Rustic Walnut Current Millet Bread (All Vegan, Folks)

Hello Hippos!

Gosh my kitchen was overflowing with millets. I kept buying packets of foxtail millet thinking I was out only to realise I had 2 huge packets at home. Sigh. So I had to use up them millets pronto. I wanted a nice dense, rustic, nutty bread that had just a hint of sweetness. This is perfect for breakfast with some olive oil or even coconut oil drizzled on it hot and toasted. Mmmm. It's also amazing plain.

This happens to be super healthy because of the millets, low sugar, and the flax and chia seeds!

This recipe can be easily made gluten free by omitting the flour I used by using just millets (although it will be super dense) or adding almond flour in place of the regular flour.

Here's what you need


1.5 cup foxtail millets
1/2 cup flour (or almond flour for gluten free)
3 tablespoons chia seeds
4 tablespoons ground flaxseeds
3 teaspoons bakers yeast
2 teaspoons salt
4 tablespoons jaggery powder
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 cup walnuts (yes lots of nuts, it's amazing)
1/2 cup dried currents (or cranberry or a mix of both)
3/4th cup warm water



How to make

In a blender powder your foxtail millet and chia seeds into a fine powder. If you don't have flax seed powder then grind the flax seeds along with the millets and chia seeds.  Add the ground up millets, flax seeds, and chia seeds in the bowl. Add salt, jaggery, walnuts, and currents.

The millets ground up into a flour

Dry ingredients 

Warm up some water. It can't be too hot or it will kill the yeast. It should be a tad warmer than lukewarm. You should be able to deep your fingers in comfortably.

Now add the warm water to the dry mix. Add oil and start to mix. It will be a wet lumpy mixture. Set the bowl somewhere warm for 5 to 10 minutes.

Nice and gooey

Next, on a board sprinkled with 1/4th cup flour start to knead the bread dough. After about 5 minutes it should become sticky but cohesive. Keep massaging the dough with a little dry flour for another 5 to 10 minutes.

In a greased loaf pan add in the bread dough. Set aside somewhere warm for 30 minutes.

let this set for 30 min and then into the oven!

Preheat your oven to 200c. Put the loaded pan in for 25-30 minutes.

Let it cool for 10 minutes. It will be a thick dense bread that is overflowing with nuts in every bite.

Will be great warmed/toasted with some coconut oil and will be a lovely-ass accompaniment to salad. Enjoy your bread. Enjoy your life.

YUM

Keep it kind and get ready for a kick ass 2018!  See you soon.

Holiday Rosemary Raisin Date Crackers (Vegan Obvs)

Hi-hi Dolphins!

It's the most wonderful time of the year. I demand you read this blog with THIS song in the background.

Lots of holiday cooking going around on FB and my brother who is visiting from the U.S brought me a pack of Trader Joes Vegan Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies which are to die for. It reminded me of some of the sweet-savory crackers that are a staple on holiday cracker-cheese plates this time of the year. In my pre-vegan days living in the U.S, I used to LOVE variations of raisin/rosemary/herb crackers that would go with blue cheese. I saw some imported crackers like these in Nature's Basket in Bangalore but they cost half my rent. So of course I decided to make my own.

These crackers are delicious because they have a savoury herb taste with bursts of date and raisin sweetness. Combine it with hummus or cashew cheese and you might spontaneously combust. For real. My version uses whole wheat flour, regular flour, and almond flour (just almonds ground up fine in the blender). So let's make these crackers!


What You Need

1/2 cup flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup whole almonds blended into flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 and half teaspoons salt
6-8 deseeded dates
1/2 cup raisins (you can add more too if you want)
1/2 cup soya mylk or water (depending on getting the right rollable dough)
2.5 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons dried rosemary

Almond flour, dates, rosemary, raisins. Yum yum.

How to Make

Grind up your almonds into a flour in the blender

In a bowl add your flour, whole wheat flour, and almond flour.  Now add the baking powder, salt, and rosemary and blend the dry mix with your hands.

Chop up your dates into bits. Add the chopped dates and raisins to the mix as well. Now add your oil. Get ready to get your hands dirty. Pour water/soyamylk into the batter and start to knead. Keep adding water/mylk until you have a nice dough that can be rolled. The dough will be thick and uneven because of the dates/raisins- that's fine. Chill.

That's the dough we're talking about, lovers. 

Now roll out parts of your dough as thin as you can. It won't get too thin because it's got so many goodies in it. Use a cookie cutter to cut out shapes  or simply cut into cracker- like squares. Repeat will all the remaining dough. This should get you about 30-35 small crackers depending on your thickness.

All ready to be popped into that oven

Add your crackers in batches depending on the size of your oven.  Bake for 20-23 minutes  at 185c.

Take out and let cool. Enjoy with a quick cashew cheese which involves blending 1/4th cup cashews with one tablespoon nutritional yeast (optional), salt, pepper, and 2 tablespoons of lemon juice. Or dip them in hummus, or have them with jam. Or just alone with some black tea.

I spy the giant gingerbread man

Let the holidays start! Keep it kind.

Zero Sugar Vegan Samoa Cookies ( And How My Mother and BF Wasted My Time)

Ola Pups!

Today I was inspired to try out a old favorite, the Girl Scout Samoa Cookie. This version has semolina mixed with flour and has zero refined sugar. I could have made them with sugar but my mother and boyfriend were super whiny about basically nothing when I said I was going to bake cookies at 4:30 in the afternoon. The discussion went like this:

Me: I am going to bake cookies
Mother: No! no more baking you make a mess 
BF: No one is going to eat them they are very unhealthy
Me: Shut up and and let me bake
Mother: What's the point of being vegan it's all high-fat crap
Me: Veganism isn't about health, it's about ETHICS
Boyfriend: Don't bake cookies
Me: I am, I'll make them with no sugar
Mother and BF: Fine
*30 min later when offered the cookies*
mother and BF: Man these are good! 
Mother: I am eating another one

Basically they wasted 10 minutes of my life for no real reason.

So anyway, let me not waste anymore of yours.

Here's what you need

For the cookies:

1 cup semolina (Rave)
1 cup Flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon ground flaxseed
1tablespoon vanilla
1/2 cup grated jagerry
5 tablespoons jaggery syrup (or just use 1/2-3/4th cup of dry grated jaggery or just syrup)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2  cup almond mylk (or any plant based mylk like soya or coconut)

For the Coconut topping

1 cup dried coconut
2 tablespoons almond/coconut mylk
3 tablespoons shredded jaggery

For the chocolate drizzle

6-8 squares of Amul dark chocolate (or any other vegan dark chocolate)
3 -4 teaspoons water


How to Make

In a bowl combine mylk, jaggery, salt and vanilla. Stir in semolina, flour, baking powder and soda, flax seed powder and then combined with your hands until you have a nice dough. It should be slightly wet but should be able to be rolled out. Add some more flour/semolina to make it drier. If it's too wet or add more plant based mylk if it's too dry.

Wet stuff about to be creamed. Coconut oil, jaggery syrup, dry jaggery, vanilla, and almond mylk

Dry mix to be added to wet mix. Flour, semolina, flax seed powder, salt

Now put your dough in the freezer for 10 min.

In the meanwhile in another bowl combine dried coconut with a little bit of coconut/soya/almond mylk and add the grated jaggery. Set aside.

Pop out the dough from freezer. Roll out and use a cookie cutter to cut out whatever shape you'd like. The dough should be enough for 20 small cookies.

Simple Circles 

Now put each cut out cookies on a baking tray and top with the shredded coconut mixture.
Put the tray in a pre-heated oven at 180c for 10-12 min per batch.

Adding the coconut mixture

While cookies are baking pop your chocolate and teaspoons of water in a microwave for a minute and half. Stir it up till you get a nice smooth mixture. Add this mix into a icing cone or make your own with a ziplock bag. Snip the end and keep it ready. When your cookies are baked drizzle stripes of the melted chocolate on the cookies. Let them stand for about 5 min.

Serve them. Most likely people will want a second one. If you don't have random time-wasting arguments at home and are inclined to use sugar instead of jaggery, go for it. Whole heartedly.

Looking good, eh?

Till next time!

Happy Ending