Panzanella Salad

One of my favorite vegan restaurants is Eden in Bar Harbor, Maine.  The menu consists of amazing seasonal dishes.  I've got quite a backlog of photos from Eden to post for you on my vegan dining guide .  We were lucky enough to dine there twice over Memorial day weekend.  The food was spectacular, but my girlfriend always talks about a dish she got there last summer.  It was just a simple panzanella salad that left such an impression.

The first time I had a panzanella salad was many years ago when I was studying in Spain.  My professor decided to have a party. Each of the students was responsible for going to a shop and purchasing one ingredient.  Then we all met later and built the salad.  To be honest, I thought dipping bread in the tomato juice/salad dressing mix was weird.  However, I was surprised to find that it was quite delicious.  Though I occasionally order panzanella at a restaurant, I've never made it again until today!

A few weeks ago, I bookmarked a panzanella recipe from America's Test Kitchen because I thought we might enjoy it just as much.  (Unfortunately to see that recipe along with their whole collection, you may need to share your email address with them.  Test Kitchen is a great site!)

I picked up a nice loaf of French bread on the way home and cubed it.  Then tossed it with olive oil and salt.  Next I baked at a high temperature for 15 minutes or so, to develop some crunch.

The rest is mainly chopping.  Though the tomatoes need to rest after being tossed with salt.  This helps bring out the juice which is used in a simple vinaigrette dressing.   Once the vinaigrette is made, it is mixed in with the crunchy bread cubes and left to marinate for a few minutes before plating everything.

Overall we both really liked this salad.  Though to us, the shallot was a little sharp.  Instead, I recommend some red onion or perhaps a Vidalia.

Vegan Chocolate Bundt Cake

Over the holidays, my girlfriend gave me a beautiful blue bundt cake pan and I've been itching to use it. Then I happened to see that Isa posted this new recipe for a Chocolate Yogurt Bundt Cake. All I needed was an occasion for such a delicacy. Well, last weekend the in-laws came to visit and it seemed like a perfect time to try out the recipe. I'll warn you that my photo didn't do the cake justice.

As per usual, I tweaked the recipe a wee bit.  It calls for 1 cup of cocoa powder, but I used 3/4 cup and subbed in a 1/4 cup of black cocoa. Black cocoa has a deeper dark chocolate flavor which makes me happy and, of course, it adds a darker color as well.  Because I failed to read the recipe before shopping, it turned out I needed more than the lonely container of coconut yogurt I'd purchased. While you should learn a lesson here (or perhaps I should), the recipe turned out just fine because fortunately, we had some left over vegan sour cream which I used instead.

The cake itself turned out beautifully.  The pictures, however, taken with my phone on a dreary morning of a black cocoa cake on an espresso finished table didn't really seem worth posting.  You'll have to settle for a slightly less terrible picture showing just one slice of cake.


Isa sprinkled powder sugar on the top of the bundt, but my girlfriend suggested a peanut butter glaze.  After a bunch of Internet searches, I couldn't really find what we had in mind.  That meant some improvisation.

The glaze is basically powdered sugar, peanut butter, soymilk, and a dash of vanilla.  At first it wasn't quite thick enough but rather than adding more sugar, some powdered peanut butter worked quite well as far as consistency and flavor. There were a few pb powder chunks that didn't dissolve, but next time I would try mixing the powder with soymilk first or simply using more good ol' peanut butter.

Behold the best (or shall we say not worst) picture I could muster.  It is my goal to stop being lazy and actually charge my digital camera.

The cake was a hit with everyone and I'd definitely recommend the recipe!

Lettuce Wraps

I've always been a fan of lettuce wraps. It is so much fun to fill the lettuce cups with different ingredients, roll them up, and enjoy the different flavors.  When I saw the recipe for Lettuce Wraps With Hoisin-Mustard Tofu from Appetite For Reduction, it was immediately added to our list of upcoming dinner ideas.

Although the recipe suggested serving with some spiced squash and fried rice, I was thinking more along the lines of the make-your-own wraps I'd had in the past.

Since we didn't have tofu on hand, I subbed tempeh which we boiled for 10 minutes before browning up.  I've found boiling first makes the tempeh less bitter.

Then it was just a matter of chopping veggies and sauteing up mushrooms to make all the fixings.  From the picture you can see we had carrots, cucumber, scallions, baby bellas, beans sprouts, and red cabbage.  

While the suggested iceberg lettuce is crunchier, I usually prefer boston lettuce for wraps. 

Overall, this recipe did not disappoint.  I do think tofu would have absorbed the flavorings a bit better, but we enjoyed the tempeh.  This is a fun change of pace and you get to eat with your hands!


 

Rhode Island Weenies Vegan Style

My girlfriend’s family grew up in Rhode Island, enjoying Ocean State delicacies such as coffee milk and New York System Hot Wieners “all the way.” When her brother comes up from the south to visit, it is all about local memories…which entails visiting nostalgic RI hangouts and sampling all the quintessential classics.  What is traditional Rhode Island fare you ask?

I already knew about Del's Lemonade.  This is definitively my favorite frozen lemonade.  It was in the running to become the official drink of RI, but was beat out by coffee milk!

Last year, Nana introduced me to johhnycakes.  These are basically a thin cornmeal pancake. 

Stuffies are stuffed baked quahogs.  As a kid (long before the thought of being vegan entered my mind) I did try these.  The flavor is all about what is added to the stuffing and it would be pretty simple to make a vegan version of these.  The vegan crab cake recipes are good enough for me.

Next up, bakery pizza. Cold pizza strips…they don’t sound too appetizing, do they? There's something about the dough, olive oil, and fresh sauce that makes these babies work. Fortunately for us vegans, they usually don't bother with cheese.

For weeks before this year's visit, all I heard about was hot weenies or more specifically NY System Hot Wieners. These frankfurts are topped with spiced meat sauce, yellow mustard, chopped raw onion and a generous shake of celery salt. The spiced meat is not to be confused with chili. There are no tomatoes, peppers or other chili fixings involved.

My girlfriend’s mom told me there's something about the onion, it just stays with you. Someone else fondly talked about how they hit your stomach like a lead weight. “They don’t call them ‘gaggers’ or ‘belly busters’ for nothin’, ya know.” It all made me chuckle a little.

The family bought NY System sauce spice packs for her brother so he wouldn't miss these while he was back down south. Looking at the envelopes and reading the directions made us think that we could veganize this local fav.

We started with vegan burger crumbles and the spice mix. It called for significantly more oil than I was willing to add, so we cut down quite a bit and then added some vegan beef bouillon dissolved in a ½ cup of water to thin it out while adding authentic flavor. We simmered and stirred, and after about an hour we were good to go.

We topped tofu pups with the spiced crumbles, raw onion, mustard and celery salt…“all the way” as they’re ordered up in Olneyville. The verdict? I dig them! A couple of our not-so-vegan friends saw the appealing pics on facebook and couldn't wait to try them. Now we are having a vegan weenie party at their house this weekend.

If you want to try making these on your own, there are tons of recipes for the RI weenie sauce online. They are all very similar with chili powder and a mix of spices. You could always order the spice packs direct from Olneyville NY System Wieners if you want to start at the source.

This veganzied version is certainly easier on your stomach and heart.

Popeyes Biscuits

The other day I was browsing around on Pinterest and it seemed like there was an abundance of pins with a veganized version Popeyes biscuits.  As a teenager, I was a huge fan of Popeyes restaurant and one of my favorite things to order was the biscuits. 

One pin pointed me to this blog.  The recipe couldn't be more simple.  It is just 4 ingredients!  I'll warn that I found the dough rather sticky and ended up using quite a bit of flour on the bottom/top in order to cut out biscuits.  In addition we prefer a little more crunch, so I baked them for a few extra minutes to get the darker, golden toasty goodness.

We had hot tasty biscuits in less than 20 minutes including cooking time.  The worst part was the clean up (as usual).

If you are looking to make these a little healthier, you can easily cut back on the margarine.  I went with the lower amount of Earth Balance, just two ounces.  Next time, I'd likely half it again as these were rich enough. 

I googled for other copycat Popeyes biscuit recipes and the standard version is basically the same recipe.  The author just subbed margarine and vegan sour cream.  One interesting tidbit is that a lot of recipes use Sprite instead of soda water.  That doesn't sound very good to me.

In the future, I could see making these with some nutritional yeast and maybe some chives for a more sophisticated flavor. 

Anyway, behold the beautiful biscuits!

Garden Gille - Fregola Bowl

We stopped in for dinner at one of our favorite haunts, Garden Grille Cafe in Pawtucket Rhode Island.  I've written about it before on my dining guide, but failed to post pictures.  This entry should help, though I'll be better about documenting our food adventures in the future!

Garden Grille recently remodeled and changed up the menu.  The wooden tree branching out over the bar definitely impresses on your first visit to the new digs.

It is almost guaranteed that we will order the Barbeque Chipotle Seitan appetizer with the wasabi mustard dipping sauce as well as the special greens of the day.  We shared the smoked cauliflower hazelnut bisque which was delightful.  The seitan was fabulous and we especially enjoyed the extra crispy pieces.  The greens of the day were also quite nice.  There was a beautiful plate of collard greens, chickpeas and garlic.  Thursday there was a special that caught my eye, but I had no idea what fregola is!

Smartphone to the rescue.  I quickly learned that fregola or fregula is a pasta from Sardinia.  It resembles Israeli couscous.  The pasta is toasted in the oven before packaging which gives it some color.

We ordered the Fregola Bowl in addition to our standard meal.  I really enjoyed the variation in this dish. 

Cauliflower, hearts of palm, french horn mushrooms,

charred endive, with preserved lemon aioli.

Vegan Superbowl

Well, I can't say I am much of a football fan.  However, the Superbowl gives me an excuse to cook for my friends and this is perhaps the one time I look forward to commercials.

Sunday I made up a batch tempeh buffalo wingz.  It is an awesome recipe from a friend's zine. You can find a copy of it online here: http://donteatoffthesidewalk.com/the-zine/sample-recipes/ (Scroll down to the 3rd recipe!)

The wingz were a hit and we'll probably try some other variations in the future.

Awhile back, I saw some blog posts about root beer float cupcakes and couldn't wait to try them.   Root beer extract was rather elusive though and it prevented me from making up a batch.   A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled upon a jar of the stuff and Sunday seemed like the perfect day to crack it open.  You can find the recipe here: http://vegan.com/recipes/vegancom-top-10-recipes-of-2008/root-beer-float-cupcakes-vegancom-top-10-recipe-2008/

The cupcakes were good, though everyone agreed that tasting root beer out of context was a bit weird.  It is unlikely that I'll try this recipe again.