fatless cornbread

I attempted something new in the kitchen.

Cornbread with no fat.  Unfortunately, there was still more sugar in it than I'd like, so I need to try again.

I used 1/3 cup sunflower pulp, white flour, and whole wheat flour... sugar, honey, eggs, baking powder, cornmeal, and applesauce.  White flour?  Yes.  I'm still experimenting with new ingredients and kinds of baking.  One baby step at a time, I say.

It actually turned out pretty yummy.  It needed more cornmeal and a little less sugar.  I'm excited to try again. I feel like it's pretty much impossible to fail in the kitchen, once you know a few things.  And Jesse's pretty forgiving when it comes to bread/sweets. . . just not over excessive quantities of fresh ginger.

kitchen experiments

I made Sunflower milk a few days ago.

I can't say that I loved the smell of it while I was making it.  It smelled too much like grass/dirt/sprouts... do you get the idea?

I used the same nut/water ratio and process as I did for the almond milk.

I used a little of the milk in an egg I was cooking.  It turned my egg a strange brownish color.  I can't say I was a huge fan of that.

I'm not sure what it's like to cook with.  I haven't experimented yet.

The taste though. . . let's just say I don't plan on making this again.

p.s. it's been a good six months. :-)

Almond Milk

I think I've been inspired!  Making almond milk was fun!  Now I want to try making cashew milk/rice milk/sunflower seed milk.  It would be nice if the sunflower seed milk turned out, because that would be the cheapest to make.  Someday soon I'll try it.

 

 Step one: soak 1 cup of almonds in water overnight (I soaked mine for about 12 hours)

Step two: strain and rinse the almonds.

Step three: put almonds in blender

Step four: add two cups of water to the almonds.

Step five: blend for about a minute.

Step six: strain (ideally, using a cheesecloth, but I don't have one so I made do with what I had)

Step seven: place almond pulp back in blender, add two more cups of water, and repeat steps five and six.

Step eight: consume almond milk!

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I like the taste of the almond milk with cereal and to cook with, but I don't like it plain.  Maybe I would like it more if I diluted it.  However, I also think dairy milk is gross to drink on its lonesome (unless it's chocolate milk!).

Also, some people suggested adding some vanilla extract and a pinch of salt to enhance it.

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I dried out the leftover almond pulp in the oven, ground into a fine powder with my awesome new "spice" mill (coffee grinder), and turned it into an almond flour, of sorts.  Then I made biscuits with it, using equal parts white flour, whole wheat flour, and almond flour.  Next time I'll try without white flour, but I just wanted to get a feel for what would happen.  Instead of dairy milk, I used leftover coconut cream (from when I made curry) and almond milk.

The end result?  The biscuits were amazing!  They were not huge and poofy like canned biscuits, but they were very light and practically disintegrated/melted in my mouth.  Scrumptious.  Next time I think I'll try experimenting with replacing the fats with something else, maybe applesauce.

Pumpkin Spice Cinnamon Rolls

I recently made some delicious (unhealthy) pumpkin spice cinnamon rolls.  Jesse loved them.

The original recipe's vegan, but I don't have vegan ingredients lying around.

Pumpkin Spice Cinnamon Buns

1/4 cup warm water

1 package fast-acting active dry yeast

2 cups All-Purpose Flour
1 1 /4 cup Whole Wheat White Flour (I just used regular whole wheat)
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/3 cup warmed almond milk (I used dairy milk)
1 tablespoon melted Earth Balance buttery spread (I used dairy butter)

1 Tablespoon ground flaxseed meal + 6 Tbsp water (equals 1 egg) (I used an egg)
3/4 cup pumpkin puree, either fresh or canned
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 cup raisins
2 tablespoons Earth Balance Buttery spread, softened (again, I used dairy butter)

1)  In a large bowl, stir yeast, white whole wheat flour flour, 1 cup of all purpose flour and pumpkin pie spice, sugar, and salt together.

2)  In separate bowl, pumpkin, butter, almond milk and flaxseed meal mixture together.  Pour into dry ingredients and stir until well blended.  Turn out onto counter coated with some of the remaining flour.  Knead the remaining flour into the dough until it is used up and you have a smooth, elastic dough.

3)  Put dough into a bowl coated with cooking spray and lightly spray the top of the dough.  Cover with plastic wrap and set in a warm place to rise.  Let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.

4)  Combine the brown sugar, cinnamon, chopped walnuts and raisins in a small bowl, set aside. Transfer the risen dough to a work surface, and pat or roll it into a 16" x 12" rectangle. Spread softened butter over dough and then sprinkle with the sugar mixture.

5)  Roll the dough into a log the long way.  Next, using what I call my "dental floss trick", cut the rolls into even slices (I got 9 rolls).  The dental floss trick uses a long string of unwaxed, unflavored dental floss.  You slide it under the roll dough and bring it up and across like you are going to start to tie a shoe.  Then you pull each side to slice the roll dough. Place slices in a greased 8 inch squar baking pan sprayed with cooking spray.  Cover with plastic wrap (not tightly) and let rise until almost doubled, about 45 minutes.

Pre-raised

Baked

6)  Bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes until they turn golden brown across the center.

7)  Remove from oven and let cool about 15 minutes.  Drizzle with your favorite confectioners frosting.

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Jesse's only complaint was that it need ten times more frosting... and it definitely did not.

His rating on a scale of -5 through 5 is a 4.5

Soy Sauce Chicken (Chinese Noodle Soup/Vietnamese Pho?)

Yesterday I tried another new recipe that I found on userealbutter.

Soy Sauce Chicken
4-6 chicken drums (organic is preferable) (I used 4)
4-5 stalks green onions, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
8 slices ginger root, peeled
2-3 whole star anise
2/3 cup soy sauce
2 tbsp sugar
enough water to cover the chicken
 
1)  Place all ingredients in a pan with a tight lid (or use a crockpot). Bring to boil and then reduce to a simmer so that when you cover the pot, the liquid will not boil over. Simmer for 2 hours.

2)  I like to remove the bone and skin from the chicken and serve the meat with the broth over Chinese noodles with bok choy, napa cabbage, or spinach for a Chinese noodle soup.

I didn't have the ingredients for step 2, so instead... I removed the meat from the bone/skin/fat.  I let the broth cool and the fat congeal and skimmed off the fat and and also removed the chunks of ginger and anise (the anise is a HAVE to - it wouldn't be the same without it.  I found it in the Mexican aisle at Wal-mart.  It was about $1 for 20 or so anise stars)  Then I sauteed the few Chinese-type ingredients I had (celery, snowpeas, mushrooms, and two more green onions) until they were slightly cooked, but still crunchy.  I put the vegetables and meat back in the broth and served with some rice noodles I purchased at the Asian market.

The verdict?  It was delicious.  It actually wasn't salty at all (I thought it would be with all the soy sauce), but I also didn't drink the broth, I just ate what was inside of it.  It had flavor, it was fresh tasting, and the chicken was super tender and not bland like most boiled chicken is.

I will admit though, that it smelled a little gross while it was cooking (you'll understand what I mean if you make it).  I thought I was going to hate it. But... thankfully, its smell and taste were completely different.

On a scale of -5 through 5, Jesse said it was between at 3 and a 4.  I'm guessing that's a 3.5.

If Jesse liked it that much and he doesn't usually like Oriental food, you know it must be good. ;-)

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Oh.  I also made cookies on Monday.  They were scrumptious.