The Vagabond Kitchen - Episode 1 - Wherein We Bake Bread and Make Veggie Sausage

Cooking and baking is its own adventure when you are full-time RV'ers.  The fundamental steps are the same as in any kitchen, but sometimes the resources aren't quite as fullsome.

Today we anticipated Winter Storm Iola, which was to dump rain and thunderstorms on our heads this afternoon.  So we decided to take the next steps in our cooking adventures and move forward with two projects we have been working on:  we wanted to perfect our bread-baking procedures, and we wanted to make our own homemade veggie patties that do not have boatloads of sodium or soy protein isolate in them.

First the veggie patties.  David found three recipes online that looked like good candidates, and we decided to make them all in order to compare them.  We want to find an acceptable veggie sausage base that we can spice as desired to have a cornucopia of breakfast sausage sensations.  We'll take each recipe in turn.

VEGETARIAN BREAKFAST SAUSAGE 1

INGREDIENTS

1 cup brown rice, cooked
3/4 cup rolled oats
2 tablespoons whole wheat flour
1 tablespoon ground flax seed
3 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon molasses
2 tablespoons canola oil (divided)
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast or ground cashews
1 1/2 tablespoons tamari or soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes (or more if desired)
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons ground sage
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon thyme

DIRECTIONS

Stir together flax and water in a small bowl or cup, set aside.

In a food processor, add dry oats and pulse on high six or seven times, add the rice and pulse a few more times.

Add remaining ingredients including 1 T canola oil and flax/water mixture and blend till just mixed.  (do not over process, you can finish mixing together with your hands).

With dampened hands, form balls the size of a ping pong ball and then flatten into little patties about 1/4" thick (thicker if you like).

Coat the bottom of a non-stick frying pan with the remaining 1 T canola oil and heat over medium high.

When the oil is hot, cook the patties on each side until they are browned.

Transfer to a paper towel to blot off any excess oil before serving.

Here, David is measuring the rolled oats before moitalizing them in the Ninja:

Due to the molasses and whole wheat flour, these patties were pretty firm and cohered well.  Here is the final mixture, as it was being patty-ized:

We turned to the second recipe.

VEGETARIAN BREAKFAST SAUSAGE 2

Printed from COOKS.COM

1 sm. onion, minced
3 Tbs olive oil
3 Tbs Parmesan cheese
3 cloves minced garlic
2 c. cold cooked rice
1 c. cooked kidney beans
1/4 c. egg substitute
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried sage
1/4 tsp dried cilantro
1/2 c. dry bread crumbs or ground rolled oats

In a large nonstick frying pan, saute the onions in 1 tablespoons of the oil until clear. [We tried using fresh onion unsauteed, and we felt the recipe was too watery, so sauteeing is a good idea.]

Add the cheese and garlic. Saute until garlic is clear.  [We decided not to saute the garlic.]

In a large bowl combine rice, beans, egg substitute, thyme, oregano, cilantro and sage.

Stir in the onion mixture.

Transfer to food processor.  Process until mixture is a solid mass, but NOT pureed. Just a few seconds.

Divide into 8 parts. Form each part into a sausage shape. Roll in the bread crumbs.

Coat a baking sheet with non-stick spray.

Set the sausages on the sheet and brush with remaining oil.

Broil until mottled brown on all sides, about 5 minutes.

Optional: serve with warm tomato puree.

We found this recipe to be too loose and watery, but it may be because we didn't saute the onions, and their moisture may have then been retained in the patties.  However, it looks very tasty.  Here are our patties for Recipe #2, all set to go into the freezer for future enjoyment:



Our third veggie patty recipe was the most unique, because it is based on tempeh and firm tofu.

VEGETARIAN BREAKFAST SAUSAGE 3

INGREDIENTS

2 Tbs flaxseeds
6 Tbs water
1 tsp oil
8 oz tempeh, cubed
7 or 8 oz firm or extra firm tofu, pressed and crumbled
2 Tbs soy sauce
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbs fresh rosemary, minced
11⁄2 tsp oregano
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp paprika or hot pepper flakes
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp nutritional yeast or ground cashews
1 Tbs arrowroot, corn starch, or flour

DIRECTIONS

Grind the flaxseeds, place in bowl with water, and whisk together. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly oil the baking dish.

Steam the tempeh for 15 minutes. Let cool for a few minutes, then crumble and add to flaxseed mixture along with all the other ingredients. Mix well.*

Form into patties.

You can eat the sausage like this, but if you like them a little crunchy and greasy, fry them in a bit of oil for a minute or two on each side until brown.

*The author states that, at this point, you can shape the mixture into patties or links, but the author feels that you have to add so much flour to help them keep their shape that the sausages end up very dense.  The author prefers baking them for 15 minutes, letting them cool slightly and then cutting them into shapes. We prefer to freeze the shaped patties on parchment paper in freezer bags, which helps them keep their shape, and then cook them on the stovetop from frozen.

Here, David is pressing the tofu.  No matter how firm the tofu is, you need to squeeze out all of the water you can.  The prescribed way is to wrap the tofu in paper towels, inside a dish towel, then put a plate on top of it and put a VERY HEAVY WEIGHT on top of the whole mess.  David decided to apply the heaviest weight he could find:



Here, David shows the squozed tofu before crumbling:

Once the tofu was squoze, we Ninja'ed it with the tempeh and the combination came out very crumbly, exactly as we hoped it would.  Now it was time to add all the other ingredients to the crumbed tofu/tempeh mxture:

This base formed into patties very well, and may have been the most compliant with the chef's wishes in that regard of all three recipes.  Recipe #1 came in second.  Since we didn't saute the onions, Recipe #2 came in a distant third place.



We could nor have accomplished all we did without the help of our sous-chef:

Having successfully prepared our veggie patties for cooking and comparison at future breakfasts, we turned to our honey oatmeal bread.  This is a recipe David tried once before, but he made two fatal errors the first time out:  he didn't raise the dough at 78F or higher; and he didn't bake the loaves long enough.  Result:  loaves with some mushy middles.  We resolved to remedy those issues this time around.

Here we are mixing the dough base:



The dough is a blend of rolled oats (soaked in honey, etc.), bread flour and soy flour in 3 parts to 1, and miscellaneous other ingredients, as follows:

HONEY OATMEAL BREAD

Makes 2 - 9x5 inch loaves

INGREDIENTS

2 cups boiling water
1/2 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
1 cup rolled oats
4 cups bread flour
1/2 cup honey
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons honey, warmed slightly
2 teaspoons salt
1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
2 tablespoons rolled oats

DIRECTIONS

1. In a large mixing bowl, combine boiling water, oats, 1/2 cup honey, butter and salt. Let stand for 1 hour.

2. In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.

3. Pour the yeast mixture into the oat mixture. Add 2 cups of flour; mix well. Stir in the remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time, beating well after each addition. When the dough has pulled together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 20 minutes.

Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl and turn to coat with oil.  Cover with a damp cloth and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 1 hour.

4. Deflate the dough and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface.  Divide the dough into two equal pieces and form into loaves.  Place the loaves into two lightly greased 9x5 inch loaf pans.  Cover the loaves with a damp cloth and let rise until doubled in volume, about 40 minutes.

5. Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

6. Bake in the preheated oven for about 30 minutes or until the top is golden brown and the bottom of the loaf sounds hollow when tapped. Remove loaves from pans.

If desired, brush tops of loaves with 2 tablespoons honey and sprinkle with oats.

Kneading the dough is messy work:

Okay, the dough has risen at 78F, as required.  We've split it into two loaves.  Now comes the interesting part.  We decided to bake one loaf in the "traditional" way in a silicon bread loaf pan in our microwave convection oven (set, of course, on convection); and we would bake the other loaf in our Crockpot slow cooker as per procedures found online.

The oven loaf had to rise another 40 minutes in its loaf pan before baking.  However, the crockpot loaf could rise and bake all at once, right in the crockpot.  Here we are putting the loaf into the crockpot, set on "high," with parchment paper lining the cavity:

Eventually, the oven loaf got its moment in the heat.  Here it is tanning away:

When the crockpot loaf came out, its base and sides were baked a golden brown, but its top was soft and pale, so Kathy toasted it a bit in our toaster oven to give the top of the loaf that "just baked" look.  Here are the two loaves, side by side, hot out of baking, ready to be taste-tested:

We each had a slice of each.  All we could say was, "YUM!"

After 5.5 hours of baking and food prep, we were exhausted.  We had some black rice and black beans left over from making the veggie sausage bases.  Kathy heated that up with some sauteed spinach.  Then we threw some Colossal Georgia Shrimp onto boil with some special Down South Shrimp Boil seasoning, and there we had a scrumptious dinner to reward us for all our labors: