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.

November Comes!

I love this month. It's the start of Scorpio season for us Children of November; It's the start of the true holiday season; It's home to possibly the single greatest day of eating in America. What's not to love?

I'm afraid until Thanksgiving is actually upon us there will likely be a continued dearth of recipes, reviews, and good things to blog about. Food here is still, well, uninteresting. Our valley cafe on tuesdays is good - today's dishes surrounded Italian, specifically perhaps Milanese, dishes. It was good, bringing fresh bitter-sweet slaw, stewed Chickpeas, and an interesting spaghetti torte, and a Chicken dish to The Foxes.

I miss Italian like mia mamma makes.

In the interim, enjoy these pics - long overdue - from the Goffstown (NH) Pumpkin Festival. I've been meaning to post them with this recipe for Pumpkin Softies - a recurring cookie of mine - since mid October! So sorry about that...

The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown! The biggest and greatest in fact!

Punkin Chunkin' on the river!

A great little cafe in town. Check it out if you're in area!

Mmmm... Tremendous amounts of Apple Crisp, Pumpkin Pie, Individually wrapped baked goods. Not to mention the dessert competition tasting table! My god, I love Fall...

And here's my most recent recipe for Pumpkin Spice-Softies:

Makes 2 Dozen

· ½ cup Butter, softened

· ½ cup sugar

o 1/3 cup extra reserved for rolling

· 1/4 cup honey and/or maple syrup

o Puree ¼ cup honey with ¼ cup dates, ¼ cup craisins, 1/3 cup boiling water and incorporate into wet ingredients

· 2/3 cup pumpkin puree

· 1/3 cup molasses, darker the better!

· 1 egg

· 2 ¼ cups whole wheat flour (or white, unbleached)

· ¼ cup oatmeal

· 1 ½ teaspoons baking soda

· 2 teaspoons cinnamon

· 2 teaspoons ginger

· 1 teaspoon ground cloves

· ½ teaspoon salt

· Chocolate Chips, Cinnamon, Brown Sugar, Ginger to taste for rolling

Combine Sugar, butter, honey, pumpkin, and egg in a large mixing bowl, combining well. The butter won’t fully incorporate but remain slightly chunky.

Combine extra sugar, extra spices (listed at bottom) and set aside chips for finishing the cookies.

Combine all dry ingredients left and slowly spoon into wet batter, mixing very thoroughly. An electric mixer makes this much easier.

Set aside for 20 minutes or so, or until sufficiently chilled so that the batter can be more or less rolled into walnut-sized balls by hand.

Roll in sugar-spice mixture and set about 1-2 inches apart on a greased cookie sheet or parchment paper. Press several chocolate chips into each ball and flatten slightly while on sheet. Bake for 8-12 minutes at 350° or until cookies are solid to the touch and crack slightly. They will darken due to the sugar caramelizing, not burning.

A Strong showing but they dodn't last but a few days...

The Sugar-spice coating makes the difference, don't skimp...

Enjoy. I know I do.

It's Been a Long Time...

Since I've posted much. Not for lack of tinned in the kitchen. Just last night I even made some whole wheat butterscotch blondies to ship home to the better half. They came out perfectly (I forgot to shoot a pic! Next time...). But life is busy at school. Luckily I'm getting more comfortable in my kitchen but I miss my home's nonetheless.
Anyways, here are a few pics of what ive been up to:
Some decent food from our cafe even! Real tofu once...

The Great Bakery at Rhinebeck, NY: Bread Alone

I loved my lentil patty but this Sweet Potato and Kale Soup was warm and satisfying - Vegan too!

Changing gears, Heres my hand at vegan cookies - mostly because I didn't have eggs. I adapted it from this Post Punk Kitchen recipe

Here are my Petite Apple Pies from the pies I picked a few weeks ago...

Finally, the "real" tofu I had in the midst of culinary depths...

When I get a chance, I'll post my Pumpkin (improved) cookie recipe from my weekend home at a Pumpkin festival in New Hampshire. Enjoy (in advance!)

When it rains...

Recipes and baked goods don't necessarily pour forth. As I don't really have the time or kitchen space I once enjoyed, in college reading days have been spent working, in class, or at the gym. I guess when there's so much soft serve to be had, it's the gym and fewer cookies... Anyways I invented impromptu poor college kid cookies I wanted to share- they need work... Oh, and my campus farmer's market too! Enjoy!the

Cookays....!

Yes, cookies on this fine, cold, soon to be snowy March day. So it hasn't been the best of days, yes, but I did bake some cookies. They're nothing to brag about but they are unusual. I wanted something like, say, key lime pie in a smaller form but haven't had the time to bake a pie or pocket pies. I found a recipe while sifting through my extensive Google Reader account of food blogs for Key Lime Meltaways from Every Last Cookie - a great blog, I really recommend it.

As I didn't actually have limes in the house - I was using bottled Key Lime Juice - I decided to try something I picked up from the Cupcake Project, another blog gracing my Reader account. I infused the butter with green tea; a relatively wasteful but potentially invaluable technique. They more closely resemble shortbread or sugar cookies than anything else, in case you were wondering. So here it is:

I realize now that I really didn't make what was outlined in the original recipe I found, but look at that plate despite...

Key Lime-Green Tea Cookies!

1 3/4 cups whole-wheat flour

2 tbsp cornstarch (or arrowroot)

1 cup confectioners sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2-3 tbsp lime juice

1 stick butter

2 tbsp canola oil

3 tbsp green tea

water

First melt the butter in a small saucepan over low heat. Mix in the green tea upon the butter's melting and stir over low heat for about 5 minutes. Strain the butter from the tea leaves using, say, a cheese cloth, coffee filter, or as I used paper tea bags (the sort for bagging your own). Set aside.

Combine the dry ingredients and, separately, the wet ones. Add wet to dry ingredients (in preferably an electric mixer) until just combined, adding water until the dough resembles a stiff but malleable and not crumbling (as mine initially did).

Spoon onto a baking sheet and bake at 350 for 8-12 minutes, depending on the size of your cookies.

What also works well is to pour the batter onto parchment paper and carefully rolling into a dense log, chilling for roughly an hour, and slicing so as to produce small, disk-shaped petit-gateaux.

Honestly, I have a terrible cold (Darn you March!) so I can't taste anything, but they seem good to my reduced palate and I've been told they have a nice, mild flavor.

Enjoy them with a cup of hot tea, perhaps?

Oh, and heres a bonus picture from some peanut butter cookie cups I made a few weeks ago, per request of my better half:

More Cookais!...

Chocolate-tea-spice-fruit...Cookies

It was a cookie day from the start. I bought some great tea at a small shop in Brookline new Hampshire (Possibly my favorite even before Tea Luxe - a close second).

I wanted to bake some fresh cookies as my supply of Scotchies has just now come to an end.

This recipe comes from The 100 Best vegan Baking Recipes. It's a simple vegan chocolate cookie recipe which I decided to spice up and Whole-Grain(ify).

The cookies are huge (but that's my doing), hearty in texture, complex in flavor - if I may say so: These be not the simple snacks from the back of the Tollhouse Bag.

Try them with a delicious cup of Green, Chai, or Rooibis.

Nooks and Crannays...

Whole-Grain (Vegan) Chocolate Chip Cookies of Glory

2 cups whole wheat flour

1/2 cup unprocessed wheat bran

1/2 cup sugar (Raw Cane? Certainly)

1/2 cup packed Brown Sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp sea salt

1 tsp cornstarch

1 tbsp flax meal

A Healthy dose of ginger - roasted - and some cinnamon

a splash of your favorite loose leaf tea (thank you accidental spills and a need to avoid waste)

1/4 cup soy milk (or whichever you prefer)

1/2 cup butter (vegan, or otherwise) softened

1/2 cup applesauce (unsweetened, chunky, smooth, cinnamon - you choose!)

1/2 cup chocolate chips (or butterscotch - semisweet or milk chocolates...)

1/2 cup blend of dried fruits - cherries, raisins, Craisins...

Combine each of the dry ingredients. Separately combine each of the wet ingredients and add the fruit. Combine the wet and dry ingredients, adding the chocolate chips and any more milk you might need to ensure a good, thick but moist consistency.

Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. these will brown up a bit - they're thick and moist so worry not, they shouldn't burn (or reflect any overdoneness)

Cookies...

..So calming. Both eating them and baking them.

Life's been more hectic than ever as my college applications are being sent out and as I speak I'm working at the final weekend of my school's production of The Phantom of the Opera.

Needless to say, I haven't exactly had the time to devote to cooking or baking as of late.

This afternoon, however (TGIF!!) I got a few hours to bake some fantastic cookies! They came from a great vegan recipe from Happy Healthy Vegan Life. You can find the recipe below.

Molasses Ginger Cookies - A Vegan Recipe!

I used Canola Oil and a dash extra salt in the batch as the notes suggested possible (as did I use the whole wheat flower I hold so highly). I added a bit extra molasses (as I didn't want to open new Blackstrap Molasses and used the normal stuff, which is somewhat less intense). I also rolled them in extra powdered ginger/brown/cane sugar mixture and baked them for about a minute longer than the recipe specified.

They were the best vegan cookies I've ever made (they're really easy to make and come out very well. I love Vegan Cookies Invade the Cookie Jar but the recipes just don't cooperate with me...)

And in other news, my better half undergoing a transformation (again) to pescetarianism. How long will she last? Wait and find out...