Category: Around the Kisner Homestead

Discovering Vegan Mayonnaise

You will find, after seeing a few of my recipes, that there are no eggs or dairy products in them. I have food allergies to both and have been egg- and dairy-free for several years. As annoying as it is to have to do without them, I feel so much better that it’s worth it!

This is the latest product I’ve fallen in love with!

Luckily, the Food Allergen Labeling Consumer Protection Act (FALCPA) requires that foods are labeled to identify the eight major food allergens. These are: milk, egg, fish, crustacean shell fish, tree nuts, wheat, peanuts and soybeans. These 8 major food allergens identified by FALCPA account for over 90 percent of all documented food allergies in the U.S. If you look carefully on most packaged food, right after the list of ingredients you’ll see the list of allergens. When it says, “milk” that could mean they seasoned the food with Parmesan cheese or cooked it with butter. It may also say, “Made in a facility that uses those products.” Cross-contamination matters if you are deathly allergic to any airborne components, like wheat flour or particles of nuts.

I do not need to avoid wheat, soy, fish, shell fish, peanuts or tree nuts. And my allergy does not lead to a life-threatening result. However, I may experience a sudden bout of diarrhea if I ignore my allergy, so if I’m eating away from home, I’m pretty careful. I also can eat meat so if I ask how things are cooked, I can usually find something to eat. I’m certainly not starving to death!

One of the first things I missed the most was mayonnaise (and of course butter, ice cream and cheese!). I have found Smart Balance a good substitute for butter on toast and in cooking. There is coconut ice cream if I must have ice cream. I have not found a good substitute for cheese, so my days of a good toasted cheese sandwich and pizza are behind me. I have tried to order a pizza without cheese…just not the same!

According to the Federal Government, to be called mayonnaise the product must include EGGS. Therefore, the item I’m talking about today has to be called “Vegan Dressing and Spread.” However, it is found on the shelf right next to Hellmann’s Mayonnaise.

Here are some details on the jar of regular mayonnaise:

Notice Hellmann’s Mayonnaise has whole eggs and egg yolks. It can legitimately be called Mayonnaise.

My salad dressing of choice was always Thousand Island dressing and I had been making my own for several years using regular mayonnaise. Once I found I could not have mayonnaise, I found Vegenaise.

This does not say it is Mayonnaise…it is “Better than Mayo.”

This was in the Organic refrigerated aisle at the grocery store. It worked, tasted fine but tended to separate. I would make chicken salad and the next day I had to drain off some watery liquid and mix it up again.

By surprise when I was buying regular mayonnaise for Bert, right there next to the Hellmann’s Mayonnaise was Hellmann’s Vegan Dressing & Spread!

This turned out to be just what I’d been looking for. It tasted great, was creamy, mixed well with salads and DID NOT SEPARATE! Yea! It did not need to be refrigerated until being opened.

Hellmann’s Vegan Dressing & Spread had fewer calories than regular mayonnaise and was even lower in Total Fat. It tasted just fine!

Here are more details about this product:

Hellmann’s Vegan Dressing & Spread has no eggs!

Now, to make my version of Thousand Island dressing, I use a cup or so of this Vegan Dressing and add a tablespoon of my home canned sweet pickle relish, a squirt of mustard and a squirt of ketchup (real exact measurements! HaHa!)

Sweet pickle relish, mustard and ketchup adds flavor and color.
Homemade Thousand Island dressing that is safe for my egg- and dairy-free diet!
These small disposable cups hold about 1/2 cup of dressing…just right to take to a restaurant.

Finding this substitute for mayonnaise makes me not feel too bad when I have to restrict my other choices so much!

Please leave a comment or send me an email at marykisner@comcast.net. Enjoy!

Is It Spring Yet?

Today I’d like to give you a brief tour of the Kisner Homestead. We have had a lot of snow in Central Pennsylvania this winter…at least more than in past years. Now we’ve had over an inch of rain over two days that is determined to melt all the snow still on the ground. Today high winds are predicted. Our wind sock seems to still be working properly and is not too shredded from winter weather. It seems we have to replace it every year.

This is the time of year we get antsy to start garden seeds under grow lights (although we probably won’t do that for a few more weeks). I’d like to take pictures like this every few weeks to document the changes in the garden. Today, however, here is a general overview to see how the yard and garden have survived over the winter.

The front of the house shows much of the snow is gone. My Spring door quilt shows up pretty well through the screen door, at least as well as any wreathe I might put up.

Moving to the right of the house, Bert’s shop looks like it survived the winter also. The new paint job he did last summer looks good.

To the right of the shop are the wood piles. Luckily, we have plenty of wood to finish out the winter. Our wood stove keeps the house cozy warm and Bert does enjoy working with wood. It also cuts down on the use of the electric heat!

The tall plants to the right of the silver-covered wood pile are lilacs. They will be removed this spring. They haven’t had flowers for several years due to early frosts and just are not doing well.

Walking around the back of the house is our patio and there is the pot of lavender that was never moved before the cold weather came last fall. We’ll probably have to pitch it. We’ll see if it survives.

Close to the patio are my two herb garden beds. This is where I grow lettuce, radishes, herbs and cucumbers…plants that I want to keep an eye on every day.

Looks like the garlic chives are holding on tight to their seeds!

The chamomile is hanging in there…it truly is like a weed. I’m sure enough chamomile seeds have planted themselves to get this next year going strong.

This is the view from up the hill by the garden toward the house and shop. One rain barrel (60 gallons) will be situated under the down spout on the left of the shop. The second will be on the front corner of the shop. Less than 1/2″ of rain on the roof of the shop will fill the barrels. When they are full, Bert will use a small electric pump and pump the water up the hill to the bigger holding tank (36o gallons) by the garden. We will use that to water the garden all summer. More pictures later of that process as we get those set up this spring.

We use the compost barrels at the back of the shop all year round. Sometimes the cold freezes the lids shut, but a little sun and they open up just fine. Bert will rotate them frequently and by the end of the year there’s hardly anything left. Then it gets rototilled into the garden.

Here’s a picture of the larger holding tank for rain water.

The garden looks so lonely! See that green wooden fence! We are visited every evening by a group of 5-7 deer. For now, they visit the bird feeders. I’m sure that in one leap they could have quite a feast. By putting spacers between the garden and the fence at least they can’t just lean over and have a snack. However, we will be watching to make sure they aren’t wandering around inside the garden after dark!

The deer like the bird seed that spills on the ground, but they love the bird bath water that has a heater in it to keep it from freezing. Bert has to fill it every few days!

So, that’s the tour! At least we can see most of the grass and every day stays light a little longer. There is something about Spring that gives us all hope for the rest of the year!

If you have any question or comments about this post, leave a comment or email me directly at marykisner@comcast.net. Enjoy!

Homemade Oatmeal Bread

Another round of snow today…about 3″ this time…and I decided it was time to bake bread! Since we hope to go see the Grandkids near Pittsburgh this weekend, why not make some of the bread into sticky buns! Since I wanted to make both that meant a BIG batch. Therefore…time for the BIG mixer!

Now, many of you know that each Christmas Bert bakes hundreds of chocolate chip cookies for gifts. If you stop by as they are coming out of the oven you might even get to try a few. Bert has been doing this marathon baking since before we got married, so over 50 years! For many of those years he did it all by hand with a giant wooden spoon and lots of muscle!

Comparing the BIG wooden spoon to regular ones!
Bert with a few of the 120 dozen cookies he baked last Christmas.

Several years ago, he finally decided to invest in a huge commercial mixer that he moves into the kitchen when it’s time to bake. Luckily, I get to use the mixer when I’m making a big batch of bread. Most of the time I mix bread in my KitchenAid mixer (I think it’s a 7 quart bowl). The big mixer has a 12 quart bowl. It is so slick to mix up a big batch of bread dough.

Comparing the 12 quart mixer with the 7 quart mixer.

The first thing I need to do is check that I have enough ingredients. I usually use my Oatmeal Bread recipe. We like it and it feels more nutritious with the oatmeal in it. Since I cannot have eggs or dairy, by baking my own bread I have control over the ingredients. You can use any bread recipe you like to make sticky buns…probably even frozen commercial dough!

Here is my recipe. You can make a 3-loaf batch or a 6-loaf batch. Not a lot of detailed instructions about mixing up the bread, but it’s what I use. If you don’t know how to bake bread at all, there are many cookbooks (like Joy of Cooking) and YouTube videos that will walk you through the process.

Just a Note: If you want to know approximately how many loaves of bread a recipe will make, add up the amount of liquid and estimate that each 1 cup of liquid will make 1 loaf of bread. To reduce the volume of the dough for a smaller batch, first reduce the amount of water (in the 3-loaf recipe, for example): Use 1 cup of boiling water on the rolled oats, 1/2 cup water on the yeast, and just 1/2 cup of water with the oil and honey. If you do that you will not need as much flour and yeast. You will have to experiment to see what works with your mixer. You can also skip the mixer completely for a small batch and just mix and knead it by hand. I did that all the time when I first started making bread (way back in the 1970’s!)

Here are the basic ingredients:

I use a loose dry yeast and measure it out with a measuring spoon. If you want to use packaged yeast, each package is a little less than a Tablespoon of yeast. I keep my yeast in the refrigerator in a glass canning jar, while the extra is kept in the freezer. Here are two example packages of the yeast I buy:

You can buy packages of yeast like this on Amazon or at a local health food store.

Instructions to mix up the dough:

Step 1: First, I put the rolled oats, sugar and salt into the mixer bowl. Then I pour the boiling water on it, stir it around and let it sit for about 10 minutes so it isn’t so hot (don’t want to kill the yeast!)

Step 2: After 10 minutes or so, I use a small bowl to start the yeast…yeast plus 1 cup of warm water and a tablespoon of sugar. Let it sit until dissolved and bubbly (about 5 minutes).

Step 3: Add cool or room temperature water to the mixer bowl. (That helps to cool down the rolled oats is it’s still too hot).

Add oil to the mixer bowl. Using the same measuring cup (now greased with oil) to measure out the honey…no sticking!

Add the yeast mixture to the mixer bowl.

Step 4: Begin adding flour about 1-2 cups at a time until most of the flour is added. Let the mixer run for 8-10 minutes to knead the dough. Add a little flour at a time if the dough is still sticky.

Step 5: Dump the dough on to a floured table/board and work into a nice smooth ball.

Step 6: Place the ball of dough into a large oiled bowl to rise. Cover with a cloth.

Step 7: When the dough has doubled in size (about an hour), leave the dough in the bowl and put your fist into the middle of the dough to deflate the big bubbles, fold in the sides and turn the ball of dough over so the smooth side is up. Cover the bowl and let rise another hour.

Step 8: Shape the dough…into loaves of bread or rolls or sticky buns.

Shaping Sticky Buns

Here’s how I shape sticky buns:

First, I prepare the pans by greasing them generously with butter-flavored Crisco. You can use butter or margarine.

Then I sprinkle about 1/2 cup of brown sugar over the bottom of the pan. I sprinkle that with ground cinnamon.

Then I take a chunk of dough and pat it out to a rectangle.

This gets sprinkled with brown sugar and cinnamon also.

Next, roll up the rectangle of dough into a log.

Slice the log into 1″ rounds and place cut side down into the prepared pan.

If you have a little roll leftover, just pinch the end shut and put it in a greased pan like a little loaf of cinnamon bread. Bake along with the buns at the same time.

Let the pans rest for about 20 minutes while you preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Bake about 25-30 minutes.

To Remove Sticky Buns From the Pans:

Flip the pans of buns directly onto a foil covered board or table top. Use a table knife to lift the pan off the buns. (Advice…fill each pan with soapy water immediately and let them soak while you clean up…the “sticky” topping is a real pain to clean up if you let it harden and cool in the pan!)

Loaves of bread will bake about 40 minutes in a 350-degree oven.

Not exactly pretty crusts…but tastes great!

So that’s what I do on a snowy day! Wow, the whole house smells good today! Wish I could share it with you!

If you’d like to comment on this post leave a comment or send me an email at marykisner@comcast.net.