5-star bread, Cajun Feast, & Calzones

here's a bit of what I've been up to in the kitchen...

first. I made another loaf of the No-Knead bread. If you have ANY inclination toward making homemade bread, please allow me to tell you to MAKE THIS BREAD!!!! It is SO freak-out good and easy & fun & even quite flexible. I took the original recipe, for a basic french loaf... and tweaked it thusly:

Rather than all white flour, I used 1 1/2 c of white flour
a bit more than 3/4 c whole wheat pastry flour (is this the same as "white whole wheat flour?")

a bit less than 3/4 c. rye flour
* I also added about 2/3 cup coarsely chopped walnuts &
2/3 c raisins.
I also changed the salt up to 1 3/4 tsp. but I'm not sure that's necessary. I was just trying it out.


All this was aimed at making a loaf of the amazing "raisin nut rye bread" that our local bakery makes... and guess what? It worked!!! This bread is SOOOOOO GOOOOOD! Yumola!


Last night we had a yummy cajun feast, thanks to Susan V's recent Mardi Gras Post. I made the Cajun Tempeh Bacon, the Cajun White Beans, and the Not-So-Dirty Rice. The tempeh was way too salty, but I'm pretty sure that's because I bought something called "creole seasoning" (in place of the recommended "cajun seasoning"), of which the first ingredient was salt. No matter, I just didn't put salt in any of the other dishes and we used little nibbles of the tempeh for our salt. :) Like Bazu, I was feeling really grateful for my internet friends - I used ingredients I've never used before - how exciting!


For the Cajun White Beans, I just made the beans, and didn't cook them in squash. They took about 5 minutes - not counting the all day project of soaking and cooking my own beans. I don't do this often, so I was feeling quite pleased with myself. The beans were "Yellow Mountain Heirloom Beans" from Napa's own "Rancho Gordo" farms, who specialize in heirloom beans. The Cajun beans turned out spicy and delicious, and we've got another tub of unseasoned beans waiting to get used.


For the not-so-dirty rice, again, I just made that element of the dish. I also incorporated some gimme lean sausage by Lightlife, which I sauteed and then cut up in little chunks and mixed in with the rice once it was done. The rice was Musty's and my favorite part of the meal. Yummy and flavorful.


Here's a super yum smoothie that I had today with lunch (more cajun beans and dirty rice): frozen blueberries, frozen banana, frozen nectarine, frozen raspberries, plain soy yogurt, pomegranate juice, hemp seeds, and a dash of maple syrup. Oh yeah! It was one of the best homemade smoothies I've ever had.


Tonight I made calzones. They were **superb**. Around 7:45 pm I got the idea to make calzones, but I didn't want to wait an hour to make dough. So I went out to Trader Joe's and picked up a baggie of their "Whole Wheat Pizza Dough." Then I whipped up a few ingredients:

- tofu ricotta : I used the recipe from "Voluptuous Vegan". It took 2 minutes and was great
- tomato sauce : I sauteed two sliced up cloves of garlic in a teaspoon of olive oil, with about a teaspoon of dried oregano and a teaspoon of basil. Added 1 can of Muir Glen tomato sauce, and simmered while I did the next step
- veggie mix: sauteed up 1/2 a white onion, about 1 c of chopped up broccoli, half of a green bell pepper (thinly sliced), and a mountain of fresh spinach (which of course cooks down to almost nothing).


I divided the dough in two parts and made two 7" circles. Onto each circle I included:
-tofu ricotta
- tomato sauce (lots!)
- some chopped olives
- some fresh parseley
- veggie mix.

I cooked these guys for about 10 minutes and they were so insanely good. I am still feeling happy and content and nourished.


They were also huge... neither one of us could finish, and we're both big eaters! (this is just one, cut in half!) So we've got a little morning snack waiting for us in the fridge.