Sandwich Bread

This is why I call it sandwich bread... sandwich is organic greens, radish sprouts, tomato slices, hummus, horseradish sauce, and mustard. Paired with Potato Broccoli Soup.

Making your own bread is one of those things that seems obnoxiously hip. I mean, what’s the point? It’s just bread! However, since I started making my own bread about a year ago, I can’t bring myself to buy it from the store anymore. It is cheap, easy, and most importantly far tastier than the kind you buy at the store. Plus, as it is preservative free and fresh from your kitchen, you know that it includes only wholesome ingredients and no suspect chemicals.

Ingredients:
-2 C All-Purpose Flour
-2 C Whole Wheat (or White Whole Wheat) Flour
-1 ½ tsp salt
-2 ¼ tsp yeast
-1 ¾ C hot water
-2 tbs olive oil

No, that's not Rice Vinegar... it's olive oil. Jill and I buy it in mega-sized bottles and then fill an old smaller bottle because it's way easier to handle.

To make:

1. Mix/whisk all dry ingredients (minus the yeast) in a bowl, or the bowl of a standing mixer. Make a kind of shallow well in the middle. 

2. Put the yeast in a pile in the bottom of the well. Add water. Add oil.

3. Mix well with a fork, or with the bread hook of your standing mixer on low speed, if you are fortunate enough to have one of these amazing appliances.

4. Knead a dozen times or so, or mix on low to med speed in standing mixer for 2-3 min. If it at any point it just becomes a spinning ball on the bread hook, stop the mixer and knock the ball off and start again.

5. Remove ball from mixer bowl and coat with a small amount of oil.

6. Line a bread pan with parchment paper. Press dough into the pan. Cover with a damp cloth, and let rise 1 hour.

7. Pre-heat oven to 375 F. Brush bread with almond milk. Sprinkle the milk-covered bread top with the seeds of your choice. (Generally I use chia seeds, flax seeds, or some combination thereof)

Flax seeds: tastier, better for you,
and cheaper than sesame seeds!

8. Let bread rise another 15-20 min while oven is heating. Bake for 30 min or until done. Remove from pan and place on wire rack to cool at least 10 min before eating (I know, I know, 10 min is too long to wait. Just wait long enough so that you won't burn your hands, at least!)

9. Store or serve. (I would tell you how long it keeps for, but I don't think Jill and I have been ever able to hold onto it any longer than a week)

Baked Buttermilk Whole Wheat Donuts with Strawberry Rhubarb Brown Butter Glaze

This recipe is a modified version of one Jill found on Adventures in Cooking by Eva Kosmas Flores via the Huffington Post. I added White Whole Wheat flour and, of course, made the necessary substitutions to make it vegan. I also changed the shape to something I could make by hand as I do not own a donut pan and doubt I ever will.

You will also need to know how to make vegan buttermilk. You can learn how in my post about Whole Wheat Biscuits.

Ingredients:

For the donuts:

-2 C All Purpose Flour

-1 C White Whole Wheat Flour

-½ C granulated sugar

-1 Tbs+½ tsp yeast

-½ tsp salt

-5 Tbs “brown vegan butter,” instructions below

-½ tsp vanilla extract

-1 “egg,” instructions below

-1 C vegan buttermilk (find instructions here)

For the glaze:

-3 Tbs brown vegan butter

-1 C strawberries, tops removed and berries quartered

-1 C rhubarb

-¼ C full-fat coconut milk (I highly recommend Geisha brand)

-¾ C confectioner’s sugar

Frothing

First, as promised above, a brief description on how to make “brown butter.”

-heat a clear bottomed saucepan on Med-Lo/ Med heat (clear bottomed so you can see when it is getting brown)

-add butter, in tablespoon-sized chunks

-stirring with great regularity, allow the butter to evolve through three stages:

-> melting

-> frothing

-> browning

-when it reaches the browning stage, remove from heat, pour into a bowl, and let cool.

In terms of the egg, PETA’s website (I am NOT a member of PETA by the way, so please don’t think because I cite them as a resource I agree with all of their political beliefs) has a great page about vegan egg substitutions. I almost invariably use Ener-G Egg Replacer, 1 ½ tsp mixed well with 2 Tbs hot water equals one egg.

To make the donuts:

1. Mix flours, sugar, yeast, and salt in a large bowl; or if you are lucky like I am, the bowl of your standing mixer with the bread hook attachment.

2. Slowly stir in browned butter, then continue to stir for 2 minutes.

3. Stir in vanilla, vegan buttermilk, and “egg.” Knead well or kick your standing mixer up to medium and run for another 5 min, knocking the dough off the hook if it gets stuck.

4. Cover bowl with a moist cloth, and let rise for 1-1 ½ hr.

(At this point, I recommend starting in on the glaze while the dough is rising)

5. Preheat oven to 350 F.

6. Cover a large baking sheet with a piece of parchment paper. Turn dough onto a lighlty floured surface. Punch down dough and divide into 8-12 pieces. Roll the dough chunks into snakes with your well-floured hands. Fold the snake in half and twist two or three times. Place the twisted snakes onto baking pan.

7. Bake donuts for only 10-12 minutes. Put on a wire rack and allow to cool COMPLETELY (no matter how much your girlfriend begs you to let her try one) (He lies, they were DELICIOUS warm!)

Twisty snakes... pretty sure that's not the real name for
pastries of this shape, but whatever.

8. Dip in glaze, allow glaze to adhere a bit. Serve or store.

To make the glaze:

1. Preheat oven to 375 F. Put strawberries and rhubarb in a greased pan. (I used coconut oil to grease the pan) Bake fruit for 20 min.

Raw fruit.

2. Put brown butter in bottom of food processor. Add fruit. Puree.

Cooked fruit.

3. Allow to cool in refrigerator while dough is rising, at least 15 minutes.

4. When donuts are ready, whisk confectioner’s sugar into glaze.

And after a long day in the kitchen, this is the result.

Whole Wheat Buttermilk Biscuit Eggy Tofu Sandwiches

Ah, breakfast sandwiches. A perfect combination of two of my favorite things. Back in my pre-veg days, the Egg McMuffin was nearly a Saturday morning routine. Even once I stopped eating meat, most breakfast sandwiches remained available to me, as the staples are usually egg and cheese. Since becoming more vegan, I wanted something that filled all the roles of a classic breakfast sandwich but eschewed the animal-product ingredients. Enter Whole Wheat Buttermilk Biscuit Eggy Tofu Sandwiches. These biscuits are delicious in their own right, and can be topped with just about anything (strawberries are a favorite of Jill and mine). Same thing with the eggy tofu: the egg seasoning I share the recipe for also makes great tofu scrambles.

For today's sandwich, I included organic greens, organic radish sprouts, and tomato slices. Other suggestions are included at the end of the recipe.

Ingredients:
The Biscuits
-1 C vegan buttermilk (see below)
-1 C White Whole Wheat Flour
-1 C All-Purpose Flour
-¼ tsp baking soda
-1 tbs baking powder
-1 tsp salt
-6 tbs vegan butter

 The Eggy Tofu
-1 block extra firm tofu, dried and sliced into 1 cm sheets
-1 tbs eggy seasoning (see below)
-1 tbs olive oil

 First, a quick tutorial on making your own vegan buttermilk and eggy seasoning. Don’t be alarmed! It is very easy and I can almost guarantee you already have everything you need.
Vegan buttermilk:
-add 1 tbs white vinegar to a 1 C measuring cup.
-fill cup the rest of the way with vegan milk (usu. almond milk in my case)
- let sit ~10 min. That’s it! You’ll see the milk become thick and curdled, this is to be expected and in fact desirable.

Eggy seasoning:
-2 tsp cumin
-1 tsp salt
-1 tsp thyme
-½ tsp tumeric
-½ tsp pepper
-1 tbs nutritional yeast
Mix everything together. That’s it! We usually make a large batch of this seasoning (double or triple the one above) and store it in an empty herb bottle. (We really like eggs)
  To make the biscuits:
1. Pre-heat oven to 350 F. Prepare vegan buttermilk using instructions above. Set aside.
2. Mix/ whisk all dry ingredients well in a medium bowl.
3. Add vegan butter in lumpy chunks to dry ingredients in bowl. Cut in butter until butter lumps are roughly pea-to-chickpea-sized. (I literally cut the butter into chunks using a fork and knife to do this, but I bet real bakers know a better way)

4. Pour buttermilk into dry ingredients+butter slowly, mixing constantly, until all the flour is moistened and a think, tacky dough has formed. (DO NOT knead or overmix! Your biscuits will be tough. Especially because we are using whole wheat flour here it is imperative not to overwork the dough)
5. Place dough ball on a lightly floured surface and GENTLY press dough into a sheet about 2 cm thick. (Have you ever seen a cat "making biscuits" on someone's lap or on a soft blanket? They don't call it that for nothing! Just like Thomas here, you'll want to press the dough out from the center of the dough ball, gently gently, again and again, until you have reached 2 cm thickness)

6. Fold dough 5 times ( I do once in half, once in thirds perpendicular to the original direction, then one more fold in the original direction. The dough will kind of look like a VERY overstuffed manila envelope with mega thick pages in it)
7. Press dough down into a flattened round, roughly 3 cm thick; again, as gently as possible, working from the center and pressing down and out again and again.
8. Using a glass (or if you're fancy, a round cookie cutter) cut the dough into rounds. Try to make as many with the dough round itself as possible before recombining the dough. (Feel free to recombine the scraps into a Frankenbiscuit but beware, it may take on bizarre form during the baking process)

9. Space biscuits out on a cookie sheet covered with a piece of parchment paper. Bake for ONLY 10-12 minutes! (These guys do not take long to cook and you don't want them to get dry. I check after 10 min to see if they are golden brown on top. If not, I let them go another minute and check again. I have made this recipe many times and never has it taken them longer than 12 min to bake. Play it safe, and check and double check. There's a "sweet spot" between 10 and 12 minutes and if you hit it on the head... it's awesome.)

10. Remove biscuits. Place on cooling rack 5 min. Serve or store.

To make the Eggy Tofu: 1. Prepare egg seasoning, if you do not have available.
2. Prepare tofu: Drain thoroughly and press with paper towels on both sides for 10-15 min. Slice the block lengthwise into ~1 cm thick sheets. Spread out on a wide, flat surface. (For the pressing part of this step, try wrapping the block in paper towels and placing in a clean sink with a big heavy pan on top)
3. Sprinkle half (1/2 Tbs) of the egg seasoning across the tops, and rub in gently with your hands. Flip tofu slices, and repeat process for the opposite side.
4. Sprinkle the tops with olive oil, rub in gently; flip, repeat. (Jill and I substituted Paul Newman's Lite Sun Dried Tomato salad dressing for olive oil.. the result was delicious)
5. Let seasoned tofu slices rest/ marinate in a covered bowl or Tupperware for at least 10 min.
6. Heat a small amount of oil in a large cast iron pan to Med-Low or Med heat. (Our stove always seems to get hotter than most, so definitely Med-Low for us but for people with normal stoves maybe Med)
7. Pan fry the eggy tofu slices until browned and lightly crispy on the outside, about 5 min to a side. Remove from pan. Store or serve.

To make the sandwiches:
1. Split biscuit cross wise with a fork, butterknife, or your hands.
2. Add eggy tofu slice, fold in half.
3. Add toppings. (Suggestions: see photo, we used organic greens, tomato, and radish sprouts this time. In the past, I have used reconstituted sun dried tomatoes, vegannaise, spinach, peppers and onions, mushrooms, vegan sausage, vegan cheese... this is pretty much endlessly customizable)
4. Add biscuit top. Chow down.