Posts Tagged soup

Team ASPCA Raffle & Dinners for Busy People

September 10, 2012 at 7:12 pm · Filed under Food, vegan ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

It’s been a while since I wrote anything here about my regular, every day eats.  I have been cooking (and of course eating) but I’ve also been extremely busy, so my meals have had to be more of the simple and quick variety.

My current project is that I’m training for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Los Angeles Half Marathon with Team ASPCA.  The ASPCA’s mission is to provide effective means for the prevention of cruelty to animals throughout the United States, a mission close to my heart.  I’m really happy to be a part of Team ASPCA and honored to be raising both awareness and funding to support the ASPCA’s programs!

As part of my fundraising, I’m hosting a raffle!  Head on over to the Raffle Page and check it out!  The list of prizes is really awesome, if I do say so myself, with an estimated value of over $1,100.  There are over 30 great prizes to be won, and you can enter for as little as a $5 donation!  To entice you, here’s a pile of some of the prizes, just waiting to be shipped.  The bottom right box might be of particular interest to some people…

Please check out the Raffle Page on The Vegan Weight Watcher and consider donating to The ASPCA!  The deadline to enter for the first drawing is this Friday, September 14th, at 12PM noon PDT.

I started running around July of last year, and have been training for one race or another ever since.  Between working full time, training, and other obligations, I don’t have much time to cook, but on the other hand, I need healthy meals to fuel my training.  So, I’ve turned to a few particular cookbooks and fast meals to get by.

First up, Appetite for Reduction by Isa Chandra Moskowitz.  I posted a review here and more photos here, and this continues to be my go-to for flavorful and balanced meals that don’t take a long time.  The book has an index of recipes that are ready in under 30 minutes, which makes it even easier to pick out quick meals.

This is Goddess Nicoise Salad.  I don’t normally love olives but liked them in this, and the cooked green beans and potatoes made it feel hearty enough to be a full meal.

Thai Roasted Root Vegetable Curry is the perfect way to use fall CSA produce.

Pasta con Broccoli may look a little dry, but it’s actually quite flavorful and moist.  I added chickpeas to round out the meal, as the author suggests.

With only about 20 minutes active cooking time involved, Kidney Bean & Butternut Jamba Stew is a delicious, spicy meal in a bowl.

Forty-Clove Broccoli & Chickpeas and Colipots was really intensely delicious, but not as filling as I had hoped.

Fusilli Roasted Vegetable Primavera teaches you a great way to make a flavorful summer pasta without too much effort.  I added mushrooms and chickpeas, and wouldn’t make it again without.

Quick Fix Vegan by Robin Robertson is a cookbook which is geared specifically toward speedy vegan meals.  Luckily, most of the recipes are relatively healthy too, with plenty of veggies.  Looking through the index, there are plenty more recipes from this book that I want to try!

The Roasted Asparagus Soup gets its creaminess from potato and non-dairy milk.  The soup was delicious, but I thought it missed some of the asparagus flavor by adding the other ingredients.  On the side, I made a quick potato, corn, and black bean hash.

Barbecue Pinto and Portobello is like a souped up version of baked beans, with a fast homemade barbecue sauce.  It’s intended to be a sandwich filling, but in an effort to keep it a little more light, I had the beans on their own with a side of coleslaw pasta salad.

This Indonesian Vegetable and Tofu Scramble was a great way to use up all the bok choy I receive from the CSA.  Adding hoisin sauce and ground coriander made it really different from other scrambles.  On the side is chili-lime roasted sweet potatoes.

Tropical Quinoa and Black Beans develops the flavor of the islands in a short amount of time.  I served it over steamed kale, topped by pumpkin seeds, which were nice textural contrasts.

Since I’m also watching my budget, I turn to Vegan on the Cheap by Robin Robertson as well.  The recipes tend to rely on fresh vegetables a little less than I like, which is understandable based on the title, but I have found a few good ones so far and plan to try out more.

The mix of sweet and spicy in this Moroccan-Inspired Lentil Soup was great.  I served the thick soup over grits.

I added some chipotle chili powder to this Southwestern Black Bean and Corn Chowder, rendering it spicier than expected, but it was still quite delicious topped with avocado and served with sprouted blue corn tortilla chips and steamed broccoli.

I really like raw foods during the summer months, both for their speed and simplicity.  One book I’ve really been enjoying is Practically Raw by Amber Shea Crawley.  Some of the recipes require time or dehydrating, yes, but many of them are really quick and accessible.

The Deconstructed Sushi Bowl was a really fun way to enjoy sushi without cooking rice and bothering to roll anything.  Since the meal was mostly vegetables, I bulked it up by adding edamame and a quick spicy sauce.  I’ll write a full review of Practically Raw once I’ve had the chance to try more recipe!

These Gingery Sunflower Seed, Cabbage, and Red Apple Rolls from Choosing Raw were simple and delicious!  I wrapped mine in collard leaves instead of the nori sheets, just because that’s what I had, and the sweet apples were a great contrast to the bitter greens.

One obvious time saver is the slow cooker, which I don’t utilize nearly often enough.  Maybe once the weather turns cool again I’ll yearn for more stew-like, comforting dishes.

Here’s a non-soup recipe from The Vegan Slow Cooker by Kathy Hester, Sweet Potato Enchilada Casserole.  You layer corn tortillas and sweet potatoes with canned enchlada sauce and beans.  The recipe called for one can of beans and vegan chorizo, but I used two cans of beans instead to try to keep it a little more whole-foods oriented.  I topped the casserole with a little slaw and salsa verde that we happened to have in the fridge, and served roasted brussels sprouts on the side.

Slow cooker minestrone, adapted from this recipe, with leeks, yelllow squash, zucchini, lima beans, green beans, swiss chard, and quinoa pasta.

I LOVE salads for summertime meals.  I’ve been known to use an entire head of lettuce for an entree-sized salad!

Kale salad with avocado, blood orange and chipotle-ginger tempeh.  Since the tempeh was the only cooked component, this one came together quickly.

Black bean, zucchini and corn fajita salad with salsa and Daiya Jack style wedges.  I really like the new Daiya wedges!

Reuben-ish salad with lettuce, carrot, celery, dill pickle, roasted chickpeas, sauerkraut, bacon bits, sunflower seeds, and Healthy Thousand Island Dressing from Eat to Live.

Blackened seitan salad with cusabi dressing.  The seitan was broiled with the blackened seasoning mix from Appetite for Reduction, and the cusabi dressing was a first stab at veganizing the cucumber-wasabi dressing that turned out okay, but not great.

Kale salad with red cabbage, carrot, edamame, tahini dressing, and sesame seeds.  Shredded red cabbage in kale salad is my favorite!

And, of course, the easiest way to make quick meals is to have some cooking knowledge and experience up your sleeve so that you can throw something together from what’s in the fridge that turns out edible!

Sesame-tangerine soy curls with bok choy, bean sprouts and brown rice.

Red curry lentil stew with wild rice, brown rice and spinach.

Clean-out-the-fridge tofu scramble with shallot, mushrooms, tomato, broccoli, shredded carrot, alfalfa sprouts and leftover grilled potatoes.

Socca with herbed white beans, Daiya mozzarella, and balsamic roasted carrots and raddichio.  Socca is the best, you just mix equal parts chickpea flour and water, a pinch of salt, and a little olive oil if you want, then cook it like crepes!

Broiled tofu and roasted cabbage over brown rice with dulse flakes and sesame seeds.

And lastly, the SUPER simple.  I can’t tell you how many times over the past year I’ve come home from a workout and warmed up a veggie burger because it’s all I could muster!

Tofurky and hummus, my very favorite sandwich!

Grits, canned refried beans, salsa and pickled jalapeno.

Grilled Daiya mozzarella sandwich with tomato-miso-leek soup.

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VeganMoFo: Reno

October 30, 2011 at 8:00 pm · Filed under Food, vegan ·Tagged , , , , , ,

I’ve been to Reno too many times to link to all my posts about it (here’s a link to a blog search), but on this latest trip I made it a point to try to find even more restaurants which were vegan friendly.

To start out my Saturday morning, I went for a run along the Truckee River.  There is a pathway along the river which happens to run right through downtown Reno, which made for a really nice run.  There were lots of other people out running, biking and walking their dogs.  Breakfast was a Larabar and a banana which I had brought with me.

For lunch, I headed to Fairly Grounded Too, which I had read about on Vegan Coaches page about dining in Reno.  It’s on Virginia Street a few blocks south of the river, and it’s easy to miss – the sign mostly says “coffee” really big.  Going inside, it’s a modern yet cozy coffee shop with plenty of space for you, your coffee and your laptop.

Their sandwiches and salads are premade and none are vegan, but if you ask the nice people behind the counter they will let you know if anything they have that day is vegan.  This rainbow vegetable soup was recommended; I don’t know if the have it every day or if it’s a special, but it was delicious.  The vegetables were chunky and not overcooked, and there were some interesting spices that I couldn’t put my finger on.  It came with a slice of bread, and they actually had Earth Balance for spreading.

I needed a caffeine fix, so I got a soy latte as well.  This was one of the best soy lattes I’ve ever had, slightly bitter but not too strong.

The girl also mentioned that the biscotti was vegan.  I’m not usually a big biscotti fan, but obviously I had to try it.  It was cherry almond flavor, with both almond extract and chunks of whole almond.  The biscotti was chewy and crispy at the same time, and very good.

That afternoon I had a massage (heaven), and we decided to embark upon the Reno Beer Crawl, which occurs the fourth Saturday of every month.  You buy the glass for five bucks, and can get 6 oz pours at eleven bars for one dollar each.  It was really fun, and a great way to explore more of downtown.

After all that beer and walking around, I was in need of some serious fuel.  We walked down to Pie Face Pizza, as I had heard a rumor that they had vegan cheese.

The rumors were wonderfully true.  Even though it’s not listed on their online menu, they do have Daiya.  This is The Resa specialty pizza – sun-dried tomato, roasted garlic, jalapeno, red onion, spinach, pine nuts, Daiya instead of goat cheese.  It was spicy and garlicy and melty and I ate the whole thing and I’m not ashamed.  Pie Face was a hip and happening place, and I would definitely go back.

Sunday morning I went for brunch at Pneumatic Diner.  I had been there once before for lunch, but it was at a weird time of the afternoon and there was nobody else there, so I wanted to go again when they were more busy.  I was hoping they would have some sort of vegan breakfasty item like pancakes, but they did not.  The menu is massive though, almost too big, so everyone will find something they like.

The breakfast burrito immediately caught my eye, but I think that’s what I ordered the first time I went, so I chose The Vegan Bubba, a sandwich with hummus, red onion, shredded carrot, marinated grilled eggplant and zucchini, and greens.  I chose to add the optional “slab”, which is grilled tofu.

Look at all the deliciousness spilling out!  This was actually a really tasty and satisfying sandwich, despite its apparent simplicity.  It kept me full for a long, long time.

On the way back home, we stopped around 4PM for a late lunch and headed toward a Togo’s, which was in a shopping plaza with not much else.  Walking up to the store, something caught my eye.  It was a sign in the window of Flour Garden Bakery that said “vegan black bean chili”!  Needless to say, I went inside to check it out.

Sadly, they had just put the chili away to freeze (even though it was over an hour until they closed), but luckily they had tofu salad sandwiches on display.  The tofu salad was tasty, but the bakery’s sprouted wheat bread was the real standout.  It was soft, hearty, and a little sweet, the perfect sandwich bread.  If you ever happen to be hungry near exit 199C on I-80, pull over and find Flour Garden.  It’s a great feeling to find things marked vegan unexpectedly.

That’s it for this rendition of vegan in Reno.  My only regret is that I didn’t get to Freeman’s Natural Hotdogs.  There’s always next time!

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VeganMoFo: Flavor Bible Week – Mushrooms

October 19, 2011 at 9:21 pm · Filed under Food, vegan ·Tagged , , , ,

My second ingredient for Flavor Bible Week is mushrooms, specifically shiitakes, from page 228.  The flavor matches that jumped out at me were bacon, celery root, lemongrass, onion and soy sauce.  Another flavor match listed was soup, so that is what I made.

If you’ve never cooked with celery root (aka celeriac), give it a try!  Once you get past the nubby exterior it’s easy to work with.  Celery root lives up to its name; it tastes like celery but feels like a root vegetable.

Celeriac & Caramelized Onion Soup with Lemon grass and Shiitake Bacon

The lemon grass and onion highlight the creamy celeriac soup, while the shiitake bacon is the real star.  This recipe gives you enough mushrooms to have a piece with almost every bite.  The shiitake bacon method is borrowed from the Bauman College cookbook.

1 Tbs olive oil
large sweet onion, halved and sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp poultry seasoning
2 lbs celeriac, peeled and diced into 1 inch cubes
4 cups vegetable broth or water
stalk lemon grass, smashed and cut into 6-inch pieces
1 cup unsweetened almond milk
dash salt, or more to taste
dash ground white pepper
1/4 lb shiitake mushrooms, sliced very thinly
1 Tbs coconut oil, melted
1/4 tsp smoked paprika
1 Tbs tamari

1. Preheat the oven to 375 F.
2. Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat.  Add the onion, stir to coat, and turn the heat down to medium-low.  Cook, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes, until caramelized and slightly browned.  Watch to make sure the onions don’t burn or get too dry.
3. Turn up the heat to medium high.  Add the garlic and poultry seasoning and cook, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes, until fragrant.
4. Add the celeriac, vegetable broth or water and lemon grass.  Cover, turn the heat up and bring to a boil.
5. Turn the heat down to medium and simmer 20 minutes, covered, until celeriac is easily pierced by a fork.
6. Meanwhile, combine the shiitakes, coconut oil, smoked paprika and tamari.  Spread out on a parchment-lined baking sheet.  Bake for 20-30 minutes, flipping the mushrooms once after 15 minutes.  If smaller pieces start to burn, remove them to a plate as needed.
7. Remove the lemon grass pieces from the pot.  Transfer the soup to a blender, in batches if necessary.  Add the almond milk, salt and white pepper and blend until smooth.  Taste and adjust seasonings if needed.
8. Divide the soup among four bowls and top with the mushrooms.  Serve hot.

Servings: 4

Amount Per Serving
Calories 288.88
Calories From Fat (26%) 75.72
% Daily Value
Total Fat 8.7g 13%
Saturated Fat 3.72g 19%
Cholesterol 0mg 0%
Sodium 526.39mg 22%
Potassium 1281.21mg 37%
Total Carbohydrates 50.92g 17%
Fiber 8.48g 34%
Sugar 8.52g
Protein 7.64g 15%

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VeganMoFo: Vegan on the Cheap

October 9, 2011 at 10:03 pm · Filed under Food, vegan ·Tagged , , , ,

I learned about some of the recipes in Robin Robertson’s Vegan On The Cheap by seeing them on the blog Two Vegan Boys.  All of the dishes looked really tasty, so I bought the book and gave a few recipes a try.  I’m not on as strict a budget as I have been at some points of my life, but I still try to keep my grocery bill to a reasonable amount, so I liked the idea of choosing recipes specifically for the low cost.

One thing that this book has going for it is that the recipes are generally hearty, comforting and filling.  This is a great quality, but for someone who’s watching their portions and calorie intake, it can make recipe selection a little more complicated.  Many of them are higher in carbs than I usually prefer, and I like to bulk up my plate with veggies.  So, I picked recipes that worked best for me, lowered the amount of oils called for, and supplemented with veggie side dishes.

These are Mu Shu Burritos, and for a recipe with so few ingredients it was really delicious.  The main seasoning is hoisin sauce, which helped with the depth of flavor.  (Whole Foods has an organic house brand of vegetarian hoisin which I like.)  The recipe calls for seitan but I used soy curls because I already had some in the pantry.  What could be more cheap than food that’s already in the pantry?  The texture of the cooked cabbage was a nice contrast to the soy curls.  I served my burritos with a little chopped broccoli salad seasoned with rice vinegar and sweet chili sauce.

I served up the Three Bean Loaf with beets and roasted brussels sprouts.  The loaf was held together by bread crumbs, oats and vital wheat gluten, and it actually loafed!  The beans and binders were combined with carrot, celery, ketchup, soy sauce, mustard, brown sugar and cider vinegar, and the combination of sweet, savory and tangy flavors was mouth watering.

The Peanutty Pumpkin Stew was a meal unto itself.  The broth was thickened with canned pumpkin and peanut butter, and other ingredients included carrot, potato, tomato, curry powder, kidney beans and green chiles.  I added a pinch of cayenne powder for a little bit of heat.  The thick/chunky texture may not be pleasing to some, but it really worked for me.  Most of the ingredients could be already found in your pantry and vegetable crisper.  To get some green in my meal, I steamed some kale and mixed it into the soup.

This Blushing Alfredo Fettuccine was the perfect way to use up a partial jar of marinara that was lingering in the fridge.  The sauce includes your typical vegan alfredo ingredients such as cashews, silken tofu and nutritional yeast, but you pump up the flavor even more by starting with sauteed onions and garlic.  I served the sauce over shirataki noodles, which are tofu based, very low-cal noodles.  They’re not amazing, but I do like to use them instead of pasta sometimes so that I can have a big dish of food without lots of calories.  I topped the noodles and sauce with roasted cauliflower, baked tempeh and fresh parsley.

I really enjoyed every recipe I’ve tried from Vegan On The Cheap so far.  The recipes and techniques are solid, the flavor combinations are familiar yet tempting, and the recipes live up to the book title’s promise by costing less at the grocery store, and using up some pantry items if you plan well.

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VeganMoFo: The Great American Detox Diet

October 6, 2011 at 9:24 pm · Filed under Food, vegan ·Tagged , , , , , ,

Alex Jamieson, author of The Great American Detox Diet, was Morgan Spurlock’s girlfriend at the time he filmed Super Size Me (now his wife).  She allowed him to eat nothing but McDonald’s for thirty days straight on the condition that she could put him on a detox afterward, and this was the basis for her book.

I bought The Great American Detox Diet hoping that it would have lots of healthy recipes to try, and it partially delivered.  The first two thirds of the book explain why we need to detox and how to do it, and the last hundred pages are full of recipes.  The how is broken down into an eight week plan, each week focusing on something like swapping out healthy sweeteners for sugar, kicking the caffeine habit, or choosing healthy fats.  I read the plan with interest, but I think everything in moderation is okay, so I’m not planning on cutting out sugar or coffee completely any time soon.

The first recipe I tried was Spicy Red Beans and Savory Rice.  You start by simmering cooked kidney beans with kombu, then cook them again in a spicy broth.  Cooking the already cooked beans for an hour made them pretty soft, and while I like spicy food, I thought the spice in the beans wasn’t balanced by anything; it was just spice for spice’s sake.  The rice, on the other hand, was great.  I loved the crunchy veggies interspersed with the rice.  I was surprised that a recipe which was supposed to be for a detox called for four Tablespoons of oil; I reduced that amount greatly.

These are Sang Choy Bow, or Chinese Mushroom Rice “Burritos”.  This recipe was great; the combination of rice, finely chopped mushrooms, garlic, bell pepper, celery and ginger was really tasty.  You’re supposed to put the filling in lettuce leaves to make “burritos”, but honestly I liked the mixture more just on its own.  For a side dish, I sauteed green beans and broccoli in peanut oil and topped it with chopped walnuts.

Next, I tried the Sweet and Sour Sauce with buckwheat, veggies, tempeh and microgreens.  I didn’t love the sauce.  The sweet and sour flavors come from maple syrup and apple cider vinegar and I don’t know if it was the ingredients or the ratios, but I just didn’t like it very much.

Lastly, this is Milanese Tomato Soup, which I really liked.  It’s a chunky tomato soup with other fun stuff like shredded carrot and chopped spinach.  I’m not a big fan of creamy tomato soup, so this was perfect for me.  The only change I would make next time would be to add the carrot and spinach a little earlier, since they were still a little raw at the end of cooking time.  And because tomato soup loves grilled cheese, I made the Gooey Grilled Cheese from The Uncheese Cookbook, which is always a winner.

I’m not sure what I think of The Great American Detox Diet overall.  I like the idea of cleaning up our food, and I like the idea of a detox versus a diet, but I don’t feel like the recipes were always the cleanest they could have been.  For instance, some call for canned items or use more oil than I would expect a “healthy” recipe to.  Some recipes were great, while some just weren’t my cup of tea.  Maybe it’s just a different cooking style than I’m used to.

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VeganMoFo: Clean Start

October 5, 2011 at 9:31 pm · Filed under Food, vegan ·Tagged , , ,

I don’t remember where I first heard about Terry Walters and her cookbooks Clean Food and Clean Start, but I know I was immediately intrigued by the idea of “clean food”.  While these cookbooks aren’t marketed as vegan, the recipes I have looked at in Clean Start are totally free of animal products.

The book begins by introducing a clean diet, listing the benefits, essential kitchen tools and clean ingredients.  It then lists some basics cooking techniques for grains, legumes, greens and stock.  Then we get to the recipes, divided by season, which I think is fantastic for choosing recipes to match my CSA deliveries.  Each seasonal section includes appetizers, entrees, sides and desserts.

I made the Chilled Chickpea, Tomatillo and Avocado Soup and the Green and Yellow Beans with Garlic and Herbs.  The soup was such an interesting flavor combination, with ingredients that I never would have thought to combine.  The avocado is actually cooked with the vegetables and chickpeas before pureeing and chilling.  The soup tasted almost like a really interesting flavor of hummus, and if you didn’t know what the ingredients were you might not be able to pick them out.  I reduced both the olive oil and avocado called for, and I don’t think it impacted the dish negatively.  The soup was highlighted by lime juice, fresh basil, chives and cherry tomatoes, which kept it light and fresh.

The side dish was a basic saute, heating garlic and herbs in olive oil and tossing it with steamed beans.  I loved the color of the beans, especially because I wouldn’t have gravitated toward the yellow beans on my own.

Now that I’ve dived into this book, I’m excited to try more recipes as the seasons change.  Standouts for fall include Carrot Cashew Miso Spread, Red Lentil Soup with Turnip and Parsley, Cabbage Saute with Tart Cherries and Crisp Apples, Pan-Seared Tofu with Ginger Lime Glaze, and Pumpkin Spice Muffins made of teff flour, chickpea flour and almond meal.

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VeganMoFo: Appetite For Reduction

October 3, 2011 at 8:10 pm · Filed under Food, vegan ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

Happy VeganMoFo!  Technically, VeganMoFo began on Saturday, but my goal is to post every weekday so I’m right on time.  Head over to VegaMoFo HQ and check out the blogroll or rss feed!

For the first week, I’m going to feature some vegan cookbooks that I’ve been cooking from recently.  First up is Appetite For Reduction.  I’ve posted about this cookbook before and have already professed my love for it; the style of cooking is how I cook when left to my own devices – low fat, lots of whole foods and lots of flavor.

Baked Falafel & Hummus Wrap.  I love these baked falafel – all the flavor and crunch without the deep frying.  I actually over-baked my falafels, so they were extra crunchy.  The hummus recipe is low-oil and tahini-free, and to be honest I missed the tahini flavor so I added a tahini sauce to my wrap.  Next time I’ll add a bit of tahini to the hummus, or try one of the suggested hummus flavors such as pizza hummus.

Hottie Black-Eyed Peas & Greens and Creamed Corn, served with patty pan squash and red onion.  The peas and greens are a one-pot dish, which is great.  I found it wasn’t quite hot enough for me, so I added more hot sauce.  The creamed corn is made from blended fresh corn, and packs so much corn flavor without much added fat.  The patty pan squash were a great, buttery complement to round out the meal.

This is Caldo Verde with Crumbled Tempeh.  Caldo verde means green soup, and the tempeh stands in for sausage here.  The recipe calls for chard or kale, but I used cabbage because I had some in the fridge.  I liked this recipe but didn’t love it, and I think the cabbage was to blame.  Between the cabbage, tempeh and fennel seeds there was a bit too much bitterness going on.  I think with some chard or kale though, it would be great.

A Bee Ell Tee, from the sandwich section.  The sandwich and bowls sections of Appetite For Reduction are a great addition, as they give you more ideas for using the recipes, and make the style of eating seem more realistic and accessible.  The Bee in a Bee Ell Tee is eggplant bacon, which I’ve posted about before.  It may not look like much in this picture, but eggplant bacon is smoky and chewy and wonderful.  I could eat a whole eggplant worth of it.  The other standout in this sandwich is the Cashew Miso Mayo.  It’s not really like mayo, but it’s a salty, tangy spread which really made the sandwich.

Here we have Buffalo Tempeh with potatoes, asparagus and Easy Breezy Cheezy Sauce.  I’m in love with the buffalo tempeh and have made it multiple times now, which says a lot, since I usually only make a recipe once unless I really like it.  The cheezy sauce is easily the best quick cheese sauce I’ve had.  It comes together really quickly but doesn’t taste raw like some sauces can.

This is a Mediterranean Bowl with quinoa, spinach, chickpeas, roasted cauliflower, Caesar Chavez Dressing and a sprinkling of ground seeds.  The original bowl combination calls for bulgur, and quinoa was a good stand in.  The spinach was my addition to get something green in there, but it would have been better if it was cooked down a bit.  And of course, the Caesar Chavez Dressing tastes good on everything.

I’ve been branching out to other cookbooks recently, but I know I’ll keep coming back to Appetite For Reduction until I’ve tried almost everything.  If you’ve cooked from Appetite For Reduction too, what have been your favorites?

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32 Before 32

July 20, 2011 at 9:52 pm · Filed under Food, vegan ·Tagged , , , , , , ,

I was so pleased with the results of my 31 Before 31 that I am forging ahead with 32 more goals!  It’s already been two months since my 31st birthday, so I have just under ten months to work on this list.

  1. Go camping.
  2. Run a 5k.
  3. Get fitted for running shoes.
  4. Go to the deYoung.
  5. Go on a hike of at least 7 miles at Mt. Tam.
  6. Build a light box for food photography.
  7. Borrow a non-vegan cookbook from the library and try at least three recipes.
  8. Do five real push ups in a row.
  9. Finalize the list of recipes for my zine idea and work on at least five recipes.
  10. Enter all of the recipes I have printed into Living Cookbook database.
  11. Read at least chapters 5-7 of On Food and Cooking.
  12. Change blog template.
  13. Update blog roll.Build a small collection of props for food photography.
  14. Learn and use a photo-editing program.
  15. Go to a symphony concert.
  16. Finalize the list of songs for cover album project and work on arrangements.
  17. Take a day trip up or down highway 1.
  18. Go to Millennium and order the Frugal Foodie prix fix menu.
  19. Host a dinner party.
  20. Walk across the Golden Gate Bridge.
  21. Watch the eight movies on this list that I haven’t seen.
  22. Volunteer.
  23. Advertise chef services somewhere other than my blog.
  24. Get business cards for blog & chef business.
  25. Complete Pimsleur Spanish program.
  26. Visit a new city.
  27. Visit the Winchester Mystery House.
  28. Do a jigsaw puzzle.
  29. Play tennis.
  30. Get a canning pot and can something.
  31. Find a houseplant I can’t kill
  32. Go to a spinning class.

I’ll do my best to update at least the blog-related goals a few times as the year goes on.

And, since every good post deserves some good food, here are a few dinners I made.  No recipes, but delicious nonetheless.

Mock chicken tacos with slaw, fresh and pickled jalapenos, and refried beans.

Millet with chard, fennel, capers, white wine and hazelnuts.

Biscuits with kale, sausage and mushroom gravy.

Soba, bok choy, shiitake and edamame soup with fried onion and dulse.

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Salads & Shrimps

July 11, 2011 at 9:12 pm · Filed under Food, vegan ·Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

A while back, I had a head of cabbage in the fridge that needed to be used, so I consulted How To Cook Everything Vegetarian and turned it into Wheat Berry Salad with Cabbage and Coarse Mustard.  I added celery per Bittman’s suggest and beans for protein, and used less oil than the recipe called for.  I really liked this salad but thought the red onions were overpowering; I ended up picking them out of the leftovers.  I really need to make more recipes from this cookbook!

Bad picture of a great salad – Caesar Salad with Eggplant Bacon from Appetite for Reduction, topped with broiled blackened tofu.  I didn’t have bread to make the croutons, so I toasted some tortilla strips instead.  I super duper love this salad!  The eggplant bacon is fantastic, and the Cesar Chavez dressing has become my go-to dressing, as I always have the ingredients on hand.

Orange-strawberry salad with fava beans, pea shoots, avocado-lemon-poppy seed dressing and almonds.  I had really high hopes for this salad but the dressing was, sadly, just okay.

Onto the shrimps!  Seafood was the very last meat I gave up before going vegetarian, and I had a rough time of it.  I really liked shrimp and tuna!  I haven’t craved seafood for a really long time, but I think it’s fun to eat mock seafoods every once in a while.

Dave wanted some noodle soup one Sunday afternoon, so I made a sort of combination of this recipe and pho.  I had a package of vegetarian prawns in the freezer for a long time, so I tossed it into my portion.


The prawns were interesting – the flavor was good, but they were really big and very chewy.  Strange, for sure.

What were not strange were these breaded vegan shrimp from Sophie’s Kitchen.  Imagine my delight when I spotted an assortment of new vegan seafood in the Whole Foods freezer!  I had to try it.

These breaded vegan shrimp are similar to the prawns above in taste and texture, but because they’re smaller they’re less chewy and weird.  And, they’re breaded, and, the breading stays on!  I really liked these shrimp and will definitely purchase products from Sophie’s Kitchen again.

Lastly, I realized it’s been a long time since I posted any pictures of Jake the handsomest cat, so here you go.

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On The Road Again, Part II

June 15, 2011 at 9:34 am · Filed under Food, vegan ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

For the second leg of our tour, we were away from home for four nights.  This was the part where I got to go to Portland for the first time, and I was pretty excited for that!  We got up Monday morning and headed for Eureka, CA.  Once you get past Santa Rosa there is really not very much on the way, so my lunch was what I could scrounge up at the freeway corner store.

Yum.  Actually, I had never tried the Naked gold machine before, and it was quite nice.

When we arrived in Eureka it was like a ghost town.  It was Memorial Day, and nothing seemed to be open.  We checked in at the venue, and the bartender recommended that Eureka Natural Foods might be open, mentioning that they had a deli-style area including vegan options.

I had a hard time choosing, so I got a few things.

Hugely stuffed sandwich – horseradish vegenaise, spicy mustard, carrot, cucumber, pickles, tempeh, sprouts, avocado, tomato and lettuce on sprouted wheat bread.  The sandwich guy mentioned that they marinate the tempeh in soy sauce then saute it, and he cooked it again while making the sandwich so that it was nice and crispy.

Curry tofu samosa.  This was fine, but I think it would’ve been better warm.

Corn chowder, with carrot, potato and cauliflower too.  It was rainy outside, and the soup was hot, well-seasoned and comforting.

I’m not sure I would purposefully go to Eureka again, but if I did I would make a point to stop at Eureka Natural Foods.  They had a cute little area to eat the prepared foods, and walking around I saw lots of products that I would normally buy.  They had flavors of Zevia I had never seen!

For breakfast the next morning, I tried Artisana’s Cashini Butter.  We had stayed at a Hampton Inn, so I even had the luxury of toasting my english muffin!  Cashini, which is a combo of cashew butter and tahini, is delicious!  It tastes great on its own, but would probably be even better with some jam.  I felt really healthy eating something that said “high in calcium & iron” on the package.

We stopped over for lunch in a random commercial area and settled on Pita Pit.  I lived near a Pita Pit in college and ate it a bunch (admittedly, usually the tuna, before I was vegetarian), so going there is kind of nostalgic for me.  Although they have a new spicy black bean patty which is apparently vegan, I went with the old stand-by of falafel and hummus.

We arrived in Portland and sought out a sports bar to watch the A’s game, and managed to find probably the one restaurant in the city with nothing vegan on the menu.  Even the veggie burger had egg in it.  So, plans changed and we headed down the street to La Sirenita, a taqueria with decent online reviews.

The woman at the counter helped me figure out what was vegan, and I ended up with a very tasty fajita burrito with black beans.  I know the inside of a burrito isn’t very pretty, but this one was good enough to warrant showing!

After dinner we went to the hotel, and I started narrowing down my Portland must-do short list.  We only had one day there, and you can be sure I was planning to make the most of it!

With the help of The PPK forums, I decided on Junior’s for brunch.  Junior’s is a cute little hole-in-the-wall diner in the southeast quadrant which purportedly has lines out the door on weekend mornings.  I knew the boys wouldn’t want to spend quite as long as me in the city, so I hopped on public transit and went on my own adventure.

After reading this post I had a hard time deciding on the superhero scramble or the potato plate, but I went with the scramble in the end.  I think the sausage component won me over.  This scramble had “garden sausage”, tomato and spinach, and the potatoes were well cooked and crispy.  The toast came with earth balance, and I had a happy tummy.

My next stop was walking distance from Junior’s.

The vegan mini mall!

Cute stuff from Herbivore – a tote, a t-shirt and Papa Tofu.

Haul from Food Fight – white chocolate chips, Dandies marshmallows, bulk soy curls, Dave’s Killer Bread Good Seed Peace Bomb, and a Jokerz candy bar.

While I was shopping the mini mall, the boys called and said they were on their way into town, to go to Prost!, a German beer bar and restaurant.  While Prost! sounded excellent in and of itself, it also happens to be next to the food carts where Native Bowl is located, so it was a double win for me.  I picked out some goodies at Sweetpea Baking Company and hopped in the van.

On the way, I ate this amazingly delicious apricot danish from Sweetpea.  I don’t think I’d ever had a vegan danish, and this one didn’t disappoint!

The super-flaky crust was more salty than sweet, which played perfectly off the sugary jam and glaze.

I drank a delicious wheat beer and willed my stomach to have more room in it…Around 3PM, I decided I could handle lunch before the carts closed.

Because I wasn’t very hungry, I had a hard time deciding on what to choose.  The guy working the cart helped me narrow it down, and I went with the Alberta Bowl – jasmine rice, garlic tofu, Fire Breathing Dragon Sauce, housemade furikake, shredded green cabbage, carrots and scallions.

I knew the bowl was going to be good, but didn’t know it would be THIS GOOD.  The rice and tofu were cooked perfectly, the sauce was creamy and spicy, and the raw veggies gave it the perfect crunch.  I am in love with this bowl and can’t stop thinking about trying to recreate it at home.  The bowl was so good, in fact, that Dave chose to get one for himself over the other meaty food cart options.  He said his Couch Bowl was maybe a tad too spicy, but other than that he enjoyed it.

After some time driving around and checking out Powell’s (which might be the biggest bookstore ever), we decided to go back to the hotel to rest up before the show.  I had one more item on my short list of must-dos to take care of first.

Homegrown Smoker, ya’ll.  I couldn’t possibly fit anything else in my belly at that point, so we took it to go.

The entire menu looked fantastic, but their sandwich special made ordering easy.  (I did not get the fried oreos.  Even on vacation, I’m not sure I could let myself get fried oreos…)

This sandwich was seriously amazing.  The bread was really sturdy and somehow held all the fillings together.  The smoked soy curls were possibly the closest thing to meat that I’ve had since being vegetarian/vegan, texture- and taste-wise.  The mac and cheese was really good; it seemed like they sauced it once when making it, then sauced it again when plating, which made it really creamy.  I would compare the flavor to Souley Vegan’s mac.

My stomach was starting to protest at this point, but I couldn’t not eat this peanut butter brownie that I had bought at  Sweetpea earlier.  That would just be ridiculous.

After eating my way through Portland I was pretty pooped, so I got a soy latte at Stumptown Coffee Roasters before the show.  Even though it was ordered to go, the barista poured this cute little soy heart on top.

As expected, I pretty much fell in love with Portland and can’t wait to go back in August for Vida Vegan Con!

Breakfast on the way to Seattle was Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut Butter on Good Seed bread.  Separately they are wonderful, and together it was the best breakfast ever.  I’m pretty sure you could ice a cake with the hazelnut butter, it’s so sweet and rich.  The bread is chunky with seeds and whole grains, and almost tastes buttery on its own.  I want to hire Dave to live in my house and bake bread every day.

Arriving in Seattle after a few hours, it was high time for lunch.  We drove by the venue just to check it out, and as you so often do on tour, we ate at the closest decent-looking restaurant.  This one had a big Pho sign in the window, which was enough to draw us in.

I started with fresh rolls of fried tofu, sweet potato, carrot, noodles and lettuce, with peanut sauce.

Tofu pho – I was excited to see actual vegetables in the bowl!  This was pretty good for your standard veggie pho.

A few of us had never been to Seattle, so of course we had to check out the Space Needle and Pike’s Market.  We had a very confusing bus ride back.  There was a sign over the place where you pay that said something to the effect of “pay as you get off”, but then nobody ever asked for money.  If Seattle doesn’t want my two dollars, they’re not getting it!

photo by Eric Atria

Most of the gang had pizza by the slice for dinner, and I convinced Stacie from Morningbell to take a hike with me to check out Cyber Dogs, a vegetarian internet cafe serving international gourmet hot dogs.  Intriguing, right?  I couldn’t decide between two dogs, so I just got both!

(iPhone pictures because my memory card was full)

Chicago-style dog – brat with dill pickle spear, tomato, pickled peppers, celery salt and mustard.  We realized after being served that these were not hot dogs you pick up and eat.  Stacie ordered a chili cheese dog, and couldn’t even see the dog under all the chili!  This dog was really tasty and I loved the pickle spear.  My only complaint is that there was a whooole lot of mustard, and I am generally a mustard lover.

Hungarian Goulash Dog.  I really only needed one dog for dinner, but this one was too amazingly weird not to try.  Potatoes, “beef”, celery, carrots and noodles stewed with Hungarian spices and topped with “bacon” and kraut.  There’s a hot dog and bun under all that, and there were actually lasagna-style noodles and veggie bacon lining the bun, and some sort of liquid pooling in the bottom.  Despite the wackiness, this actually tasted really good.  I couldn’t tell the potatoes from the beef from the vegetables, but I forged on and got through about half of it.  I would say it’s worth trying if you’re looking for something different.

We had a place to stay in Seattle, but decided to drive home through the night instead.  We just wanted to get back home.  The snacks I had packed came in handy, especially the ProBar.  Tour isn’t always the most convenient form of vacation, but I had a great time, saw some new places, and ate some great food!

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