in the kitchen

Today I went to the dentist, got a lot of back-to-school shopping done, and spent some serious time in the kitchen. I re-made various recipes that I've already posted about this summer: sweet potato falafel and Peppy's pita bread, and happy vegan double chocolate cookies.

I also tried a little something new...making croutons from my week-old homemade bread! I used this tutorial as a rough guide (it's not rocket science but I just wanted to see how other people do it). I cut the bread up into cubes, drizzled it with a little olive oil, sprinkled it with garlic salt, and baked for 20 minutes at 275 degrees Fahrenheit. Then voila! Delicious croutons from bread I was about to throw away.

The cookies I will be taking to work tomorrow...it's my last week of work at my internship!

tomato ceci bread

Today I found myself getting really ambitious after looking for a recipe for tomato bread and finding nothing that appealed to me. Instead of giving up and making my usual loaf of tried and true wheat (delicious in its own right), I decided to step out on a limb and heavily modify that recipe to suit my tastes. The results are terrific! I changed up the recipe so much (the Betty Crocker wheat bread one) that I felt I had to rename it for this variety...and so I deemed it Tomato Ceci Bread (ceci is Italian for chickpea, and this bread has many Italian flavors in it).

Tomato Ceci Bread
5 oz tomato sauce (I used canned--smooth, no chunks)
4 oz water
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp soy milk (regular milk is fine too)
1 Tbsp Italian seasoning
1 tsp minced garlic
2 c whole wheat flour
1/2 c chick pea flour
1/2 c all-purpose flour
1/4 c brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1 yeast packet (or equivalent--I believe that would be 1 1/2 tsp)

Combine tomato sauce and water and warm in the microwave or on the stove to around 90 degrees. Add the tomato mixture along with the rest of the ingredients, in the order listed, to the breadmaker and bake on the whole wheat setting for a 1 1/2 lb loaf (around 4 hours, 20 minutes). Also! You can make your own chickpea flour by grinding dried chickpeas in a food processor, coffee grinder, or Magic Bullet (you could buy it too). This recipe would work without the chickpea flour (substitute the same amount of all-purpose or wheat), but I really love the flavor it added.

And I'm going to be honest, I really hate the taste of butter (or any equivalent to butter) so sometimes I have a slice of warm bread with a smidgen of Vegenaise! What do you put on your bread?

And, aww, check out this pup.

a cracker or two...or twelve

I really cannot resist a good cracker...however, the recent rise in cost of every cracker brand under the sun has been both alarming and extremely disappointing. I need something to go with my hummus and guacamole! So...I decided to make my own! When I found a recipe for cream crackers in How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, I knew I had found the perfect thing to try. I was very taken with Papadopoulos cream crackers while living in Greece and have not been able to find a suitable replacement here in the U.S.

The recipe from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian turned out very well and I'll definitely make it again, but the cream cracker resemblance was only so-so, and I'm now on the search for the perfect cream cracker recipe. If you've never had the cream cracker experience, just stay tuned....I will keep you posted on my findings!

In the meantime, make these! They were easy and delicious. If you cook at all, odds are you probably have all these ingredients on hand already...you can really re-do the flour combination however you'd like. I just prefer the whole wheat flour, but added some all-purpose to soften it up a little:

1 c whole wheat flour
1 c all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1/4 c vegetable oil
1/3 c soy milk (or any milk variety)

Mix up all the dough ingredients. Add more milk if necessary, until the dough is smooth but not too sticky. You can add spices or other add-ins, if you'd like. (I left mine plain.) Roll out very thinly onto a floured cookie sheet and slice into pieces with a pizza cutter or pastry wheel. Sprinkle with salt and poke (I can't think of the proper cooking term) the dough with a fork so the crackers will get crunchier. There is no need to separate the cracker pieces, just leave them as they are after cutting, then bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes at 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Enjoy!

whales, berries, and coffee cans

1. Last week was my lucky week for mail! Corey bought me this adorably cute gocco print from Argyle Whale. It's perfect! I love it, and it was incredibly thoughtful of him. I'm keeping it safe until I move and decide what color frames to get for a handful of prints I have acquired over the past year or so. Is that a good way to break into being an adult...buying picture frames instead of just using thumbtacks? Somehow, I think it's a necessary step.

2. My parents and brother picked wild blackberries and my mom turned them into a cobbler. It was really delicious. I can't take any credit for it but wanted to photograph it for her and thought I'd share. I can ask her for the recipe if anyone would like it.

3. This is my new coffee canister! I really wanted a whole set of canisters like this...you know, the kind that graduate in size and you display them all on your countertop and fill them with essentials like flour, sugar, coffee, tea, etc. Well, yes, I really did want the whole set, and the whole set they did have for sale...but the second one was missing its lid, tragically. So, I got this one just for coffee but I'm still on the lookout for a whole display. (In the picture above, I would also like you to note one of my most prized possessions...my clear telephone...which I received as a gift for my 7th birthday, and yes, it still works.)

4. I decided to bake another loaf of bread today in the new breadmaker...it's nearly finished and the whole house smells deliciously of fresh bread. I should have timed it better and had it finish earlier before everyone was heading to bed!

a successful loaf

Success! What a steal for $5.

here's to fresh bread

Yesterday I convinced Corey to accompany me to the local Salvation Army to look at housewares. I've been collecting a few things here and there for the new apartment, which is only one month away from becoming a reality! I enjoy collecting glass and ceramic dishes one by one...of course, nothing really matches that way, but I think there's something nice about it. Maybe having mis-matchy dishes is something not many would appreciate, but when I see so many dishes I like, how can I settle on just one design? And vintage dishes are my favorite. I don't know, there's just something I like about opening up the cabinet and seeing a variety of colors and patterns, each handpicked from the thrift-store shelves. It feels nice to be able to reuse and treasure once-unwanted items, as well.

So, we went...I found $5 worth of coffee mugs, glass bowls, and tiny dip dishes (at least, that will be my use for them) which I'll post pictures of later (they're very adorable). Then, from a few feet away, I heard Corey say, "Hey, there are some breadmakers over here." He knew I'd been planning to buy one as an apartment-warming gift...ahem, to myself. I think he's excited about that because he knows I will be sharing fresh bread with him. After inspecting the three that were available--each at the price of just $5--we decided that one really stood out...it looked almost brand new, with a plastic wrapper still covering the keypad of programming buttons. So, we plugged it in to be sure that it worked, and when it came on just fine, I decided to make the purchase. I figured that if it didn't work (it was nonrefundable), it was at least worth a try before shelling out $55-$100 for a new one, and I'd just consider it a donation to Salvation Army. It's sitting on the kitchen counter now, waiting to be tested later today. Cross your fingers for me! I was even able to download the instruction manual/recipe book for free from Sunbeam's website. Here's to fresh-baked bread!

Update: The inaugural loaf is now baking! I chose to start off with one of my favorite bread recipes, a wheat bread from Betty Crocker (my mom's breadmaker is by Betty Crocker and has a recipe book with it). Here is the recipe for a 1.5 lb loaf:

9 oz. lukewarm water
1/2 Tbsp. salt
1/4 c. brown sugar
3 1/4 c. whole wheat flour
2 Tbsp. butter (I used Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Spread)
3 Tbsp. dry milk (I used 3 Tbsp. soy milk and cut out 3 Tbsp. of water)
1 packet dry active yeast

And to liven it up a little, I threw in a very easy add-in of 1/2 Tbsp garlic powder and 1 Tbsp dried Italian seasoning. This adds a delicious flavor of garlic and basil to the bread. The only downfall is the resulting bread isn't very good with peanut butter, and I do love a good slice of peanut butter toast.