Dark Days Week 4

So let me just say that it turns out I left my real camera in Portland, and we're not going to back there until Christmas Eve. So cell phone pictures until then, sorry! They really are so bleak, but in my opinion they're better than nothing.

Dark Days Meal of the Week

Mashed Yukon Gold Potatoes and Celeriac, Smoky Braised Greens and Hot-Sauce Glazed Tempeh

Ok, so this meal is a little bit of a cheat, because the Tempeh originates from 229 miles away. What can I say, I meant to make beans but I ran out of time. I thought I'd post anyway! Here are my sources:

Potatoes and Celeriac
Yukon Gold Potatoes - Helsing Junction Farm (86 miles)
Celeriac - Willie Green's Organic Farm (43 miles)
Splashes of Almond Milk, Earth Balance and S&P - non local

Smoky Greens
Braising Greens - Willie Green's Organic Farm (43 miles)
Yellow Onion - Helsing Junction Farm (86 miles)
Garlic - Helsing Junction Farm (86 miles)
Spices and seasonings (Molasses, Chipotle pepper, smoked paprika, tamari) non-local

Hot Sauce Glazed Tempeh
Tofurkey Tempeh - Hood River, OR (229 miles)
Garlic - Helsing Junction Farm (86 miles)
Seasonings (Frank's Hot Sauce, red wine, tamari) - non-local


The celeriac was really delicious mashed with the potatoes! I will defintely buy celeriac again. Next time, however, I will start boiling the celeriac earlier than the potatoes, because the celeriac didn't really mash completely, being a little underdone. It was still really tasty!

The sauce you see over the potatoes and celeriac is the potlikker from the smoky braised greens - it ended up being a little saucier than I thought it'd be, so I figured, Yay! Instant gravy. It was delicious!

And the tempeh has become a standby for us (recipe in Veganomicon). The recipe calls for just any wine you have, red or white (but not sweet) and we had a bottle of open red, so I used that. I didn't care for it as much as the white we usually do. But still a hearty, comfort food type meal all in all. :)

Now, with more recipe testing powers!

Yep, I'm super stoked to be doing some recipe testing for Robin Robertson's new cookbook 1,000 Vegan Recipes, due out Fall 2009! After some funny e-mail mishaps, I finally got my recipe list and I'm so excited!

So I'm obviously not allowed to talk too much about this, but let me just say that this dish, which features pasta, seitan, mushrooms and peas, is so delicious I just know I'm going to be making it regularly for the rest of my natural life! It was so comforting and satisfying, and the toddler even had seconds. A win all around!

Brunch Success!

Hazelnut-Pear Pancakes with Tofurkey Breakfast Links

This was a first try with these pancakes from Eat, Drink, and Be Vegan, and I'm happy to report they are AWESOME. I had a little jar of local hemp-hazelnut butter we got in Portland so I used that and some perfectly ripe local pear for these babies and it was amazing! The hazelnut flavor was so wonderful and for some reason reminded me of cappucinos, as I sipped my Dancing Goats coffee. Next time I will dice the pear slices, because the long slices made pouring the batter a little unwieldy. But they were inhaled by all participants of brunch.

The breakfast links were new to us and are interesting. Neither my favorite nor disappointing, we just agreed that they have a very distinctive flavor that was very forward at first, blank in the middle, and then finishes well. We'll probably only get these every once in a while, but I do so love to have a little easy peasy protein with our breakfasts.

spud!: So Far, So Good
So this was our first week using spud!, a local grocery delivery service. I really like it so far! Here's why.

I really like that they highlight which products they carry are local - although their definition of local is within 500 miles of the warehouse, which is a pretttty long way. But, you can find out how many miles each individual local product traveled to their warehouse, so that's a pretty cool feature for those of us who are trying to buy closer to home. I also really like that I can add and subtract items from my order up until the day before delivery. This is great for meal planning! It kind of forces you to come up with a plan, and cuts down on that whole wandering-around-the-store-aimlessly-looking-for-inspiration-to-strike syndrome (because I'm almost never inspired in the store and usually end up spending more money on stuff I don't need).

While they don't have everything I would like, the prices seem really competitive for the things they do carry (which is a lot, don't get me wrong!). For instance, I think field roast sausages are something like $5.75 at the local Thriftway; I got them through spud! for $4.42. Also, you know how organic red peppers are like $5-6/lb? I got 2 good sized reds for $3.66. And before you jump all over me about those not being local, blah blah blah, let me just say: They're for recipe testing! They weren't going to be local at the store either, so I might as well save a few bucks and some miles driving to the store, right? Right.

So the avocados I got are like little rocks and the bananas are underripe, but I'm happier getting them underripe than overripe. It just adds to the anticipation. :)

Oh, and it's free delivery for orders over a certain amount (like $30-40? I can't remember exactly).

So, stay tuned! There will be more recipe testing going down this week, accompanied by sub-par cell phone photographs! We do what we can, thank you.

Dark Days Intro and Catch-Up Food

So I took some time off after VeganMoFo to gear up for my new latest fun challenge: The Dark Days Eat Local Challenge. The idea is that of course (almost) anyone can eat local in the summer, but you kind of have to make an effort to do in in the late fall and winter. So here is a challenge to motivate you! It's way less daunting than VeganMoFo, rest assured. Just cook at least one meal per week using 90% local ingredients (or some other percentage that you determine for your location/ability, etc), blog about it and any challenges and post pictures if you can. Easy peasy. For a full list of rules and regs, check out this detailed post by the host of the challenge, Laura, of (not so) Urban Hennery.

The challenge begins yesterday, November 15th. But I have a couple of meals to share with you that helped me get in the mood for dark days. And I just have some regular old vegan food to show you, too. Yay, food!

Spaghetti and Tofu-Balls

These balls were from the oldskool Tofu Cookery by Louise Hagler. They were ok. The semi-deep-fry action kind of skeeved me out, they were pretty greasy. And not dense at all like meatballs should be. They were tasty in their own right (and I LOVE spaghetti and red sauce) but they were not like meatballs. I will definitely try making Vegan Dad's version next time.

Chickpea Noodle Soup

From Vcon, but the recipe can be found here. I added some kale and we were out of soba noodles, so I subbed some spinach ribbons. It was tasty! I love noodle soups. They're kind of the only soup I like. Other than lentil.

Mac, Oh Geez!

I just get in these undeniably moods for mac and cheese and nothing else will cut it. I've been wanting to try this recipe from Dreena Burton for a while, but I always forget to buy Brazil Nuts. Well, that didn't stop me this time. I subbed a few macadamia nuts and called it good. It was really tasty! The macadamia flavor came on way too strong, though, so next time I would use all cashews. It was really tasty and creamy and another great nooch-free mac and cheese recipe. Make it! I'll be making again very soon.

Dark Days Test Run: Savory Lentils, Roasted Delicata Squash and Smoky Collards

This was sooooooooooooo good. If local eating could be this delicious all the time, I would eat local all the time! The Savory Lentils are from a recipe in Eat, Drink and Be Vegan. If you haven't tried Delicata Squash, you are missing out. It is so sweet and creamy. And easy. And I think I have extolled the virtues of these collard greens in the past. Make them! They are so good. I can't wait to eat them again.

Gratuitous Biscuits and Gravy Pic

This was kind of hard-core biscuits and gravy, because instead of using Gimme Lean sausage for the gravy, I made tempeh sausage using the recipe from VWaV. It was a great substitution. And I feel better about it, since the tempeh is local and the sausage is not. Not to mention the tempeh is a fermented food, and the gimme lean has soy protein isolates, which I try to avoid. Go Team B&G!

Lazy Supper: Local Bread with Olive Oil and Smoked Salish Salt

And Panfried Tofu with Chipotle Cashew Cheese for Dipping

The tofu was from Eat, Drink and Be Vegan - the original recipe uses tempeh, but this time I subbed firm tofu. It's basically marinated quickly in tamari and brown rice vinegar, dusted with cornstarch and fried in coconut oil. The combination of the crunchy, coconutty tofu dipped in the hot-sweet chipotle cashew cheese was OUTRAGEOUS. Yum. The cheese was just the normal cashew cheese with 1-2 Tablespoons of pureed chipotle in adobo stirred in. It was sooooo good. It's also killer as a sandwich spread with avocado on baguette.

Dark Days Test Drive #2: Panfried Sunchokes (left), Braised Lentils and Winter Squash (right) and Kale with Raisins and Almonds (center)

So I had never had sunchokes before (a.k.a. Jerusalem artichokes). I panfried them in olive oil, with some garlic, s&p, then added a dash of lemon juice at the end. They were pretty good - kind of like a potato-artichoke heart combo flavor. They were a nice change from regular potatoes, but I wouldn't want them all the time.

The lentils was a combo of local roasted delicata squash, mixed with local shallots, carrots and garlic, some white wine, salt and pepper. Really tasty and pretty easy.

The kale was just braised in some water and oil, then added some raisins soaked in hot water and some sliced almonds. The almonds, raisins, oil, s&p and lemon juice were the non-locals in this meal (the lentils were locally purchased while living in Michigan - so even though they're not local here, they were purchased locally, so I think they count.) ;)

New Favorite Breakfast: Sweet Couscous with Pistachios and Raisins

I got this idea from an episode of The Minimalist, by Mark Bittman (love him!). The recipe can be found here. It is simple and sweet and delicious. A REALLY nice change from oatmeal, if you're getting burnt out.

Stay tuned for another meme I got tagged for (I'm talking about YOU, Bethany!) and of course, my official first Dark Days posting.

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!

Roasting Vegetables and Some Savory Lentils

Last week as I was having that panic stricken moment of "OMG there are too many vegetables in my fridge what do I do, let's just go out to eat instead." I talked myself off of that ledge with the foolproof idea of just throwing them all in a pan with olive oil and salt, roasting them at 400F for about an hour or so, and reaping the deliciousness afterward.

This incarnation of OMGVeggies includes:
Cauliflower*
Yellow Onion*
Sungold Cherry Tomatoes*
Golden Beets*
Carrots*
Mushrooms*
Chives*
Garlic*
Cubed Herb Tofu**
Olive Oil
Smoked Paprika
Salt and Pepper

I also made some roasted yukon gold potatoes*** with rosemary* and garlic* and some Garlicky Kale (Farmers Market) with Tahini Dressing (from VWaV). Yum! The cherry tomatoes burst during the roasting and mixed with the olive oil for this sweet tomato-y fantasticness. All of the veggies turn into golden love nibbles. Seriously, I'm not really a huge fan of beets or cauliflower, but roasted like this, everything just tastes luscious and juicy. Mmmm.

This week I'm participating in a "Giving Our Cookbooks Some Use" challenge over at The PPK Forums - this week the cookbook in question is Eat, Drink and Be Vegan by Dreena Burton. I have this cookbook, and I've made several recipes, but I love a challenge and I don't use this book as much as I should. So I'm challenging myself to make:

• Lemon-broiled green beans
• Blackened Tofu
• Savory French Lentils
• Roasted Winter Squash Rings
• Pan-Fried Temp-teh
• Teriyaki Quinoa
• Pumpkin Cheese Pie

Seems kind of psychotic, but I have all this stuff in the house already, so it's just a matter of making the time.


I started off the week right by making the Savory French (Puy) Lentils and Lemon Broiled Green Beans last night. YUM! Both were super easy and very tasty, and I would recommend them to all. I will definitley be making both again. I freaking love lentils, don't you? They're just so dang good.

To round out the meal I made a (huge) batch of this rice mix I bought at Trader Joe's - I think it has red, wild and brown rices mixed together, and I cooked it with some garlic powder, oregano, evoo and salt, so it had some flava on it's own. It went great with the lentils. I also made some quick pickles with our gabillion cucumbers and some radishes, red wine vinegar, sugar and salt. The rest are actually pickling in the fridge in jars, woo-hoo! Oh and we had an arugula salad topped with sungold cherry tomatoes and some of the tahini dressing leftover from the kale the other night. It was like a feast, I tell ya! I love fall, so many good things to eat.

* = CSA, Organic!
** = NW/Local Product
*** = Picked it ourselves! Organic.

We went apple and potato picking this past weekend, and also picked up some winter squash. I'm feeling a combo soup coming on...stay tuned.

Some Food, Some Challenges

It's August! Woo-hoo! That magical time of bounteous produce, that gateway to the wonders of autumn (by far my favorite time of year), the days grow just a little shorter but the nights are still warm. Hooray!

And so it's a time for challenges. I'm participating in two challenges this month - Jennifer's Quit Now Challenge and Chile's Discretionary Eating Challenge.

I'm Quitting: Bananas and trying real darn hard to quit paper towels. So far, so good.

For the Discretionary Eating Challenge I'm in for 50% BUZZ (trying to have no more than 1 cup of coffee OR alcohol a day; ideally having no alcohol and very few coffee drinks in a week and only purchased during Espresso Happy Hour for half off!!!). I'm also in 100% for LITE (eliminating "white", refined products, except for sweets) and SOW (seconds only when hungry).

I'm doing well on this challenge so far, EXCEPT for this past weekend. We unexpectedly went to visit my parents in Portland and I ended up cooking a fair bit (blueberry muffins, biscuits) with white flour, because that's all my mom had. Like I said, last minute trip. I will say this as a consolation though: I made my blueberry muffins from scratch and my mom made non-vegan ones from a mix. There were 6 adults (2 were vegan) and one toddler (vegan). At the end of the meal, all 12 of my scratch muffins were gone but only FOUR of the mix muffins were eaten! It's clear that homemade (and vegan!) totally kicks Betty Crocker's ass.

It's fun to challenge yourself! And it's not too late to join, so if you haven't already, check them out and sign UP!

And now back to our regularly scheduled foodiness....

We've been chowing down on some fabulous eats this past week. It was the first week in a while that I PLANNED MY MEALS. Holy crap, but it's true. I don't know why I ever stop planning them, because everything is infinitely easier/better/amazing when I do. Even when I don't stick to the list, having the list there is a life saver. Because I forget things. I'm scatter brained. You know when you used to walk into the video store and stare and the movies blindly like here are all these movies and I can't remember the ones I really wanted to see? So you walk out with nothing or something really crappy? Yeah? Well the meal plan saves you from that feeling, seriously. Even when you decide to eat (or rent) something else instead, the list is good to have for when you feel uninspired.

The Ubiquitous CSA Stir-Fry Extravaganza!
Local: tofu, snap peas, green onion, mushrooms and garlic. Yum! Over rice. I thickened the sauce with some cornstarch this time, which I will do again. It was glossy and tasty!


Chickpea Sensation Patties with Balsamic Maple Sauce (And oven roasted potatoes!)
This meal was FABULOUS. The roasted potatoes were just thinly sliced yukon golds from our CSA share, tossed in olive oil and salt and pepper and roasted at about 400F for 30-40 minutes. During the last 10 minutes or so I added FRESH (from the backyard) rosemary and it made them crazyOMGdelicious. The husband was almost frantic with his worship of the potatoes.

I love experimenting with veggie patties, so I dove into this one from Eat, Drink and Be Vegan by Dreena Burton. I made a LOT of substitutions and they were still amazing. Especially with Balsamic Maple Sauce!

Spicy Italian Cutlet Parmesan with Fresh Peas and More Potatoes!
Sorry for the sucky photo. I NEVER claimed to really know how to use my camera!

Anyway, this recipe utilizes Julie Hasson's recipe for spicy italian vegetarian sausages, only instead of sausages you make cutlet patties for steaming. Then you bread and fry those puppies up and (in my case anyway) with the aid of a half-used jar of marinara sauce and the hunk of Teese that is begging to be used, you transform them into something magical AND thrifty!

These were so great. Not a terribly fast recipe, but not hard either if you know what I mean. I will definitely make them again, they are great. And who can deny the wonder of freshly shelled peas? Or more rosemary potatoes?!

Perfect Pasta with Peanut Sauce and Green Beans
This is a recipe that I tested for Colleen Patrick-Goudreau's new cookbook, and it's tasty AND easy. It's just noodles, fresh lightly steamed green beans and a peanut sauce. YUM! Silas is a big fan.

Refried Bean Burritos with Funky Salsa Verde
Last week's bean was the chickpea. This weeks? The Pinto!!! I'm always kind of "eh.." when I think of pintos, but when I make them and eat them I remember why my husband always wants them - they're so good and creamy!

This was just a refried bean recipe from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman, with this amazingly delicious "salsa verde" - recipe courtesy of my CSA. I can't imagine that this is authentic salsa verde, but I don't care - it's soooooo good! I want more! I want to eat it on eveything! Anything is a vehicle for this delicious sauce! And in case you were wondering, that is a WHOLE WHEAT tortilla - I'm totally doing well on my challenge!

This is taken from the CSA's newsletter:
Salsa Verde:
We have made this sauce with marjoram, basil and cilantro so far and all have been incredibly yummy! The amount/variety of herbs doesn’t seem to be that important, but the lime zest and juice is! Serve with quesadillas, tacos, or roasted potatoes.

-Roughly chop up 1 bunch of dill and ½ bunch of chives and put them in a blender.
-Add the zest and juice of 1 lime, 2 TBS olive oil, 1 clove of garlic and a big pinch of salt.
-Blend until smooth.

That's all for now! Hopefully this week's meal plan will hold and I'll have some more goodies to showcase soon. :D

I Love Summer

So we got our CSA share yesterday and guess what was in it? Raspberries! They are coming out of our ears. Our backyard berries are definitely slowing down though, so we won't be reaping the raspberries too much longer. Now when the heck are my apricots going to ripen?

Our CSA share also contained Baby Fennel! I have no idea what to do with it, but I'm super excited to find out. We also got some awesome looking Bibb lettuce, fresh garlic, green onions, rainbow chard, shelling peas, dill, and asiatic lilies. Oh! We also joined an additional Mushroom CSA!!!! So we got some delicious FRESH little Pioppino mushrooms! Yay.

We've been cooking more as the heat hasn't been so, well, hot lately. ;)

My final recipe test for Colleen Patrick-Goudreau came out really delicious - Scotch Broth. Which is actually more like a veggie soup/stew rather than broth - barley, split peas, lentils, leeks, carrots, etc. Oh and potatoes. Very hearty and filling, and subtly flavored. It would be great with something like seitan sausages or something in that neighborhood of strong flavors.

Here's Silas enjoying his portion:

After our first CSA box last week, I made up giant Vegan Dagwood Sandwiches with a side of Simple Chard from Eat, Drink and Be Vegan by Dreena Burton. So easy and so delicious!

The sandwiches consisted of:
Herb and Onion Bread from Great Harvest Bread Co.
Avocado slices (thriftway)
Tomatoes from the farmer's market
Chickpea cutlets
Bibb lettuce (CSA)
Home Sprouted Mung Bean Sprouts
Cashew Cheese

YUM!

We also enjoyed a Tempeh Caesar Salad this week:
I just fried the tempeh with EVOO with a little grill seasoning, savory and tofu scramble spice mix from Yellow Rose Recipes. Then we topped it with Dreena's Living Caesar salad dressing (next time I'll use less lemon - it was very lemony), and some fresh tomatoes and mung bean sprouts and homemade croutons. Awesome!

Upon receiving my CSA bounty last night, I felt inspired to use up some of the older produce as well as featuring some of our new mushrooms - so stir-fry was the answer!
What I Did:
I got out my trusty wok, heated up some peanut oil over fairly high heat and fried up some of our most favoritest of all time Small Planet Garlic and Herb Tofu cubes. After removing those, I added some farmer's market broccoli and carrots from last week's box, as well as about 1/4 cup of water to steam fry. When they were pretty tender, I added about 1 cup of little mushrooms, 3 cloves of minced fresh garlic, 6-7 chopped green onion, and about 1 cup of sliced sugar snap peas. I added a couple of squirts of Bragg's and about 1 tablespoon of finely grated ginger and a bit of our cool new red celtic sea salt. At the very end I added the tofu back in and threw in 2 handfuls of mung bean sprouts (sprouted at home!). It was AMAZING!!!!! Maybe it's because I wasn't using any kind of recipe, maybe it was because everything was so fresh (and local and organic), or maybe it was the bottle of local chardonnay that we were well into.
I don't know, but it was fabulous. We had it over brown rice. (And that bottle was empty when Silas got a hold of it, I promise!)

Fresh Herburgers!

Ok this recipe has it's roots in Mark Bittman's Bean Burger recipe (from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian) but I changed it up enough that I feel ok about posting it here.

1.5 C of Cannelini Beans
1/2 C cooked brown rice
3/4-1 C old-fashioned oatmeal
3 cloves garlic
5 green onions, roughly chopped
1 small handful EACH (approximately 1/4 cup) of:
cilantro
italian parsley
And a couple tablespoons worth of fresh dill
Large pinch of salt
Freshly ground pepper

I also added about 1 teaspoon of Bill's Chick'nish seasoning and a large pinch of my tofu scramble spice mix mentioned above, so just throw in whatever usual seasonings you like - it's an adaptable recipe!

Put EVERYTHING in the food processor, starting out with the smaller amount of oatmeal. Pulse and process until everything is combined. Check out your mixture - does it look too wet to form patties? Add some oatmeal and process some more.

When you are reasonably satisfied with your mixture (taste for seasoning - nothing in there will hurt you!) use WET HANDS to shape it into patties.

Fry up your patties on a pretty hot skillet with some EVOO (I use cast iron). Flip when it gets brown on the bottom, about 3-4 minutes and cook until the other side is browned.

We had ours with HOMEMADE (!!!) wheat bread, cashew cheese, ketchup and lettuce - they were awesome!
Local vs Vegan News

Ok, it's not really a competition, but I just wanted to post these links about greenhouse gas emissions and diet - in the Vegan vs. Local Omnivore Challenge, the vegan wins!

Do Food Miles Matter?

And the original report that is quoted above can be found here:
Food-Miles and the Relative Climate Impacts of Food Choices in the United States

What I'm taking from this is that being a locovore is good, being a vegan is better, and being a locovore vegan is best! I'm personally recommitting to sourcing as much of my vegan diet as locally as possible.

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!!!!!