Somewhere over the rainbow.... there's probably a glass of soymilk or something.
Showing posts with label baking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label baking. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Monday, May 31, 2010
Daiya. It's to Daiya for.
Oh, I'm so punny.
So it would appear a lot of people come to my blog because it's the first page that comes up if you do a google search for Daiya vegan lasagna. While this makes me happy, it also makes me embarrassed because if you recall, my only posted lasagna attempt looked a lot like vomit. If any of you vegans saw that gooey mess and thought "hm, I would like to try that" I would like to hear how it went. Hopefully you had more sense than I did and you added more layers and/or used a taller dish.
Anyway, Daiya is really taking off now that it's in all the Whole Food's stores nationwide and more and more veggie restaurants are picking it up. (I mean, seriously, vegan/gluten free mac and cheese at Veggie Grill? Amazeballs.) So with more people trying to figure out what to do with their blessed packages of fake cheesyness, I thought I would post a list of my 10 favorite things to do with Daiya. Some with pictures. The rest you will need to use your imagination.
BTW, my cheesyness? 100% real.
1. Vegan daiya cheesy pasta, as mentioned above.
2. Grilled cheese. Duh. Add some tomato soup. Yum.
3. Quesadillas. I know this picture of quesadillas is rather uninspired, you can imagine it is a lot fancier if you prefer. I think I just really wanted to eat it.
4. Daiya Cheese sauce. Cheese sauce usually is 1/2 cup of soy milk and a pinch of salt, boiled, then brought down to simmering. When it's simmering, stir half a pack of cheddar daiya in, along with margarine if you want. Of course, this is just a base, you can probably add jalapenos or drained salsa for queso dip or whatever you want to do with it. I like to use it for baked potatoes.
5. Or you could use it for nachos.
6. Of course, daiya pizza is good too.
>
7. Vegan Potato Cheese soup (good use if you make too much cheese sauce)
8. Chili cheese veggie dogs/fries. A staple in my home.
9. if you have leftover veggie dogs, make vegan cheddar pigs in a blanket. Kroger crescent roll dough is vegan (you may wanna doublecheck to make sure, I got it at Ralphs here in CA). Add some daiya cheddar and cut up hot dogs, and voila!
10. Or you can bake with it. I experimented baking some cheddar daiya into some corn muffins. It was pretty good, but I think I need a new muffin recipes. Maybe I should contact Betty White.
So it would appear a lot of people come to my blog because it's the first page that comes up if you do a google search for Daiya vegan lasagna. While this makes me happy, it also makes me embarrassed because if you recall, my only posted lasagna attempt looked a lot like vomit. If any of you vegans saw that gooey mess and thought "hm, I would like to try that" I would like to hear how it went. Hopefully you had more sense than I did and you added more layers and/or used a taller dish.
Anyway, Daiya is really taking off now that it's in all the Whole Food's stores nationwide and more and more veggie restaurants are picking it up. (I mean, seriously, vegan/gluten free mac and cheese at Veggie Grill? Amazeballs.) So with more people trying to figure out what to do with their blessed packages of fake cheesyness, I thought I would post a list of my 10 favorite things to do with Daiya. Some with pictures. The rest you will need to use your imagination.
BTW, my cheesyness? 100% real.
1. Vegan daiya cheesy pasta, as mentioned above.
2. Grilled cheese. Duh. Add some tomato soup. Yum.
3. Quesadillas. I know this picture of quesadillas is rather uninspired, you can imagine it is a lot fancier if you prefer. I think I just really wanted to eat it.
4. Daiya Cheese sauce. Cheese sauce usually is 1/2 cup of soy milk and a pinch of salt, boiled, then brought down to simmering. When it's simmering, stir half a pack of cheddar daiya in, along with margarine if you want. Of course, this is just a base, you can probably add jalapenos or drained salsa for queso dip or whatever you want to do with it. I like to use it for baked potatoes.
5. Or you could use it for nachos.
6. Of course, daiya pizza is good too.
>
7. Vegan Potato Cheese soup (good use if you make too much cheese sauce)
8. Chili cheese veggie dogs/fries. A staple in my home.
9. if you have leftover veggie dogs, make vegan cheddar pigs in a blanket. Kroger crescent roll dough is vegan (you may wanna doublecheck to make sure, I got it at Ralphs here in CA). Add some daiya cheddar and cut up hot dogs, and voila!
10. Or you can bake with it. I experimented baking some cheddar daiya into some corn muffins. It was pretty good, but I think I need a new muffin recipes. Maybe I should contact Betty White.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Happy Birthday February people!
Yet another office birthday cake. Chocolate with cookies and cream filling again. Didn't feel like buying a bunch of ingredients, so I used the mixes and frostings in my cupboard.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Oreo post number 3
For a coworkers birthday. He couldn't decide on cookies or a cake...
Cake mix and pans courtesy of my sister via Williams Sonoma.
Cake mix and pans courtesy of my sister via Williams Sonoma.
Friday, December 25, 2009
Merry Christmas!
I made these puppies for Christmas today. Vegan cinnamon buns!
Delicious.
I prepped everything yesterday, let them rise in the fridge overnight, then just popped them in the oven this morning. Yummmmm.
Recipe on VeganYumYum.
Delicious.
I prepped everything yesterday, let them rise in the fridge overnight, then just popped them in the oven this morning. Yummmmm.
Recipe on VeganYumYum.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Why do all my quickie posts have to do with Oreos?
My first cake as the office monthly birthday cake person. Not amazing, but I think it's cute for an amateur. It's chocolate with cookies and cream filling.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Roasting pumpkins and pumpkin bread
Halloween week has been so busy! Aside from having to make some accessories for my Halloween costume (I was a Merlotte's Waitress a la True Blood), I had some baking to do. A coworker of mine has her birthday on Halloween (as well as my lovely non-local friend Kikiface , for whom I would totally make a cake if she comes down in December) I did my usual cake balls with orange candy and halloween themed sprinkles and wrappers. Sadly I did not photograph it though. I did make my awesome pumpkin bread though.
Now, I've made this a few times with canned pumpkin and I just don't like it as much that way. Occasionally I will find a hard crunchy bit in my bread and I can only blame the pumpkin for that, since it never happens when I roast my own pumpkins. So that's what I do, even though it turns my bread into a 2 day process. It's worth it, I think.
Roasting pumpkins is really easy. So the first thing you do is buy some sugar pumpkins, I think they also call them pie pumpkins. They're the smaller ones, like 6ish inches in diameter. All you do is slice them in half, remove the seeds, strings, and stem, (I usually dig a spoon under it and pop it off), cover in foil in a pan and bake for an hour or so at 375. Once that's done, let them cool, then scoop the flesh and mash it with a potato masher. Finally, put the mashy stuff into a colander lined in coffee filters or cheesecloth, let it drain in the fridge overnight. I usually put a clean plate with something heavy on top to help it drain more liquid. After all that is done, you have some fresh pumpkin puree that is way better than canned.
So I used my lovely pumpkin puree to make my favorite pumpkin bread recipe. I don't make it often enough, because of the obvious lack of pumpkins year round, but I am always super happy when I do.
Behold:
It's so spicy and yummy and cinnamony and good. If you can catch some pumpkins before they go out of style, you should definitely try it.
Now, I've made this a few times with canned pumpkin and I just don't like it as much that way. Occasionally I will find a hard crunchy bit in my bread and I can only blame the pumpkin for that, since it never happens when I roast my own pumpkins. So that's what I do, even though it turns my bread into a 2 day process. It's worth it, I think.
Roasting pumpkins is really easy. So the first thing you do is buy some sugar pumpkins, I think they also call them pie pumpkins. They're the smaller ones, like 6ish inches in diameter. All you do is slice them in half, remove the seeds, strings, and stem, (I usually dig a spoon under it and pop it off), cover in foil in a pan and bake for an hour or so at 375. Once that's done, let them cool, then scoop the flesh and mash it with a potato masher. Finally, put the mashy stuff into a colander lined in coffee filters or cheesecloth, let it drain in the fridge overnight. I usually put a clean plate with something heavy on top to help it drain more liquid. After all that is done, you have some fresh pumpkin puree that is way better than canned.
So I used my lovely pumpkin puree to make my favorite pumpkin bread recipe. I don't make it often enough, because of the obvious lack of pumpkins year round, but I am always super happy when I do.
Behold:
It's so spicy and yummy and cinnamony and good. If you can catch some pumpkins before they go out of style, you should definitely try it.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Fail
After reading my wife's blog, I decided it was time to share a commiserating story. This is chronicling my disasters in domestication, so get ready for a disaster.
Recently, we were given a bag of peaches. Now I am not a fruit person. I am much more a veggie eater. Asparagus, broccoli, carrots, they are all good. Fruit... eh. I guess. Sure, but not my preference. So what to do with this huge bag of peaches? We were given cobbler as a gift, so I decided to make a peach pie. I've never made a pie, and I was short on time, but my sister REALLY wanted pie that night so, ok, we'll throw one together. I had frozen strawberries, so it was going to be a strawberry peach pie. Sounds great right?
So I hop on to my old standby, allrecipes.com and find tons of recipes for pie crust. The problem? They all need to sit for 30 minutes to an hour. Like I mentioned, I was short on time, it was a work night and I didn't feel like sitting around to wait for flaky crust. So I bypass the flaky crusts and settle on this shortbread pie crust. Actually, the crust was pretty good. I would use it again. For the actual pie, I "use" this recipe for Peach-a-Berry pie. I put "use" in quotations because I just kind of used it as a guideline.
It was going pretty well. Baked the crust, sister peeled and cut up peaches. Here's where it went wrong though. When you see a recipe that says:
Place peaches and berries in a colander for about 15 minutes to drain any excess fluid , then transfer to a large bowl.
DO IT. Do NOT throw them in a colander, wait a minute, then say "oh, nothing is coming out" and throw it in the crust. It needs to drain. Can you guess what the disaster was?
So, I use some remaining pie dough to make a sad looking top crust thing. I was still pretty happy with myself though. First pie. In my neato pyrex pie pan too. I throw it in the oven.
45 minutes later:
I mean, it looks ok. Until you cut into it and realize it is....
Pie soup. Very soggy. There was actually a lot more fruit juice in the pan before I took that pic.
How did it taste? It was pretty good, but I think the sogginess gave us all tummyaches. So this went in the trash.
Fail. Better luck next time I hope.
Recently, we were given a bag of peaches. Now I am not a fruit person. I am much more a veggie eater. Asparagus, broccoli, carrots, they are all good. Fruit... eh. I guess. Sure, but not my preference. So what to do with this huge bag of peaches? We were given cobbler as a gift, so I decided to make a peach pie. I've never made a pie, and I was short on time, but my sister REALLY wanted pie that night so, ok, we'll throw one together. I had frozen strawberries, so it was going to be a strawberry peach pie. Sounds great right?
So I hop on to my old standby, allrecipes.com and find tons of recipes for pie crust. The problem? They all need to sit for 30 minutes to an hour. Like I mentioned, I was short on time, it was a work night and I didn't feel like sitting around to wait for flaky crust. So I bypass the flaky crusts and settle on this shortbread pie crust. Actually, the crust was pretty good. I would use it again. For the actual pie, I "use" this recipe for Peach-a-Berry pie. I put "use" in quotations because I just kind of used it as a guideline.
It was going pretty well. Baked the crust, sister peeled and cut up peaches. Here's where it went wrong though. When you see a recipe that says:
Place peaches and berries in a colander for about 15 minutes to drain any excess fluid , then transfer to a large bowl.
DO IT. Do NOT throw them in a colander, wait a minute, then say "oh, nothing is coming out" and throw it in the crust. It needs to drain. Can you guess what the disaster was?
So, I use some remaining pie dough to make a sad looking top crust thing. I was still pretty happy with myself though. First pie. In my neato pyrex pie pan too. I throw it in the oven.
45 minutes later:
I mean, it looks ok. Until you cut into it and realize it is....
Pie soup. Very soggy. There was actually a lot more fruit juice in the pan before I took that pic.
How did it taste? It was pretty good, but I think the sogginess gave us all tummyaches. So this went in the trash.
Fail. Better luck next time I hope.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Lemon Bars
I should preface this blog post with a disclaimer of sorts: I in no way condone the use of citrus in desserts. Key lime pie sounds gross. Lemon meringue? Yucky. Don't get me started on the crazies that mix orange and chocolate. Citrus is citrus. Healthy, light, tangy. Tangy has no place in dessert. Dessert should be warm, rich, savory, comfortable. Not tangy. Not citrus based.
Now that I got that out of the way, a coworker brought in some lemons from their tree to share. As I've mentioned before, I don't buy produce, so I was like, hey, free lemons, score. I took 2 home. I cut one in half and made a lemon Italian marinade for a chicken breast that I made for husbinator on the stove Sounds fancy right? In reality, I squirted lemon juice on a chicken breast that was sitting in Italian dressing and added pepper. He claimed to like it.
Anyway, I have 1.5 lemons left. Not enough for lemonade. Lemon cake doesn't appeal to me. No idea what to do. so, being the nice person I am, I decide I'm going to make lemon bars for husbinator. I don't like them, but he always drools over them at bakeries and stuff, so I figure he'll like the surprise.
Not being picky, I decide to use this recipe because it had good reviews. Looked easy and I had all the ingredients down to the last 3 eggs in my fridge. I have about an hour between the time I get home and he does so I figure if I work fast, I can pull it off. I am throwing all the ingredients for the crust into the mixer, and then it happens. I throw in the 3 eggs. Then I look at the recipe. The eggs were for the lemon mixture, not the crust.
Damn.
So what do I do? Improvise. I toss out the last mix and start over. Luckily, I had enough of the other ingredients so that I could start again, except for those stupid eggs. While the crust baked, I mixed the up lemon mixture (with fresh squeezed and strained lemon juice) and replaced the missing eggs with Ener-G egg replacer. In hindsight, I probably should've doubled the lemon mix, they came out super thin, but all in all, husbinator was very pleased with them.
So, after all that, I present to you my first attempt at lemon bars.
I tasted them. Not bad, but still. Citrus has no place in dessert.
Oh yeah, I got a new camera, so hopefully better photos in the future :)
Now that I got that out of the way, a coworker brought in some lemons from their tree to share. As I've mentioned before, I don't buy produce, so I was like, hey, free lemons, score. I took 2 home. I cut one in half and made a lemon Italian marinade for a chicken breast that I made for husbinator on the stove Sounds fancy right? In reality, I squirted lemon juice on a chicken breast that was sitting in Italian dressing and added pepper. He claimed to like it.
Anyway, I have 1.5 lemons left. Not enough for lemonade. Lemon cake doesn't appeal to me. No idea what to do. so, being the nice person I am, I decide I'm going to make lemon bars for husbinator. I don't like them, but he always drools over them at bakeries and stuff, so I figure he'll like the surprise.
Not being picky, I decide to use this recipe because it had good reviews. Looked easy and I had all the ingredients down to the last 3 eggs in my fridge. I have about an hour between the time I get home and he does so I figure if I work fast, I can pull it off. I am throwing all the ingredients for the crust into the mixer, and then it happens. I throw in the 3 eggs. Then I look at the recipe. The eggs were for the lemon mixture, not the crust.
Damn.
So what do I do? Improvise. I toss out the last mix and start over. Luckily, I had enough of the other ingredients so that I could start again, except for those stupid eggs. While the crust baked, I mixed the up lemon mixture (with fresh squeezed and strained lemon juice) and replaced the missing eggs with Ener-G egg replacer. In hindsight, I probably should've doubled the lemon mix, they came out super thin, but all in all, husbinator was very pleased with them.
So, after all that, I present to you my first attempt at lemon bars.
I tasted them. Not bad, but still. Citrus has no place in dessert.
Oh yeah, I got a new camera, so hopefully better photos in the future :)
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Fail
I was really excited today because I was going to bake Cinnamon Sugar Butter Cookies for a coworker's birthday. I even went to the grocery store to get butter, eggs, and brown sugar. I get home and...
I am out of flour. I am NEVER out of flour. I actually always buy extra flour thinking that I am out, so I have usually have an extra bag stashed away.
Disaster.
I am out of flour. I am NEVER out of flour. I actually always buy extra flour thinking that I am out, so I have usually have an extra bag stashed away.
Disaster.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Jelly doughnaaaaahs!
OK, well donut holes.
So for about a hundred years now, I've wanted to buy a deep fryer. I have a horrible french fry obsession. If I could only eat one thing to the rest of my life, it would probably be fries. Anyway, my sister and husband have always forbidden be from buying a deep fryer because I would gain 200 pounds. About two weeks ago, I finally said nuts to them and bought an $18 deep fryer at Big Lots. It's a small Rival Cooltouch fryer with no temperature settings or anything. Not fancy or very big, but it does the job and doesn't take up too much room.
So the first thing I wanted to try (besides fries) was donuts. I've been craving a Krispy Kreme for a while but have not had any because of the lactose thing. So after browsing the web, I found this recipe, which was supposed to replicate a Krispy Kreme. I made a few modifications though. My baking yeast was a bit old, so I was worried they weren't going to rise enough, but they turned out pretty puffy. I also only had one yeast envelope so I halved the recipe. This also gave me an excuse to try my fancy pants bismark tip to fill them with strawberry preserves. Instead of milk and eggs, I used soymilk and Ener-G egg replacer and they still came out good. Lastly, I did not make the glaze, I just sifted powdered sugar over them. The half recipe made about 30 donut holes and they lasted about 8 hours :)
So for about a hundred years now, I've wanted to buy a deep fryer. I have a horrible french fry obsession. If I could only eat one thing to the rest of my life, it would probably be fries. Anyway, my sister and husband have always forbidden be from buying a deep fryer because I would gain 200 pounds. About two weeks ago, I finally said nuts to them and bought an $18 deep fryer at Big Lots. It's a small Rival Cooltouch fryer with no temperature settings or anything. Not fancy or very big, but it does the job and doesn't take up too much room.
So the first thing I wanted to try (besides fries) was donuts. I've been craving a Krispy Kreme for a while but have not had any because of the lactose thing. So after browsing the web, I found this recipe, which was supposed to replicate a Krispy Kreme. I made a few modifications though. My baking yeast was a bit old, so I was worried they weren't going to rise enough, but they turned out pretty puffy. I also only had one yeast envelope so I halved the recipe. This also gave me an excuse to try my fancy pants bismark tip to fill them with strawberry preserves. Instead of milk and eggs, I used soymilk and Ener-G egg replacer and they still came out good. Lastly, I did not make the glaze, I just sifted powdered sugar over them. The half recipe made about 30 donut holes and they lasted about 8 hours :)
Crispy and Creamy Doughnuts
- 2 (.25 ounce) envelopes active dry yeast
- 1/4 cup warm water (105 to 115 degrees)
- 1 1/2 cups lukewarm milk
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 eggs
- 1/3 cup shortening
- 5 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 quart vegetable oil for frying
-
- 1/3 cup butter
- 2 cups confectioners' sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
- 4 tablespoons hot water or as needed
- Sprinkle the yeast over the warm water, and let stand for 5 minutes, or until foamy.
- In a large bowl, mix together the yeast mixture, milk, sugar, salt, eggs, shortening, and 2 cups of the flour. Mix for a few minutes at low speed, or stirring with a wooden spoon. Beat in remaining flour 1/2 cup at a time, until the dough no longer sticks to the bowl. Knead for about 5 minutes, or until smooth and elastic. Place the dough into a greased bowl, and cover. Set in a warm place to rise until double. Dough is ready if you touch it, and the indention remains.
- Turn the dough out onto a floured surface, and gently roll out to 1/2 inch thickness. Cut with a floured doughnut cutter. Let doughnuts sit out to rise again until double. Cover loosely with a cloth.
- Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir in confectioners' sugar and vanilla until smooth. Remove from heat, and stir in hot water one tablespoon at a time until the icing is somewhat thin, but not watery. Set aside.
- Heat oil in a deep-fryer or large heavy skillet to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Slide doughnuts into the hot oil using a wide spatula. Turn doughnuts over as they rise to the surface. Fry doughnuts on each side until golden brown. Remove from hot oil, to drain on a wire rack. Dip doughnuts into the glaze while still hot, and set onto wire racks to drain off excess. Keep a cookie sheet or tray under racks for easier clean up.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Balls.
You probably figured this out from my last post but my diet leans towards the vegan side. I still indulge in eggs now and then (how sad, who indulges in eggs?) but because of a supposed egg white allergy, I am not really supposed to. Six years of being a vegetarian, was easy, but a new old lady lactose intolerance shot me towards the vegan side. Anyway, I'm not posting about this for pity. I'm posting about this to make a point, and that point is, if I make some yummy treat that I can't eat myself, I must really like you or I am bored and I need a creative outlet.
Case in point:
Cake balls.
What are cake balls you ask? Well, a mixture of cake and frosting rolled into a ball and dipped in chocolate. The ones shown above are chocolate frosting, chocolate cake, and chocolate coating. I've also done red velvet balls with cream cheese frosting dipped in white chocolate. You can buy virtually any mix, any frosting and any kind of candy coating for these babies. I've also done them on sticks in mini cupcake wrappers. Now, they are not my idea. The credit for this genius invention is Bakerella. She's like my blog idol. Seriously, browse her site and you will need a towel to mop up the drool on your keyboard.
But anyway, ignoring the glare (I REALLY need to work on my food photography skills, like, hey maybe removing the plastic wrap from the photo subject maybe?) they look cute right? So simple. Make a box cake, mix in frosting, make the balls, dip and you are done. Well, kind of but no. These suckers take at least 4 hours each time. Very sore legs. Baking? Easy. Mixing? Easy. Melting? Easy. Dipping? Tricky. And time consuming. The results are worth it though, and I am almost always happy with the results.
So after 4 hours of standing over a double boiler in a hot sweaty kitchen, I can relax and sample my fruits of my labor, right?
Wrong.
Chocolate coating? Milk.
Cake mix? Milk and Eggs.
Oh well. One day I will make a vegan chocolate cake, vegan frosting, and coat it with dark chocolate and just indulge. Oh, and if you were wondering why I made them, it was a boss' birthday at work and I had nothing else to do the day before. It was a fun day to spend the afternoon.
Case in point:
Cake balls.
What are cake balls you ask? Well, a mixture of cake and frosting rolled into a ball and dipped in chocolate. The ones shown above are chocolate frosting, chocolate cake, and chocolate coating. I've also done red velvet balls with cream cheese frosting dipped in white chocolate. You can buy virtually any mix, any frosting and any kind of candy coating for these babies. I've also done them on sticks in mini cupcake wrappers. Now, they are not my idea. The credit for this genius invention is Bakerella. She's like my blog idol. Seriously, browse her site and you will need a towel to mop up the drool on your keyboard.
But anyway, ignoring the glare (I REALLY need to work on my food photography skills, like, hey maybe removing the plastic wrap from the photo subject maybe?) they look cute right? So simple. Make a box cake, mix in frosting, make the balls, dip and you are done. Well, kind of but no. These suckers take at least 4 hours each time. Very sore legs. Baking? Easy. Mixing? Easy. Melting? Easy. Dipping? Tricky. And time consuming. The results are worth it though, and I am almost always happy with the results.
So after 4 hours of standing over a double boiler in a hot sweaty kitchen, I can relax and sample my fruits of my labor, right?
Wrong.
Chocolate coating? Milk.
Cake mix? Milk and Eggs.
Oh well. One day I will make a vegan chocolate cake, vegan frosting, and coat it with dark chocolate and just indulge. Oh, and if you were wondering why I made them, it was a boss' birthday at work and I had nothing else to do the day before. It was a fun day to spend the afternoon.
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