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Greenavi Cafe, and Wild Thing Panini

I know, I know, I’m a sucker for cafes. I drink quite a bit of coffee, what can I say?

Before I get to a quick review of Greenavi on Queen West, I’ll do a quick followup about Wild Thing. Remember that post I made a few months ago, mentioning their delicious looking panini and promising to go back and try one? Well, I finally did last weekend, and the results of that are pictured to your right.  I ordered the Brie, Garlic and Apple panini, which came with a fennel slaw.  The panini was delicious: simple cibatta bread spread with what tasted like garlic butter and filled with thick slices of brie and thin slices of apple, served hot from their panini grill.  The slaw was also really tasty. I love fennel so it really worked for me.  Two thumbs up, and reasonably priced at around 7 bucks.

Now, on to Greenavi, which opened at the beginning of the summer in the space vacated by Just Us. The owners at Greenavi seemed to want to continue on where Just Us left off, offering organic beverages and food.

The space hasn’t been renovated much since the new owners took over.  Sure, all the Just Us stuff is gone, but it basically looks the same as it always did, only with a different menu board.  This isn’t a bad thing, really, it’s more an observation. Clearly, the previous owner wanted to sell everything and get out of dodge as quickly as possible.

A quick glance at their product wall and display case tells me that they get their espresso from 49th parallel, other coffee roasted locally, chocolate from Coco Camino, and many of their baked goods come from the same vegan bakery that supplies The Big Carrot.  Not bad!

On my first visit, I decided to get a large latte and a coconut and sesame sticky bun, which I’d had before at The Big Carrot.  I eyed their menu of wraps and panini, but decided I was in the mood for something sweet.  The latte was a bit too milky for my tastes, but then, what do you expect when you order a large?  Next time if I want a big coffee, I’ll go for a cappuccino, or maybe just an americano.  That said, what I could taste of the espresso in the drink was nice, and it was a good-sized cup for the price.

On a second trip a few days ago, Rich and I discovered that they use 100% compostable/biodegradable takeout cups, which I’m a big fan of.  Yes, takeout cups still generate waste, but it’s far better than the styrofoam cup variety.

Another bonus: They’ve got free wifi.  I’ll admit that makes it a bit frustrating to get a table on the weekends, with students settling in to write papers or study, macbook plugs snaking around the tables to the nearest plug. But hey, it’s a niche that needs to be filled.  I think I may just join the students some afternoon soon and do some marketing work for my own job.  Beats sitting on my sofa at home.

Greenavi Cafe, 490 Queen Street West (a few blocks west of Queen and Spadina).  http://www.greenavi.ca/index.html

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Daring Bakers Pizza

Holy, look how time flies! It’s once again that time of the month where the Daring Bakers take over food blogs everywhere with their delicious creations.

This month’s Daring Baker’s challenge was something everyone loves - pizza!

What’s that you say? Pizza’s really easy? Well, I can’t really argue with that. But it was chosen for two reasons:

- A beloved former Daring Baker named Sher passed away a few months ago. She was supposed to be one of the hosts for this month’s challenge, and had suggested pizza as the theme. Rosa from Rosa’s Yummy Yums was our lone host this month, and decided to go with Sher’s request for pizza.

AND

- Pizza dough might be easy, but tossing pizza dough? Now that’s a challenge.

Ok, so clearly I’m not going to be as good as that guy, but I don’t think I did too badly!

And how was the recipe? Great! This makes a delicious thin crust pizza. I had some fun with alliteration with mine: Pear, Pesto and Provolone Pizza! Well, ok, I did also toss on some chopped shallots, but those don’t start with p.

For those of you who don’t have a large family (or a bunch of hungry friends) to feed, you can easily half this recipe. I did and got two slightly larger crusts. I froze one crust to use in a few weeks, and am looking forward to trying my hand at tossing dough again!

For more pizzas, just check out the Daring Baker’s Blogroll!

Basic Pizza Dough
Original recipe taken from “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice” by Peter Reinhart.

Makes 6 pizza crusts (about 9-12 inches/23-30 cm in diameter).

Ingredients:
4 1/2 Cups (20 1/4 ounces/607.5 g) Unbleached high-gluten (%14) bread flour or all purpose flour, chilled
1 3/4 Tsp Salt
1 Tsp Instant yeast
1/4 Cup (2 ounces/60g) Olive oil or vegetable oil (both optional, but it’s better with)
1 3/4 Cups (14 ounces/420g or 420ml) Water, ice cold (40° F/4.5° C)
1 Tb sugar
Semolina/durum flour or cornmeal for dusting

DAY ONE

Method:

1. Mix together the flour, salt and instant yeast in a big bowl (or in the bowl of your stand mixer).

2. Add the oil, sugar and cold water and mix well (with the help of a large wooden spoon or with the paddle attachment, on low speed) in order to form a sticky ball of dough. On a clean surface, knead for about 5-7 minutes, until the dough is smooth and the ingredients are homogeneously distributed. If it is too wet, add a little flour (not too much, though) and if it is too dry add 1 or 2 teaspoons extra water.
NOTE: If you are using an electric mixer, switch to the dough hook and mix on medium speed for the same amount of time.The dough should clear the sides of the bowl but stick to the bottom of the bowl. If the dough is too wet, sprinkle in a little more flour, so that it clears the sides. If, on the contrary, it clears the bottom of the bowl, dribble in a teaspoon or two of cold water.
The finished dough should be springy, elastic, and sticky, not just tacky, and register 50°-55° F/10°-13° C.

3. Flour a work surface or counter. Line a jelly pan with baking paper/parchment. Lightly oil the paper.

4. With the help of a metal or plastic dough scraper, cut the dough into 6 equal pieces (or larger if you want to make larger pizzas).
NOTE: To avoid the dough from sticking to the scraper, dip the scraper into water between cuts.

5. Sprinkle some flour over the dough. Make sure your hands are dry and then flour them. Gently round each piece into a ball.
NOTE: If the dough sticks to your hands, then dip your hands into the flour again.

6. Transfer the dough balls to the lined jelly pan and mist them generously with spray oil. Slip the pan into plastic bag or enclose in plastic food wrap.

7. Put the pan into the refrigerator and let the dough rest overnight or for up to thee days.
NOTE: You can store the dough balls in a zippered freezer bag if you want to save some of the dough for any future baking. In that case, pour some oil (a few tablespoons only) in a medium bowl and dip each dough ball into the oil, so that it is completely covered in oil. Then put each ball into a separate bag. Store the bags in the freezer for no longer than 3 months. The day before you plan to make pizza, remember to transfer the dough balls from the freezer to the refrigerator.

DAY TWO

8. On the day you plan to eat pizza, exactly 2 hours before you make it, remove the desired number of dough balls from the refrigerator. Dust the counter with flour and spray lightly with oil. Place the dough balls on a floured surface and sprinkle them with flour. Dust your hands with flour and delicately press the dough into disks about 1/2 inch/1.3 cm thick and 5 inches/12.7 cm in diameter. Sprinkle with flour and mist with oil. Loosely cover the dough rounds with plastic wrap and then allow to rest for 2 hours.

9. At least 45 minutes before making the pizza, place a baking stone on the lower third of the oven. Preheat the oven as hot as possible (500° F/260° C).
NOTE: If you do not have a baking stone, then use the back of a jelly pan. Do not preheat the pan.

10. Generously sprinkle the back of a jelly pan with semolina/durum flour or cornmeal. Flour your hands (palms, backs and knuckles). Take 1 piece of dough by lifting it with a pastry scraper. Lay the dough across your fists in a very delicate way and carefully stretch it by bouncing it in a circular motion on your hands, and by giving it a little stretch with each bounce. Once the dough has expanded outward, move to a full toss.

NOTE: Make only one pizza at a time.

During the tossing process, if the dough tends to stick to your hands, lay it down on the floured counter and re-flour your hands, then continue the tossing and shaping.

In case you would be having trouble tossing the dough or if the dough never wants to expand and always springs back, let it rest for approximately 5-20 minutes in order for the gluten to relax fully,then try again. You can also resort to using a rolling pin, although it isn’t as effective as the toss method.

11. When the dough has the shape you want (about 9-12 inches/23-30 cm in diameter - for a 6 ounces/180g piece of dough), place it on the back of the jelly pan, making sure there is enough semolina/durum flour or cornmeal to allow it to slide and not stick to the pan.

12. Lightly top it with sweet or savory toppings of your choice.
NOTE: Remember that the best pizzas are topped not too generously. No more than 3 or 4 toppings (including sauce and cheese) are sufficient.

13. Slide the garnished pizza onto the stone in the oven or bake directly on the jelly pan. Close the door and bake for abour 5-8 minutes.
NOTE: After 2 minutes baking, take a peek. For an even baking, rotate 180°.
If the top gets done before the bottom, you will need to move the stone or jelly pane to a lower shelf before the next round. On the contrary, if the bottom crisps before the cheese caramelizes, then you will need to raise the stone or jelly.

14. Take the pizza out of the oven and transfer it to a cutting board or your plate. In order to allow the cheese to set a little, wait 3-5 minutes before slicing or serving.

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Nova Scotia Vacation Part 2: The Wooden Monkey

Before leaving for Halifax, Rich and I knew we’d need a list of at least a few decent vegetarian-friendly restaurants. While Halifax has really improved over the last 11 years since I lived in Nova Scotia, it still doesn’t have the huge selection that we’re used to. So we wanted to come prepared. Both of us have recently gone back to a vegetarian diet, although on this trip we allowed ourselves to have some fish. After all, the Maritimes are known for their fish!

A search on Happy Cow turned up a decent list of veggie-friendly places, including this gem, called The Wooden Monkey.

The Wooden Monkey has been open since the summer of 2004. Housed in an old stone building on a fairly tourist-y bar and restaurant strip, their concept is good food based on local, organic, fresh ingredients, with a focus on healthy dishes. This isn’t to say that the entire menu is healthy, of course, but rather that they don’t deep fry, they don’t slather everything with oil, cream or butter, and they offer alternatives for vegans and those on a gluten-free diet.

Upon entering you’re greeted with a cute bar that has at least a dozen different monkeys around it - monkey pictures, monkey statues, monkey trinkets. It sounds pretty silly, but it’s really a lot of fun, and the pieces they’ve chosen blend in well with the rest of the decor - a nice wood bar, simple wood tables and chairs, clean white plates, and your standard glassware.

The menu contains a lot of comfort foods cooked in a healthier way. They’ve got burgers, sandwiches, pastas, soups, and other bistro type fare. They also have a fully stocked bar and several local beers on tap, including ones from Garrison and from Propeller.

Rich started with the vegetable rolls, which were rice paper rolls filled with vegetables and served with a mildly spicy peanut dipping sauce. My starter was the Japanese dumplings, filled with vegetables and tofu and served with a chili sauce. We both enjoyed our starters and found the portions to be reasonable.

Rich’s main was the fish and roasties, which is their healthier version of fish and chips. His fish was flaky and delicious, with a crispy exterior. The roasties are a good substitute for french fries - roasted potato wedges with olive oil, herbs and spices. They’re just salty and just crunchy enough to take the edge off any salt cravings you might be having. My main was their lentil burger, served on a pita made in-house with honey mustard mayo and some of those roasties. I found the burger had good flavour, but I didn’t love the bun. I think if we’re ever there again, I might ask for a more traditional bun, if they happen to have something of that sort available.

For dessert we shared their most popular item - chocolate tofu pie with a cinnamon, walnut and almond crust. The pie is non-dairy and vegan, as long as you ask for it without whipped cream; as you can see from the photo, we got ours with the whipped cream. It was delicious, and I’d happily order it again any time.

Other than the food, the real highlight of the place was our server, Matt. He was very well-versed in the menu contents, and a quick conversation with him determined he’d been a professional server for a few years; the evening we were there, Hurricane Kyle hit Nova Scotia, and he mentioned that he was working at another restaurant the night that Hurricane Juan hit back in 2003. His experience and knowledge were also evident as Rich discussed beer with him. That was our first evening in Halifax, and we had not yet learned about the local breweries. Matt was quick to tell us about the merits of some of the offerings from Garrison vs Propeller, including a discussion of IBUs (International Bitterness Units, or in other words, how ‘hoppy’ the beer is) . He even gave us a small sample of Garrison’s IPA, which has won awards for the last two years at the Canadian Brewing Awards. Nice.

I do have one small bone to pick with the place, though. Their menu is very vegan and gluten-free friendly, I don’t dispute that, but their labelling of vegan items isn’t as good as it should be. All items that are vegan are supposed to be marked with a ‘V’, however, there are items that clearly are not vegan, as they contain cheese or mayo. The reality is that those items aren’t usually vegan as written, but you can request that they be made vegan, and the chef is more than happy to do so for you.

Even with the small snags, we still highly recommend this place!

The Wooden Monkey - 1685 Argyle Street, Halifax, Nova Scotia - (902)444.3844. Dinner for two with drinks and dessert, $80. http://www.thewoodenmonkey.ca/

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For Thanksgiving, to my lovely Mouseycat

Sorry I’ve taken a bit of a hiatus, folks. I’ve got more posts about Halifax on the way, and a few other things as well.  But I needed some time away from internet things.

Thanksgiving here in Canada was the weekend of October 11th.  I had all kinds of plans to bake and cook and blog about it, but something else ended up taking up my time.

My beloved cat Mouse died.

Mouse had been quite ill for a few weeks.  Her liver enzymes were way up and she had a UTI, as well as having a very elevated white blood cell count.  She’d been through liver problems in the summer of 2007 as well, so we were familiar with treating them, and had high hopes she would recover.  To make a long story short, this time she simply couldn’t.  She had always been a fragile little cat, with a sensitive stomach and only one working kidney.  In the end, both her liver and kidney were giving out, and in the end she couldn’t eat, was very weak, and was very, very ill. So on the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend, we said goodbye to our little Mouseycat, which broke our hearts.

We miss her terribly.  She was such a wonderful little kitty, we were very luck to have her in our lives.  So, even though it’s over a week late, I’m posting my Thanksgiving pumpkin pies in dedication to her.

Pumpkin actually has a bit of a connection to Mouse and her illness.  See, Mouse had not been eating much for weeks, and we were trying anything we could to get her to eat.  We bought stinky food, we warmed it up, we whipped it into a paste, and so on.  Anything to get her to eat a little.  I’d read that sometimes when cats aren’t eating you can try a little plain canned pumpkin to see if they like it.  Apparently it is quite tasty to many cats and it will help get their appetite back.  So I went to the store thinking I’d buy some pumpkin and whatever Mouse wouldn’t eat, I’d use for pies.  Unfortunately, I never did get to see if Mouse would eat pumpkin, since I couldn’t find it at the store that day, and the next day we brought her back into the vet for more tests, right before we found out she wasn’t going to make it.  But I did find some pumpkin at the store on that fateful Saturday, and so I used it to make something tasty for Rich and I.  Hopefully Mouseycat would approve.

Mini Pumpkin Pies

Makes 2 dozen two-bite pies, or 1 dozen two-bite plus 1 small (4 serving) pie

Filling:

1  cup canned pumpkin (plain)
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1  egg
1 Tbsp all purpose flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/8 ground cloves
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 can Regular or 2% Evaporated Milk (full can is 370ml - use half)

Pie Crust (makes enough for 1 9-inch pie):

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
6 Tbsp cold, salted butter
2 Tbsp cold vegetable shortening
3 Tbsp ice water

For Filling:

Whisk together all ingredients except evaporated milk until smooth.  Then, gradually whisk in the milk until fully combined. Do not worry if it seems runny - it will set while baking. Set aside.

For Crust:

Mix flour and salt together in a large bowl.

Using a pastry blender or your fingers, cut the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles a coarse meal.

Break up the shortening and add it in bits to the bowl.  Continue using the pastry blender (or fingers) and cut it into the dough until the mixture becomes small clumps.

Add the ice water and gently mix with a spatula until fully incorporated.

Form dough into a ball, roll in a little flour, and wrap with plastic wrap.  Chill for at least 1 hour.

For pies:

Prepare pie dish or muffin tins by lightly greasing them.  Preheat oven to 350F.

Take dough and roll out on a floured surface to 1/4 inch thickness. For a regular pie, just make sure you roll your dough in a circle and place it into the pie plate.

For mini pies, cut circles of the desired size from the dough, just as if you were cutting cookies with cookie cutters.  I used a pint glass for this purpose.  Take the rounds of dough you just cut and place them into the greased muffin tins.

Pour pie filling into each crust, filling them as full as you can without spilling outside the crust.

Place into pre-heated oven for about 30 minutes or until filling is set and crust is lightly browned. For a full size pie you’ll need more time - 60 minutes or so.

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Nova Scotia Vacation Part 1: Hurricanes and Nieces and Monks, Oh My!

Rich and I had the pleasure of spending a few days with my family in the Annapolis Valley region of Nova Scotia last week.  My brother and sister-in-law had their first baby alllll the way back in January, and we hadn’t had the chance to meet her yet, so this was a great opportunity to do so.  They’d also just moved into a new, bigger house, so there was a lot of excitement to be had, that’s for sure!  My mom cooked us all a delicious dinner and we all sat down together for the first time since our wedding in 2006.  As you can see from the picture, in spite of the yummy food, Hayley would much prefer to chew on her socks.  Well, there’s no accounting for taste!

On Sunday, we left the Valley for Halifax, just in time for Hurricane Kyle to hit Nova Scotia.  Very unfortunate timing for our trip, but at least it did no where near the damage of Hurricane Juan a few years earlier.  It did make for some pretty empty streets and very windy conditions, so we hunkered down in local favourite pub The Old Triangle for drinks and some good old Maritime Music.

Both mornings we were in Halifax we went to an awesome cafe for coffee and breakfast.  When we first saw the sign for The Wired Monk, we figured the name had something to do with the place having internet access available.  Of course, that was pretty silly of us to assume - who has wired internet access in a cafe, anyway?  In fact, the name comes from the story of a monk who discovered coffee beans and how after he brewed them with water he found they gave him energy to get through late night prayer. Huh.

It also turns out this place is a franchise, with Halifax being the only one outside of British Columbia.  Honestly, I never would have guessed, as I found the place to have a very indie cafe feel, with funky decorations by local artists and hand-labelled signs for their food and beverages.

A big selling point for The Wired Monk is that all of their coffee and tea is fair trade.  For those of us in Toronto, that’s not such a big deal, since fair trade products are available almost everywhere these days. But for folks in Halifax, where fair trade is far less common, a place like this is a welcome addition to the city.

While we were there we tried cappuccinos and americanos.  Their cappuccinos are a bit on the wet side, but then, most places in North America make them that way.  Their americanos are quite nice, and not at all bitter.  And the food?  We stuck to the baked goods because we were usually pressed for time but also because they looked so darn tasty!  The chocolate banana scone I had on our first morning was extremely good and very filling.  I probably could have saved half of it for a snack later in the day.  The apple rolls we had on the second day were lightly sweet and also quite filling.  Sure, they were probably also 200 calories per bite, but hey, we were on vacation.

If you’re in Halifax and want to check them out, The Wired Monk is at the corner of Morris and Hollis, not far from the Via Rail station.

More Halifax-related posts coming soon!

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Daring Bakers go Vegan!

Hi from the magic of auto-posting!  This month’s Daring Baker’s challenge reveal day is September 27th, but I’m going to be out-of-town on that day, so I’m writing this on September 15th and crossing my fingers that the auto-post feature works!  If you’re reading this on the 27th, I guess it has.

This month the Daring Bakers decided to go Vegan and/or Gluten-Free.  There are a number of members who are vegan or have to follow a gluten-free diet, who usually have to figure out a way to substitute 5 eggs or 4 cups of bread flour and yet come out with the same product on the other side.  Since this month’s challenge was hosted by two of those “Alternative” Daring Bakers (Natalie from Gluten A Go Go, and Shel of Musings From the Fishbowl), it seemed only fitting that our recipe be vegan and/or gluten-free.  So what did they choose?  Crackers!  Lavash crackers, to be precise.

In order to allow for plenty of creativity, they allowed us to choose whatever shapes of crackers we wanted and the toppings and flavours we used.  They also asked us to make some sort of dip or spread to serve with the crackers, with the only limitation that it be both vegan and gluten-free.

For my part, I made crackers with fresh rosemary.  I cut them into silly shapes with my cookie cutters; as you can see from the photos, I made some crabs, dogs, moose, stars and hearts.  I also made some plain rectangles to use up the second half of the dough.  Some of the crackers were topped with fresh cracked pepper and kosher salt, while the rest were just plain.

The crackers are really delicious and I’d happily made the recipe again!  They were quick to whip up and easy to personalize.  My only complaint is that I had a really hard time getting the dough thin enough; most of mine came out a bit more bready and less crunchy than I would like from a cracker.  A tip I read on the Daring Bakers forum is to run the dough through a pasta roller before cutting your shapes.  I think if I had a pasta roller I’d do that for future batches.

The dip I made to go with them was a sundried tomato hummus, which I’ll post a recipe for below.

For more takes on Lavash, check out the Daring Bakers’ Blogroll!

Recipe for Lavash Crackers from:  The Bread Baker’s Apprentice: Mastering The Art of Extraordinary Bread, by Peter Reinhart. Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, CA.  Copyright 2001.

Here’s a simple formula for making snappy Armenian-style crackers, perfect for breadbaskets, company and kids…It is similar to the many other Middle Eastern and Northern African flatbreads known by different names, such as mankoush or mannaeesh (Lebanese), barbari (Iranian), khoubiz or khobz (Arabian), aiysh (Egyptian), kesret and mella (Tunisian), pide or pita (Turkish), and pideh (Armenian).  The main difference between these breads is either how thick or thin the dough is rolled out, or the type of oven in which they are baked (or on which they are baked, as many of these breads are cooked on stones or red-hot pans with a convex surface)…

The key to a crisp lavash…is to roll out the dough paper-thin.  The sheet can be cut into crackers in advance or snapped into shards after baking.  The shards make a nice presentation when arranged in baskets.

Makes 1 sheet pan of crackers

* 1 1/2 cups (6.75 oz) unbleached bread flour (or whole wheat flour)
* 1/2 tsp (.13 oz) salt
* 1/2 tsp (.055 oz) instant yeast
* 1 Tb (.75 oz) agave syrup or sugar
* 1 Tb (.5 oz) vegetable oil
* 1/3 to 1/2 cup + 2 Tb (3 to 4 oz) water, at room temperature
* Poppy seeds, sesame seeds, paprika, cumin seeds, caraway seeds, or kosher salt for toppings.

1.  In a mixing bowl, stir together the flour, salt yeast, agave, oil, and just enough water to bring everything together into a ball.  You may not need the full 1/2 cup + 2 Tb of water, but be prepared to use it all if needed.

2. Sprinkle some flour on the counter and transfer the dough to the counter.  Knead for about 10 minutes, or until the ingredients are evenly distributed.  The dough should pass the windowpane test and register 77 degrees to 81 degrees Fahrenheit. The dough should be firmer than French bread dough, but not quite as firm as bagel dough (what I call medium-firm dough), satiny to the touch, not tacky, and supple enough to stretch when pulled.  Lightly oil a bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl, rolling it around to coat it with oil.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap.

3. Ferment at room temperature for 90 minutes, or until the dough doubles in size. (You can also retard the dough overnight in the refrigerator immediately after kneading or mixing).

4.  Mist the counter lightly with spray oil and transfer the dough to the counter.  Press the dough into a square with your hand and dust the top of the dough lightly with flour.  Roll it out with a rolling pin into a paper thin sheet about 15 inches by 12 inches.  You may have to stop from time to time so that the gluten can relax.  At these times, lift the dough from the counter and wave it a little, and then lay it back down.  Cover it with a towel or plastic wrap while it relaxes.  When it is the desired thinness, let the dough relax for 5 minutes.  Line a sheet pan with baking parchment.  Carefully lift the sheet of dough and lay it on the parchment.  If it overlaps the edge of the pan, snip off the excess with scissors.

5. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit with the oven rack on the middle shelf.  Mist the top of the dough with water and sprinkle a covering of seeds or spices on the dough (such as alternating rows of poppy seeds, sesame seeds, paprika, cumin seeds, caraway seeds, kosher or pretzel salt, etc.)  Be careful with spices and salt - a little goes a long way. If you want to precut the cracker, use a pizza cutter (rolling blade) and cut diamonds or rectangles in the dough.  You do not need to separate the pieces, as they will snap apart after baking.  If you want to make shards, bake the sheet of dough without cutting it first. If you want to use cookie cutters, do it just as you would with cookie dough.

5.  Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the crackers begin to brown evenly across the top (the time will depend on how thinly and evenly you rolled the dough).

6.  When the crackers are baked, remove the pan from the oven and let them cool in the pan for about 10 minutes.  You can then snap them apart (if needed) or snap off shards and serve.

Hummus

I sort of just threw this together without strictly measuring things, so consider these measurements approximate.

1 cup garbanzo beans
1 tablespoon tahini
5 oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
2 tablespoons oil (from the tomatoes, or use olive oil)
1 clove garlic, chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients in a blender. Blend until smooth. If needed, add a little water to thin out the consistency. Makes about 1.5 cups.

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A tale of two cupcakes

I’ve always been a fan of cupcakes.  Cute, single serving treats of delicious cake and icing, what’s not to love?  I’ve never really understood why some don’t like them.  I understand not liking cake at all, or preferring cake to cupcakes.  I also understand being sick of the cupcake trend, with bakeries popping up all over the place that only really do cupcakes.  But hating cupcakes themselves?  Why?

Recently I made two pretty different cupcakes I wanted to share with you all.

I’ve been doing a bit more vegan baking lately.  I really enjoy the recipes, and usually discover a new ingredient or two.  But also, I have a friend who is allergic to eggs, and so vegan recipes are the perfect solution for baking when he’ll be one of the people eating the final product.  It just so happens his girlfriend recently had a birthday, and so I needed another egg-free recipe.  She said she really likes spice cake, like gingerbread or that sort of thing, so I googled around a bit until I found this awesome recipe for chai latte cupcakes. They honestly do taste just like a chai latte, and they even sort of look like one if you ice them and sprinkle some cinnamon on top!

The cake itself is 100% vegan, but for the icing I went with standard buttercream. To keep things vegan, you could easily top them as recommended by the original recipe (with spices and sugar), or, you could make vegan buttercream.

Chai Latte Cupcakes

Recipe originally from Post Punk Kitchen and also appears in the book Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World. Lightly modified by me,  so the cake base is still vegan, but my icing is not.

Ingredients
1 cup soy or rice milk
4 black teabags or 2 tablespoons loose black tea ** I used chai tea instead
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup plain or vanilla soy yogurt
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
pinch of ground white or black pepper

Buttercream Icing
6 tablespoons butter, softened
3 tablespoons milk or soymilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon, 1 teaspoon nutmeg, and 1 tablespoon sugar, for the tops

Directions
Preheat oven to 375F.  In a small saucepan heat soymilk until almost boiling, then add the tea bags, cover the pan, and remove from the heat.  Let sit for 10 minutes, then squeeze the teabags to release as much tea as possible before removing the bags from the soymilk.

In a large bowl whisk together oil, yogurt, sugar, vanilla and tea mixture until lumps are worked out. Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, cloves, and pepper into wet ingredients. Mix until large lumps disappear; some small lumps are okay. Pour batter into lined cupcake tins and bake 20 to 22 minutes until a sharp knife inserted comes out clean.  Allow to cool completely.

For icing: Beat together butter, milk and vanilla until smooth.  Add sugar a cup at a time until you get the consistency you want.  If icing seems to runny, at more sugar, if it seems too thick, add a bit more milk.  Spread or pipe onto cooled cupcakes.

Mix together the cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar, then sprinkle a bit onto the top of each cupcake.

Yum!

For my second trick… remember the giant cupcake pan we posted about last year?  Well, Rich found me one at a nearby Winners a few weeks ago, and I knew I’d have to put the pan to good use.  So now I present to you a giant cupcake, covered in buttercream and topped with smarties (the Canadian chocolate version, not the American candy version) as large sprinkles.

I know my decorating skills could use a bit of work, but since this was only about the 5th time in my life that I’d used a piping bag, I hope you’ll forgive me.  I hope to have more projects to practice my piping on soon.

For the cake base, I decided to go with an old Daring Bakers challenge, Dorie’s Perfect Party Cake.  I made 1.5 times the recipe in order to accommodate the large cupcake pan, which needs more cake batter than the typical recipe provides.  The cake turned out well, save for a few snags that are due to how the pan is designed. The bottom half of the cupcake cooks more slowly than the top half, because it is thicker.  However, as you can see from the picture, the two halves are contained within a single pan, so you can’t just remove one half of the cupcake when it is done. The solution I came up with was to turn my oven down to 325 degrees and turn the pan so that the bottom half was in the hottest part of my oven. Even then, the top of the cupcake came out a bit dry, while the bottom was just barely cooked enough. Next time I think I’ll cover the top with some aluminum foil once it’s nearly done, to help keep it from over-baking.

Another problem I ran into was the fact that the cake rose exactly as you’d expect: it domed up at the top, which meant that in order to join the two halves of the cupcake, I’d have to slice off some cake to make it flat again.  This was pretty obvious, but it wasn’t included in the instructions of the cupcake pan.  Even so, I didn’t mind doing it, and it gave me some extra cake to nibble on while I was decorating.  Win-win situation, I say.

Once baked and cooled, it was really fun to decorate!  I made bright blue buttercream for the top and chocolate buttercream for the base, and pipped it on following the pattern of the pan.  I used a bit of the blue to join the two cake halves, and put a row of smarties around the middle to help hide the imperfections.  About an hour or so of piping later, and I had this!

If you’d like to make this yourself, you can probably find the Wilton Cupcake pan at your local department store or baking supplies shop.  I’ve linked you to Dorie’s cake recipe above, which make an awesome, lightly lemony cake.  Just remember to make 1.5 times the recipe, and watch the pan so your cupcake top doesn’t burn.

I would like to humbly submit both of these to Sugar High Friday, hosted this month by the lovely Foodbeam. The event of course originated with Jennifer, the Domestic Goddess many, many baked goods ago.

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Toronto Vegetarian Food Fair

Every year the Toronto Vegetarian Association puts on a Food Fair at Harborfront Centre.  Admission is free, and there are tons of vegetarian and vegan businesses there, so it’s worth checking out if you are interested in vegetarian or vegan lifestyles. They’ve got food vendors (some of which give out free samples), health and wellness booths, vegetarian clothing, cookbooks, reusable bags and bottles, cooking ingredients, and even pots and pans. There is also an entire tent dedicated to ‘political’ causes like PETA, Earthroots, and of course the Vegetarian Association itself.

The event advertises itself as ‘BYOR’: Bring your own reuseables (plates and cutlery). However, if you don’t have your own, don’t worry - a lot of the food is served on a stick kabob style, or on napkins.

Today is the last day of 2008’s fair.  Unfortunately it looks like it’s going to rain most of the day, but most of the vendors are in tents, so you shouldn’t get too soggy if you want to check it out.

A few more photos are available over on my flickr account.

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Roasted Tomato Tart

Well, it’s September now, and the last of the summer veggies are getting picked in preparation for fall.  While I love fall, I do feel a bit sad about the end of summer.

This year I did an herb garden again, which I got lots of use out of.  Parsley, oregano, thyme, rosemary, basil, and mint kept me pretty happy all summer long.  I love the taste of fresh basil on pasta or parsley in with my falafel sandwich.

Recently, our lovely neighbours have been kind enough to give us a bunch of tomatoes from their garden.  The first batch we were given was promptly made into a fantastic tomato sauce, to which I added lots of garlic, shallots, basil and oregano, then simmered for an hour or so until it was ready for serving over sphaghetti.  I even had enough left over to grace a pizza crust a few days later.

The second batch, however, sat on our counter for a few days until I could think of something creative to do with it.  I thought perhaps I’d make some tomato, basil and bocconcini salad, but I just didn’t really feel like having that.  Bruschetta also crossed my mind, but it was too similar to the pizza we’d just had.  Then I was skimming some of the many food blogs I read, and came across a post from Ron Eade of the Ottawa Citizen, which mentioned a tomato tart recipe.  I instantly knew what I was going to do with those tomatoes.

Roasted Tomato and Cheddar Tart

This would be delicious with a variety of cheeses.  Parmesan would be more traditionally Italian and give a slightly different texture.  Mozzarella would be stringy and more mild than the cheddar. Gruyère would also be lovely. I used cheddar because it was what I had in the house already. It’s fun to experiment!

For pie crust:
1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chilled vegetable shortening
3 to 6 tablespoons ice cold water

For tart:
6 cloves of garlic, roasted (link to directions below)
1 lb tomatoes, roasted (directions below)
1/2 cup grated mild or medium cheddar, divided
1 tablespoon fresh thyme
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

To make crust:

1. Mix together flour and salt in a medium mixing bowl.

2. Cut shortening into small pieces and then cut it into the flour mixture with a fork or a pastry blender, until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

3. Add in 2 tablespoons of water, and mix gently. If needed, add in more water, 1 tablespoon at a time, until the dough just comes together and is moist.

4. Shape dough into a ball and then roll out to desired thickness. Place into an 8 or 9 inch pie plate and fill as directed below.

To make tart:

1. Roast tomatoes in advance: cut tomatoes into large chunks and put onto a cookie sheet in a single layer.  Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and a little oil, and roast in a 400F oven for 1 hour. If you need to roast your garlic as well, it can be done at the same time.  Easy instructions for roasting garlic are over here.

2. Chop 6 cloves roasted garlic into smaller pieces and evenly distribute them over the bottom of the pie crust. On top of this, place half the cheddar cheese.

3. Arrange the roasted tomatoes on top of the garlic and cheese.  Sprinkle with the thyme, then the remaining cheddar cheese.  Top with the olive oil and salt and pepper.

4. Fold edges of the pie crust down over the filling to seal them in (see picture).

5. Bake in a 400F oven for 45 minutes, or until the crust is browned and the cheese is bubbly.

Serves 4 with a side salad or 2 if you’re lazy and can’t be bothered to make a salad.

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The Daring Bakers

The Daring Bakers are a group of bloggers who get together every month to make some challenging baked good or another.  In previous months they’ve attempted everything from croissants and breads to cakes and tarts.  All recipes are challenging in some way, requiring many steps or ingredients or making things from scratch we might normally just buy boxed instead (like, say, the ‘mirror’ topping on the Strawberry Mirror Cake).

This month I decided to join them, and found out the challenge recipe was Pierre Hermé’s Chocolate Eclairs, hosted by Tony Tahhan and MeetaK.

I’d wanted to try making choux pastry for a while now, ever since our wedding planning days where we originally thought we might want a cromquembouche instead of a wedding cake.  In the end we decided to have cupcakes for our wedding, and my taste for choux was forgotten for a while. Until now, that is!

This recipe is somewhat complex, requiring three different steps: making the choux pastry, making the chocolate glaze (which requires making a chocolate sauce that goes INTO the glaze… holy confusing) and making a pastry cream.  We were instructed that we must use the choux recipe as written, and had to make either the pastry cream or the glaze, but could do whatever we wanted with the remaining element. Since Rich simply can’t do tons of milky products, I decided to do a vegan vanilla pastry cream instead of the heavy-cream-filled chocolate cream that was offered with the original recipe.

For my first time making choux, it actually went ok!  I followed a tip offered by Tartelette, which was to make and pipe the choux into long strips on parchment paper, then freeze it.  Once frozen, cut to the exact size you need, defrost slightly, and bake as directed.  Her tip worked like a charm, and my eclairs were actually pretty uniform in size!  Considering I’m not much of an accurate baker (tending to just toss in a little of this and a little of that as I choose… not always the best plan), this was a great tip for me.

One little problem I ran into was that the choux, once baked, can easily fall if cooled too quickly.  I got a bit over excited and pulled them from the oven the moment they were done baking.  Hey, I was so glad they had puffed up at all; I figured they were all going to be hard little rocks after the baking time was up, but no, they actually looked like little eclair shells!  Anyhow, when I pulled them from the oven, two of them immediately deflated.  Lucky for me, I had also read a tip on preventing that from happening: shut off the oven, leave the door open, and put the pan back in.  That way they can cool more slowly as the oven cools down.  So I tossed my pan back in, threw the oven door open, and prayed the rest of the pastries wouldn’t fall over.

As you can see from the photographic evidence, I did manage to save some of them! In fact, I saved all but two.  Phew!  After letting them all cool for the afternoon, I cut and filled them with the vanilla pastry cream, and topped them with the awesome chocolate glaze.

The pastry cream was actually very straightforward. I made it the day before and let it sit in the fridge overnight to let the flavours meld. It was delicious, and we both couldn’t help but keep sneaking a little of it out of the bowl.  Honestly, it’s a wonder that any was left for the eclairs the next day.

The glaze, however, was not so straightforward.  Hah, I wish! I decided to make it the day before making my choux, figuring it would make the eclair process easier.  The chocolate sauce component was easy enough, and really delicious.  But when I went to make the glaze, the whole thing started to seperate into this buttery/oily mess.  I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it, and I just sort of shrugged and tossed it into the fridge overnight.  Well, the next day it certainly didn’t look a whole lot better, and as I started to reheat it over a double boiler in order to use it, the glaze components just weren’t coming together as I expected.  In the end, I poured off a bit of the butter and just kept slowly whisking until it finally decided to congeal into a glaze instead of a mess.  Magic?  I don’t really know, but it did work.

Once completed, the eclairs taunted me from the kitchen for days.  I’m not a huge pastry kind of girl, but these are really, really good.

Would I make them again?  Maybe not, given the amount of work they take.

To see more delicious eclairs, check out the Daring Bakers Blogroll! To make this yourself, just click through to read more.

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