Simple Baked Flatbread – VeganMoFo Day 4

Today’s prompt, carrying on with the “inspired by…” theme, is about art, and how art inspires you. “Art” can encompass so much, but for this purpose I’m applying it to music, specifically the song “North” by Sleeping at Last.

Let the years we’re here be kind, be kind.
Let our hearts, like doors, open wide, open wide.
Settle our bones like wood over time, over time.
Give us bread, give us salt, give us wine.

The song is about homemaking and finding a place to call home. About finding somewhere full of peace, love, and of course some good bread. So what did I do? Made bread, simple but delicious.

A lot of flatbreads either require rising time, or want to be pan fried…these need neither, they come together really quickly and they bake in the oven in just ten minutes! Which makes them really easy to just whip up to go with soup, stew, or anything you want. They’re best eaten fresh on the day of baking, but will keep for a couple of days afterwards.

Easy Baked Flatbread

• Servings: 8 flatbreads
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Ingredients

• 250g plain flour
• 1 tsp instant dried yeast
• pinch salt
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 200ml plain sparkling water
• olive oil spray
• Salt for sprinkling on top

Directions

Preheat the oven to 210C/410F
1. In a bowl, mix together the flour, yeast, salt, and olive oil.
2. Slowly pour in the sparkling water, mixing until a dough forms.
3. Knead for approximately 5 minutes until smooth.
4. Break the dough into eight pieces (half, and then half again)and roll each one into a large circle.
5. Place on baking sheets – leaving space to rise – and spray with oil and sprinkle with salt.
6. Bake for 8-10 minutes until golden brown and bubbling.

 

Roasted Garlic Bread – VeganMoFo Day 6

Today’s post is all about comfort food. Food that makes you feel warm and happy and cosy.

It’s no secret that I love carbs. Carbs are great. Specifically bread, bread is very great. There’s nothing quite like just munching down a huge amount of warm garlic bread, maybe with pasta, or soup – or however you like. Sometimes I make a very simple garlic bread with toast – just spread some butter and some minced garlic on a slice of bread, chuck it under the grill for a couple of minutes, and there you have it, garlic bread! But this is VeganMoFo, I needed to do something special. So I put the garlic in the bread.

And not just any garlic. Roasted garlic!

Have you ever roasted garlic? No? Well, I was a little apprehensive too at first, to be honest. A whole bulb of garlic? Isn’t that a bit much? Well, actually, no. Roasting the garlic both brings out its natural sugars, and tames its sharpness. So a whole roasted bulb of garlic actually tastes fairly mild.

It’s actually very easy to roast garlic. Heat your oven to 200C/400F, chop off the top of a bulb of garlic (the bit that sticks up), sprinkle over some oil, salt, and pepper, and wrap the bulb up tight in some foil. Bake in the oven for 50 minutes (or longer if you’re doing more than one bulb, or a gigantic bulb), and leave to cool. You can then grab the bulb from the base and squeeze it like a tube of toothpaste…and the garlic will come out! Like a paste! It’s magic, really it is.

In this bread I put the roasted garlic paste in the actual loaf itself. It’s delicious. If you wanted some super extra garlicky flavour, then cut off a slice of the baked loaf, top with some garlic butter (minced garlic in vegan butter), and place under the grill. Keep vampires away for months.

Roasted Garlic Bread

• Servings: 1 loaf
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Ingredients

• 1 bulb garlic
• 1 tsp olive oil
• pinch salt + pepper
• 300g strong white flour
• 1 tsp dried yeast
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp dried parsley
• 250ml hand hot water (hot enough so you can just hold your little finger in for a few seconds)
• 1 tbsp vegan butter, melted

Directions

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F
1. Begin by roasting your garlic bulb. Chop the top off the bulb – the bit that sticks up – trying to make sure each clove is slightly open. Drizzle with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and wrap in tin foil. Bake in the oven for 50 mintues.
2. Once garlic is baked and cooled, begin your bread. Mix together the flour, yeast, salt, and parsley in a large bowl.
3. Squeeze the roasted garlic from its skin, and mash it with a fork until it forms a paste. Mix this into the flour mixture.
4. Slowly add the hot water, stirring, until a dough is formed.
5. Knead for 8 minutes, until the dough is stretchy but firm.
6. Cover the bowl and place in a warm area to rise for two hours.
7. Once risen, punch down and form into a log shape. Place dough into a greased loaf tin, and back into your warm place for a further half an hour.
8. Meanwhile, Preheat your oven to 215C/420F.
9. Once the dough is risen, place in the preheated oven for 15 minutes.
10. Turn the heat down to 180C/355F and continue to bake for a further 30 minutes.
11. Remove the bread from the oven, and brush the top with the melted butter (This stops the crust from being too hard).
12. Leave to cool before slicing.

Red Pepper & Thyme Rolls

In the run up to Vegan MoFo 2016, there’s a set of three fortnightly challenges being issued, called “MiniMoFo”. These are optional – but fun – prompts to complete before the big month happens in November! Anyone can take part too, even if they’re not doing Vegan MoFo itself so get over there and join in!

The first challenge is:

What is your signature dish?

So I had to think about this a bit, because I’m not sure if I have a signature dish! Being a fairly adventurous cook, and having a food blog too, I don’t tend to cook the same meals again and again. I like to change things up, and if I make a dish lots of times I’ll tweak it to try and make it even better.

My first thought was maybe my chocolate cake. Everyone loves my chocolate cake! And I’m pretty sure I’ve not blogged about it yet. However…I don’t really have an occasion in this fortnight to make a chocolate cake. We’ve already got a few baked goods in the house and I just can’t fit any more cake in!

So onto the next idea. And something that is always popular when I make it is bread! Now, I may not be a super fancy artisanal bread maker, but I do enjoy baking bread myself. It’s fun, and you can take any frustrations out when you knead it! Plus, you can make a ton of different flavours.

This time I decided to make roasted red pepper rolls – or cobs, or baps, or whatever you call them in your dialect! I used peppers from a jar, because it’s so much easier, but if you wanted to roast and peel your own you could. These take a while to make – I do two rises – so start them early, but you can eat them warm!

Making bread isn’t as hard or scary as you might think. You need some time (most of it is downtime though!), some patience, and a little bit of strength. Start by mixing all the ingredients except for the water in a big bowl. Then you add the water. The water should be “hand hot” temperature – an easy way to tell if it’s right is to stick your (clean!) little finger in the water. It should feel hot, but not so hot you can’t keep your finger in the water. Like a nice steaming bath. That water goes in with the rest of the ingredients, gets mixed to form a dough, then you have to knead it.

Kneading dough is probably the hardest part of making bread. Unless you have a bread machine or a mixer with a dough hook, in which case lucky you! But most people underknead their dough because it does take some time. My top tip for kneading? Put some music on. It gives you something to do other than think “Am I seriously still kneading this bread?!” and also it provides a good timer. If your songs are average length – about 4 minutes – knead your dough for two songs. No less. You can knead a little longer if you get caught up in the music, you’re unlikely to knead too much by hand.

Then, the bread goes off to rise. Put it in a warm place – I use the airing cupboard, but you could use a sunny spot, or next to the radiator, somewhere nice and warm anyway. Leave it until it’s doubled in size – an hour to an hour and a half, depending how warm your place is. Punch it down, it’ll deflate a lot, and then form it into your bread rolls.

This recipe makes eight rolls so it’s easy – split in half, then in half again, then once more. Roll them into, well, rolls, and put them on a baking tray. See the picture above! Then, you cover them with a piece of oiled clingfilm. Oiled is important here – just brush some olive oil over the film before you put it over the rolls. If you don’t oil it, you’ll get the film just sticking to the bread, and when you pull it off you’ll ruin your nice roll shapes.

Anyway, back to rise the rolls go. You need to leave them to rise for another hour now. But partway through the rise, preheat your oven to 210C – or 410F. If your oven is anything like mine it’ll take forever to heat to that temperature. After the hour is up, take the film off the rolls, sprinkle with a little salt, and bake in the oven – for about 15-20 minutes, until nice and golden. Turn one upside down and tap the bottom – if it sounds hollow, it’s cooked!

Leave to cool for five minutes or so before you tuck in!

Roasted Red Pepper & Thyme Rolls

• Servings: 8 rolls
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Ingredients

• 550g bread flour
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp yeast (I use the fast-action stuff)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 3 tbsp olive oil (plus extra for brushing)
• 200g roasted red pepper, diced finely
• 200ml “hand hot” water

Directions

1. In a large bowl, mix together the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, yeast, salt & thyme).
2. Stir through the olive oil and diced peppers until well mixed, and then make a well in the centre of the mix.
3. Pour in the water gradually until you get a sticky dough.
4. Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface for 8 minutes, until it forms a stretchy ball.
5. Put the dough ball back in the bowl, cover, and leave to rise in a warm place for an hour, or until doubled in size.
6. Once the dough has risen, punch it down again, and form into 8 rolls. Place these on a baking sheet.
7. Cover the rolls with oiled cling film, and place again in a warm place to rise for one hour.
8. Preheat your oven to 210C/410F.
9. Remove the film from the rolls, sprinkle with a little salt, and place in the preheated oven.
10. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until golden brown, and hollow-sounding when tapped on the bottom.
11. Remove from the oven and leave to cool!

Roasted Vegetable Soup & Seeded Soda Bread – Vegan MoFo Day 23!

Today’s prompt is “Autumn Equinox Eats”. I will admit, I don’t know much about the Autumn equinox – sure you hear about the summer/winter equinoxes, but not the Autumn one. Turns out, the Autumn equinox is smack bang in the middle of Summer and winter, and is the day when the day and night are the same length, balancing each other out. Which is pretty cool, really.

I still didn’t really know what food to make though. But, looking into it, the sort of food/celebrations people have for the Autumn equinox seem to be pretty similar to what I’m used to as “harvest” food. Here, around this time of year, churches and communities will celebrate the Harvest, holding harvest festivals and lunches full of seasonal food. Fresh baked bread, soups, etc are all in abundance.

That being said, I decided to make some easy bread and a nice roasted vegetable soup. I had some squash left over from yesterday’s risotto and I went to Leicester market and picked up a few bags of vegetables. I had potatoes, carrots, peppers, courgette, mushrooms, tomatoes, and squash all roasting. You can use whatever you have – it’s all about being seasonal and celebrating the flavours available to you.

I made three trays of roasted vegetables, but probably only used about half of them in this soup. I froze the rest to use another day – having roasted vegetables in the freezer makes for some really easy meals!

For the bread, I didn’t have time to make one that needed to rise so I decided to go with a soda bread! Quick and easy, soda breads don’t need kneading, or rising, and pretty much just come together then get thrown in the oven. Rustic looking, they fit well with the harvest theme. I put a handful of mixed seeds in mine – you can get bags of seeds from supermarkets. My recipe also has oats for that extra rustic taste!

Bread before baking

Bread after baking!

Roasted Vegetable Soup with Seeded Soda Bread

• Servings: 2
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Ingredients

for the bread:

• 650g plain flour (or use a mix of plain/wholemeal)
• 110g oats
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp golden syrup
• 50g mixed seeds
• 25g vegan butter
• 400ml milk of choice
• 1 tbsp lemon juice

for the soup:

• Mixed vegetables (I used carrots, tomatoes, mushrooms, squash, potatoes, peppers, and courgette), diced, approximately 4-5 cups worth
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
• 2 tbsp tomato puree
• 1 tsp stock powder/1 stock cube
• boiling water

Directions

Preheat the oven to 200C/390F
1. First make the bread. In a jug, mix together the lemon juice and milk. Set aside (it will curdle, that is good).
2. Mix the flour, oats, bicarb, salt, and seeds in a large bowl.
3. Rub the butter in with your fingers, and then slowly pour in the milk mixture.
4. Mix until just combined. Do not overmix or it will not rise! Shape into a rough circle.
5. Place on a baking sheet and score a large cross through the middle of the dough.
6. Bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes, until it sounds hollow when tapped, and is golden brown.
7. Next, make the soup. Spread the vegetables on baking trays evenly – you don’t want them layered up.
8. Put the vegetables in the oven for 20 minutes, after which remove them and stir so they do not stick to the bottom.
9. Put the vegetables back in the oven for a further 20 minutes, or until they are soft and starting to blacken.
10. Meanwhile, fry the onion and garlic in a saucepan until softened.
11. Add the roasted vegetables and tomato puree and mix.
12. Stir through the stock powder, and pour over the boiling water until it just covers the vegetables.
13. Cook for a couple of minutes, and season with salt and pepper.
14. Using a hand blender, blend the soup until almost completely blended. Leave a few chunks of vegetables whole. Alternatively pour into a stand blender and blend.
15. Serve hot in bowls with the bread and butter!

“A Vegan Taste Of…” cookbook review – Vegan MoFo Day 12

I thought long and hard about what cookbook to choose for the “Favourite cookbook” prompt. Well, to be honest, I didn’t really as I don’t own many cookbooks.

This is the extent of my collection – squeezed in next to my exceedingly larger Terry Pratchett collection.

I was very tempted to write about Vegan Richa’s cookbook which is one I do love, but I decided to bend the rules a bit. Instead of writing about my favourite cookbook, I’ll write about my favourite series of cookbooks.

I first came across the “Vegan Taste Of…” series, by Linda Majzlik, when on holiday in Norfolk at the Hillside Animal Sanctuary. They had vegan cookbooks in their shop and we picked up the “Greece” one.  It became a firm favourite and we swiftly ordered four more countries off Amazon!

The books do not have pictures or descriptions of the food – and thus are very simple and to the point. I do love a good book with pictures to drool in but these books are packed full of recipes and I find it makes a nice adventure to cook something when you have no idea what it’ll look like!

Here are a few pictures of what I have made from them:

Spaghetti with Sundried Tomato and Vegetable Sauce from “A Vegan Taste of Greece”

Sundried Tomato & Onion Bread from “A Vegan Taste of Greece”

Cinnamon Crunchies from “A Vegan Taste of Mexico”

Pea and Mushroom Risotto from “A Vegan Taste of Italy”

Vegetable and Kidney Bean Tacos from “A Vegan Taste of Mexico”

And finally, here is the recipe I promised last week in my sandwiches post. It’s slightly adapted from a recipe in A Vegan Taste of Italy.

Sundried Tomato and Oregano Rolls

• Servings: 7 large rolls
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Ingredients

• 675g plain flour
• 100g sundried tomatoes, chopped
• 1 tsp fast action yeast
• 4 tbsp olive oil (or use the oil the tomatoes come in)
• 2 tbsp tomato puree
• 1 tbsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp salt
• 450ml hand-hot water
• olive oil for brushing

Directions

1. Mix the flour, yeast, oregano and salt in a bowl.
2. Stir through the chopped sundried tomatoes and the olive oil.
3. Dissolve the tomato puree in the hot water, and gradually add to the flour mixture, until a soft dough forms.
4. Knead well, then cover and leave to rise for 1 hour.
5. Knead again, and break into equal pieces (the amount of rolls you want to make).
6. Roll in the palm of your hand to make them round.
7. Arrange the rounds on a baking sheet, then cover again and leave for 30 more minutes to rise.
8. Preheat the oven to 200C.
9. After the final rising, brush the top of the rolls with olive oil and a sprinkling of salt, and bake in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes
10. The rolls are done when you can tap the bottom of them and they sound hollow inside.
11. Leave to cool on a wire rack.