Homemade Naan

One of my favorite things about going out for Indian food is the Naan bread.  Granted, I usually eat so much of it that by the time the food comes around I want to die, but, come on! The stuff is slathered in garlic, how can you not want to eat it all?

I decided to take a stab at making my own, and lo and behold it was really easy! It requires minimal ingredients, and cooks super quickly. Most Naan recipes require time to let the dough rise, but this is a speedier version. Read on!

What You Need:

• 1 cup bread flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 pinch salt
• 2/3 cup water
• extra flour for rolling

What You Do:

• Mix the bread flour, salt and baking powder in a bowl. Add the water, stir and knead the bread for a few minutes.
• Once the dough is smooth, divide into four balls.
• Roll the balls out into 5-6 inch in diameter discs.
• Spray your frying pan with olive oil, and place over low heat. Place one of the discs onto the pan, cook until golden.
• Flip, cook until golden again.
• Remove, devour.

The end.  If you’re in the mood for garlic naan, you can mince 2 cloves of garlic and add it to the frying pan with your cooking spray (maybe even add a tbsp of actual olive olive to the pan, in addition to the cooking spray.) Once the naan is golden on both sides, pour the remaining garlic from the pan straight onto the naan. You can NEVER get enough garlic. No such thing.

From The Archives: Rosemary Focaccia

Remember when I told you guys that even though I wasn’t blogging, I was still taking pictures and saving them for a rainy day? Well the clouds have parted ladies and gentlemen because here comes the flow of new posts!

I remember bringing this into work, and people were SHOCKED that I made my own bread (because really, who makes their own bread? There’s an entire aisle in the grocery store dedicated to it. Made, sliced, packaged, so remind me why would you make your own, again?)  Well, I’ve made this loaf a few times, and each time I’m so happy I did. It is delicious. Yes — it’s a little time consuming (you have to let the dough rise twice), but it’s really, really easy to make, and delicious. I use it as sandwich bread and to pair with soups. It’s pretty hearty, and definitely filling, but it’s half whole wheat so it can’t be thaaaat bad, right?

If you’ve ever been curious about making bread, I would say definitely give this recipe a try. It’s easy and adaptable (kalamata olives, different herbs, different spices), so you can’t go wrong. Recipe from Veganomicon. 

Healthy Banana Blueberry Breakfast Loaf

It’s Monday morning, I just rolled out of bed, and I have 30 minutes to be dressed and out the door. Going to happen? Meh, we’ll see. First things first, I need to make up for my blogging negligence from this weekend and give you guys a good one…so here it is: a healthy banana bread.

In the past, my banana breads have been known for being incredibly sweet, oily, and filled with chocolate. Not exactly suitable for breakfast (unless you’re 8 years old), they are usually enjoyed as dessert with a scoop of soy vanilla ice cream piled on top. I came across what looked like a healthy alternative: banana/blueberry bread with no oil, made entirely out of whole wheat flour and sweetened with nothing more than agave syrup. At first I was majorly hesitant to try making this stuff. What about the cup of oil? 2 cups of sugar? bag of chocolate chips?! How would this EVER compare?!

This recipe was ridiculously easy. It took me about 10 minutes to mix together in a bowl and then another hour or so to bake. The results were delicious! This is definitely what I would call a “breakfast” banana bread. Sweetened naturally by the bananas and blueberries, you won’t feel like you’re eating a slice of sugar for breakfast (ew!). I recommend eating it slightly warmed up in the microwave. So good!

What You Need (Recipe from Fat Free Vegan Kitchen):

3 large over-ripe bananas
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/3 cup vanilla soymilk
1/2 cup  agave nectar
2 cups white whole wheat flour (or regular whole wheat flour)
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (240 ml) blueberries

What You Do:

Preheat oven to 350F. Spray a 9×5-inch loaf pan with oil.

Mix the soymilk with 1 tablespoon of the lemon juice and let stand until it curdles.

In a large bowl, mash the bananas well, removing any big lumps. Add the remaining lemon juice, soy milk and agave. In a separate bowl, add the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and mix well. Add the dry mixture to the banana mixture and mix very well. Fold in the blueberries. Pour the batter into the loaf pan, place in the oven for 55 minutes (or until a toothpick comes out dry), and the end!

You can either let cool completely before slicing, or, if you’re inpatient like me, slice off one of the ends and have a taste.

Enjoy!

Quick Whole Wheat Bread

Never have I ever: MADE MY OWN BREAD. Until last night, that is (!!)

I found this recipe online and seeing as I had all of the ingredients it required I went for it. It came out DELICIOUS! Nutty, dense, super doughy, and a tiny bit sweet, it was GOOD. Note: don’t think this is going to be a light, fluffy, slice of whole wheat bread from the grocery store. Again, its DENSE, so perfect for soups or slathered with any sort of spread (jelly, Earth Balance, etc).

What You Need:

1 cup rolled oats

1 cup whole wheat flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 tsp teaspoon salt

1 1/2 tablespoons agave nectar/maple syrup

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 cup soy milk

What You Do:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.  In a large bowl, combine oatmeal, flour, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, mix agave in vegetable oil then stir in the soy milk. Combine both mixtures and stir until a soft dough is formed. Form the dough into a ball and place on a lightly oiled baking sheet.

Bake in preheated oven for about 25 minutes.

This recipe doesn’t make too large of a loaf, as you can see. Next time, I’m going to double the recipe and bake it in a loaf pan. Also, it was a bit hard to tell when the bread was done as the outside cooks way faster than the inside and gets brown and crispy (while the inside is still cooking) letting you think that it’s done before it really is. After about 20 minutes of cooking, I cut it halfway down the middle and when I saw the inside was still a little raw, I put it back in the oven for another 5 minutes. The point? Keep on checking on it, and if you have to cut it and let it cook in two separate pieces, then do it!

We ate the bread with homemade guacamole on top and it was deeeelish.