Avocado Potato Salad

I love potato salad.  What would life be like without this delectable dance upon my tastebuds?  It would be a sad, dark place I tell you.  I have a go-to recipe for my potato salad.  It is the same potato salad that my grandmother and my mother made, except that I add black olives to it as well.  That and I use vegan mayo.  This is typically what others expect when I bring potato salad.  But I have a confession.  Notwithstanding the undeniable awesomehood of this recipe, and the distinct happiness that it brings... sometimes I want something else.  *gasp*

I have been cooking different things to share with family, some of whom are vegan.  This has invited me to explore other options.  I try alternative recipes or ingredients.  I am also trying to eat more healthy choices.  I don't really succeed as often as I like, but I do keep making that effort.  So... as I was contemplating healthy alternatives that vegans could enjoy... I wondered what potato salad would taste like without any mayo at all. What if I just used avocado instead?  It brings creamy delightfulness to the table.  I tried it, and this is the result.  (Forgive the lack of photography skills.)

The recipe is a bit difficult to pin precisely, but it goes something like this:

10 baking potatoes, boiled, peeled and diced
2 avocados
juice of 1 lime
juice of 1 lemon
rice milk (enough to make smooth)
garlic salt
salt
paprika
1 can olives, chopped lengthwise into quarters
2 C corn, cooked and cooled
8-10 green onions, chopped

I blended the avocados, juices and spices in my blender,  I used some milk to help make it smooth since the avocados were not completely ripe.  I poured this mixture over the potatoes, added the corn, olives and onions and mixed it.  I placed it in the refrigerator to let it cool and to allow the flavors to blend.

I was told it is a do-over, so we'll be doing this again.  I will probably experiment a bit with cilantro and/or chipotle on future attempts.  I liked it.  I liked that it was light and had some good alternatives.  I liked that it was a different flavor from my regular potato salad, to be used when a little change is needed.

Bake, Baby, Bake

It took me three tries.  In fact, whether or not the third time worked was going to play heavily on whether there would be another try.  I know, I know... Thomas Edison and his hundreds of ways to NOT make a light bulk, but I am not one of those people who can have hundreds of ways to not make wheat bread.  Seriously, I wasn't inventing something, here, just trying to do something at home that thousands of other people have been able to do successfully.

My first attempt was a solid mass that never (EVER) rose.  It just sat there in its dough state, laughing at me.  It was supposed to be enough to bake two loaves, but it never amounted to that much dough.  I baked it anyway.... and it turned out to be an inedible (and ugly) brick.  Pure.  Absolute.  Failure.  It would have been a good door-stop, though.  Or an anti-theft device, if I had used it to fall from above if anyone broke into my house.  I'm pretty sure it would have knocked them unconscious.

My second attempt made more headway.  I think.  I used my grandma's recipe.  I did get two loaves out of it.  But alas, I still got bread that didn't taste very good or rise properly or make me happy in any other way.  Apparently it is also not making the birds happy because I don't think they've touched it.  But I really, truly did try.  I believe my problem was the timing of adding the salt, which may have killed the yeast.  Someone else suggested that it may be that I used powdered milk rather than fresh or canned milk.  A third person suggested that it was my general use of recipes as a list of suggestions rather than rules... but aside from the salt and butter being introduced at the wrong time (I read a line early in the recipe), I really had followed the recipe.  The last possible suggestion I received was regarding how much yeast I used.  I was told that wheat bread recipes typically call for more yeast than white bread recipes do.

That brings us to my third attempt.  This is what you need to know.  I ground my own wheat flour.  In my previous attempts, I used the white flour that I buy at from home each year and bring back with me... but after two failed attempts I bought cheap white flour at the local store instead.  I also bought shortening instead of using butter since the recipe actually says shortening.  So I scalded my milk, which was half powdered milk and half canned milk.  This was as much a concession to the person who told me powdered milk wouldn't work as me having only enough powdered milk to make half of what the recipe required.  I let it cool completely before I added the (local!) honey.  I doubled the yeast... forgive me, but I couldn't withstand another lousy bread experience.  IT HAD TO RISE.  I followed every other instruction, to the letter.  I even greased my bread pans with shortening like my grandma had done when I was a kid.  And it rose.  And it baked well  This is what came out of the oven:

They aren't precisely the most beautiful loaves ever created, but... look at them, they rose!

They were a bit crumbly, as far as bread is concerned.  But they were better than simply edible, they were good.  That, my friends, is sheer happiness.  After so much effort, I really really wanted bread that was more healthy for me and that wasn't lousy.  So hooray for wheat bread!  Now I feel free to make continued attempts and maybe tweak it here and there... like trying to make it vegan or multi-grain.  Wahoo!

Long Live Cranberries!

I love cranberries.  It is not clear what, precisely, has captured my love of these little red, tart berries... but I am pretty much a big fan.  I even like the music group by the same name, from Limerick.  I have affection for cranberry orange muffins, cranberry banana bread, cranberry cherry juice, cranberries for Thanksgiving, cranberry herbal tea... so it occurred to me that if I love them so well, maybe I should actually have some on hand, yes?

I tried two different methods, only one of which has photographs.  (Sorry, I forgot!)  I bought a bag of cranberries, since they were in season, at a local store.  These were washed and then put in a food dehydrator.  This can be done in an oven, as well, but as my sister-in-law actually owns a dehydrator we opted for that plan.  After we had already had them going for a while, we discovered that we actually needed to cut them or pierce them.  Some said we could have blanched them in hot water before we began, but we were beyond that already and decided to stick with the cutting part.  We did this and then returned them to the dehydrator.  Later we ended up with little pruned up cranberries, our very own craisins.  Note that you will get far less volume of cranberries than when you started.  Seriously, I thought the cranberry elves had come in and stolen some.  But it makes sense that as they dehydrate, they shrink.  An entire bag of fresh cranberries does not even fill up a sandwich size zip-top bag.

The end result was a bit tart.  We didn't use any sugar or anything in the drying process.  This is fine if you plan to use the cranberries in something that adds sweetness.  This is less awesome when you are adding the craisins to a salad, as they are undeniably tart, unless you go for that sort of thing.

The next attempt was freeze drying cranberries.  I googled freeze-drying, so I knew it would be important to have less stuff in my freezer as well as not constantly opening my freezer while the freeze-drying was taking place.  I don't have an awesome deep freezer, ladies and gentlemen, I've just got a standard freezer in my refrigerator unit.  I hoped that the week that I would be travelling for work would be ideal for freeze drying, so I bought a couple of packages of cranberries.  These were washed and left in the colander to dry.  Look at them, aren't they beautiful?

Then they were cut up thinly, as suggested by other bloggers.  Thin, here, is a subjective term.  I think I maybe got 4 or 5 slices on a single standard-sized cranberry.  Sometimes only 3.  After a while, you get to the point where you are a bit less particular about how thinly they are because you see all the cranberries that are left and you think you'll never be done.  Or at least you feel that way if you think like I thought as I was thinly slicing my darling berries.  This is how they looked.

Then, I spread my cranberry slices on pizza tins.  I felt that mine, having those little holes all over the surface, would probably help with the freeze-drying process.  I may be mistaken.  But it seemed like a good idea at the time.  An unexpected development with this choice was that as the cranberries froze and dropped their seeds, these fell through the holes and collected on the bottom of my freezer.  Someone had suggested taking out a few berries and leaving them on the table to test the done-ness of the process.  If they turned into a putrid moldy mess, the answer was they needed to stay longer.  I did this test, and although I didn't have a mass of cranberry goo on my counter, I didn't think they were done.  I left them in about a half a week longer.  This is the appearance of my cold little berry friends.

I am not entirely convinced that they were freeze-dried to perfection after that, but I needed my freezer space.  I put the cranberries in a zip-top bag and left these on my counter to be stored with the dehydrated ones and noted moisture collecting on the inside of the bag.  I think this means I failed.  Not willing to entirely lose the battle, I just closed the bag and threw them back in the freezer.  I am not opposed to trying again, but I think that this would be more effective with a deep freezer.  Or with a freezer that blows air like some ovens do, keeping the coldness rotating.

I am also up to other options of preserving cranberries.  Cranberry jam, cranberry syrup, cranberry fruit filling for mini pies... anyone have any suggestions?  Anything you've tried that has worked, or hasn't?  What are your favorite fruits to preserve?

Vegan Ice Cream

My church was having a summer function and there was an ice cream competition.  I didn't actually think I would win it, but knowing that there were vegetarians, vegans and some with milk allergies, I decided to get creative and make a vegan ice cream.  After doing some online searches, I came up with some that looked promising.  I actually made two, so there would be choices.  Who doesn't like having options?  I only photo documented one of the two attempts, though, so that's the one I'll be describing here.

I made chocolate peanut butter ice cream, using a bit of coconut cream.  I used chocolate flavored almond milk and made ice cubes out of it.  These ice cubes went into my food blender.  Here I added the peanut butter.  I used the more liquid portion of the coconut cream to help smooth out the ice cream, since I had it for the other recipe.  Then I poured this out into a gallon size freezer container and froze overnight.

 As you can tell, I was not particular about the almond milk or about the peanut butter.  I used what was on hand.  As to the coconut cream, I spent a considerable amount of time weighing my options and reading the ingredient list.  I picked the one I used because it seemed to be the closest to being just coconut cream, without lots of additives.

The end result doesn't look delicious at all in this picture, but it was actually pretty good.  I would definitely do it again.  The only thing that I really would change for sure is that I would make it just before I intended to eat it rather than leave it in the freezer overnight.  Vegan ice creams do not fare well when left to freeze solid.  This proved to be true in both cases. Keep this in mind, should you venture out on your own with a non-dairy ice cream.  Happily, both were enjoyed anyway.

Have you made ice cream at home?  What tips or tricks helped you?

Mish Mash of Food Attempts

It has been forever since I've posted, and I feel a bit badly about that.  I have taken many, many pictures to share of things I've tried, and then somehow never made it here to share with you.  So here I am, showing several at once.  It's kind of a cheater's method, but it gets me back in the game and saves you from reading long passages on things for which you may not really want to read more than a line or so.

So here goes.

Sometimes I miss iced tea.  I don't drink it anymore and haven't in years, but I remember fun things like placing a pitcher with tea bags out in the sun and then drinking it.  I remember sitting and chatting for hours with iced tea  It is more of a pleasant memory thing.  I do drink herbal tea.  I thought that iced herbal tea might have a similar experience as iced tea-I-don't-drink-anymore.  Here is my attempt to make it, using cranberry tea, which is a joy to my heart all by itself.  Just so you know... this was not the greatest attempt ever.

Next up, vegan cheesecake.  I am not vegan, but since I have family who is I gave it a try.  The two pictures show it plain and covered in fresh strawberries.  These were edible.  They tasted decent.  I used a cookbook intended for children who were vegetarian (as opposed to using a regular recipe and trying to veganify it).  I would rather try a new recipe for the next round.  

I was looking at a store that has all kinds of veggies and grains and vegetarian options.  This always is an adventure for me.  I enjoy discovering new foods, or long lost loves that I thought were not available.  Whilst travelling along gleefully in the produce department, I came across these carrots.  All naturally colored.  Aren't they delightful?  I made a roasted root vegetable dish with them (it included beets as well as sweet potatoes and probably regular potatoes.)  They don't taste much different, but they do make it more interesting.  As to the recipe they were in, I don't know that I'll feel that courageous again for a little while  I really don't care for beets, but I wanted to try with them anyway.

I made sweet potato chocolate chip cookies, from a recipe a friend shared with me.  These didn't sound too different from pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, so I felt relatively sure they would turn out well.  Which they did.  They were a hit!  They've even been requested by name!  That has got to be a good sign.  I have always made my without egg (I use an egg replacer) and with semi-sweet chocolate chip cookies which state they don't have dairy in them.  This works for the health-vegans, but perhaps not for ideological ones or for people with dairy allergies.

Next up, caramel popcorn balls.  I made these for Halloween and passed them out to the kids of my coworkers who came to visit us at work.  (I did check to make sure this would be okay, since it wasn't store-bought.)  This may seem less adventurous to some.  However, I had never made any, so this was a first for me.  I had a lot of fun with it.  They were sticky but set up nicely and had a pretty good flavor.  I'll probably do this again.

Finally, I made frying pan bread.  You can't really tell from the photo, but that bread is about the size of a large dinner plate.  I kid you not, I "baked" it in a frying pan.  Technically, it was an electric skillet, but the same idea.  It is so much faster than in an oven, and works really well.  The flavor is great.  The joy is that the recipe is super duper basic.  If you are trying to figure out a low-ingredient-list bread, this would work.  It is ideal in use-only-food-storage instances.  And for those of you who are vegan, this works for you.  Non-vegans can change their fat, I used olive oil.  This, too, was a great hit which has been made many times over since my first attempt.  LOVE IT.  Special thanks to my Chilean friend for sharing the recipe and walking me through the steps.

 There you have it, several of my cooking adventures from 2012.  Let me know what you think!

Braided Spaghetti Bread

You ever look into your pantry and wonder what to make for dinner, and think, "oh, not the same old thing all over again?" I do. I get bored with food easily.

 My cool sister-in-law-ish once made a braided spaghetti bread and told me about it. I thought it sounded kind of weird, but just think of the awesome convenience of garlic bread and spaghetti TOGETHER! Not to mention the fun. Go talk to people about it, and see their facial reactions. That makes it even more fun.

 I decided to try it out for myself, being an unrepentant lover of carbohydrates and breads. I had spaghetti on hand, but I wanted to use bowtie pasta instead. I liked how it looked, I like that it's small. So, technically, "braided spaghetti bread" is something of a misnomer. I'm okay with that. Check it out!

 

 Doesn't it look delicious? It may not be healthy, but it is entirely plant-based. I made my dough using flour, oil, salt and yeast. I let it rise, rolled it out into a rough rectangle, and filled it with my pasta and sauce. The bread I made just may be a post unto itself, as it was also an adventure.

 For the pasta sauce, I sauteed a finely chopped purple onion, 2-3 cloves of garlic minced and a large can of crushed tomatoes. Then I finely chopped 8 oz. if button mushrooms and one 15-oz. can of black olives. These I mixed into the sauce, and let continue to simmer. Season as you wish. I use salt, freshly ground black pepper, cayenne pepper and maybe some Italian seasonings. I poured the sauce over cooked noodles and stirred and let it set for a while. Once the dough was rolled out, I placed large (over-stuffed) portions of pasta in the center. Then, I cut slits in the dough on either side, from the edge to about an inch from where the pasta was. I cut as many one the one side as on the other. I tucked the top and the bottom of the dough over the pasta, then "braided" the dough strips all the way down. I put garlic salt in oil and brushed the top of the braided bread with it. This went into a 325 oven for 25 minutes.

It was totally fun to make, and really tasty. I loved it so much I made more just about two weeks later. On the repeat experience, since I was cooking for meat eaters, I did layer some cheese over the pasta before I braided the bread. Delightful.

 On a recent similar experience with spaghetti, we did not have any normal bread to make garlic bread. We did have hamburger buns, which were toasted in the oven with garlic salt and butter. So we made spaghetti burgers! Even though it's silly and probably a bit more messy, it is so much fun to try. Both of these different takes on a "boring" spaghetti dinner will get raves at home! Try them!