Who Moved My Churro Bites

It appears my original churro post is lost...  The recipe is there but all the photo steps from original post are gone and so is the link.  Hhhmmmm....  I wasn't the best at IT back then.  I'm still not but I'm a lot better!

So here it is again because it's such a good and easy recipe.

1/4 cup vegetable oil

2 tablespoons sugar

Dash of salt

2 cups Very Vanilla Soymilk

2 cups GF baking mix

1/4 cup cinnamon sugar for rolling (or plain sugar if you're sensitive to cinnamon)

Heat the oil, sugar, salt, and Soymilk in a medium pan, stirring constantly until it boils.  Remove from the heat and stir in the baking mix all at once.

Allow to cool enough to touch.  Pinch teaspoons full of dough and roll into balls. 

Fry at 375 until golden and floating on top of the oil.  I lower and remove into my fryer with a spider.

Drain on paper towels long enough to load the next batch into the fryer.  Roll in cinnamon sugar.

Enjoy with coffee.  It's really great that way.

I Gotta Love You Less Potato Alternative

Eating a soft diet is still necessary for me.  Not only do I have digestive diseases. I now have braces.

While I love eating potatoes in many forms, I know I shouldn't for a variety of reasons (risk of diabetes, too many calories, too many carbs, not enough nutrients).

I'm trying to pack healthy lunches and here's a quick one!

1 bag frozen shelled edamame
Enough water to cover in the pot
Bragg's Liquid Aminos
Black pepper
Peanut butter

Put the edamame, some Bragg's and pepper to taste in a pot.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce the heat and simmer the edamame with the lid on until tender.  Do not drain.  Purée with immersion blender or in a blender or food processor.  Stir in enough peanut butter to thicken to desired texture.

You can add ginger, garlic, or other spices too!  You can even put a rice cake in the bottom of your bowl before spooning or ladling on the purée. 

Filipino Rice Flour Cakes

A Rick Bayless Instagram post sent me on an internet search for Rice Flour Mamon which turned up a very egg filled sponge cake.  It also turned up information on Filipino Puto recipes.  These were also egg heavy for most.  I then saw that these can be steamed!  The steamed buns we have made have been successful and seem to be a good gluten free option for good, moist texture.

More searching netted me a recipe that called for only one egg and some evaporated milk.  I wasn't scared of making evaporated Soymilk.  I've done this in the past.  I made the evaporated Soymilk the day ahead.  Here is a link to that recipe:

http://siouxchef.blogspot.com/2014/04/evaporated-soymilk.html

Jennie came for a visit today so we made the Puto together!

First, we tried putting these in mini cupcake papers.  They collapsed and leaked a bit.  They still taste good but were not pretty.

We then used tiny ramekins (1/4 cup capacity).  These worked great!  I only have two of this size though so I had to steam them in pairs.  They sell actual Puto molds.  I may invest!  I think this cake could make a great tres leches cake base too.  I would just make more evaporated Soymilk and some condensed Soymilk too.  Another day!

2 cups GF baking mix
1 cup sugar
1-1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup evaporated Soymilk (recipe link above)
3/4 cup vanilla Soymilk
3/4 cup water
1/4 cup melted margarine, Earth Balance stick

Prepare your steamer or method of steaming.

Combine the baking mix, sugar, and baking powder in a medium bowl with a whisk.  Add the evaporated Soymilk, Soymilk, water, and melted margarine.  Whisk until smooth.  This batter is a lot like thin pancake batter.

Pour into ramekins or other tiny molds and place in your steamer.  Put the lid on and steam for 8 minutes.

Gently peel away from sides of ramekin with a knife and turn out onto a plate.  

Serve warm or cold.

Here are photos of success!

And delicious...  But not good looking photos:

Evaporated Soymilk

I was curious when I saw an Instagram post of Rick Bayless'.  It was for rice flour mamons.  I was like...  Rice flour?  I eat rice flour!

After some research though, I see that this Filipino sponge cake commonly calls for lots of eggs.  Eggs?  I don't eat eggs!

I did, however, see evaporated milk and a steamer being used to make these with NO eggs.

Steamer?  I have a steamer!

Jennie has been craving steamed buns too.  Since I'll be seeing her tomorrow (to pick up her new glasses) I thought this the perfect time to try something new.

I've made evaporated milk in the past using Soymilk a very long time ago but I've never tried making steamed cakes before.

The first step is making this evaporated Soymilk.  I used Very Vanilla Soymilk since I'm making CAKE!

Basically, you'll want to start with double the amount of milk of however much evaporated you need.  I need 1/2 cup evaporated so I started with one cup.

In order to gauge if I've got about half evaporated I used a wooden spoon handle, ruler, and a knife to score.  Have these three things handy when getting started.

Pour your Soymilk in a heavy saucepan.  I'm using a very small one since the amount of Soymilk I need is not a lot.  Dip the end of a wood spoon handle in the center of the pan, giving it a second or two to stain the wood so you can measure it.

Measure the fill line and then calculate half of that.  Score the wooden spoon handle at the halfway mark with your knife.  This score line will be your gauge to tell you when half your Soymilk has evaporated and will tell you that you're done simmering.

Scraping constantly with a silicone spatula, heat the Soymilk on medium high until just boiling.  Reduce heat to a low, low simmer.  When the Soymilk has come down to temperature you can scrape and stir every two or three minutes as it simmers. 

For my one cup, it took about 20 minutes of slow simmering to achieve 1/2 cup of evaporated milk.  I was able to see this with my scored spoon handle dipped into the center of the pan.

Remove from heat.  As the Soymilk cools, a skin will form over the top.  Just lift this off and discard.  Store in the fridge until ready to use.

Until tomorrow...