Shepherds Pie, Pita and Coleslaw

So we decided to make a version of shepherds pie for Easter dinner. We made a vegan version we got from Veganomicon. If you are looking for an all purpose Vegan cookbook, this one is amazing. I am not a big shepherds pie fan, never have been, but this at very well. This one used tempeh instead of beef, which for the record, was excellent! It also contained the usual ingredients; mashed potatoes, corn and peas. This recipe was also a great hit with the family (all of which are avid meat eaters). I am not going to lie, I was in shock. The ultimate test would be passing it by my grandfather!

Honestly, I cooked and baked all day Sunday making items to eat throughout the week (as well as dinner). I did end up making my lasagna (it’s sitting in the fridge waiting to be baked), I also made 1/2 Spelt 1/2 KA White Whole Wheat Pita’s, and I made a mayo free coleslaw. I also have Quinoa cooked up and sitting in the fridge in the anticipation of making a salad. The lasagna is Vegetarian, not Vegan and I haven’t tried it yet so I am going to hold off on talking about that one, but if you are interested the recipe’s for the other two items are below.

Pita * 1/2 KA White Whole Wheat – 1/2 Spelt
(modified from a recipe on The Fresh Loaf)

1 1/2 cups KA White Whole Wheat
1 1/2 cups Spelt
2 tsp instant yeast (a little more if it’s active dry yeast and make sure to activate it!)
1 – 1 1/2 cups water (I measure out 1 1/2 cups and then slowly add it until the dough reaches the right consistency)
1 Tbsp Agava Syrup ( you can also use honey or sugar; I shy away from sugar whenever I can and I love the Agave Syrup. I actually use a little more because I mix it with the activating yeast to provide the yeast with some food)
1 1/2 tsp salt (I use sea salt)
~ 2 Tbsp olive oil (or your oil of choice)

I mix the dough in a electric standing mixer at a low speed using the paddle until a ball in formed (approx 5 minutes) then I switch to the bread hook and kneed it for another 5 – 8 minutes on the same speed (on my Kitchen Aid mixer the speed is 2)

Spray a bowl with olive oil and place the ball of dough in it. Let rise in a controlled environment (a cooling oven) for 90 minutes or until doubled in size (you can use a rubber band around the bowl at the initial height of the dough to tell when it’s roughly doubled)

Take out of bowl, punch down and using a sharp knife (not a bread knife; you want to pinch not saw) cut your dough ball into 12 equal wedges (or close to equal); roll each into a small ball making sure the seam is on the underside and set on parchment paper (or other flat surface of your choice) let rest for 20 minutes

While your dough balls are resting, preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. I like to spray my oven once it’s preheated on the walls using a misting spray bottle. If you are using a baking stone preheat that with the over, otherwise use an upside down cookie sheet or a tera cotta pot bottom (upside-down)

Roll your balls into flat circles approximately 6 inches in diameter (rolling from the center out). Make sure your work area has enough flour on it! You can also use your hands to pat into a circle (the kids may enjoy this part)

Place in oven for 3 minutes on preheated flat surface. I spray the walls every other set or so to keep a moist heat. If you want your pita’s to be a little brown you will have to do an experiment to see how long to leave them in the oven. You don’t need to flip these. You can also ‘fry’ then on a flat cast iron pan if you would like (no oil).

Then enjoy- and please feel free to experiment!

No Mayo Coleslaw

This recipe I got a while ago from my photography instructor. It’s amazing… or at least I like it!

I don’t have exact measurements so you will have to play with it.

Salad:
1 green cabage
a bunch of scallions or a yellow onion (I don’t use red because with all the other spices it’s a little to much)

grated carrots

Dressing:
Olive Oil
3 cloves of garlic crushed or  diced small (I prefer diced myself)
Mustard Seed (I like ~2 Tbsp’s)
Dried Dill (I will add more of this after to taste)
Dried Thyme (equal amounts Thyme & Oregano)
Dried Oregano
Cayenne Pepper (To taste – I use a hot one, but I think it’s past it’s prime b/c it’s lost a lot of it’s flavor…spice shopping time!!)

Combine all dressing ingredients (to taste) in small saute pan and warm (you want it to be very aromatic but the garlic should not toast much) and then pour of salad ingredients; mix well (I like to shake! it gives me a reason to gyrate around my kitchen)

The last step is to add Ume Plum Vinegar to taste (it’s salty so be careful!)

Enjoy!

Easter

It’s been a long time since I have posted! I have been so busy I just haven’t made time to post here much less cook much at home. In the last almost two months now, I have changed jobs (big deal), my mother in law broke her foot, my father in law passed away, my husband got a promotion, Keva has been a little off, I have become a full vegetarian and entertaining the idea of going vegan (I don’t know if I can give up my beloved Cabot Hunter Cheddar Cheese) and am looking to start a food Co-op with a friend of mine from the previous job.

The Co-op requires a ton of reading and research. The new job is a 45 minute commute each way (on good days) and is full time (compared to my previously almost full time job and 15 minute commute).

The reason I am posting is because I am trying to decide what a vegetarian does for easter dinner. I think the hubby and I are going to get creative. My sister-in-law is making dinner, but I won’t eat the main course so we are going to make our own food and bring it over. I am currently trying to decide between a chickpea entree of some sort or a Vegan Sausage recipe that my friend gave me.  I am soaking my chickpeas tonight and will decide tomorrow. If I end up not using the chickpeas for dinner tomorrow I am planning on making a chick pea mash. One of my favorites is on the VeganYumYum Blog (I won’t be using the radishes though, I forgot to get them!)

I will post later about how it goes and what I decided!

Oh! on another thought, I had to mow my lawn today. I live in Maryland…. this seems ridiculous to me! My family is still in Vermont and they just got 6 more inches of snow yesterday…I miss my snow…

Pasta

I am not a big pasta person, never really have been but for the holiday my father-in-law got me a ravioli form so I had to try making pasta. Believe it or not there aren’t any good recipe’s that I found online so I had to go hunting in my cookbooks! Can you believe it, I actually had to open up a cookbook! I love my cookbooks and use the bread ones often but don’t usually get the opportunity to use my Fanny Farmer Cookbook and even less often my Joy of Cooking which I have had now for about 8 years. I love my Fanny Farmer cookbook, it’s the one my grandmother (and her mother) use. My grandmother still has the 3 edition from her mother! I have the 13th edition. So that was the first one I jumped to for a pasta recipe.

There were two different versions, one American and one Italian. I decided to go with the Italian one because the recipe said the American version was more chewy. I don’t like chewy pasta at all…ick! So I put all the ingredients together and instead of doing the white version I substituted KA White Whole Wheat.

2 cups flour KA White Whole Wheat flour
3 eggs

I threw the ingredients into my Kitchen Aid Standing Mixer, which worked great! You can also make a bowl in your flour and slowly combine the ingredients with a whisk. With my standing mixer I used the paddle and let the flour saturate well. It was necessary to throw some water into the mix to make sure the White Whole Wheat flour saturated appropriately. Then I put the dough hook on and kneaded the dough for another couple minutes. I then allowed the dough to stand for about 20 minutes to make sure the flour was fully saturated. I then separated the dough into 2 balls and with the pasta machine on its highest setting started running the dough through it. Slowly working down to the lowest setting. I then ran it through the linguine cutter and viola, homemade linguine!

I then separated the strands and laid them on a pan lined with parchment to dry out a little bit.

Once they dried a little bit it was cooking time! They cooked for about 3 minutes in boiling water then I drained them and rinsed them with some water. If you want to prevent them from sticking together, toss them with some olive oil. The final product should look something like the picture below.

The recipe makes about 1 pound of noodles and you do need a pasta machine for this (to get it thin enough).

I was surprised how easy it was. My husband and I then dressed the noodles with some organic pasta sauce and Tofurky. It was excellent! My hubby then had it for lunch the next day. The noodles became a little sticky and slightly chewy after some time but were very good. I had made pasta once before and it tasted more like egg noodles to me then pasta. I am not a fan of egg noodles.

My next plan is to make some lasagna with home made whole wheat noodles. I hope this works out well for others! Enjoy!

White Whole Wheat Flour Tortillas

Well it appears that my first official post is going to be all about tortillas! I love the little flour based devils. My husband and I eat them whenever we get the chance and the pups love them too! But the other day I opted to try something a little new. I have a recipe that I like a lot from Homesick Texan, but as usual I am totally unsatisfied with a recipe unless I have played with it and made it my own. That’s one of the best things about cooking/baking isn’t it!

Tortilla’s are so good and versatile. We cook ours on our cast iron round griddle which works great (aside from the fact that you can only cook one at a time). I love the way that you can mix a few ingredients together and although while it is dough it tastes quite bad, once it has cooked it is quite amazing!

For this recipe I decided to experiment with King Arthur’s White Whole Wheat Flour. I haven’t used it up until this point and decided that this would be a good test. I love my whole wheat flour but also like to experiment. The protein content is a little over 1% less in the KA While Whole Wheat than their traditional Whole Wheat but a little over 1% higher than their All Purpose. From what I have read the White Whole Wheat is often substituted for KA All Purpose Flour which intrigued me. Because it is wheat flour I still let it rest longer than I would All Purpose to make sure the sugars were getting released and giving me a wonderfully flavored tortilla.

I made a double recipe and that is what I am sharing because the regular recipe only yields 8 good sized tortillas and the just isn’t enough for a true tortilla lover!

White Whole Wheat Flour Tortillas
4 cups KA White Whole Wheat Flour
1 1/2 cups warmed plain soy milk (have an extra 1/4 cup close because you may need it)
1 Tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoons salt (I use finely ground sea salt)
4 teaspoons oil (I use canola oil)

Mix everything together making sure that the flour is thoroughly saturated. I end up with a big fat blob of off white dough which was set in the oven with some hot water to act as a proofing box. I left it in there and took the pups for a walk (~1 hour). After the walk I cut the dough into 16 equal pieces and formed them into little balls and allowed them to sit another 20 – 30 minutes with a damp cloth over the top of them. This time I didn’t put them in the over but just left them on the counter.

Each ball was then rolled out as flat as possible (~1/8 – 1/4 inch). I use KA all purpose for this because I am going to be putting it directly on the griddle and I don’t want to loose any flavor by adding whole wheat that hasn’t had a chance to saturate and break down a little bit. I am always concerned with flavor when it comes to not giving the whole wheat flour enough time to “mature.” While I am rolling out the first tortilla I preheat my griddle (medium-high heat).

It is helpful to have a second person helping you while you do the rolling and putting on the griddle. Once you put them on the griddle they have to be watched closely because as soon as they start to bubble up you need to flip them or pull them off the griddle. It’s not impossible to do both but it is definitely easier to have a helper. Remember, once you start seeing bubbles, flip or pull off depending on what side you are on. Gauge it by the amount of brown you like on your own tortilla, I like mine to have small spots of light brown on them more for visual appeal then functionality.

Now it’s time to figure out what you want to eat in them and ENJOY!

We had vegetarian burritos (our meat substitute was Gimme Lean ground beef substitute)! It was tasty!!