Confessions of an Anglophile

Hello, my name is Anna and I'm an anglophile. I love all things England, but especially the food. Yeah I know, England is NOT known for their food, but have you ever had a perfectly made scone? Flaky, yummy and oh so hard to eat just one.




Traditional scones are made with loads of butter and heavy cream and they are most defiantly not vegan. And I miss them! Clotted cream and lemon curds, traditionally served with scones, I can live without. But not my scones! A few days ago I was checking the new posts on my favorite blogs when I came upon this at Annie's Eats. OMG, SCONES!!!! Not traditional, but they looked good. So I decided to veganize them for Sunday morning breakfast. WOW, they were flaky and yummy and a little chewy too. I had one as soon as it came out of the oven because they smelled like heaven. And here they are for you...



Vegan Raspberry Oatmeal Scones

1/3 c. applesauce

1c. buttermilk (1cup soymilk + 1 T vinegar)

1 2/3 c. all purpose flour

1 1/3 c. old fashioned oats

1/3 c. sugar

1 T. baking powder

½ t. baking soda

½ t. salt

pinch of ground cloves

10T. margarine, chilled

3/4 c. frozen raspberries

1-2 T. raw sugar



Preheat the oven to 400

Cut the margarine into very small pieces or grate chill.

Make the buttermilk; allow to sit for at least five min. Add the applesauce and mix until incorporated. Set aside.

In a large bowl add the all of the dry ingredient except for the raw sugar. Mix well.

Add the butter to the flour mixture and use either a fork or a pastry cutter to "cut in" the butter. It should look like little pebbles when the butter is fully cut in.

Add the milk mixture, gently mix until just incorporated. Be careful not to over mix or your scones will be hard.

Fold in the raspberries.

On a parchment lined baking sheet drop the scone mixture, sprinkle the raw sugar on top.

This should make 8-12 scones.

Bake for 20 min.

Or, if you're a scone whore like me, you can make 6 massive scones.

Bake for 25 min.

Thanksgiving... ok it's a little late but better late then never, right?

I simply LOVE the holiday's. Not so much for the family, friends, presents and stress; but because I love to cook. To experiment in the kitchen and to feed people. Thus far Thanksgiving has been just the two of us for a few years, every year I try something new hoping that eventually we'll have IT. I spend weeks before the big day trolling the net looking for what will make the list.

This year was IT!!!! I can hear the angels singing praises of my menu, and the Vore was happy. OK so the Vore had a real turkey and a few other things I always make him and never eat, like that canned cranberry crap that comes out with the ridges. EWWW! Making the fresh cranberry sauce has been my job since I was a teenager, so I just can't make myself eat the canned stuff. So by know you're thinking something like "get on with it, what IS this amazing menu!!" Well here it is: (I veganized a lot of recipes but I'm including links to the originals)

Appetizers:

- Vegan Jalapeno Poppers

- Vegan Sweet Chili Cheese Spread with Chickpea crackers

- Vegan Corn fritters, I added two diced jalapenos and I added a little oil in place of the eggs.

- Vore's bacon wrapped lil' smokies

Sides:

- Vegan Cornbread Dressing, Just omit the egg.

- Vegan Green Bean Casserole, Silk plain creamer and homeade fried onions made this awesome

- Mashed Potatoes, Toffuti Sour Cream and Plain unsweetened soy milk.

- Potato Roll, I used flaxseed eggs (2T ground flaxseed: 3T water)

- Sweet and Smoky Cranberry Sauce (cranberry sauce with oj and chipolte peppers)

- Vore's canned cranberry crap

- Cranberry, Almond salad with Maple Mustard Vinegrette

Main:

- Seiten Roulade with Mushroom Chestnut stuffing and Mushroom Gravy

- Maple Glazed Bacon Wrapped Turkey with pan sauce

For the Roulade I used the seiten recipie from this website, but prepared it accourding to Vegan Yum-Yum's recipie since I used her recpies for the stuffing and the gravy. The stuffing calls for Trader Joe's chestnuts, but as we're in Kansas, no Trader Joes. I did find prepared chestnuts with the Haunakah food. For the gravy I used Mushroom stock instead of veggie. Spread the stuffing on the seiten and wrap, wrap in foil and cook for 90 min.

Dessert:

- Vegan Pumpkin Pie (It wasn't that great, so I'm not linking to the original)

- Chocolate Pecan Pie with Booze (I used Grand Marnier)

I made pie crust for both pies. The Better Homes and Garden's cookbook is what I've always used but I substitute 1Tof water for 1T of apple cider viegar. I could only find 70% cocoa for the pecan pie, it was a little to rich, next year I'll cut back a little.

Kitchen fun

This was the weekend for experimentation. After a long week of getting ready for class, I'm an accounting major, I needed a break. For me that mean being creative. So Friday I pulled out all of my jewelry supplies and made a few things and replaced a few things (VegMama tends to lose earings). Then I started in the kitchen...

First I tried Vegan Dad's Mini Irish Pies. I followed his recipe except I didn't use the crust. I didn't want the extra fat. I have a family picture in a few months and I need to lose some weight. The pies were good but too many herbs for Vore. I saw a post last week on one of the blogs I follow and I was SUPER excited. Vegan Liverwurst!!! What can I say, I'm German. And it was good!!!! I'm having some amazing lunches this week. Now if you didn't like Liverwurst or Braunschweiger in your pre-veg days, you still woun't like it. If you've never had it it's like pate, if somewhat jiggly soft meat type things gross you out ( it unfortunataly looks like canned cat food) your probably woun't like it. But, like Feta cheese, if you close your eyes and breathe through your mouth the first time you try it, it's AWESOME!!!!! And then you can go back to eating like normal. Or you can just chalk it up to the crazy Germans that try to turn every meat into a wurst, or a vegan wurst. LOL, it's probably genetic.

Next I tried some homemade pitas...they taste good, but the picture speaks for itself. They didn't puff so no pockets. I cut them in half so I could use them for my lunch. Needless to say I need more practice!

I've wanted to make good crusty bread for a while. I LOVE bread, but I don't like spending 4-6 dollars for a loaf at the store. I searched around and found that the recipe is the same recipe I learned from my mom, the raising time and baking is a little different though.

I'm going to continue playing with flavors. I think next time I'll add whole garlic cloves to the dough before baking. Crusty Bread @ Home 2t Yeast 1 T salt 3c hot water 6 c all purpose flour. I used a half and half mix of wheat and unbleached all white. Mix the water, yeast and salt in a large bowl. Slowly add the flour. Mix together until all of the flour is incorporated. Set aside and cover (I like to use a clean bath towel), allow to rise for about 2 hrs. Sprinkle flour on the dough, cut in two. Shape the loaves and set on cornmeal. Cover and let rest for 40ish min. Preheat oven to 450 Fahrenheit. Put an inverted cookie sheet on the middle rack. Allow to heat with the oven. Use the broiler pan; you will put 1c water into it when you start baking the bread. Put the bread on the inverted pan, cornmeal side down. Sprinkle with a little flour, cut 2-3 shallow cuts into the top of the bread. Bake for 30 min.