As Time Goes By...

And not without remorse.

It's the holiday season, after all.

Is this it, getting older? Twenties only shortly underway and still I find myself with too little time to do the things I love - cook, blog, more than anything eat.

Pie, to carry the season with you

 Well, I find myself in quite a new place. Both my milieu newly discovered and sense of self lost but found and life is born anew like a rising sun across the snowy plains of a lazy January.

I, slave to its Honey-Whole wheat

Maybe more like the crusty bread of this tiny oven, spending my time to bake its wares.
Enough of the niceties: ever since Thanksgiving all I've wanted is to cook, serve, prepare, concoct. My battle with food rages on, appreciated but still unhealthy but at the end of this snowy day, I still stand.
College has been rough and I've begun to question just exactly what I'm waiting for - a college diploma in biochemistry or something more? I dream in the sensory and live too cerebrally but perhaps I'm just yet to stitch the two together.

Rural?

Damn Straight?

But this ain't Christmastime in the city

I sit here on my couch, enjoying the scent of a rather experimental batch of sweet and salty, toasted-nut chocolate chip cookies. Sprinkled with Rye, sweetened with Maple, spiked with Bitters. What will become of them beside a dessert assuming I don't burn the second batch for writing?

Ah, Safe and Sound

And Still...I love it, This Homemade Cioppino

I cannot say but I trust they will be more than their parts. Maybe like my time in college, however uncertain it comes to be spent. Life at Umass is a step in the diaganol. Ahead is a similar path, behind old friends dearly missed but beside me still. The food is good at least! Never before have I read the word salmon unenthusiastically - a man can eat fish however delicious and novel so many days per week!
Holy Mackerel, talk about First World Problems.


I digress. I've come to bake up a storm in this snowy abode I find myself in. It and the woods I've explored isolating and insulating it have been my greatest medication - more euphoric than the runs I take or the little pills I curse still.

Well to get on with things - I really have been neglecting this blog now for some months, but I hope to change that in 2013!
To bluntly display my past few months pictorally - that will just have to do!

Cheesecake - no, not for me - thanks to Southern Living

Chard-Stuffed Haddock - yes Love it

But ok, ok, some of my favorite newly-discovered restaurants, a la carte...

The very best tea and flavors left to brew... Chaiwalla in Salisbury CT
Sandwiches, Soups, hot drinks too... Juice n' Java, Dalton MA
Hometown feel for a steal (alliterations, oh me, alas...) Martin's of Great Barrington
Bistro fare a la American - the pseudo-upscale affair? Firefly, Lenox Ma
Baked, not half, and bread to share? Pleased to meet you: Our Daily Bread, Chatham NY
Pub styling, tavern fare, rustic feel, unexpected dinner fare? At Old Forge, Lanesboro Ma
Last, never least... and Mind you, there is evermore yet to discover I'm sure
Hitchinpost Cafe, an unexpected in the unassuming - greatness in the middle of nowhere: New Lebanon NY

Now I'll be on my way, explore new flavors, and yourself.

May you find glut-enous peace

Cliches...
& Nature... ...
Just Enjoi!

Chestnuts Roasting...

In my toaster oven...

It's been that time of year: the time to cook, bake, eat, sleep, stress, laugh, and generally stare out the window to watch cold air blow upon the carefully hung Christmas lights, now is terrible but beautiful disarray. I love Christmas time and the holidays and I can't say I feel any rush to go back to school.

I've been baking and cooking like mad but just too busy or conversely relaxed to bother blogging any of it. Sorry!

But here are some of my less recent creations. Yesterday I did whip up a cornmeal brioche from The Bread Bible - slightly too dense but wonderful toasting bread, as I had intended it to be - and perhaps the best whole wheat sandwich loaf I've ever made. Not to pat my own back - I'm much too busy holding that two-fisted sammy.

I also experimented with making Seitan and a good stand in for mac and cheese from Healthy Happy Vegan Life that actually really hit the spot, tossed with some Green Beans, Chard, and Zucchini.

Cookies and Sourdough galore, below are the few actual pictures I did take - sorry! I'll pick up better blogging later into the new year. Only so much time for so many resolutions at once.

Apple-Pear Gingerbread Upside-down Cake

A great end to a wonderful Hanukkah dinner with friends

I even made un petit gâteau for home use...Pumpkin Sherry Quick Bread

Great for, well any time... The Brandy I subbed does bake off but really brings out the spices. Thank you again Bread Bible!

Batch two and just as good as the original!

There was, by the way, Chestnut stuffing on the Christmas table, but here's my contribution to that meal. I did bake up some Challah from a wonderful recipe I'll have to share once I get it down. Here, however was my personal pride and joy:

Pumpkin-Chocolate Yule

The Snowflakes and green sugar were just right considering I forgot the marzipan Fungi...

The Recipe came from inspiration off of Joy the Baker. The sponge cake itself was a rich pumpkin, the filling a Neufchatel-unsweetened chocolate mixture, sweetened with a bit of Agave Nectar. The frosting is a rich Chocolate-Pumpkin butter-cream of simple softened butter, heaping tablespoons (2) of cocoa powder, a splash of soy milk, powdered sugar, and a few tablespoons of pumpkin butter.

Never has a dessert been so rich. It was enjoyed if not to blame for a worse case of Tryptophan-Coma than is commonly witnessed.

Enjoi! I promise I'll bring some more soon!

It's Christmas!!!

No ellipsis here - there's no space for anything extra when there's such a great season to blog about!

It's been a painful Thanksgiving-Christmas period to work through. Finals, Life, my first job (food service isn't what I envisioned. I should have figured...) But now, as I sit upon my cushy couch, The Bread Bible beside me, lights twinkling, and vegaan eggnog in my stomach ruminating with real food. Wow, life can be comfortable again, I'd nearly forgotten.

Today is a big update or series thereof. My hand at Seitan and its transformation into Bourgegnon, Gingerbread Waffles, Baking galore, and a few good breakfasts. My goodness, the season of eating is that much better when it so starkly contrasts the doldrums of the college cafeteria. It really is a thing to behold - the kitchen in full whir, lights twinkling, a mug of steaming beverage, whatever it may be, in one hand and a good recipe in the other. I missed home.

Following a basic recipe for Seitan from scratch and whipping together a basic stock, I mimicked the Seitan Bourguignon from What The Hell Does A Vegan Eat. It was delicious atop a torn slice of whole-wheat Scali bread.

Seitan: More tender than any meat you'll ever meet.

Wintery Baking...

Loaves of the Yule

Yes, I've been neglecting the blog but it's that time of year! A friend of mine has been staying with me and my last week before break was busy. Last weekend I did get a chance to do some good baking however. Out of the Bread Bible came Molasses Bran Sunflower Bread. A hearty loaf that baked up nicely, perhaps a bit too dense due to a lack of gluten but good nonetheless.

More recently however (On Christmas Eve it was) I baked the books recipe for Apple Walnut Loaf:

Look at those loaves. if you look closely at the top image (loaf 1 of 2) you can see all the apple goodness dotting the interior.

You could sell that in a store...

I baked my bread up with whole wheat flower in place of white. I'm sure it would have risen further yet and been lighter had I used unbleached white flower but I'm a stickler. Just be sure to use about a tablespoon of wheat gluten (Bob's Red Mill!!!) for every cup of whole Wheat flower subbed in for white flower.

The loaves baked up thick and moist. Especially give the apple-walnut loaf a go if ever you find yourself drooling over the Bread Bible. It was wonderful for toasting bread Christmas morning and I look forward to using it for French Toast tomorrow before shoveling out this New England Blizzard quickly bearing down upon us.

Enjoy and Merry Christmas (or rather a have a happy new year as it is coming up next!)