best. bread. ever.

I made herb bread last night. It goes without saying that it tastes amazing. This was the first bread recipe I ever used, and for my money, it's still the best I've tried. Even by hand, without the bread machine, the whole thing only took about 3 hours, start to finish. Herb bread, ftw!

easter beans

"Easter Beans" aka "Calico Bean Bake" is a dish my mom has made for us every Easter for as long as I can remember. The original recipe comes from this awesomely sixties Betty Crocker cookbook, but my mom has always modified it a bit to make it a little healthier (by leaving out the shortening and pork, mainly). My brother and I have been obsessed with these beans our whole lives, because they're insanely delicious, but this last Easter was the first time I remembered to get the recipe from my mom. Since then, though, I have made a big pot of them nearly every other week.

The photo above is "Easter Beans" mainly with respect to the sauce. I had some corn, green beans, and a can of jackfruit that needed using, so I threw them in, but they're definitely not part of the classic recipe, which is a bit simpler.

Easter Beans
-aka-
Calico Bean Bake
Serves 6

1 cup chopped onion
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 cup catsup
1 16 oz can diced tomatoes
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1 teaspoon salt
1-1 1/2 Tablespoons vinegar
1 can pinto beans
1 can great northern or baby limas
1 can kidney beans

Cook onion and garlic in 1 tablespoon olive or canola oil (margarine will work, too) until tender. Add catsup and remaining ingredients. Turn into 1 1/2 quart casserole. Bake at 350 for 1 1/2 hours.

*NB: Personally, I don't mess with the oven on this one. I always double the above recipe and make it in the crockpot, like my mom always has, but you're welcome to whichever method suits.

june growing

I really miss my garden plot in the community garden, but life just got too busy. So, for the last two years I have had to resign myself to potted plants on the front and back porch. At the moment I've got basil, mint, two different kinds of tomatoes, and a dwarf lemon tree. I'll probably look into some strawberries after I get back from a quick trip I have to make up to northern California. Even though it's not the same as growing chard, lettuce, squash, watermelon, peppers, and all the other things I used to get out of my garden patch, this is better than nothing, and keeps me digging in the dirt a couple of times a month or so.




This last photo is just one of the many house finches who eat the birdseed and drink the water I set up in a feeder on my back porch. I like to be able to look up from my book or my computer throughout the day and see the finches munching on seeds, or sipping water, or fighting, or any of the other funny things they do. This guy's a male, as is apparent from his red markings. The lady finches mostly gang up on the males and chase them off, so I only see one or two each day.

good morning

My camera still isn't back, but here's what my morning looks like so far: organic kiwis and an Americano.

vegan brunch

Even though I sincerely felt that I did not need any more vegan cookbooks in my life, I could not, of course, resist Vegan Brunch. My camera is off exploring the wide world for the day (with my partner in tow), so here's a shabby computer picture of my first experiment with Vegan Brunch: vegan omelets. I basically bought the book specifically for this recipe, so I was going to feel really disappointed if I didn't like it. I have tried several vegan omelet recipes in the past and could never eat them because they were so heavy on the chickpea flour, which I apparently don't love the taste of, despite the fact that I basically live on chickpeas in one form or another, most weeks. Long story short, I loved this omelet, so all is right with the world. I made an onion/tomato/spinach/vegan cheese filling, which was awesome. Also, I have to report that kala namak is officially condiment of the year, as far as I'm concerned. Another Isa win.

thailand--eats

Wow, this post is SO overdue. For almost a year now, I've been meaning to post about this delightful little vegetarian restaurant we ate at a number of times during our time in Thailand (Taste From Heaven; see below), because I wanted to give them an internet shout-out, but I'm only just now getting to it. While I'm at it, though, I may as well do a full Thailand post, so here we go.

We spent a little time in Bangkok, a city we didn't like at all, and fled from as quickly as we could, and then had to choose between heading north or south--north to the mountains or south to the beaches. My partner is not at all a beach person, and I am only a little bit of a beach person, and anyway we live in Southern California, minutes from the beach in real life, so the decision, for us, was pretty easy: we went north to Chiang Mai. I have seen enough pictures of gorgeous Thai beaches to know what we were missing, but we were so happy with our decision. Chiang Mai was a bit cooler, and it was nice to take a break from the heat, and it was just such a relaxing place to hang out for five days. There's lots to do, including renting a scooter and going on a Wat tour, or scooting out of town for some waterfall or jungle scenery; hiking and rafting excursions; elephant sanctuary tours; and more. We did a lot of these things, but we also just relaxed, had nice dinners, beers in little bars, met fun people, and just generally kicked back after a few weeks of intense travel.

Chiang Mai is a vegetarian/vegan traveler's dream. There were so many restaurants to choose from (most of which were not in our basically useless Lonely Planet guide, as I've already said, but we were able to find them just by walking around, or spotting them on a scooter adventure around town). The hands down best place we ate (repeatedly) in Chiang Mai was Taste From Heaven. This was the only place in Southeast Asia I ever saw the word "vegan" used, so we ate with a little more confidence on that score, and then man, the food was just incredible. And it was an added bonus that some of the proceeds went to support the Elephant Nature Park.





Aum Vegetarian was one of the only veg restaurants listed in our LP guide that we managed to visit. Most of the others either had crazy hours, were way outside of town, or seemed to no longer exist. Aum did have kind of crazy hours, but it was just around the corner from our guest house, so we managed to try it. The space was cute, in terms of being a restaurant inside a used book store, and the food was perfectly nice, so this was a good lunch experience:




The Brick Road Cafe was a place we just walked past in one of our excursions around town. The restaurant was adorable, the food was great, they had a donation box for helping stray dogs find adoptive homes, and there was a sweet little pup passed out under the table next to us, so needless to say, I loved this place:






We stayed at Gap's House in Chiang Mai, because it had a great location near the center of the old city, a vegetarian buffet every evening, and a vegetarian-friendly cooking school. Oh, and did I mention that it was really affordable? It's not a four star situation, but it had character to spare, which was exactly what I was looking for. The decor was homey, there were plants, kittens, and dogs everywhere, and the rooms were spotless. The owners were delightful, and they offered free internet. I absolutely loved this place.





Because everyone we met while we were traveling insisted that we *had* to take a cooking class while we were in Thailand, we did. We did it through Gap's House, because they already advertised that they could make accommodations for vegetarians, and told us vegan would be no problem. If you ever find yourself in Chiang Mai, are vegan, and want to take a cooking class, I can't recommend Gap's House's class strongly enough. They bent over backwards to help us modify the recipes they were teaching to be vegan, and made us feel super comfortable and welcome while they were doing it. Although I did enjoy this cooking class, my mind wasn't blown the way everyone else's we talked to was, and in retrospect I wonder whether those people just hadn't cooked much in general, so a cooking class was just like unbelievably wild to them? Don't get me wrong, it was really fun, but we had to choose between the cooking class and visiting the elephant sanctuary, and afterwards I couldn't shake the feeling that we'd made the wrong decision. We did see plenty of elephants throughout our trip, and that combined with everyone gushing about the cooking class experience led to our choice, which seems like a weird one in retrospect if I don't remember all of those things. Not that I didn't enjoy the cooking class, because I really did, but I just wish we could have done both things. Anyway, here are some pictures from the cooking class:





There were more dogs wandering around the cooking class. The owner of Gap House is a huge dog person, in case that isn't clear by now:


Chiang Mai was basically a vegan paradise, and it probably tied with Siem Reap as out favorite stop on the trip. I won't get to travel out of the country this summer, because I need to stay home and write write write, so it was fun to get to relive this trip a little bit on the first Saturday of my summer "vacation." ;)

thailand--sights

This is just a little companion post to the above post of Thailand eats. In addition to exploring the town, we made sure to get out of Chiang Mai proper to see a little of the countryside, going ATV riding through the jungle and white water rafting, among other things. Here are a few of the non-food related sights that we saw:







Rice growing!:





A jackfruit tree!:




A couple of sights from the otherwise icky/unremarkable Bangkok:

cafe de leche--los angeles, ca

Work has really been keeping me busy lately, and I know that I have been neglecting this blog a bit, but it's for a good cause: my dissertation! :)

Anyway, I just wanted to give a quick shout-out to Cafe de Leche, a new-ish cafe in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. In addition to having fantastic coffee, nice staff, a gorgeous space, and not charging extra for soy (yay!), they have recently started carrying vegan treats! They aren't labeled vegan, but the staff will tell you, the small tray by the register with donuts, cinnamon rolls, and iced sugar cookies is all vegan. The woman who started the lovely vegetarian Mexican restaurant, Cinnamon (also in Highland Park), is apparently their source.

So, if you're ever in the neighborhood, give Cafe de Leche and their yummy vegan treats a try.

maple banana walnut bread

We've been alternating between this maple banana walnut bread and the PPK Pumpkin Spice Bread for breakfasts lately. Both are super yummy! Here's my recipe for maple banana walnut bread (or maple banana pecan bread, if you prefer).

Maple Banana Walnut Bread
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt
2 bananas, mashed
1/4 cup canola oil (all but 1 Tbsp optional)
1 Tbsp ground flax
2 Tbsp almond, rice, soy etc. milk
1/4 cup brown sugar (optional)
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup maple butter
1/2 tsp maple extract (optional)
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup walnuts or pecans

Preheat the oven to 350. Spray a bread pan with non-stick spray.

Mix the dry ingredients in a medium-sized bowl. Mix all the wet ingredients in your stand mixer or in a large bowl. Add the dry ingredients in two batches, mixing until just mixed. Stir in the nuts. Pour batter into the bread ban.

Bake for 1 hour or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely before slicing.

**If you want to make this bread a little healthier, you can omit the brown sugar and cut the oil back to 1 Tbsp and it will still come out well.

pumpkin spice bread

I have a post about Thailand coming up, hopefully soon, but in the meantime, I just have to say that the pumpkin spice bread from the PPK is awesome. Wonderful on its own, or with a smear of Tofutti cream cheese.

I made a couple of modifications, namely replacing the apple butter with maple butter (since that was what I had lying around) and replacing 1/4 cup of the pumpkin with 3 Tbsp rice milk + 1Tbsp ground flax, as per the suggestion of a PPK reviewer, since I only had one can of pumpkin and one can is about 1/4 cup shy of what the recipe called for. I also added 1/2 cup of walnuts and left out the raisins, for no better reason than, I love walnuts and despise raisins in baked goods.

These modifications didn't impact the deliciousness of the bread, which in addition to being highly nom-worthy is also amazingly low in fat and semi-healty because of the whole wheat pastry flour, although you can't tell. It also made my house smell amazing while it was baking, so overall a huge thumbs up for the PPK pumkin spice bread.

remember remember the 4th of november

Seen in the window of a minimart in Siem Reap, Cambodia...


:)

cambodia--siem reap

In part 2 of my Cambodian adventure, I present: Siem Reap. Siem Reap was probably my favorite city of all the places we visited this summer. It had such a laid back vibe to it, and we had such a good time there. And the food... mmm, yummy.

For starters, there was this little vegetarian restaurant we stumbled across our first day in Siem Reap. It was in "The Alley," a shaded little alley near the city center that is lined with nice restaurants.


Our appetizer (fresh bread with a creamy, spicy dip) was fantastic, and the presentation was lovely, but the actual entrees were only so-so, so we only ate here once. Too many other wonderful places to explore!







We had several nice, super cheap meals at this no-nonsense kind of place on the main tourist drag in Siem Reap ("Bar street") called Soup Dragon, and then of course we had to visit the famed Dead Fish at least once.


While we waited for our food, we wandered around the restaurant and were treated to 1) free internet, 2) traditional Khmer dancers, and 3) crocodiles. Apparently the crocodiles are not for eating, but have been rescued from somewhere or other and are now kept "safe to live out long and happy lives," aka as a tourist attraction. I guess it's better than being eaten, but it still seemed like a pretty sad life for them to me...



While at Dead Fish, I got to indulge my favorite vegetable discovery of the trip: morning glory. This morning glory is not related to the trumpet-shaped climbing vine that Americans at least mean when they say morning glory. Rather, it's a green vegetable that grows in water and has a deliciously mild flavor, sort of like a mellower spinach except it also had crunchy, broccoli-like stems. Anyway, I loved this stuff and ate it every chance I got:


Siem Reap is also, of course, the town from which you explore the temples of Angkor Wat, so here are a few pictures from our several days spent visiting the magnificent temples.

This is the overgrown temple where they famously shot part of Tomb Raider:



Here's Bayon, which was my personal favorite:





Angkor Wat at sunrise:


Around Angkor Wat:






We also went one afternoon and visited this artisan's collective in Siem Reap. We started at the branch in town to see the paintings and carvings done there, and then hired a tuk tuk to take us to the branch out of town, where they make silk. As vegans, we've always wanted to know a little bit more about how silk is made and why they have to kill the silk worms in the process, so this was pretty much the most educational experience we could ask for:


Here are the live worms eating mulberry leaves:

These are the cocooned worms, which they bake in the sun to dry out the cocoon and kill the worm:


And here they are spinning the cocoons into silk:


Here are some of the center's artisans being trained in how to spin, dye, and weave the silk:


And finally, a finished scarf:


I think we came away from the experience with a deep and sincere appreciation for the incredible artisans making this silk, but still feeling that since silk is not necessary for us to have happy, healthy lives, we would rather not buy and wear it. I'm really glad we went and saw the process first hand, though, because it was amazing and we really learned a lot.

Siem Reap itself and the temples of Angkor Wat were absolutely the highlight of the trip for me, so if you ever get the chance to go, don't hesitate! We also got two or three lovely $6/hour Khmer massages at pretty upscale massage parlors, so that definitely helped foster friendly feelings toward the city, as well.

I've got one more South East Asia post up my sleeve yet... Next stop, Thailand!

cambodia--phnom penh

We looooooved Cambodia, so I found that I wanted to post so many illustrative pictures that this would be better divided into two posts. We started our Cambodia leg of the trip in Phnom Penh, the capital city, so that's what this post will cover. In terms of the vegan eats, everything we had was good, but two experiences really stand out. The first is Friends Cafe, the restaurant aspect of a charity devoted to training street youths in business skills. The restaurant is a bright, clean, colorful space just around the corner from the Royal Palace. Once you're seated, about 3 different young waiters approach your table: one person who is actually going to take your order, one person who is in training to become the person who will take orders, and one person who is an experienced server supervising the whole thing. The restaurant is tapas-style, so you order several little things each, and there's a large, separate vegetarian section to choose from. The prices are a little bit spendier than you might pay elsewhere in Phnom Penh, but it's for a good cause, and the food is EXCELLENT, so it seemed worth it--we went back twice!


Since I was doing the semi-careful traveler thing of no raw vegetables at most restaurants, I hadn't had a salad for a while by the time we got here, so I couldn't resist the siren song of this beauty...

I forget what this was called, but it was nice...

OOH, this was SO GOOD. I ordered it twice. The most crazy delicious spread I've ever tasted on a lovely sliced baguette. I think the spread was eggplant-based. Holy cow was it good.

Grilled veggies...

A glass of chilled white wine on this hot day? I don't mind if I do.

Anyway, you get the idea. They also had incredible fresh juices that were also right up my alley. We loved Friends Restaurant, so if you're in Phnom Penh, I highly recommend a visit... or three. The second lovely dining experience I'm going to post about was totally different. We went to have dinner at the home of a man who drove a taxi but ran an English school for children in the neighborhood at night. The plan was to meet some of the students and then have dinner with them, with the price of our dinner going to help support the school. Unfortunately it POURED rain that evening, so by the time we got there, the surrounding streets, and the school room itself, were all flooded with about a foot of water. So, the students stayed home and instead we ate dinner upstairs with the teacher and some of his family, while the teacher told us a bit about what it's like to be a Cambodian today, 16 years since the country began holding democratic elections again--the financial struggle most citizens face, the lack of free speech or political freedoms, the corruption... it was a really sad dinner, in some ways, but amazingly important in terms of getting a sense of what life's like in Cambodia outside the tourist bubble. The dinner would have been a fantastic experience no matter what the food was like, since eating was a little bit beside the point, but it was fantastic. They made vegan versions of everything for my husband and me, and there was so much more food than we could eat... vegetables, noodles, a curried potato dish... there were also fried tarantulas, a Cambodian specialty, which you can see in the second picture. We didn't partake of these, for obvious reasons, but they were interesting to see...



The last Phnom Penh dining establishment we visited that was remarkable enough to note here was the FCC, or Foreign Correspondent's Club. We never ate here, unless you count french fries, but we seemed to stop in for a beer or two pretty much every day we were in Phnom Penh, just because it was a pleasant place to take a load off:


So much for our delicious vegan eats. I'll leave you with pictures of a few of the sites from Phnom Penh...

Monkeys on power lines:

Don't eat that, baby monkey!

Offerings at the pretty wat (temple) on the hill:

Orchids at the Royal Palace:

You could always tell when I had the camera by the pictures of animals...

Coming soon: Siem Reap, Cambodia!

vietnam

I'm going to divide my posts up by country, so, without further ado, here's Vietnam. We were only in Vietnam for 3 1/2 days, so most of our eating experience was in Ho Chi Minh City. Since we're not big breakfast eaters, we kept breakfasts really simple by just grabbing dragonfruit (pictured above) and bananas from our hotel's continental breakfast on our way out the door in the mornings, and maybe supplementing it with a mid-morning granola bar. For other meals, though, we were bent on good veg eats. After investigating 2 of the 3 Lonely Planet-recommended restaurants, one of which was defunct, the other of which was really tiny and unclean-looking (sorry, but it's true), we just started checking things out around the Pham Ngu Lao area of the city ("backpacker's ghetto," in LP parlance). We found tons of stuff--just about everywhere we looked had at least a small to medium-sized vegetarian section on their menu--but nothing that was quite what we were looking for, since we wanted lots of veg Vietnamese food (as opposed to just one or two dishes, or the Thai, Indian, Italian, you name it, cusine that was on display everywhere we looked). So, we wandered down Pham Ngu Lao until we found a side street (also called Pham Ngu Lao) that had a lot of pubs and restaurants (including Le Pub, which is in a lot of guidebooks, so that's a good landmark), one of which was just what we were looking for:




For $3 USD each we got 2 appetizers, 2 entrees, and 2 beers, and it was all so yummy that we came back the next day and did it all over again.



This was such a wonderful dining experience, and there was actually even another vegetarian restaurant right next door, should we have been inclined to change. Not to keep harping on the lameness of Lonely Planet, but here were two great veg restaurants located not more than 10 feet away from a pub that was in their guidebook. Why couldn't they have listed one or the other of those in their useless veg restaurants section? The world will never know.

Anyway, our positive experience with our meals was also reflected in our experience of the city generally--we really loved Ho Chi Minh City. It's a friendly, fascinating, unbelievably scooter-filled city...


The War Remnants Museum, in particular, was really interesting...


After a few days in Ho Chi Minh City, we took a bus to Chau Doc, a town on the Mekong Delta from which it's simple to catch a boat up to Cambodia.


On the way to Chau Doc (at the random, road-side restaurant our bus stopped at) and in Chau Doc itself, we just ate noodles with vegetables or rice with vegetables, which is pretty much the vegetarian stand-by in Vietnam. Both meals were perfectly pleasant, although I failed to photograph them. Here's our waterside hotel in Chau Doc, though, where we had our dinner:


From here we caught a boat up the Mekong to Cambodia, which will make up my next post...

south east asia: a text-filled prelude

I have been absent from the blogging world for what feels like forever. I had a busy, travel-filled summer, and now that I'm back I've got teaching to contend with and my diss to write, so I can't promise I will become a super-frequent blog poster again any time soon. BUT, I do promise never to abandon this blog entirely, and that I will set myself a minimum of one post a month. That shouldn't be hard to do, since I'm collecting photos and things all the time, so it's just a matter of getting them up here...

Prologue/apologia out of the way, I've got a couple of posts for y'all about vegan eats in South East Asia. My Person and I took a trip to Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand this summer, and going into it, we were really, really concerned about whether we would be able to find anything vegan, in light of all the fish sauce/meat that both guidebooks and friends were assuring us we wouldn't be able to avoid. Lonely Planet, in fact, was the worst, with the guidebook not only promising that vegetarians would have an impossible time in South East Asia, but also going out of its way to try to shame vegetarians by assuring them that they would be missing out on the "authentic experience" of SEA if they tried to stick to their narrow-minded and needlessly uptight eating regimen.

Can I just take a moment to say how much I HATE Lonely Planet guides? (If you're not interested in my Lonely Planet rant, and you're probably not, feel free to skip to the next paragraph.) I keep buying LP guides when I travel because they're so... ubiquitous, I guess, but this is definitely my last trip with their guidebook. They're not even that great in other respects, I had a terrible time with their vegetarian recommendations in South America, and now I've had another terrible time with their guidebook in SEA. Their vegetarian recommendations are often out of date (as in, the restaurant no longer exists) or just down right bizarre (think, filthy hole-in-the-wall in an out-of-the-way neighborhood), given the plentiful availability of better veg options, if only one cared to look. How many vegetarians must use those guides, and yet they clearly not only refuse to hire vegetarians or even people who are vaguely veg-friendly/knowledgeable, but actually hire people who are totally hostile to vegetarianism because they have some idea that being veg gets in the way of the "authentic cultural experience" LP imagines it's selling. Well, I have travelled all over Europe, in South America, and now South East Asia as a vegan, and I've had plenty of experiences that would fall under Lonely Planet's rubric of "authentic"--homestays in Quecha villages in the highlands of Ecuador, 3 months of life with a German host family in Berlin, a random dinner with a Khmer taxi driver/English teacher and his family in Cambodia, and so on and so on--and guess what? My veganism was never a problem. They may have thought I was a little odd, but they made me their version of vegan food, and I ate it, and it was always a wonderful experience. Yes, my experience as a vegan will be slightly different than the experience an omnivore would have, obviously, but who is to judge which is the better experience? Or, why does one even have to be counted better and one worse? In the end I say, keep your crappy guidebooks, Lonely Planet. I'm sick of you pretending to pander to vegetarians while all the while directing thinly-veiled hostility and disapproval toward us. I don't need you. This is goodbye.

Ok, thanks for letting me get that out there. The breakup has been a long time coming... So anyway, we fearfully packed half our packs full of energy bars, but, as you'll see from the following posts, we had zero problems finding delicious, healthful, CHEAP!, vegan foods everywhere we went... Despite Lonely Planet or anyone else's promises to the contrary, the same thing held true that I've found most places I travel--you just need to wander over to the tourist quarter of any city to find restaurants that will have veg options (and sometimes you'll find entire veg restaurants). The veg Israelis have pretty much always been there before you, paving the way. The only places I've been where that wasn't necessarily true (e.g. Bolivia), I had no problem finding local dishes that were or could be made veg. So stick it, Lonely Planet!

camp food

I just got back from another camping trip, and this one was a little more luxurious, shall we say, than my last trip, in the sense that we brought tons of food, including cold stuff in coolers, and did a bunch of cooking rather than living off energy bars, dried fruit, or packaged stuff that only requires the addition of boiling water. I had vague plans to photograph our meals, but that never happened, so I will instead just have to list some of what we ate, with the idea that such a post might help give ideas to other camping vegans. The night before we left I made banana bread (I reduced the sugar and used whole wheat pastry flour instead of AP), a half batch of Veganomicon's Prospect Park Potato Salad, and a half batch of Texas Chocolate Cake to take along, but otherwise we just worked with groceries. Here's what we had over the course of our 4.5 day trip.

We ate:

Breakfasts
-Coffee with almond or rice milk, which we brought in the 8oz packages so we didn't have to keep them chilled
-Banana bread, sometimes topped with Tofutti cream cheese (the non-hydrogenated kind)
-Bagels with Tofutti cream cheese, sometimes topped with Gardenburger breakfast sausages cooked in the skillet
-I brought stuff to make tofu scramble and had a package of dehydrated hashbrowns, but we never bothered making them
-I brought cereal but ditto above

Lunches
-Hummus, tomato, and cucumber sandwiches, seasoned with salt and pepper
-Veganomicon's potato salad
-Baby carrots dipped in hummus
-Fruit such as nectarines, oranges, apples, grapes, and watermelon
-Kettle chips
-Hint O' Mint Newman O's

Dinners
-Hot dogs cooked on the grill over the fire (we used Yves Veggie Brats) with corn on the cob (boiled on the stove, but could also have been grilled)
-Trader Joe's boil-in-the-bag Lentil Rice Biryani with boil-in-the-bag Chana Masala
-Boil-in-the-bag brown rice, kidney beans, and steamed carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower (we used the pre-washed and cut veggies from Trader Joe's), topped with FYH's low fat vegan Ranch dressing
-Capellini with TJ's tomato basil marinara plus a package of Lightlife Smart Ground, topped with grilled veggies and seasoned with garlic salt

Snacks
-Fruit (see lunch)
-Chips and salsa (why do I always crave this when in the mountains? I have no idea)
-Tamari almonds
-Primal strips

Dessert
-Texas Chocolate Cake! (this worked perfectly because it was chocolate and frosted, yet very stable/not subject to melting)

Other things we brought but never used: Popcorn, a can of Amy's medium chili, Imagine creamy tomato soup, stuff to make tacos, loads of energy bars, and loads more I can't remember. We were definitely well-fed on this trip!

texas chocolate cake

It has been a while since I posted. My work life kicked into super high gear in May and has only just calmed down. Well, ok, it actually calmed down a week ago, but then I went camping with a friend in Kings Canyon to celebrate the end of the school year (the end of grading papers! the end of dissertation deadlines! sort of!), so now I'm actually back, in the kitchen, occasionally making postable things. I'm especially looking forward to catching up on all I have missed in vegan blogland--have there been any serious breakthroughs in the last two months? Has a perfect tasting, melting, stretching vegan cheese been invented? I have no idea!

Anyway, explanatory preamble taken care of, I have a recipe to post. This is my veganization of my aunt's famous Texas Chocolate Cake, which has been brought to family functions since before I was born and is basically the best thing ever. Knowing how good it was going to be, I actually cut the recipe below in half when I made it last night because I didn't want my 2 person household to gain 100 pounds from this cake. The half recipe worked perfectly--I cooked it in an 8x8 cake pan for the same length of time, and that seemed fine. If you've never had Texas Chocolate Cake, you should really give this a whirl--it's seriously incredible. My husband and I are not huge chocolate people and he's not a huge cake person, but we loooooove this cake.

Texas Chocolate Cake
Serves: a lot of people!

Cook to a boiling point:
1 cup margarine (I like to use Earth Balance buttery sticks)
4 or 5 Tbsp cocoa powder
1 cup water

Remove from heat.

Add the following to above:
2 cups sugar
2 cups flour
2 Ener-G eggs or 6 oz plain or vanilla yogurt (or, ideally, 1 Ener-G egg and 3 oz yogurt)
1/2 cup soy creamer
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla

Mix well with a whisk or spoon. Pour into an 11x17 greased pan or cookie sheet with sides. Bake at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes. Frost in the pan while both cake and frosting are warm.

Frosting:
In a heavy sauce pan, cook to a boiling point:
1 cup margarine (I like to use Earth Balance buttery sticks)
4 Tbsp cocoa powder
4 Tbsp soy milk

Remove from heat.

Stir in:
4 cups of powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Frost cake when cake has partially cooled (10-15 minutes) and cake and frosting are still warm. Sprinkle 1 cup or more of chopped walnuts on top of the cake after frosting. Cut and serve when cool.

t.u.h.'s jackfruit carnitas

We made jackfruit carnitas using The Urban Housewife's recipe a few nights ago. I got the jackfruit (young, green, in brine) from my local Asian supermarket and then followed her method for rinsing, squeezing, and then coating the pieces with spices, except that I was too lazy to do each piece individually so I just shook spices over all the pieces in the crockpot and then stirred them to coat before adding the onion, garlic, and salsa verde. When we served them we added lettuce, tomatoes, salsa, and other taco fillings rather than just eating them "carnitas" style because that's not really our thing. This was such a simple and yummy dinner, so I'm sure we'll be doing it again soon. If you haven't given Melisser's wonderful recipe a try, get on it ASAP!

healthy cranberry walnut muffins

I am FINALLY over that stupid cold, but it took forever to get better (9 days!), so now I'm way behind in my work, which has meant a lot of stress and very little bloggable cooking or baking. I did make myself some breakfast muffins, though, because I spent last week running all over the world and needed grab-and-go breakfast options.

12 muffins is often too much for my household, and it's definitely too much for me when my person is out of town (as it currently the case), so the recipe below only makes 6 muffins. I try to make breakfast muffins as healthy as possible by using whole grain flours, no refined sugar, etc., because I'm a hippie at heart, but substituting some white flour for the whole wheat would of course produce a fluffier, less dense muffin. You could also cut out half the canola and replace it with applesauce for a lower fat muffin, which I may do next time. They're good just the way they are, though, so maybe not...

Healthy Cranberry Walnut Muffins
makes 6 muffins
1/3 cup soy, rice, etc. milk
1/4 tsp apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup agave nectar
2 Tbsp + 2 tsp canola oil
1 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 cup + 2 tsp whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 cup spelt flour
2 Tbsp ground flax seed
2 Tbsp rolled oats
1/4 tsp baking soda
scant 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 cup each dried cranberries and chopped walnuts

Directions:
Lightly grease half a muffin pan or line half of it with cupcake/muffin liners. Preheat oven to 325 F.

Mix the vinegar and milk together and set aside a few minutes to curdle. Pour the vinegar/milk combo into a large bowl and beat in the agave, oil, and vanilla extract. In a separate bowl, mix all the dry ingredients and then mix them into the wet ingredients in several batches until smooth. Stir in the cranberries and walnuts.

Distribute the batter equally between the 6 liners or tins, then bake for 22-24 minutes until a toothpick or piece of dry spaghetti comes out clean. Overbaking will produce dry muffins, so do check them at the 22 minute mark. Cool completely on a wire rack before eating.

Store in a covered container. I think these taste better the day after being made.


Approximate nutritional information per muffin, according to NutritionData.com:
Calories: about 205
Fat: 11 grams (canola about 6, walnuts about 5)
Fiber: 4 grams
Protein: 4 grams
Also: 6% RDA of Calcium, 7% RDA Iron

dtv banana bread w/agave

I've been sick as a dog since Sunday with a cold that has also produced laryngitis which, as you might imagine, has been making teaching really interesting this week. Luckily I laid in a bunch of supplies before I got too sick, among them the banana bread pictured above. I used the recipe from Damn Tasty Vegan, except that I replaced the 1/2 cup of sugar called for with 1/2 cup of agave nectar, since sick people aren't supposed to have sugar. Because baked goods with agave nectar brown faster than those made with sugar, I also lowered the baking temperature to 325 F and just baked the bread a little longer to make up for it (I think about an hour). I also added 1/2 cup of walnuts, because banana bread isn't banana bread to me without walnuts. The bread came out really yummy, not overly sweet but sweet enough, so I'll definitely make it this way again in the future.

homemade vegan cheese and seitan sausage

In one of my more unlikely vegan cooking experiments, last night I made not just vegan seitan sausage, but also vegan cheese. The seitan sausage isn't really an experiment, since I've made it lots before. It's just sausage-flavored seitan o'greatness, as per this post. The only change I made this time was to add 1/4 cup of ground flax seed to the dry mix and then a tiny bit of extra water to the wet to account for the flax. I wanted to add the flax for a little fiber and to healthify the recipe slightly. In the end result you can't even tell that it's in there, so next time I may try upping the flax to 1/3 cup.

OK, but, the vegan cheese. Well, that certainly qualifies as an experiment. I have been interested in the theory of the block uncheeses from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook for a while now, but truthfully I have never been very wild about anything I have made from that book, so I was steering clear. Last night, though, it occurred to me that my problem with The Uncheese Cookbook seems to be about flavor and seasonings rather than texture (Joanne Stepaniak and I must just have really different palates), so I should just start ignoring the seasoning parts of the recipes and adapting them to my own taste. So, for my first experiment in uncheesemaking, that's what I did. I used the basic formula from the "Colby Cheez" recipe but then totally ignored the seasonings and came up with my own version. I thought I was most likely to enjoy something spicy, so on that theory, here's what I did. Notice that there's no soy in the recipe, making it suitable for those with soy allergies.

Spicy Sliceable Vegan Cheese
adapted from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook

1 1/2 cups water
5 Tablespoons agar flakes, or 1 1/2 Tablespoons agar powder
1/2 cup chopped raw cashews
1/4 cup nutritional yeast flakes
1/2 Tbsp seasoned salt
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp chili powder
5-8 jalapeño slices (to taste)

Combine the water and agar in a small saucepan, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, stirring often, until the agar is dissolved (5-10 minutes). Next transfer this to a blender, add all remaining ingredients, blend thoroughly. Pour this mixture into a lightly oiled 3-cup plastic storage container (although I didn't oil my storage container and it worked just fine) and cool uncovered in the refrigerator. When completely cool, cover and chill for several hours or overnight. To serve, turn out of the container and slice. Store leftovers covered in the refrigerator. Will keep 5-7 days.

So much for the instructions. How did it turn out? Well, like so:


It's pretty fun to have homemade, sliceable vegan cheese for sandwiches, and the spicy taste suits me very well, thanks. For lunch I ate a slice on a sourdough roll with a piece of seitan sausage and it was totally yum. I'm sure there could be lots of interesting ways to flavor something like this, but I was happy with this as a first effort. If you wanted to play with it, you could disregard everything in the ingredient list after nutritional yeast and just add your own spices and see what you come up with.

Because I'm a total hippie like that, it makes me happy that this vegan cheese is not super processed, that I know exactly what went into it, etc., etc. I suspect it doesn't melt, so it will probably be limited to sandwich-type applications, but anyway, I had a good time making it and am surprisingly enjoying the flavor.

falafel waffle!

I have been meaning to try falafel waffles ever since I saw this bit of genius on Don't Lose Your Lunch back in October. Well, today I finally did it and guess what? Falafel waffles are rad.

I never make falafel at home because it always seems like too much work to make the mix, form balls or patties, fry them (or broil them), and then eat them. In general, frying things seems like a ton of work to me for kind of a gross payoff, so left to my own devices, I don't tend to do it. The waffle iron is a pretty awesome solution to this problem because you don't need much/any oil (I just used a teeny bit of nonstick canola oil spray) and you don't have to monitor the falafel while it's cooking.

I decided to make these this morning, and I had big plans to make my own pita bread, my own falafel mix, etc. But then at the farmer's market this morning I bought some good, fresh pita bread and when I got home I was starving, so I lazed out by reaching for an old box of Fantastic falafel mix I've had sitting around for quite a while. The only thing I actually DID make was the tzatziki, which I made by just free-forming this recipe (and veganizing it, obvi, but that goes without saying). I was going to use some plain soy yogurt, but it turned out to be too old, so instead I used Tofutti sour cream plus a teeny bit of soy milk and lemon juice to thin it, then a teaspoon of crushed garlic, some hearty shakes of dried dill (didn't have any fresh), a little pepper, a lot of diced cucumber. If you've never had tzatziki, I highly recommend it as a compliment to falafel. I remember being 17 and traveling with my two best friends after high school. We got off the boat in Greece absolutely STARVING and there was a lady selling falafel pitas smothered in this totally incredible sauce (I was vegetarian back then). At that moment, it seemed like the greatest thing I had ever tasted. And it probably was.

Anyway, next time I'll make my own falafel, I promise. It'll be a while though, because the mix made 4 big falafel waffles, and I only ate half of one, so there's tons left over. I think I'll freeze the rest for some convenient lunches down the line. This was a super easy lunch, so it gets two big thumbs up from me. And I'm already trying to imagine what else I can cook in the waffle maker... maybe black bean burgers next???

P.S. Tofu Mom and Vegan Dad both have more detailed instructions for making vegan tzatziki. Tofu Mom's is dill-less for the dill haters out there, while Vegan Dad's is a little closer to what I did (although his recipe is more complicated). Check them out!

getting starter-ed with sourdough

Sourdough bread is my FAVORITE bread in the universe, but until I started seeing bazu and others posting about their sourdough adventures, it had never occured to me that I might make my own. I got my hands on some nice starter a few months ago, but it seems like I've been so busy that it was all I could do to keep the darn thing alive, let alone actually use it in a recipe. Well, yesterday I finally broke it out for a little baking. I decided to make rolls that I could use for little sammys rather than a big loaf. When they'd finished rising, baking, and cooling, I was so excited to bite into one and discover that--zomg!--they actually taste like sourdough! I can't wait to get a lot more involved with this starter. Bread, pizza dough, pancakes, who knows?

Ooh, and my copy of The Damn Tasty Vegan Baking Guide came in the mail today. Thanks to Celine for pointing out that Cosmo's Vegan Shoppe still has copies!

msv brownies

Happy to be home and back in my kitchen after my time away, I decided to whip up some My Sweet Vegan brownies last night. Every blogger review of these brownies that I have seen has described them as "fudgy," but oh my! I was not prepared for such intense fudgyness. I initially worried that I had undercooked them, since I have only made brownies two other times in my life and so do not count myself very expert in such matters, but after another 5 minutes in the oven, I decided that all I was doing was drying out the top, and so they must be meant to be that way. They're so rich that I had to cut them up into little brownie bites, but mmm, are they scrummy! I especially love the crumb topping; it's seriously incredible, and I will never make another brownie without it. My Sweet Vegan wins another!

good karma--san jose, ca

I was back up in the Bay Area last weekend for my grandmother's 91st birthday party. My husband, who was already up there, picked me up at the airport and took a starving me out for lunch. There are a few interesting vegan options a short drive from the airport, but Good Karma was the one we settled upon. Good Karma is a scrappy, slightly PFR-type vegan cafe located on one of the lovely tree-lined streets of downtown San Jose. Offerings vary from day-to-day and at different times of the year (for example, I was disappointed to discover that they didn't have any soup when we were there because, as the sleepy-looking guy behind the counter explained, "It's pretty warm outside now. People don't eat soup when it's warm." I certainly beg to differ, but oh well). The basic idea of the cafe is that you pick 1, 2, or 3 items from the glass case, they put them on a plate and heat them up, add rice, then serve. Everything is made fresh in their kitchen throughout the day, and they had a neat little assortment of vegan baked goods, as well (which I can't comment on because we didn't try any).

For my plate, I chose Thai-spiced tofu, steamed veggies, and mashed potatoes and gravy (I shocked the guy behind the counter by asking for a little gravy on my steamed veggies too... in case it's not obvious by now, I found this employee to be kind of a hoot). My husband chose these tofu roll things, a black bean-sauced tofu and veggie dish, and potato salad. We really liked everything, but I think the tofu and veggies with the black bean sauce was the best thing we ordered. Overall, Good Karma impressed me with great food that more than made up for its no-frills service and decor. I'll definitely be going back!

Good Karma
37 S. First Street
San Jose, CA 95113
(408) 294-2694

After lunch we thought we'd hit up the San Jose Museum of Art, but when we got there, they just had some Picasso and Goya work up; both of us have seen plenty of that in our lives, so we had a soy cappuccino in the museum cafe and then went across the street to the Tech museum instead.




The Tech museum was pretty interesting, and would be especially great for kids, so I'd recommend a visit if you're in the area.

All in all, it was a delightful afternoon!

mocked clam chowder

After seeing Metal Vegan's post about Mocked Clam Chowder, I decided I had to try it out for myself. The recipe is from Sarah Kramer's La Dolce Vegan, a cookbook I have been showing a lot of love to lately, and for good reason... it's awesome! Well, this Mocked Clam Chowder was no exception. What does a vegan mock clam chowder taste like, you ask? Well, first you make an oniony, carroty, potatoey base (actually, not very unlike the potato carrot soup I recently posted about), puree the base, then add in chunks of lightly fried, kelp-coated tofu, and then garnish the whole deal with some fakin bacon bits. I've never had real clam chowder, so I have no idea whether this is anything like it, but it sure was a satisfying soup!

fraiche--palo alto, ca

I was up in the Bay Area last week, my former actual and forever spiritual home. I didn't take pictures of much of my week of nice eating (some unphotographed highlights include the V'con Prospect Park Potato Salad my friend V. made and a yummy Herbivore lunch and Ritual Roasters vegan donut in the Mission), but I did get a couple desserts documented.

First up is vegan frozen yogurt from Fraiche, a gourmet yogurt shop in Palo Alto. Because of my husband's job, I end up in Palo Alto fairly often, so I have been meaning to try Fraiche ever since they opened but only got around to it this trip. Fraiche sells things other than frozen yogurt (including Blue Bottle Coffee, which some people go wild about), but that was what I was there for, so that's what I'll focus on. Anyway, the shop generally offers 3 flavors of frozen yogurt each day: a non-vegan "natural" and non-vegan chocolate flavor, and then a vegan soy "natural" flavor (guess which one I got?). The frozen yogurt may take a tiny bit of getting used to, since it tastes slightly "yogurt culture-y," as my friend J. put it (Fraiche claims the probiotic cultures survive the freezing process, so perhaps that's why), but once I did get used to it (only took a couple of bites) I liked it so much more than any other frozen yogurt I'd ever had. The toppings are ridiculously beautiful and generally pretty healthy: fresh fruit (strawberries, kiwis, blueberries, etc.), nuts, freshly shaved dark chocolate, agave nectar, and so on. My first trip I got chocolate and strawberries, but I felt like the chocolate sort of detracted from the yogurty experience, for me personally. My second trip I got strawberries and toasted almonds and OH MY was that unbelievably scrummy. Fraiche is pretty spendy, so come prepared to spend $5 minimum if you want toppings.

Fraiche

644 Emerson

Palo Alto, CA 94301

(650) 566-0055

I've already written about Herbivore in the past so I won't bore you with more, but I'll leave you with a couple of new pictures. My friend V. and I stopped in the Berkeley location one evening for strawberry rhubarb pie and carrot cake, both a la mode with Maggie Mudd ice cream. Yum!

roasted tomato pasta with olives and capers

I adore Sarah Kramer's La Dolce Vegan, but I don't use it nearly often enough given how good everything I've ever made from it has been. Inspired by The Little One's post a few weeks ago, though, I decided to crack it open and give "Roasted Cherry Tomato Pasta with Kalamata Olives and Capers" a go. I didn't have cherry tomatoes and so had to use regular, and I subbed organic green olives for kalamata since that's what I had around. For the optional cheese I used medium cheddar Sheese.

This recipe was delightfully simple and super delicious, although I forked it up slightly by using waaaay more pasta than the recipe called for, which made for a low pasta to goodies ratio. Next time I'll use half the amount of pasta so that the tomatoes, olives, and capers don't get lost in a sea of penne, and then it will be just as Sarah Kramer intended, which is to say, perfect.

potato carrot soup

I have been eyeing this potato carrot soup recipe on VegWeb for literally years now, but I only got around to it this afternoon (a bunch of gorgeous farmer's market veggies were my inspiration). Well, I'm kicking myself for waiting this long because this recipe hit the soup trifecta: easy (it only took me about 35 or 40 minutes start to finish, chopping, cooking, and all), cheap, and delicious. But wait, there's more! It's creamy, too! Am I selling you on it yet?

This isn't one of those recipes that needs to be followed exactly to be wonderful, so there's lots of room for adjustments to accommodate taste and/or what you have on hand. I personally used:

1 1/2 Tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion
3 cloves of garlic
3 stalks of celery
3 medium-large carrots
4 small-medium Yukon gold potatoes, peeled (optional) and cut into chunks
about 3 cups of vegetable broth
a few shakes of pepper, basil, oregano, and salt, respectively
a dash of Tabasco (super optional)

Just sauté the onion, garlic, and celery in the olive oil until they're soft, add the herbs, carrots, and potatoes, and cook for 5 more minutes. Add everything else, cook until the potatoes and carrots are soft enough, purée as much or as little as you want (I used my immersion blender to purée it about 2/3 of the way, so that there were still some chunks but it was nice and smooth and thick), then eat!

It was so quick to whip up and seriously, seriously delightful. Nicely done, potato carrot soup, nicely done.

same old newman o cupper goodness

My class talked me into cupcakes for our last class meeting of the quarter, and I went with the old stand-by Oreo (Newman O's, actually) cuppers from VCTOTW. Sometimes I feel like a one cupcake wonder making these over and over again, but they're just such crowd pleasers. One student said, "these are the best cupcakes I have ever had! You should sell this recipe to Wonderland!" (apparently Wonderland is a [non-vegan] cupcake bakery or something). Guess we have to chalk another vegan victory up to ol' Isa and Terry...

mango surprise

I went to the farmer's market yesterday morning and bought ridiculous amounts of produce for a tiny price. Before I could dig in to my locally grown and organic Cara Cara and Moro Blood oranges, tangelos, Fuji apples, sweet lemons, etc., though, I had some older fruit that needed consuming. So, I decided to make myself a nice fresh juice for breakfast to use some of it up.

My mom bought me the Jack LaLanne Power Juicer for my birthday three years ago, and I don't use it nearly often enough. I had asked for a juicer and was tickled to receive that particular one because of the awesome infomercials associated with it. I have to say, though, for once there's truth in advertising because it's a pretty great juicer. Anyway, flicking through the juice recipe book that came with my power juicer I stumbled across one called "Mango Surprise." Realizing that I had all the ingredients for it (1 mango, peeled and pitted, 2 kiwis, 1 large carrot), I went for it...



Oh. My. Gosh. I couldn't believe how good it was! Part of the reason why I don't juice that often is because I'm forever not liking whatever I make. But holy cow, this was friggin nectar of the gods! I will be making it OFTEN. Yumyumyum.

quinoa salad w/black beans & mango

Believe it or not, the above pictured mango is the first one that I have ever purchased. I think I was under the mistaken impression that I didn't like them, but as soon as I sliced it open and had a bite, I realized that it's actually papaya that I hate. Anyhoo, apart from a few stolen tastes, I used my mango to make the quinoa salad with black beans and mango from Veganomicon. It was so, so pretty (!), and really yummy and summery-seeming. It would be perfect for bringing along to a picnic or a summer bar-b-que. Or just for eating on any old day. I have to say, though, that it took me A LOT more than the 15 minutes the ingredients promised it would take to whip up. Between all the dicing (bell pepper, mango, scallions) and the washing, plucking, and chopping of the cilantro, it took me at least 35-40 minutes, so that was kind of a bummer. Maybe I'm just really slow, I don't know... No matter what, it was still fantastic-tasting, so I can't wait to make it again.

In other news, I started a new blog for my knitting projects. I really don't have much time to knit, but I thought it would be fun to have somewhere to post pictures when I do manage to finish anything. Everything I make is vegan, obviously; no wool, silk, etc. in my yarn. If you're a vegan knitter, too, and have a blog, leave me a comment somewhere or other so that I can be sure to link to you.

v'con v-day

We don't make a big deal about Valentine's Day around these parts, both because the holiday has always seemed a bit icky to me (in the way that it typically gets celebrated)*, and because by the time it rolls around, we've just celebrated an anniversary two weeks before.

Instead of the obligatory red roses and chocolates and heart-shaped everything**, then, we just do a casual dinner together. Yesterday we decided to go for Veganomicon's Caesar Salad and Pumpkin Baked Ziti With Sage Crumb Topping and Caramelized Onions. This was all very well, but we got started on the shopping a little late, and then had to hit up two different grocery stores to collect all the ingredients, so by the time we got home it was a little after 6:30pm and I was already hungry. Ok, starving. I snacked on whole wheat sourdough bread dipped in some fancy extra virgin olive oil and pomegranate vinegar that my friend K8 gave me for Christmas (have you had pomegranate vinegar before??? best thing ever!) to take the edge off, but it still meant that we cut a few dinner corners. The main one was that we made the Caesar dressing but then were too hungry to bother with the croutons, and so moved onto the ziti. We put walnuts in our salad instead, and they made a good (and healthy) crunchy substitute.

It felt like everything took forever to make, but that was probably just the hunger talking. At 8:37 we finally popped the Pumpkin Baked Ziti into the oven and sat down to enjoy our Caesar salad (minus croutons and plus walnuts) with a glass of wine and a lot of Sopranos episodes. The Caesar dressing is SUPER garlicky, but amazing, so I'm really glad that the recipe makes so much; next time I may cut the recipe back to two cloves of garlic, just as a sort of community-service type gesture, but it was delicious and I'm going to be enjoying it for days and days (just not before I have to be in a small room with other people, though).

And ooh, the ziti... it was so rich and yummy, and the crunchy topping was flavorful and amazing... it took a bit of work to put together, but the recipe makes for lots of leftovers when it's for just two people, so it's pretty much worth it.

These two were definitely the best things I have made from V'con yet and I can't wait for lunch time to roll around so I can have more!

*In case you're wondering, what grosses me out about Valentine's Day is the really depressing picture of love that it paints. If you live in a college town you see the same Fraternity Bro's lining up at the same supermarket to buy the same red roses as they uncreatively and impersonally fulfill the gesture of V-Day... Gross! V-Day totally underestimates and misrepresents love, if you ask me... Not that anyone did :)

**Although, don't get me wrong, homemade heart-shaped desserts are a really nice feature of V-Day!

super anniversary bowl sunday

On the year that my husband and I got married, Feb. 1 was Super Bowl Sunday, so in addition to our normal anniversary celebration, we treat the Super Bowl as a second day to celebrate. At this point we have two "traditional" foods that appear on our Super Bowl menu every year--Ruffles with ranch dip (made from non-hydrogenated Tofutti Sour Supreme) and mimosas to drink--but otherwise, I just get to make whatever party-type food I feel like making. Last year we made Super Anniversary Bowl brownies, and this year I decided to go with the 7 layer dip from Cozy Inside and the Icebox Cheesecake from My Sweet Vegan. I got both Cozy Inside and My Sweet Vegan for Christmas, and this was my first time using either one (shame on me!). I never had any doubt that I would love either book, though, since Celine has recommended both so highly and we all know she's never wrong. How did everything turn out? Well, see for yourself:

First, the "traditional" sour cream ranch dip. It's so gross, but my husband loves it so much (just because it's such a vegan novelty, I think), and at this point we both have a sort of Pavlovian response where Super Bowl = sour cream dip, so come Super Bowl, we both start craving it.


Next, the pièce de résistance: The 7 layer dip from Cozy Inside. This was SO GOOD! I made a few minor changes because of laziness and/or allergies: I left out the guacamole layer (I'm allergic to avocado), I used Soyrizo instead of regular TVP, and I used Tofutti Sour Supreme instead of making my own sour cream layer using the recipe in Cozy Inside (though I plan to try the CI recipe next time). Next time I might also double the amount of beans I used (from 1 can to 2), but that's just because I love refried beans. Anyway, words cannot describe the glory that was this dip, so I'll just let you see for yourself.

Here's the bean and Soyrizo layers:


With the "cheese" layer on top of that:

And the finished product.
Did I mention how yummy this was? We had lots leftover, and it made great taco fillings for a couple of dinners.

At some point during the year we always seem to be given at least one bottle of champagne, and we always save it for our Super Anniversary Bowl mimosas. Here's this year's model.


Last but not at all least, the icebox cheesecake from My Sweet Vegan. This cheesecake was unbelievably easy to make (!), and it came out sooo yummy and rich. Given how impressive this first try was, I can't wait to try out other recipes from the book (I've got my eye on the turtle shortbread in particular...).


Happy February, everyone! Hope you all have a special someone (of the human or furry variety) to snuggle up with this month.

real food daily--los angeles, ca

Yesterday was my husband's and my 4th wedding anniversary, and among other ways of celebrating, we went out to dinner at Real Food Daily in L.A. Real Food Daily is an organic, vegetarian restaurant that I've been hearing about forever but have never gotten around to trying. For some crazy reason I had really low expectations (which isn't to say that I thought it would be bad, but just that I didn't expect much), but ZOMG (!) it was so good! For starters, the atmosphere was much nicer than I was expecting, much more upscale than I'd imagined. And then, oh my, the food! I only got camera phone pictures (because my blog was the last thing on my mind yesterday so I didn't remember to bring a camera ;)), but I guess you get the idea. We shared a lovely glass of pinot noir and a miso soup to begin, and it was the creamiest, most interesting miso soup ever. We were both in the mood for a hearty kind of dinner, so for our main course I ordered the Salisbury Seitan and my husband ordered the TV Dinner (tempeh vegetable loaf). Both came with mashed potatoes smothered in a tangy gravy, and mine came with the best vegan caesar salad I've had in ages while my husband's came with some simple but amazingly yummy baked veggies on the side. It was such an unexpectedly wonderful experience, and we can't wait to go back!

For our dessert we passed on the RFD offerings and headed over to Scoops. They had all 4 vegan flavors left and we went for a scoop of strawberry and a scoop of oreo ice cream. Both were AMAZING. Last time I went to Scoops they were out of most vegan things so I had to get two flavors I wasn't very excited about; while that was still yummy ice cream, this was definitely a better experience.

Real Food Daily has two locations, one in Santa Monica and one in West Hollywood. We went to the West Hollywood location.

Real Food Daily--WeHo:
414 N. La Cienega Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90048
(310) 289-9910

the usual suspects + a dog

I've been collecting photos of food for a few weeks but haven't been posting them because everything is mostly repeats of things I've made before. So, I decided to do one big post of usual suspects, plus a bonus bit at the end about some yummy cupcakes and my friends' new dog...

For starters, we've been eating lots of Celine's creamy tomato soup (which I just posted about a few days ago, so I won't bore you with another picture). I doctored this most recent batch a little by adding some red lentils, carrots, and a potato and using a lot less sour cream, just to change it up nutritionally. Next up is the usual tofu scramble, followed by Veganomicon's famous Chickpea Cutlets in sandwich form:


A lazy dinner staple of ours is peanut noodles with tons of veggies. I use this recipe from the PPK, but I add LOTS more veggies than it calls for (extra zucchini, carrots, and peas):

Whenever I have a few bananas that are going bad I make Veganomicon's lower fat banana bread, sometimes in muffin form with a little streusel topping, like so:

I baked my class some cookies the other day, and turned as usual to the chocolate chip cookie recipe from VWaV (because it's an amazing recipe and it makes a lot of cookies). These cookies are seriously vegan-makers. I had several students email me after class to tell me how much they loved the cookies, and one even asked for the recipe. I gave it to him on Tuesday and he just emailed me last night to say that he loved the cookies so much that he'd already made them twice, and that his wife was thinking of going vegan and so the recipe "changed his life." Go Isa!

The last set of pictures is from my friend B's birthday last weekend. After Thai dinner we had fantastic cupcakes at his house and drank a little wine and played a little dominos. B made the Lemon Macademia Cupcakes with Lemon Buttercream and the Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cupcakes With Cinnamon Icing (both from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World). Holy Jebus. These were both so good! I usually hate lemony cakes and things, but I ate two (yes, two) of the lemon cuppers in addition to one of the pumpkin ones. Oh my:

This last picture is of B and L's adorable dog Holly pretending to play Mexican Train with us. B and L recently adopted Holly from a shelter, and it's been so lovely to watch her settle in to her new home and bond with the two of them (who are the most loving and attentive of doggie parents). Holly is a seven year-old beagle and corgie mix. She's such a sweet girl, and she's so lucky to have found such a wonderful home. Yay for people who adopt their animals instead of buying them from breeders!

simple roasted veggies

A lot of winter dinners around here are composed of just roasted vegetables, or roasted veggies with BBQ-sauce-baked tofu or FYH chicken-free chicken, and sometimes a side salad. Roasted veggies are such a quick, simple thing to make, and they're so tasty. You can roast almost any vegetable and have it be delicious; I just use whatever I happen to have in the house: potatoes, sweet potatoes, broccoli, carrots, zucchini, and various squashes (kabocha is my favorite).

To roast veggies, just preheat the oven to 400 F, brush the bottom of a roasting pan with a little olive oil, thickly slice your veggies, lay them in a pan and brush the tops with a little more olive oil, sprinkle with salt (regular or seasoned) and pepper and maybe a little thyme, and then put the whole deal in the oven for 30 minutes. Quick and yummy!

c's creamy tomato soup

I made some more of the delight that is Celine's Creamy Tomato Soup a few days ago and have been enjoying it for lunches ever since. I sometimes add a scoop of cooked rice to each bowl before serving to make it a tomato rice soup. It's the perfect meal on these gloomy, rainy days we've been having.

Also, notice the bowl? That was one piece of my mom's really sweet and thoughtful Christmas present to me: a plethora of individual plates and bowls in fun designs and colors to keep my blog posts spicy. It was so fun to unwrap plate after plate, bowl after bowl, and have each one be a unique surprise. I don't know about you, but I've got a real thing for cute dishes... My mom's gift has got me thinking that I never want matching dishes again. Life is just so much more fun this way, you know?

pure luck--los angeles, ca

I finally got to try Pure Luck last night, and I have two basic responses. First, I want to say that Pure Luck, the oft-praised vegan Mexican-ish restaurant in L.A., is fantastic, and I will be going back at the earliest opportunity that presents itself. But the second thing I have to say is, I was the wee-est bit disappointed with Pure Luck. I had just read and heard so many glowing reviews that I somehow expected them to serve... I don't know, nectar of the gods?... and then it turned out that they just served... food. Wonderful, vegan food, but still just food. So, let that be a lesson to you, kids. Don't let your hopes get overinflated or else even a really great thing is liable to disappoint.

But, onwards and upwards.

It all started because one of my best girls, E., and I had the same idea for one another for a Christmas present: tickets to see The Blow. We worked it out so that I bought the tickets and she took us out to dinner beforehand. Pure Luck is only about 6 minutes away from the Henry Fonda Theater on Hollywood Blvd. where The Blow was playing (along with Mirah), so we settled on that. After a cocktail at her adorable little place in Highland Park and some play time with her friend's sweet dog, Elsa, we headed out for Pure Luck.



Pure Luck was crowded when we got there so we had to wait about 10 minutes for a table. While we were waiting, E. had a lemonade and I had a Soju lemonade, both of which were tart and delicious. We probably should have tried the beer, since it's all vegan and (apparently) all delicious, but E. was the d.d. and I wasn't in a beer mood. Anyway, once we got our table we ordered fried dill pickles for our appetizer and I ordered a super "carnitas" burrito with the soup of the day (black bean) while E. got some sort of "carnitas" BBQ sandwich with a side salad. If you haven't heard, the really special thing about Pure Luck is that they make a lot of faux meat dishes out of jackfruit, an unusual but pretty awesome meat analogue. The fried dill pickles blew my mind, and both of our entrees were basically excellent. I say basically because my one complaint is that there's a little too much BBQ sauce happening in most of the things they serve, for mine and E.'s tastes at least, but then, that's a small price to pay for all that jackfruit awesomeness.





Even though we were full even unto bursting, after Pure Luck we decided to try Scoops, an ice cream joint that stocks 4 vegan flavors each day in addition to the dairy offerings. Scoops is, delightfully, right across the street from Pure Luck, making it simple to hit up both vegan legends in the same trip. Yesterday the vegan flavors were mint chocolate chip, pistachio vanilla, maple banana, and mango lemon. They were out of the mint chocolate chip, so I snagged the last scoop of pistachio vanilla and a scoop of maple banana. I normally hate banana flavored stuff, but both flavors were very good.


After dinner, we headed over to Hollywood Blvd for our concert.


It had been some time since I'd been to a show, and I have to say, the experience makes a lady feel OLD. Most of the people around us were in the 15-18 year-old bracket, which, there's nothing wrong with that, but when you're about 10 years older than most of the people around you, it's a funny thing... I think most of the other older people were clever and sat in the seats in the balcony instead of being down on the floor with the babies, but I ask you, how are you supposed to dance way up there?

Anyway, the opening band (I forget their names, but they were very "Williamsburg," if you know what I mean) wasn't that great, but The Blow was fantastic. She had this funny way of talking for sometimes upwards of 5 minutes between songs which was a little bit trying at first, but after awhile became interesting, in a performance art sort of way, insofar as it was creating a peculiar kind of suspense. Hard to explain. I do still wish she had cut back on the storytelling and played a few more songs, but it was definitely a cool experience. Mirah was pretty good, but I'd seen her before and a lot of the more recent stuff is really mellow and most of it sounds excessively similar, to me; since that seemed to be all she was playing, we left a little early because I was getting sleepy... All respect to Mirah, truly, but I guess the earlier albums ("You Think It's Like This, But Really It's Like This" and "Advisory Committee") are just a little more my thing.

Overall, a lovely night.


Pure Luck
707 N Heliotrope Dr
Los Angeles, CA 90029
(323) 660-5993

Scoops
712 N Heliotrope Dr
Los Angeles, CA 90029
(323) 906-2649

tomato bread

You'd think the tomato and onion flavor would be intense in this bread, but it's really very, very subtle. I used this bread to make a killer grilled cheeze sammy using the grilled cheeze recipe from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook. I wasn't so impressed with the cheeze recipe (I have to say, I am consistently underwhelmed by the recipes in that book), but the bread was lovely.

Tomato Bread
makes 1.5 lb loaf

Ingredients:
3/4 cup plain soy, rice, etc. milk
1/4 cup water
one 6-ounce can tomato paste
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp sea salt
3 1/4 cups bread flour
1 tsp Italian herbs
2 tsp dried minced onion
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp wheat gluten
2 1/4 tsp bread machine yeast


Directions:
Put all ingredients in the bread pan in the correct order for your bread machine. Set crust to light and program for the Basic cycle. Press Start. Remove bread from pan immediately after baking and allow to cool on a rack. Enjoy!

big kitchen--san diego, ca

This is a long overdue post. I've been having a hard time lately making myself blog... I think Vegan MoFo really burnt me out, in some strange way, and it's been difficult to blog ever since. Anyway, better late than never.

My Sig. O and I were in San Diego for Christmas visiting my family, and we had several occasions to visit Big Kitchen. Big Kitchen doesn't have the best vegan brunch in San Diego (that title goes to Jyoti Bihanga), but it is the only place I know of to get vegan breakfast in San Diego on a weekday. They basically offer oatmeal or several varieties of tofu scramble, including the two pictured above. The scrambles aren't heavily spiced (which can be a good or bad thing, depending on your palate), and they come with either brown rice or their delicious breakfast potatoes (guess which I order).

The main draw at Big Kitchen, for most people, is not the food but the atmosphere. Lefty activist and celebrity memorabilia covers the walls, and the restaurant is presided over by Judy, "the beauty on duty" (i.e. the owner), whose personality is larger than life. "Très bien!" is her favorite phrase, and she's given to bellowing it at people in her raspy voice from across the room. She's either a charming character or so annoying you'll never go back, again depending on your palate. I think she's a delight, but some of the yelp reviews are pretty sour. Oh well. Stay strong, Judy, girl, you just keep on doin' your thing. Don't let the haters bring you down!

Last notable thing about Big Kitchen: Whoopie Goldberg washed dishes there before she became famous, and she signed part of the wall with the words "Don't paint over this Goddamnit, Whoopie Goldberg." They didn't paint over it, so it's there for your viewing pleasure.

Big Kitchen is located on the border between the South Park and Golden Hill neighborhoods of San Diego, making it quite close to downtown.

Big Kitchen
3003 Grape St.
(between 30th St & Fern St)
San Diego, CA 92102
(619) 234-5789

Photo credit: I stole the pictures of the outside of Big Kitchen and the menu from Yelp.

ode to my mama

Because it is important background for the dissertation I am beginning, I'm doing research on the early humane and anti-vivisection movements. This morning I was reading For The Prevention of Cruelty, a history of these movements in the U.S. Reading about the efforts of early animal advocacy groups to institute humane education programs for children, I started thinking about the power of positive examples. My veganism and everything that I believe about the treatment of animals (and humans, for that matter) can be traced back, in one way or another, to the example my mom set for me throughout my childhood. My family rescued and adopted so many animals when I was growing up because my mom could never say no to an animal in need. Sometimes we found homes for the animals we rescued, but most often they ended up living with us (which meant that at some points we had as many as 3 dogs, 13 cats, 2 chinchillas, 2 rabbits, 2 hamsters, etc., etc.). I grew up in a world where it wasn't an option to ignore or merely deplore the skinny, oil-stained kitten you saw eating a hamburger bun in a mall parking lot; instead, you took him home. My mom has spent her life doing this (and not just with animals, either; a lot of needy people were taken into our home over the years), and it's interesting to see that at this point, animals find her as often as she finds them. We've had several stray cats turn up on our property and adopt us, and the school where my mom is principal has become a weird sort of magnet for stray animals ever since she got there, almost as if the word is out in the surrounding animal community that if they can get to my mom's campus, they'll find good forever homes. My mom keeps dog and cat treats in her office for any animals who show up, and has been known to take the animals home herself (one cat and two dogs so far) on those occasions when she can't talk any of her staff into adopting them.

I am really proud of my mom and the compassion that she lives every day, so I decided to dedicate a post to pictures of just a few of the animals my mom has rescued over the years.

First, here's Ruby (the dalmatian) and Cody (the border collie mix), two strays that turned up at my mom's school at different points. She took them home and they are now two of the luckiest dogs on earth, living an enviably active life with my brother, who adopted them. Here's a picture of them playing in the surf at Dog's Beach in San Diego:


Here's Ruby at a dog park:


And Cody, who is a total frisbee dog. This picture is a few years old now, so Cody (who was only about 8 months old in this picture) has since grown into his ears and paws and filled out quite a bit. He still looks cute here, though:


Next, here's Chester, the hamburger bun-eating kitten we rescued from the mall parking lot 17 years ago. He's starting to slow down a little bit lately, but he's still doing incredibly well considering his age. Chester's got a great personality, but he's scowling at me in this picture because he really doesn't like cameras being pointed at him:


This next cat is Bear, who is about 13, and Chester's best friend. Bear got attacked by a big tom when he was just a kitten, and the resulting nerve damage means that he doesn't have great control over his right hind leg (you can see it sticking out at an odd angle in this picture). He's the sweetest thing ever, though, and gets around just fine despite everything:


Here's Max, our alpha male. He was another rescue from my mom's school. Max has the personality of a big brave dog and is always cracking us up somehow:


This is Mikey, the 22-pound "fat boy" who started out as my brother's cat but came to live at my mom's house for a while while my brother was shopping for a condo. In the meantime he bonded with Max and now the two can't be separated, so Mikey has become my mom's cat:


Speaking of dumping cats on moms, here's my cat, Gerald. I adopted Gerald from the Berkeley Humane Society when she was a kitten, but when my husband and I got married 4 years ago, she had to go live with my mom because my husband is possibly the most allergic human being there ever was. It's very sad for me, but Gerald loves it at my mom's house, so she's ok:


Just look at that proud kitty face:


Next is Mr. Tumnus, Gerald's cat. Tumnus came from the Oakland pound, and I adopted him to keep Gerald company. He also went to live at my mom's house when I got married (again, because of my insanely allergic husband), and loves it there; he especially likes snuggling with my mom in the morning and begging for bits of her breakfast bar. In the summer he spends a lot of time lounging on the cool tile, like so:


OK, just one more animal, because I don't want to overwhelm you. This last guy is Toby, and he is the latest stray cat to adopt my mom. He just started showing up at my mom's house for dinner one day, and has never left. When he first came he was really skinny and his fur was falling out from malnutrition. Now, four months later, his coat is sleek and he's on the verge of being overweight! Most of our cats are indoor cats, but Chester and Bear get to go out in the backyard during the day, so my mom had to figure out a way to make a nice place for Toby to hang out that would also keep him out of the backyard so that he didn't bother our old man, Chester (who at 17 doesn't see quite as well as he used to and so has become really nervous about everything). So, she built Toby a "kitty condo" on top of the pergola that covers the "kitty garden." The kitty garden is a small, fenced in area on the side of the house that my mom has filled with scratching posts and kitty grass for the the indoor cats to hang out in during the day. Anyway, because Toby's kitty condo is up so high, it's really a kitty penthouse, as you'll see.

Here's Toby walking across the pergola to his kitty condo:


The king of the castle:


Toby's kitty condo contains a plastic cat bed (that blue thing inside) that my mom screwed to an old table top, filled with blankets, and covered with a kitty igloo. He has dry food and water in there, and he gets fed wet food on the porch twice a day. During last weekend's rainstorm Toby got to sleep comfortably dry in his penthouse.

Here Toby is relaxing in his crib:

dutch apple pie

I made a dutch apple pie for my family for Christmas dessert. It was my first attempt at homemade rather than store-bought crust, and that didn't go so well (I think I overworked it; it came out too tough), but the filling was yummy as always. I've been making the filling the same way for years, and it's really simple but delicious. I like to use a sweeter apple, such as Rome Beauty, Pippin, or Golden Delicious, and then add a little lemon juice, but if you go with a tart Granny Smith, just leave the lemon juice out.

Apple Pie
makes 1 9-inch pie

1 store-bought or homemade crust

6 cups thinly sliced, peeled cooking apples
1 Tbsp lemon juice
3/4 cup sugar
2 Tbsp all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

Crumb Topping:
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
3 Tbsp margarine

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 375 F. Prepare your crust if making homemade.

Sprinkle peeled, chopped apples with lemon juice. In a large bowl, stir together the sugar, flour, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Add the apples and gently toss until coated. Transfer apple mixture to your pastry-lined pie plate.

Prepare crumb mixture by stirring together the flour and brown sugar and then using a pastry blender, cutting in the margarine until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

Sprinkle crumb topping over filling. To prevent over-browning, cover the edges of your pie with aluminium foil (or pie crust covers). Bake at 375 for 40 minutes, then remove the foil and bake for 20 minutes more (or until fruit is tender and filling is bubbly. Cool on a wire rack.

christmas cookies

Instead of buying presents for many of my friends this year I made cookies. I didn't go very traditional because I personally don't love the flavor of a lot of the more traditional Christmas cookies and also didn't have time to test very many recipes before getting things mailed off. So, I generally went with things that I already knew worked: the sugar cookie recipe from The Garden of Vegan ("Mum's Sugar Cookies"--I've been making these every year for the last 4 years), the Maple Walnut and Chocolate Chip Cookies from Vegan With a Vengeance, and then a cookie that was inspired by Celine's Oreo Cookie-Cookies: I took the Chocolate -Chocolate Chip-Walnut cookie recipe from Veganomicon, substituted peppermint extract for the almond extract, left out the chocolate chips and walnuts, and instead gently mixed in about 9 Candy Cane Joe-Joe's that I'd broken into pieces. Maybe next year I'll go more traditional with my cookie choices, but I liked the way all of these worked out, so we'll see.

veganomicon's pound cake

A few nights ago I made a mini loaf of Veganomicon's Pound Cake by cutting the original recipe in half and baking it in a mini loaf pan. I made this pound cake once before and undercooked it, which made it basically inedible, so do be sure to leave it in the oven until your toothpick, knife, or piece of dry spaghetti comes out totally and completely clean. Assuming you bake it thoroughly, though, this pound cake is seriously AWESOME. We ate the whole mini loaf in less than the time it took to watch a single episode of The Sopranos....