Okay so I’ve heard about the Post Punk Kitchen, but don’t consider myself post-punk (it’s a rock genre, too) nor much of a punk-kitchen-ish type. It’s where vegans go and talk and tweak and read reviews, techniques, and recipes for super delish food. I’m not armed with exotic kitchen skillz and though I recreationally read (oh, about 2 a week) cookbooks from cover to cover, I usually pick only one recipe to try out. Here’s that one try! Vegan with a Vengeance by Isa-
I’m in love with biscuits. I know I said I’m a potato girl, but biscuits are in close competition for second place on my list of yummy starchy foods. I like biscuits for breakfast in all their pb&j glory, as well as using them for dipping into soups, substituting them for sandwich bread, and even for S.O.S.
What’s S.O.S. you ask? In the layman’s language, it’s “shit on a shingle” or for the rest of non-foul mouthed America (does that exist, really?), it’s biscuits and gravy. Or biscuits and sausage gravy. Or the English folk like beans on toast. Or the most popular: creamed chipped beef on toast. All of the above are s.o.s. and SO tasty. Unless you’re vegan. Strike out if you’re trying to get anything at a restaurant or beg your non-vegan mom to make it for you sans any meat/fat/dairy. Sad face.
So Isa Chandra Moskowitz has an easy biscuit recipe at the beginning (first chapter) of this cookbook. And it’s simple, easy, and way cheaper than buying a tube of Pilsbury at the store. I remember making biscuits when I was little and it requiring lots of kneading and sitting or something. No way, not at my house at least. So we started with sifting the dry ingredients- flour, baking powder, some salt. Then we cut in the shortening (Crisco) and vegan margarine (Earth’s Balance)- which I did the el-cheapo way; by using two butter knives.
Then I had to alter it- because the original recipe called for soy or rice milk but neither of those are to my or Sillyboy’s liking, so I used almond milk and it worked well. Oh, and I guess I had another alteration way back in the dry ingredient add-in; we had half a cup of leftover wheat flour that I mixed in with some regular baking flour. Maybe I’m more post punk kitchen-ish than I think? Okay not. After I added in the cold milk, I worked it into a dough with my hands, rolled it out and used a drinking glass to cut out pretty circles.
I placed them (about 16 small biscuits, half an inch thick) on a greased cookie sheet, then baked them for about 12 minutes at 450 degrees. You can kind of see the wheat flecks in the biscuits up close- which I think made them a tad drier than I like, but they were SO yummy. Sillyboy even asked for another one as we huddled by the oven eating freshly baked biscuits before the husband wandered through wondering what we were eating so late at night. (Vegan is good anytime is what I say).
Before the baking part, I’d say the entire recipe took me about 5 minutes to make. Maybe 6 if you include gathering the few ingredients. I couldn’t find the actual recipe on the ppk site or online, but I’ll be sure to share it- because there are many variations of vegan biscuits that mostly try to replicate the good ol’ buttermilk ones -which aren’t necessary for what we eat them with. But it was late at night, I was in a pinch, so I proceeded to heat up a can of Bush’s Baked Beans- the Vegetarian version rich in brown sugar but perfect and heats up in about 3 mins. I had s.o.s. for dinner and considering I had made homemade vegan biscuits, it was the best s.o.s.
Have you ever made biscuits from “scratch” or would you ever try to make the vegan version? Do you happen to have your own version of s.o.s.? I hear it’s different depending on which state you grew up in, but since I grew up on a military base it’s quite common for the creamed beefy version.
LunchingMomma 