Gluten Overload

I've been cooking a lot lately; making a lot of fun new vegan experiments. I found a can of baking powder in the pantry that had expired in 2006 and thought I'd test it out by making the baking powder biscuits from Vegan with a Vengeance. They came out kind of flat because I tried to make the dough stretch too thin... Always a toss up when you're feeding a dozen. I made the vegan miso gravy to go with them, which I whizzed in the blender for a moment before heading out because it was lumpy and full of texture. Biscuits & gravy came with me to the Trinity House potluck last Thursday, where million people showed up, the biscuits and gravy were a hit, and the rest of the food was plentiful and delicious.*

Since the biscuits had only been an experimental batch, I wanted to try again using fresh baking powder, but I made too many alterations all at once and they came out too dense and doughy on the inside even though they looked overdone on the outside. We had those for dinner on Saturday with the Chickpea gravy (also from Vegan with a Vengeance). It calls for a base of chickpeas, then a bunch of whole wheat flour and a bunch of other things, and it came out more like a kind of tangy soup than gravy. I'd try making it again with less lemon juice, but I'd rather experiment with the miso gravy first; the flavour was more appealing to me, but the recipe was harder to pick out from the rest of the dish. It made a very filling dinner, but with all the wheat flour in both, I was definitely feeling some gluten overload after a little while. All we had to balance it out was some tasty fresh asparagus and a glass of Irish Red Ale from Chama which is definitely my favourite beer of all time so far. We were going to have the last of the black bean soup too, but it turned out to be too much food for the two of us. (When I think of it actually, my all time favourite beer ever would probably be a tie with the red ale and Lips of Faith from New Belgium, but that stuff is so expensive I can only fantasize about it ever anyway so it doesn't really matter.)

This morning I made vegan pancakes with fruit in them. It was my third attempt at this recipe and hands down the best so far. I've finally got the hang of it. I halved the amount of baking powder, used a little bit of extra flour, stopped mixing as soon as the flour was incorporated and found the perfect pan temperature. They were to DIE for. But again, I feel completely overloaded with all the flour and I just want to sit on the couch and groan all day. Springtime means more fresh fruit and vegetables and we're just not there quite yet.

*After the potluck, my little sister M did a presentation on Think Outside the Bomb which was fantastic, but nuclear resistance seems so huge and hopeless that I have a hard time getting pumped to try and make change. I feel overwhelmed by the magnitude of it all. At the same time, it really seems like they're getting a cohesive organization set up and once all the hard stuff (planning and logistics) is squared away, I'm pretty excited to get involved with the dirty work and help them out. Just point me in the right direction and I'm there!