Apple Pie

Jane has always loved to bake. And I have always loved eating her baked goods. Times have been lean since eggs and butter are out of the picture, but today when I got home I was greeted by a heavenly aroma wafting out of the kitchen. I sniffed my way in, and what did my eyes behold but apple pie. Yay! Apple pie for dessert.

Alas, it was not to be. Jane made that pie for a party we are attending tomorrow night. No matter how much I tried to prevail upon her that we should have a slice to see if the crust came out good enough to bring with us, she wouldn't give in. I guess the thought of having to bake another pie tomorrow didn't really excite her as much as it did me.

Anyway, I'm certainly going to have some tomorrow night and I'm sure it will be great!

It's the Holiday Season....

OK, I'll admit it. I'm one of those guys you used to see frantically shopping on Christmas eve. I wasn't out there trying to get the perfect gift... I was just trying to get any gift. Jane has finally beaten it into my head that "Christmas is Coming." It doesn't matter what time of the year it is, Christmas is always coming.

My wife is always looking for gifts to give. But she's not one of those people who just give gifts for any occasion. She'll hang on to the thing until a birthday or Christmas comes along. Her life is far less stressful that way. And now mine is too.

It's early December, so guess what's around the corner?

So this year, for the third year in a row, I am looking ahead. I'm thinking Jane needs to have a new cookbook, specifically The Joy of Vegan Baking: The Compassionate Cooks' Traditional Treats and Sinful Sweets. But will this be a gift for her, or for me? ;-)

Tender Potato Bread - Daring Baker's November Challenge

Hi everyone. Today it's Jane who's authoring the blog post. Since I'm participating in The Daring Bakers challenges, I'll be the one blogging. Lane will continue to blog most of the other posts.

Anyway, The Daring Bakers December Challenge was issued today. We're all supposed to wait until a specified day to post about that month's challenge, and I most certainly will respect the rules! (My philosophy is, if you don't agree with the rules of the group, don't join the group... it's that simple.)

At any rate, it looks like it will be complicated to "veganize." So, since I'm feeling a little intimidated about this as my first challenge, I decided to take last month's challenge which seemed much more vegan-friendly (and which I can post about now).

The recipe was a "tender potato bread." The recipe called for 4 medium to large baking potatoes which were supposed to be no more than 16 oz. There was some commentary about using 8 ounces if you are a beginner. Well, bread I can do (I used to make a killer cheddar cheese braided bread loaf in my pre-vegan days), but it's been a while, so I used 12 ounces as a compromise. It was only 3 small russet potatoes. They looked so insignificant in the pot!

Overall, success. But the bread really didn't rise. I don't know if that's the potatoes (dense), or the fact that my yeast might be from another century. Regardless, I was a little nervous after my first rise. The recipe can be finished in a few different ways. It makes more than one loaf. The suggestions in the challenge are loaves, rolls and focaccia. So I made a small plain loaf and a focaccia with olive oil, salt, rosemary and maui onions. Lane wandered into the kitchen several times to see what smelled so good.

Finally it was done. And while I didn't get the results I would have hoped for, the small loaf resembles a doorstop, the focaccia was good enough that we ate 1/3 of it before I got it onto the cooling rack!

I will definitely try this again, but first I need to test my yeast and see if it is time to buy a new package!

I've got my baker back!

I've been missing Jane's baking. It's not like she baked something every week, but she baked occasionally, and she baked really well. Her coffeecake and strawberry shortcake are some of my favorites, along with apple pie and berry pie. Or her cookies. I could wax poetic here, but I'll spare you all.

Anyway, I've been whining. I understand that learning how to cook vegan after cooking non-vegan for 20+ years is a bit of a challenge. And the baked goods we've tried eating out haven't been particularly inspiring.

So, I've been poking around a few message boards to see what other people are doing. And I got this recipe from one of them: Link Here

Jane made this version of muffins, and they were yummy. We ate the batch in 3 days. (That's two muffins per person per day -- and maybe Jane didn't have two muffins every day.)

Because of the conversion from British cooking to American, they weren't perfect. Jane is going to use a little less oil and sugar and more flour in her next go round. But yay, I've got my baker back!