Homemade vegan ice cream sandwiches

Officially summer = officially time to make ice cream, even here in the Pacific Northwest. Last week, I finally got my ice cream maker out of its box, cleaned it up and stuck it in the freezer. It was time.

But then I realized I could take my ice cream one step further – ice cream sandwiches. I had never made my own ice cream sandwiches, but it’s really not that hard. It just takes a bit of time and effort, and once you’re done you’re rewarded with some pretty good tasting stuff.

How easy is it? Well, if you’re not up for baking cookies or making your own ice cream, just grab a box of your favorite vegan cookies (any should do) and your favorite vegan ice cream (vanilla is probably best) and start making sandwiches. But if you want to go the homemade route, then read on.

You can make ice cream sandwiches with any cookie. At first I thought I’d go with chocolate chip, and a part of me wanted to go with oatmeal raisin, but then I remembered a recipe for chocolate cookies I had come across a few years ago on FatFree Vegan Kitchen. I only modified the recipe a tad, and they are absolutely perfect for this summer vegan recipe.

Vegan Chocolate Cookies
Makes about 2 dozen cookies

• 1 cup unbleached white flour (or to make it gluten-free, use gluten-free baking flour)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 5 tablespoons vegan butter
• 1/2 cup plus 1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch-process)
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup soy yogurt or vegan milk (if you use vegan milk, you may need to increase the flour by a tablespoon or two)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• Sugar or Celtic sea salt, both optional

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Cover two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.

Mix the flour, soda, and salt together and set aside.

Mixing flour, baking soda and salt

In another bowl, mix the cocoa with the granulated and brown sugars and set aside.

Mixing cocoa powder with granulated and brown sugars

Melt the vegan butter in a medium-sized saucepan. When it is completely melted, take it off the heat and add the sugar and cocoa mixture, then stir to combine.

Melting the butter, then adding cocoa mixture to it

Then add the soy yogurt or vegan milk, vanilla extract and balsamic vinegar and stir until mixed.

Mixing together cocoa mixture with vegan milk, balsamic vinegar and vanilla extract

Finally, add the flour mixture and stir just until it’s combined, but don’t over-mix.

The cookie batter finally comes together!

Using a cookie scoop or tablespoon, drop tablespoons of the dough onto the baking sheets about 1 1/2 inches apart.

Chocolate cookies ready to go into the oven

If you want your cookies to be uniformly round, instead grab a spoonful and roll it in your hands for a few seconds then place the cookie ball on the sheet. It will be more perfectly round that way.

Sprinkle lightly with your choice of vanilla sugar or Celtic sea salt (I opted for the latter on about half of the cookies), and place them in the oven.

Adding a sprinkling of Celtic sea salt to my chocolate cookies

After about five minutes, switch the pans around so that the one on top is on the bottom and the front sides are in the back. Check again in another five minutes. Be careful – depending on the type of pan you use, they can go from underdone to burned in seconds. They shouldn’t need more than 11 minutes and will look soft on top, but they’ll harden as they cool. Note that I baked these for a maximum of 10 minutes because I wanted to keep them a little on the chewy side.

Remove from the oven and transfer onto cooling racks.

A mix of small and large cookies, some with salt on top and some without

Next thing I did was make a basic recipe of coconut ice cream. I also doubled this recipe, but it’s really probably not necessary. I still have some ice cream in the freezer that I didn’t use.

The ice cream was still too soft once it was done, so I stuck it in the freezer overnight. I used a metal bowl and just covered it with plastic wrap.

Perfectly frozen coconut ice cream

I then used a melon baller scoop and scooped out a generous amount of ice cream and placed it on the bottom side of a cookie. Take another similarly shaped and sized cookie and place it bottom down on top of the ice cream and press down.

Finally - introducing the ice cream and the cookies so they can party together!

You can either do one of two things:

1. Eat it right away, but it will definitely be more messy because it will melt fast.
2. Stick in your freezer for a few hours, then individually wrap each in plastic wrap and store in your freezer for up to five days.

Yum - vegan ice cream sandwich

These are fantastic, but I would definitely allow a couple of days to prepare if you are making these totally from scratch for a party, picnic or event. I thought I’d be able to make them in one day, but the ice cream really needs to be pretty well frozen to make it easy to put these babies together.

One variation I wish I had tried: blending a couple of tablespoons of peanut butter with the ice cream mixture. That would have been pretty awesome. A good excuse to make them again!

Do you ever make ice cream sandwiches? What is your favorite combo?

Pfeffernuesse Cookies

As I am getting older, I am understanding more the whole issue about Christmas – and holidays in general – being about materialism and less about sharing cultural and familial traditions. If you’re anything like me, you find yourself doing some last minute shopping online, hunting around for coupons and wondering what on earth this or that someone would want to receive – and winding up rather irritated by the whole thing. I admit that I did it this year, but I am already thinking that next year will be different. With a little planning and personal ingenuity, I’ll make Christmas more satisfying for everyone.

I confess that I nearly did that this year, but when confronted with five dozen of your favorite cookies, it’s actually rather hard to share. Yes. I have eaten nearly five dozen cookies by myself (and now I seriously need to exercise).

Vegan Pfeffernuesse Cookies
I veganized this Pfeffernusse Cookies recipe from AllRecipes.com
Makes about 5 dozen cookies

• 1/2 cup molasses
• 1/4 cup agave nectar
• 1/2 cup vegan butter or margarine
• Egg replacer for 2 eggs (If using flax, you can mix 2 tablespoons ground flax seed with 6 tablespoons of hot water)
• 4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cardamom
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 2 teaspoons anise extract
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground black or white pepper (I used white)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup confectioners’ sugar for dusting

Stir together the molasses, honey, shortening, and margarine in a saucepan over medium heat; cook and stir until ingredients are well incorporated. Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature. Stir in the anise extract, as well as the prepared egg replacer (confession – I forgot to do the egg replacer at this point, but adding it later is okay).

Mixing together molasses, agave nectar and vegan butter

This recipe is all about the spices, so get together all your powdered spices and measure them out separately if you have a tendency to forget what you just added last (raises hand).

Spices for pfeffernuesse cookies

Combine the flour, white sugar, brown sugar, cardamom, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, pepper, and salt in a large bowl.

Mixing together dry ingredients

Add the molasses mixture and stir until thoroughly combines. You may have to mix together with your hands to make sure it is very well mixed. Refrigerate at least 2 hours.

Incorporating the wet ingredients

Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Roll the dough into acorn-sized balls. Arrange on baking sheets, spacing at least 1 inch apart. Bake in preheated oven 10 to 15 minutes.

Pfeffernuesse cookies

Move to a rack to cool. Dust cooled cookies with confectioners’ sugar.

Dusting cookies with confectioner's sugar

I don’t know what possessed me to make so many cookies, especially when this was experimental for me (this is the first time I’ve made vegan pfeffernuesse cookies – and they were based upon a recipe with honey and eggs), but I really truly lucked out big time. These are AMAZING! If you have never had pfeffernuesse cookies, they are spicy, which can add a little heat, and sweet to take the edge off, but surprisingly, not too sweet (if you counted, you’ll know there are five sugars in this recipe). When you bite into them, they are a little harder on the outside and completely chewy on the inside.

Five dozen pfeffernuesse cookies

I let my husband try part of one and he thought they were awful, so these are obviously not for everyone. (That’s actually one reason I didn’t ship these off – I had visions of cookies going into trashcans. I just had to be the cookie advocate and put them on my thighs instead.)

But if you love pfeffernuesse like I do, and know people in your life who would be up for a tin of these little goodies, they are the perfect solution for your gift-giving dilemma during the holidays. Just remember to wrap them well, and ship them within a day or two of baking them so they are less likely to arrive stale.

Vegan Pfeffernuesse Cookies

Happy Holidays!

Homemade Kimchee

If I remember correctly, the first time I was introduced to kimchee was when I was living in a dorm. One of my friends was Korean, and she would sometimes have good homemade Korean food after being at home for the weekend or on vacation. At least one of those times she brought kimchee. I was hooked, but our dean was not. She thought the smell was so rank and terrible that she wound up banning kimchee from the dorm. Although disappointing, I still managed to have it every now and then, and over the past couple of years we have been making our own at home.

In case you’re wondering, kimchee (also spelled kimchi or kim chee) is an all encompassing word for the many varieties of fermented foods found in Korean cuisine. Typically, kimchee is made with a variety of vegetables, with the most popular tending to be napa cabbage. While a lot of kimchee is vegan, not all of it is – oftentimes you will see shrimp or other seafood found in the ingredients list on a commercial bag or jar. Vegan varieties do exist, and my favorite brand that I have come across so far is Sunja’s Kimchee.

Like other fermented foods (i.e. sauerkraut and pickles), kimchee is extremely good for you. Not only is it low in calories, it is high in fiber, contains a lot of vitamins and minerals, and it also contains beneficial bacteria which aids in digestion. When I have felt a cold coming on or if my digestion seems to have slowed down, even a quarter cup or half a cup of kimchee a day will help turn things around. Health Magazine has named kimchee one of the world’s healthiest foods.

While you can go out and grab a jar of kimchee, there is nothing more satisfying than knowing that you can make it yourself at home. If you’re anything like I was, you are probably overwhelmed at the thought of making your own kimchee or any type of fermented food. What if you do something wrong? What if you have to spend a lot of money to get started? What if you don’t like it?

I will admit that it does require a certain amount of work, but once you get the hang of it you’ll find that it goes easier and faster. There are many different ways to make kimchee, but I am going to show you how to make it in a Harsch fermentation crock with the ingredients I like to use. I first learned how to make kimchi using the very detailed instructions in this .pdf, so if you are still overwhelmed at the prospect of making your own kimchee this should also give you some good information that I may not be sharing in my post. (I’ve noticed that the original link to this .pdf no longer exists, so if the link I provide here no longer works, let me know and I can try to find another alternate link or email it to you directly.)

Kimchee

• 1 head napa cabbage
• 3 or 4 carrots, peeled and grated
• Daikon radish (this comes in varying sizes, so I would choose a small one), chopped
• 1 bunch of scallions, chopped
• About 1-inch size of ginger, peeled and chopped finely
• Coarse sea salt
• Crushed red pepper
• Sugar or agave nectar

First, boil about 4 or 5 tablespoons of salt in 8 cups of water, and let completely cool.

Boiling salt water

You will use this salt water at a later point when you are nearly done making the kimchee.

Take your head of napa cabbage and discard the damaged outer leaves. Remove about 3 or 4 of the intact outer leaves and salt them, then put in a large glass or plastic bowl (not metal).

Salting the napa cabbage

At this point I like to take the rest of the cabbage and chop it up into bite-sized pieces. Some kimchee is made where all the leaves are essentially left whole, but we like ours chopped up. Salt as much of the pieces as you can and put them in your large bowl with the larger outer leaves. Cover with water, and weigh down the cabbage with a bowl or plate. Let it sit for at least two hours.

Salting and then soaking the cabbage

I am using this salt which I have only been able to find in Korean grocery stores. If you do not have a Korean grocery store near you, you can try to use another sea salt or you can order it online. There are many different brands of Korean sea salt, so the one in the picture is not your only option.

Kimchee sea salt

After a couple of hours you’ll find that the cabbage has wilted. Drain the water and rinse the cabbage well.

Wilted napa cabbage

Prepare your other vegetables that you wish to use in your kimchee. Here I am using carrots, daikon, scallions and ginger.

Carrots, scallions, daikon and ginger

Add crushed red pepper (I usually do about two tablespoons which makes a batch of kimchee this size mildly spicy to medium spicy), a couple of tablespoons of salt and about a teaspoon of sugar (this is optional, but it gives the bacteria a boost). Mix all the ingredients together by hand, including the cabbage except for the larger leaves (it’s a good idea if you can use kitchen gloves, because the red pepper and salt can irritate your hands).

Making the kimchee spicy

Again, the red pepper can be found in Korean grocery stores, but I wouldn’t substitute on this one. If you can’t find it near you, then try to purchase it online. There are also many brands of red pepper, so you don’t need to be picky.

Once everything has been well mixed, place the kimchee mixture into the Harsch crock. We have a 5-liter crock, which is the smallest size that this company makes. Don’t let the size fool you, though. It can make about twice or triple the batch you’re seeing here, and the crock itself is extremely heavy.

Harsch fermentation crock

Once you have everything in the crock, take a dowel or rolling pin and mash your vegetables for a few minutes. This helps to release some of the vegetable’s water.

Mashing the kimchee vegetables

Once you are done, place the large leaves of cabbage over the top of the kimchee, then on top of that place the two half moon ceramic pieces that come with the crock. These weigh the kimchee down so that it stays below the water.

Covering up the kimchee

Pour the salt water on top of the two ceramic pieces until they are covered. Place the lid on top of the crock, then fill the reservoir with water so that the holes on the side of the lid are adequately covered. This makes it so that oxygen does not enter the kimchee as it is fermenting. After a few hours or on the second day you may see bubbles escape through the water – this means that your kimchee is fermenting!

Kimchee fermenting in the Harsch crock

I like to let my kimchee ferment for about four days, but some people prefer shorter or longer fermentation periods. As tempting as it may be, do not open the crock until you plan to take your kimchee out! It won’t necessarily ruin the kimchee, but when oxygen comes in contact with it, there is a greater chance for mold.

About to take out the kimchee

When you open up your crock and take a look at the kimchee, do check for floating mold or slime. This batch didn’t have any, but to be on the safe side, I still discarded some of the top part of the kimchee juice (including the floating veggies) before removing the kimchee from the crock.

When your kimchee is done, you can store it in a glass container in the refrigerator. If you use a container with an air tight seal, make sure it is not completely closed as the fermentation will still continue in the refrigerator and the air will still need a way to escape. I like to store my kimchee in mason jars, and as you can see I used a plastic sandwich bag and a plastic lid. I have used regular canning lids, but have found that they do disintegrate and start to rust after a while from the acids in the kimchee, so a plastic barrier of some kind is my current solution.

Storing kimchee

It has been a while since I’ve made kimchee, so I made a smaller batch this time. It turned out nicely, although it is a pretty sour one. My husband would probably prefer a milder kimchee (and sans ginger), so a couple of days of fermentation might have yielded him a nicer kimchee.

Still, if you wind up with kimchee that is too spicy or sour, there are ways that you can use it without throwing it out. We enjoy using it in stir fry, or a lot of Koreans will make soup or pancakes (not your breakfast variety) with them. It’s also nice to have with a simple bowl of rice, which will cut the heat and sourness down a little bit. The nice thing is that your kimchi will last for months and sometimes up to a year, so there is time for you to figure out how best to use it.

Never had kimchee before? Before you do anything else, I would strongly suggest that you find a small jar of kimchee at your local health food store, or a store like Whole Foods. It is not something that everyone likes, so before you commit yourself to making it, try it first.

I also recommend watching some videos on how to make kimchee. It’s not necessary to use a fermentation crock – and it’s not even necessary to ferment it before eating it. As they say, variety is the spice of life. ;)

Have you made kimchee before? How do you make it?

Homemade Vegan Ice Cream

Summers in New York are typically very hot and very sticky. As you walk through the heat you can feel the heavy weightiness of the humidity, and if you do not have air conditioning, you probably experience a kind of misery that only ice can abate. This summer, though, is a whole other story. We’ve had hot and humid days, but overall the weather as been extraordinarily mild and we’ve had a preference for open windows instead of electricity-sucking air conditioners. It’s been fantastic and one of the more tolerable summers during my life on the East Coast.

Even though it has been mild, we still have had a lot of excuses to make ice cream in our new KitchenAid ice cream maker attachment. We’ve tried various flavors so far, and have been very impressed. Below is the base recipe you need for a nice coconut ice cream, and the options are endless to make other flavors.

Note: You can use any ice cream maker for this, but most will require that you freeze the bowl for 12 – 16 hours. Usually what we do is either keep the ice cream bowl in the freezer when we’re not using it (which takes up vital real estate), or we just stick it in the freezer the night before we plan to make ice cream.

Coconut Ice Cream
This makes enough for two people or for four people to each have a small serving. To make more I would suggest using two cans of coconut milk.

• 1 can coconut milk
• 1/3 cup sugar or agave nectar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Blend all ingredients until well combined, then chill for at least an hour. If you are using the Kitchenaid attachment, turn on the mixer to stir, then pour in the ice cream mixture and let it stir for about 15 to 20 minutes or it is at the desired consistency.

You can serve immediately, which will make it more of a soft serve, or stick it in the freezer for a few hours so it will set a little more. We prefer to eat it fresh as we haven’t found a way for it to retain its smooth consistency after it sits in the freezer.

Creamy Vegan Ice Cream

Suggested variations

Peanut Butter Ice Cream
Blend about 3 tablespoons (or more or less to taste) with your other ingredients. If you like chocolate chips, you can add this towards the end of the ice cream maker’s cycle.

Mango Ice Cream (or you can do other fruits like peaches or bananas)
Add in a cup or so of frozen or fresh mango and blend well with your other ingredients. You may want to up your vanilla to 2 teaspoons. Taste test after you blend to make sure it’s exactly the flavor you want.

POM Wonderful

Pomegranate Ice Cream
To make a creamy sorbet, add about a cup of POM Wonderful juice to your other ingredients and blend well. Again – taste test. Other fruit juices or nectars could be used.

Yummy Vegan Ice Cream

Do you make vegan ice cream? If so, what’s your favorite flavor?

This is yet another post in my series of how to save money in the kitchen. I haven’t priced out how much this costs this time, because this is more about making do with what you have. If you have these few ingredients on hand or others (like grapes or other berries of some kind), it can be very inexpensive to make. Cheers!

Last weekend was our first official hot weekend of Spring. It was the kind of weekend where the air was sticky and warm, and where we wished that we had gone ahead and put in the air conditioners (no central AC for us). It was also a weekend where we thanked ourselves for having all the right ingredients to create a drink that was exactly what we needed: cool and refreshing.

I have to give my husband credit for this drink, because he had made it a few days prior (thanks for the idea, husband!).

Strawberry Lemonade

• 1 lemon, juiced
• 1 lime, juiced
• 6 – 10 strawberries, trimmed and sliced
• Agave nectar and/or stevia
• Water, cold
• Ice

Put ice into a pitcher. I filled our pitcher with probably about two or two and a half cups of ice.

Juice your lemon and lime straight into the pitcher.

Add the chopped strawberries to the pitcher.

Add sweetener to taste. My husband prefers to use stevia, which is a natural sweetener sans the sugar. You can purchase stevia as a powder or as an extract like this:

As you can see in the next picture, there are 1,440 servings in this little bottle, but we like our drinks sweet so we tend to use more than two drops a serving.

In this recipe I probably put about two full droppers of stevia liquid in the pitcher.

Next fill up the rest of the pitcher with water, and then stir everything together.

Let your pitcher of water sit for about 10 or 15 minutes prior to serving to let the flavor of the strawberries seep into the drink. You can also omit the ice if you won’t be serving immediately and let it sit for a few hours in your refrigerator. It will gradually turn a pinkish color and the strawberry flavor will be more pronounced.

The lovely thing about this drink, besides the fact that it’s refreshing, is that you can get really inventive with it and use really any type of fruit you have on hand. Either time we’ve made it we had strawberries, lemons and limes, but really, you could do most any fruit and it would turn out just as well.

Also, if you have an upcoming picnic, consider serving this in bell jars – it can be a nod to the eventual strawberry jam to come.

So if it’s hot, humid and you have no air conditioning make yourself some strawberry lemonade stat!

This is another post in a series focused on how to be more frugal in the kitchen. Recession or not, it’s a great feeling to know that you can create good homemade food for less.

I love pocket pita. I love dipping it in baba ghanoush or hummus, and I love cutting it in half and filling it with avocado and sprouts for a simple, yet delicious sandwich. I usually buy pita at the store, but lately I’ve decided to start making my own to save money. Not only that, it’s actually kind of fun to make pita because of how interesting it looks as it puffs up in the oven.

This is so easy that you’ll probably wonder why you haven’t gotten around to making it at home yourself. Sure, not every single pita puffs up the way you may hope, but it’s fresh and still tastes really nice.

The recipe I’ve been using comes from The Fresh Loaf, and has extra info and pictures that you may find helpful. I’ve replaced the non-vegan ingredients with vegan ones.

Pita Bread
This recipe makes 8 pitas

• 3 cups flour (white or whole wheat, or a mixture of the two is fine)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 tablespoon sugar or agave nectar
• 1 packet yeast (or, if from bulk, 2 teaspoons yeast)
• 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups water, roughly at room temperature
• 2 tablespoons olive oil, vegetable oil, vegan butter, or shortening

If you are using active dry yeast, follow the instructions on the packet to activate it. Otherwise, mix the yeast in with the flour, salt, and sugar.

Add the olive oil and 1 1/4 cup water and stir together with a spoon.

All of the ingredients should form a ball. If some of the flour will not stick to the ball, add more water (I had to add an extra 1/4 cup).

Once all of the ingredients form a ball, place the ball on a work surface, such as a cutting board, and knead the dough for approximately 10 minutes (or until your hands get tired). If you are using an electric mixer, mix it at low speed for 10 minutes.

(The purpose of kneading is to thoroughly combine the ingredients and to break down the flour so that the dough will become stretchy and elastic and rise well in the oven. A simple hand kneading technique is to firmly press down on the dough with the palm of your hand, fold the dough in half toward you like you are closing an envelope, rotate the dough 90 degrees and then repeat these steps, but whatever technique you are comfortable using should work.)

When you are done kneading the dough, place it in a bowl that has been lightly coated with oil. Form a ball out of the dough and place it into the bowl, rolling the ball of dough around in the bowl so that it has a light coat of oil on all sides. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a damp kitchen towel and set aside to rise until it has doubled in size, approximately 90 minutes.

Here you can see that it has approximately doubled in size.

When it has doubled in size, punch the dough down to release some of the trapped gases and divide it into 8 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball, cover the balls with a damp kitchen towel, and let them rest for 20 minutes. This step allows the dough to relax so that it’ll be easier to shape.

While the dough is resting, preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. If you have a baking stone, put it in the oven to preheat as well. If you do not have a baking stone, turn a cookie sheet upside down and place it on the middle rack of the oven while you are preheating the oven. This will be the surface on which you bake your pitas.

After the dough has relaxed for 20 minutes, spread a light coating of flour on a work surface and place one of the balls of dough there. Sprinkle a little bit of flour on top of the dough and use a rolling pin or your hands to stretch and flatten the dough.

You should be able to roll it out to between 1/8 and 1/4 inch thick. If the dough does not stretch sufficiently you can cover it with the damp towel and let it rest 5 to 10 minutes before trying again.

Open the oven and place as many pitas as you can fit on the hot baking surface. They should be baked through and puffy after 3 minutes.

It should start forming bubbles after about a minute of baking.

This one has awkwardly puffed up, so this one will likely be used for dipping in hummus.

This one has puffed up perfectly. I can cut this one in half and use it to make a sandwich by filling it up with hummus, avocado and sprouts.

If you want your pitas to be crispy and brown you can bake them for an additional 3 to 5 minutes, but it isn’t necessary.

Let’s figure out how much I’ve saved by making this at home.

I’ve grabbed all the following prices off of a random grocery store’s website I’ve found online. The final price may vary for you, but this should give you a general idea of how much you can save.

In my calculations below I am only including the cost of the flour and the yeast. The other ingredients are so minimal that it would be hard to figure out exactly how much they add to the cost of individual pitas. If you think it would be more accurate you could add on a few cents.

A package of store-bought pita costs $2.39 for six pitas, effectively making each pita cost $0.40.

One five-pound bag of flour contains 20 cups (thanks Google!). Whole wheat flour costs $3.19/five-pound bag (I believe it actually costs more than this at my local grocery store, but I don’t think it’s gone beyond the $4 mark yet), and all-purpose white flour costs $3.69/five-pound bag. So to figure out the cost of one cup of flour, you’d do $3.19/20=$0.16. A packet of yeast, which contains three sections of yeast, costs $2.59. Each section costs $0.86 ($2.59/3). I used one section in this recipe.

This recipe ultimately costs $1.36 for eight, but let’s compare the cost of a package of six pitas to the cost of six homemade pitas (assuming that we’ve used the same recipe to make six larger pitas as opposed to eight smaller pitas). I’ll show how much this would cost depending on a few different flour mixtures.

It’s amazing how much you can save by making your own pita at home (and you may be able to reduce the price even further by using natural yeast). The first time or two is a little time consuming, but once you’re used to making them it can go really fast. The thing to keep in mind is that you will need to make sure that you have time to make these since it does have rise time, plus the time it takes to bake them. I can usually bake two at a time, but since it only takes three minutes to bake them, the entire baking time is less than 20 minutes.

Do you make pita? Do you make it any differently? And how do you eat it?

Valentine’s Day is probably one of my favorite holidays. Maybe it’s because of all the girlie colors and hearts and flowers, or because of the shallow romance courtesy of department stores, but I just can’t help but like it. Of course, I’m sure that I resented the holiday when I was single or forlorn over someone that wouldn’t “Be Mine”. That’s probably a given. Now Valentine’s Day offers me an excuse to get into the kitchen and try to make something that has equal parts romance and flour and KitchenAid mixer.

This year I was (sort of) inspired to make sugar cookies because of the one thing that I do dislike about Valentine’s Day – conversation hearts. While they are cute, they taste pretty, well, nasty. I apologize if you enjoy the taste of conversation hearts, but I’d be happy without them or with a version that tasted more like chocolate than chalk. Even though my cookies have nothing conversational about them, I somehow thought that something sugary in the shape of a heart would be a nice substitute to those candies.

This isn’t my recipe, but I went with a recipe that appears to work and be popular among us vegans which is always a good sign when I set out to make a recipe I’ve not made before.

Vegan Sugar Cookies
This recipe was taken from www.johnandkristie.com. This makes about 36 cookies.

• 1 cup vegan butter, like Earth Balance or Soy Garden
• 3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup vegan white sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 whole egg replacements (Ener-G)
• 1/4 cup Tofutti cream cheese
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a large bowl, cream together the margarine and sugar.

Add or stir in the egg replacements and vanilla. Gradually add the flour, baking powder and tofu cream cheese.

You may have to use your hands at this point to finish the mixing. Form the dough into a long loaf, or divide in half and press into two flat rounds, and wrap in cellophane. Refrigerate for a couple hours.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease the cookie sheets, use a non-stick foil or parchment paper.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to 1/4 inch thickness.

Cut into desired shapes with cookie cutters.

Place about 1 inch apart cookie on sheets.

Bake for 12 to 14 minutes in the preheated oven, until bottoms and edges just start to get light brown. Remove from baking sheet and cool on wire racks. Store in an airtight container.

Icing
This is also taken from www.johnandkristie.com. Each batch is enough to easily coat 24 cookies.

• 2 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon of almond extract (I used vanilla extract instead)
• 6-8 teaspoons of soy milk or another non-dairy milk
• Assorted food coloring
• 4 teaspoons of light corn syrup (I used agave nectar)

In medium bowl, stir together confectioners’ sugar and soy milk until smooth.

Beat in corn syrup (or agave) and almond extract (or vanilla extract) until icing is smooth and glossy. If icing is too thick, add more corn syrup/agave.

Add food coloring to desired intensity. To make pink I used probably 2 or 3 drops of red, and to make purple I used about 5 drops of red and one drop of blue.

Dip cookies and allow to dry. You can dry them overnight or for a couple of hours before storing.

This recipe made A LOT of cookies. Maybe I rolled the dough out more thinly than I should have, but I still have quite a few cookies leftover. This last weekend seemed to be Samantha’s Sugar Festival of 2009, so I opted to take in the rest of the presentable cookies to work. My co-workers ate and enjoyed them, and I confess I had four…or five. They were within arms reach, okay?! Anyway, it’s always rewarding to see non-vegan people eat the vegan stuff (of course, I didn’t spread the word they were vegan) and say that it’s good.

What about you? Do you love or hate Valentine’s Day? If it’s the latter, I still recommend making these cookies, but instead of a heart I’d use a random cookie cutter shape like a dinosaur or maybe a train or flag. I bought a whole set of cookie cutters just to get a heart cookie cutter (really, I have wanted a full set, so it wasn’t just so I could have a heart shaped cutter), and believe me when I say that some of this batch turned into cats and hands. I just couldn’t help myself with the randomness.

This morning I thought I’d check in on the Daring Bakers website to see how much time I still had to make this month’s challenge. I discovered that today was my deadline! I had actually hoped to get this one created earlier in the month, but we had family over, then I was sick last week – and sadly I’m still sick. I am on the verge of wellness, so I figured that I could still make and post these lavash crackers and dip today. And hooray! Here we are!

I was very pleased to see that this month’s challenge was vegan. Usually every month I wind up doing some sort of science experiment by changing this ingredient to that and trying to get the ratio of the new ingredients to make sense. I’ve had a lot of interesting results, mostly good, but I was still so glad to see that us vegans and gluten free bakers can take a break and just make a recipe without having to think too hard.

I’ve made crackers before, but not of the lavash variety. This recipe, which I am posting mostly word for word, also has a gluten-free option which is great for people who have celiac disease. Note that I did not make gluten-free crackers – next time! :)

Lavash Crackers
Thank you to this month’s hosts – Shellyfish of Musings From The Fishbowl and Natalie of Gluten A Go Go

• 1 1/2 cups (6.75 ounces) unbleached bread flour or gluten free flour blend (If you use a blend without xanthan gum, add 1 teaspoon xanthan or guar gum to the recipe)
• 1/2 teaspoon (.13 ounces) salt
• 1/2 teaspoon (.055 ounces) instant yeast (Note from Samantha – I used 1 full teaspoon because I’ve had this yeast for a while. It worked perfectly.)
• 1 tablespoon (.75 ounces) agave syrup (a.k.a. agave nectar) or sugar
• 1 tablespoon (.5 ounces) vegetable oil
• 1/3 to 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons (3 to 4 ounces) water, at room temperature (Note from Samantha – I used about 1/3 cup water, and that was plenty.)
• Poppy seeds, sesame seeds, paprika, cumin seeds, caraway seeds, or kosher salt for toppings

In a mixing bowl, stir together the flour, salt yeast, agave, oil, and just enough water to bring everything together into a ball. You may not need the full 1/2 cup + 2 Tb of water, but be prepared to use it all if needed.

For Non Gluten Free Cracker Dough: Sprinkle some flour on the counter and transfer the dough to the counter.

Knead for about 10 minutes, or until the ingredients are evenly distributed. The dough should pass the windowpane test (see WikiHow for a description of this) and register 77 degrees to 81 degrees Fahrenheit. The dough should be firmer than French bread dough, but not quite as firm as bagel dough (what I call medium-firm dough), satiny to the touch, not tacky, and supple enough to stretch when pulled. Lightly oil a bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl, rolling it around to coat it with oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap.

or

For Gluten Free Cracker Dough: The dough should be firmer than French bread dough, but not quite as firm as bagel dough (what I call medium-firm dough), and slightly tacky. Lightly oil a bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl, rolling it around to coat it with oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap.

Ferment at room temperature for 90 minutes, or until the dough doubles in size. (You can also retard the dough overnight in the refrigerator immediately after kneading or mixing).

For Non Gluten Free Cracker Dough: Mist the counter lightly with spray oil and transfer the dough to the counter. Press the dough into a square with your hand and dust the top of the dough lightly with flour.

Roll it out with a rolling pin into a paper thin sheet about 15 inches by 12 inches. You may have to stop from time to time so that the gluten can relax. At these times, lift the dough from the counter and wave it a little, and then lay it back down.

Cover it with a towel or plastic wrap while it relaxes. When it is the desired thinness, let the dough relax for 5 minutes.

Line a sheet pan with baking parchment. Carefully lift the sheet of dough and lay it on the parchment. If it overlaps the edge of the pan, snip off the excess with scissors.

or

For Gluten Free Cracker Dough: Lay out two sheets of parchment paper. Divide the cracker dough in half and then sandwich the dough between the two sheets of parchment. Roll out the dough until it is a paper thin sheet about 15 inches by 12 inches. Slowly peel away the top layer of parchment paper. Then set the bottom layer of parchment paper with the cracker dough on it onto a baking sheet.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit with the oven rack on the middle shelf. Mist the top of the dough with water and sprinkle a covering of seeds or spices on the dough (such as alternating rows of poppy seeds, sesame seeds, paprika, cumin seeds, caraway seeds, kosher or pretzel salt, etc.) Be careful with spices and salt – a little goes a long way.

Quick note from Samantha – I used a variety of spices to vary the flavor. On some crackers I used garlic and salt, and on others I used dill. I also used this McCormick seasoning, Smoky Sweet Pepper.

If you want to precut the cracker, use a pizza cutter (rolling blade) and cut diamonds or rectangles in the dough. You do not need to separate the pieces, as they will snap apart after baking. If you want to make shards, bake the sheet of dough without cutting it first.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the crackers begin to brown evenly across the top (the time will depend on how thinly and evenly you rolled the dough).

Note from Samantha – I found that 10 minutes worked pretty well. My suggestion would be to check this every five minutes and rotate the cookie sheet to try for evenly distributed baking. It all depends on your oven.

When the crackers are baked, remove the pan from the oven and let them cool in the pan for about 10 minutes. You can then snap them apart or snap off shards and serve.

Final note from Samantha – I wound up dividing the dough into three sections, so I had three batches of crackers. Making the dough “paper thin” made it kind of impossible to fit on one cookie sheet, and two batches still didn’t seem quite right. It all depends on how much space you have in your oven, too. Our stove is one of those narrower ones, so we can only put our cookie sheets in the oven one way, and there’s most certainly not room for two cookie sheets on one rack.

I had hoped to create a soy-free dip for those of you who are anti-soy as well as for those of you who don’t have Tofutti where you shop, but it just didn’t happen. The nice thing about this recipe is that it is extremely flexible – so if you eat dairy, you can use regular cream cheese or if you’re vegan, you can probably create a creamy base with nuts like cashews or use tofu instead.

Artichoke and Sundried Tomato Dip

• 1 small jar marinated artichoke hearts, drained
• 4 sundried tomatoes
• 1-2 cloves garlic
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 package Tofutti cream cheese, Plain

Check to see if there are any tough pieces of your artichoke hearts that need to be cut away. The tough areas will be on the outer leaves, and unless you blend the dip well then you’ll still run across tough pieces when eating it.

Put the artichoke hearts, sundried tomatoes, garlic cloves and salt into a food processor and pulse the ingredients until they are chopped.

Add the Tofutti cream cheese, and blend together for about 10 – 15 seconds.

Taste test at this point to see if you need to add any other ingredients or balance out the ones you have in there.

The end result will be a creamy and flavorful dip that goes well with these crackers.

These crackers turned out really well. I don’t make crackers very frequently, but it is definitely good to have another reliable recipe on hand for future use.

The dip was also a great accompaniment. Both my husband and I scarfed down a few crackers and quite a bit of dip before restraining ourselves so we’d still have some for later. That’s always a good sign. ;)

Back when my husband and I tried the raw food diet for a month we wound up making a lot of food from scratch that we might have normally purchased at a store. One of those things was almond milk. At first making this sort of thing was truly intimidating, but once done we realized how easy it could be. Prep time is minutes, although twiddling your thumbs takes hours.

I was reminded of our foray into non-dairy milk making when I was on VeganYumYum a few weeks ago. She made her own soy milk, which, if you have ever done it, is both labor-intensive and time-consuming. She wasn’t exactly happy with the end results, either.

Inspired by her post, I decided to start making milk again, and am I glad I did. This batch turned out wonderfully. It was creamy, mostly smooth (mostly!), and didn’t even last a full week because we just couldn’t help ourselves.

Raw Homemade Almond Milk

• 1 cup raw almonds
• 7 – 8 cups water
• Agave nectar or another sweetener (optional)

Put your almonds into a good-sized bowl and fill the bowl up with water until they are covered well.

Cover with a towel and let sit in a cool place for about 24 – 48 hours (honestly, you could probably get away with less time, but I haven’t tried it). Rinse the almonds once a day, and if you are soaking for more than one day cover the almonds with water again.

Once they are finished soaking they will have become plump.

The difference is pretty amazing.

Pour off the water from the almonds and rinse well. Place the rinsed almonds into a blender (we use a VitaMix, but any blender should work fine), add the 7 – 8 cups of water, and blend for a few minutes or until well blended. At this stage you can add a sweetener if you want, but I left it out myself. Since the milk can potentially be used in a variety of ways it seems that you may want to leave the sweetener out.

When it is done blending it will look something like this…

…and it will have a lot of froth on top.

Strain the almond milk through a bag strainer (probably best), or through a fine sieve into your original bowl or another large container. We used to have a bag strainer, but found it hard to clean, so I used our small sieve.

If I am going to be making this on a regular basis I need to get a good sized sieve.

As you are straining it you will be getting a lot of almond meal. It is up to you if you want to conserve this or throw it out. You can do a variety of things with it – i.e. dehydrate it, turn it into a flour, mix it into some bread, etc.

After you have finished straining it, strain it again into your final pitcher or container. This will ensure that it is as smooth as possible. You can strain even further, but it is up to you.

The final result – about a half gallon of good and easy almond milk. Store in the refrigerator and try to use within a week. You will need to stir the almond milk every time you bring it out of the refrigerator to use since it does settle.

In thinking about making your own milk there are a couple of things to consider. Firstly, it amazes me how many ingredients are in commercial vegan milks. There’s usually a lot of sugar, not many ingredients I even recognize, and some are just plain unnecessary.

Secondly, the actual price of the product in the store compared to the price of making it at home is definitely less (of course this depends on how much you pay for almonds). If you pay $3.99 for 64 ounces of Silk Soymilk, then it is about $0.49/cup. If you pay $1.59 for rice milk, then it is about $0.40/cup. If you pay $5.79/pound for almonds, and of that use one cup of almonds to make eight cups of almond milk, then your price will come to about $0.27/cup or $1.09 for 4 cups (32 ounces) or $2.17 for eight cups (64 ounces).

Bottom line, it’s worth it.

If you are allergic to tree nuts you can make other milks in similar ways, like sunflower seed milk. I made that this past weekend and it wasn’t quite as good as the almond milk, but it still turned out fine. Difference was the soaking time (about four hours).

Overall, this is a very easy, cost effective, and delicious way to get homemade vegan milk.

The van’s doors were open, and several bags of contraband were heaped in the back, all taped up in clear plastic bags. A few of them had already been transferred to a waiting wheelbarrow. Tarquin was looking around furtively as another bear wearing faded Levi’s and a BEARZONE T-shirt cut open a packet of the contraband and carefully drew out a spoonful. He sniffed it suspiciously, mixed it with milk and heated it over a lighter before adding some brown sugar and salt, then sipping the result.
“This is good,” he said at last in a deep voice, making a few lip-smacky noises. “How much you got?”

-The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde

Reading Jasper Fforde’s novels is like watching Monty Python or a Leslie Nielsen film (Naked Gun movies come to mind) – the comedy is cheesy and completely funny, but mostly the language and dialog are clearly representative of a writer who loves wordsmithing.

I am no expert wordsmith myself, but whenever I read one of his novels I know that I am in for a very entertaining and satisfying read. The Fourth Bear was no exception – and this one left me trying to figure out which food to focus on for the blog.

First there were the prize-winning cucumbers, then the highly-sought after porridge, and finally the diabolical Gingerbread Man. There was also the diesel – but yeah, not so much.

I was very tempted to make ginger cookies, but realizing I was low on a couple of ingredients I decided to make porridge, for which I was amply supplied. According to the Internet, porridge can be made out of a variety of grains including, but not limited to, rice, barley, oats, and quinoa. I decided on the traditional steel cut oats.

I’ll admit that I am not the biggest oatmeal fan, so I took it as a challenge to myself to figure out how to make oatmeal that would make me craving for more. What resulted was a very creamy oatmeal with the appropriate amount of sweetness.

Prohibition Porridge

• 1 tablespoon butter (I used Soy Garden, which is vegan)
• 1 cup steel cut oats
• 3 cups water
• 1 cup milk (I used Silk, also vegan)
• Nuts, raisins, brown sugar, and agave nectar to taste

Melt the vegan butter in a medium-sized or large pan on low heat, and stir the steel cut oats into the melted butter. Stir the oats for a couple of minutes, toasting them on the low heat (increase the heat a little if necessary).

Add the 3 cups of water and stir. Leave it on low heat for about 25 – 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Your oatmeal will still be a little watery at this point, so no fear, it’s not done yet. Stir in the non-dairy milk. Let it continue for another 15 – 20 minutes, but keep an eye on it so that it doesn’t burn the bottom of the pan. Sample it as you get closer to the end to make sure it has cooked enough and is the consistency that you want.

Take it off the heat, pour some into a bowl, and add brown sugar, agave, raisins, or nuts depending on what you prefer. I added a sprinkling of brown sugar, about 1 tablespoon agave nectar, a few raisins, and some pecan pieces.

I enjoyed my bowl of oatmeal quite well. I don’t know if it could ever earn “illegal substance” status, but I will likely make it again. Next time, though, I think I will add more raisins and stir them in so that they can plump up a little. I also think that this would be great made with almond milk.