Bagels

I've been making bagels for a few months now. We usually bake them on Sunday morning, and sometimes there are enough left on Monday for breakfast. They generally get gobbled up pretty fast!

They are surprisingly easy to make, and don't use very many ingredients. John D. Lee has a wonderful tutorial over at hubpages.com that I highly recommend you look at. Normally I would post the recipe, but he does such a wonderful job explaining it that I'm not going to bother.

Here's a picture of the ones we made yesterday:

Vegan Poptarts!

Zach was craving pop tarts tonight, so of course we were out. I started to wonder if it was possible to make my own. They are supposed to be a pastry, right? So I thought about it a little and realized that the dough I make pie crusts from would probably work. We have a jar of apricot jam in the fridge, so why not try to make apricot poptarts?

Before I started I did a quick google search. Sure enough, I haven't been the only person with this idea! chezpin.com lists a very detailed description on how to make them. asweetfantasy.blogspot.com has some very pretty ones if you don't mind artificial coloring.

Here are mine:





You can use any piecrust recipe, just add a teaspoon or so of sugar to it.

Here's the recipe I used:

Poptarts
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 cup Crisco
3 tbsp. cold water

1/4 cup jam (your favorite)

1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 teaspoons water


Mix the flour, salt, sugar, and shortening together until the mixture is "sandy". Gradually add the water and stir, until a pliable dough forms. Don't be afraid to use your hands!

I then rolled the dough out, and cut it into rectangles. I thought of each rectangle as an open book. I added about 2 teaspoons of jam to each rectangle, and folded it in half (as if you are closing the book). Then I used a fork to press the edges together. I used the same fork to add puncture holes to the poptarts, so they don't turn into poptart bubbles in the oven.

I baked them for 12 minutes at 450F. While they cooled I mixed together the powdered sugar with a little water. Add the water slowly, a little goes a long way. When the mixture was of icing-consistency, I used it to frost the poptarts.

I got 7 small ones out of the recipe. Zach ate 5 of them in one sitting. I hope you enjoy them as much as he did!

*I'm aware that some vegans don't consider sugar to be vegan-friendly. I think it just depends on where you want to draw the line. I'm almost positive that you can replace the small amount of sugar with maple syrup or agave nectar. I'm out of both right now, but I will try it when I get more and update this with the results.

Pecan Pie

This recipe is from Recipezaar. It is very unique in that it is one of the few pecan pie recipes that doesn't use corn syrup. I think the brown sugar gives it a wonderful flavor.

Pecan Pie (x 2)
2 cups margarine
4 cups brown sugar
6 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 - 3 cups pecans (whole, chopped, whatever! In my opinion, halved looks the best)

Preheat the oven to 350*F.

Melt the margarine in a saucepan. Add the brown sugar, and stir to dissolve. Remove from the heat, and allow it to cool slightly. You don't want it too hot or you will cook the eggs as you add them! Beat in the eggs, vanilla, and salt. Mix mix mix!

Pour the mixture into 2 pie crusts (unbaked, recipe below). Now, gently add the pecans on top of the pies. They will sink slightly, but most will "float".

Carefully (without jarring them around too much) transfer the pies to the oven. Bake for 45 minutes.

I suggest you serve this with whipped cream, or, better yet, vanilla ice cream.

Pie Crust
Pie crust is easy to make, and is one of those things that are somehow satisfying and fun to make. It can be a bit tricky to get the dough over the pie pan, but once you learn it is a piece of cake. I mean, pie.

2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup Crisco shortening
5-7 tablespoons of water

Mix the flour and salt together. Add the Crisco, and mix it into the flour. The easiest way to do this is with your hands. Squish it into the flour, mush it around. Eventually the flour and crisco will make sandy little pebbles. Once you get to this stage, add the water. Knead the dough just enough to make it doughy and stretchy. You don't want to over-knead pie crust.

Divide the dough into two balls and roll them out on a lightly floured surface until they are 1/4 inch thick. If you are having trouble rolling it out, and it seems like the dough is breaking a lot, then you need to add a little more water.

Sprinkle a tad more flour on top of the crust, and, starting with the edge closest to you, wrap it around the rolling pin. You want the rolling pin to be surrounded in the sheet of dough you made. Now, unwind it from the rolling pin and onto a pie pan. This seems to be the easiest method.

I'm not sure how to explain how to crimp the pie crust, so, if you want a fancy pants pie crust, I recommend this video: Recipetips.com

Tada! This makes enough for two un-covered pies (like pecan and pumpkin pies) or one covered pie (like an apple pie).

Thanksgiving

This was our very first vegetarian Thanksgiving, and it was wonderful to be able to spend it with a vegetarian-friendly family. We spent it with Zach's aunt and uncle, Pete and Beth. Zach's brother and cousin stopped in later for dessert. It couldn't have been a better environment for River's first Thanksgiving!

The only dishes that contained meat were the turkey itself, and the turkey gravy.

There were two types of vegetarian stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, homemade garlic and herb butter, whole wheat buns, pumpkin polenta, butternut squash, green bean casserole, an unturkey seitan roast, and vegetarian gravy. For dessert there was cherry, pecan, and pumpkin pies, and hot coffee. It was quite the feast!

I don't have the recipe that Beth used for her vegetarian stuffing, but ours came from Vegweb.com. We skipped the rosemary, raisins, and nuts. It was good, but a little dry. I should have added a little extra vegetable broth but I was worried it would be soggy. Beth's stuffing was much tastier, I'll have to ask her for the recipe.

Our Unturkey Seitan Roast came from The Vegan Chef. I followed the recipe to a T. Unfortunately, something went wrong. Somewhere, I made a mistake. I suspect that when I was supposed to add half the liquid to the Vital Wheat Gluten, that I mis-measured and added less. My Unturkey came out dry and rubbery. The flavor was wonderful though, and it sliced up like turkey.

The vegetarian gravy was kind of an experiement. Beth makes really good gravy, but had never made a vegetarian version. She created a recipe using vegetable broth. It was good, but I think the broth and spices wound up tasting a bit too salty... I'm not sure what was off, actually. She suggested that we add a can of Cream of Mushroom Soup to the mix. Somehow, this worked! It wasn't the best gravy, but it was creamy and good.

I think that I left my camera at Beth's house (or possibly in the car) so I'll have to wait to post pictures.

Potato Soup

Again, I have been too busy to post! I promised it wouldn't happen, but then I got busy. Zach and I decided to get married. Because we both have no patience, it meant that I planned the wedding and we pulled it off in a week. Amazingly enough, it all went according to plan!

We also built a new veggie garden. We already have snowpea sprouts! We also planted brussels sprouts, pak choi (chinese cabbage), spinach, and lettuce. Hopefully those will sprout soon, too.

Now, on to the latest recipe! Zach made some delicious potato soup a few days ago. He modified it from a recipe that contained *gasp* bacon and other icky things. I don't have a picture yet, but I promise that there will be one soon!

Potato Soup
1 small onion (diced)
2 celery stalks (diced)
3 cloves of garlic (minced)
9 potatoes (slice or roughly chop, doesn't matter)
2 quarts veggie broth (enough to cover the potatoes, you might not use all of this)
1/4 cup margarine (Earth Balance is vegan!)
1/4 cup flour
1 cup milk (soymilk works, too)
1 teaspoon dried tarragon
salt and pepper

In a large pot, saute the onion, celery, and garlic until the onion is starting to turn tender and transparent. Add the potatoes, and saute for another 5 minutes. Add enough vegetable broth to cover the potatoes. Cover, and simmer until the potatoes are very tender. This will depend on how well you diced your potatoes - smaller pieces cook faster. Ours took 40 minutes to reach the point of ultimate softness.

In a separate pan you are going to combine the margarine, flour, and milk to create a roux. If you haven't done this before, read on! Otherwise, skip to the next paragraph. A roux (pronounced roo, like kangaroo) is one of the mother sauces used in French cooking to create gravies, sauces, or act as a thickening agent. Don't let this scare you away, it is easy to make. First, melt the margarine in a frying pan over medium heat. Next, add the flour. Stir and mix and mush it together, it is going to be thick. Smush it around over medium heat for 2-3 minutes. Failure to complete this step will leave things tasting a little flour-ey. Add the milk, and mix it with a whisk until the sauce comes to a boil. When it has thickened to a gravy-like consistency, you are done making the roux! Congrats on creating a mother sauce, it is a basis used in a LOT of other recipes!

Add the tarragon, salt, and pepper (to taste) to the roux, and set it aside for a moment. In the meantime, mash away at your pot of potatos with a potato masher. We like ours chunky, so we didn't do this for very long. But, by all means, go all out and smash smash smash away if you want a smooth soup.

Mix the roux and potato mush together.

Add a little more milk (or soymilk) if it seems too thick, and add more salt and pepper if it needs it. Garnish with cilantro.

This tastes really good with either breadrolls or (strangely enough) cheese quesidillas.

Enjoy!