Baking

Posting a picture of River because she is so cute.  Started with oatmeal for breakfast. I put the dry steel cut oats in the blender and made an oat flour.  This makes the oatmeal cooking much faster.  I went from 40 minutes to 20 minutes.  After I finish up the steel cut oats, I am switching to regular oatmeal (but not instant).  It cooks much faster and is used in baking and veggie burgers.  I mixed in some fresh strawberries, pistachios, and maple syrup.

For lunch we had some Chickpea Patties. They were more moist that burgers and could be spread on a baking pan and roasted/broiled.  The patties were made with sauteed onions and celery, chickpeas, roasted garlic, ketchup, soy sauce, capers and brown rice that were pureed with and immersion blender.  I served them on a flour tortilla with spring mix, grape tomatoes, black olives and a Maple Balsamic Sauce.  The sauce was a mix of maple syrup, balsamic vinegar, and tamari heated with some arrowroot to thicken it.

For snack time I made was Banana Chocolate Muffins. These were better than the ones I made at the beginning of January.  Those were way to dry, these were a little to moist which can be corrected with more flour. I used whole wheat pastry flour, oat bran, and rice flour for the dough.  Pureed bananas, maple syrup, and almond milk were the wet part.  After everything was mixed together, I added two ounces of Scharffen Berger unsweetened dark chocolate.  I beat it with a kitchen mallet to make chunks.  There was enough sweetness in the muffins to make up for the absence of sugar in the chocolate.  Dark chocolate is okay for vegans, but no milk chocolate.

Dinner was leftover Pumpkin Tomato Soup, Lettuce Rolls, and Braised Eggplant.
For those who may be wondering about vegans and bread, most basic yeast breads are dairy and egg free.  You should check the label on mass produced commercial bread, but baguettes, whole wheat bread, pitas, bagels (except egg bagels), naan, ciabatta, and multi grain breads should be fine.  Butter and milk are in the feathery type breads like croissants, brioche and challah.  Non yeast loaf breads, muffins, cakes, and cookies have dairy and eggs.