Crazy Bread Recipe: The Novel

First things first- HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!

NEXT- Thanks everyone for eyeing my crazy bread! Since a couple of people have asked for the recipe, I will do my best to write it out for all who would like it. Keep in mind, besides the water and yeast, I don't really measure anything. Its more of a look, taste and feel the dough has.

Ingredients:
3/4 cup warm water
1 packet dry yeast (or 2 1/4 tsp)
1 tbsp agave nectar (approx)
1 tsp sea salt (or to taste)
1-2 tbsp olive oil
PLUS some for your glass bowl for the first rise
2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
PLUS more to knead, maybe an additional 1/2-1 cup

Glaze:
1/4 cup olive oil (approx)
1/4 cup agave nectar (approx)
dash of sea salt or garlic salt (I know this sounds weird but we love the sweet/savory thing)

Add the water to a large mixing bowl. The water should be cooler than bath water. If its too hot, it will kill the yeast.
Add 1 packet of dry yeast to the warm water.
Then squirt in the agave nectar and the sea salt. Mix the water, yeast, agave and sea salt until dissolved.
At this point I actually taste the water, yeast, agave and salt slurry and adjust to our taste buds. The agave helps the yeast do its thing and the salt is to make sure the bread taste good. Its best to be conservative with the salt, adding a little at a time until its salty enough for you.
Lastly, I put a glug (1-2 tbsp) of olive oil in the mixture. Everything is then mixed very, very well.
Once I have the wet ingredients combined, I add the 2 cups of flour in 1/2 cup increments. Once I have the 2 cups of flour combined with the wet ingredients, I dust the counter top with flour and place the dough on the counter. The dough at this stage looks wet and for sure needs more flour. It will be very sticky, so also add some flour to your hands.
This part is very important!!! KNEAD UNTIL YOUR ARMS HURT. Well, not hurt, but it will feel like a work out. For this recipe, I kneaded for probably 10-15 minutes, adding flour as needed. You may find you won't need a lot more flour, or you need a lot more flour but the goal is to have an elastic, smooth dough.
Once the dough looks kneaded enough and a smooth ball is formed (sorry to be vague, you'll just have to try it and see for yourself) move it to a clean glass bowl that has a touch of olive oil in it so the dough won't stick or form a skin.
Cover with plastic wrap and let it double in size, which for me took about 1 1/2 hours.
Next, spray a loaf pan with cooking spray or you can probably just coat it with olive oil. After the dough has risen, I made 8 golf ball sized dough balls and placed them in the pan. From there I made gradually smaller balls fitting them in between the larger balls. I ended up with 21 balls of dough, at 4 different sizes. Really, this part isn't that important. You can make what ever pattern you'd like.
THEN, let the balls of dough rise for a second time.
Once it is about double in size, bake it at 400 degrees (preheated of course) for 10 minutes. The tops will get brown.
While this bakes, make the glaze.
After 10 minutes, take the pan out, turn down the oven to 350 degrees and brush the glaze on the brown tops. Bake the bread at 350 for probably another 15 minutes, watching closely for it not to brown too much. It should have a nice thump to it when you tap on the top (carefully, its HOT). If it doesn't thump or isn't brown enough, bake longer.
After the bread is taken out of the oven, the bread must sit in the loaf pan for about 15-20 minutes before its turned out onto a cooling rack. Once it is turned out onto a cooling rack, you gotta let it sit for another 15-20 minutes before peeling back the pieces and enjoying.

I know this is a long description/recipe, but once you do it you should get the hang of it and you too can just improvise with the process. Its really not a lot of work, it just has several steps. So worth it!!! For a guide on how it should look, review my last post. Or if you have questions, let me know!

spicy corn chili, crazy bread

We ate at Raging Burrito this past weekend and I finally tried their vegetarian chili atop a lovely salad with lettuce, spinach, carrots, red onions, corn chips, guacamole and salsa fresca. It inspired me to make chili tonight. I made my chili with TVP granules, yellow corn, pinto beans, kidney beans, tomatoes, onion, jalapeno, chili powder, chipotle powder, cumin, cocoa powder, garlic, sea salt and agave nectar. I blended some of it with my immersion blender and topped it off with a few corn chips. The smokey chipotle and rich cocoa powder is a surprisingly awesome addition! The texture is sort of like a Cincinnati style chili, which I suspect would be amazing on a hot dawg as a left over meal.

My dad pointed out that this bread I made looks like monkey bread. After some research, most of the recipes I found for monkey bread calls for a refrigerated canned biscuit with loads of butter. Since I made my own yeast bread, skipped the butter and balled it up myself, I decided to call this crazy bread instead. I made another batch of yeast bread as I did a couple posts back and rolled the dough into 21 balls in four different sizes and strategically placed the balls in the loaf pan for a second rise. They were topped with an olive oil and agave glaze and baked until brown and beautiful.

Besides the taste, the best part is pulling apart the pieces.

Cosmo's Vegan Shoppe

Jared and I are still relatively new to Atlanta and spend most of our weekends exploring. This weekend we were driving around in the Inman Park area of Atlanta. I was singing really loud, dancing around in the passenger seat and looking out the window when I saw it . . . the word VEGAN on a store front! I said to Jared, "I think I just saw a vegan store." Jared spotting a parking spot and immediately pulled over. Sure enough we were walking into Cosmo's Vegan Shoppe, this awesomely intimate and adorable all vegan store (duh!).
They had a more than adequate book selection, where I picked up
They also had a great selection of cosmetics, supplements, tons of vegan snacks and loads of cute shoes, bags, shirts, wallets and belts.
I love that Atlanta keeps surprising us. I love that we have a community to support stores like this. You too can check out and shop at Cosmo's Vegan Shoppe online. If you are ever in Atlanta, check them out at 672 Highland Avenue NE.

fresh baked bread, tomato lentil soup

I love making bread. I love kneading the dough, the smell of yeast before and after baking and watching the whole thing change at every step. The bread I made today was reminiscent of yeast rolls my Grammie made when I was growing up, in both taste and smell. I started with about 3/4 cup of lukewarm water, a packet of yeast, a squirt of agave nectar, a glug of olive oil and sea salt. Once everything was dissolved, I added about 2 cups of unbleached all purpose flour, in 1/2 cup increments until it came together in a ball. I put more flour on my very clean counter top and kneaded the dough for about 10 minutes, adding flour as needed to prevent sticking. When all was said and done, I probably used 2 1/2 cups of flour. In a glass bowl, I covered the ball of dough with olive oil & plastic wrap until it doubled in size. After doubling in size, I put it in a loaf pan and again let it rise until it peeked over the top. I baked it at 400 degrees for 10 minutes, squirting the inside of the oven with water (with my trusty squirt bottle) 3 times within that 10 minutes. Once it was browned, I brushed the top with olive oil and turned the temperature down to 375 and let it bake for another 15-20 minutes. The hard part is letting it rest in the loaf pan for 15 minutes and then letting it cool on a wire rack for about another 20 minutes.
Fascinating, something that started as this . . .

Ended up looking like this . . .

And this . . .

To go with the bread, I made a tomato lentil soup that had onions, carrots, celery, potatoes, red lentils, tomato paste, garlic salt, black pepper, ground coriander, a vegan bouillon cube and a bay leaf.

mexican lasagna, coconut chai rice pudding

When I went shopping this week I intended to make enchiladas but when I got home I realized I got everything to make them except the enchilada sauce. So we were just going to make bean burritos but then the flour tortillas I bought kept tearing so what would one do??? Make Mexican style lasagna instead! The filling for the lasagna had tofu crumbles made with fresh jalapeno, onion and the usual Mexican spice like cumin and chili powder. I also heated up vegetarian refried beans with tomato sauce. I layered the torn flour tortillas, crumbles, refried beans and salsa until it was about 4 layers deep. To compliment the lasagna I made two toppers. One was guacamole made with avocado, fresh lime juice, fresh jalapeno, garlic, red onion, agave, sea salt and black pepper. The other topper was a raw salsa made with fresh white corn off the cob, diced tomatoes, fresh jalapeno, fresh lime juice, red onion, sea salt and black pepper.
Unfortunately, this picture doesn't show off the layers, but boy was it tasty!

I have made and posted about my rice pudding before but this one was especially good so I had to post about it this time. This rice pudding was made with left over jasmine rice. I heated coconut milk up with natural sugar, ground cardamom, star anise, cinnamon and tiny bit of corn starch. The heated, strained and spiced coconut milk was added to the jasmine rice until well combined. In honor of my step mom, Delia, bowls of this chilled chai rice pudding were topped with whipped soy cream.