The Last Day of Spring Break

A week and a half out of the classroom and I was a bit irked I had nothing to show for it in the refrigerator. Realizing the end of my free time was near I rose at the crack of dawn to beat the day mayors to the supermarket and maneuver my double-decker cart gracefully through empty aisles. Food shopping! I mapped out my needs and supplied myself with the goods for a loaf of bread, a sandwich stuffer and a sweet: three necessities for the week.

I decided on a whole wheat flax bread, using this recipe. Here is the pile of yeast within a blend of bread flour, whole wheat flour and vital wheat gluten, among other more viscous ingredients underneath. (Ok, I just wanted to say “viscous”.) Let’s also admire the ground flax seeds invading the yeast crater. I ground these up although the recipe was calling for whole flax seeds. I wanted to lessen the probability said seeds would hide under my lip, like they sometimes like to, only to cause embarrassment later. Does this happen to you? I eat a lot of flax.
I also made a batch of eggless “egg” salad for the week! I got the recipe from the first vegan cookbook I ever bought many moons ago: Easy Vegan Cooking. The book, by British author Leah Leneman, is out-of-print here in the states. I rarely use it. But with time enough to flip through a book languidly before bed, I found plenty recipes I’d like to tackle. Many of the adapted traditional British dishes strike me as a bit odd but worthy of experimentation, like creamy banana risotto, the Toad in the Hole (see Bone Shaker’s version here) and potato scones. The egg salad below was a super-easy concoction. I added some freshly ground black salt for some enhanced sulphuric eggyness and a boat-ton of one of my favorite garnishes–green onion.

Next up, the sweet for the week. Having most of what I needed for Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar‘s Cowboy cookies, besides the nuts and chocolate chips, I created my own nut-free version with chocolate bottoms. Since I didn’t flatten out my golf-sized dough balls, they baked a bit macaroon-shaped. With a mix of light, dark and granulated sugars, the cookies came out sublime. Sweet craving preemptively satisfied? Check.

And here is the best loaf of bread I have made thus far. I know, I know. I keep saying that! But cutting a warm slice of this soft and supple bread and smearing it with Earth Balance and my strawberry-mango jam, I was in heaven. Oh, the simple pleasures in life! Now if only I had a bread-slicing machine. I wouldn’t have to suffer through messily uneven jagged cuts that jeopardize the integrity of a sandwich… deliciously.