Squash Time

The yellow crookneck squash is our last connection to summer. It's still being sold in some farmer's markets  and it's a nice squash to cook. There's so many recipes for it but the best one is the simplest.

                   My local farmer's market are still selling them. They have a smooth skin and firm fleshy interior.

 I just sliced it into coins and then sauteed them in two glugs of olive oil and a heaping tablespoon of I  Can't Believe It's Not Butter. Two garlic cloves were minced and also added along with sea salt and freshly ground pepper.

Squash does take longer to cook than most veggies. The flesh should go from a woody white to a translucent color.

It takes about fifteen minutes to truly cook up. The end result is a tender garlicky side that worked well with Gardein's hamburgers. Yellow crookneck squash has a very mild taste and it can be enhanced with just a few flavorings. You could just add a squeeze of fresh lemon juice if you don't like that fried or sauteed flavor.

If you want a simple side with a taste of summer have the yellow crookneck squash.It's easy to cook up, and delicious with any main course.Try it tonight for a great complement to any meat or fish dinner.

Auga A New Kind Of Soup

 Everyone thinks soup are the most mundane food on the planet. Yet a new company is shaking up that belief. The Baltic area company Auga is creating interesting ones , full of good ingredients and flavors.  They're not the traditional canned ones. They're not even canned.

This is one of the soups that caught my eye at Stop & Shop. One it comes in a bag. You can reheat the soup in it if you';re in a hurry or don't want an extra pot to clean. It comes out very thick so it does need to be thinned out with about half a cup of water.

I tried the carrot soup first.

This was before I added the water. It looked like mashed squash and a bit too thick texture wise.. Adding water or even any kind of milk will make it silky and also reduce the intense carrot taste. There is coconut milk in it along with rice flour for thickening and sea salt and spices.  It just takes three  minutes to cook in the microwave.

                                It becomes lighter in color and thinner  even though it looks custardy, 

As for the taste, it tasted like steamed carrots with garlic. I add a huge tablespoon or two of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter since I'm used to cooking my carrots with butter. It tasted better and was a nice lunch. I also have the tomato but would like to try Auga's champignon or mushroom flavor along with their minestrone. The company has all natural "canned" (meaning plastic bagged) beans and veggies which also look interesting and healthy along with their organic eggs and milk. The company also produces breakfast products such as oatmeal cups.

Auga is shaking up the natural food market. Their soups are a nod to the traditional yet a departure . Try them for a fresher tasting bowl of soup.

Leeks Tweaked

 A favorite family dish is leeks on toast. This Piedmontese recipe has been in my family for almost a century, garnered when my great aunt married a boy from Biella , Italy. It is a great dish that brings out the garlicky ,earthy flavor of leeks. I thought I'd give  a few tweaks.

I had leftover leeks form yesterday's celery soup. In fact I'm planting the roots in my backyard for my allium garden along with my garlic and onion sprouts.

The leeks do have to be cut and soaked in salted water to remove dirt. This just takes ten minutes.

The slices are then rinsed in cold water to get rid of the dirty salted water.Usually the leeks are boiled in hot water over a burner but I decided to steam them for five minutes in the microwave. Doing this retains more of their flavor and nutrients.

As for the bread I decided to switch it up and use this artisan bread from Shop -Rite. It's a French peasant loaf from the Heidelburg Bread Company.

They don't need to be toasted. The slices are crusty enough.

The leeks were put on top. They were super soft thanks to being steamed in the microwave.

Then it's adding a good dollop of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter and a sprinkle of Follow Your Heart vegan Parmesan  soy cheese. 

The slices are then baked in a preheated 325 degree Farenheit oven for ten minutes.

Ten minutes later they were ready - the perfect marriage of crusty and melty .. The vegan cheese is just the same as the real Parmesan and it even browned

As for the taste, it was phenomenal. I love the French bread underneath which went well with the leeks. It sopped up the I Can't Believe It's Not Butter and was still toasty and crispy.

The updated version is worth making. It's a nice spin on the original, with an earthier , more intense flavor thanks to steaming the leeks. It's a great weeknight or week day dish, easy to make, easier to eat.

The Fake Egg Baking Experiment

 Vegan bakers used to have it hard. The very basics of baking involve such animal products as eggs, butter and milk. It was a hit or miss trying to sub in such diverse ingredients as white vinegar or apple sauce . Now there are various subs that actually work.

I decided to use one. Vegg Uncaged Baking Mix. Only one teaspoon mixed with a quarter teaspoon of white granulated sugar and a quarter of a cup of cold water equal one egg. I decided to try it with the Betty Crocker Sugar Cookie Mix (which has been sitting in my kitchen for a year - don't worry I checked it is safe to use).

The dough was relatively the same as it would have been with real eggs. Vegg Uncaged is made with nutritional yeast which may be responsible for the cookies lift and flavor.

it was mixed with a stick of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, long a staple in both my cooking and baking arsenal. 

I made the biggest size cookies, which was a tablespoon size scoop.

They took a little longer to bake in a 375 degree F oven. I don't know if it was because of the Vegg or the cookies' size.

The flavor and texture were the same as the ones made with eggs.. The mix's age didn't affect it nor did the Vegg.

They were chewy and buttery, the perfect Christmas cookie with tea or hot cocoa.

Vegan bakers should take advantage of Vegg Uncaged Mix. It works for baking, giving anything from cookies to cakes that eggy flavor and lift. Try it  today for all your holiday baking and for all  those baking days afterwards.

Holiday Baking For Vegans

 Baking comes with its' own set of challenges. Now add vegan restrictions of no butter, no dairy and no eggs. What do you do? Sub - and be flexible. You can create tasty treats perfect for any hard core vegan.

Before using substitutes understand what each animal product does. Eggs add color, structure, leavening color and flavoring in our cakes and cookies. Milk softens, and contributes moisture to the entire product, along with adding tenderness and flavor. It also lends structure and support while whole cream adds more flavor and contributes to the browning effect. Butter is the most important ingredient in holiday baking.  It gives flavor, tenderness and flakiness. Cakes need it for moisture and richness. What about sour cream and cream fraiche? One will give added moisture while the other gives both added flavor and moisture. Can you bake without any of them? Absolutely not. You need some form of them and luckily there are vegan substitutes. For egg sub in use Vegg's Uncaged Baking Mix which can be used for any kind of baked good even challah bread. The only problem is that you have to buy it exclusively through Amazon and there may be delays right now. You can also use baking soda and vinegar along with unsweetened applesauce or soy milk. Ripe banana or flaxseed can also fill in for those yolks.

Milk is one of the easiest to sub in thanks to the arrival of almond, soy, cashew and oat milk. Yet which is the best one for baking? Almond is the most preferred because it cooperates nice with other ingredients and has a naturally sweet taste  - just like milk. Yet some vegan bakers will tell you to go with soy. It has the most protein of all the plant based ones. What about if you need whipped cream? Use aquafaba, or chickpea brine. Mix it with cream of tarter , vanilla extract and powdered sugar for a sub in that will fool everyone. Keep in mind that aquafaba can also be used for egg whites and are excellent for creating  meringues.You can experiment, using one milk for one recipe such as cookies  and another one for cakes.As far as the faux butters, one of the best (and an absolute favorite) is the I Can't Believe It's Butter sticks. These have all they buttery flavor of the real thing and the right texture for both baked goods and frostings. I Can't Believe It's Butter gives icings a melt in your mouth feeling and also whips up nicely  perfect for airy frostings.  You can also use it and almond milk to create a creamy fudge too.

Vegan bakers should breeze this holiday baking season. There are many substitutes that will produce delicious cookies and cakes along with creamy fudge and frostings. It's easy to forgo animal products in your list of ingredients to produce true vegetarian treats.

It's Cookie Time

There's a reason why some home chefs hate holiday  baking. It's just hopping back and forth out of the kitchen every ten minutes to get  batch after batch out of the oven. The end product is worth it though.

I did cheat and use my go to Betty Crocker's Cookie Mix.

As you know I'm more of a Duncan Hines baker than a Betty Crocker one but I find her cookie mixes to be easy to make and delicious too. Of course they're not scratch cookies but you can add your own spins on them. This year is it was a dash of cinnamon. I wanted the cookies to be more festive with red and green sprinkles but couldn't find any . At all. I decided on cinnamon to give them a snickerdoodle vibe without all that extra sugar.

The mix only requires one egg and a stick of butter or margarine. I used I Can't Believe It's Not Butter for a semi vegan cookie. After about ten minutes of a good beating the dough was ready to be dropped onto the sheets.

I used parchment paper which makes the baking process that much more easier (however make it a point to reuse the sheets at least two or three times. Parchment paper is silicon based and does not break down in landfills. Reuse the sheets afterwards anyway you can.).As you can see I dusted plain cinnamon on the unbaked drops.This required pinching cinnamon on each one from a cupped palm full of cinnamon.

This is the first, rather pale batch.

This is what the entire batch looked like.

As you can seen some were more heavily dusted than others. The taste was lovely with the cinnamon on top and I know I'd make them this way again.It was just batch after batch after batch. The end result was thirty-six cinnamon dusted snaps - a pretty good yield.

If you're up to it make your Christmas cookies. If you're using a mix put your own spin on them to make them yours. it'll result in a lot of work with a very tasty end product.

The Vegan Lamb Part One

Today I tried the vegan lamb cake recipe taken from the blog ,Vegan Cooking In Colorado (which was taken from  Issa Chandra Moskowicz's great book,Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World). It was kind of scary because I kept thinking the cake wouldn't bake or rise. Yet, this animal friendly pound cake did.

Baking a scratch cake is always a leap of faith.It could go wrong even though leavening has been added. Of course it starts with a greased and floured pan.

It's the same as with the regular (non-vegan?) cake, generously grease with I Can't Believe It's Not Butter and then a generous coating of flour.

These are the liquid ingredients. The  1/2 cup vanilla soy yogurt and 2/3rd cups canola oil make up for the lack of eggs.The recipe calls for soy milk but I've had good luck with the almond kind so I went with Almond Breeze's.It just takes 1 and 1/3 cup.

I also had to add vanilla and almond extracts too. It's 2 tsps vanilla and 4 tsps almond . It'll give the cake a lovely almond aroma and flavor.

These are the wet ingredients mixed with 1 and 1/2 cups of sugar

This is the almond meal. It looks like polenta and taste like what else - ground almonds. Use 2/3 cup of it. The dry ingredients are the meal, two cups plus 4 tablespoons of flour, 3 tsps baking powder, 1 tsp salt (I used the coarser, grittier Celine's gray  sea salt) and 2 tblspns cornstarch which lends more cohesion to the batter.

 This is the batter thoroughly mixed. You can see why I was nervous. It  looks really thin, doesn't it?

It was easily poured into the mold and all the batter went into it so no extra cupcakes like the other recipe. The mold was tied together with twine. I was so ansty about the recipe that I forgot to put the five toothpicks in the neck area. (the recipe didn't stress adding the toothpicks so maybe it'll be all right and the lamb's head won't fall off 😲😲)

Bake in a 350 degree F oven for 50 to 60 minutes. I took it out at 55 minutes and let cool. You can see it's a pound cake because of the splits in the surface.

It's paler than the first box mix one , probably because there's no artificial colors used. I plan on checking out the cupcake recipes and other ones in Ms. Moskowicz's recipe book. This is definitely the recipe for vegan birthdays and for inclusive holiday sweets. 

Tomorrow is the icing - with some interesting twists. Stay tuned.

Pereg Flours - A New Way Of Baking

Using an old fashioned recipe is sweet. Using old fashioned white flour isn't. It can lead to bad allergic reactions along with gluten based stomach problems. Luckily, there is Pereg Flours that allows home  bakers to bake without any worries or doubts.

Pereg is known as an alternative flour company, even though they also sell soups , bread crumbs and pasta among other healthier foods.It's one of the oldest , starting by the Pereg family in 1906. The company has a full range of gluten free, carb free, allergy free flours. These are perfect for those dealing with all sort of wheat related problems. The flours range from the ancient grains such as teff and quinoa to plaintain, coconut and banana. Old standby's like buckwheat are also sold along with the trendier almond and chickpea. I thought I'd give Pereg Flours a try and got the quinoa. This doesn't have the carbs of regular wheat and it's healthier.I thought  why not pancakes.I took the Lazy Cat Kitchen recipe and tweaked it a bit.

This is the quinoa flour. It has a custardy yellow hue and a silkier texture than regular flour.

A teaspoon of baking powder was needed as was a teaspoon of baking soda/

They were sifted together to look like this

Now it's time for the liquids. The Lazy Cat recommended a plant milk. I chose coconut milk, for both the low calories and creaminess. 

Two teaspoons of lemon juice were added to create a catalyst with the baking powder and baking soda. This creates a leavening effect that gives the pancakes lift.

Four teaspoons of maple sytup (actual maple syrup not the watered down version) gives the batter a subtle sweetness.

Vegan butter , made from coconut oil but tastes exactly like the real thing was used for frying.

The pancakes came out  OK not as robust as regular pancakes.

The taste was green and plantlike, Imagine the scent of freshly cut grass as a taste and you have quinoa. Before frying I added a sprinkle of Celtic sea salt to bring out the other ingredients' flavors.Of course I Can't Believe It's Not Butter and more maple syrup were poured over them.

 Next time I'll try Pereg's Buckwheat to maybe whip up a batch of blinis.

Pereg's Flours bring in a whole new era of baking. They'll help home bakers wean their families away from traditional wheat flours and embrace a healthier diet. Try their flours in any baking recipe and see the difference.

It's The Spice Cakes!

Today I finally made my B&W style cupcakes. Was it work? Heck  yeah!! It was interesting and definitely a learning experience. It's been over ten years since I last made cupcakes so it was like relearning how to make them.

I started with Duncan Hines Spice mix. It's a simple enough mix,

It's three eggs along with a cup of water and 1/3 cup of vegetable oil all are mixed into a satiny , creamy batter thanks to three minutes with an electric mixer set on high.

Thank Target for these pretty heart decorated cupcake papers. Using the paper makes clean up easier.I filled the cups 2/3 full. This was not a good idea. Use the tablespoon rule when filling cupcake pans. Always pour in three tablespoons. Other wise.

Yup, they look like mutant muffins instead of delicate tea cakes.This is  how they should look:

See how perfect they look, wth only slightly rounded tops. As for that empty one, there wasn't enough batter for it. I would have had enough if I had followed the three tablespoon rule, Now it's time for the icing. As I've written before, I wanted to use a glaze. and I found a super easy micro wave one from  Food.com. It just required semi-sweet chocolate chips , condensed milk and three tablespoons of butter.

The chips just had to be microwaved for just a minute and a half (no longer otherwise the chocolate will burn).The condensed milk and butter(I used I Can't Believe It's Not Butter) are added and vigorously stirred with a wooden spoon.I then used my spoon from my ice cream maker to ladle it on and smooth it out

They look pretty professional, despite all the trouble. The taste - better than B& W's. (Sorry B&W).

I will definitely make them again or maybe as a layer cake form for a birthday or party.I want to try the icing with a scratch butter cake for a truly old fashioned treat.

My cupcake skills need more work, but everything baked is a step closer to creating the perfect cake, cupcake, bread, pie and cookie. It's on to the next yummy project for this home baker!.