VEGANMOFO: Day 3

Rustic White Beans and Mushrooms
from Veganomicon


Was wicked. We picked up a TON of 1 lb bags of local beans when we went on Farm Tour 2.0 last weekend and I thought it was a great time to break out the white beans for some beans and mushrooms and Vcon. And since there was no hot sauce called for in the dish, I felt it would be a relatively humiliation-free dish. Yay!

We used up our whole share of CSA Mushrooms for the week on the dish, and it was a worthy use indeed. We really loved the huge hunks of veggies throughout the dish, carrot in particular. I think next time I would double or even triple the amount of carrots, just we are really big cooked carrot dorks. So soft and orange and delicious! This made a TON of food, which is nice for lunches and whatnot. I think I may reheat the leftovers with the sage breadcrumbs from the pumpkin ziti recipe for lunch tomorrow.

We had these beans over very last minute "Oh crap what should we eat with these beans?" couscous cooked in veggie broth. Oh and some lemony broiled green beans, because seriously, we like to load up on all types of beans possible. And salad with sesame dressing from Vcon, which was also really good and easy to make.


Apple Caramel Peanut Butter Bars
From Veganomicon (name of dessert approximate, I am beyond lazy)

Ok I realize this looks like your dog had a potty emergency all over something in a 9x13 pan. I'm not sure why my peanut butter caramel came out so gloppy (and I even added more maple syrup to make it more liquid) but it sure tastes good anyway!

Here's the profile view, kind of weird, I know. Layers of graham cracker crust, apples, crumb topping and peanut butter caramel! YUMMMMM!

Check back tomorrow for a review of a vegan cooking class that I just took on Southern Vegan Comfort Foods! Woo-hoo!

VEGANMOFO! It's here!

That's right, I've been having anxiety nightmares about this day, and here it is despite it all! It's VEGANMOFO, the VEGAN MOnth of FOod, where I swear on my firstborn that I will post at least 5 times a week in an attempt to share some more of the vegan food love. I'm excited! I'm scared! Help/Squee!

I'm not really sure what you can expect from me. Maybe some talk about why I am vegan. Maybe about how I first went vegan at 17. Maybe some food writing review. Maybe some stuff about this awesome gardening class I'm taking, which of course relates to the awesome food I will grow to eat. Maybe some restaurant reviews. Maybe about being a vegan mom to a mostly vegan toddler. But definitely a lot of food. That much I know.

I'm going to ease into this by just talking a little bit about what we've been eating lately. This week over at The Post Punk Kitchen Forums, the cookbook challenge is to utilize Veganomicon. The idea is to focus on new-t0-you recipes, which can be hard for me because that book has so many tried and true faves! So we're splitting the difference here.

Hot-Glazed Tempeh
This was a new to me recipe. First of all, I'm an idiot, let's just get that right out there. We don't keep hot sauce in the house - we just don't. For one thing, we have like 5 kinds of hot things that I typically sub for hot sauce, like chiptole tabasco, chili-garlic sambal, pickapeppa sauce, siracha, chipotle in adobo and a variety of hot spices. Second, I was kind of under the impression that hot sauce was less like ketchup (which always tastes pretty much the same no matter what kind you buy) and a lot more like snowflakes - each one is it's own flava/experience. Apparently, this is not so. After reviewing that this recipe was really hot (and we love the spice) - keeping in mind I DID NOT USE HOT SAUCE, but rather a combo of the tabasco, sambal and pickapeppa - I got about 10 comments on the boards that it's not hot at all you idiot, use real hot sauce (including one from Isa herself! I am forever shamed!). So, now I know. Use something that comes out of a bottle labled "hot sauce," you asshole.

So? So. My bastardization of this recipe yielded supa-spicy tempeh, but I have since begun the mending of my ways and have indeed purchased a bottle of "hot sauce" which I am now to understand isn't at all hot, it's just a clever name. Do I have that right? Good. I will be retrying this recipe sometime soon, as it appears to be a fave of the folks on the PPK boards, and I love a good tempeh recipe. Sheesh. I feel like I just came out of confession.


As an aside, we served this wicked hot tempeh with some really freaking awesome grilled corn on the cob and a green salad with leftover tahini garlic dressing (from VWaV). I lubed the corn up with some olive oil and sprinkled on some chili powder pre-grilling, and then after it came off added just a bit of earth balance and a sprinkle of sumac - YUM! Silas, the 2-year-old, was an especially huge fan of the corn, which I don't think he had ever had in cob form before. Now we know. Handles = fun food for toddlers. Duh.

Chickpea Cutlets, Mushroom Gravy and Rutabega Puree

So we are longtime fans of the chickpea cutlets. I love anything salty and savory and chewy and filled with dense protein-substances. I love how quick they come together. And I love the baking option, which requires very little of my attention.

The Mushroom Gravy was good - I think I would add a little more saltiness next time, because my broth powder (Bill's Chick'nish) is very low in salty flavor. I used a bunch of mystery mushrooms from our Mushroom CSA (how wicked is a mushroom csa? very!), I think they might have been baby shiitakes, but seriously, not sure. It came out great, I would definitely make this again. Who doesn't love gravy?!?

The Rutabaga Puree - ok. It was fine. I don't know, it was a little...rutabaga-y. Duh. I guess the thing is, it looks a lot like mashed potatoes, which are like one of my top 5 favorite foods, but they don't taste like mashed potatoes and the mouth feel is different. And with that cutlet and gravy, I guess my palette was kind of like "give me the mashers, you freaking idiot!" and instead I provided a completely non-sequitor, thai-inspired rutabaga puree. Another operator error. I might try it again if I get another rutabaga in my CSA box, but I can't see seeking out another rutabaga just to make this. But it's really fine, and seriously, anything with coconut milk automatically gets 5 extra points. As you can see, I added the cilantro.

Oh and those green beans in the background? Those are the Lemony-Broiled Green Beans from Eat, Drink and Be Vegan. Practically instant and delicious, yay!

Ok, off to prepare the eggplant for some parmesan tonight. I think we're going to use some fabulous pine-nut creme to top that off with, yay! Until tomorrow then.

The Week of Eat, Drink and Be Vegan!

So last time I posted about how I was participating in ThePPK forum's cookbook challenge of the week, which was to show some love to Dreena Burton's Eat, Drink and Be Vegan! Well, I can honestly say that it was a week of awesome eats!


Pumpkin-Cheese Pie

Well, let's start off with dessert, shall we? Yes, let's shall. Pumpkin cheese pie was a huge success. The only caveat being that I couldn't find a premade graham cracker crust, so I decided to be all DIY and make one from graham crackers. I looooosely followed the recipe in The Joy of Vegan Baking but I think my ratios were off, because the crust was reallllllly crumbly and crumb-like - it just basically fell apart upon slicing. Next time I'll either use a tried and true recipe for graham cracker crust (measuring my ingredients, what a pain!) or buy a pre-made regular old pie crust. Those I can find. But the filling was super delicious and wicked easy to make!

Blackened Tofu, Potato Smashers and Sauteed Spinach

Ooooh, love love love! Yay for Blackened tofu! So super easy and tasty. It was a hit all around. The Potato Smashers were super delicious and easy too, a nice change from just roasted in olive oil (and I'm guessing considerably lower in fat). The spinach was actually a curried coconut-milk creamed spinach from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. Super big thumbs up to that! It's basically just some garlic and a few dried chilis sauteed briefly in peanut oil, then the spinach is added along with about 1 cup of coconut milk and a teaspoon (or more or less) of curry powder. Fabulous!

Autumn Roasted Squash Rings with Enchilada Tofu and Rice
Just the Squash recipe is from ED&BV, and it was AWESOME! Pretty easy (once you get the squash peeled - dang!) I used a local delicata squash, which I think is my favorite squash of all time. The recipe utilizes lemon juice and rosemary, not things I usually associate with winter squash - but it was delicious!!

The enchilada tofu is my fave recipe from Tofu Cookery and the rice was just some leftover mixed rice pilaf reheated with a little tomato paste. The tofu was delicious as always, but the rice - not all that inspired, really. You can't win every time I guess.

Teriyaki Quinoa, Pan-Fried Tempt-eh, and Sauteed Wild Mushrooms
Teriyaki Quinoa = awesome, easy and FAST! This is probably my favorite quinoa recipe of all time. It somehow manages to cover that weird bitter quinoa taste I shy away from. Perfect in every way!
The tempt-eh was also super awesome! Chad was a huge fan, and he's usually not all super excited about the tempeh (I on the other hand would eat it every damn day). It had a great texture and was free of tempeh bitterness that I think Chad shies away from. Woo-hoo!

How can you not love sauteed mushrooms?!? Olive oil, garlic, wine, a little soy sauce...seriously, is this not food of the gods? We have a mushroom CSA, so we are always so excited to see what kind of crazy mushrooms we have the privilege to try this week. :)

Rice and Beans with Two Tomatillo Salsas, Guac and Salad
We had like 4 lbs of tomatillos to deal with, so it was salsa time! I made one raw salsa and one cooked version, and a quick guac over leftover rice and beans. The cooked salsa definitely wins this contest. Raw tomatillos kind of squeege me out.

I'm getting so nervous for VEGANMOFO!!!! I need to sketch out a bunch of posts so that I don't fall ridiculously behind. I'm scared!

Also this week, ThePPK forums are featuring Veganomicon as the cookbook of the week to use, so stay tuned for some new-to-me awesomeness from the vegan bible!

Up up update

He Caught Like Three Feet of Air That Time


Sorry for the lack of posting and food-related photos....Silas and I are still in Portland (well, actually 40 minutes outside of Portland in between the towns of Scappoose and St. Helens, OR for anyone familiar with the area). I've been cooking up a storm, but in the heat of the moment I've been very, very bad about taking my food porn fotos. But we've been making great stuff, rest assured. And visiting Farmer's Markets. I want to go like twice a week here, they are soooo awesome! Greens, strawberries, fresh herbs, breads, mushrooms...so much good stuff. Oh, and spam me with your best recipes that use Shiitake mushrooms. I bought some fresh ones, and I don't think I've ever cooked with them before! Weird, I know.

Today I made a Tofu Cutlet Parmesan that was really awesome. I used the Compassionate Cook's recipe for the Tofu Cutlets (it's a recipe you can buy as part of the BBQ, Burgers and Backyard Bites packet), and they were great. Then I layered them with marinara and topped it all off with Vcon's Pine Nut Cream Sauce, except that I substituted cashews for the pine nuts since my mom didn't have any. It was great! I'm super happy we have leftovers. You could totally cheat if you were in a hurry and use a vegan Chick'n patty instead of making your own cutlets.

Did I mention that I bought a copy of Eat, Drink and Be Vegan by Dreena Burton? I did! So please, everyone out there that uses it, spam me with the awesome recipes to try. There are so many, I need some recommendations to focus my energy!

Yesterday morning I made the Tempeh Hashbrown Casserole for breakfast. YUM! I cheated and microwaved the potatoes instead of baking them, which cut down on the prep time by an hour so I don't really feel bad. I used a mix of red potatoes and a big baker russet instead of the yukon golds called for, and I thought it was great. Oh yeah, and spanish onion filled in for green onion. Anyway, it was hearty and delicious, and if my recommendation doesn't carry enough weight let me just say that my psychotically carnivorous father ate it without complaint. Yeah, seriously! I will say that I felt like it needed something, like a tofu scramble or something, pared with it. Today I had leftovers of the has with sliced avocado on top, and this helped ameliorate the "missing" feeling. But what can't a ripe avocado fix?

I also made the lemon pesto from ED&BV and used it for a homemade pizza last night. It was great. My mom does some awesome stuff with pizza crust, very nicely cooked. It was also topped with rehydrated sun-dried tomatoes and some browned Morningstar Chick'n strips and some fresh minced garlic. YUM.

Chad and I used to live a few blocks from this hole-in-the-wall Thai restaurant on Burnside in Portland. He used to order so much take out from them that they recognized his voice. Yeah, it was like that. Anyway, they make THE BEST Massaman curry in the entire universe, and we are always always disappointed when we order it from anywhere else. I've always wanted to try to make it myself to see if I could replicate it, but do you know how hard it is to find massaman curry paste?!? Damn near impossible. But I found some! At this tiny little grocery/cafe in St. John's in Portland called Proper Eats. (Which, by the way, has AWESOME food. Go there and order the special, whatever it is.) So I made my mom and I (and Silas) some homemade Massaman curry the other night. It was really good! But it wasn't THE curry. It was missing some pungency...extra lemongrass? Galangal? I'm going to have to experiment, but I'm glad that I have the curry paste to get me started, anyway. Long live massaman.

This past week I also had the distinct pleasure of testing a recipe for Colleen Patrick-Goudreau's new cookbook. It was a peanut sauce pasta dish with green beans and it was awesome! I don't think I've seen Silas clean his plate so fast and ask for more in a long, long time. That kid was a BIG fan, especially of the green beans. I can't wait until it's published so everyone can make it! We had it with oven-roasted kale, which my mom freaked out over.

Oh, and last weekend I made a batch of VCTOTW Peanut Butter Heavencakes: chocolate cupcakes filled with peanut butter frosting, topped with chocolate ganache. Holy flurking snit. They were soooooo good, and my dad was obsessed with them! Go vegan food winning over the toughest critics.

Speaking of which, my mom is very open minded, but I am still so happy that I think I've convinced her to start using unsweetened almond milk instead of cow's and soymilk creamer instead of Coffeemate non-dairy creamer!!!!!!!!!!!! YAYAYAYAYAYAY!!!!!!!!!! She's had breast cancer twice, and I'm just so glad to get her to cut back on dairy, especially after what I've been reading about IGF-I (or watch a video about it here) and it's effects on cancerous cells. And coffeemate is LOADED with chemicals and hydrogenated oils, so, yay!!! Again, yayayayay!

I'm also excited, because my dad, the aforementioned food-wimp, was telling us that he was talking to his co-workers about how he'd been trying all this vegetarian food lately, and it was all pretty good. *sniff* *tear* Who was it that said we just have to win them over with delicious food?! So, so true.

News on the Move
Chad will start driving from Detroit on Tuesday and should make it here by Friday or so. We'll be in Seattle the following Wednesday (6/4) to meet our ABF truck and start moving in. Yay!!!!!

Even When the Universe Hates Us...

We still eat well.

This picture of Silas really captures my mood lately:
We have now entered the lovely stage of the spring I like to call "the waiting for him to call nightmare." In this scenario, the "him" refers not to a boyfriend or whatever, but to the imaginary job person who is calling to offer Chad a job. This has nothing at all to do with food or eating, but I thought it might help to explain the surliness that might just come screaming through the computer to eat your faces off, lovely readers. Let's just say we thought we had something in the bag (in SEATTLE!!!) and now it just looks like we are one of 4 lucky candidates who gets to go BACK. Again. For an interview with the president. Because bringing back FOUR of the SIX original candidates interviewed in the first round is perfectly reasonable right? RIGHT!?!???! Who DOESN'T want to bring back 2/3rds of the candidates to interview a THIRD time!?! Not me! Why don't we bring all six back? Why not!

Anyway. We are also waiting to hear back from a Rancho Cucamonga job (I swear to god I didn't make that town up). And there is another interview in San Diego in two weeks. And then we go to Oregon to chew our nails down to the quick and plead with any deity, mineral or vegtable who will give us audience to get us the hell out of this decaying place. Please.

So every time the phone rings we jump. And hope. And every time it's not our ticket out of here we die a little inside. But still, we cook good food and eat it. Because that's what good vegans do!

I will spare you all the rest of my mental breakdown.

Begin Foodiness!

Some catch-up!


Black Bean Burgers with Cilantro-Cashew Cheese, Curried Carrot Dip, Chips and Pickles!So even though I have several bean burger recipes that I like already, I decided to give the black bean burgers out of Vcon a shot. They were good! They didn't change my life, and I think they could have used a hefty pinch of salt, but they were solid. The cashew cheese continues to change my world and is transformed into a magical topping for these burgers by stirring in some minced cilantro. We also had some leftover Curried Carrot Dip out of Vcon - always a crowd pleaser, but it makes a LOT, so sometimes it's hard for us to use it all up in time.

Magical Granola with Sliced Bananas

Chad LOVES some granola. I always want to have made it - the night before. Even though it doesn't take long, I have issues with breakfast recipes that don't require my full attention from start to finish. As in, if it's going to take an hour, I want to be at the stove the whole time doing stuff. I have a problem with stir-it-up-and-wait recipes in the morning. Too hyper I guess! But I made it happen last week. Note to self: double or triple the recipe in the future, because this amount only got us through two days! We are granola hogs.

I got inspiration from Vegan Lunch Box for this granola recipe, but I feel that I've changed it up enough to share with y'all!

2 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup raw pumpkin seeds
1/2 cup sesame seeds
1/2 cup raw pistachios
3/4 tsp cinnamon
dash of salt
1/4 cup canola oil
1/3 cup maple syrup

Preheat your oven to 300F. In a large bowl, mix the dry ingredients. In a liquid measuring cup or small bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients. Add wet to dry and stir to coat. Spread the mixture evenly on a baking sheet and bake until lightly toasted, about 3o minutes, stirring halfway through.

Let it cool if you can wait that long. Stir in dried fruit if you want (we don't, but up to 1 cup works fine). Serve with vegan milk or yogurt and sliced bananas.

Out of Town Vegan Guest!

We had a friend visit for a few days last week (one reason I'm so behind blogging). She is vegan, too, which made things uber easy. We enjoyed some great food out - Pizza at Amici's and Middle Eastern ood at La Pita (thanks for the tip, Jennifer!) and awesome Ethiopian food at The Blue Nile. La Pita sent our guest into a frenzy looking for a recipe to recreate the amazing garlic dip that we found there (and used to get at La Shish) - it's some magical combo of garlic, olive oil and salt, and some people say potato. And a freezing cold mortar and pestle. Still haven't tried to make it, but someday soon because that stuff is seriously garlic crack!

I also made some food that I forgot to photograph (or maybe just felt too nerdy to do it in front of our guest). One morning I made tofu scramble (VwaV) and diner potatoes (Vcon). The potatoes were tasty, but kind of a pain. Why do potatoes take so darn long to cook?!? Another morning I made a double batch of pinto sausages and a double batch of powerhouse pancakes (it was a double batch kind of day). Another morning I made Drop Biscuits from Joy of Vegan Baking (awesome!) with leftover sausage. And one day our guest cooked lunch for us, and even though there was a sugar-salt confusion, it all turned out fine (I keep containers of both sugar and salt near my stove. You just have to know that the sugar is unrefined and brown, and the salt, though sea salt, is white. And decidedly not sweet!)

Today to try to reign in some of my sanity while Chad took Silas out to play, I whipped up a batch of these Raspberry Oat Bars:

Kind of a shoddy pic, but they are delicious! So few ingredients, but still awesome (basically, quick oats, flour, brown sugar, salt, baking soda and vegan butter with some raspberry jam layered in the middle. So good!) Perfect with a glass of unsweetened almond milk.

I also made up a batch of Apple-Sage Seitan Sausages, which were really good. They were more involved than the Pinto version, but I wanted to try a new sausage recipe. Next time I would add a little more salt, but otherwise these were a great combo of sweet and savory (and I love the fact that I finally got to bust out the Marmite that's been taking up space in my pantry for a while!). We had them for lunch with steamed broccoli and artichoke hearts topped with a little fresh cashew cheese and leftover tomato-caper couscous (Vcon).

I need advice and/or recipes!!!
So today I went to our local middle eastern grocery (which I always forget is sooooo close) and found myself in the bulk section where I quickly grabbed any random spice that had previously been called for in a recipe that I never had on hand. And this, dear readers, is why I'm looking for recipes that call for ground Sumac or ground Fenugreek. Because now that I have them, I can't remember which recipes called for them! And I know they're out there, and now I have to make them. Because the smallest container I could get for each was huge. So help a vegan out! You will have my undying gratitude.

BBQ Beans and Mole!

So I am officially in love with Veganomicon for giving me my two new favorite recipes: Backyard BBQ Sauce and Chili-Chocolate Mole! I've talked about the BBQ sauce before, but I had to use it up before it went bad (can! not! waste!) so I created this little meal on the fly:

BBQ Beans Over Capered Couscous with Sauteed Spinach and Tomatoes

Every part of this meal owes some part of its creation to Vcon although I came up with the BBQ bean thing on my own. I just used (all measurements are very approximate):

1/2 C onion, diced small
3-4 button mushrooms, chopped
1 cup garbanzo beans
1 cup black beans
1/4 cup Backyard BBQ sauce
4-5 shakes Chipotle Tabasco

Basically, I sauteed the onion in some olive oil for a few minutes, then added the mushrooms. I cooked those for about 5 minutes and then added the rest of the ingredients until warmed through. So easy, but don't let that fool you! They are delicious!

Chili-Chocolate Mole!!!
Ok, so I don't have the opportunity have mole very often, so I get really excited when I do. Chad is out of town (mysterious, I know) so basically that means that everything I cook while he is gone will contain chocolate! (Because he's allergic, in case you missed my mentioning it like 500 times in past posts. It's my cross to bear. ;) ). So my buddy Brooke came over last night with her toddler, because her husband is out of town, too. She is like 90% vegan, so that just made cooking all the more enjoyable, because I didn't have to worry about representing all of veganism with this meal!

So to save myself from extra hassle I decided to prepare the seitan the day before. I used the Simple Seitan recipe from Vcon, which I hadn't used before (my tried and true is the Faux Chicken Seitan from La Dolce Vegan). It turned out really well! I was even able to slice it really thinly for sandwiches (on Chad's request, for plane food. Which he forgot at home and I ate.)

I also made the mole the day before, and I'm really glad I did that. It's not hard, it's just lots of little steps and uses several electronic devices (food processor, immersion blender). I ate some the day I made it (see the photo above) - leftover Chipotle burrito bowl in corn tortillas with mole on top. YUM! It was pretty hot though, and I was a little worried I was going to burn Brooke's taste buds off. Luckily, it had mellowed some the next day. Note to self: the chipotle chili powder I own is as hot as the fiery pits of hell!

So my "dinner party for two vegans" menu was:

Seitan Simmered in Mole (Vcon)
Mexican Millet (Vcon)
Steamed Broccoli with garlic and olive oil
Corn Tortillas on the side

She brought chocolate desserts: coconut cupcakes with chocolate frosting (from Vegan Lunch Box) and no-bake cookies (yayayayay!). She left me like a dozen full-sized cupcakes and like 25 tiny mini-cupcakes. And like ten cookies. Yeah, I'm going to gain like 10 lbs this week. Sigh.

It was all awesome! And she loved it, too, which was awesome. Silas likes the seitan plain and really enjoyed the millet. Her toddler was not such a fan of any food, but he's slow to warm up to most foods. He munched on baby carrots and soymilk. Little vegans, so cute.

Oh, this week I also made up a batch of the Curried Carrot Dip from Vcon, which I love! It's the second time I've made it, and it is great party food. I've brought it to playdates both times and people always love it and want the recipe. If you haven't tried it yet, do. It's tasty and really easy. It's great on crackers, bagels and as a sandwich spread. I have also been known to stuff whole wheat pits with both it and tofu "egg" salad - kind of sounds weird, but it's awesome!

Vacation and lots o' food!

So we went out of town for 5 days and before that? Sick. Oh yes.



So I'm going to go backwards and start with vacation! Because it's fresh in my mind and really, who doesn't want to relive vacation?! We went to Phoenix from Wednesday-Sunday because Chad had a second job interview, so we decided to turn it into family vacation time. We were actually in the western suburbs of Phoenix, which was basically all strip malls, all the time. But it was beautiful, the desert, and it was 86 degrees the whole time. And sunny. Did I mention sunny? And 86? In MARCH? I was loving it UP. It smelled like sage and everything just had a crisp spring edge to it. Lovely.

So I was a little worried about being in the land of Mexican food and being vegan, because for all the ethnic cuisines that are vegan friendly, Mexican food is really not one of them. So no little taquerias for us unfortunately. Luckily, we weren't all that tempted because we were mostly surrounded by chains, which can be very helpful to the traveling vegan who has access to the internet! Let me just say that this was the best vegan traveling I have ever done. We had a couple great lunches at Chipotle (fajita burrito bowls with the black beans), and a great dinner at Macaroni Grill (pasta with garlic olive oil, bruschetta with no cheese, garden salads sans cheese and crutons - and a dirty martini!), and some decent bagles with hummus for me and pb&j for Chad for breakfast. We also bought some cereal and almond milk for brekkie to have at the motel, but we didn't have a fridge, so there was a lot of putting the almond milk in the ice bucket in front of the a/c, so after day 2 we decided not to risk it. ;) We also had some of the BEST vegan food EVER at Green restaurant, in Scottsdale. We had the edamame (for Silas) and Spicy Buffalo Wings (OMG!!! Must try to recreate this recipe!), then Chad had the No-Harm Chicken Parm and I had the Texas "moo-shroom" po boy, with unbelievably thin crispy and delicious thyme fries. Then, as IF that wasn't good enough, they also have their own homemade vegan soft-serve "ice cream"!!!!! That they make blizzards with!!! Called tsoynamis!!! Seriously! I had the rocky road with chocolate chips, vegan marshmellows, almonds and chocolate syrup, and Chad just had strawberry, cuz that's the kind of guy he is. It was bliss, pure bliss. I can't get over how wonderful it is to be eating at a restaurant where I can order ANYTHING off the menu and still be true to my ethics! It's amazing.

Whoo. Anyway. We also had some fabulous Thai food, but I have to confess that I'm a bad vegan. I never ask about fish sauce. The first time we had the thai I didn't taste fishiness at all, but the second time I caught a vague whiff of it. I'm going to stop being a lazy vegan and just start asking. Geez! What's my problem anyway? I guess I'm just worried about language barriers and being denied my favorite ethnic cuisine. But I'm gonna do it!

There were also several soy lattes at Starbucks. Good stuff all around. And we even survived the flight home with only access to a regular old grocery store (Fry's) - we found fresh berries, soy yogurt, Odwalla protein shakes and bagels and hummus for breakfast, and made Yves salami and hummus sandwiches on kaiser rolls for lunch. I was pretty proud of our success with vegan traveling.

We also did 3 hikes, visited 2 communities, walked around a couple downtowns, browsed an awesome used bookstore (Bookman's) and generally had a great time.

On to the food!


We had some fronch toast revisted here (with the additions of some vanilla and cinnamon to the VwaV recipe - a vast improvement!), with a side of almond butter sweet mashed sweet potatoes (inspired by Vegan Lunch Box), and some sliced bananas. Good stuff! I love having the sweet potatoes in the morning, it's a great way to get some orange veggies in first thing! The basic recipe is :

Breakfast Sweet Potatoes
1-2 sweet potatoes
1-2 T almond butter
1 T maple syrup (or to taste)
.5-1 T earth balance
salt to taste
cinnamon if you want (I skip it)

I microwaved the sweet potatoes for about 4 minutes , turned them over, and microwaved them another 4 minutes. Let them sit for a minute and then pulled the peels right off. Mashed in a bowl with the rest of the ingredients and serve!

Blueberry Coffee Cake from The Joy of Vegan BakingTo DIE for! I made this when we had some omni friends over after dinner out and it was a smash hit! This is a dangerous cake to have around because it is soooo tasty. We finished it for breakfast the next day!

Vegan Pizza Night!

Crust from TJ's, sauteed portabellos, a wee bit of leftover pesto and sliced tomatoes. Oh and just a bit of Follow Your Heart Mozzarella. The cheese was ok - it didn't melt much and didn't taste like much either, but it gave the appearance of cheese, which was fine. Now that I have the cheese in the house, I'll use it, but when we use it up I'm not sure if I'll replace it or not. I'm all about flavor, baby, and not so much for just appearances.

Loafcakes/Loaffins
Do you know the magic that is the Magical Loaf Studio? Created by the author of the blog and cookbook, Vegan Lunch Box, this handy little tool can pretty much make a vegan loaf out of anything you have in your kitchen. Ok, that might not be entirely true, but it's pretty close.

My loaf consisted of pumpkin and sesame seeds, lentils, breadcrumbs, onion, garlic, carrot, and celery, veggie broth, thyme basil, sage, nooch, veggie Worcestershire, ketchup, flax meal, Braggs, and olive oil. I cooked them in muffin tins, and before baking them I brushed on a combo of ~ equal amounts of ketchup and brown sugar with a dollop or two of more veggie Worcestershire sauce. Yum!

We had these with garlicky southern greens (from Vcon - can't get enough of these!) and baked potato with earth balance and s&p.

We had them a couple times, each time with the greens (they sell giant 1 lb bags of greens already washed and stemmed at TJ's! Awesome).

Navy Bean Cutlets with Mushroom Sauce and Roasted Carrots
Can't go wrong with the chickpea cutlets! I made a double batch this time with navy beans instead of chickpeas, and baked them for the first time (wow, easy and awesome!). This meal was a make-up-on-the-fly kind of thing, which is not my usual thing. I sliced up carrots and tossed them with some olive oil and maple syrup and salt and roasted them while I baked the cutlets. While that stuff was cooking I chopped up a portabello mushroom and sauteed it in olive oil with salt and white wine, then added in some flour and soy milk creamer to make it creamy and a little saucy. Oh and salt and pepper. It was really tasty over the cutlets, not really a gravy, but savory and delicious.

Other Stuff I Don't Have Pictures Of

I also baked up a big batch of cornbread from The Joy of Vegan Baking which was deLICIOUS! Like cornbread you'd get at The Cracker Barrel or something, it was really tender and sweet and awesome. Very different from the usual southern style skillet cornbread I make.
I also made a really great impromptu curry loosely following a recipe from Robin Robertson's Vegan Planet. It was coconut milk, red curry paste, chickpeas, green peas, and a can of diced tomatoes, sauteed sliced onion, carrots, and garlic all over whole wheat spaghetti. Next time I would add a tablespoon or two of Braggs, because it needed saltiness, but otherwise it was really tasty and made a LOT of food, AND the toddler was a huge fan.

Yesterday for a toddler playgroup I made a batch of Cornbread Blueberry Muffins from The Joy of Vegan Baking. These were ok - I was really expecting the tenderness of the cornbread, and these were much heavier/breadier. I was out of yellow cornmeal, so I used white, and I used all whole wheat white flour instead of half-white, half-wheat, so that might have been the culprit. I would make them again using less whole wheat flour because the flavor was good otherwise.

And finally, yesterday I made a batch of the Backyard BBQ Sauce from Vcon. OMG, yum! I slathered in on tempeh and fried it up for sandwiches for dinner last night (and lunch today) on whole wheat buns with a little veganaise and bread & butter pickles. Awesome combo! We had salad on the side.

Some Food and Stuff

So we had the east coast flu plague here - in fact, Chad is suffering its effects right now which is why I'm ready to throw the toddler OUT THE WINDOW...but I promise I won't. Seriously.

Vietnamese Seitan Sandwiches with 5-Spice Dipping Sauce
These are my new favorite sandwich. They are so tasty! All the different flavors together - it's seriously like a party in your mouth. The basics are baguette with veganaise (and don't skimp!) then some fried seitan, some cilantro sprigs, some red onion and some peeled cucumber, sliced thin and long (not circles, strips). Then the dipping sauce is some broth, garlic, red chili flakes, ginger and 5-spice powder. It is just so awesome, kind of like having vegan au jus. I love just about anything you can dip, though. Thank you, Veganomicon!!! I never would have come up with this one on my own.

Isa Pizza Turned Vcon-inspired Lasagna

Ok, so the picture really doesn't do it justice, but this was awesome! I was too busy shoveling it into my mouth to take a picture of an individual slice. So I was going to make Isa Pizza - I had TJ's dough to use up. So I made the sauce, pesto and tofu ricotta from Vegan with a Vengeance. I get ready to roll out the dough and I realize it ain't happenin'. I left it on the stove to come to room temp, but it was too hot and the bottom half sort of half-cooked in the bag. Blech! What to do!?! So much work, for nothing! Then I realized I had pretty much what I needed for a lasagna, so I got out my no-cook noodles (god, I love those things) and set up my assembly line. I used a little pesto in the second "cheese" layer, but I have a lot leftover for rice salad or pasta or pizza another night. Then I baked it a while, then added the V-con pine nut cream sauce for the last 15 minutes - the white cracked stuff in the picture above. YUM! That stuff is the bomb. So creamy and delicious. A very satisfying lasagna, I would definitely make it again. I have to remind myself (often) that lasagna isn't really a big deal to make, especially when using those magic noodles. It always feels like it will take 5 hours, but it really takes like an hour and 15 minutes, including cooking time.

Carrie's Magic Powerhouse Pancakes

So I wanted pancakes this morning, but I've struck out the last couple times I've made them. My fellow blogger Carrie at Adventures in Vegetarianism posted a recipe the other day that sounded good, so I popped over there and found it. They were AWESOME! I will definitely make these again, probably doubling or tripling the batch so that I can have ready batter in the fridge for successive days (ever tried that? It's a great trick. The "dough" has time to really relax so the pancakes are awesome and fluffy and magic). We had these with maple syrup and apple slices. Yay for pancakes!

In other news, Chad was able to master the Whatchamyballs recipe and made a batch that we devoured in like 1.2 days.

Oh and just a note - we went to Trader Joe's Today and I got some of those Vegetable Gyoza that I keep reading about over at theppk.com - and they are SOOOOO GOOOOD! That's all.

Vegan Baking Weekend!

Homestyle Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies!

Mmm, my house smells like chocolate chip cookies! With no animal products! These cookies are so freaking amazing, I think I might have to make them weekly. And let me say that that is a lot of cookies, because I'm the only one in the house who can eat chocolate! Chad's allergic, and because of that we're keep Silas away from chocolate until he's a little older. Luckily this recipe only makes 11-12 cookies, so it's not too bad. They're sooo good, I might only eat cookies today! Seriously, these are like tollhouse cookies, just perfect. I'm so in love.

So how can you enjoy these fabulous cookies? They are courtesy of Dreena Burton, author of Eat, Drink and Be Vegan and Vive Le Vegan and The Everyday Vegan. She also has a blog, eat, drink and be vegan and a recipe blog, Dreena's Vegan Recipes. It all looks delicious!

You can find the recipe for these cookies here. OR! Even better, you can watch a show of Dreena making these cookies here! They are simple and delicious. Make them!

Dreena's Apple Hemp Muffins

As I'm blogging this I've come to realize that I'm having a Dreena kind of weekend. ;) Friday morning I woke up and whipped up a batch of Apple Hemp Muffins, which are awesome. They are tender and subtle, not too sweet, perfect for the morning with a cup of coffee or green tea. Or a snack in the middle of the day with some chocolate almond milk! The recipe can be found in the Mar/Apr 2008 edition of VegNews. I would definitely make these again. Those little hemp seeds are nutritional powerhouses and this recipe is GREAT for using up applesauce that might be on the verge of going bad in your fridge (it uses a whole cup).

Chickpea Navy Bean Cutlets!

So earlier in the week I cooked up a big batch of navy beans (like a whole pound). The original use was for White Been Leek Cassoulet from Veganomicon - which was awesome! But it certainly didn't use up the whole batch of beans, so I've been throwing them in things all week. So last night as I was trying to decide what to make for dinner, I wondered if any other bean would work in the Chickpea Cutlet recipe from Veganomicon....and the answer is yes, navy beans are your friends! I followed the original recipe exactly, except instead of mashing the beans with a potato masher, I blended them in the food processor with the oil - those little buggers kept slipping through my potato masher unscathed. This went a lot faster than mashing, anyway, and I might do this in the future for whatever bean I use. I've also found that these cutlets - whatever bean you use - are improved by being very, very thin. And because they have vital wheat gluten in them you can really pat them thin without the risk of falling apart on their way in to the frying pan. So smoosh the crap out of those suckers, baby! Thinner! Thinner! Yes, really, they can be thinner than that, keep going!

We had these with smashed red potatoes and a side green salad. Oh, and the red wine roux from V-con. Which was kind of a pain to make and not really worth the effort, imho. Although our mediocre results could certainly be from the quality of the wine we used, or lack-thereof as the case may be. It was seriously bad. Undrinkable. I think it was a bargain bin purchase, and now I know why. No legs at all, just so flat flat flat! But other than that, it was a good meal. And some ruby port after dinner was a nice way to quickly forget how bad the wine was.

Oh yeah! One more thing I made that I unfortunately didn't get pictures of....The original title of the recipe was something like Peanut Butter Chocolate Bars, and it's by Collen Patrick-Goudreau out of the Mar/Apr 2008 issue of VegNews. The original recipe is basically peanut-buttery rice crispy treats covered in a layer of chocolate. Ok, sounds awesome, right? Well....Silas isn't eating peanut butter yet, so we subbed Cashew Butter. And Chad's allergic to chocolate, so nix the topping. So after getting everything else mixed together and pressing it into the pan, we realized that they probably weren't going to cut or hold shape without the chocolate topping. So we threw it back in the bowl and rolled them into little no-bake balls instead. OH MY GOD. These things were so freaking good! Chad and I agreed that they taste really similar to the peanutty goodness of the Whatchamacalit candybar. And because of this, we would like to rename our version Watchamyballs. Hahaha! No, but seriously, you have to try them!

Whatchamaballs
2 cups of crispy brown rice cereal, crushed
1 1/2 cups cashew butter
2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup earth balance margarine, melted
1 tsp vanilla

Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl. Roll small balls of the dough in your hands to form whatever sized balls you like. Try not to eat them in one sitting. Store leftovers in the fridge!

For some reason Chad convinced himself that they're healthy so we ate these in no time flat. "What, they're all cashew butter and brown rice! What could be better?" And I'm thinking, yeah, healthy....powdered sugar and margarine, part of the four food groups...But really, it's a pretty good compromise.

So now I've got the house to myself for a while. I'm so psyched! I'm planning on hanging out in my sunny kitchen, listening to cool podcasts, planning this week's meals and cooking. What could be more relaxing! :D

Yummy pasta goodness

Tonight I broke out the Veganomicon to try out the Penne Vodka. Great stuff!


I (obviously) didn't have penne, but Barilla Plus Elbows stood in just fine, and so did dry roasted almonds for the regular almonds. This was tasty, easy and quick, and I will definitely make it again. Just have to make sure that I have fresh basil around, because it is absolutely necessary in my opinion. We also had a green salad with a balsamic-maple dressing that I threw together and garlic rubbed toast with Earth Balance. And Chad and I split a Ruination IPA. Oh the awesomeness abounds!

The State of Affairs of Operation Go Vegan
So I've listened to even more Vegetarian Food for Thought Podcasts, which I'm convinced would change anyone's mind. They're so well-reasoned and straightforward.

I also checked out The Vegan Sourcebook by Jo Stepaniak, and I've been enjoying it a great deal.

Every time I think of cheese, I imagine baby calves crying out for their mothers, and the mothers bellowing for their babies.

Every time I think of eggs, I imagine an emaciated hen that had to endure forced moulting, where she was starved for up to 14 days without food or water.

And I've also been really interested/disgusted to really REALLY comprehend that the egg and dairy industry all rely on the enslavement of the female reproductive system. As a feminist and a mother, I just can't participate in that anymore. I imagine how I would feel in their stead, and I don't know how anyone can think it's ok.

I think of science fiction stories and books where these kinds of things are done to humans and how it takes that kind of mirror for us to see the sickness of the situation. I'm thinking of this one Twilight Zone episode where an astronaut lands on an alien world, and is taken in by the aliens (who appear to be just like humans). They build him a house and it looks just like the house he grew up in, and he is so excited about it and meeting the aliens. At the end of the episode it's revealed that the man is confined to that house forever - he's an exhibit in the aliens' zoo.

The last time we tried this vegan experiment we had all kinds of caveats. We would cook vegan at home but not hold ourselves to an "impossible" standard when eating out. The Midwest is not exactly a bastion of vegan living, after all. We were coming at it from a health perspective, not an ethical one. Now I'm really coming at it from an ethical, health AND environmental angle. It's all encompassing. But this is a hard life choice - this is a non-vegan world, after all. And I'm coming to realize that unless ethics is at the forefront of this choice then it is far too easy to slip, to make excuses. To convince yourself that this one ice cream cone, this one pizza, this one eggplant parmesan isn't going to kill you. And really, it won't kill you. But it will/did sign the death warrant of many, many animals. And the bottom line is that they just don't need to suffer terrible hardships and die just for my convenience. Because that's what it is. My convenience.

I know that this is heavy and annoying, and probably nobody is still reading. I just need to work through these issues for myself. Everything has been rolling around in my head for the past few days, and I just needed to "get it down on paper," if you will.

I just picked up Slaughterhouse: The Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect, and Inhumane Treatment Inside the U.S. Meat Industry by Gail A. Eisnitz from the library. And I have to confess: I am scared of reading it. I've seen the PETA videos, I've heard accounts about how the animals "live" in factory farm conditions. I'm still nervous about this book for some reason. But I'm going to read it anyway.

That's all for now!

Maybe vegan, again?

Several things have happened lately.

First: I've been listening to Colleen Patrick-Goudreau's podcast, Food For Thought. Colleen is the founder of Compassionate Cooks, which she founded to help educate people about the many benefits of a vegan diet. Her podcasts are AWESOME. She is super articulate, well-informed, and like the title says, compassionate. None of that snarky holier-than-thou crap that is so often a part of other vegan podcasts (*coughcoughveganfreakscoughcough*). She doesn't ramble on about her friends or what she did this weekend. These podcasts are professional - she's put a lot of time and effort into organizing her thoughts on the topic at hand. She's no-nonsense, down-to-earth, and I LOVE that her message is to *do the best you can*. It's not about being perfect, it's about doing what you can to live your life and alleviate the suffering of others. I highly encourage you to listen to her podcast, it's just really awesome. I especially like her thoughts about "excuse-itarians" - where she refers to a lot of the popular food writers right now, like Micheal Pollan, Barbara Kingsolver and Alice Waters and members of the Slow-Food Movement making meat-eating, not so much more en vogue as trying to cast it as more morally palatable by making weird darwinian arguments or saying things like "we have to eat them in order to protect the breed." I'm not getting into it here, but if you want to read more, check out this article or this article or Colleen's podcast episode "The Rise of the Excuse-itarian" from 10/26/2006.

Anyway.

This eating thing is a journey. I went from being mostly vegan last year at this time back to vegetarianism as I became more interested in eating locally. Because soymilk, tempeh, soy yogurt, egg replacer? Not able to get it locally. And I really, really, REALLY love the idea of supporting small, local farmers and NOT giant corporations. I love shopping at the farmer's market. I love being a part of a CSA. But what I'm coming to realize is that just because I *can* get it locally doesn't mean I should. Because, yeah, those chickens that lay the eggs that I buy might really be free range. BUT, that same farm also sells dead chickens for eating. Duh. Why did I not put this together before?! It's not cool. I think I just fell victim to the ideal of the small, organic farm; I had it in my head that this naturally meant no cruelty, no killing. Or at least no pain. Or they did some magic dance to erase the actual *killing* of another sentient creature that goes on. But. The chickens that they sell? I bet they would have chosen living. And as much as I want to, I'm having a hard time thinking my way out of the fact that the veal industry is THE (not A) natural outcome of the dairy industry. And another image/feeling I can't let go of is the separation of the calf from it's mother, just so we can have the mother's milk. As a nursing mother, I am literally nauseated at the thought. That poor baby, that poor mother, who want nothing more than the comfort of the other...Ugh.

And again, anyway. Another thing that has been coming up is a thread on a message board I frequent (MotheringDotCommune). A woman asked the question "Is human/ethical lacto-ovo vegetarianism possible?" And my first thought was to say, "Yes, of course it is, what a silly question." But the more I tried to think my way - very explicitly - through the set of conditions in which it would be possible, the more I realized how very far from that set of conditions I was living. For instance, if I could have my own hens and provide a place for the roosters to live, I would eat those eggs. Or if I could find a supplier which met those, conditions, no problem. Chickens lay eggs, it doesn't hurt them, it's cool. But the mass production of eggs? It's not cool. I won't/don't need to get into it here, but for a little view of why, check out Colleen's podcast from 1/22/2008 "I Only Eat White Meat." (And I know I'm referring to Colleen a lot, like I've taken her on as my own personal guru - I haven't. I have known all these things in the past. They're just the kind of thing you want to forget so that you can live your life of convenience and cheap, easy pleasures. She's just reminded me of what I've known since I was 18 and chose veganism for the first time.)

My husband is nervous about the prospect of "going vegan" again. Nervous for Silas, nervous that we can't got out to eat here in Meat And Potatoes Land, which is a real concern since going out to eat is part of what we call the "sanity tax" of surviving in Metro Detroit (i.e. this place sucks so much that we have to distract ourselves from it by doing stuff like going out to eat). These are concerns, but they very easily worked around. Silas, thank dog, is a GREAT eater of many delicious, vegan foods. I don't think he'll really miss the cheese or yogurt. And he's always hated milk (except for mama's!) so no worries there. The going out to eat thing? Well, I've done it before. It's a lot of question-asking, going out for ethnic food, and hummus on bagels. It's doable. And it's a lot of cooking at home, which I LOVE to do anyway.

As an aside - Yesterday I got to spend the afternoon partially alone in my house, in my sunny warm kitchen listening to Colleen and cooking up a storm. I can imagine no greater pleasure than educating myself which simultaneously engaging in a creative act that's natural outcome is delicious and nurturing foods for my family to enjoy. It was wonderful. Bonus that a toddler wasn't screaming for my attention every 28 seconds!

I'm rambling. I guess what I'm trying to say is: There's been a shake-up in our kitchen. I'm not sure where all the chips are going to fall, but I think you can see where this is headed. I've dusted off my copy of Becoming Vegan, I've stalked, purchased and practically made love to my copy of Veganomicon, and I've put Slaughterhouse on my to-read list.

Can we have a Maybe Local Vegan? Stay tuned.