First, I made No-Knead Bread. If you never heard of this bread, it's a terrifically easy way to make bread that involves a very long rising period instead of kneading. I can handle that! Usually it's the kneading that keeps me from making bread often (I'm pretty lazy). Since it takes over 12 hours to rise, I started the bread on Saturday afternoon to have it finished by Sunday evening. I made one exactly as the recipe says and then I made another one using whole wheat flour in place of half the flour. The only suggestion I have is to use parchment paper instead of a cotton towel for the second rise. The dough stuck to the towel like crazy. But in the end, it was so easy and delicious! Just a little crusty but perfectly soft and fluffy inside. Good for sandwiches!
Next, I wanted to make something with a sweet potato I had hanging around from my CSA. The Sweet Potato and Black Bean tamales in Viva Vegan caught my eye but I didn't feel like making tamales, so I just made the filling and had it over polenta. Delicious!
And then dessert! I first saw the recipe for these beautiful Pumpkin Pasties a couple of years ago on Dumbledore's Vegan Army. Man, I am learning so much from this year's MoFo. I used to say I don't like pumpkin in savory things or pumpkin pie or even just pumpkin. But now I'm making myself try all these different pumpkin recipes and I really love everything! These Pumpkin Pasties are so good I definitely plan on making them again. They'd be great for Thanksgiving dessert too. Many thanks to Paula for posting the recipe here on Dumbledore's Vegan Army. If you haven't been to Dumbledore's Vegan Army, go check it out now! Everything is fabulous!
Makes about 13 kitten head sized pasties.
Bonus: This isn't related to food, but on the crafty front, I also made my own laundry detergent this weekend! This recipe is in a lot of places online, so I'm not sure where it started. It uses 3 simple ingredients:
1 cup washing soda
1 cup borax
1 bar soap (use something that's not too heavily perfumed. I used a bar of Dr. Bronner's)
All you have to do is grate the soap and mix it all together. Use about 1 tablespoon per load or up to 2 tablespoons if it's really dirty.
I found the washing soda and borax in the laundry aisle of Stop and Shop and they were relatively cheap. The total cost for everything was less than $10 and it makes enough for up to 64 loads of laundry with lots of washing soda and borax left over for future batches. I just did a load and it was great. It doesn't have much of a scent it just smells like... clean?
The bread looks amazing! I love the idea of no knead bread. My friend has made those pasties before and they were excellent!
ReplyDeleteOh goodness! Your kitty is absolutely darling!
ReplyDeleteLove this post!
That all looks great! I like your approach to tamales - I may try that sometime!
ReplyDeleteAgreed on the non-tamale tamales. And I really need to make that bread - you're at least the 3rd person I've seen posting about it!
ReplyDeleteI love that you made the tamale filling without the tamales, it's such a good idea for when you don't have enough time for the whole process!
ReplyDeleteI will take a kitten and a pasty please.
ReplyDelete