Peanut Butter Cups, and Vegan!

Reese's peanut butter cups are very delicious to a lot of people. It is hard to find a version without milk products in it. In a moment of brilliance, Bree suggested making our own and not only were they awesome but they made me feel my favorite: really fancy! Check it out:

The above photo is an extreme close-up. The size of these cups are about 1 cubic inch, or, the size of a scantly-filled mini cupcake.

I'll have to try Quick Bread another day.

With a narrow window with which to bake something yesterday, I turned to a Quick Bread to avoid the rising time needed for a yeast dough. With not a lot of ingredients on hand, I took a chance on an experiment with a whole wheat quick bread.

Dutch Oven Bread

I am very excited about a lot of the things I cook. But I'll say it: I was the MOST excited about this loaf!

Hybrid Bagel Dogs

The other day I really wanted to make some bread. I hadn't enough flour for a loaf so I got creative. The end result was a half bread, half bagel, hot dog sandwich! Not too bad.

Valentines Cookie Crafting

We should honor more holidays by decorating cookies. Sugar cookies make a great "canvas" for my artsy self who also wants sugar all the time.

Metal or Glass?

 I have made my last two loaves of bread in a metal pan and I wanted to see if I can see a difference in how the bread turns out when cooking in glass. Here is the run-down: Glass absorbs heat and retains it more than metal (cooking your dish quicker, browning more), so the oven should be set for 25 degrees F lower than with a metal pan. Also, baked items tend to stick more to glass bakeware...

Because everything needed a change...

I have made bagels before. Mostly of the everything variety (poppy seed, garlic, onion, salt, etc). Nothing else seemed like a good idea until now. Introducing, the jalapeño cheddar mini bagel!

Pizza dough on the quick.

"Lately" my food craving has been pizza. This is largely due to the addition of the vegan wonder cheese, Daiya, to many of the local food stores. But with or without cheese, pizza is a still a versatile meal made simpler by this quick dough recipe I used last night.

2 1/2 Cup flour
1/4 ounce dry active yeast
1 cup warm water
1 Tbps oil
a dash of salt

Mix water and yeast together and let sit for 5 minutes until it's all bubbly and thick. Add this mixture to the flour and salt, add oil. I stirred with a wooden spoon until the dough was mostly together and then kneaded it by hand on a lightly floured surface for a couple minutes adding a little flour when it got sticky. The dough should be soft, moist and a little shiny but won't stick to your hand or the kneading surface.

Put in a oiled bowl to rise for 15 minutes (oiled so the dough won't stick when rising!). Then turn it out onto a flat surface and shape into your ideal pizza. Sauce, toppings, oven. I cooked it at 375 for maybe 20 minutes. I just made sure the crust was looking golden brown before I took it out of the oven.

Note: It might be beneficial to pre-bake the dough for 5 minutes before adding toppings too. That would just cut down on the amount of time the pizza needs to cook in the oven with the toppings on it. Some toppings can be time sensitive in the oven, like spinach.

Pecan Flaxseed Granola Bars

I usually ride my bike to get where I need to go and hunger comes with the territory. So I try to pack protein-rich granola bars in my bag to fill the gap between bigger meals. For those of you who buy granola bars from the store you know that they only come in packs of 6 bars. That is a box a week! What?! Homemade granola bar time.

Pecan Tassies

July was a high for me but a low for the WIDWIDHAJ blog. Admitedly, a poorly chosen in-the-moment title because, in fact, I do have a job which keeps me busy outside of the kitchen in addition to many fun visitors last month! I did however manage to squeeze in another tassie recipe that I'll share. (Notice the "Nairobi" mug! A favorite cafe of Alan's in Kenya)

Mixed berry Tassies in Miniature

A local bakery makes something called "tassies" that look like tarts to my untrained eye. I'm sure I'd be able to get away with either name, but will go with "tassies" since they sound foreign to my ear and, therefore, more fancy! Additionally, they looked easy to make and I like that.

Whole Wheat Flax loaf

 It's been a while since I baked a plain old loaf of bread. Today I had some extra time on my hands (and a loaf of Dave's Killer Bread that is about to be finished), in fact, enough time to make a loaf of sliceable bread for my coming work week.

Vegan Cinnamon Rolls

 When I started cutting meat and other animal products out of my diet, I kind of thought that also included sweet treats like ice creams, candies, and baked goods. Man alive, was I wrong: I can TOTALLY be just as unhealthy with my eating as before! I like to keep my health foods in check with Cinnamon Rolls. The recipe I used here advertises itself to be as close to those ridiculously huge, sticky, gooey, buns found at malls and airports throughout the country. You know the ones. And they do a pretty good job.

Sage Rosemary Focaccia

 I have tried my hand at making many breads. Over the course of my year making various breads I have learned that I prefer to make free form loaves as opposed to bread pan, sandwich-sized loaves. I like the variation in the final product.

I also love breads to dip in sauces, oils and herbs. It was just yesterday when I realized that Focaccia might be perfect for this. A quick internet search revealed that toppings for Focaccia are only limited by imagination. I like this a lot! But I will start simple with two herbs: sage and rosemary.

Sweet Potato Bread

My friend Casey made some homemade ice cream. Even more exciting than the fresh ice cream is its main ingredient: sweet potatoes! After a visit with her this morning, I am the lucky recipient of all of her leftover pureed sweet potato. The internet has shown me that there are many websites dedicated to recipes for leftovers. I think a lot of this is directed towards holiday cooking when we might use things like pumpkin pie filling, cranberries, and in my case sweet potatoes, and then have the remnants that no one wants to eat a couple days later.

And so here I am making bread again. After my modestly successful Honey Oat Bread I guess I am feeling pretty awesome. Awesome enough to attempt a braided bread recipe. How fancy.

The initial mixing was beautiful:
In the bowl is soy milk, honey, pureed sweet potato (with a little yam for coloring), dried thyme, yeast, water and oil.


The next step was adding the liquids to the dry stuff: flours, salt, and some corn meal.

I kneaded the dough to the desirable soft-but-not-sticky consistency and let it rise for 1.5 hours next to my radiator. After doubling, I separated the dough into 6, foot long "ropes" and braided two loaves. They rose for another hour until they were very plump.

In the end they only needed to cook for 35 minutes in the oven until they were golden brown and had that hollow sound when tapped on the bottom. The hollow sound is still something of a mystery to me. I can probably convince myself that any sound coming from the bottom of my loaf sounds "empty". The sweet potato is hardly noticeable in the final product; I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but the bread turned out wonderful and even better, beautiful. Braided loafs are great because I get to play with the dough more than I normally would. Imagine the fun shapes my imagination can create! Circles, spiral buns, tricolors!

Warmed and slathered with Earth Balance this bread is a great morning treat.

Bread is Hard.

Bread is something that is so commonplace and simple. Water, yeast, flour, salt. What can go wrong?

I made a loaf of bread yesterday. While I've attempted several loaves before, something is always different: the aesthetics of the final product, the taste, the feel, and I really have no idea why. Okay, part of the reason is that I can't stick to the same recipe (and really, having a science background I should know better than to have more than one variable in my experiment). Months ago I think it was my misunderstanding of the order of operations with ingredients. And then I think it was my kneading. And then the rising... But sometimes I truly don't know. Now I see why people buy Bread Machines. Perfect every time!

I suppose, though, I don't only make the bread to eat the bread. I like the challenge and I like the process. I am learning that you can't rush bread. It will always rise in time, sometimes faster and sometimes slower, and I can just wait for it and listen to a podcast, read my book or go for a walk around my neighborhood.