Wrapped and ready | Family dinner | Getting testy

Cinnamon rolls wrapped and ready to go to the sale.

This past weekend I participated in another world-wide vegan bakesale — held at Sidecar vegan store in Seattle. The bakesale raised funds for Pig's Peace Sanctuary, a non-profit organization that provides a safe home for unwanted, abused or neglected animals in need. I'm merely a contributor to the sales but the hard work of organizing and running them is done by Bethany, who writes the blog, Spotted Devil Cat and his Vegan Assistant. For this sale I made nearly three dozen vegan cinnamon rolls. Making them wasn't nearly as hard as packaging them, since each item needs to be individually wrapped. I tried to make the packaging attractive by adding a ribbon and ingredient list but it takes so much time, and also I feel guilty about the packaging. I used the last of my roll of cellophane, and then moved on to plastic sandwich bags, ugh.

To make the rolls I used the recipe for Outrageously Easy Big Bread with a few small changes. The ingredients and recipe are all over the Web so I think it's OK to list the ingredients here. The filling was my recipe, but it's so simple it doesn't feel right to claim it.

Baked and smiling sweetly (but not too sweetly.)

Dough

• 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
• 1/4 cup warm water
• 2 cups hot water
• 1/4 cup evaporated cane juice
• 1 teaspoon sea salt plus 1 teaspoon Indian black salt (or just use sea salt)
• 4 cups white whole wheat flour
• 2 cups unbleached flour
• 1/4 cup canola oil or corn oil
  

Filling

• 1 cup evaporated cane juice
• 1 cup finely ground almonds (or almond flour)
• 2 tablespoons cinnamon

Follow the directions in this recipe link for mixing the dough.

1. Let the dough rise for 2 hours, covered with a damp towel, then punch down. Divide the dough in half.
   
2. Roll one half to an approximately 11 x 17 rectangle. (I rolled mine on a floured piece of parchment paper.)
3. Mix the filling ingredients together and spread half the filling on the dough, leaving 1/2 inch uncovered at each long end.
4. Roll up into a long log, pinching the last edge to seal.
5. Cut into 3/4 inch slices with a serrated knife, and place on parchment paper in a large baking pan to rise, covered with damp towel. (Leave at least 1 inch between rolls.)
6. Repeat with second half of dough.
   
7. When doubled in size, bake for 20-25 minutes in a 350˚F oven.
8. Remove to a wire rack to cool. (Frost or glaze if desired. I like them plain.)

update: The sale raised $1,240 on Sat, $530 on Sun, for a total of $1,170!!!

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Dinner for eight

We had a family dinner Sunday night with one of the families contributing a delicious tomato- pesto pasta, my husband making a green salad, and me making roasted cauliflower and white bean salad, kalonji and sunflower seed bread, and rice pudding. The salad came from Herbivoracious, a Seattle-based vegetarian blog that has many interesting vegan recipes. I enjoyed the salad very much, and found it easy to make. (I doubled the recipe.) I didn't have the orange-scented olive oil in the recipe but used TJ's Orange Muscat Champagne Vinegar which was recommended as a substitute, and it worked well. And I used basil and olives.

tip: Instead of mincing the garlic, I grated it on my microplane zester. I don't like chomping down on pieces of garlic, and the zester puréed the garlic so it mixed easily into the dressing. I was careful not to get my fingers too close to the grating surface but was still able to grate all but the very end of the garlic cloves.

The bread was based on the same recipe as the cinnamon rolls (above) but with a slightly different ingredient list. This bread requires no kneading and is incredibly easy to make. Tastes great, too! It makes two loaves.

• 1 tablespoon dry yeast
• 1/4 cup warm water
• 2 cups hot water
• 3 tablespoons evaporated cane juice
• 1 teaspoon sea salt plus 1 teaspoon Indian black salt (or just use sea salt)
• 4 cups white whole wheat flour
• 2 cups unbleached flour
• 2 to 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 to 4 tablespoons lightly toasted kalonji
• 1/2 cup raw sunflower seeds
  

The kalonji seeds added an exotic flavor to the fragrant, soft bread, and the sunflower seeds contributed to the rich texture and taste. (see above for a link to directions.)

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Testing 1, 2, 3 ...

Our dessert was (a lowered sugar and fat version of) Frangipane Rice Pudding, a tester recipe for Celene Steen and Joni Marie Newman's newest cookbook-in-progress. It's been ages since I've had rice pudding, and this easy version was a treat. Of course there was also an assortment of baked goods from the world-wide vegan bakesale but I forgot to take a picture.

Ten days in Seattle (part 1)

We were just in Seattle visiting family (oldest son N, daughter-in-law T, middle son A, girlfriend E. The occasion was to meet N&T's new baby, our first grandchild. Babycakes is fabulously adorable at five weeks old, and we had a terrific time helping out around the house and taking care of her. The delicious-looking veggies above were knitted for Babycakes by the very talented E. One rattles, one crackles—all are pleasingly soft and cuddly.

I could talk all day and night about the scrumtious baby but, this is a vegan food blog, and Seattle is a vegan's paradise so the rest of the posts concerning Seattle will be about food. The nature of the trip was more home-cooking than restaurant-going, but we did manage a few ventures out with Babycakes in tow. We cooked from this blog and others and even watched a cooking show that should result in a carrot cake at some future date. There were restaurant foods that I want to reproduce at home, too, but that will have to wait.

First, a little back story. With all the snow we've had, we encountered problems with a leaking porch roof. Then, two days before departure, a downstairs front room began dripping from the ceiling. We called our roofer who said water had leaked in from the porch roof. We called a house remodeling and roofing company who said it was from an ice dam. Both said it would have to drip out and then we could do repairs but not to worry. Ha. I wanted to stay home until it was resolved but Ken convinced me to go and he would follow as soon as possible. The night before departure we were in bed and I said, "did you hear that?" Ken said, "I didn't hear anything." I said, "I heard a ker-plunk." He ran downstairs and called me immediately to see that a large part of the ceiling had fallen and water was dripping many places other than in the buckets I had arranged in the room. We cleaned up the mess as best we could. All the furniture was already in the living room and hall, the rug was a disaster. Ken called the insurance company. In the morning, after taking me to the airport, he called our plumber for advice and a disaster recovery company was suggested. They discovered a slowly leaking pipe in the wall coming from the upstairs bathroom. The plumber came and fixed the pipe, the leak stopped and the disaster people set up air and infrared machines, or whatever, to dry out the ceiling and kill the mold. Ken left on Tuesday and the machines were removed on Thursday. Whew. What a mess. Guess we won't be having company for a while. 
Friday, my first day in Seattle, I made a batch of ginger bars. For dinner we had some delicious leftover vegan paella that T's mom had made when she visited, and froze. She doesn't use recipes so I can't provide one but it tasted great. The next day I baked "Outrageously Easy BIG Bread" from vegweb. I found a link to the recipe on my friend Claire's blog. I pretty much followed the recipe except I used half whole wheat instead of all-purpose flour. It was as easy as described and had a nice texture and taste, but it was a little too salty for me. It was so easy that I began to wonder why I use a bread machine at home. (Just kidding-I know why...)
 
Seriously, it was really easy. I think using hot water made the dough form much more quickly than cool water does. Kneading it was no problem - I wanted the dough to be kneadable, but still soft. I also wanted to use less yeast and have it rise longer. This fits into my schedule better as I was able to let it rise as long as I wanted until I was ready to form the loaves. It also improves the texture. As long as you use a big bowl, you can pretty much let it rise as long as you want. I think I left it at least four hours on one of the rises. I baked the bread two more times in Seattle and again today at home and changed it a little each time. The original recipe can be ready in two hours but I prefer my version. I use three cups whole wheat flour for the first addition and three cups unbleached (or one cup whole wheat and two cups unbleached) for the second. I use one scant tablespoon of yeast, two scant teaspoons of salt and 1/4 cup of olive oil. I use enough flour to make a soft but kneadable dough and knead it briefly right in the bowl. I cover the bowl with plastic wrap and a towel, let it rise, punch it down, let it rise again then form the loaves. I let the loaves rise about 1/2 hour or until double. I preheat the oven to 475˚ and bake the loaves on a stone. I bake for four minutes and then turn the oven down to 350˚ and bake for about 25 minutes. This is a very soft and delicious bread. Today I made it with caraway seeds but I want to try adding kalamata olives next time. The instructions from the link "Outrageously Easy BIG Bread" are very complete so there's no need to repeat them here.
That night for dinner I made braised greens with tofu, cashews, and raisins over polenta. I love this recipe. T doesn't like raisins so I used dried apricots instead. I made a double recipe which served five big eaters generously and provided lunch for three. I put my youngest son, J, to work making steamed carrots flavored with dill and a small amount of sugar and olive oil. No one could resist the bread so we had that too.