Sunflower Zucchini Bread

A twist on classic zucchini bread, Sunflower Zucchini Bread {page 405} has protein-rich sunflower seeds baked right into the bread.

This delicious bread has all the components you've grown to love in standard zucchini bread - moist, comforting, slightly sweet, the illusion of health {"Hey, it has zucchini in it, so it's good for me!"}. All of those factors are amped up by the presence of the delightful little sunflower seeds. They add interesting texture and flavor, as well as amp up the nutritional qualities.

The Ninjahusband found the bread a little odd with the seeds in it, but I really liked them. Maybe next time I'll make 2 loaves - one without seeds for him, one with extra seeds for me.

-- Your Friendly Neighborhood Batgirl

Basic White Bread

There is nothing quite like homemade bread, and the smell that wafts through your house as you're baking it is heaven on earth. Talk about comfort at its finest. Basic White Bread {page 393} is a delicious iteration of the standard recipe.

Lots of people are intimidated by baking bread, but there's really no reason to be. Robin's recipe gives thorough and easy-to-follow instructions which ensure success for even the least experienced bread baker.

This is the perfect bread to serve with soup, for breakfast, or for a snack anytime.

-- Your Friendly Neighborhood Batgirl

Irish Soda Bread with Golden Raisins

It's cold and snowy outside so all I wanted for the past few days was soup and bread. I ended up making an awesome tomato cabbage barley soup but there was no bread to be found in the house. *gasp* Clearly I have been slacking since I always have at least one type of homemade bread in the house. I didn't want to wait hours for a yeasted bread so I decided on Irish Soda Bread with Golden Raisins (page 400). Yes I know those aren't golden raisins. It doesn't matter though because the Thompson raisins I used were excellent as well, so back off!

Anyway, the bread is super easy to put together with ingredients you most likely have kicking around. It bakes up in about 45 minutes and the result is a warm, dense loaf which is wonderful slathered with margarine and served alongside a hearty soup or stew. This bread however, is best the same day you make it as there's really not much fat in it (i.e., it doesn't store well).

Taste-wise, it is a fairly neutral bread. Since there isn't any yeast or a lot of other flavourful ingredients, there isn't a ton of flavour. That neutral taste though goes for any Irish Soda Bread and it means it goes well with a savoury soup or stew or even a sweet jam. Even though there are raisins in it, the bread doesn't clash with other dishes. It went surprisingly well with my strong-tasting, heavy soup.

The next time you want some bread to go along with your soup or stew, give this a shot. It's easy, neutral-tasting, fast and a nice change of pace from yeasted bread.

Stuffed Baked Seitan Roast

I am a seitan junkie. There, I said it. Actually I am pretty sure I've said it already. :p As mentioned previously, even though I have my own favourite seitan recipes for all different applications, I'll still make any seitan recipe I come across. So of course I had to make the Stuffed Baked Seitan Roast (page 306) which uses dough from the recipe for Basic Simmered Seitan (page 305) and topped with Mushroom Sauce (page 546).

This stuffed roast recipe is fairly straight forward — make the stuffing, make the dough, roll it up and bake. Sounds easy? It was.

The stuffing was super easy to pull together. The recipe for that is fairly basic so you'll want to adjust to your tastes. Everyone has a different idea of what an ideal stuffing is and it is usually based on what you grew up with. Well, I grew up with Stove Top stuffing (yes, really!) so I judge all others by my memory of that stuffing which was my favourite part of holiday dinners. So because I have had a fondness for Stove Top, I wanted a super salty, overly seasoned stuffing. :p I added in some vegetable bouillon powder, some extra sage and thyme and a few dollops of margarine.

The seitan dough is also a fairly basic dough with a neutral taste that goes well with a delicious gravy or sauce. The dough was easy to put together with the most challenging part being to flatten and stretch it out. Robin uses a food processor to mix her seitan dough but I prefer using my hands. I make seitan a lot so I know by feel how much to knead it and whether it needs a touch more liquid. Now there's nothing wrong with the seitan dough for this application (baked, not simmered), but because it is not simmered in broth it was a little too neutral tasting for me. I think it would definitely benefit from more soy sauce and more seasonings as well as a spoon or two of chickpea flour for texture (my personal taste as I rarely make seitan with just vital wheat gluten and always add in chickpea or soy flour). Another thing that would take this to the next level would be a basting or glazing liquid since the top gets a bit crispy in the oven and can be hard to slice through straight out of the oven. Next time I'll also place in a loaf pan since the log seemed to flatten a bit during baking on just a flat pan. As with all seitan, it is better the next day after resting in the refrigerator.

All in all, this was a great basic recipe with loads of room to customise. It is especially a good recipe for those new to seitan and wanting to try something a little fancier like a stuffed roast. From start to finish, including baking time, was about 1.5 hours with (IMHO) fairly minimal prep work so you could totally whip this up for a weeknight dinner like I did. I'll definitely make this again but with some of the modifications I mentioned.

— Ms. Veganorama
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Previous blog entries:

Basic Simmered Seitan: 1, 2
Mushroom Sauce: 1, 2, 3

Rice and Pea Soup with Quick Herb Bread

The Rice and Pea Soup (p163) is an uncomplicated meal-in-a-bowl that comes together fairly quickly. As written, this recipe came out more as a risotto for me, but you could certainly increase the amount of vegetable broth to create a more soupy consistency. I was a tad disappointed at first, but then I just let the soup do its thing, and since arborio rice is used anyway, it works out nicely. This is not a big and bold soup. It's a simple and subtle dish that, though not my usual flavor type, provided a filling meal. Extra salt and fresh ground pepper really got it going for me, especially on Day Two, after everything had hung out in the fridge overnight. The only modification I made was adding a bit of Bill's Chik'nish to the base.

I served this along with the Quick Herb Bread (p399), which is true to its name in that it is quick to put together. One bowl is all you need, and the herbs are variable. You could certainly go with this recipe as written, substitute your favorites, or alter the flavor based on cuisine. It reminds me of an herb bread I make often using my bread machine, only this takes about five minutes to put together and 40 minutes to bake. Toasted, it's even better.

One ladle of soup, one slice of bread (slathered in Earth Balance of course), and a side salad made for a super hearty and satisfying meal. Overall, we all enjoyed this meal, but its subtle flavor was definitely more suited to my grandmother. I do like the idea of using arborio rice for a soup because you get a bit of creaminess without added fat. And this soup method yields a risotto-like dish, but without all that stirring!

--The Divine Miss V

Caramelized Onion and Walnut Focaccia

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a total carboholic. I savour freshly baked bread like people would savour a fudgey chocolate cake and have been known to down an entire loaf of bread in one sitting (on more than one occasion) with just some sea salt, pepper and good olive oil. As mentioned in a post on my other blog, I haven't purchased bread from a store in a long time. I don't bake desserts but I bake bread a lot. There's just something magical about such simple ingredients coming together to create so many wonderful varieties of bread.

When flipping through the book, I made a beeline for the bread section and the recipe for Caramelized Onion and Walnut Focaccia (page 414) jumped out at me.

If you've never made bread before, focaccia is really easy and somewhat similar in technique to a regular pizza crust recipe. The dough does need to rise for an hour on the first rise and then about 35-40 minutes on the second rise so allot yourself about 2 hours from start to finish. There is minimal prep work involved, just slicing onions and chopping the walnuts, but it does take some time to caramelise the onions to perfection (about 35-40 minutes). Seems like a long time, but trust me, it is definitely worth it. You really don't have to do that much while the onions are cooking. You just need to make sure they don't burn and stir occasionally. You can prep the onions on the first rise and cook on the second, or if you don't want to lose momentum, you can do that all during the first rise. I prefer doing this actually to get it out of the way. While the onions are cooking, you can take that opportunity to flip through the cookbook and plan your next dish!

The focaccia itself is a fairly basic one with no extra ingredients in the dough, but where this dish really shines is the topping. The smell of the onions combined with the thyme while it's cooking will make your house smell as delicious as any bakery café. If that wasn't already delicious enough, the taste and texture of the walnuts worked perfectly with the onion mixture. It baked up in my oven in about 30 minutes (my oven sucks by the way) and filled the house with the smell of baking bread.

The taste of the finished focaccia was soooo good. I sliced it into smaller slices and had it alongside some mashed roasted garlic in olive oil and additional salt and pepper. I actually wished that I didn't have an entire dinner of something else waiting for me because if left to my own devices, I would have just sat there eating slice after slice. On the upside, I have tons of leftovers which I will eat tomorrow, slice after slice, until it's all gone.

— Ms. Veganorama

P.S. The plate was purchased from Jeanette Zeis (Vegan Dish). I get asked about the plate a lot. :)