Vegan Masala Crust Pizza with Marinaded Toppings

The most important advice I can give you about this pizza is MAKE LOTS!! I wish I had done so because it melted away into thin air in no time!



For the Masala Crust Pizza Base:

1 C Whole Wheat Flour
1 1/2 C All Purpose Flour (Maida)
1/2 C Oatmeal
2 T Flax Seed Powder
1 C Grated Veggies - Carrots, Radish...
1 t Freshly Chopped Cilantro
1 t Seasame Seeds
1 t Flax Seeds
2 t Mixed Dried Herbs - Chives, Thyme, Dill...
2 Spicy Green Chillies crushed (could be replaced with Serrano Peppers)
1/4 C Sugar
2 T Oil (I used coconut)
2 t Active Dry Yeast
1/2 C Soymilk
Salt

Heat the soymilk, add the sugar and stir until dissolved. Let the soymilk cool down till it's a little hotter than lukewarm (you should be able to dip your index finger in and keep it there for a few seconds at least). Mix in the yeast and keep aside for about 15 minutes to let it froth and rise. Add the oil and stir vigorously.

Warm up 1 C of water to lukewarm temperature.

Place the rest of the ingredients in a large mixing bowl and mix together lightly. Make a deep well in the center and pour the yeast mixture into it. Use your hands and start mixing everything. Add enough of the warmed water, a little at a time and keep mixing until a rough ball of dough is formed. A wetter dough is always preferable to a dry one.

Transfer the ball to a floured surface (I use my cleaned granite counter top) and knead well, for at least 10 minutes, until it's soft and elasticky.

Form into a ball, place back into the mixing bowl and cover with a warm, wet cloth. Keep it aside in a warm/sunny spot to let it rise.

Meanwhile, prepare the topping...

For the Marinade (use whatever's available and feel free to switch things around):

1 C Peanut Yogurt (any vegan yogurt can be used as a replacement but peanut yogurt tastes most delicious!)
2 Spicy Green Chillies crushed (could be replaced with Serrano Peppers)
1/8 t Powdered Black Pepper
1/8 t Kitchen King or Garam Masala Powder (available at Indian stores)
1 t Nutritional Yeast
1 squirt of Agave Nectar
1 splosh of Tamari
Salt

Whisk everything together until well blended.

Topping Ingredients:

1 Zucchini (sliced into thin rounds)
Florets from 1 small head of Broccoli
4-5 Tomatoes (cubed)
1 Green Bell Pepper (sliced into thin strips)
1 Block of Tofu (cubed)

Place the above in a wide bowl or marinade box and pour the marinade liquid over everything. Toss well. Cover and keep aside.

How to proceed...

After the dough has risen for 1 hour, punch it down and let it rise again for another 40 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F.

Divide the dough into two and form two pizza bases out of it. They could be rolled out but I prefer to tap them flat with my palms (about 1/4 inch thick) directly onto oiled cookie sheets.

Pick the veggies and tofu out of the marinade liquid and spread them over the pizza bases equally. (The marinade liquid can be reused with other veggies or more tofu for another recipe).

Bake for 25 minutes until the tops of the tofu and the sides of the pizza crust have slightly browned.

Serve hot with pepper freshly crushed over it. Enjoy! :)

Creamy Peanut Milk Curds/Yogurt

A quicky post just to explain the process of extracting milk out of peanuts and turning it into yogurt. Peanut milk by itself does NOT taste good. I put it in my tea this one time and ended up having to pour it down the drain! Highly painful for someone like me who does not like to waste food. But OMG how it changes in yogurt form!! Simply delicious!

I've been using this in more and more recipes lately so figured I'd share how it's made. It's my favorite kind of yogurt to date!

Creamy Peanut Milk Yogurt

Soak half a cup of plain, raw peanuts overnight. Grind them into a fine paste with some fresh water (the soaking water should be thrown out).

Transfer to a large pot, add lots of water (about 2 1/2 litres), bring to a boil, reduce the heat to medium and continue to simmer for about 30-40 minutes (stir once in a while). Once it has cooled down to room temperature, strain through a fine sieve. The peanut milk is ready! (The peanut grounds left in the sieve can be used in soups and curries or kneaded into chapathi or bread dough).

Heat the milk to a lukewarm temperature, add a wee bit (just 1-2 tsp will do) of soy yogurt and stir it in lightly with your fingers to introduce the cultures.

Cover and keep aside in a warm spot (a turned off oven or microwave is a great place!) and in about 6-8 hours, you'll have thick, creamy peanut yogurt. :)

It can be stored in the fridge for at least one week (maybe more but it's never lasted that long at our home because we finish it up really quickly! LOL). As the days go by, it gets even thicker and creamier.

A note about Starters:

While making vegan yogurt, if you don't have soy yogurt on hand to use as a starter, then take half a cup of soy milk, heat it to lukewarm, squeeze in a little bit of fresh lime/lemon juice, stir and keep aside. This will turn into yogurt after 6-8 hours but the texture isn't perfect. That's why you make this yogurt in a small quantity and then use that as a starter to make more vegan yogurt. Always make sure to save a few spoonfuls of yogurt in every batch to use as a starter for the next batch. I've noticed that when an old line of starter is used like this for 'generations', the texture and taste of the yogurt gets more delicious over time.

Alternately, you can also use rejeuvelac made out of soaked wheat berries.

I have also tried using chilli crowns as a starter as described on Tongue Ticklers and that worked well too.

Update on 23rd April 2013: New blog post showing the step by step process of making peanut curds using Howdo.

Potato Buttermilk Bread

Before I post the recipe, I'd first like to say that as much as it might look like it, the bread doesn't have whole potatoes in it. The top just looks that way because it's just been shaped accordingly. *grin*

Normally, I prefer to use 100% whole wheat (or other whole grains) in my bread recipes. But this time, I gave in and used partly whole wheat flour with mainly white flour. The 100% whole wheat bread is delicious when there are inclusions in the dough like herbs and grated veggies to add interesting textures to the final product. But with plain, untextured breads, just whole wheat makes it too dense.

Well sometimes, I don't mind giving into taste over wholesomeness. Besides, this being a vegan bread, white flour is the only less-than-perfectly-healthy ingredient in there. So indulge away! :)



2 t active dry yeast
1/2 t sugar
2 large potatoes (peeled, cubed and boiled until soft)
1/2 C cooking liquid from the potatoes cooled a little bit
1/2 C lukewarm soymilk
1/2 t apple cider vinegar (regular, white vinegar is also fine)
1 T oil (I used olive in this one)
2 t salt
2 C all purpose (white) flour (maida)
1 - 1 1/2 C whole wheat flour (chapathi atta)

Mix the flours together and keep aside.

Combine the potato cooking liquid (should be slightly warmer than lukewarm), sugar and yeast and keep it aside for about 15 minutes. It should froth and bubble and rise a bit by the end of this time (very important).

Combine the soymilk and the apple cider vinegar and keep aside for a couple of minutes to allow the soymilk to curdle well. This acts as the buttermilk.

In a large mixing bowl, mash the boiled potatoes. Add the oil, salt, soymilk mixture and frothed yeast mixture and stir well.

Now slowly add one cup of flour at a time and keep mixing until it forms into a stiff ball of dough.

Transfer to a floured surface and knead very well until it's smooth and elastic (very important).

Form into a ball and place it back into the mixing bowl. Cover it with a warm, wet cloth and keep it aside in a warm place or sunny spot for 1 1/2 hours to let it rise (it should at least double in size).

Punch down and again let it rise for 40 minutes.

Form the dough into 12 balls. Place 10 of these balls in two rows in a 9 X 5 inch loaf pan. Break the remaining 2 balls into 4-5 pieces, roll them into little balls and place them randomly on top any way you like.

Cover and let it rise until the dough has risen above the well over the rim of the pan (about 30-40 minutes).

Preheat oven to 205C (400F).

Dust the dough lightly with flour and place the pan in the middle of the oven.

Bake for 10 minutes and then reduce the temperature to 190C (375F) and bake for another 40 minutes.

Once the oven goes off, leave the loaf in there for another 10 minutes and then remove immediately.

Let the bread cool in the pan for half an hour, remove from the pan, transfer it on to a cooling rack and let it cool completely before cutting with a serrated knife.

Tastes great served with a big bowl of soup or spicy bean chili.

Enjoy! :)

Pretty Pink Vegan Beet Wheat Bread

She looked outside her window and saw the dull and dreary clouds. "Hmm", she said. "It looks like a home baked bread kind of day". And off she disappeared into the kitchen with thoughts of dough kneading in her head while Facebook looked on sadly at the momentary lapse in its addicting powers...

That's how it started. I was right in the middle of my facebooking (it warrants its own verb by now, don't you think?) and suddenly I upped and walked into the kitchen with the strong desire to bake bread (but not before updating my status message to reflect this). The exercise from the dough kneading, the smell as the bread bakes, the warmth of the oven... perfect activity to cheer one up on a cold, cloudy day!

I started off with my basic khara bread recipe and then modified a bit... just because I felt like it!

Since I've been improving upon the khara bread over time (and it sure has gotten yummier!), I figured I would share this beet bread recipe as a separate one instead of just referring people to the original post.

As always, the spices, herbs, seeds, nuts and even the vegetables used for that matter can be switched around to suit your taste. Personally, every time I make it, I use a different combination.

Today, this is what went into my bread.

Pretty Pink Vegan Beet Wheat Bread

Yeah, the final bread isn't all that pink. But the dough surely is! Besides, the name sounds so poetic this way. :oP



4 C whole wheat flour (chapathi atta)
3 C okara (soybean paste after the milk has been extracted)
1 large beet - peeled and grated
1 onion - chopped
1 T sugar
3/4 T active dry yeast
2 T raw flax seed powder
1 T white sesame seeds
1 T poppy seeds
3 T roasted sunflower seeds (without skin)
1/4 C extra virgin olive oil

crushed together:
5 green chillies
9 cloves garlic (the garlic cloves in India are quarter the size of the US ones)
3/4 T rock salt
pinch asafoetida powder


Place 1/2 C water in a small pan and heat it for a minute or so. Switch off the flame and add the sugar. Stir until the sugar has dissolved. Cool the water a bit. It should be hotter than lukewarm but not burning hot. (I know the temperature is right when I can dip my finger in it and keep it there without needing to scream).

Sprinkle the yeast over the water and keep aside for about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, place the flour and okara in a large mixing bowl and prep the veggies and spices - grating, chopping, crushing etc...- and add them to the flour. Add the nuts and seeds too.

By this time the yeast should have frothed well and risen. If it hasn't frothed, it means the water is either too hot or too cold. In which case you'll need to start again and get it right! It's very important that the yeast mixture has frothed before it can be used.

Pour the olive oil and flax seed powder into the frothed yeast mixture and beat with a spoon until it's all gooey and well blended. Add this to the bowl which has the other ingredients in it.

Now the kneading begins. This is THE most important part of baking bread. A well kneaded dough is the key to the final result. The dough should be moist but not sticky. I like to first mix everything lightly in the bowl and once they come together I form it into a rough ball and transfer it onto my clean counter top (which has been dusted with wheat flour) to continue the kneading.

Keep kneading with both palms for at least 15 minutes. Take it easy, go slow and enjoy the process. Press the dough away from you with the bottom of your palms and then fold the outer edge over the inner side. Keep repeating this. Press down, fold over, press down, fold over. Keep dusting your palms and the dough with flour if it's too sticky as you knead. If the dough is on the slightly dry side then rub your palms with olive oil and pat some on the dough as you knead. Remember that a moist dough is always better than a dry one (keep that in mind when you mix the rough dough in the bowl and add water if required). The final result after kneading should be soft and elasticky.

Now rub oil on the whole inside of the mixing bowl. Make a ball of the dough and place it in the bowl and swirl it around to coat with the oil all over.



Cover with a warm, moist cloth and keep in a warm place to let it rise for a minimum of 2 hours (you can leave it up to 4 hours if you like).

After 2 hours the dough would have risen a lot and doubled in size (at least). Punch it down, shape into a loaf (this forms one super sized loaf!) and place it in a bread pan. Cover with the moist cloth once more and let it rise for at least another 1 hour (not more than 2 hours).

Pre heat the oven to 450F/230C.

Remove the cloth and pop the pan into the oven. Let the bread bake at this temperature for 15 minutes. If you'd like a crispy crust, open the oven door halfway and carefully spray a few light squirts of water on top of the loaf a couple of times during this period.

After 15 minutes, reduce the temperature to 400F/200C and bake for 45 minutes (do not open the oven door during this time for any reason).

Once the oven goes off remove the bread (check to see if it's done by tapping the top of the loaf and sides of the pan lightly and ensure it sounds hollow-ish). Let the bread cool in the pan for about 15-20 minutes. Then gently remove from the pan onto a cooling rack and let it sit there to cool completely.

Cut with a serrated knife and enjoy! :)

Marinated Herbed Baked Potatoes, Beets and Carrots

Baked potatoes are yum of course, but I love the taste of carrots and beets in the mix! They add a special sweet flavor. You won't even need ketchup on the side! :oP

I made this for dinner last night and by the time I clicked a photo of it in the daylight this morning, we'd finished the carrots. That's why you only see potatoes and beets in the pic below.



5-6 medium sized Potatoes
3-4 Carrots
2 small Beets

Scrub and clean the carrots and potatoes under running water. Do not peel them. Cut them into chunks. Wash and peel the beets and cut them into chunks too.

Bring water to a rolling boil in a large pot. Pop only the potatoes into the water. Let them cook for 5-10 minutes, until slightly tender. Switch off the flame and drain.

Place all the veggies in a wide dish/container.

For the Marinade, whisk together with a fork/spoon the following ingredients in a bowl (quantities according to your taste) until well blended and creamy:

Freshly crushed Green Chilli and Garlic paste (crush them together with crystal salt and a pinch of asafoetida)
Olive oil
Tamari
Balsamic Vinegar
Nutritional Yeast
Freshly crushed Pepper
Dried Rosemary
Dried Chives

Note: I just switch things around with the marinade depending on my mood. You can feel free to do the same too. :)

Pour the marinade over the veggies and toss well. Cover and keep aside for a few hours. The longer they sit, the better. I had everything mixed in the morning so by dinner time they were soaked well and ready to be baked.

Pre heat the oven to 250 C.

Pick the veggies out of the marinade liquid and spread them on a cookie sheet and bake them for about half an hour.

After the oven goes off, let them sit inside for 5-10 minutes.

Serve hot.

Enjoy! :)