VeganMoFo: I’m late.

October 8, 2008 at 2:29 pm · Filed under Food, vegan ·Tagged noodles, tofu, vegan, VeganMoFo

When Isa announced this year’s VeganMoFo on The PPK about a month ago, I was really excited!  For those not in the know, VeganMoFo stands for vegan month of food, a month where vegan bloggers post as much as possible about food.  I immediately signed up.  Then I forgot.  Until Monday.  Then I moved into our new house which doesn’t have internet until the weekend.  Excuses aside, I’m joining in late and hope to post almost every day for the rest of October.  Check out this list of other participants, there are lots!

Now, I must confess.  I’m in love.  With a grocery store.  Upon discussing natural foods with anyone in the East Bay, the name Berkeley Bowl kept being mentioned.  It’s an odd name for a grocery store, yes, but just from what I’d heard I knew I would love it.  I checked it out last week, and it was everything I knew it would be.  It’s like Whole Foods but less pretentious, with prepared food, any sort of grocery you could want, extensive ethnic selections, rows upon rows of bulk bins, and a ridiculous produce section.  Seriously, they had herbs and vegetables in there that I’ve never seen before, some that I’d never even heard of.  And the best part is that the prices are really reasonable.  Organic cereal for less than $3 a box?  Yes, please.  My only complaint is that it was COLD in there.  My toes were frozen by the time I left.  Next time I’ll wear socks.

I wasn’t really shopping for myself during that trip, but I figured I could at least buy supplies to make dinner.  It hit me when I passed the asian noodles – I would try to recreate the astounding miso udon noodlesI had at the Bellagio Buffet in Vegas.  Instead of the fried tofu chunks in the noodles I wanted to do a larger portion of tofu on the side.  I almost bought a pre-baked teriyaki flavored tofu, but then remembered I could buy fresh tofu and flavor it myself for half the price.  That’s more like it.

So I made miso udon noodles with veggies…

And orange-sesame glazed tofu.

Unfortunately, neither was right on.  The miso sauce wasn’t quite flavorful or thick enough.  The tofu didn’t exactly “glaze”, and it was too sweet and too sesame-y.  But it’s a good start!  Rest assured I will be revisiting this meal, because I think once it’s perfect it’s going to be amazing.

Like I mentioned before, we moved into our house!  I can’t wait to unpack my cookbooks.  In upcoming posts I’ll show you ’round the kitchen I’ll be cooking in for the next year, and tell you about how awesome last weekend was.

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