in the middle of the rolled-out dough. Even though you don't think it will reach, pull the edges of the dough up around the spuds and seal it by pinching. See? It reaches! You will now have a dough-covered spud sphere. Do not get demoralized. Flip the sphere over so that the seam is on the bottom. Now dust the top with four and roll out the roti, squishing down gently. You should end up with a roti the size of a large dinner plate (do not exceed the size of your roti-cooking pan). If you cheated, and didn't let the dough rest, or were overzealous with the kneading just now, the roti will get back at you by exploding, leaving you with a mashed potato covered cupboard. Otherwise, you should be fine. Cook on a hot pan. No oil. The roti should puff up a little, which is how you know it's time to flip it. You'll just have to be figure out when to take it off the heat after flipping it. Good luck.

The whole dinner took about half an hour to make. Roti get fast to make, but you'll want to set aside a fair amount of time the first few times you do it.

Roti music: Cabaret. And I was singing along....badly.

Why I *heart* humanemyth.org, or: Stuff I actually learned in grade 9 english but am only posting now.

Most of us have had to read George Orwell's 1984, and so are familiar with the term "doublethink". Also, most of us read 1984 with a smug sense of superiority that we were far too intelligent to get drawn into doublethink. Meh, I say. Every time I meet a compassionate and caring person who convinces themselves that using animals is somehow compassionate and caring (or even ecologically sustainable), I see doublethink in action. For starters, in what way is *killing* compassionate? At this point, I rant. I rave. I fume. And eventually, I inevitably reach the point where I decide that I won't discuss veganism with my friends anymore. Enter humanemyth.org, a bunch of really awesome people who have better anger management and diplomatic skills than I do who are "encouraging truth, transparency and integrity in animal advocacy". Which means that they are taking all the bullshit of "happy meat" and "humane slaughter" apart sentence by sentence, exposing the doublespeak of the animal use industry for...well... doublespeak. Instead of relying on shocking images (a la Earthlings) or blatantly sexist publicity stunts that make no sense whatsoever (a la PETA), they actually go through the media coverage of "happy meat" and show where it is inconsistent, where it is twisting language, where it is leaving key information out, where it is lying, and where it is just plain nonsensical. And they have piles of resources. And more information than you can shake a stick at, if you are the stick-shaking sort or if you have to convince another one of your ecosexual friends that no, the carbon footprint/energy consumption of happy grazing grain-fed, personally massaged cows is NOT smaller than that for tofu. (Oh, and you still kill them. Killing = not so compassionate. If this is unclear to you, picture someone killing your pet. Nicely, but for no reason other than they wanted a new dog-fur purse. Now see if you think that person acted with compassion. Right. That little outburst is why I'm stopping this rant right now and referring you to the not-ranty vegans with loads of cool info. And decent diplomatic skills.)

However, you *do* get a food post for making it through that rant. The most Scottish Bread Ever (TMSBE): mashed potatoes, kelpie seaweed ale, smoked salt, rosemary, whole wheat flour, baking powder, yeast. You can tell it's TMSBE because a) tartan oven glove and b) potatoes AND ale. Served with the chickpea cheese stuff from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook and sliced (scottish) apples and walnuts. Oh yes. Bring on the giant sammich. That'll be lunch tomorrow. Some of the bread got made into pizza dough, and I did this: TMSBE, chickpea cheez, greens, pear, olives, walnuts, dried figs. Dried figs go with everything, right? That was a rhetorical question. They do, and I don't want to hear otherwise. Oh yum. TMSBE is about to become a kitchendancing staple. The forecast calls for soups. Also, I think I will make the chickpea cheez with seaweed in it.

"i wanna be a chocolate god" post 3: savories

Frankly, chocolate shouldn't be limited to sweets. Despite appearances on this blog, I actually prefer using the stuff in savories when I'm not making it for presents or bake sales or whatever. So, I give you further chocolatey goodness. Chocolate pasta, chocolate chapatti, and eggplant-cocoa spread. Chocolate pasta (pasta flour + buckwheat flour + cocoa, water, olive oil, dash of vanilla salt, dash of sugar) with mole-inspired veggies (onion, celeriac, vermouth, veggie stock, toasted cumin, ground sesame seeds, smoked paprika, hot paprika, cinnamon, nutmeg, black pepper, coriander seeds, chopped currants, crushed peanuts, swiss chard, lime, fresh coriander, coco nibs, salt....all sprinkled with more sesame). The chapatti is actually made out of some leftover pasta dough. I ate it with garlic hummus and tomatoes. I also (in the name of science) made some chocochapayti using a more conventional recipe, and I just subbed 1/4 cup (out of 2 cups) unsweetened cocoa for the same amount of flour. That also worked. The chapatti is dangerously good with a very tomato-ey cauliflower curry. Toasty eggplant dip (used as a starter at a dinner party): eggplant toasted on a flame (oh the joys of having a gas stove!), mashed up with cocoa, tahini, coriander, cumin, plus smoked salt and lime. This could have easily been made with unsweetened melted chocolate instead of cocoa, but uh, that would have required more groceries. The dip is totally yummy and non-photogenic.


kitchen dancing to: hedwig and the angry inch

unmuffins

These are not muffins. Or cupcakes. I'm not that kind of vegan. They are tiny breads, as you can see by my helpful universal sign for "tiny" as I hold the microbread up to my spycam. A muffin tin is simply a convenient way to make tiny breads, because having actual tiny bread pans is just way too chichi for me. The tiny breads aren't sweet. Just yummy. You see, I love gingerbread in theory, but in practice I usually find it too sweet and not gingery or spicy enough. Plus, I think ginger goes well with black pepper and the kind of heat you get from mustard. Just to put this in perspective, I'm one of those people who thinks that salmiakki (salt licorice) is the best candy EVER. In fact, it is the only world I can remember and pronounce reliably in Finnish, and also the only thing that I remember fondly from the week I spent in Helsinki on a population genetics course. In fact, if somebody in Finland sends me a vegan package of salt licorice, I will send them a batch of these tiny breads. Leave a comment (not in finnish....yes in english or french or german...extra credit for irish gaelic or latin) if you are a Finnish vegan reading my blog (hell, I think that there might just be a prize if you're a Finnish vegan reading my blog....).

Getting back to the tiny breads: Spelt flour (3 cups), baking powder (1tbs), a tiny bitof cornstarch (2tbs), cardamom (1/2 tsp), nutmeg (1/2 tsp), lots of ginger powder (1-2 tbs), salt flakes (1 tsp), coarsely ground black pepper (1 tbs), applesauce (3 small apples worth), blackstrap molasses (1/2-2/3c), dijon mustard (1 tsp), okara (1 c, sub soy yogurt if you don't have a constant okara infestation in your fridge because of soy milk making), fresh grated ginger (1tbs, but I would have used more if I had more), candied ginger (5 chunks). I sprinkled these with salt flakes before cooking them at 180C for about 25 mins. Depending on how dry your okara is/if you use soy yogurt, you might have to add water or soymilk. The consistency of the uncooked batter is very thick, but not dry at all.

M and I scaled the big hill (Arthur's seat) this morning. We had a 5 am rendezvous. It was beautiful and made me wonder why I don't go climb a big hill for the sunrise every morning.

unmuffin unmusic: the angry hippy podcast