Bison Turnip Pot Pie

It doesn’t look very fancy. The name isn’t very sophisticated. But this is one of the best things I have made. Ever.

If I wasn’t so full from brunch right now,  just the thought of this would make me want some, right now.

With the cold weather still hanging on here in Alberta, I turned to our Deborah Madison book for some inspiration about what to do with all the root vegetables. Root vegetables are a steady part of our diet, but it can be tough coming up with new ways to cook them.

 
I’ve also been looking for new recipes for ground meat. It’s one of the cheapest ways to buy meat at the farmers’ market, so we usually pick up a couple of packages every week.

With this recipe, I managed to combine both in one delicious, dough-topped package. I started with Deborah’s recipe for Braised Turnips with Thyme, and decided to add a pie crust lid. I had never made a pot pie before, never even considered making one, but I was excited. Deborah says that you can basically take any stew and turn it into a pot pie. Why hadn’t I thought of that?

We had some ground bison sitting in the fridge that we needed to use up, so I just threw it in with the turnips.

The result was creamy and flavourful, full of turnips and bison in a delicious sauce with a yummy crust. This may sound like an odd combination for a pot pie, and I realize that ground meat isn’t really standard for one either. But trust me, this works. I’m sure it would be great with beef too.

Since it was my first pot pie, I didn’t take the care to make sure the crust went all the way to the edges of the casserole dish, so the stew leaked out a little and bubbled out onto the top of the crust. No big deal, but next time I’ll be sure to seal it tightly.

For a recipe full of simple ingredients, this dish was packed with flavour and had a wonderful homey, cozy winter feel. Perfect for the beginning of Spring in Edmonton!

Turnip Bison Pot Pie

Adapted from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison

1/2 pound to 1 pound ground bison or beef (I used one pound because I wanted to use it up, but 1/2 pound would be enough, and I’m sure it would be great without meat as well)

2 pounds turnips or rutubagas
1 to 2 tablespoons butter
1 onion, finely diced
1 carrot cut into medium dice
4 thyme sprigs or 1/4 teaspoon dried
salt and pepper
2 teaspoons flour
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/4 cup cream or crème fraîche (you could probably use milk instead)

pie crust recipe (I honestly can’t remember if I used the galette dough recipe or pie crust recipe. Either way, any standard pie crust recipe will do.)

Brown the bison in a skillet until cooked most of the way. Remove to a plate.

If you’re using storage turnips, peel them thickly, cut them into sixths, and parboil in salted water for 1 minute. Parboil rutabagas for 3 minutes.

Melt the butter in a large pot or dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, rutabaga or turnips, carrot, and thyme. Season with 3/4 teaspoon of salt and sprinkle with the flour. Cover and cook over low heat for 4 minutes, then stir in 1 1/2 cups water and the parsley. Simmer, covered, until the turnips are tender, about 15 minutes. Taste for salt, season with pepper, add the mustard and cream, and simmer for two minutes more. Stir in the bison.

Take the pot off the heat and transfer stew to the dish you’ll be using for the pot pie. Allow the stew to come to room temperature. If you have time, you can leave it on a cooling rack, or you can put it in the fridge for about 30-45 minutes. This waiting part is kind of annoying, so if you can make the stew ahead of time I would do that.

Preheat the oven to 425. Roll out your dough and cut it to fit your baking dish. Make sure it goes all the way to the edges. Brush one side of the dough with beaten egg and set the dough egg-side down on the stew. Flute the edges as you would for a deep-dish pie. You can make decorations out of the dough scraps and fasten them to the dough with egg glaze. Brush the top with beaten egg. Bake at 425 for 12 minutes, then lower the heat to 350 and finish baking, about 35 minutes in all. 

Salads Good and Bad

I’ve discovered that I hate green olives.

Hate is a strong word. But I use it here because I can’t actually fathom how anyone would willingly put such a vile-tasting thing into her mouth.

Of course, I’m half-kidding. I know that taste is personal, that one person’s caviar and champagne is another’s compost. I know that taste can be shaped by many things, including the way we were raised, the memories we associate with certain foods, and the  actual buds on our tongues. But. But. To me, the taste and smell of green olives doesn’t even seem related to a food. It’s like a cross between some horrid chemically cleaning product and something that comes bubbling up from the sewer.

I’ve surprised myself this year by actually learning to like black olives. I still wouldn’t eat them out of a bowl at a party, but I like their tang in salads and in sandwiches, and I’ve become a particular fan of olive paste, spread on bread with cheese and tomatoes. It seems to me that green olives are a different kind of beast altogether. Can they even be from the same plant?

Well, it turns out they are. Most of you probably already knew this, but I just found out through some vigorous research that green olives are picked from the olive tree when they are not yet ripe, and black olives stay on the branch until they are fully ripened.

Well, I say leave em’ on there! Let them hang out a little while longer and get nice and purply and juicy. Much yummier.

I came to this olive revelation last week when we made a white bean salad with green olives from Deborah Madison’s book. I took one for the team here. I tasted the salad first and proclaimed the nastiness of the olives. J wouldn’t come near it. That was the second salad of the year so far that Susan benefited from.

Okay, let me be clear. Not all of these salads have been bad. In fact, I’m even going to give you recipes for a few of them that were quite tasty. But I think that overall, I’m not a huge fan of bean and grain salads. I love beans. I love them in dips and spreads, soups and casseroles, cooked in a sauce atop rice and baked with molasses. But when beans are in a salad they really tend to dominate it, and when combined with a grain and a strong vinaigrette it’s just not a flavour combination I usually enjoy.

One of the ones we liked was a lentil salad – altogether different from most other beans in my opinion. And it had roasted beets in it, which for me is always guaranteed to tip the scale in a recipe’s favour.

Before Christmas we made a good salad with quinoa, mangos and curry dressing. An unlikely combination, but it works. If you’ve never eaten quinoa, please, please go buy some. It’s so incredibly flavourful and even more incredibly good for you. The Incas called it the miracle grain or something like that because it’s packed with protein and vitamins.

We’re onto pasta salads next week, which include buckwheat noodles and mung bean noodles. Also dulse leaves. I have no idea if you can even get those things in Edmonton. Well, you probably can but it may involve a lengthy bus ride to an Asian grocery. It could be worth it because the recipes look delicious. I’ll let you know how things go.

Quinoa Salad with Mangoes and Curry Dressing (from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone) serves 4

1 1/3 cups quinoa
salt
2 mangoes
3 scallions, including an inch of the greens, thinly sliced                   1 jalepeno chile, seeded and diced
1/3 cup almonds, toasted

For the curry vinaigrette:

1 garlic clove
Salt
2 Tablespoons yogourt, mayonnaise or sour cream
2 teaspoons curry powder
1 ½ tablespoons fresh lemon juice
5 tablespoons light olive or sunflower seed oil
2 tablespoons finely chopped cilantro

Bring three cups of water to a boil and add a half a teaspoon of salt. Stir in the quinoa, lower the heat, cover and simmer until the grains are tender, about 12-15 minutes.

In the meantime, prepare the vinaigrette. Pound or mince the garlic and ¼ teaspoon salt in a mortar until smooth, or put the garlic through a press. Combine the garlic and salt with the yogourt and curry in a small bowl. Stir in the lemon juice and then slowly whisk in the oil. Sprinkle the cilantro over the vinagrette and set aside while you make the rest of the salad. Taste to see if it is tart enough or too tart, and adjust if needed.

Slice the mangoes in bite sized chunks. The easiest way to do this is to slice lengthwise through the flat center, as close to the stone as you can get. Score the half that does not have the stone in square shapes, going through to the skin but not cutting through it. Cut off the resulting cubes from the skin. Cut the second half away from the pit and repeat.

When the quinoa is done, drain it if necessary - theoretically the grains will have absorbed all the water. Toss the quinoa, onion, mango chunks and jalepeno in the vinaigrette. Sprinkle the almond slices over the top and serve warm.

If you are going to save any for leftovers, just sprinkle the almonds over your own portion so they won’t get soggy in the salad.

Green Lentils with Roasted Beets and Preserved Lemon

5 beets, about one pound

1 teaspoon olive oil

Salt and freshly milled pepper

1 cup French green lentils

1 carrot, finely diced

½ small onion, finely diced

Aromatics: 1 bay leaf, 4 parsley branches, 2 thyme sprigs

1 preserved lemon or 2 teaspoons lemon zest

Lemon Vinaigrette

1/3 cup chopped parsley

1 tablespoon chopped mint, plus mint sprigs for garnish

Preheat oven to 350. Peel four of the beets and cut them into small cubes. Set the last beet aside for garnish. Toss the beets with the oil, season with salt and pepper, and bake on a sheet pan until tender, about 35 minutes, stirring once or twice. Meanwhile, put the lentils in a pan with water to cover, add the carrot, onion, aromatics, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer until tender but still a little firm, about 25  minutes. Drain well.

Cut the preserved lemon into quarters and scrape off the soft pulp. Chop the pulp finely and stir two teaspoons into the dressing. Finely chop the remaining skin. (Or just zest your lemon.)

Toss the lentils with the roasted beets and the vinaigrette, the preserved lemon or lemon zest, parsley, and mint. Peel the remaining beet and finely grate it. Put the lentils on a platter (or on plates) and garnish with the grated beet and sprigs of mint.

Lemon Vinaigrette

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon finely chopped lemon zest

Salt and freshly milled pepper

1 shallot, finely diced

5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil or to taste

Combine the first four ingredients in a small bowl and let stand for 15 minutes. Then whisk in the oil and season with pepper to taste. Taste the correct the balance, adding more oil if needed.

The Last of the Sandwiches

I don’t even know what to write anymore. You all must be sick and tired of hearing about my damned sandwiches. Don’t worry, this is it. We’ve moved into the realm of the salads, which I’ll be reporting on soon. But before I get to them, just let me say a few words – I promise! Only a few! – about these last few sandwiches. It’s worth it.

Bruschetta with Sauteed Peppers

Soft, melty peppers, crisp bread, gooey cheese, and a touch of basil. Need I say more?

Creamed Leeks on (Walnut) Toast

Writing about this, I want to eat it again. Right. Now. I had never really made creamed anything and this convinced me that it’s an excellent, if calorific, way to cook. But hey, I’m still eating vegetables, right? Here you just cook some leeks with butter, a little wine, a little cream and some parmesan. Heaven on a piece of toast. As well as a very simple and homey supper, this strikes me as something you could serve very easily as a dinner part canapé that would totally impress your guests.

There. That’s it. Recipes below. I promised, right?

Sauteed Peppers

From Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison

4 large bell peppers – red, yellow, and/or orange

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 small red onion, quartered and thinly sliced crosswise

2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

1 tablespoon tomato paste diluted with ¼ cup water

Salt and pepper

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar, to taste

1 ½ tablespoons chopped marjoram or two tablespoons sliced basil leaves

Slice the peppers into wide or narrow strips as you prefer. Heat the oil in a wide skillet, add the onion, and sauté over high heat until translucent and beginning to colour around the edges, 4 to 5 minutes. Add the garlic and peppers and continue to cook, stirring every so often, until the peppers are singed on the edges, about 10 minutes. Add the diluted tomato paste, lower the heat to medium, and continue cooking until the peppers are soft, about 10 minutes more. Season with salt and pepper to taste, add the vinegar, and raise the heat to high. Cook, stirring frequently, until the peppers are glazed, then stir in the marjoram or basil.

To make the sandwich, toast some bread and rub half a clove of garlic on it. Cover the bread with grated fontina (or any kind, really) cheese. Put onto plates, spoon the peppers over top, and garnish with the basil.

Creamed Leeks on Toast

From same

Deborah suggests using walnut bread here, which I’m sure would be delicious. I didn’t buy any just for this and it was still great.

4 small or 2 large leeks, trimmed and sliced into ¼-inch rounds

1 ½ tablespoons butter

Salt and pepper

1/3 cup dry white wine

½ cup half-and-half or crème fraiche

2 teaspoons chopped tarragon, parsley or rosemary

¼ cup grated parmesan, gruyere, or crumbled goat cheese

2 slices bread, toasted and lightly buttered

Wash the leeks well, but don’t dry them. Melt the butter in a wide skillet, add the leeks, and toss with a little salt. Add the wine, cover, and cook over medium heat until the leeks are tender, about 20 minutes. Add the cream and herbs and simmer until slightly thickened. Turn off the heat, stir in the cheese, then spoon the leeks over the toast. Add pepper and serve.

Cheese Sandwiches

It’s time to play catch up.

I haven’t been very good lately at letting you know how the whole Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone cook-a-meal-a-day thing has been going. And seeing how that’s one of the main reasons I started this blog, I really should be doing better.

Well, I hate to admit it…but we are still in the sandwiches chapter. I know, I know, people. It’s been – what? Two and a half months? Is that really possible?

Yes, yes it is. BUT. We are very nearly done sandwiches, and about to move into the exciting lands of salads and soups! Yes! You can’t even imagine how thrilled I will be to eat something for supper that doesn’t involve two slices of bread.

Not that I’m complaining. The sandwiches have mostly been delicious, and I’ve definitely tried some combinations that I never would have before that I am keeping in my repertoire. Like, for example, some of these:

Cheese Sandwiches

Update:

I'm clearly not a very good blog editor. J was scrolling through my posts and pointed out that I already talked about cheese sandwiches - last month. And shared these photos with you. Heh. Sorry for the lack of memory, and I hope you enjoy hearing about these. Again.

There are three definite keepers here. One of them I had had before – cheese and apple. I remember we had this kids’ cookbook at my house and one of the recipes was for a Happle Bagel Sandwich of something like that – a bagel with cheese and apple. But Deborah Madison shakes it up a bit and adds watercress to make it tart and strong. You could use arugula too, or any other kind of salad greens.

These next two are very grown-up sandwiches. The first is Smoked Mozzarella with Olive Paste and Roasted Peppers. I couldn’t find smoked mozzarella when I made this (of course I saw it at a different grocery store later) so I just used regular, but the sandwich was still delicious. Cover a slice of toasted bread with olive paste* and thin overlapping slices of mozzarella. Broil just long enough to soften the cheese, then crisscross with strips of roasted peppers (you can make these yourself – see how here – or buy them in a jar). Spoon a little pesto or salsa verde over the top (if you don’t have any, I think it would still be good) and shower with freshly milled pepper. The different flavour combinations going on here are delightful and very hearty.

Next we have an Open-Faced Sandwich with Blue Cheese, Pears, and Roasted Nuts. I ate this one at home alone one night when J was out because he is not a fan of blue cheese (although he says he’s determined to like it…eventually.) But this combo is just perfect on a sandwich. Not hard to make, in fact just like it sounds. I have to admit, however: I like blue cheese but the flavour is so strong I can only eat it every once in a while. In fact when I think back to this sandwich I can still almost taste it in my mouth. In a love-hate kinda way.

Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

It’s a classic. And so obvious that you might wonder what it’s doing in this book. But think about it: making and eating a good grilled cheese sandwich has its own pure pleasure. Especially for my husband, who had a habit a few years back of making them for breakfast, and still loves them.

Since your basic grilled cheese only has a few ingredients – bread, butter and cheese – the important thing is to make sure all three are of high quality. (Unless of course, your idea of grilled cheese goes back to your childhood and is Ben’s white bread with Kraft singles. Well, I’m trying my best not to judge you. Such things did not exist in my house when I was a kid, for better of for worse.)

I’m not going to give you Deborah Madison’s “recipe”, cause this is just too easy. You can use any cheese you want, and I don’t even remember what kind I used when I made this. I really like cheddar or jack. Put slices of your cheese between two slices of any sturdy bread. If you really want it to be brilliant, use lots of butter. Enough to cover the bottom of your pan when it melts. When the butter foams, add the sandwich and fry until golden brown. Pick it up and add MORE butter! to your pan. Then fry it on the other side. The cheese will be melty and oozing and the golden crust will be fragrant and crisp. Devour.

Deborah also introduced me to a couple new ways of eating grilled cheese. You can spoon some salsa between the slices after you’ve grilled it, which adds a nice fresh snap of flavour. Or you can make grilled cream cheese sandwiches – subtle, and surprisingly tasty.

It seems I neglected to take any pictures of the grilled cheese sandwiches. Clearly I thought they looked too boring. I’m sure you can imagine them, and then you can go and make your own.

* If you like olives, olive paste is a good thing to have in the fridge, and it adds a bite to many a good sandwich. Deborah’s recipe is one cup olives, ¼ cup capers, 2 small garlic cloves, ½ teaspoon dried thyme (or 2 teaspoons chopped fresh), 1 to 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil. You whir it all in a blender or food processor until smooth, or keep it kind of chunky if you prefer.

Butternut Squash Galette - for Kate

When I was going to school in Halifax last year, I lived in residence and I didn’t have a kitchen. I went over to my sister’s house a lot to cook with her. As the year went on, I also started going over to my friend Kate’s apartment.

Cooking with Kate was one of the best things about last year (among a lot of good ones). We never made anything fancy or complicated – Kate doesn’t usually cook from recipes, unlike me – but we shared a passion for good food and a love of being in the kitchen. I discovered how much fun it is to cook with a good friend.

We even ended up having weekly dinner parties with her friends Heather, Jenny and Kayley. I always looked forward to Thursday nights, when we would all meet at Kate’s, relax on the couch, cook and drink wine, and have great conversations about absolutely everything.

So when Kate came to visit me in Edmonton last weekend, I knew that we had to find some time to cook together. She was here for less than two days, but I thought we could make supper together on Friday night. I decided on a recipe I had been eyeing in Deborah Madison’s book: Winter Squash Galette.

You know what it’s like when you haven’t seen a friend in a while, but it’s so easy to slip back into being around them?

Being in our kitchen with Kate felt almost like last year again. The galette was easy to make, but it took a while. Between every step we sat at the table and talked. Kate told me more about her trip to Europe last summer, and all the amazing food she ate. As the cooking progressed we both exclaimed about how good it looked, and how excited we were to taste it. After a while we opened a bottle of wine. It was going to be a late supper, but we didn’t care.

(In case you’re wondering, J was around during all this, but he left us alone to cook together.)

After several hours, the apartment smelled amazing, with the squash and sage mingling with the scent of the pastry. I pulled the galette out of the oven. It was golden brown and deep orange, and it looked delicious. I was proud of myself for remembering to fry some sage leaves as a garnish, just like in Deborah’s picture.

Some of our other friends had joined us, and we shared supper with them. The galette was a smash hit. Creamy and flaky, sweet and savoury, it tasted like the essence of fall. The parmesan cheese and the earthiness of the sage danced with the sweet squash and the roasted garlic in every bite.

“This is amazing,” said Kate. “I need to copy down the recipe.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll put it up on my blog.”

So here it is, for Kate and for everyone else. This galette is worth the time it takes, even if you don’t have a good friend to make it with. But it will be so much better if you do.

Galette Dough

From Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison

2 cups all purpose flour or whole wheat pastry flour

½ teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon sugar

12 tablespoons (3/4 cup) cold, unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

1/3 to ½ cup ice water, as needed

Mix the flour, salt, and sugar together in a bowl. Cut in the butter by hand or using a mixer with a paddle attachment, leaving some pea-sized chunks. Sprinkle the ice water over the top by the tablespoon and toss with the flour mixture until you can bring the dough together into a ball. Press into a disk and refrigerate for fifteen minutes if the butter feels soft.

Winter Squash Galette

from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison

My one precaution: I found that when I rolled the dough out to about 14 inches, it was quite thin and fragile, and it was difficult to move the galette onto the baking sheet. When I make it again I’m going to roll it out a little bit thicker. Or you could roll it out directly onto the sheet. Also, I baked it on parchment paper just to make sure it wouldn’t stick to the pan.

One batch galette dough

2 ½ pounds winter squash, such as butternut

1 small head garlic, cloves separated but not peeled

1 tablespoon olive oil, plus extra for the squash

1 onion, finely diced

12 fresh sage leaves, chopped, or two teaspoons dried (I used fresh)

½ cup finely grated pecorino or Parmesan

Salt and freshly milled pepper

1 egg, beaten

Make the dough. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Cut the squash in half, scrape out the seeds, and brush the cut surface with oil. Stuff the garlic into the cavities and place the squash cut side down on a sheet pan. Bake until the flesh is tender, about 40 minutes. Scoop out the squash and squeeze the garlic cloves. Mash them together with a fork until fairly smooth, leaving some texture.

Warm 1 tablespoon oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and sage and cook until the onion is soft and beginning to colour, about 12 minutes. Add it to the squash along with the grated cheese and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Roll out the dough into a 14-inch circle and spread the filling over it, leaving a border of 2 inches or more. Pleat the dough over the filling, then brush the edges with a beaten egg. Bake until the crust is golden, about 25 minutes.

Garnish with fried sage leaves, if desired.

Cornbread

So I lied. I haven’t given you my cornbread recipe. And believe me, it’s worth giving.

But I can’t really take credit. It’s not my recipe. The one I make now is mostly attributed to the Moosewood Restaurant New Classics cookbook, with a little inspiration from Deborah Madison thrown in.

I started baking the Moosewood cornbread during my undergrad. I think it was because of a summer meal after my first year, when my friends Gavin and Phil came to visit me on P.E.I. They were at my house for supper and my sister Claire made vegetarian chilli and a huge platter of this cornbread. I fell in love with it. We ate outside in our backyard under the poplar trees. I remember my Dad telling Phil and Gavin stories about his younger days, when he drank lime ricky sandwiches.

(Lime Ricky is a kind of pop only made, to my knowledge, by the Seaman's bottling company on P.E.I. A Lime Ricky Sandwich, according to my Dad, was a shot of moonshine, a shot of lime ricky, and another shot of moonshine. I believe he drank these around the tender age of sixteen. By the time I was old enough to notice, he had long since switched to Captain Morgan on the rocks.)

I photocopied the recipe and started baking the cornbread myself when I got back to university later that year. I’ve been making it ever since. It became a hit with my roommates, particularly Rachael who actually started calling me Cornbread, a nickname that lasted right up until graduation (and possibly persists to this day).

So you see, this cornbread recipe comes with a lot of history attached. Treat it with respect. Make often, and enjoy unadorned, with butter and jam, or with a slice of aged cheddar cheese.

I’ve often meant to try a different cornbread recipe, or at least add some corn kernels, grated cheese, and/or diced green chiles to my basic recipe, as I’ve seen in so many other places. But I still haven’t gotten around to it. I guess that means this one is pretty darn good.

Isabelle’s Cornbread

Adapted from Moosewood Restaurant New Classics and Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison

Using butter in the pan means it comes out golden-crisped and fragrant. A Deborah Madison trick!

2 Tablespoons butter

1 cup cornmeal

½ cup all-purpose flour

½ cup whole-wheat flour

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 eggs

¼ cup vegetable oil

2 to 4 tablespoons honey to taste

1 cup milk (soy works fine) or plain yogourt

Preheat the oven to 425. Put the butter in an 8-inch square baking pan and put the pan in the oven while it’s heating. Meanwhile, stir the dry ingredients together and make a well in the centre of the bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients. As soon as the oven is hot, remove the pan and brush the butter around the edges. Pour any excess into the wet ingredients. Quickly mix the wet and dry ingredients together, then pour the batter into the pan and bake in the middle of the oven until golden brown on top and beginning to pull away from the edges, about 25 minutes.

Real Bread

I know I wrote about bread in the last post, but I just made it again. And this time, it is actually real bread. Like, the kind that you knead. I know, I’m getting pretty fancy. Kneading bread? Good god, what will she think of next?

The no-knead bread was delicious and I definitely plan on making it again. But since I had the time on Sunday afternoon, I wanted to try my hand at this recipe from Deborah Madison. And I’m sure glad I did. I realized there is very little that is more satisfying than watching your own bread rising in the oven.

And it tasted good too! This is an excellent, hearty bread that slices nicely and is firm and flavourful. I will definitely be trying more of Deborah Madison’s bread recipes in the future.

Cracked Wheat-Honey Bread from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison

When I started kneading the dough I found it VERY sticky and I had to add a lot more flour, I think probably at least 4 cups white. Next time, I would add more when the dough is still in the bowl since this will make it easier to knead.

¼ cup warm water

1 teaspoon sugar

2 ¼ teaspoons (1 envelope) active dry yeast

1 ½ cups hot water

1 ¼ cups milk or buttermilk (I used a mix of buttermilk and soy milk)

¼ cup unsulfured molasses or honey (I used half and half)

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 teaspoons salt

1 cup fine or medium bulgur or cracked wheat

2 cups whole-wheat flour

2 to 3 cups bread flour or all-purpose white flour

Combine ¼ warm water with the sugar and yeast in a small bowl and set aside until foamy, about 10 minutes. Oil two 8 by 4-inch bread pans and oil a bowl for the dough.

In a mixing bowl, combine the hot water and the milk, then stir in the molasses, oil, and salt. Add the yeast, and bulgur, then begin beating in the flour, adding as much as you can until the dough leaves the sides of the bowl. Turn onto a lightly floured counter and knead until smooth, about 5 minutes, adding flour a little at a time. Put it in an oiled bowl, turn once to coat the top, the cover and set aside to rise until doubled in bulk, about 1 ¼ hours.

Push the dough down by punching it several times. Turn it out and divide it in two. Form two loaves and set them in the pans. Cover again and let rise until the dough has risen to the top of the pan, about 40 minutes. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees during the last 15 minutes of the rise. Bake for 45 minutes or until well browned. If it looks like they are getting too brown during baking, cover the top with a layer of tin foil. When you turn them out of their pans, make sure the sides are firm and brown. If not, put them back in the oven for a few more minutes. Bread slices more easily if you let it cool for at least an hour.