Vegchic

Back on the Blog Wagon...

2011-11-07T10:19:00.000-08:00

Lately I've been reading lots of blogs, but I've really missed posting. What better time to start than today?

At the end of October, I headed to the Boston Vegetarian Food Festival with my girlfriend. We had a blast. It was especially nice because this year, they sold tickets to attend the first hour. That means there was some time to wander around and meet with the vendors before it got too crowded. We managed a decent haul of freebies and coupons and purchased a few items to try out as well.

Uncle Eddies's Vegan Cookies were there this year. I'm a huge fan of their chocolate chip peanut butter flavor, so it was nice to see them. Vegan Treats Bakery was also there with an amazing spread. They had cannolis which I couldn't wait to try. Unfortunately, I wasn't a fan. I'll definitely stick to their more interesting pastries like the Chocolate Peanut Butter Bomb, in the future.

We picked up a couple of items at the Cosmo's Vegan Shoppe table as well. They actually had imitation pork rinds. Seriously! Who thinks of these things?

Pic From Cosmo's Site

I don't recall ever wanting to eat pork rinds, but I couldn't resist buying these. Even though I normally wouldn't try something, I'm often feel compelled to try a vegan version if there is one. Why, we'll never know.

The verdict... Not bad. They were just crunchy squares of thin, salty dough.

That's all for now. I'll be posting soon about making watermelon radish pickles because there was a pound of very pretty watermelon radishes in my organic veggie box last week.

Raw Marinated Artichoke Salad

2010-05-02T21:47:00.000-07:00

I stumbled upon the BSI (Blogger Secret Ingredient) Event and thought it sounded like fun. This week the ingredient was artichokes. With my recent live foods kick, I was worried about whether, this could work.

From Google, I learned that raw artichokes are commonly served in Greece and other countries.

Here's my first brush with raw artichokes:

This salad is the kind of thing you just throw together, so feel free to make substitutions or changes. My recipe and instructions are below.

Raw Artichoke Salad Recipe

2 fresh artichokes
chopped tomatoes
marinated mushrooms (baby bella is what I used) and onions
Kalamata olives
crumbled cheese (cashew cheese in this case)
greens (baby arugula in this case)
sliced scallions
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
lemon juice
Nama Shoyu or soy sauce
Italian spice blend

First, slice the mushrooms and onion. Mix a splash of Nama Shoyu, olive oil, and vinegar with a generous sprinkle of the spices. Add the mushrooms and onions and mix to coat. Refrigerate for a few hours or days. The longer the better. (Shaking the bowl to mix it up occasionally is a good thing.)

Juice a lemon and mix with a bowl cold water to prevent the artichoke from browning. Prepare the artichokes by removing tough outer leaves and the fuzzy choke as well as any purple leaves in the center. Dip in lemon water as you work. Slice the artichoke thinly and leave in the water while you prepare the salad.

Mix tomatoes, chopped olives, marinated mushrooms and onions in a bowl. Add the artichoke slices and a splash of vinegar. Stir again to combine.

To plate: Start with greens, add the artichoke mixture. Garnish with crumbled cheese and sliced scallions.

Hope you enjoy it!

The artichokes were a little tough at first, but the texture grew on me. I've added my remaining artichoke slices to the mushroom marinade in the fridge and will check to see if that softens it up without destroying the color.

ETA: I'm so excited to say that this recipe actually won the contest. It is very encouraging so see a vegan recipe beat out standard fare. In this case raw vegan made the grade!

Raw Beet Patties

2010-04-26T18:46:00.000-07:00

I saw a recipe for smokey beet cakes that Alicia Silverstone posted and decided they could easily be converted to a raw dish. With a few ideas in mind, I also searched to see what others have already tried. This recipe followed pretty closely to what I was thinking already.

Soaking walnuts takes up too much time, so I opted to use sunflower seeds and ground flax instead. The rest was a matter of what was in the fridge.

The final product with some onion bread and crumbled cashew cheese.

There were a couple of Twitter requests for the recipe. It certainly wasn't exact, but here's an attempt at documenting it.

Raw Smoky Beet Patty Recipe

1 cup of carrot/celery pulp leftover from the juicer (whatever you have will work)
1/2 red beet
1/2 yellow beet
1 onion

1-2 cloves of garlic

1/2 tomato

1/2 cup raw sunflower seeds

2 Tbl of ground flax seed mixed with 2 Tbl of water

1 tsp of smoked paprika

Salt or Nama Shoyu to taste

Food process to incorporate, adding water if necessary. Basically, you just need a consistency that allows for making patties. Form patties, then dehydrate at 105 degrees overnight. These were best right out the dehydrator with a crispy outside. Though they are still great the next day and keep well.

Enjoy!

Tal Ronnen and Gardein - Conscious Cooking

2010-04-21T19:54:00.000-07:00

Today I was excited to know Tal Ronnen would be demonstrating recipes at Whole Foods near my office. At lunch time I headed over there. He was set-up in a small area speaking to an audience of about 10 people and showing them how to make recipes.

I sat down and watched while he made Gardein Chik'n Marsala. The sample was delicious. You can get the recipe on Gardein's site by clicking here. Unfortunately, my seat didn't facilitate photo taking for this dish. Tal was so friendly and down to earth and really tried to speak with everyone. At one point he took a break to sign cookbooks. I was bummed that my copy was on the shelf at home.

The second recipe that Chef Ronnen prepared was Asian Gardein Beefless Stir Fry. While he was making this dish he talked about his cookbook, The Conscious Cook: Delicious Meatless Recipes That Will Change the Way You Eat. I was surprised to learn how popular it is outside the vegan community. The book actually made #3 on the New York Times Bestseller list. Epicurious also named it one of the top ten cookbooks of the year! While it is great to see a vegan book making a mainstream smash, it is disappointing that some of the other great vegan cookbooks out there don't have as much commercial support. Hopefully, Tal's influence will make people explore some other titles.

Below is a picture of the stir fry before Chef Ronnen served it up. This dish was also mighty good. After that, it was back to office for me!

Raw Kale Chips

2010-03-21T11:17:00.000-07:00

With the recent bout of warm weather, I've been experimenting with a high raw diet. So far I'm really digging it and feeling great.

Most of my meals are simple salads, fruit or smoothies. Occasionally, I've prepared a more involved entree like raw tacos. This week I'm planning on raw pizza. The crust is actually in the dehydrator right now!

Awhile back I checked out Prana Raw Cafe and really enjoyed the kale chips that came with my meal. These have been on my list to make for awhile. Google turned up some complicated recipes, so I opted to wing it.

Basically, I mixed together a little cold pressed olive oil, nama shoyu, and raw sesames seeds. Then I poured the mixture over some kale leaves that I had torn up. After mixing it up well and making sure all the pieces were coated, I tossed them in the dehydrator for about 5 hours. These came out great. Prana definitely used more oil, but I was happy with these results.

The yellow/orange you see in the picture is some nutritional yeast. I sprinkled about 1/3 of the chips with nutritional yeast, to add some cheesy flavor. Both varieties are great.

Many people make kale chips in the oven, so no dehydrator necessary. Soy sauce works fine in place of the nama shoyu if you aren't trying to adhere to a raw diet.

Give these a try, kale chips will surprise you.

Puerto Rican Pink Beans

2010-03-07T10:34:00.000-08:00

Joyfulgirl415 posted a family recipe for Puerto Rican Pink beans on a vegan forum I frequent. The post got a lot of attention and I decided to give it a try.

The first thing I needed to figure out is what exactly pink beans are. I originally though this was just another name for pinto beans. That is incorrect. Pintos and pink beans are good substitutions for the each other though. It turns out pink beans are their own variety. Sometimes they are also called chili beans. They are smaller and lighter in color than kidney beans.

I bought a bag of the dry beans and used the pressure cooker for 5 min to avoid the long soak time. Then, I followed the recipe here. Note that Joyfulgirl415 originally forgot the green olives and listed them later on in the thread. When I googled around to learn more about this dish, I found that it is commonly topped with slices of avocado.

The recipe is simple to make, healthy, and really delicious. Give it a try, you won't be disappointed!

Candied Orange Peel

2010-02-15T11:17:00.000-08:00

I've been doing some recipe testing for the upcoming Vegan Bakesale Cookbook. When I saw Dundee loaf, it was tops on my list to try. It is a slightly sweet bread with marmalade, fruit, and other tasty flavors. One complication was that the recipe called for candied orange peel.

None of the local stores around here carry it. Online the prices were pretty crazy, so I opted to make my own. Believe it or not, this is deceptively simple.   Here are the steps to make your candied orange peel:

1. Use the larger side of a zesting tool to slice strips of orange peel (preferably organic as the skin is where pesticides and wax would be concentrated).   If you don't have a zester, no worries.   I didn't either, so I sliced thin pieces of peel off the orange. Then used a small knife to cut off as much of the white bitter pith that was still visible on the pieces. After that, cut into strips.

2. Mix 1 cup of sugar and 1 cup of water and bring to a slow boil to dissolve.

3. Add the orange peel and let simmer for 30-45 min until the peels start to get translucent.

4. Put 1/2 cup of sugar on a shallow plate.   Scoop some of the peel up with a fork and toss it in the sugar to coat. Then put it on a tray to dry out for a few hours. Repeat.

Save the orange syrup for use in tea, lemonade or other flavoring!

Gluten Free Vegan Gingerbread

2009-12-20T20:54:00.000-08:00

I've always sympathized with the gluten free folks. Like me, they are limited at restaurants and parties. My sister called me last week asking if I knew how to make gluten free gingerbread for one of her friends. Making something without gluten is a fun challenge just like veganizing a recipe. A success would work out conveniently, because my stepsister has Celiac and I had an invite to a family party later in the week. Fortunately she likes gingerbread.

My sister stopped by and I started with a vegan recipe that I know and love: Bryanna's Low-Fat Vegan Gingerbread People.

We mixed it up using Bob's Red Mill gluten free flour. The dough was stickier than I remembered and I knew some doctoring was necessary. I took a quick taste and noticed that it had a very beany flavor. I decided on some brown rice flour to counter the bean based red mill and thicken up the dough. In addition, I added some instant coffee to cover it up and make for a richer taste. As I added more flour and the dough continued to be sticky, I got worried that it wouldn't hold together well so I added some xantham gum.

In the end, these turned out perfectly and everyone enjoyed them including the folks that didn't have vegan or gluten free requirements.

Here's my best attempt at documenting the recipe!

Gluten Free Vegan Gingerbread Recipe
*Based on Bryanna Clark Grogran's Gingerbread People Recipe

1/4 cup of Earth Balance
1/2 cup of sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp of xantham gum
1 T of maple syrup
1 T of warm water mixed with 1.5 tsp of instant coffee
1/3 apple juice
1/2 tsp of each: ginger, allspice, and cinnamon
1/2 cup + 1 T of molasses
3 1/4 cup of Bob's Red Mill gluten free mix
1/4-1/2 cup of brown rice flour

In a large bowl mix together: sugar, Earth Balance, baking soda, baking powder, salt, xantham gum, and spices until creamy. Add the juice, syrup, coffee, and molasses and thoroughly mix. Slowly add Red Mill and 1/4 cup of rice flour and mix until it forms into a dough. Add more brown rice flour as necessary. This dough will be a little sticky until chilled.

Chill 2 hours or up to 4 days. The longer it chills, the better these cookies taste. The first batch was good, but the second batch made two days later was really incredible.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Roll out dough to 1/4 inch think and cut out cookies. Don't be shy with the flour, this dough is stickier than standard wheat flour based dough. I used rice flour for rolling. Bake until lightly browned for 10-15 minutes. Let cool 5-10 minutes on sheets and then move to a rack.

Thanksgiving

2009-11-28T12:10:00.000-08:00

This year I was lucky to be overwhelmed with invites to various feasts. Unfortunately, I couldn't say yes to everyone. Since I had promised to help make vegan Thanksgiving meal with some friends, my schedule was quite filled up with cooking.

In the afternoon, I bowed out of further cooking responsibilities and headed over to my family's for an omni meal. It was nice to visit with everyone and I snacked bit on the few vegan side dishes before heading back to the vegan meal.

We had a wonderful salad that was topped with grated beets, carrot, and rutabaga. I didn't even think to take a photo at the time. The meal consisted of colcannon, homemade cranberry sauce, braised carrots, stuffed butternut squash, roasted asparagus, shitake gravy, and Hazelnut En Croute Field Roast.

The photo of my plate was taken with my phone as I forgot a camera. Not bad, huh? This was the first year we tried the En Croute Field Roast. It is incredibly flavorful. The stuffing is made with cranberries, apples and ginger and the crunchy phyllo dough crust is great. It is a little expensive, but certainly easier to make than the homemade unturkey roast that I normally bake.

The stuffed butternut squash is a recipe from from Joanna's new zine called Potluck Mania. The recipe is actually for quinoa stuffed acorn squash. The acorn squash I grabbed from my CSA stash had started to go bad, so we subbed butternut. Also, because we had some omnis visiting, I was worried that quinoa might be too different, so I used brown rice. Otherwise the recipe stayed the same and to be honest, it was a hit with everyone! Here's the stuffed squash, isn't it pretty?

A couple of the folks that joined us, brought fresh mint and rum. We had quite a few mojitos and by dessert time rolled around, I once again forgot photos.

The original plan was sweet potato pie. Unfortunately, the sweet potatoes had seen better days, so we were forced to use canned pumpkin. It was still delicious. The other hostess also made cranberry kissel. This is a Russian dish that is basically a fruit pudding. It is simply, pureed fruit and sugar with a thickening starch. She served it with some vanilla soy milk drizzled on top and sliced almonds.

It was wonderful, cruelty free meal. Hope everyone out there also had a great Thanksgiving with friends and family.

Gingerbread Sourdough Pancakes

2009-11-15T16:27:00.000-08:00

One of my favorites restaurants in Providence serves vegan gingerbread pancakes during the fall/winter season. Since the sourdough at my house required feeding, it seemed like a good idea to adapt the standard recipe I use for sourdough pancakes.

The recipe I started with, is from this website. When using their recipe, I always skip the egg replacer and most of the oil. The sourdough I am using, seems to handle the lack of egg just fine!

These gingerbread pancakes came out perfectly. They'll likely become a holiday staple at my house.

Jody's Vegan Sourdough Gingerbread Pancake Recipe

2 Cups of sourdough starter

2 Tbs of molasses

1 tsp of baking soda

1/2 tsp of salt

a splash of canola oil

1/2 tsp allspice

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ginger

optional: 1/2 tsp of instant coffee mixed with a few tablespoons of warm (NOT hot) water

Mix starter with molasses, salt, and oil. Let sit for a few minutes. Sprinkle baking soda and fold in. (Make sure you use a big enough bowl as sourdough can expand a lot due to the baking soda.) Mix in the coffee and spices. Then make your pancakes!

Boston Vegetarian Food Festival

2009-11-02T20:13:00.000-08:00

My posts have been few and far between here. Though, I have been regularly updating Vegan Cookbook Challenge. Recently, I checked out the new pizza restaurant in Allston called Peace o' Pie. The entry is on my New England Vegan Dining Guide blog.

This weekend was busy. On Saturday, I headed to the Boston Vegetarian Food Festival. This year they expanded to two days. Part of the reason was to help with overcrowding. To be honest, it was still pretty crazy. My goal was to get there early, check out the vendors, score some free samples, and leave as quickly as possible to avoid being pushed around by the mass of people.

The highlight this year for me was the Vegan Treats Bakery table. Those folks make some amazing stuff. I got two items: the Peanut Butter Bomb which I tried in NYC a few years ago and of course, I had to get a glazed doughnut too. There was so much amazing sugary goodness. It makes me wish I lived in PA, thought it is probably best that I don't!

Just a portion of the table:

There were many great vendors sharing samples of their products. I tried everything from veggie burgers to ice cream to sauerkraut to vegan chocolates. Here's a snapshot of the freebies I snagged. In addition, I picked up a bunch of coupons. The mac and cheese was a purchase as I haven't tried that brand yet.

Also this weekend, we drove down to RI to see the Jackolantern Spectacular. Here's a some of my favorite photos from that event.

Obama and the oh so scary double George Bush pumpkins

Corn, Glorious Corn!

2009-09-07T10:35:00.001-07:00

Last weekend, I was lucky enough to attend a cooking class with Didi Emmons. She is one of the original owners of Veggie Planet in Cambridge and has authored a couple of vegetarian cookbooks. I'm a huge fan of Entertaining for a Veggie Planet.

The class was based completely around corn. There was about 30 students. Didi showed us how to make some of the recipes and then we broke into groups and cooked. After, we sat down and enjoyed dinner together. I met some great people. Here are some of the pictures I took!

Bowls and bowls of corn after removing the husks...

Corn stew with yellow tomatoes.

This is a Deborah Madison recipe from Local Flavors: Cooking and Eating from America's Farmers' Markets.

The dinner plate wasn't incredibly photogenic.

It includes: corn on the cob with a spicy dressing, tomato and basil salad, the corn stew, and Didi's own corn pudding. We also had a delicious corn soup with avocado cream to start! For dessert we had some chocolate zucchini cake.

Pumpkin Ravioli and Amazing Brownies

2009-08-23T19:55:00.001-07:00

I've been lax in my posting. Sometimes life gets in the way and sometimes I'm just not that inspired. This weekend a friend that also loves to cook called. We chatted and decided that we would get together on Sunday try out some new recipes. It was a great day and the creativity really sparked me to start blogging again.

Pumpkin pasta seems a little odd for this time of year, but Cindy had been bugging me to teach her how to make fresh pasta and this is my favorite kind. It is amazingly simple to create noodles with the pasta maker. Ravioli were honestly a little too much work and I'd likely avoid it in the future.

The pasta itself is just flour, canned pumpkin and some nutmeg. For stuffing we made a tofu ricotta with chopped up garlic, shitake mushrooms, and parsley. She grabbed some fresh sage from the garden. I sliced it up and sauteed the sage with some earth balance for a flavorful and simple finish.

The garden was brimming with zucchini and I stumbled upon a recipe for Zucchini Brownies over at VegSpinz, so we gave them a try. Honestly my expectations weren't high, but these completely blew us away. These are hands down the best homemade brownies I have eaten vegan or not in years. They're moist and rich and just incredibly good. Make them now!

No Excuses

2008-08-03T15:25:00.000-07:00

Hi folks, sorry for my lack of posts for such a long time. Honestly, I don't have a good excuse. Once the summer rolls around I want to spend lots of time outdoors. I've been camping and hiking while trying to keep up with new server installations at the office.

A few weeks ago we picked blueberries and before that I picked strawberries with my aunt. This year I signed up for a share at the CSA again. Each year they get more knowledgeable and our crops are better. We've seen tons of greens, beans, onions, squash, zucchini and cucumbers. I'm looking forward to tomatoes and corn soon.

I'm not sure what to post first. Though, I owe the folks at LightLife a big thank you for sending out a box of samples earlier this year. One of the first recipes I cooked with their products was Tempeh Wingz from DEOTS.

This past week, I made some sourdough French bread. The recipe came from: The King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary Cookbook. This bread came out wonderfully and is my first sourdough loaf baked without adding yeast.

Here's a pic of some sauteed veggies from the farm with sun dried tomatoes.

Pittsburgh!

2008-03-01T13:22:00.000-08:00

When I found out Chihuly's glass exhibit at the Phipps Conservatory was leaving on February 24th, I knew I didn't have much time to get there. A hasty trip was planned and I did some research to learn about vegan eats around the city. To my surprise, Pittsburgh was extremely veg friendly. Perhaps more so, than Boston.

Unfortunately, I've been sick since I got back which has prevented me from posting.

Here's a few of the more than 600 photos I took at the Conservatory:

Our first night in the city, we dined at The Church Brew Works. The brewery/restaurant is actually inside an old church. It was a very neat place and waiter/chef had no problem veganizing a dish for me. We shared a plate of the home made chips and I had an Israeli cous cous salad with tofu.

Day 1: Chihuly day time viewing

Lunch at The Quiet Storm

Cococino (Soy coconut cappuccino)

"Chicken Tenders"

Magic Snake (Seitan philly steak)

In the evening, we took the incline car up Mount Washington and viewed the city on a very chilly night.

Dinner at Double Wide Grill, a veg friendly BBQ joint. My camera was toast at this point, so pics from my phone will have to suffice.

I loved how they displayed the wines!

BBQ Seitan Wings

Pulled Seitan Sandwich

Double wide added pearl barley to their seitan which created some great texture. That is something I'd like to try in the future.

Day 2: We checked out the East End Food Coop for breakfast and snacks. What a great store! Besides the loads of bulk options, they had home made vegan baked goods/entrees.

The Mattress Factory is renowned as one the of best installation art facilities in the country. We stopped there to walk through some really interesting exhibits. The cafe there was veg friendly and I enjoyed some beet soup and a salad.

The Heinz History Center has 7 floors to explore. There was so much to see here that we actually ran out of time. From Lewis & Clark, to the history of the Heinz Company, to the Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum, to Pittsburgh's cultural history...this was one place I would like to check out again.

After this, we rushed to see the Chihuly again at night. The Phipps cafe was vegan friendly which I've yet to see at many Boston museums. I grabbed a Thai tofu wrap and some Thai tomato soup.
We shipped out of Pittsburgh the next morning and made it back to Boston just after a snowstorm started. Luckily for us, our flight wasn't canceled.

Falafel Waffles, Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls, and Muffins

2008-02-05T19:04:00.000-08:00

I've been sporadically checking out all the vegan blogs, but pretty lax in commenting. Though I often planned on blogging over the last few months, life got in the way. Thank you to all the folks that emailed or commented while I was away. While dealing with all the holiday hustle and bustle, I was finishing up PT for my knee. Everything seems to be going well. As usual work has been hopping. We've gone through a couple of office expansions and of course I'm responsible for coordinating the network and phone cabling. Things are finally winding down and now I'm trying to catch up on stuff I've been neglecting.

Back to the food...

Though Vegan MOFO is long over, I figure---why not continue with my alphabet tour as promised? The pictures for my next entry have been sitting on my camera for almost 2 months. I certainly feel like one heck of a slacker.

Falafel is the plural of filfil which is an Arabic word that means pepper. Most people know falafel as a Middle Eastern food made from ground up fava beans and/or chickpeas mixed with spices. The most common falafel is fried into small balls and served in a pita with tahini sauce and veggies.

Back in October, I saw this creative falafel waffle recipe on the Don't Lose Your Lunch Blog. Honestly, I couldn't wait to try it. I've got to say, this is good stuff.

What else has been cooking? Well, I ordered the latest copy of the DEOTS (Don't Eat Off the Sidewalk) zine from Katie. One of the most talked about recipes from this edition is the Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls. These are incredibly good.

Tonight I finally got around to making the Orange Poppy Seed Muffins from Vive Le Vegan. These healthy little buggers are made with oat and barley flour and because of applesauce and orange juice, the recipe only calls for 3 tablespoons of oil. I really dig these, though wish they had more orange flavor. Maybe next time I will add some orange extract.

The photo above is the first blog pic with my new digital SLR. I've always wanted one, but the cost was prohibitive for me. Last week, I lucked out and found a beautiful camera on sale for over 50% off. Over the next few months, I'll slowly be learning the ropes.

Empanadas de Calabasa Sefardicas

2007-11-16T20:21:00.000-08:00

The dish for "E" is empanadas. This recipe for pumpkin empanadas was also featured on Vegan Lunchbox. Because Sefardica or Sephardic in English is used in the recipe title, we know this recipe is both Spanish and Jewish.

In case you are unfamiliar with the term Sephardic, I thought I might give a quick explanation. Sephardic is derived from the Hebrew word for Spain and generally refers to Jewish people from the Iberian peninsula including Spain, North Africa, Middle East, and Portugal. Ashkenazic is derived from the Hebrew word for Germany and generally refers to Jews from Eastern Europe. Each group tends to have some different traditions. Most American Jews follow Ashkenazic tradition. Believe it or not there are quite a few other delineations that these groups can be broken down into, but this is the simple view.

When I was in Spain, I was definitely not vegetarian. Empanadas were a quick easy meal to buy on the go or pack for a trip. Sometimes the empanadas were like little pocket pies just as this recipe. Other times they would make the emapanada in three layers on a cookie sheet (dough, filling, dough) and slice it in squares. In the 5 weeks I was there, I only recall finding veggie empanadas once. Often I wonder, whether I'd notice veggie options more now. Maybe they were everywhere and I didn't see them because I wasn't looking.

Anyway, these pumpkin empanadas are a tad on the sweet side for me. It isn't because of the sugar, but more likely because of the apple in the filling. I'm a huge pumpkin fan and between the spices and the apple, the pumpkin felt a little watered down. This crust is simple and is definitely something I would make again. I'm always having trouble with the more delicate pie crusts.
BTW - Thanks for the concern about me and the car. My window is all fixed and I'm onto lots of other issues including PT for my knee that I injured snowboarding last year.

Avgolemono Soup

2007-11-13T11:07:00.000-08:00

Today, I'm taking a quick timeout from my alphabet scheme, though we are still touring the world. Yesterday was a crazy day. My car was broken into at my office parking garage and that messed up my schedule for the night. After filing the police report, dropping my car off to get the glass replaced, and then getting a rental vehicle, I didn't have much energy to continue with my plan for "E".

On the way home, I did stop to pick up some parsley so I could make a tester recipe that I've been waiting to try. Yup, you heard that right. What do you do after someone breaks into your car? ---Go home and cook.

Suzie from One Chubby Vegan has started some recipe testing for her cookbook. As soon as I saw her post on the Avgolomeno Soup, I knew I wanted in as a tester.

Avgolemono is a Greek soup made with lemon. Eggs are used as a thickener. Could this be veganized? Well, Suzie did it and this soup is marvelous. Thick lemony goodness with seitan, rice and parsley.

Avgolemono Soup

Damper

2007-11-11T10:42:00.000-08:00

Damper is a bread from Australia. The are many recipes, but all are simple. It was made from staples that the swagmen had on hand when they were in the outback. Generally you would mix flour, salt, baking powder, butter (if available), and water/milk/beer to form a dough. Then it is cooked on the coals of a campfire. Any Aussie will tell you to drizzle honey or golden syrup on the damper and serve it with billy tea.

Billy tea is also prepared over a campfire. You boil water in a billy (can) and add a fistful of tea per person. In a minute when the tea is done, you grab the handle with a bandanna and swing the hot can around in a circle. Really this is just for show, you could just as easily let the it sit for a few minutes to settle the leaves. Though swinging the billy in circles works, even if it is a bit dangerous.

For my damper, I used the following recipe:

2 cups of flour
1 T baking powder
1/2 tsp (scant) salt
1 T melted Earth Balance
3/4 cup beer (approximate start with less and add until dough is smooth)

Mix, knead, flatten into a circle on the cookie sheet, and then bake at 425 for 20 minutes.

Damper

Damper sliced with agave drizzled on top

Here's an old photo of me (40 pounds ago!) enjoying billy tea in the Australian rain forest. It is way too early in the morning for me which explains my happy demeanor. Yes, our guide did actually swing the billy around the campfire!

Ceviche

2007-11-09T19:06:00.000-08:00

Ceviche is a citrus marinated seafood dish that originated in Ecuador. While watching the news the other night, I saw a chef prepare Scallop Ceviche. Since "C" is up next, why not veganize the dish?

I pressed some firm tofu, cut it into cubes, and then followed the same preparation instructions as the scallops. After making some plantain chips, the ceviche was ready to serve. Though the dish is relatively simple to make, the presentation wowed a friend that joined me for dinner.

Tofu Ceviche

A couple of days ago I stumbled upon Meyer lemons at the store. I've always wanted to give them a try, so I was pretty happy to find some. Legend has it, the Meyer lemon is a cross between a lemon and a mandarin orange. This creates a sweeter citrus flavor. After checking some cookbooks and searching the net, I decided on Meyer Lemon Scones from a baking website.

The recipe was easy to veganize, just replace the butter with Earth Balance. I also made the scones slightly more healthy by subbing some whole wheat pastry flour and garbanzo flour. My only suggestion if you try the recipe, use powdered sugar instead of white sugar for the glaze. White sugar sounded wrong to me, but I followed the directions anyway. The topping is ok as is, but not a typical glaze. The scones are delicious.

Meyer Lemon Scones

Bazirgan

2007-11-08T13:09:00.000-08:00

My first VeganMoFo post happened to include Amazake from Japan. As I started to think about my plan for the month, I thought why not continue along to the letter B. This month we'll be touring the world and wandering through my cookbook shelves from A-Z.

Today's post is Bazirgan, a Syrian recipe for fine crushed wheat "caviar". The recipe is from A Fistful of Lentils which consists of Syrian-Jewish recipes.

The ingredients called for fine-grain bulgur. I only had medium grain, so it required a trip to the Middle Eastern store. Of course, I had to wander through all the aisles and check out everything. Before leaving, I purchased some whole wheat Markouk bread to use for dipping the Bazirgan. I'd never seen Markouk before. It is paper thin and they fold the large circles to fit in the package. Here's an interesting article about how it is baked by hand in Lebanon.

Here's a photo of a piece Markouk. It unfolds into a 3 foot circle!

Here's the Bazirgan.

Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of this recipe. There a lot flavors mixed into one dish. I'm thinking I may add some extra plain bulgur to "water" it down a bit.

VeganMoFo

2007-11-06T10:23:00.001-08:00

So, a bunch of PPKers decided we should have VeganMoFo - Vegan Month of Food. It is in response to NaNaWriMo where the goal is to write a 50,000 word novel over the course of November. Unfortunately, I can't commit to cook, take photos, and write once a day. However, I will guarantee a bunch of extra posts this month.

When I was in high school, I made some lame attempts at completing novels. My mom was a was writer and you'd think I would have picked up on some of her skills. Nope, blogging is the best I can offer. In honor of VeganMoFo, I bring you lots of foods posts. Who can resist the participating when they managed to abbreviate using MOFO?

Sunday I planned to start this with a new recipe from ExtraVeganZa. However, I am not the best at preparing and I failed to read through the recipe on Saturday. It required that the batter sit out overnight, so the recipe was rescheduled for yesterday.

Amazake is a sweet, Japanese rice beverage. It is one of my favorite drinks especially the pecan pie flavor that I occasionally find at the store. I used almond Amazake to make spelt pancakes. The recipe from ExtraVeganZa stated the spelt flour, Amazake and salt should be mixed and left out overnight. I did this Sunday and cooked up the pancakes Monday morning.

Unfortunately, they were not as light and fluffy as I expected. Perhaps the Amazake is supposed to act like sourdough. If that is the case, the batter never really took off. They look good and the flavor is a nice change of pace. The recipe was for a crepe like, thin pancake. These little guys ripped easily, so eventually I gave up and made some silver dollar pancakes.

A couple of crepes with syrup and dried cherries. (You know I hate raisins, right?)
Plain silver dollar cakes. (Boring photo, that's what happens when I cook in the morning.)

Oh yeah, thanks for all the great comments on my carving from a few years back. Honestly, anyone can do something like that with some tools and pattern. Grab yourself some of those carving books on clearance and save them for next year. Here's a photo of the pumpkin in daylight. You can see that the carving is not as intricate as you might have guessed.

Pumpkin, Pumpkin and more Pumpkin

2007-11-03T16:55:00.000-07:00

Fall is one of my favorite times of the year. Though today, the blustery storm is a bit much. The wind makes it seem so cold.

I love the smell of fall, the brightly colored leaves, and the crisp air. Pumpkin seemed like the proper homage to the season.

On warmer day, I tried my hand at making pumpkin ice cream. I used the recipe from A Vegan Ice Cream Paradise.

Last week I made sourdough pumpkin pancakes. All I did was add pumpkin, nutmeg and cinnamon to the regular sourdough recipe I've linked to in the past.

Could I have been more happy to finally receive Veganomicon in the mail? The second recipe I tried was the Pumpkin Saag. Saag translates to greens. This is an Indian dish with roasted pumpkin, spinach, and loads of spices. It turned out fabulously, despite my concerns. (I'd been unsuccessful cooking with fresh pumpkin in the past.)
Unfortunately, this year I did not carve a pumpkin. It was a rough week for me and my normal Halloween spirit was no where to be found. Halloween night, I actually met a friend for dinner and a movie. (We saw Darjeeling Limited, if you were wondering.) Anyway, here's a photo of one I carved a few years back.

VegFest and Lots of cookin'

2007-10-24T19:28:00.000-07:00

Ok, so last Saturday I headed to the Boston Vegetarian Festival. In the morning I volunteered which entailed setting up chairs in the lecture rooms and setup of the children's area. Later, I helped exhibitors bring their products inside and locate their tables.

Getting to the fest early worked out to be a huge advantage. At 10am I started to wander around before it got too crowded. The first table I stopped by was Herbivore. Lolo was there and I said hi. Isa and Terry hadn't arrived yet.

I met some nice folks from Stark Sister's Granola. The Potent Foods people were friendly and their maca bars were mighty good. There were many tables showcasing awesome vegan baked goods. I steered clear as I am on junk food cut back. Later, I attended two of the lectures. The second one on nutrition labels was really eye opening. I'll likely post about it in the future.

Freebies this year were not as generous as previous years, but I guess you can't complain about free. I scored some mini Lara bars, tea, Trader's Joe's rice, some popcorn samples and a bunch of coupons.

After the lectures I headed back downstairs. The festival had gotten so crowded, it bordered on fire hazard. While I was glad to see so many people interested in vegetarianism, I was disappointed at the pushy, angry crowd. Many people must have been put off by the attitude. I looked over and saw Isa, Terry, and Veganomicon. The crowds were relentless though and I decided to leave. On the way out I grabbed some pumpkin ice cream from Wheeler's Vegan Ice Cream which will soon have a Cambridge location. If BVS sticks with the same location next year, I may have to skip it unless I stop by as soon as it opens.

That night over 20 PPKers met at Elephant Walk in Cambridge for dinner. It was a lot of fun to meet everyone.

I forgot my camera early in the morning, so unfortunately I have no pictures of the festival. How about some food pics to make up for it?

Apple Spice Cupcakes with Penuche Frosting (Terry's from VegNews)

Cheezy Crackers from Celine's blog

More Sourdough Pancakes (strawberry and regular)

Since I'm on junkfood cut back, but wanted some pumpkin cookies... I adapted this recipe from The Healthiest Diet in the World Cookbook. They were originally chocolate chip cookies. I added 1 cup of pumpkin. Then used hazelnuts, cinnamon, and nutmeg. The cookies have oat flour, whole wheat flour, no refined sugar besides the choc chips (1/3 cup of maple syrup) and only 1 Tbl of oil! They are both hearty and yummy.

Healthy Pumpkin Chip cookies

When I was hiking on Sunday, I saw the coolest tree ever.

Catching Up...

2007-10-19T11:45:00.001-07:00

First, I've got another auction on Ebay to benefit America's Second Harvest. My original auction made $62.36 for the charity.

The new item up for bids is a brand new I-fish that was sitting around my house. This would be great for kids or those that are young at heart if they have an Ipod. 50% of the proceeds from this one will also go to Second Harvest. Check it out, here.

Moving along...

The Boston Vegetarian Food Festival is tomorrow. I'll be volunteering there in the morning and then wandering around. Quite a few bloggers that I know will be there as well. We've got a plan to meet for dinner at Grasshopper, so drop me a line if you want to hang with us.

How about some food posts?

This is a tester recipe for Hawaiian Bread from the next Don't Eat of the Sidewalk zine.

Sourdough crust, filled with mushroom curry that I found on 28Cooks.

Sourdough pizza,with FYH cheese, veggie sausage, and oven dried tomatoes.

Another tester from the Don't Eat of the Sidewalk zine. Chipotle seitan on sun dried tomato bread. The side is roasted butternut squash from my very last CSA share.

Blog Action Day Post

2007-10-15T11:59:00.000-07:00

Today is Blog Action Day and the topic is the environment. I'd been thinking about what to post for the past two weeks or so and time just flew by.

Hunger has been at the top my activist concerns lately, so I thought I might write a little about that. Many of my blog readers are already vegetarian or vegan, so I feel like I am really preaching to the choir.

Over 800 million people suffer from hunger. Yet 43% of the grain we grow, goes to feeding livestock. It takes approximately 7 pounds of corn to grow 1 pound of beef. Other animals including fish require 2-3 pounds of corn per each pound of bodyweight. This is an incredibly inefficient way to feed people. Let's link the hunger issue to the environment.

US farmed animals create 1.3 billion tons of waste per year. This roughly equal 5 tons of waste per every American. None of this goes through a water treatment like human waste. Does anyone wonder why our food and water has contamination problems? Let's also think about erosion, green house gases released by livestock, and the inefficiencies of land/water use. (It takes 100x more water to grow a pound of beef versus growing 1 pound of vegetable protein.)

Here's another factoid for you. According to National Geographic, it takes 3/4 of a gallon of oil to produce 1 pound of beef. 283 gallons of oil are used to raise one cow.

One more tidbit that I ripped off from GoVeg, "According to the USDA and the United Nations, using an acre of land to raise cattle for slaughter yields 20 pounds of usable protein. That same acre would yield 356 pounds of protein if soybeans were grown instead—more than 17 times as much!"

Can you really be an omnivore and an environmentalist? For that matter, how can you not feel selfish eating a quarter pound hamburger that cost 1.75 pounds of grain to grow when people are starving? If you didn't do the math, the burger also required almost a 1/5 of a gallon of oil to produce. Next time you complain about gas prices, think about your food choices. In general grains and veggies require 1/18 the amount of fuel that livestock requires.

Other topics I considered writing about...

What exactly do carbon credits get you? If you drive an SUV and buy carbon credits, are you really helping? One of the sustainability leaders at my company says they do enough for the environment in other parts of their life and that they are buying carbon credits to offset the effects of their SUV. What if everyone just bought carbon credits, but didn't make changes?

Biofuels like ethanol actually aren't carbon neutral.

For an interesting read re: carbon credits and biofuels check out:

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/BiofuelsBiodevastationHunger.php

or check out this cool article on salon.com about carbon credits.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/07/02/carbon_credits/index2.html

Also, some of the facts or ideas above were taken from an awesome pamphlet called 101 Reasons Why I'm Vegetarian. You can learn much more about environmental, ethical, health, and socio-economic reasons why veg is really the way to go. The extensive footnotes list gives you tons of reading and learning opportunities.

If you wrote a Blog Action Day post today, drop me a line so I can read what you had to say!

Testers, Vegan 4 course Dinner

2007-10-11T20:06:00.000-07:00

Thanks everyone for the comments on my last post. Like I said, my goal is to do more this year. That being said, I ended up with a $100 Blockbuster gift card that I'm not going to use. I've posted it on Ebay. 70% of whatever the card makes will go directly to America's Second Harvest via MissionFish. It works in stores for rentals or purchases of used games or DVDs. Anyway, if you could use it or know someone who could, check out the auction.

Onto the food...

A few weeks back I picked up carrots at the farmer's market as they closed. The nice guy gave me a bunch of beets for free. On the way home I decided I would saute beet greens. The bright green carrot tops caught my eye and I wondered if I could cook them as well. A quick google search said yes. Carrot greens are on the bitter side, but mix well with other greens.

Tempeh Teriyaki, a Melomeals tester with sauteed beet and carrot greens.

Veggie Planet had a 4 course vegan dinner on October 1st. The menu was created by chef Amie Swanson. The special nights are pricey and crowded, but the the creative meals are worth it. Unfortunately, I only remembered to take photos of three courses.

Lentil and swiss chard soup. Check out how the peppers are cut into little shapes.

Spinach salad with roasted carrots, spiced pumpkin seeds, and apples with a maple dijon vinagrette.

The missing photo is sweet potato gnocchi in a vegan butter and sage sauce.

Dessert: Chocoloate hazelnet layer cake with chocolate ganache

Last photo, I was farm sitting at my friend's place in Maine again. Three chickens decided to roost in the bushes next to the house for the night. Apparently the leaves were cozier than the coop. Can you find them all?

I've also got a few other pics from Cafe Indigo and Crazy Burger on the new blog as I was able to stop by both places recently.

Are you grateful?

2007-10-02T20:27:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago my family observed Yom Kippur. It is a somber, holy day where we reflect on on our actions during the previous year. We note where we could be better and we say we are sorry for the things we did wrong. This is accompanied by a 24 hour fast. Of course, I'm skipping a bit of the theological significance here.

Though I am normally not particularly religious, this is a holiday I look forward to. People that know me well, often give me a bit of flack for what seems like a sudden surge of religious inspiration. I'm a very spiritual person, but I honestly can't say I am particularly religious. I'd like to think if I wasn't Jewish and just stumbled upon the idea of Yom Kippur, it would still interest me. We don't often get to put aside a whole day to reflect on our lives. So, why am I mentioning all this?

Well, the rabbi's sermon was about hunger. It is a fitting topic for a day when you are fasting. She spoke a bit about the food stamp challenge. If you aren't aware, a number of groups have been pushing politicians to try living on $21 per week. That is the amount currently allotted to someone collecting food stamp benefits. Living on $21 per week is difficult and most people who tried it, found it nearly impossible. You certainly can't afford much fresh fruit or vegetables with that money.

The number itself is accurate, but it is a simplification. Many people getting food stamps are also receiving other benefits. Also food pantries, shelters, and charities provide a buffer for the needy. Perhaps the food stamp program does need reform if it is really the sole means for a recipient to get their food.

While fasting, I looked around my kitchen which is filled with food. I noted my blog where I write about food. Honestly, I even checked out the PPK food porn and some of your blogs. We're all pretty dang lucky. We aren't worried about whether we are going to be able to find a meal, we are busy thinking about what we are going to cook for dinner.

Normally, I donate to charities like America's Second Harvest because 98% of my donation goes to making a difference rather than overhead. I also donate to the local food pantry collection bins at my supermarket. My goal is to do this more regularly.

I challenge you to do something whether it is talking to your friends or family about what they can do, making a donation to Second Harvest or a local food pantry, volunteering somewhere, or even just clicking at the HungerSite every day.

I've got a backlog of food posts which I will get to soon. I've been thinking about this entry for awhile now and wanted to get this out there first.

Some old pics, scary charcoal crackers, dining guide

2007-09-25T08:39:00.000-07:00

Well, it occurred to me that I've got loads of info on veg dining in New England that I keep locked up in my little brain. So, I started a Veg Dining NE list on the left side of my blog and will work on updating it to include all the places I've tried. That also gives me some incentive to visit restaurants that I've always wanted to, but not made the time for. The info about each place actually exists on a secondary blog I created, so it is totally searchable if you click a link and head over to the other blog which is http://vegchic2.blogspot.com Searching will be really useful if you are looking for a particular state or town.

The second blog gives me the capability to have static links to stuff without cluttering up regular posts here. Onto some food...

Awhile back, a friend and I headed up to Acadia. Our dinner on the way was Lolo's Picnic Sandwiches. Never fear, I hear the cookbook will be available soon.

This sandwich is awesome and travels well.

When I went strawberry picking, months ago...I made Lolo's Strawberry Rhubarb Coffee Cake.

Lastly, I wanted to share a weird product I saw at the market yesterday. Charcoal crackers...

These aren't vegan as they contain milk and whey powder. The ingredients also list charcoal powder. Ummm...why? Has anyone heard of this product before? I can't say charcoal crackers sound appetizing. Though, they might be good for you if you have been poisoned. I've heard they use activated charcoal in emergency rooms. Well, actually I don't know if the charcoal in the crackers is activated.

Testers, holidays, and stuff

2007-09-17T11:28:00.001-07:00

The crisp fall weather is starting to settle in. I'm beginning to think about apple picking and what kind of pumpkin to carve. Time really does fly by.

Speaking of that, sometimes I can be a terrible blogger...letting a month pass by before posting. Fortunately while lurking around reading everyone else's blogs, I eventually get motivated. Sometimes I wonder about bloggers that show up and then disappear forever. Even though most of us don't get to meet in person, we know each other on some level. Has any one ever emailed one of the bloggers that fell off the map just to see how they are doing?

The sourdough starter I got from a friend is gradually taking over the country. It has now been shipped to NY, NH, WA, and CA. Soon I will be mailing some to OH and VA. It is pretty neat to see how it is passed around and kind of amazing to imagine how many generations kept it going after making it through the Oregon Trail.

On to food stuffs...

The supermarket had the mondo green peppers. Of course, I didn't buy them as green peppers fall into the category of "Foods Jody Despises."

The family got together for Rosh Hashanah dinner last week. My dad's girlfriend is always very aware and cooks special dishes for me. She made some squash soup and almond rice. She was also sure to pickup hummus, tabbouli, babaganoush, and my favorite pita bread. Between all that and the side dishes, I had a full belly.

My aunt also cooked up some wonderful vegan desserts using margarine and egg replacer. She made a lemon apricot cake and also some molasses clove cookies.

I'd tested a batch of Mocha Snickerdoodles to bring, but didn't make more after my aunt mentioned veganizing her recipes for me. These cookies were adapted from Celine's recipe for Chai Snickerdoodles on her blog Have Cake Will Travel.

This weekend my aunt and I went for a hike at one of my favorite parks. The weather was beautiful. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera. Here's a quick shot from my phone.

Ok some Lolo/VeganYumYum testers:

Sugar and Spice Snap Peas

Roasted Eggplant and Caramelized Onion Marinara over red quinoa

Creamy Broccoli Mushroom Bake The side salad is something that I learned about from B&B at the PPKer picnic. Raw beets, roasted corn, arrugula, with lime and cumin.

Up soon, more testers for Melody and some other random recipes I want to try.

August Wrap up...

2007-09-03T08:52:00.000-07:00

I'll be the first to admit, I'm terrible at keeping up with blogging. I've got a whole months worth of pictures that I've failed to post. I'm also always lurking around at other blogs and need to get into the habit of commenting more.

Let's see...

A few weekends back I was in Ithaca for a wedding with a friend of mine. I was most excited about this because I'd finally get to eat at Moosewood. We met up with another pal and headed over there for dinner. Unfortunately only a handful of dishes are vegan. I had the African Stew with grilled tofu.

Here's a shot from the outside of Moosewood

The stew...

The wedding was at the interfaith church on Ithaca college's campus. The church is pretty neat and located on a little man made pond.

Ithaca iteself, was very veg friendly and kind of crunchy. It reminded me a little bit of Burlington, VT. The co-op there was great and I dragged my friends around there looking at everything for at least an hour. We tried cactus jerky...not a fan.

I saw this newspaper box when we were out and walking around. Isn't it cute?

The folks at the wedding we attended, decided to have cupcakes instead of wedding cake. They asked us to bring vegan cupcakes. I cooked up chocolate mint, chocolate almond, agave, and peanut butter cupcakes and brought them along. When we got to Ithaca, we ganached and sprinkled them.

The chocolate mint/almond ones...

Agave and PB

On the way back from Ithaca we stopped in to meet Bazu and Daiku. Bazu cooked up some wonderful lunch and snacks for us and we had lots of fun hanging out with them. Check out the post on Where the Revolution?, to see what Bazu cooked. ---Thanks guys!

What else? Well, I am always cooking with the sourdough. It needs to be fed once a week. Usually I just make some variation of pancakes because it is simple.

This morning, I made plain and peach sourdough pancakes.

Cooking

Finished

Speaking of sourdough, Marti over at Tofu and Sprouts had always wanted sourdough starter. I offered to try sending her some. I mixed in extra flour and dried it out a bit. Then dropped it in the mail to go cross country. Neither us were sure how it would go, but it worked out wonderfully. Check out Marti's post on her first sourdough recipe.

One more sourdough photo. I made this wonderful recipe I found online as got two perfect loaves of bread.

Ok, I've got a few Lolo Cookbook tester recipes to post later in the week and I've also started testing for Melody over at Melomeals.

I'll checking out everyone's blogs this week.

Blueberries, Sourdough, NYC

2007-08-09T18:15:00.000-07:00

Hope everyone is having a great summer.

Between plans, yard work, the office, cooking...it seems like I never get around to blogging.

Let's see, a few weeks back I went blueberry picking at a local farm. I picked 3.5 pounds of blueberries!

The local farmer's markets are great, I only wish I had started finding them sooner. If you are in Massachusetts, you can find markets near you on this site.

I'm also enjoying my 1/2 share at the CSA this year. Right now, they are picking onions, zucchini, squash, tomatoes and beans.

Here's what I've been cooking:
Crazy Vegetable Fried Rice a VeganYumYum tester recipe for Lolo's upcoming cookbook

Blueberry Pancakes - Recipe from The Rabbit Food cookbook

Tomato Cream Sauce with zukes and whole wheat pasta, also from VYY.

A friend of mine shared some sourdough starter which was passed down from the travelers on the Oregon Trail. I've been fooling around with that. So far, I've been successful with pancakes and waffles. I did make some biscuits that turned out, ok. The bread was not so tasty. If you've got sourdough recipes, please share.

Blueberry sourdough pancakes and waffles

Last weekend I met up with some PPKers for a picnic in Brooklyn. Though I took lots of photos, I really didn't get around to uploading them all. I brought lavender lemonade, chopped veggies from the farm, and Romanian cucumber salad. Some of the other food included: homemade hummus, beet and corn salad, macaroni salad, potato salad, quinoa salad, cherry ginger cookies, brownies, and earl grey cookies. The folks I met were really great.

After the picnic I had hoped to try one of NYC's famous vegan restaurants. Unfortunately, no one was hungry---if you can believe that. So, we decided to have some coffee and see if we could possible manage more food later.

The place we randomly picked is called the Cocoa Bar. We saw soymilk on the menu, so we sat down. When the waiter arrived, we asked about which drinks could be made with soy. He informed us that they have a whole vegan menu including 3 cakes. That would never happen in Boston. It is funny, the desserts that are vegan are not labeled as such on their regular menu either.

At any rate the 7 of us split 3 slices of cake and that was the end of our eating spree. Behold the 3 cakes. (Choc Death, PB Bomb, and Oreo)

Cupcakes, test recipes, lovin' summer

2007-07-16T19:22:00.000-07:00

This weekend a friend's cousin was visiting and we headed to CT to see Gillette Castle. I packed a picnic for us which consisted of homemade New Farm cookbook rolls with greens and veggie burgers. The burgers are a test recipe from Veganyumyum's upcoming cookbook. They are mighty tasty seitan, corn and black bean burgers.

Here's a quick pic of the patties.

The castle is really neat. I took many pictures of it. This is one of my favorites.

After the castle, we stopped at another little park called Devil's Hopyard. There was a cute little waterfall there.Cupcakes were requested by our visitor, so I made pumpkin chocolate chip and gingerbread from VCTOTW.

With cream cheese frosting
Mini zucchini breads using extra CSA zukes

My lunch from a week ago. Homemade tabbouli, store bought hummus, farmer's market green beans with hoisin sauce and cracked red pepper, and sauteed green's. The greens have some leftover alfedo sauce which is also a veganyumyum tester recipe.
I've got lots more pics and post that I'll get to eventually.

Veggies, cupcakes...oh and hi again!

2007-07-09T09:51:00.000-07:00

I've been around here...reading blogs when I can and posting occasionally on PPK. Ironically there are lots of pics on my camera memory card, but they've never made it to the blog. I'll do a short post today and try to do some longer posts with lots of photos soon.

My half share at the CSA has been great so far. Last Friday, I helped harvest the crops and it was really fun. I picked onions, radishes, strawberries and squash. I'd never picked onions or radishes before and it was cool to see how they grow and get my hands dirty.

This week's CSA haul was: 2 lettuces, 4 zucchini, 2 eight ball zucchni, 2 crook neck squashes, 1 romanesca zucchini, 1 small pint of strawberries, onions, and radishes.

Here's a photo of my pickup a few weeks back which included Red Russian kale, lettuces, onions, a few berries, and radishes.

So we seem to get lots of radishes from the farm. I'm not a huge fan of them. Do any of you have favorite radish recipes? I've been slicing them and tossing them in salads.

These are some pistachio rosewater cupckes from VCTOTW. I baked them for my friend's birthday and they went on a trip with us to Acadia National Park up in Maine. I'll post some of those pics in the future.

This is cranberry cinnamon bread which is a test recipe for Lolo's (of VeganYumYum) upcoming cookbook. It is supposed to be cinnamon raisin, but I pretty much despise raisins. Cranberries made a great substitution. This bread is really wonderful.

What else has been going on? I turned 30 last month and to celebrate, I went skydiving. ---Note, the new profile pic with Andreas my skydiving instructor. During freefall it feels more like you are superman flying than dropping through the air. Because of that, I really didn't find it scary. My guess is your brain can't process what is happening, so it doesn't feel like you are actually falling.

After jumping, my dad took me to Crazy Burger in RI for lunch. There, I got a vegan burger and vegan carrot cake for dessert. Later, my family and I got together at Elephant Walk for dinner. EWalk has French Cambodian food with a separate vegan menu. Yay!

Though I'm not a fan of the radishes from the farm, the greens are wonderful sauteed with olive oil and garlic. Below on the left is some radish greens. On the right is some mizuna from the farm. Normally, we see mizuna in field green salads. Now I know you can also cook it up.

That's all for now. I have many pics to post still and will try to catch up soon. Hope everyone is doing well.

Pics From The Farm

2007-05-19T21:06:00.000-07:00

My two birds Tommy and Nacho made the 4 hour ride up to the farm. Nacho really liked all the sounds of the other animals. Tommy took a few days to get used to it. Actually on the second day there, Tommy started chasing my friend's cat around the house. She is one crazy bird. The cat Alley, often followed me around while feeding/watering the animals in the morning or evening.
Above is Kitch. He is the older of the three male horses and the most shy. Though you'd never know it from this picture. As soon as I brought out the camera he started posing.
The painted horse is Sasha, one of the girls. I can't recall the brown horses name. Sasha is a sweetie and always came over to get some attention when I was bringing out hay or filling their water.
This regal guy is a Muscovy duck. He also liked to follow me around while I took care of the chickens, baby chicks, and the roosters. Muscovy ducks don't really quack they sort of make a wheezing/hissing noise.
These are two of the four Runner ducks. They don't waddle. They just hold their long necks up high and run around the yard all day. They were hilarious to watch. When I first pulled my car into the driveway, 4 of the ducks kept running in circles around quacking.

On the sides are a couple of the roosters. To the left is one named Roosty. You can't quite tell how big he is from this picture.

The patchy guy on the right is about 1/3 of Roosty's size.

To the left is a pic of some of the girls running around after I let them out of the coop which keeps them safe at night.

To the right is a cool little chicken. Notice the fluffy feathers on her legs and feet. I think she is a Silkie.

There were two geese parents wandering around. This is their nest which is under the rabbit cage in one of the sheds. I didn't get a photo of them because the male got rather cranky whenever he saw me because he was protecting their eggs.

Since I wasn't at home, I had plenty of extra time to cook. Unfortunately, I did a pretty poor job of taking photos. Some friends came up to visit on the farm and cooked up a some pineapple tofu curry. Another night I baked teriyaki tofu. For breakfast a I made pancakes with egg replacer a couple of times.

When I stopped at WF in Portland, I picked up the latest copy of VegNews which has some VCTOW recipes. I cooked a couple of batches of cupcakes to share with people at the office or with my friends who visited. I took photos of the Jelly Donut cupcakes, but forgot to take pics of the chocolate almond ones. The batter from the donut cakes is amazing. I swear it tastes better than the finished product.
The first picture is of the cupcakes in the pan. The second is with a dusting of powdered sugar before taking them into work.

Here's two shots from my hike. I'm pretty sure that the tallest peak in the distance is Mount Washington.

Well, I've got about 2 weeks of your blogs to catch up on. I'll be visiting soon!

Suburban Computer Geek - Farm Sitting

2007-05-19T08:30:00.001-07:00

Ok I haven't posted in awhile, but I do have a better excuse than usual. I've been away for over a week and a half farm sitting for a friend up in Maine. My friends were heading to wedding in Tennessee and needed someone to look after the animals. Unfortunately, I was without Internet at their house.

Portland is a little over an hour south of their home, so I could work out of our Portland office while taking care of the farm. None of the animals are raised for food, otherwise I'd likely have a real hard time with it if I could even agree to do it. They do collect eggs from the chickens, but they have plenty of space and wander about the yard, so they are indeed happy birds.

I'm not a morning person, so waking up at 5am with the roosters was a little painful for me. Though I did eventually get into the schedule. Before heading out to work I needed to check to make sure the chickens, ducks, roosters, horses, bunnies, and geese had food and water. They also have a cat. Their kids have a guinea pig, 2 gerbils, and some fish I had to check on as well. We had some warm days, so I'd often need to check again when I got home.

I'll post some farm pics for you, a few cooking photos, and a couple of shots from a hike I did near their house later on tonight.

I Want To Post More, Really I Do!

2007-04-23T20:30:00.000-07:00

I've got to just buckle down and start posting at least once a week. Life gets in the way sometimes. Work has been busy and unfortunately, I've been traveling more than I'd like too. I do still make the blog rounds and I've been responding semi-regularly on PPK.

This weekend we had a cool little Earth Day thing near my home where they collected all sorts of items for recycling and reuse. I was super excited to get rid of a few boxes of random stuff found around my house.

Did you know that Nike recycles sneaker soles? I dropped off a couple pairs of my old, stinky running shoes. To find a sneaker recycling location in your area or view the shipping address to send your old sneakers, visit Nike's site.

A few weeks ago I found that a small farm (where I normally pick strawberries and buy veggies) is offering CSA shares this year. I purchased a half share for myself and am looking forward to fresh local veggies/herbs/flowers and maybe berries. Plus, I get to work 6 hours on the farm. That sounds like fun.

When I was in Maine for work a few weeks ago, I picked up Little Lad's vegan but-tah. "Like no udd-ah." That makes me chuckle.

My cooking has been simple stuff though I do have a couple of blogworthy photos.

Finally, I tried the famous seitan '0 greatness. The texture is good and it is interesting that you bake it rather than boil it. Next time I make this seitan, I might change around some of the spices. They really aren't my favorite mix and I would have liked it with a bit more heat.

Log, log, seitan log.

Slices of greatness.

Lolo's awesome lavender shortbread. This batch was slightly extra crispy. I cooked it too long. It just wouldn't brown on the parchment paper. Eventually, I put the rounds directly on the cookie sheet and all was well. ---Lesson learned.

Weekend Eats

2007-03-25T19:47:00.000-07:00

I'm still catching up a little from blogging while I was traveling. In Orlando, we found this great little veg place called Garden Cafe. It was reminiscent of Grasshopper. I ordered the Spicy Orange Beef which was very good. If you are ever in the area, stop by this restaurant. It is a little out of the way when you are in the touristy spots, but it is worth the drive. My apologies for the photo, it was taken with my phone.First up an herb storage tip courtesy of aunt. (BTW - She insists I give credit to Rachel Ray where my aunt viewed this nifty little idea) I've always had so much difficulty keeping herbs from the supermarket fresh. In the summer I grow my own and clip as needed. In the cold months, I pay lots of money for way too much of a single herb and they dry out quickly. My aunt/Rachel says wash the herbs when you get home, then wrap them in a wet paper towel and put them in a ziploc. Sooooo simple, but the parsley and mint both fared very well.

Onto the food...

This weekend I tried a couple of new recipes. I'd never made tabbouleh before. It is so easy, you just need to do lots of of chopping. I'm loving the fresh summery taste and the weather is just starting warm up too.

Next up. Lolo over at veganyumyum posted a how-to on roasting peppers awhile back. This was another first for me. I didn't use the gas stove top, but I did use the broiler. This recipe is for Fleh-Fleh Mishweeyeh or Syrian Broiled Pepper Pickles from A Fistful of Lentils. These are mighty tasty. The peppers are sweet and the garlic, salt, cumin, and cider vinegar add lots of punch!

Peppers after broiling and the skins were removed.
Pickles after slicing the peppers and adding the brine.

Next up, there have been a ton of people raving about the Soul Vegetarian Restaurant on the PPK boards. In particular, everyone seems to love the Mac 'n Cheese. I googled and found this article online with a bunch of recipes including that one. This is very cheesy especially after adding a bit of salt. We scarfed this down. Though it makes a huge batch, so there are leftovers.
A quick note - I used Tinkyada brown rice pasta for this. It holds up well and I kind of dig the the flavor. The regular cooking instructions on the bag have an asterisk. When followed, it points to a second set of energy saving instructions. Huh? I was perplexed but flipped over the bag. It said, boil for 1-2 minutes. Then turn off the heat, cover, and let sit for 15 min or so. You know what, it worked? I'm thinking, this can be done with regular pasta. Can you imagine how much energy is wasted cooking pasta all the time if it could be done this way? I know it is just a small amount, but multiply that by how many times you cook pasta or rice in a year. How about the rest of the world? I'll let you know how that test goes in the future. If you try it, let me know.

Let's see, what else...

Carrie asked for some details on the PPK potluck. Someone picked the theme of orange, so all food had to be some shade. It was about 20 people. I met a couple of local veg bloggers. Nikki from Iloveheeze and lolo mentioned earlier. It was also nice to meet some of the PPK personalities from the forum. Examples of some of the food: butternut squash pizza, lasagna, quiche with orange pepper coulis, curries, salads, samosas and lots of desserts including sweet potato and pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheesecake, and an orange creamsicle cake from Vegan Treats. Someone posted a few pics on the PPK forum. Believe me, there was a ton more food. I think we all started talking and then the photos ceased to be snapped. Can you find me in the pics?

Also Carrie, the orange ginger tofu recipe was from the PPK database. It was good, but if I made it again it would need some tweaking. Maybe it would be better with some sesame oil or cracked red pepper for spice.

Bazu asked about the pumpkin brownies. The chocolate part was espresso brownies, sans espresso from La Dolce Vegan. The pumpkin piece was veganized from this recipe. All I did was use egg replacer and sub apple sauce for about half the oil (and skip the frosting). This batch of pumpkin brownies makes at least double what you need for the swirl, so either halve the recipe when you make it or you'll be cooking a extra pan of pumpkin bread/brownies.

To assemble, pour the chocolate brownie batter in the pan. (9x13 -ish) Then scoop blobs of the pumpkin batter on top. The cream cheese swirl was my own concoction. It was approximately 1/4 cup of Tofutti cream cheese, a tablespoon or so of powdered sugar, a tablespoon or flour, and enough soymilk to make it batter like.

Scoop the cream cheese mixure on top and then swirl all three with a spatula.

Kleo asked for a bird update. Tommy is doing much better thanks to some vitamins I found online. She's got all kinds of new feathers growing in and the vet was really blown away when she saw her last week.

Though today she had a particularly bad day of screaming/biting me/feather pulling. Tommy hates when I read a book or magazine. Attempts to bite me, usually ensue shortly after opening any type of reading material. Since I was home all day and she got lots of snuggle time, I wasn't sure what the deal was with her attitude. When I started doing dishes Tommy began screaming and saying, "Tommy, Tommy, Tommy" over and over. This made me think she wanted a bath, so I got her spray bottle and gave her mist bath. She really enjoyed this and it seemed to calm her down. Maybe the new feathers growing in were irritating her and she need the bath to help out.

At any rate, that's my crazy Tommy bird. I'm still catching up on all the blogs...only about halfway through my list.

Well, hello again!

2007-03-22T11:52:00.000-07:00

Wow, I am doing a poor job blogging. I take pictures, but never make it over here to post.

First off, did any of you read the article about Al Gore's electric bill. What the heck? His bill for the year is more than 20 times the national average. I suspect the national average is higher than someone who is environmentally conscious. Come on Al, use some fluorescent bulbs, turn off some appliances, or get some solar panels.

Don't get me wrong, I really respect what Mr. Gore is doing as far as educating the public. He has really opened so many people's eyes. On the other hand, if you don't practice what you preach then some of your credibility is certainly lost. The Inconvenient Truth was a very thought provoking movie. After watching the movie there were two nagging items in the back of my mind.

1. He was never seen in a hybrid vehicle in the movie. Al was always driving these gas guzzling huge cars.

2. He never mentioned the major effects that the Western diet has on the environment versus a vegan/vegetarian diet. Maybe he was afraid he wouldn't be taken seriously if he touted diet as a way to help. Even so, has he made any diet changes of his own?

I'll step down from my soap box now and post some food pics.

First up Lemon Cous Cous from The Mcdougall Quick and Easy Cookbook. This recipe was quick and easy, but lacked a little in taste. I chopped up some extra dill and added sun dried tomatoes the next day.
Next I made pumpkin cream cheese swirl brownies and orange ginger tofu for the PPK Boston potluck. We had an orange theme, hence the pumpkin. The recipe is a conglomeration from a veg cookbook and some recipes I veganized off the net. If you'd like I can post details. I failed to take a photo of the tofu and I'm using lolo's pic of the brownies.

A cauliflower recipe from My Kitchen in Spain. My sister though the house smelled like bacon because of the smoked pimenton. This cauliflower was ok, but honestly I would have preferred to eat the vegetables plain.
The Gumbo z'Herbes with Cajun Tempeh Bacon at Fatfreevegan caught my eye. I made up a batch of this soup which was humongous. The recipe could have been cut in half or quarters. Honestly, I hated the soup. It just wasn't flavorful enough. With every bowl, I found my self adding more herbs or spices or thinking of other ways to use it. I skipped a photo of the green soup, but here's a shot of the Cajun Tempeh Bacon which I enjoyed. When I make it again, I'll use more spices and less sweetener. BTW - This was made with Lightlife tempeh, there are links for a $1 off coupon in other entries below if you'd like one.

Now that I've been introduced to the PPK forums, I see even more great recipes. Isa (VwaV) posted a new recipe for lemon bars. In the past I was never a huge fan of lemon bar, but cooked these up anyway. Pure lemony goodness! Perhaps fresh lemon juice and real sugar make them more satisfying than the processed monstrosities I've tried in the past.

The crust was ok with 1/4 cup less margarine and it could also cook for about 10 minutes less time. It was crispy, but good. This photo was snapped really quick this morning sans flash and since it was overcast, the color isn't great.
Last pic is my lunch today. I had some Lightlife cold cuts left from the freebies they sent. Before my veg days I obliviously enjoyed a sub on french bread that went by the name of South Beach Club. This was no diet sandwich. Today's incarnation of it was much healthier. Besides being half the size it contained veggie turkey, veggie bologna, 2 bacon smart strips, a slice of toffuti cheese, lettuce, tomato, and a bit of vegan mayo. In a pinch these deli convenience foods are handy.

I'll be making the blog rounds over the next few days. Sometimes lurking is bad, I forgot to stop by PiscesPlace and wish Kleo a belated birthday. ...Must leave more comments.

The Cancer Project

2007-03-05T13:26:00.000-08:00

The Cancer Project is a group of doctors, researchers, and nutritionists who have banded together to help educate the public on cancer prevention and also survival. They often host free cooking and educational classes all over the country and I was lucky enough to attend one a few weeks back. (Click here to see if there are any upcoming classes near you.)

What did I learn? Well first, I'll write about what I learned from a health stand point and at the end I will share the few cooking tidbits.

So we all know that one factor that contributes to the likelihood of developing cancer is tobacco use. Did you know that the National Cancer Institute says 80% of cancers are due to factors that can be controlled? Furthermore 35-50% of those factors are due to foods. (To read about the other factors and see them in table form, click here.) Suddenly, it easy to see that we have quite a bit of control over our future.

The Cancer Project advocates a diet free of animal products. Many studies have shown that people/societies who eat more animal products have higher rates of cancer. (Side note: They mentioned numerous studies on milk/dairy. The Dairy Council's study that shows milk aids in weight loss is rather questionable and has not been duplicated. Also it appears that the increase in cases of Juvenile Diabetes can be linked to milk consumption.)

They recommend lots of fruits, veggies, and grains. Societies where the fat intake is less than 10% of their total calories have significantly lower rates of cancer. (Fat increases estrogen production in both men and women. Estrogen helps cancer cells mutliply faster.)

Also 30-40 grams of fiber per day is very important. Why? Fiber is what helps your liver eliminate waste (potential cancer causing compounds) from your blood stream. If you don't have enough fiber, then the waste continues circling through your body. I am paraphrasing a bit here, but one of the doctors there actually compared your body to a walking trash receptacle when you are not getting enough fiber. What foods contain fiber? Fruits, vegetables and grains are all fiber rich. Meat, fish, dairy and egg products contain absolutely no fiber; however they do contain fat, cholesterol, hormones, chemicals, and various other troublesome compounds.

What about someone who already has cancer? I can't remember the exact statistic, but I believe if they consume/or switch to a vegan diet they are 40% more likely to survive.

One interesting health factoid for those us in more Northern parts of the world. In the winter it is very likely that our body can't produce enough vitamin D even if we spent all day in the sun. The doctor speaking at this workshop highly recommended a Vitamin D supplement.

Well, what did they cook? The chef prepared a few different recipes including delicious hummus with cumin in it, guacamole with peas to lower fat content (similar to the mockamole I made awhile back), two different veggie stir fries, a pasta dish using pasta that was 50% brown rice, and smoothies. They sell a cookbook on their site and also give it away to attendees of the four day cooking workshops. The first half of the book is nutritional/health information and the second half is recipes. It is also available free via download. The videos they show at the workshops are available via streaming media in the resources area of their site.

Cooking tips... I've only got a two for you unfortunately. How do you peel ginger? I've always cut it, almost making a square. The chef showed us how to scrape it almost like you would peel a carrot if you were using a knife instead of a peeler. It saves a whole lot of ginger.

The other thing the chef did that was pretty neat was water sauteing. He skipped oil with the veggies and added just enough water to keep them from sticking to the pan. It was necessary to add a bit more water at times. This even worked with onions, you could see them caramelizing. Often I use less oil than called for. On occasion in the past I have water sauteed spinach or asparagus (as it is almost like steaming). It had never occurred to me that I could skip the oil altogether on other veggies.

Anyway, I hope this post is helpful and I highly recommend checking out their site for more information. For me going vegetarian had most to do with political/economic and environmental issues. As I learned more about animal rights issues, I made the switch to vegan. Health benefits were just a plus. The information from The Cancer Project makes these benefits seem very important as well. Even going by the minimums in the NCI statement where diet can cut the cancer risk by 1/3, that is pretty significant. Next time someone asks why you are vegan, now you have more great reasons!

I'll try to respond to some of the questions and comments to my previous post tomorrow. I'm traveling and the Internet connections are spotty.

Excuses, Excuses...

2007-02-28T14:29:00.000-08:00

I've had so many posts lined up and just haven't been able to sit down and get to writing. Last week, I was away on vacation with some friends and that allowed me to answer the question:

Can you make it through a week on a cruise ship as a vegan?

Answer: Yes, but with a few difficulties. I'll expound later.

Before leaving, I attended a cooking workshop that sponsored by The Cancer Project. They advocate vegetarian/vegan diet for health reasons. I learned so much and could not wait to post, but getting ready for my trip really put a damper on my lofty blogging goals.

Two days before leaving, the heater in my house kicked the bucket. Obviously this was quite a problem with the cold temperatures. Since the central air bit it shortly after I bought the house, I needed to replace both. That left me with the option of canceling my trip to be there for the installation or ummmm, let's see: Moving half my basement from one side to the other, finding a place for my birds for the week, moving all their stuff, and packing in about 10 hours. It was crazy weekend with no sleep, but I did make it out of Boston on one of the last flights before they were all canceled due to weather on the east coast.

I'll write about food now and then do a separate Cancer Project post within a few days before I head out for another week long trip.

First from VwaV, Seitan Portobello Stroganoff. This was very tasty.

I used the Lightlife Smart Strips Chick'n flavor to make some burritos. They were stir fried and then added to wraps with tomatoes, onions, some refried beans, and home made tomatillo sauce. The Smart Strips were quite good, unfortunately the rest of the meal really was not. The bean mix was the dry kind that needs to be rehydrated. It was quite terrible in comparison to canned beans whole or refried. The tomatillo sauce was also hideous. The recipe I used was reviewed well, but it was awful. Perhaps the tomatillos weren't fresh or the chili pepper was too spicy. If you'd like to purchase Smart Strips and try using them in a different recipe that is more palatable, here's link to a $1 off coupon. View the pic of bean/tomatillo monstrosity, it certainly looks unassuming until you taste it.
I picked up a fresh young coconut to try out. It was rather fun to hack it open. Inside is a soft jello like flesh rather than the thick tough coconut flesh in a regular brown coconut. There was also a lot more coconut water. The coconut water was sooooo good and I enjoyed the soft coconut fruit.It is easy to see how it might be sliced for noodles in raw cooking. Unfortunately, I just used it for smoothies and ate some on its own. The coconut is below along with some of the flesh.

Here is a LightLife Fakin' Bacon wrap. It has lettuce, tomato, Fakin' Bacon, a bit of mayo, and some sunflower sprouts. Thumbs up on Fakin' Bacon. Link to LightLife $1 off coupon.

Last but certainly not least, I made up a batch of Seward Cafe's Rebel Rocks found at Cooking By Kittee. Who could imagine rye flour, coconut and chocolate would morph into such a delicious treat? Rebel Rocks, rock! I love these, doesn't matter if they are hot out of the oven, room temperature or frozen...always yummy!
Ok, a quick blurb on vegan cruising. My friends were really worried about what I would eat, I had some concerns too. Supper in the sit down dining room was a little difficult. I often checked out the menu earlier in the day to see if I could find vegan friendly options. If not, I'd hit the buffet which I kind of preferred anyway as it didn't require dressing up. I managed to find salads, cold soups, and pasta or veg chili (sans cheese) in the dining room.

The buffet had many options. Salads, Asian style sauteed veggies, sushi (avocado/cucumber), pastas, grilled veggies. I found vegetarian miso soup with tofu one night. Another night there were Indian chickpeas and lentils. Breakfast was normally fruit and maybe some peanut butter on a roll or toast. Otherwise oatmeal and bananas with almonds. Obviously you won't find vegan desserts on the ship, but perhaps that is better for the waistline. One night I did go searching the shops for dark chocolate. I found some decent vegan dark chocolate, but it was sugar free and I had no interest in aspartame flavored chocolate.

Cruise Caveats - They rarely label any of the foods or have ingredients listed at the buffet. That makes it very difficult to discern if there is butter or milk in something or beef/chicken stock in soups. If I saw a cook milling about I'd ask, but often I skipped anything potentially bad. One day I asked about an Indian soup. The gentleman confirmed it was vegetarian. As I was ladling it into a bowl, I saw chicken. After that I only took soup if it was labeled as vegetarian.

Anyways, look forward to my post on the Cancer Project workshop. I'll be making the blog rounds shortly as I've got a week and a half to catch up on.

Chili and Date Nut Bread

2007-02-06T11:08:00.000-08:00

I'm reading how cold it is everywhere. The same here, brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Though I really want to stick to my 2 day per week raw resolution, I'm having trouble with the cold weather. I'm just craving soup and tea. I've been making a concerted effort to have at least one raw meal it day. That might translate to fruit for breakfast or an interesting salad for lunch.

When the summer months roll around, I'll be preparing more raw foods for sure. What did I cook up last week? Well we had a chili cook-off at work before the superbowl. Since I wasn't planning to partake I made up a batch of VwaV Chili Sin Carne Al Mole. This was my first brush with adding cocoa to a meal rather than dessert. Believe it or not the seitan and spices with cocoa is actually might tasty.

Since I started on the raw kick, I seem to have developed an addiction to dates. Funny because as I child I hated them! Anyway, last night I baked a loaf of Date and Nut Bread from Vega n Vittles. The recipe is not as sweet as I'm used to with other Pumpkin and Zucchini breads, but it very good. It made a great breakfast with some Tofutti cream cheese.

For those of you that have been asking about Little Lad's. I'm posting a photo of the cheese in the container and the package with the label. Everything is very simple. If you are looking to get a hold of their products, I think you'll need to stop in at a local store in Maine. No it doesn't look that appetizing cold, but it sure looked great melted for mac n cheese in my other post!

Another week...

2007-01-28T20:54:00.000-08:00

Did you all catch the new story about a lucky duck in Florida? She was shot by a hunter and spent two days in the refrigerator. When the hunter's wife opened the door, the duck looked up at her and she had her daughter rush the poor duck to the vet. Fortunately it is now recovering at a wildlife sanctuary. Link to article.

What else? This afternoon I went with a friend to see the movie Babel. I'd wanted to see it in the theatre, but didn't make it earlier. Thanks to the Oscar buzz, it is back. It is a very interesting movie that I enjoyed. One 30 second scene which wasn't all that necessary to the movie, stuck out to me because of the audience's reaction. In preparation for a wedding ceremony in Mexico, one of the actors kills a chicken for dinner. It was more graphic than necessary and the packed theatre expressed disgust rather audibly.

Situations such as these both perplex and frustrate me. There were likely few other vegetarians or vegans in theatre, yet everyone was shocked and revolted by what happened on screen. How is it that people can compartmentalize where their food comes from and then sit down to dinner?

Anyway, on to good vegan food. Sorry about the dark photos, they were taken with my cell phone. On my raw days this week I stuck to fruit and salads again which means not many pictures. To the right is grape tomatoes with some evo, basil, and crushed pesto LivingNuts. These sprouted raw nuts come from Maine. I originally found them while there for work. These babies are a little expensive, but they have an amazing taste and I order them every once in awhile. To the left is kale and collard salad. It is the same salad I made last week with swiss chard. I also blended up a noteworthy smoothie with coconut water, banana, raw cacoa powder, and raw almond butter.

It has been so cold here and of course when it was 10 degrees outside it was on my raw days. The very next day I cooked up a batch of Spicy Peanut Eggplant Shallot Stew from PPK. I'm pretty sure this is a teaser from the new cookbook. The verdict... I like it, but probably not enough to make it again. This soup was a lot of work and I had higher expectations for it. It seems like the lemon overpowers the peanut butter which is rather disappointing to me.

Last time I was in Maine for work, I picked up some of Little Lad's Not Cho' Cheese. This stuff is great and unfortunately, I've been unsuccessful at duplicating the recipe as of yet. It is made from potato, carrot, lemon juice, soybean oil, water, and "spices". What did I make with it? Pure comfort food... Mac and cheese with slices of soy dogs. On the side is Asian style broccoli. I've posted about this before. Just steam broccoli and add a dash of soy sauce, sesame oil and cracked red pepper. Yum!

Lastly, oven baked tofu. Also on my last trip to Maine, I picked up a bottle of Soyv ay Wasabiyaki on clearance. I'd read about it, but this is the first time I actually saw it. How lucky am I to find it for half price? Anywho... I marinated slices of tofu in the Wasbiyaki (teriyaki with wasabi) then baked it for about 45 min in the oven at 425. I like to use my toaster oven as it uses less energy (no need to fire up the gas stove for 6 slices of tofu). Turn it once about halfway through cooking. I'm a now a Soyvay fan! Tommy also dug this tofu.

Thanks everyone for the well wishes regarding my knee. Every week it is getting better. I actually picked up a trainer for my road bike and I've been using that to keep up the exercise and also help rehab my knee.

Hope you all had a great week and that your are staying warm if you are in the North East!

Lots of New Recipes

2007-01-17T16:52:00.000-08:00

My knee is still recovering, but I'm doing much better. Though stairs are still a bit difficult, I am back to some active stuff. Monday was a work holiday for me and I gave the treadmill a go. I managed a slow mile (3.5 mph), but I was able to jog. I'm pretty psyched about that.

Anyway, onto the food...

The generous folks over at LightLife sent me a mini cooler full of their products. I've purchased Lightlife brand foods before, but this actually gives me a chance to try some items I might not normally purchase. Ha! Now I finally need to try tempeh again. (I've got some tempeh issues.) They also sent me a link to give out for you to print a LightLife coupon. I'll try to keep posting it as I use up the rest of the cooler pack.

While watching the news last week, there was a chef from a restaurant in Boston's North End (Little Italy) called NEBO. They demo'd a recipe for Tagliatelle with Sausage and Broccoli Rabe. I easily veganized it with LightLife sausage and some veggie broth. Oh, and I hate raisins...so I used chopped dried apricots. Since it was a test, I made it without and then later added them. I actually kind of enjoy the spicy, saltiness without the fruit; however, it is tasty with apricots as well.

BTW - You can sub fettucine for tagliatelle if you have trouble finding it. Check out the wiki article on tagliatelle for an interesting read.

Broccoli Rabe ---I'm not a huge fan. I think this is the first time I tried it and I found it to be rather bitter. When I make this dish again I might just use broccoli or spinach.

Since I needed to use up the rest of the sausage, I made some vegan waffles and patties for breakfast later in the week. The recipe for Ginger Buckwheat waffles came from vegweb. These were ok. They definitely needed less ginger. I added some cinnamon, but they were still lacking something. I'll have to keep searching for a good vegan waffle recipe.

I've mentioned before that I'm preparing more raw foods. I'm trying to eat raw at least 2 days a week for the year. Last week, I failed to take photos. Today was raw day and I did snap pics of almost everything. As you'll see, I'm keeping it very simple for now.

Breakfast was just some fruit as I rushed out the door. For lunch, I packed the fixings for guacamole and mixed it up at the office. Instead of chips, I used chopped romaine lettuce squares. In addition, I brought some carrot salad. The recipe was from Rawsome!: Max imizing Health, Energy, and Culinary Delight With the Raw Foods Diet. It looks very plain, but the orange and cumin pack some flavor.

For dinner, I decided on a smoothie and a side of greens. The smoothie was mango, banana, and freshly squeezed orange juice. The greens were based on a recipe using kale and collard greens from Raw Food Made Easy For 1 or 2 People. I used rainbow chard. Wow, this really surprised me. I'd never really eaten raw swiss chard before and didn't have high hopes for it. This is a great dish that I'd make again with any type of greens.

It is very simple. Chop up the greens with some basil and garlic, then mix by hand (important, to mix the dressing directly into the leaves) with lemon juice, olive oil, and bit of salt. The recipe called for a dash of cayenne which I skipped. Let it rest for 10 minutes and enjoy.

Time Flies

2007-01-09T21:02:00.000-08:00

I keep planning on posting and then the day whizzes by and I've forgotten to post yet again. Over the holidays, I did quite a bit of cooking, though I only managed to document a few of the recipes. As usual, I've been lurking at other blogs. I was blown away by some of your holiday creations.

Anyway, here are the recipes I did photograph.

Organic cabbage was on sale, so I made up "veggie ribz" and cole slaw. The slaw is just red and green cabbage with carrots, celery seed, some vinegar, and a bit of soy mayo. You might notice 3 flavors of "ribs". Two are BBQ sauces. The third (and slightly scary colored one) is Ah So Sauce. I saw a jar at the supermarket and picked it up awhile ago. My mom sometimes cooked Chinese (non veg) stuff with this sauce. When I was a kid, I loved it. The verdict now ---not bad, but I prefer regular BBQ sauce.

Since I still had leftover cabbage, I gave this recipe for cabbage soup a try. Of course I used veggie broth instead of beef broth. This soup is surprisingly simple and the dill really added a lot flavor. Unfortunately, it didn't photograph all that well.

We have a restaurant chain here on the east coast called Bertucci's. It is pretty decent Italian food. One of my favorite side dishes there is the spinach and artichokes. I noticed a can of artichokes on my pantry shelf, so I cooked them up with spinach, evo, and a dash of pepper. The photograph isn't all that impressive, but I scoffed it up.

Onto junk food...

I saw Bryanna's Gingerbread People on another blog and decided that I must make them. Originally I skipped icing, but then I went in search of a vegan icing recipe for them. This led me to Jennifer's post about vegan icing for Schmoo. I used her idea and mixed some VitaSoy Holly Nog with powdered sugar. I'm lazy, so I made it a little on the watery side so I could just dip the cookies rather than spreading on the icing. These cookies were a hit. People couldn't believe they were vegan.

Side note - I'd seen others post about the VitaSoy Peppermint Chocolate drink. Though I like the Holly Nog, I didn't have incredibly high hopes for the new flavor. Boy was I wrong! I'm in love the Peppermint Chocolate soy milk. ---Soooo good. It is on clearance at many supermarkets now, so get it while you can!

Speaking of peppermint chocolate, I saw these great chocolate candy cane cookies on Jess' blog. She actually got the recipe from FueledByPopcorn. Since I am obsessed with the VitaSoy Peppermint Chocolate, I figured I'd give these cookies a try. That day, I was being difficult and didn't feel like following the recipe exactly. I cut down on the margerine by 1/3 and used apple sauce instead. Apple sauce is sweet, so I cut down on the sugar by about 1/3 as well. Lastly, I was worried that the cookies would be too minty, so I cut down on the mint by 1/3. These were some tasty little buggers. When I make them next time, I'd cut out even more of the mint.

Over the past few days I've been experimenting with raw foods. I'm actually digging some of the new recipes I've tried and I'll do my best to post some photos. Tomorrow, I meet my dad for dinner, so I will be having my first cooked meal since Sunday.

Brazil Nut "Cheese" and GF Snickerdoodles

2006-12-22T09:44:00.000-08:00

I've got one more recipe to bake up this afternoon when I get home from work, but I decided to hop on and post quickly at lunch. (Just in case I don't have time later.)

Tonight my family is having a Chanukah party and I'm bringing a couple of items. Last night I followed an interesting recipe I saw in Vegetarian Times for Brazil Nut Cheese.

It is very simple. Soak Brazil nuts in water overnight and then food process with salt, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, and water. After that roll it into a ball and squeeze out extra moisture. Then roll it in fresh herbs and bake it in the oven. Serve it drizzled with olive oil.

I'd give this recipe 9.5 stars out of 10. It is a tiny bit salty for my taste, so next time I will cut down the salt and likely it will be 10! The picture really doesn't do it justice. I sliced it open so you could see the center.

This is the kind of thing I've missed a bit as a vegan. Spread this on a veggie sandwich and you have one heck of a lunch!

One of the people attending the party tonight has Celiac, so I wanted to be accommodating. I know what it is like when I go to party and can't eat anything. I'd decided on Snickerdoodles, but now I had to veganize and make the recipe gluten free.

The recipe I used was from allrecipes.com. First, I replaced the eggs with Ener-G egg replacer which is gluten free. (I normally use Bob's Red Mill replacer which contains gluten.) Then I replaced the flour with Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Baking Mix. Everything else stayed the same.

The first batch of cookies was too soft after 8 minutes, so I put them back in for 2 extra minutes. Later, I learned that the cookies need to rest for a few minutes before removing them from the sheet. S0... If you like crunchy cookies, cook for 10-11 min. For softer ones cook for 8-9. Wait before moving them from the cooking sheet.

I hope you all enjoy the holidays!

News, Kale, and More..

2006-12-17T18:51:00.000-08:00

First, I saw this article in various places via email and online. If you haven't read it yet, it is worth the time.

The UN released a new study with findings that say: The cattle industry produces more greenhouse gases than driving cars.

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=20772&Cr=global&Cr1=environment#

Onto food stuff...

After our offbeat Thanksgiving, I did make up a more traditional vegan T-day plate.

You'll notice roasted yellow beats, sauteed beet greens (with garlic), a small portion of mashed potatoes, half a roasted sweet potato with cinnamon, and some slices of Celebration Field Roast. Tommy loves sweet potatoes and field roast. This was my first experience with cooking up the beet greens. I liked them!

The Field Roast is a great. It is a seitan roll with butternut squash and apple stuffing. I'm a huge fan of this product and look forward to this time of year when it is easy to find Field Roast in the store. The Field Roast Company also makes seitan sausages that I'd highly recommend. Their site lists a new vegan cheese which I'm looking forward to trying; however, I've been unable to find any locally.

This week I purchased some kale in order to try out a new recipe for Bean and Kale scramble that I found on FatFreeVegan. Generally I avoid kale, with the exception of one recipe I posted about previously.

This looked interesting, so I gave it a go. I included the optional mustard. The dill, soy sauce, and mustard made this dish quite flavorful and I'd cook it again.

So, I had some leftover kale and decided try out Kale Chips which I'd filed away a long time ago. The recipe is very simple. Chop up the kale, toss with olive oil and bake for 10 minutes (or until crispy) at 350 degrees. Wow, this couldn't be any easier and I love the crunchy kale chips! They are great plain and I also tried a few different toppings including vegan parmesan shaker cheese and creole spice seasoning. This recipe idea is a keeper.

I'm still limping around, so I'm cooking less than I would like, but I am keeping up with everyone's blogs.

A quick lunch time post...

2006-12-14T09:38:00.000-08:00

I've been MIA yet again.

I'm actually recovering from a snowboarding injury. I managed to hurt my knee pretty badly. (Figures it happened, so early in season.) Fortunately, lateral movement is good/not wobbly. I'm doing my best to stay off it and we're hoping it heals on its own in 7-10 days. Otherwise, I'll need to get an MRI on it.

Needless to say, I didn't get much cooking done while lounging around with my leg up and ice packs on my knee. Though I do have 2-3 posts waiting for me upload. I'll try to do that tonight.

For now, I thought I'd share a t-shirt that I found amusing. The site that sells it, does not have a veg agenda which is kind of funny. If you want one, they are on sale at threadless.com.

Zombie Chickens

2006-12-04T21:33:00.000-08:00

Normally, I don't post much as far as animal rights news. Today I was at a website (no connection to veganism) where this article was linked.

The egg industry sickens me and anyone who believes that eating eggs causes no harm to chickens, need to read articles like this.

The first paragraph:

In this rich agricultural region of Northern California, ranchers have been turning chickens too old to lay eggs into compost at a rate of a half-million hens a year.

But some chickens not properly euthanized have been seen crawling out of the compost piles, earning them the name ``zombie chickens'' -- and hatching a debate over what else might be done with them and other ``spent hens.''

Link to the full article.

Those poor animals. After a years of laying eggs in tiny cages and being deprived of basic necessities, they are suffocated and then buried alive. All this, so that people can eat eggs. Can you imagine how scared those poor creatures must be, after clawing their way out of compost heap filled with other dead brothers and sisters?

News like this is so frustrating and I'm not even sure what I can do to help. Living by example and sharing information are the first steps though.

More Soup and Thai Tofu Salad

2006-11-29T17:51:00.000-08:00

Last night I made creamy cauliflower soup. Of course I changed the recipe a tiny bit. In the end I didn't add the soy milk as I thought the soup is creamy enough. I also pureed only 3/4 of it because I like the chunks of cauliflower. Lastly, I didn't add the nutmeg. This is because I have been adding different spices each time I have a bowl. At lunch, I just added salt and pepper. With dinner, I added garam masala. Yum!

Here is the recipe, it was posted on a veg Yahoo group I am part of.

Creamy Cauliflower Soup

28 oz of vegetable broth
1 large head cauliflower --cut into pieces
1 med potato -- peeled and diced
1 med onion -- diced
2 tsp vegetarian bouillon
1 cup plain soy milk (optional according to Jody)
1/4 tsp nutmeg (also optional according to Jody)
salt and white pepper -- to taste

Combine vegetables, broth and bouillon in a large pot. Bring to a boil and then reduce to simmer. Cook until the vegetables are soft (20-30 minutes). Puree (in blender, food processor, or with hand-held blender). Return to pan, add remaining ingredients and heat to desired serving temperature.

I also made Thai Tofu salad. The recipe caught my eye when I was flipping through one of those paper cookbooks they have by the cash register in the supermarket. I wasn't sure about peanut butter and tofu together, but this is great. I'd planned on making a wrap with my soup tonight, but the package of wheat wraps had seen better days. I tossed the green spotted wraps and just had a scoop of tofu salad beside my soup.

Here is the recipe for that as well. I'm looking forward to making a sandwich with this tomorrow.

Thai Tofu Salad

1 package of extra firm tofu
1/3 cup peanut butter
4 tsp soy sauce
1 tbsp lime juice

1/8 tsp garlic powder
¼ tsp hot pepper sauce
¼ cup chopped red bell pepper
¼ cup sliced green onions
¼ cup chopped cilantro

Drain tofu. Combine peanut butter, soy sauce, lime juice, garlic powder, and hot pepper sauce. Mix well. Add tofu, bell pepper, onions, and cilantro. Stir with fork until well mixed and tofu is crumbly.

Where O Where Has Jody Gone?

2006-11-28T17:39:00.000-08:00

I've been lurking around at everyone's blog, but really haven't taken the time to comment or post. Work has been busy and I've been sidetracked by some personal stuff as well.

It was great to see so many wonderful veg*n Thanksgiving meals as I made the blog rounds. This year was rather nontraditional for me. My father and his girlfriend were called out of town on short notice and that changed the family Thanksgiving plan. I ended up heading over to my aunt's for a late lunch, rather than having a big gathering. We decided on an Asian theme. She made stir fried tofu and veggies. I brought spring rolls with peanut dipping sauce based on a recipe from Vegan Cooking School.

The past few weeks, I've been eating pretty simple meals that include salads, marinated tofu and veggies, or fruit/oatmeal. Though I took some pics, it seems silly to post them. The cool weather makes me crave soups and often times I have a cup of soup with my lunch. Last week I made tomato lentil soup. It looked so pretty in the leaf bowl.

Tonight I have a creamy cauliflower soup, cooking. I'm looking forward to trying this new recipe which I will post soon with a photo. I'll be trekking around and commenting on other blog later. Hope everyone is doing well.

Chickpea Patties and Cupcakes

2006-11-05T20:18:00.000-08:00

This morning I met a friend for breakfast at Garden Grille Cafe in RI. I had a tofu scramble with portabellas, spinach, and sun-dried tomato. After that I had to go pick up bird seed for Tommy. When I went to get the bird seed, I found that one of my favorite sporting good stores is going out of business. I stopped in hoping to find snowboard boots, but they didn't have my size. Though, I lucked out and found a great winter jacket for almost 70% off. When I got home, I did some yard work. A few trees had branches out close to the house, so I sawed off the offending limbs.

Tonight I made the Moroccan Chickpea patties from Vive le Vegan. Thanks to Leslie for the idea. I thought I had bad experiences with fennel in the past, but this fennel tasted nothing like I remembered. It wasn't bad, even raw. Verdict on the patties... I liked them, but they were a bit difficult to keep together in the pan. Honestly, the mix was just fine on its own without breading or cooking into patties. I'd use it as a dip or make sandwiches with it in the future.

Last weekend, I made the chocolate stout cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. The were ok, but not great. This was probably my fault as I made them without out cupcake papers and potentially cooked them too long. This weekend I made chocolate cupcakes and filled/frosted them with the peanut butter cream frosting. These were spectacular. The frosting and the cakes are perfect and perhaps taste even better than any cupcake I've had in the past (vegan or not). Yay Isa! The first photo of the cupcake came out a little funky, but I am posting both pictures.

Happy Halloween!

2006-10-31T07:19:00.000-08:00

Thanks Jen for the info on vegan Halloween candy. Unfortunately, my sister picked up Halloween candy yesterday and it is the non-vegan kind. Next year, I will get Twizzlers or something. Though I know Twizzlers have glycerin in them. Glycerin is not always vegan and it doesn't say vegetable glycerin. I assume if they made PETA's list, then they checked out the source.

Anyway, I've cooked quite a bit since I got back. I've been bad about posting. Last weekend I saw Bryanna's Waffle Iron Hash Browns on VeganCyclist's blog. Since my waffle iron has never been used for anything other than waffles, I gave them a try. They were delicious, even Tommy thought so. If you don't have a waffle iron, VC made her's in a panini grill and they came out a-ok.

What else... I had recently picked up Bryanna's Authentic Chinese Cuisin e: For the Contemporary Kitchen. Originally, I planned on making soup; however, I saw the recipe for Dan Dan Noodles and tried those. These were awesome. As I was cooking them, I was wondering if the strange mixture of ingredients would work. They totally did. I've got leftovers waiting for dinner tonight! The only change I made to the recipe was adding some broccoli. With the extra veggies, I was able to make three meals out of it, instead of two. Tommy dug these noodles too, though I think she is wondering why I haven't cooked tofu or seitan in awhile.

Lastly, Halloween stuff. I was visiting Yeah, That Vegan Shit and saw these awesome bloody finger cookies that she made. I gave them a try for today's Halloween party at work. The only change I made was using jam instead of red frosting. When I make these again, I'd put the almonds on before baking the cookies. The severed fingers were a bit brittle and a few broke while adding the almond fingernails. I just added more jam and stuck them back together. The almond cookies are actually very tasty and they could be made again as regular cookies in the future.

Checking In and Halloween Question

2006-10-30T10:16:00.000-08:00

I've got 2 new recipes two post about later tonight. Hopefully, I'll have cooked up my Halloween cookies by then, so you will have 3 photos to look at.

There is candy all around the office today. I guess they have designated today as a day where every one can bring their kids in and they can trick or treat around to certain cubes that have candy. This is my first year as a vegan on Halloween. I supposed the only thing I really miss is peanut butter cups. I can make some pb squares if I get desperate.

How do you all handle trick or treaters on Halloween? Do you get vegan treats like pretzels or oreos to give out? Just curious as I have not dealt with this issue before and have been wrestling with buying regular Halloween candy or getting some other stuff.

Sweet Potato Fries

2006-10-23T18:14:00.000-07:00

Tonight is only my second night home and Tommy sure is happy about it! For dinner I made a nice salad, jerk tofu, and sweet potato fries. The jerk sauce on the tofu and the ketchup pictured with the fries came from a shop on Tortola (British Virgin Islands) called Sunny Caribbee. If you are looking for some great Caribbean spices, sauces or teas, then check out their site.

I love sweet potato fries plain, but they were great dipped in Sunny Caribee Spicee Catsup.

So...you already know where I have been. We spent a few days on the island and then the rest of my time in the BVIs was on a boat named Caribbean Dream. Unfortunately, I didn't get many great photos of the 4o foot catamaran, but here is one to the right. After the sailing adventure we took a ferry over to St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands for our last two days.

Kelly our captain and Angie our first mate, were great. Angie cooked wonderful vegan food for me on the boat every day. She was rather concerned about cooking for me (the first vegan guest on Caribbean Dream), but we exchanged emails and I gave her a few ideas. She also found some recipes on her own. My favorite meal Angie cooked was this wonderful tofu curry.

Kelly was a great captain. Every time I mentioned that I hadn't gotten to visit somewhere while I was in Tortola this time or last year, our itinerary would magically change. One afternoon there was a large storm and poor Kelly was stuck outside in the rain for at least an hour circling around in the deep water until the weather was clear enough to head through the gap in the reefs to the next bay.

I think my favorite place that we visited was the One Love bar on Jost Van Dyke. We docked in the bay and jumped in the dinghy for a quick ride over the the beach. Kelly and Angie dropped us off and then motored out to sea. I wasn't quite sure why. The next thing I knew, they were flying towards the beach at high speed. The dinghy skidded up on to the sand and stopped just outside the bar. They stepped out of the boat and nonchalantly pulled up a bar stool after their "James Bond" entrance.

One Love is the type of beach bar that I've seen in movies or on tv, but never thought I be visiting. People tack their business cards on the wall. Seddy the owner will pick a number and call, once in awhile. He just taunts them telling them that it is 80 degrees and he looking out at the beach. Kenny Chesney wrote a song that was inspired by this little place called "No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problem". Signed t-shirts hang on the ceiling. Everybody writes their name on the bar. If you go there, you'll a find a palm tree drawn on the counter that says Jody in the middle!

Raquel the bar tender makes a great Bushwacker with coco loco, but no milk. Yay, vegan beverages! While we were there, the producer of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition was there with one of the families that will be on a future show. Two more views for you, looking further down the beach and also out at sea.

When I wasn't eating, drinking, sleeping, or hiking on one of the islands...we went snorkeling off the side of the boat. The reefs made me sad as many were dead, but there were a few pockets that seemed to be thriving. There were many beautiful fish and we saw some sea turtles and rays.

A sailing trip is much more personalized than a cruise ship. Kelly and Angie went out of their way to make our adventure wonderful. Angie actually cooked two meals (one vegan and one not) each time we sat down to eat. They were incredibly accommodating and I can't say enough good things about them. One last photo of Kelly and Angie, to end this entry. I'll be scoping out what I missed on everyone's blogs over the past week or so.

Thanks Kelly and Angie!

Back in a bit...

2006-10-12T09:27:00.000-07:00

I'll be without Internet access for the next 10 days or so. Hope I don't go through withdrawal, lol! Once I am back online I will be checking everyone's blogs and making some new posts of my own. Hope you all have a great week!

Mojito Marinade, Cabbage,and Plantains

2006-10-08T09:13:00.000-07:00

This will be a quick post. I've got to make some guacamole and head to a friend's house for the football game.

Last week, I was at someones blog and they talked about mojito marina de. Unfortunately I can't remember who, so I can't give credit. Since I had left over seitan, I made that recipe. I let the seitan marinate for a few hours while I mowed the lawn in the afternoon yesterday and then pan seared it. This marinade is awesome! The author on Epicurious is a restaurant owner. It is a roadhouse and I suspect not very veg friendly, but boy is this recipe good. It also makes a good dressing for salads and cooking veggies. I'll likely make this often and keep it on hand in the fridge. Also on the plate is cabbage apple dish that my aunt introduced me to. Saute onions, chopped red cabbage, and chopped apples with some olive oil. At the end add some caraway seeds.

A few days ago, I also cooked up a plantain. I sliced it, dipped it in unsweetened coconut and cooked it in a pan that had been sprayed with a little oil. I didn't let the plantain ripen enough, so it wasn't as sweet as usual. I did sprinkle a little agave nectar on some of the pieces.

Hope you are all having a nice weekend!

Mustard Crusted Seitan & More

2006-10-02T16:52:00.000-07:00

This weekend was filled up as usual. Saturday I stopped in at my aunt's and helped her shop for the holidays. Sunday, I had to get my cooking done before heading to my father's house. We had a family dinner before Yom Kippur started. Then we fasted from Sunday evening until sundown today (Monday).

Tonight, I was trying to decide what to make for dinner. I'd thought about tortilla espanola from VwaV with some leftover pimientos de padron, but I was tired and wanted something quick.

Since I had left over seitan, I decided to attempt something I missed from my non-veg days. I used to love the mustard crusted chicken at funky restaurant not too far from my house. Now I've learned that the chicken/meats are really not what I loved, it is the tastes that they are cooked in.

How do you make mustard crusted seitan? Well, I spread a thin layer of dijon mustard on each fillet of seitan, dipped it into breadcrumbs and then pan fried it. The verdict? 9 out of 10 stars! If I had homemade bread crumbs rather than canned, the coating would have been crunchier because crumbs would not be as fine. I might also add some mustard seeds to the bread crumbs before dipping in the future. I'm getting braver about just trying things in the kitchen.

Where did the seitan come from? Well, yesterday I made seitan from VwaV to use with the entree, I cooked to bring to the family dinner. Note: Not a huge fan of VwaV seitan, it is a little spongier than I prefer. Last week I had picked up an acorn squash and a celebration squash and I decided to stuff them. First I steamed the squashes. Then I made some vegan cornbread from The Angelica Home Kitchen.

Once the bread was done, I crumbled half of it into a bowl. Then I went to work on the rest of the stuffing. I sauteed chopped onions, celery, carrot, and garlic. Next I mixed the veggies with the bread, cubed seitan, chopped up squash and sage/thyme. After that, I stuffed the squashes with the mixture and baked them. At dinner, I served the squashes with mushroom gravy.

My aunt made two desserts for Sunday's dinner. She was nice enough to experiment with egg replacer and use margarine, so I could partake. She made mun cookies. Mun is a Yiddish word for poppy seeds. They were tasty. The second dish she brought was cranberry walnut tart. It was also very good. Behold my aunt's vegan desserts!

I also brought coconut lime cookies from Vive le Vegan, but no photo as I have baked those tasty buggers before.

Pimientos de Padron!

2006-09-29T18:34:00.000-07:00

After my last post, I couldn't stop thinking about pimientos. Some google searches turned up a local greenhouse that sells the seeds. Then, I came across tienda.com. They have a grower in Virginia and they ship the peppers once a week. Of course I had to order them. Today, when I arrived home, I found this box.

When I opened it, I was overwhelmed with a scent that reminded me of a five amazing weeks in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Almost every day I would meet up with friends and sit at a cafe, sipping sangria and eating pimientos de padron.

How I ended up in Santiago is a very interesting story and I'll share that on a future post. Since I was there on my own, I was more open and met many people. My subsequent trip to Sweden was to visit with some friends I met while I was in Spain.

Before I cooked up some of the peppers, I took this photo. Aren't they cute? These tiny little peppers taste like nothing I have tried here in the states.

I'd never cooked pimientos de padron before, but there were directions printed on container. Basically heat olive oil, add the peppers, saute until they blister and brown. Then sprinkle with ground sea salt. While they were cooking, the house filled with the exquisite aroma that I remember so well. Finally the peppers were done. These are finger food. You hold them by the stem and eat the rest of the pepper.

I only cooked up a few, but they were so good I ended up making a second small batch. Like I mentioned before they are usually sweet/savory; however there are always a few spicy ones mixed in. There were two comfortably spicy peppers in my batches and one that was too spicy to finish.

Pimientos de Padron are native to Santiago de Compostela and Galicia region of Spain which is where I spent my time. Santiago is beautiful city with a rich history. The Camino de Santiago is a trail that leads from the border of France all the way to Santiago which is on Spain's northwestern coast. Pilgrims follow the trail to reach the catherdral in Santiago where legend says St. James is buried. Santiago actually means Saint James. Each of the cathedral's four sides are built using a different styles of architecture. The original cathedral was built during the 1100's and over the years it was expanded. To the right is a photo looking down at the city and cathedral from Monte Pedroso (a mountain on the outskirts of the city).

Inside the church is the world's largest incense burner. I've seen priests swing a small silver incense burner during services in movies or on tv before. I'm not all that familiar with why it is done, but I suspect it originated in Santiago. On special occasions the huge 5 foot tall silver incense burner is swung back and forth across the cathedral. I was told that they originally would swing the incense burner to mask the smell of the pilgrims!

Here are two more photos. The first is closeup of the cathedral. The second is of the area on the southern side the church which was named by the medieval silversmiths. The area outside is known as Plaza de Platerias. (Plaza of the silversmiths) Many stores on this side of the square sell jewelry. The photo is of fuente de los caballos which means fountain of the horses. I snapped that picture on my first day in Spain.

I've got many more photos of Santiago and the surrounding areas and will try to post some in the future. Hope you all have a nice weekend!

Jody Returns...

2006-09-25T18:19:00.000-07:00

I've been busy at home and work. Sometimes it is difficult to post or even comment on the other blogs. Rest assured, I am checking out other blogs when I have a min, just not writing. I've got plenty to post about.

Let's see, the top 5... I've had quite a difficult time with this. My tastes really change quite often and I love so many different foods. I may have a favorite for a day or two and then move on to something else. A top five is just so difficult to choose. Here goes...

1. Hummus --I might also say falafel, hummus and tabbouleh. It is great as wrap or sandwich, but even mixing it together creates a wonderful fusion of tastes and textures.

2. Dark chocolate --Two I'd recommend: New Tree: Sexy which is made with ginger or Dagoba Xocolatl which has cacao nibs, chilies, and nutmeg. Of course, I love plain dark chocolate too.

3. Loose leaf tea --I'm lucky enough to have a local tea shop close to my house. The owner orders many teas and makes her own flavors as well. A few of my favorites: Russian Caravan which is smoked over pine fires, gun powder green tea, jasmine pearls, or plain old earl grey.

4. Fresh berries --Freshly picked strawberries have to be one of the sweetest most delicious foods on the planet. Though depending on the day, I might say the same about raspberries, blackberries, or blueberries. Tommy would always pick blueberries.

5. Seitan --Not the store bought kind. Home made seitan, pan seared with any combination of herbs/veggies/sauce/gravy. My first experience with seitan was the store bought variety and it scared me. I avoided seitan for years after that. One day I braved making my own seitan from scratch and I was instantly converted.

Interestingly when I started thinking about this list almost a month ago, I tried to remember foods that I tried at various times/places in my life where I was completely "wowed." Often times, these memories were not vegan. For instance, in Spain I had the most amazing flan at this tiny little hidden cafe. None of the other cafes could even compare. In Australia I had this absolutely amazing pumpkin soup. I've often wondered if I went back to these places as a vegan what foods I would recall.

BTW - In Spain, I had the most incredible peaches I have ever tasted in my entire life. They were huge and very pale orange with no red. They were a little creamier than apricots, but almost that color. These were the sweetest, juiciest, most wonderful peaches and I have no idea what variety they were. I've never seen (or tasted) anything like them here.

Hmm...and now that I have been sidetracked by Spain, I may have a #6 for the list. Pimientos de padron --First let me preface that I hate green peppers. If I had a top 5 worst foods list they would be number 3. (First is salt licorice from Sweden and second is vegemite). Pimientos de padron are these little green peppers that taste nothing like garden variety green peppers. They are sauteed in olive oil with salt. I was able to get these at at any tapas bar in the region of Spain where I lived. Most pimientos are sweet, usually there would be one or two super spicy ones that some how made it to the plate. You never know if you will get a spicy one, but it doesn't stop you eating these great little peppers.

Moving along...

L'shanah tovah to any other bloggers that celebrate Rosh Hashanah. The Jewish calendar is lunar and the new year has begun. Our new year is bit different than the secular new year. Rosh Hashanah begins a time of reflection where we think about what we have done wrong in the past year and how we can be better this year. It culminates on Yom Kippur which begins next Sunday evening. On Yom Kippur (the day of atonement) we fast.

Generally I am a very spiritual person, but not very religious. These two holidays have always "spoken" to me, even if I don't necessarily agree with all aspects of Judaism. Many people complain about fasting on Yom Kippur. I actually look forward to it. Fasting really makes the day different from any other day and allows me to concentrate on what I can do better this year. Giving up something, something I love so much, is a physical and symbolic way of asserting how serious I am about changing my ways.

This was my first year as a vegan at the Rosh Hashanah table. On Friday night I had dinner at my father's with his girlfriend. Two of her friends and my sister joined us. When I was a vegetarian, my dad's gf was always very concerned about whether I had enough to eat. (Believe me, I don't look like I am starving.) Now that I am vegan, she is even more worried.

She had hummus, tabbouleh and pita bread for me. I also had some green beans and rice. She had asked me to bring something and I decided on dessert because I figured vegan dessert might be the most difficult for someone else to figure out.

I baked a Chocolate Mousse Pie from Vegetariana by Nava Atlas. The pie had a graham cracker crust and I have to point out, it took quite a while to locate honey free grahams. Unfortunately, it was not very photogenic and I made the mistake of snapping the pic on my dad's granite counter top which did not compliment the colors at all. The top of the pie has crumbled Newman's Own chocolate cookies.

That night I would have rated the pie at 5-6 stars out of 10. I tried a leftover over piece from the fridge on Saturday and was completely surprised. Overnight the flavors melded and it morphed into an 8-9 out of 10.

On Saturday night my family had dinner at my aunt's. Normally I bake a challah (a type of bread) for Rosh Hashanah at my aunt's. Unfortunately challah has eggs, so I attempted a new vegan recipe for it from The Almost No-Fat Holiday Cookbook. The bread came out very well, but was not like challah at all. I'll have to play around with veganizing challah at a later date.

My aunt is a wonderful cook and I was able to have many side dishes for my dinner. She made this interesting cabbage and apple saute that I will make and post about in the future. Normally on Rosh Hashanah we use honey in many recipes. This is to signify the sweet new year. In the challah I used agave nectar instead. My aunt made my grandmother's famous honey cake. It smelled good, but I did not have any.

Early last week, I attempted some vegan cheese sauce/dip. It was a conglomeration of a few different recipes and it came out pretty well. The main ingredients were potato, carrots, white beans, nutritional yeast, miso and some different spices. Here is photo of some whole wheat pasta with veggie ham, broccoli, and the cheese sauce.

Tonight, I made up some veggie lasagna. It was really a packaged mix from Dixie Diner. Open the tomato paste, add water, pop everything in the pan and bake. Early in the week, I had picked up one of the cute eight-ball zucchinis that some of you posted about. I sliced it up and added it to the lasagna layers. It is pretty good considering that the contents came from a box. I did end up adding quite a few spices and opening a jar of tomato sauce. and dumping some on top. (after I took this pic) Here is photo of it for you all.

I'm off to check out what I have been missing on all the other blogs!

Spice Crusted Tofu with Green and Red Tomatoes

2006-09-14T18:45:00.000-07:00

First ---cookie swap. I'm planning to assign partners for the cookies swap at veggin'out soon. If you want in on the vegan cookie swap, head over there and let me know.

Last month, I sent Tania these cookies. They are a variation on Dreena's Homestyle Chocolate Chip cookies. The additions were oatmeal, peanut butter, hemp nuts, and coconut. These tasty little buggers packed an extra omega-3 punch!

Tonight I cracked open a cookbook I found on clearance a few months ago that is called: All-American Vegetarian: A Regional Harvest of Low-Fat Recipes. Since I had fresh red tomatoes from a friend's garden and my garden has green tomatoes, I cooked up spice crusted tofu with green and red tomatoes. I'm a fan of spicy foods, but this was almost too spicy for me. It was necessary to mix the tofu and tomatoes in each bite to actually finish this dish. Though the recipe is titled spice crusted, the description explains blackened spices. This is really blackened tofu.

Perhaps I will try it again with slightly less cayenne next time. The green tomatoes were surprisingly tasty. That reminds me, I've never tried fried green tomatoes. Have you?

All-American Vegetarian has many interesting recipes. I haven't finished flipping all the way through it. Some of the dishes seem rather strange, but I'm always tempted to try something new. Tonight I saw boiled new potatoes and cucumbers with sour orange sauce. (Raw cucumbers, boiled potatoes, herbs, and the orange sauce.) It sounds intriguing enough to try once.

What else... Oh, Carrie tagged me for the top 5. I'm still thinking on that. I'll try to post my answers by Sunday.

Tomorrow is Friday, can't wait for the weekend. Hope you all have a relaxing weekend planned!

Quick Post

2006-09-14T10:16:00.000-07:00

I've been MIA. Though I haven't been posting or commenting, I have been lurking at everyone's blogs. Yesterday at lunch, I even found a few new ones I like. Almost every week, sometimes everyday...I find another cool veg blog. It is so uplifting!

Before I start rambling... New Englanders, I usually go apple picking in the fall. I thought it would be neat to meet up at an orchard, pick apples, and maybe have a little veg picnic. There are quite a few of you that I know and other's that I haven't found yet. Karen in NY, Melody in NH, Heather and Megan in Boston. (I found someone else yesterday who is here in Boston for school, but I can't remember how I stumbled onto her blog.) Drop me a line via email or join the MSN group I created for us if you might be interested.

For lunch today, I am having some navy bean soup I cooked up last night. I don't have my camera with me and honestly, it wouldn't photograph well. It consists of navy beans, onion, celery, carrots, spices and TVP. The cool NE weather makes me crave soups this time of year.

Tonight, I have a special new recipe planned to try. I'll post pics later and make the blog rounds.

Travel has been rough lately, but we finally made a new hire while I was in CT/NY last week. Within a few months I will be sticking to MA/RI and driving further north on rare occasions. Yay!

Block Island

2006-09-07T19:08:00.000-07:00

Today was a long, but wonderful day. I played hooky from work and we headed to Block Island in RI. When I was four years old, I asked my aunt about some smooth round rocks on her fire place and she told me that they were from Block Island. Since then, I always wanted to go. Today was finally the day.

We drove to Point Judith, RI and then took the ferry over to Block Island. It is about a 55 minute ride over to the island. I'm very cranky in the morning, so the first thing we did is stop at The Orange Cat Cafe on Dodge St for coffee. I was was psyched to find out that they had soy milk and quickly ordered a cappuccino.

After fueling up, we started our walk up to the Southeast Lighthouse and Mohegan Bluffs. Block Island is about 3.5 miles wide with 17 miles of beaches and it is surprisingly hilly. The walk to the lighthouse was mostly uphill for about 1.5 miles. It was worth it though. Here is a picture of the Southeast Lighthouse.

After the lighthouse, we headed a short ways over to the Bluffs. It is 142 steps down to the beach. The stairs are steep as they traverse down the bluffs. Because of this, the steps are a rather interesting geometric design. Here are two photos of the stairs, the first one is looking down and the second looks up.

The 150 foot bluffs were rather imposing. With all the jagged edges and striations they were neat to look at. The first picture reminds me a little of Lord of the Rings.The beach was covered with funky stones and I took tons of pictures. My favorite rock on the beach looked like a shark swimming on top of the sand.

Here is one last photo of the beach. The waves crashing on the rocks were so pretty and the water was surprisingly blue for New England.
After climbing up the steps we walked back into town and went in search of lunch. Fr oozie's Juice Bar & Cafe really hit the spot. I had a pineapple, peach, strawberry smoothie and a monstrous "Falafel Works" pita which was made up of falafel, hummus, tabouli, and veggies with tahini sauce. Froozie's had quite a few vegan options and lots of vegetarian menu items. Here's a quick photo of my pita before I dug into it. Their falafel was pretty dang good, though I was starving after the 3 mile walk and the climb up and down to the bluffs.

The rest of the day we puttered around and looked at some of the stores on the island. We caught the 5pm ferry back and then stopped at Garden Grille Cafe on the way home for dinner. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera inside the restaurant. My dinner was a side dish of sauteed dandelion greens with roasted red peppers and garlic along with tofu vindaloo over Israeli couscous and sauteed beet greens. The dandelion greens were really unnecessary because of the beet greens, but I wanted to try them out. The verdict...Not a fan of dandelion greens, they were a little bitter for my taste.

I took 70+ photos while on the island. Drop me an email if you want a link to my photo album so you can view the rest. Hopefully this weekend, I will get some cooking done. TGIF!

Jamaica, mon!

2006-09-04T18:06:00.000-07:00

Well, Melody's island tart got me thinking and I decided to dust off one of my tropical cookbooks. Tonight for dinner I made Jerk Potato Stir from Delicious Jamaica: Vegetarian Cuisine. For the recipe, I needed to make a dry jerk spice mix which I can use in future cooking endeavors. Yay!

The recipe called for tofu, but I had some left over Soyboy sausages to use up. Potatoes and yellow pepper didn't seem like enough vegetables, so I added some baby spinach. If I lived in Jamaica, I would have added callaloo. Do you remember the Cosby Show episode where Dr Huxtable recreates the Callaloo Pot restaurant and the old chef comes by to make callaloo stew? No to-fu.

Later, I'll be making cookies for Tania.

Hope you all had a great holiday weekend!

How fast can I type?

2006-09-03T18:36:00.000-07:00

I've got a lots to write about, but I have a lye/water mixture cooling for some soap I am going to make tonight. This batch will be Woods, perhaps my favorite batch of soap I've made in the past. A few others have been asking for it too. Woods is made up of the following essential oils: Rosewood, Peru Balsam, sandalwood, spruce, cypress, juniper berry, sweet birch, atlas cedar, Virginia cedar, fir needle, and oak moss absolute.

Someone clarify the blogger beta issue for me... Is the problem that people who upgraded can't comment on any blog? Or is it that people that upgraded can only comment on other beta blogs? If it is the latter, then I will upgrade.

A few of you have asked for pictures of Tommy. Here is picture of Tommy from awhile ago. She currently has some feather issues and I hate to post current photos of her until she is looking better.

Yesterday I went into the city for a vegan meetup at Veggie Planet again. This time I decided to take the train instead of driving. I got a little lost, driving to a different T station in Quincy and then the wait for the train was very long. By the time, I got into the Harvard Square, I was pretty late for the meetup. Though, it turned it out there was the Cutting Edge of the Campfire Folk Festival going on. That meant we couldn't eat there without buying a ticket to the show. ---Bad planning on the part of the meetup people. (Megan, I hope you stayed home and unpacked instead of heading over to the meetup.)

Now I have no problem buying a ticket and hanging out for the show, but they only sold an all day pass. Unfortunately, I could only stay for a an hour or two and I didn't feel like buying an all day ticket. I got my lunch and hung out on the steps next door. While I ate, I got to listen to some cool folk music for free.

After the failed meetup, I headed over to The Coop. That is the Harvard/MIT bookstore. It is rather well known around the city and I had never actually been. As I wasn't interested in a clothes, I walked over to the regular book shop side after a quick wander through the student bookstore. It is a very pretty shop, but I can't say I was overly impressed with it.

Before heading back to the train, I decided to check out an ice cream shop I saw. Perhaps I was feeling lucky after finding Tofutti at Sweet Claude's. Worst case scenario, I figured they'd have sorbet. Lizzie's Ice Cream recently opened a shop in Harvard Square and guess what? They also carry Tofutti. It is just two flavors---chocolate and coffee at this time, but how cool is that? I've still got to send them a thank you note.

After my yummy coffee Tofutti, I got on the train and went home. The clouds looked ominous, but I was able to finally get lawn mowed before the rain. Saturday night, I had tickets to see Staind at Mohegan Sun in CT. The first time I saw them, was a festival with five bands. The only group I really wanted to see was Stone Temple Pilots. Staind really surprised me and I've been a fan every since. Aaron Lewis has an incredible voice.

Their current tour also included 3 other bands. They are Seether, Soil, and Three Days Grace. I've heard of each of those bands, but don't know them very well. Unfortunately, Seether did not perform and I missed Soil. Three Days Grace was ok. They have two songs I like a lot and I didn't care too much for their other music. The singer has a very cool and distinctive voice, but the music wasn't very creative.

Staind... They put on a great show. Some of their newer music is louder than I care for, but the more melodic tunes really showcase Aaron. His voice takes over and owns the room. At one point he did an acoustic cover of Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb. ---If loud doesn't scare you, you should definitely check out Staind.

Last thing... I've been in touch with some of the local veg bloggers that I know and we've talked about getting together. I'd hoped to have a picnic this summer, but my schedule kept me from doing much of anything about making this happen. Tonight, I set up a group for us on MSN. That would allow us to stay in touch and have a shared calendar where we could setup group get togethers. Whether it is just a potluck for people in RI or something cool like apple picking in a central location for all the New Englanders. ---By the way, I'd like to setup an apple picking get together. We could probably have a picnic for that one. I know of a few of you in NH, NY, and Boston. If you are interested, then join the MSN group or just drop me an email. The website is: http://groups.msn.com/LocalVegnBloggers/homepage

I did not have a chance to do anything fancy on the home page or update much more than the blurb about what the group is. I will slowly get that done! Originally I thought we could use meetup.com for it, but they charge a monthly/yearly fee and MSN is free. ---Free is good.

Tarty

2006-08-30T20:28:00.000-07:00

Tonight I was hoping to mow the lawn when I got home because it finally stopped raining. Though I was distracted at my lunch break and reminded of Urban Vegan's Tart Gallery. After work I drove over to Bed Bath and Beyond to purchase my first tart pan with my $5 coupon. Yay, tart pan! Then, on the way home, I stopped at the Ward's Berry Farm to pick up some local raspberries. It was after 7pm when I got in the door and too dark to take care of the grass.

First thing I did was mix up the tart crust and put that in the fridge. While it was chilling, I made up some nachos. They didn't photograph well, but let me tell you that they were amazingly tasty. The cheese is Not Cho Cheeze from Little Lad's. The first ingredients are potatoes and carrots and then lemon juice and spices. I really need to experiment in duplicating it. I've never seen a "cheese" recipe like it, but I love the stuff. The rest of the toppings are chipotle salsa and mashed black beans.

After the nachos I went in search of cookie cutters for the tart topping and of course I couldn't even find one. I swear there is a box somewhere is this house with 100's of cutters. Instead I sliced the dough by hand. The recipe is Chocolate Raspberry Linzer Tart from vegweb. After the dinner, I was stuffed. Though I did manage a small slice of the tart and it is pretty good. I do like chocolate and raspberry together, but it would have been just as good sans chocolate. The crust is amazingly flavorful. I subbed sucanat for the brown sugar and that likely added nice undertones. For the filling, I used some organic strawberry, blueberry, raspberry preserves. I had no powdered sugar for the top, but I think it looks ok without it. Behold my vegan tart!

PS - I'm lazy and like to skip steps if possible. If you decide to make this recipe here's a time saving tip for you. After you take the crust out of the oven, put the chocolate chips on top. The heat will melt them and you can just spread it on the bottom. That is one less pan as you don't need to melt the chocolate.

This week has been busy as usual at work. Since I am not traveling until next week, I've been trying to get much done at home. I bought my house just over a year ago and up until now, the only furniture I purchased was a really nice dining set and a huge bean bag chair. Now, I actually have a sofa and I am looking at getting some other new stuff as I get more organized.

I've got one more (well maybe two) Tommy stories for you from my last trip. I'll write up the best one that I had been hanging onto. When I left Maine last Monday, I packed up and stopped at one of my friend's for dinner on the way home. C has a big German Shepherd and two cats. We weren't sure what Tommy was going to think of that. I walked in with Tommy in her carrier and the dog came running over to check out what was going on. Tommy let out this blood curdling raptor scream. It was so loud, I am sure the neighbors heard it. She scared the poor pooch (and the cats). They all ran away to another room.

Later, I brought Tommy over to Chouli the cat to see what they thought of each other. Choules was not interested at all which is funny because she likes to terrorize the poor birds in the backyard. I sat down on the couch to watch tv and Ernie the kitten climbed up on my lap. Tommy was not afraid of Ernie and she kept making kissing noises. Ernie stood up nose to beak with Tommy while she continued to make kissy sounds. Then Ernie starting patting Tommy. He was pawing gently at her back. It was the cutest thing I have ever seen! They snuggled right up next to each other and hung with me the rest of the time until I left.

Swamped...

2006-08-24T19:35:00.000-07:00

My work schedule is killing me this month. Sometimes the travel is draining. At home I am in the middle moving furniture around and re-organizing. It just seems like I can't catch up.

On the food front, I've been cooking very simple dinners. A recent example is the BBQ tofu and fresh sliced cucumber from my garden. It is not the most photo friendly dish. Tommy loves tofu. She was trying to so hard to get my attention in hope of getting a piece while I took this picture. As soon as the pic was snapped, I gave her some tofu and she was a happy bird.

I've got tons of baby cucumbers and green tomatoes in the garden. Soon I will have so many fresh veggies I won't no what to do with them all.

The end of last week and beginning of this week I was in Maine again for work. Since I was away for four days, I brought Tommy with me. I have a great friend who lives by the office and he doesn't mind my screaming parrot! Though, lucky for us he travels a lot too. Most of the time I was there, we missed each other.

The second night I was in Maine, I stopped at the Whole Grocer and picked up some Little Lad's vegan tarts and some Lad's popcorn. Tommy digs Lad's popcorn with the nutritional yeast topping. At one point I was watching tv and Tommy kept trying to eat the popcorn. The funny thing was that the popcorn was in a clear plastic bag. Tommy could see it, so she kept trying to grab kernels. She couldn't figure out why she couldn't get at it. After watching her and chuckling for a few minutes, I eventually caved and gave her more popcorn!

Saturday night, I met some friends in Portland and we headed to the Ray LaMontagne / Guster concert. Ray was pretty new to me, but I really dug his music. Guster put on an amazing show as usual. I lucked out by seeing them in Maine. This was the last show of the tour, so Guster did an extra long encore!

Sunday I met up with two other friends and since it was raining, I brought Tommy with me to hang out at their apartment. One of Tommy's favorite foods when I was vegetarian was cheese, now she doesn't get dairy cheese anymore (she does like VeganGourmet). One of the guys made friends with Tommy quickly when he gave her a cube of cheese.

It took her awhile to get used to new people, but she was happy hanging out with us rather than being cooped up at home. They have a ficus tree. Tommy ran across the room and climbed up onto the tree. She loves hiding out in the leaves. We let her stay there until she started ripping leaves and bark. After that, Tommy starting exploring the house. She found their bikes on the wall and climbed up to perch on the bars.

They made pasta for dinner. Though Tommy normally loves pasta, she wasn't very hungry. All of the new people and the new space was probably too much for her. One of their friends joined us for supper and then stayed to do some quick haircuts! She asked if I wanted a haircut too, and I figured what the heck. Free dinner and a free haircut... Tommy refused to watch from across the room, so she was perched on my knee the whole time.

That's plenty of rambling from me. I think I will go check out some other blogs and update my links on the right. Unfortunately, I need to drive up to Maine tomorrow for work again. At least I will be home all weekend.

Hope you all are having a great week!

Grasshopper and TJ Scallywaggles

2006-08-16T20:35:00.000-07:00

I haven't had much time to post. That is partly because of more traveling for work. Most of my meals have been made up of leftovers. Sometimes I forget that I am just one and I don't cut the recipe in half. That means I may eat the same variations for a few days.

I did cook up some sauteed chard with pine nuts and garlic. When I was in Maine last weekend, a friend gave me some chard from her garden.

Tonight, I met my father for dinner in Boston at Grasshopper. Since I haven't cooked much, I brought along my camera to snap some photos of our dinner.

My dad ordered the Special Taro Nest. The bowl is edible and made from fried taro strips. Inside are veggies and various mock meats in a tasty sauce. It all sits on a bed of watercress. This was definitely one of my favorite dishes when I first visited Grasshopper.

I ordered my current addiction which is called Happy Family. It is asparagus, seitan, and tofu in a "spicy" (not very) chili basil sauce. Unfortunately I can't get enough of this, so I often fail to try a new dish because I go with my standby. Notice how big the portions are! I brought half of that and the brown rice home with me.

When we left, I walked with my dad back to his car and pointed out a relatively new vegan restaurant that is a few stores down from Grasshopper. It is called TJ Scallywaggles. It is vegan comfort food. You'll find subs, pizza, salads, calzones, gyros, pasta, smoothies, and dessert. The food is good and it is pretty safe places to bring your omni friends as they will recognize most items on the menu.

Vegandoc raved about TJ's cheese cake, so I figured I might get a slice to go. While my dad and I talked outside, the owner stepped out to say hi. After my dad left, I went in and ordered the cheese cake and got a chance to talk with the owner some more. What a nice guy! I'm always excited to talk with other veg*n folks. Though I love my omni friends, I often feel like we are on different wavelengths.

At any rate TJ's is owned by people who are very into social responsibility and creating a community. They want build a restaurant concept that can easily be duplicated and is enticing to both veg*ns and omnis while staying true to their ethical beliefs.

While I was there, a gentleman from a veg band stopped in. He had just returned from CA and was telling us about their van which they converted to run on bio-diesel.

Obviously the owners made a great impression on me and I'd like to encourage you to check this restaurant out if you are in the Boston area. Oh, and I agree with Heather...the cheese cake was wonderful.

Sweet Claude's

2006-08-09T23:00:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post tonight.

While I was at our Connecticut office today, I had to run out at lunch time for some computer supplies. One of the ladies from the office joined me and on the way we drove by Sweet Claude's Ice Cream. I hadn't been to Claude's in well over year, but I noticed that their sign said ice cream and Tofutti on it. That's right Tofutti at an ice cream parlor!

Of course, we had to stop. I got a bowl that was half cookie and half mocha almond. She got half cookie and half chocolate. Both of us preferred the cookie flavor. Anyway, if you happen to find yourself in Cheshire, CT...check out Claude's.

It is a small little ice cream shop with quite a few vegan options. They carry a few flavors of Tofutti and also sorbet. I sent them an email thanking them for the vegan/non dairy options.

Pesto Pasta and Lime in the Coconut...

2006-08-07T22:29:00.000-07:00

First, I want to give a quick shout out to a one of my co-workers who just started up her blog called VeggieBake. Michelle started at my company a little over a month ago. I was pretty psyched to have a vegetarian around and I think she was happy to find a someone who could point out all the good lunch spots---the kinds that aren't chains and serve veg friendly foods!

Tonight, I cooked up some more pasta and mixed in the pesto I made yesterday. Tommy gobbled up quite a few pieces of the yummy pasta and this time we were able to hold out long enough to actually snap a photo.

And...behold Dreena's wonderful coconut like cookies. If you have the cookbook, bake these up! Even if you are a chocolate lover like me, you will not be disappointed.

Lastly, I've had a request for more Tommy stories. Tommy is my pet cockatoo. She is a rescued bird. I inherited her from a vet who was caring for her after the owner passed away. Tommy's ankle bracelet shows that she was imported. Though she is wild, I'm not sure she knows that she is a bird. She's grown up with humans all her life and is scared to death of my other little bird Nacho, who wants to be her friend. (Though oddly enough, if I can't get Tommy to eat something and I offer a piece to Nacho, Tommy will immediately try the food she previously eschewed.)

My old roommates had two ferral cats. Tommy was not afraid of these cats and actually loved to terrorize them. She would chase them around the house trying to bite their tails. The funny thing about that is she doesn't usually fly. That means you would see a big white cockatoo walking with her feet turned out (like a penguin) after the cats. If Tommy couldn't find the cats, she would look around the house for them. Tommy knows her own name and she seemed to think that the cats were also named Tommy. She'd wander around looking for the cats, peeking under the furniture and calling, "Tommy, Tommy." At first the cats would come out because they heard what they thought was a human. It only took a few nips from Tommy at their tails for them to ignore her when she called.

Lunchtime Ramblings...

2006-08-07T11:07:00.000-07:00

For lunch today, I brought the smoky lentil dip with a layer of chipotle salsa on top. The two were great together with blue corn chips for dipping. I should have snapped a photo of my laptop lunchbox, but I was lazy.

Last night, I also made Dreena's coconut lime cookies. I'm generally a chocolate or peanut butter person, but these cookies are amazingly good. I'll have to take a photo tonight. Of course, I didn't follow the recipe exactly. I had no coconut extract, so I used Malibu coconut rum. Also, I ran out of maple syrup. I subbed brown rice syrup for the remainder of the maple syrup.

My last cookie disaster taught me a lesson. My aluminum free baking powder says to double it in recipes. It has worked fine most of the time, but with Dreena's recipes doubling is not necessary. For now, I'm using the aluminum free as regular and things are ok.

So with substitutions and aluminum free baking powder, I ended up with yummy cookies. Perhaps it was the Malibu rum!

Food Processor Overload

2006-08-06T18:25:00.000-07:00

Since I had lunch at Veggie Planet yesterday and I have the owner's cookbook, I pulled that off the shelf today. Fortunately, I found a couple of recipes to try from Entertaining for a Veggie Planet. Tonight, I used the food processor to ready my lunch/snacks for the week. That is important as I will have some traveling to do.

First I made Smoky Red Lentil Spread. It is consists of cooked red lentils, onion, canned chipotles in adobo sauce, lemon juice, olive oil, and salt/pepper. Measure, toss in food processor and enjoy. The spread is very good, though Tommy didn't care for it. I really thought she might because she loves hummus. I may need to try giving her a carrot dipped in it.

Since I had to crack open the can of chipotle peppers, I looked for another recipe that used them. I found Zesty Smoky Cherry Tomato-Oregano Salsa. This was composed of cherry tomatoes, red onion, chipotles in adobo sauce, chopped oregano, lime juice, lime rind, olive oil, and salt/pepper. Measure, process and enjoy. I found this a little too spicy for me, so I had to chop up a few extra tomatoes and add them in. It is great with blue corn chips. I may try it with some vegan cheese and beans for lunch or dinner this week.

Earlier today, I visited with my aunt. She wanted me to take pictures of the new kitten that she adopted from the shelter. His name is Snow. My favorite picture is to the left. Before I went home, my aunt gave me some more fresh basil from her garden. Since the food processor was already out, I made sun dried tomato pesto. The recipe can be found on about.com. My pantry had a tiny bit of whole wheat pasta left, so I cooked that up and mixed it with some pesto for dinner. Unfortunately, Tommy and I devoured that before a photo was taken, but here is picture of the pesto.

Lastly, I posted a new thread in the trading forum on vegginout. If you want to get in on a vegan cookie swap this month, please just respond in the thread linked above. We'll pair everyone up and get some cookie trading done!

Sesame Green Beans and Lunch at Veggie Planet

2006-08-05T22:38:00.000-07:00

Today I went to went to a cool veg restaurant I had been wanting to try called Veggie Planet in Harvard Square. Somehow I found a vegan group at meetup.com and decided to give it a go. Unfortunately, there were a only a few people, but it made for interesting conversation and I had a tasty lunch.

My lunch was of double header (two pizza slices). One was Vegan Peanut Curry: coconut rice (on or off pizza dough) topped with tofu, broccoli, and Thai red peanut curry sauce. The other was Vegan Oddlot: fresh tomatoes, spinach, basil tofu ricotta, Calamata olives,and fried garlic.

Tonight, I went to a concert at the Tweeter Center. It was Poison! Yup, back to high school and middle school, I guess. The highlight of everyone's night was probably "Every Rose Has Its Thorn". Though the crowd went wild when they played, "Your Mama Don't Dance" and "Nothin' But a Good Time."

Before the show I wasn't hungry because of lunch. When I got home, I was starving. I had some green beans that needed to be used up, so I made Sesame Green Beans from The Healthiest Diet in the World. The are steamed and mixed with sesame oil, toasted sesame seeds, and lemon juice. Also on the plate are two (well one and a half) steamed buns. You know I had to eat half, so you could see the filling! I believe the recipe was from Veggie Life. I made them awhile back and froze some. It seemed like a good match so I warmed two up. The filling is shitake mushrooms, scallions, cilantro, tofu and an array of spices that I can't remember!

Oh---Vegan Cookie Monsters... Harmonia set up a trading area on VegginOut. Many of you are already members, so that should be an easy may to organize the cookie swap. Though there is probably no need to say this as you are all pretty smart people, but just in case: Don't post your address on the board. We can exchange addresses via email or personal messages at vegginout. If you don't really "know" the person you are exchanging with you two can always use your work address. Also, if any guys want to get involved...drop me an email. Vegginout is just for the ladies and that is the only caveat with the choice to organize the trading there.

More Travel...

2006-08-03T19:12:00.000-07:00

The past two days I was traveling again to Cheshire, CT and White Plains, NY. Usually when I do this trip for work, I plan my schedule such that I can make it to Whole Foods in NY before checking into the hotel. That allows me to pick up my dinner and then breakfast/lunch for the following day. I also brought my camera, so that I could take a photo of my dinner.

Unfortunately, no part of this plan worked out. When I got to Cheshire and tried to charge up my camera, I found I brought the wrong charger. That meant no photos for you folks. Then I found that I had quite a few packages waiting for me in the office. All were parts that needed to be installed in our server room in CT. That meant a long night. One of the other system engineers worked with me on the phone to help get everything installed and setup and then I headed out to NY at 8:30. I knew Whole Foods would be closed when I got there, so I headed straight to the hotel. My lunch/dinner consisted of a sad showing: almonds, a lara bar, and pretzels.

This morning at Whole Foods, I picked up plenty of good stuff. I purchased some fresh pineapple for breakfast. The salad bar has some interesting new salads. One was tomatoes, olives, hearts of palm, arugula, and vegan soy chicken. Another was corn, black beans, jalapenos, veggies and vegan soy chicken. I made a lunch combo of those two with sesame broccoli and wheatberry salad.

BTW - I love hearts of palm!

Driving back tonight was pretty bad. It was 102 degrees when I left NY. At some point about 1.5 hours into my commute, I drove straight into a crazy thunderstorm and the temperature dropped to 73 degrees! I don't think I have ever driven through rain this bad before. The lightening was so close that I jumped sometimes when I heard the thunder booming. Since I was going 40 mph or less a lot of the time, the 3+ hour trip actually took 6. I did see some pretty spectacular lightening, but I'm not sure the trade off was worth it. The weather caused the Prius to get poor gas mileage. it only got 49 mpg, LOL.

Last thing, one of my co-workers wants to try a vegan lunch somewhere in White Plains. Though I hadn't planned on going back for at least 2 more weeks, I will likely need to be in White Plains next week for some server work. Anyone out there know of a good vegan restaurant that is in/near White Plains?

I promise some food pics soon!

Blogger spell check strikes again. Tonight it tried to change arugula into archly or arousal!

Tofu Chocolate Mousse Pie

2006-08-01T10:50:00.000-07:00

Here's another quick post. I've been pretty swamped at home and work, so not much cooking.

I stumbled on the Gourmet Sleuth website the other day. Though it is not really a veg friendly site, they published an article/recipe for Chocolate Mousse Pie with Chocolate Crumb Crust.

One very interesting thing about this article is that they compare the nutritional information of the Tofu Chocolate Mousse pie to a regular Chocolate Mousse pie. Guess which one is healthier...I know, no surprise there. It is pretty cool to see the difference portrayed in an easy to read table on their site though.

Scroll down towards the end of the article to see that. The recipe looks good and I may give it a try soon.

A Quick Lunch Break Post

2006-07-31T09:30:00.000-07:00

As usual, I ended up having a pretty busy weekend.

Let's see, my tomato plants have their first baby toms growing which is pretty cool!

A package arrived from Leslie this weekend. She sent me a funky quartz bracelet that she made. I really dig the colors and natural stones. I'm definitely going to order another bracelet or perhaps a necklace soon.

Also included was a lavender and flax eye pillow which smells wonderful. To the left is a quick photo of the bracelet and pillow.

I'll try to take a better pic of the bracelet tonight.

Tommy my cantankerous cockatoo is not fond of any jewelry. As soon as I wear a watch or bracelet she attacks. I'm not sure if she thinks the jewelry is attacking me and is trying to protect me...or if she is afraid of it. I put on the bracelet without thinking and during our snuggle time (she gets 30 minutes of pure Jody time every night) she tried to take a bite out of the bracelet. She narrowly missed and I have large beak mark on my wrist. Today, I put the bracelet on before I left the house and after Tommy was in her cage.

I was in Maine for meetings all day Friday. Friday evening I met a good friend of mine for dinner in downtown Portland. We had a nice meal at Natasha's on Exchange St. They had vegan pot stickers and a funky tofu veggie bowl.

Before I left Maine, I stopped at the Whole Grocer and picked up some of my favorite Little Lad's vegan tarts. This time around they had cherry, bumbleberry, and blueberry rhubarb. I've finished off a cherry and a bumbleberry. Cherry is definitely my favorite now. I've not tried the Blueberry Rhubarb.

This weekend, I got very little cooking done. Last night when I was cleaning out the fridge, I found some tofu that needed to be used ASAP. I don't know what my problem is sometimes! I buy things and note that I have tons of time to use them and some how I end up letting them expire. Tommy and I both love the oven fried tofu recipe that I tried previously, so I cooked that up this morning after letting it marinate overnight. My lunch is the tofu and some strawberry applesauce. It would be a pretty boring photo, so I didn't bother.

Also, some of you have been emailing and asking about my handmade soap. I did start up a soap blog and put a link to it on the right nav bar. Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to post what kinds I have at the moment. However, I did post a photos of how I make soap and also an article about why handmade soap is better. I'd say always buy handmade soap whether it is from me or a local soap maker in your neck of the woods. It is better for your skin and the environment.

Last thing...cookies! I'm going to talk/email with Harmonia and ask about setting up a cookie swap area on veggin' out.

Coldstone and vegan!?!

2006-07-27T14:31:00.000-07:00

I'll be driving around for work tonight and tomorrow, so I won't have time for posting. Before I left the office tonight, I did want to write a quick note.

A vegetarian, NOT VEGAN (---if you listen to the Vegan Freaks podcaast, you should hear that sound effect in your mind!), friend of mine in the office wanted to head over to Coldstone and invited me to go. I stated I would join her, but would not partake.

As a vegetarian, I loved Coldstone, so it was interesting to be there. I was glad that I wasn't even tempted to get dairy ice cream. Then we both noticed that they had non dairy sorbet in the ice cream case! How cool is that?

They also have a new smoothie menu with yogurt or soymilk options. Obviously yogurt is NOT VEGAN, but soy milk is. I'm tempted to write them an email letting them know that I love these options and that maybe they could offer a non-dairy ice cream option in the future too. Many of the potential toppings are vegan.

For now, I'm psyched to see sorbet on the menu there.

Prius Update - It is averaging 50+ mpg at the moment. I'm really enjoying having a bit more space in the car. Coopers have very stiff suspension (almost Jeep like) and it is nice to have smooth commute into work. I'll post a pic or two of the Prius over the weekend.

Sloppy Lentil Patties

2006-07-25T19:06:00.000-07:00

I still had left over sloppy lentils and VegNews had a Lentil Burger recipe. Sloppy lentils were perfect for the recipe because they already had kale, onion, and carrots. I added chopped sun dried tomatoes, oatmeal, and some spices and then cooked up the patties.

These are good and I may actually prefer them to the plain sloppy lentils. Though I believe the addition of tomatoes would make me love the sloppy lentils.

Funny, the recipe in VegNews says 4 burgers and I made 12. Tommy, loves the lentil burgers. I'll bring 1 or possibly 2 for lunch tomorrow and will likely need to freeze the rest.

Teddy and everyone wondering about the Prius---I am planning to pick it up at 8:30am tomorrow. It is time to say goodbye to my good friend Gary Cooper. The photo to the right is one of the first pictures of Gary. This car handles like a little tank in the snow, so I will likely miss that the most. My sister and I took Gary up to Vermont with us and we were stuck in a crazy snow storm. SUVs were skidding off the road and Gary just trucked along. I'd like to believe this was due to my exceptional driving, but it is probably due partly to the car.

There was an office prank involving pink toilet paper and the wrapping of a number of manly trucks in our parking garage. It escalated to various other decorations including this one to the right. I was called into a conference room to view a PowerPoint presentation where I saw the picture of Gary sporting the pink bow. GC and I had some good times. I'm sure Gary's new owner will really dig him.

I won't miss filling up with 93 octane at the gas station or getting 30 miles to the gallon. I am looking forward to lowering my contribution to global warming and dependence on foreign oil!

Spellcheck laugh of the day...It tried to replace VegNews with vagina's! The apostrophe s is perhaps the most amusing part of that substitution.

Smoothie & Adzuki Beans

2006-07-23T13:39:00.000-07:00

Wow, lots to update on! First the food and then everything else.

I had some left over kale from Leslie's sloppy lentil recipe. A few of you had been posting smoothies with some leafy veggies added, so I gave it a go. This has some frozen mixed berries, kale, Rainier cherries, soy milk powder, and a few kale leafs! Verdict---not bad! I definitely detected something more healthy than normal in it, but the kale didn't deter me. The picture has one of my pint glasses from The Great Lost Bear in Portland, Me. GLB is veg friendly, though not exclusively veg. One of my friends bought me two pint glasses from GLB as a house warming present a few years ago. She knows, I love to stop there when I am in Maine.

Unfortunately, I still had kale left and it is not one of my favorite veggies. I looked around and found this recipe for Kale and Adzuki Beans. One fortunate side effect of needing adzuki beans is that I finally had an excuse to drive out to the Asian grocery store which I will write about shortly. Anyway the kale and adzuki beans are cooked with garlic, tamari, coriander, and cumin. Though I knew I liked adzukis, I wasn't sure about making this recipe. In the end, I gave it a thumbs up. This photo got submitted to allrecipes for the recipe as it was lacking a photo, so maybe it will be there next time we look it up!

My trip to the Asian grocery... I was pretty excited about this as I might be able to find yuba which is something I love. When I am in NY they sell this macrobiotic yuba meal that I am addicted to. Additionally, I was pretty psyched to just wander through the aisles and check out all the funky foods. I made it there without getting lost and meandered through the store for awhile. I found many neat things including adzuki beans, super cheap rice paper for making veggie rolls, and funky sesame crunch bars.

I couldn't find the yuba and finally stopped to ask someone. No matter what I said, the employee immediately responded with, "No, understand." I don't know if there was someone else who could understand me because she never offered to look and I could only see one other person busy at the register. Finally, I just walked slowly through each aisle. Eventually, I did find the yuba. I'm not sure if I am being unreasonable hoping that someone speaks English at the Asian grocery, but I was a little frustrated.

In the freezer section, I was very excited to see sweet red bean buns. I used to love these at DimSum as a vegetarian. Unfortunately, they all had milk in them. I'll have to make them on my own some day. They had super cheap tofu at the asian grocery, so I may go there to stock up next time.

This afternoon, I headed out to the Toyota dealer to talk about a Prius. The question was really if I could trade in my Mini Cooper (Yes, when I started making real money...I went and purchased the car I loved.) for a Prius and end up with an equal or lower car payment. Conveniently for me, someone traded in a Prius with 27,000 miles on it the other day. Guess what? That means Gary (you read that right...Gary Cooper) will be traded in on Wed for a shiny almost new Prius. I'll miss Gary, but I need to put my money where my mouth is...so to speak.

My very last thing to post about today. I'm sending Leslie's some of the cookies I will be making later today. She is going through cookie withdrawal due to the Arizona heat. Perhaps, the lack of homemade cookies contributed to her vertigo. A few days ago, I stumbled onto a vegan cookie swap at livejournal. The group doesn't look too active, but I thought I would throw the idea out there. How do you guys feel about creating a vegan cookie swap among our little blogging community? It might need to wait a few months for the weather to cool down. Let me know what you think about that.

Veggie Pasta

2006-07-20T20:02:00.000-07:00

I stopped at the farm stand around the corner from my house yesterday and purchased some fresh zuchini and summer squash. I'd alway wanted to try making pasta ribbons with the squash and that is what I did tonight. These were sliced on my grater and sauteed in a tiny bit of water. On top is some leftover veganrella, sauce, and some tofurky kielbasa.

Last night, I also made Leslie's sloppy lentils. I had a bag of tri-colored lentils on my shelf and thought they would be a good candidate. They are ok, but I am not in love with them. I've added quite bit of crushed red pepper and feel like they still need something else.

Did you notice the new plate? It was $1.25 on clearance and I thought it might be nice to take pictures without a glare from my white dishes.

Let's see, what else? Oh, yesterday I went to see the movie, Who Killed the Electric Car? It is about the history of the GM EV1 electric car in California. I found it very interesting, though it was very frustrating to see how so many different factors killed this great technology and I left the theatre wondering what is wrong with us.

For those of you that don't know, the EV1 was a completely electric car that would get 75-100 mile per charge. The electric charge equaled about 60 cents a gallon for gas and the vehicle had zero emissions. They were available for lease. At the end of the lease period, GM collected all the cars and did not give owners a buyout option. Then they destroyed all the perfectly good, working vehicles.

The movie talks about the many different facets of this story which include GM's interests, big oil, our goverment, CARB (the California Air Resource Board) that repealed the law they made that required 10% of the cars in CA to be zero emissions, other car companies and even the consumers.

One particularly frustrating point is that everyone says electric technology is the past and that hydrogen is the future. A little research on hydrogen powered vehicles shows that we are no where near seeing one available to buy. They cost upward of $500,000 to make each one. We have no good source of hydrogen or an infrastructure to support it. (We'd need to build 1000's of filling stations before it would be possible to sell.) Why tout a technology we don't have and squelch one we do have an infrastructure already built to support?

Though all of the players were a problem, GM really got my goat. If they took the cars off the road because the couldn't sell them, why did they need to destroy them? Why couldn't leasees purchase them? What kind of environmental policies does GM have that warrant destroying perfectly good vehicles? There were better batteries available for the EV1 which could double the range and make it a more viable option to many consumers. GM bought the battery technology, shredded the EVs, and sold the technology to Chevron.

I would never purchase a GM car even if they came out with a hybrid. What a waste of a wonderful technology. Now GM and others are devoting tons of time and money to hydrogen which is most likely not even a viable solution.

I've been talking about getting a Prius for a few years now. It is time for me to make that move pretty soon.

Berry Oat Squares

2006-07-17T21:34:00.000-07:00

Just a super quick post tonight. I still had some wild blueberries that hadn't been used up. Since I didn't want these babies to go to waste, I cooked up a batch of Berry Oat Squares from La Dolce Vegan.

These squares are relatively simple with lots of oats. The filling is raspberry jam mixed with blueberries. The bottom crust is cooked first, then you layer the berries and the crumb topping. Both the top and bottom are crunchy, you gotta love it! If you have La Dolce Vegan, I highly recommend this recipe. I'll be making this again at some point, I am sure.

Another Crazy Weekend! --Homemade pizza

2006-07-16T19:17:00.000-07:00

Very little cooking, but lots of cool stuff. Unfortunately, I can't say I got to mowing the lawn. Luckily, neither have my neighbors.

After fixing a laptop for a friend, I headed out to a shop where one of my co-workers sells bikes on the weekend. This shop has a body scanning machine that actually helps determine which bike frame size, crank size, etc... is best for me. Well it sounded like a good idea, but the computer program pretty much puked when it got to my leg length. It kept saying, "enter valid length." Apparently, I should join the circus!

We were able to figure out that there are basically two bikes that will fit me without building a custom frame. Terry makes small frame female specific bikes. These would be special order and pretty expensive. Kona makes a kid's bike that is pretty decked out, called a Jake 2-4. It is a cross which means, I could take it out on a jeep trail or it will handle just fine on the road. Yup, I'm riding around on a kiddie bike!

Saturday night, I headed out to a concert. It was Big Head Todd and Toad the Wet Sprocket. Toad was one of my fav bands in high school, so that was pretty neat. VeganDoc met my friend and I at the show. It was a great concert and very cool to meet someone through blogging! Also pretty awesome, to have a new vegan buddy. At the moment, I have one friend who is vegetarian and a few that are wannabe veggies.

This morning, I was supposed to go for hike. The weather here was outrageously hot and humid, so I chickened out. BTW - I chickened out and vegandoc finished a triathalon! In the afternoon, I stopped by my aunt's. She gave me some fresh basil and oregano from her garden. Later, I headed into the city to go to the Boston Vegetarian Society meeting at my favorite vegan restaurant...Grasshopper. I met some nice people and really enjoyed the speaker and of course $8.95 buffet!

I'm not a fan of crowds and two hours was all I could take even though everyone was very friendly. So, I headed over to say hi/bye to VeganDoc who was sitting on the other side of the room with some new friends!

On the way home, I stopped at TJ's for some tomatoes. Once I arrived at the house, I took my new bike out for spin because it had started to cool off. I rode until it got dark, and then headed inside. I definitely didn't need more food after the buffet, but I did need lunch for work this week.

My fridge had pizza dough, herbs from my aunt, veganrella, the tomatoes I got on the way home, kalamata olives, tofurky kielbasa, and the pesto I made earlier in the week...so pizza it was. Half is pesto, olives, rella, and tomatoes. The other half is tomatoes, sauce, rella, kielbasa, fresh basil, and oregano leaves. I tried one bite it is dang good. I'm pretty sure it beats the vegan pizza at TJScallywaggles. Tommy polished off a mini slice---yup she loves pizza. That bird is a freak of nature.

Hope you all had a good weekend! I've got to get some exercise in before bed time. Within the next few days, I will make the blog rounds and also update my frequently read list on the right. Quite a few of you are missing.

Oh---another spellcheck fav. Today it tried to change blogging to flogging.

Tri-color Potato Salad and Pesto!

2006-07-13T07:41:00.000-07:00

Last night I had won tickets to a charity concert at Fenway Park. The weather report said 50% chance of showers, so I skipped my rain jacket. The chance of showers turned out to be a torrential rain storm. My three block walk from the parking garage to the Fenway, turned me into a very soggy Jody. I was soaked to the bone. The stage was flooded and they moved the concert inside, underneath the ballpark. That meant no seats, bad acoustics, and that I couldn't see anything with my 5 foot frame. After 30 minutes or so, I gave up and went home. (Not before stopping at Boston Beerworks to pick up a growler of watermelon ale. ---At least the trip wasn't a complete waste!)

When I got home, the first thing I did was change into warm/dry clothes and then I decided to cook up a few things that had been sitting around too long. First I boiled a bag of baby potatoes (blue, yellow, and red). While those were cooking, I made up a batch of pesto from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook. As usual, I opted for less oil. I added some lemon juice and water to make up for that. This pesto is interesting because it uses white miso. It is pretty tasty though.

The potatoes were turned into vegan potato salad. I looked at a few recipes and wasn't sure what I wanted to make. I settled on a recipe from Passionate Vegetarian. Of course, I was missing celery seed and pickles. I may add those if I pick some up today, but the salad is quite good as is. It has vegan mayo (less than the recipe called for), sliced green olives, some olive juice, ground pepper and mustard. The pic is my laptop lunchbox with potato salad, pesto and tomatoes, and Rainier cherries. I'm working in northern, MA today and had to pack my lunch.

Strawberry Banana Muffins

2006-07-11T22:28:00.000-07:00

My fridge contained a large container of organic strawberries that were on sale at Whole Foods and early today I visited Jess' blog where I saw strawberry muffins. ---I forgot to mention the over ripe banana on my counter. (BTW- I don't like ripe bananas. I prefer when they are mostly yellow with a bit of green. Once they are all yellow or start to show brown spots, I think they taste soapy. If I bake them in something at that stage, then they are ok.)

So, the ingredients dictated what I would cook. A quick google search found a vegan strawberry banana muffin recipe. The recipe looked good, though I didn't think chocolate chips were necessary. I was lazy and didn't process the banana in the blender. I just mashed it in a bowl. My pantry didn't have turbinado sugar, so I used sucanat. In then end, the muffin batter was a little dry. I'd guess this was because I used fresh strawberries instead of frozen. I also used less oil than it called for. To remedy this, I added some extra soy milk. A quick taste of the batter made me think it needed something, so I sprinkled in some cinnamon. Yeah, I sort of followed a recipe...

The muffins are delicious. Tommy screamed until I shared some with her and she ate it rather than dropping it on the floor. Nacho really loved the strawberry part of the muffin. I'm especially fond of this recipe because it is low in fat and there is only 1/2 cup of sugar. Chances are they could have cooked a tiny bit longer, so that they browned more. The batter is cooked through though and this recipe is a keeper.

WholeSoy & Co.

2006-07-11T09:08:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, I didn't cook yesterday. I did want to do another quick post at lunch today. Last week when I baked up the scones I was using yogurt from Whole Soy and Company. Their yogurt is delicious. That is quite a compliment considering I never liked regular yogurt.

The plain yogurt had gone bad and I could not use it. Luckily, I had some of the vanilla on hand. I emailed Whole Soy & Co about the issue with my plain yogurt which did not expire until August. Within a day, someone emailed me back with an explanation and offered to send out some coupons for a free product.

Yesterday, the coupons arrived. They sent me quite a large stack for yogurt, ice cream and even smoothies. I can't possibly use all these and not many of my friends will try the soy products, so I thought I might share with you guys. I'll post a few different riddles. The first to answer correctly will get a few of the coupons. You'll have to email me your address!

What a great company these guys are. If you haven't tried their products, pick up some when you are at the whole grocer!

First riddle!

There is a common English word that consists of 7 letters. Each time you remove a letter from it, it still remains a common English word. From 7 letters right on down to a single letter. What is the original word?

Good luck!

Blueberry Corn Muffins

2006-07-10T10:50:00.000-07:00

A quick post at lunch time from the office today. Last night, I cooked up a batch of blueberry corn muffins from Vegan Vittles. I'm not a fan of this recipe, but I did like that it was written to make a small batch---only 6 muffins. Tommy loves these muffins. They have silken tofu and that bird loves tofu, go figure! I'll give VV another try on a different day.

I've still got two small containers of the wild blueberries and I am hoping to make at least 1 more, maybe 2 more recipes. Perhaps I will get to post one tonight!

A Wonderful Weekend!

2006-07-09T13:45:00.000-07:00

This weekend got off to an uneventful start. I had a long drive back from NY which meant no cooking Friday night as I was exhausted! Saturday, my dad stopped by to help me replace a leaky spigot for my garden hose. (I'd turned the water off from inside the house to prevent wasting it.) After that, my dad and I headed out to a casino nearby my house. Before we left, I told him that I was hoping to win $40 that I would donate to charity.

Karma was on my side last night as I won quite a bit. I ended up donating a big chunk to both MercyCorps and America's Second Harvest. Farm Sanctuary also got a smaller donation. Unfortunately, what's left will go towards bills and possibly two other items. I'm thinking about getting a road bike, so that I can bike part or all of the way to work. I'd also like to get a dehydrator and had been putting it off because I have other stuff to take care of financially.

Anyway, I ended up going to bed later than planned. That made getting up early rather difficult today. Friends of Willard Brook were leading a hike in central Mass today. The hike interested me because there are wild blueberries at the summit which we could pick. It was 1.5+ hours driving and I did get slightly lost on the way, but luckily still made it in time. We hiked up Mount Watatic. It is small mountain, actually it is a small monadnock and not a mountain---but I digress. The terrain is pretty rugged with some shuffling over rocks and relatively steep climbing. The view at the top is quite nice as you can see 360 degrees and a few other mountains/monadnocks. (Perhaps even Boston on a clear day.)

Here are a few pictures for you:

These are pretty close to the beginning of the trail. The twin rocks must have broken apart at some point. The picture doesn't completely portray the amazing size of the two chunks of stone. They are definitely a good 15 feet tall or more. I guess that gives you some scale as to how tall those trees are!

This photo below, is a view looking out from Watatic. We're very close to the peak when I snapped this shot. The last one is the blueberries I picked. They are very sweet and I can't wait to cook something up with them. I'll likely make some mini blueberries muffins and then use the rest for smoothies and/or breakfast. Hope you all had a good weekend too. I promise some food pictures soon!

Sea Veg Salad, Scones, and Soap!

2006-07-05T07:25:00.000-07:00

The last few days were plenty busy. We avoided the crowds and skipped fireworks. I know, not very patriotic, but it was relatively stormy in Boston yesterday anyway. My town has fireworks for its Founder's Day festival in June, so it feels like we just saw fireworks not that long ago.

Anyway, I finally decided to brave making the sea vegetable salad I like to order at my favorite restaurant. First, I boiled the arame and hiziki in water. While that was cooking, I mixed up the carrot ginger miso dressing. It is definitely not the same dressing I get at the restaurant as this was creamy with silken tofu.

The recipe came from a group on Yahoo that I frequent. The credit says, "From an old Cooking Light magazine." Here it is, in case you want to try it.

Tofu Carrot Ginger Miso Dressing
1/2 cup grated carrot
1/2 cup silken tofu
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon rice vinegar or balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 tablespoons yellow miso
2 teaspoons chopped peeled fresh ginger
1 teaspoon honey or maple syrup
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 garlic clove, crushed

Place all ingredients in a blender or food processor; process until smooth.

It is really good and low fat. I drained and sauteed the sea vegetables for a few minutes after they had softened. The salad is greens and carrots with the sea veggies. I've been adding a sprinkle of toasted sesame oil to these salads. Last night I was lazy and had not cooked up brown rice yet. Today, I have brown rice to mix with my lunch salad. At the restaurant the dressing is ginger miso (not tofu) and they serve wood grilled tofu and brown rice with the salad.

This dressing is addicting, it reminds me of the orange carrot ginger dressing you get on salads at a Japanese restaurant, except creamier.

Also during the holiday, I had to use up the fresh currants I purchased at the farm while strawberry picking. I found a currant scone recipe while flipping through Modern Vegetarian Kitchen. (This cookbook was a clearance find at a local bookstore a few months ago.) The recipe wasn't vegan, but did have directions to veganize. They were kind of funny actually. It called for yogurt or whey, but said to substitute water and lemon juice for a vegan scone. I just used soy yogurt. The scones look pretty and I love the way the pastry tastes, but I am not a fan of the currants. The fresh currants are very tart, almost like cranberries. I probably should have added more sugar to the recipe. Most of the scones are in the freezer, don't worry I will eventually devour all of them.

Lastly, yesterday I cut up my mojito soap. The soap is made with olive oil, palm oil, and coconut oil. Then I "super fatted" it with mango butter for some extra moisturizing. It is scented with spearmint, bay rum, peru balsam, and lime essential oils. It smells very fresh and I'm looking forward to when it is usable. In the picture, you can see I dipped the cut bars in dried spearmint leaves. This needs to cure for at least 4 weeks while the saponification reaction continues.

Pumpkin Soup and Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp

2006-07-02T17:28:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, I made some pumpkin muffins from freedom's blog. That left me with some extra pumpkin to use up. Yesterday I was flipping through cookbooks at my aunt's house and I wrote down a recipe for Arizona pumpkin soup.

Today I cooked up the soup recipe. It is made with pumpkin, red pepper, onion, garlic, chili powder, and lime juice. The soup is good. My last pumpkin soup attempt was a disaster, so I'm glad this one was edible. I wonder if the folks from Arizona have ever had any soup like this.

My aunt and I went strawberry picking yesterday. There is a wonderful little farm not far from our houses. This is the first year they offered CSA shares. I'm hoping to get one next year, but I was excited to check out what they had at the store. I purchased some fresh currants (which I have no idea what to do with) and some rhubarb to use with the strawberries.

While we were walking over to the berry patches, one of the owners stopped us and offered some freshly picked black mulberries to try. They were interesting. The strawberry fields weren't doing incredibly well. Because of all the rain, many of the berries were moldy. Though we managed to pick some good ones.

The Garden of Vegan has a recipe for Rhubarb Crunch. I used half as much rhubarb and added strawberries. Check out the big pan of fruity goodness that I have waiting for me.

Actually, shortly after that photo I ate a plateful of it. After my soup, I may have another dish of it. Tonight I'm hoping to make some mojito scented soap. I'll post some pics of it once it is done.

Chocolate Chip Pecan Cookies

2006-06-29T20:06:00.000-07:00

From a serious post, back to cooking...we now return to your regularly scheduled programming, lol.

Tonight I had dinner with my family. They picked Pizzeria Uno. (Did I mention I hate chains?) Their vegetable soup is vegan, so I had a bowl of soup. After dinner, I skipped over to Whole Foods and purchased the two ingredients I needed in order to test Catherine's Chocolate Chip Pecan Cookie recipe.

These cookies were easy to mix up and I can honestly say that it is the best vegan chocolate chip cookie I have ever baked! Take a look at the beautiful cookies in the picture. There is another rack full of them cooling in my kitchen. Two of these cookies are not like the others! ---I love chocolate chip cherry cookies, so I added some dried cherries when there was enough dough left for eight cookies. This rack has two of the cherry cookies on it.

Thanks Catherine for letting me test these! I'll share a few with people at work tomorrow. I'm Off to get some exercise in before I make the "blog rounds" and go to sleep.

An Inconvenient Truth

2006-06-28T20:31:00.000-07:00

This morning, I packed my lunch for work and my dinner because I was meeting a friend at the movies to see An Inconvenient Truth. That means no food pics, but I did want to post about this film.

If you haven't heard about it, I'll explain it quickly. After losing the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore changed his focus and went on the road doing an amazing presentation on global warming. Early in his college life he had a professor that was studying CO2 levels. This professor saw trends and made predictions. This really struck a chord with Al. Most of his career was spent trying to convince the government of this problem. Since the government has not been doing enough and in some cases denying the issue even exists, Gore is educating people all over the world. The presentation is very engaging and the graphs, charts and evidence he has to show is undeniable. A few things really struck me about the movie.

1. Although there are no scientists that disagree that there is a global warming problem, more than 50% of articles in the media cast doubt or imply this is part of a cycle. (It is not, we are at temperatures and C02 levels significantly higher than any other time in history.)

2. Certain companies have memos suggesting that they need to cast doubt on the issue, just as cigarette companies did about cancer.

3. As dire as the problem appears, we have the means to reverse it. If changes were made to energy efficient appliances, more efficient vehicles, alternative fuel sources, etc...these changes could take us back to where we were in the 1970's as far as CO2 and temperature. We just need to make the government take notice.

4. If no changes are made, then all kinds of climate and weather changes are in store for us. Many of the current cities are built in places based on favorable weather or rainfall. As temperatures rise, the weather patterns will change. We'll also see more violent storms because of warmer water temperatures.

I could type so much more, but I don't want to sound repetitive. I'm sure you all read the news in papers and online. All I can say is go see this movie and encourage your friends to go. It will clarify the facts and myths about global warming. Check out the site link at the beginning of this post to read about what you can do to help lower your carbon footprint. Join stopglobalwarming.org and write your senators letting them know that complacency is not ok.

Oven Roasted Mushrooms & Caribbean Tofu

2006-06-27T18:26:00.000-07:00

In the last Vegetarian Times, I noticed a recipe for oven roasted mushrooms which used buttons mushrooms. My plan was to make that recipe with creminis at some point.

Yesterday while making the mockamole, I noticed another oven roasted mushroom recipe in the Passionate Vegetarian. That recipe used shitake mushrooms. On the way home tonight, I picked up a mixed pack of shitake, cremini, and oyster mushrooms.

These are so quick and easy. Just mix the mushrooms, chopped garlic, and olive oil and then roast in the oven. I tossed them with fresh thyme when they were done. Yum!

The tofu is Soyboy Caribbean flavor. The paler ones are plain and the orange ones were coated with some calypso mango jerk sauce. I sliced and roasted the tofu in the oven with the mushrooms.

BTW - The blogger spell check kept trying to change shitake into Shiites. I thought that was amusing.

This was a great dinner. Though I was super hungry after mowing the lawn.

Mockamole

2006-06-26T17:36:00.000-07:00

Tonight I had another avocado and veggie sandwich on toast with the green garlic dressing. The dressing mellowed out over night and now I like it even more. The next question was what to do with the remaining three avocados.

I was thinking that I would make my first batch of guacamole which required a recipe of some kind. For about twenty minutes, I flipped through different cookbooks. The last book I grabbed was Passionate Vegetarian. Early in the book was Mockamole!

What is that? Well---it is guacamole with a portion of the avocado and frozen peas pulsed in the food processor. Sounds weird, but the peas blend in well and add hint of sweetness. Less avocado also lowers the fat content. I think I prefer it to regular guac. Those are blue corn chips in the photo.

Open Face Avocado & Green Garlic Dressing

2006-06-25T08:28:00.000-07:00

Well, I've noted lots of you Californians making stuff with avocados or just chopping them up and adding them to salads. Up until recently, I tried to pretend avocados didn't exist. When I was little, I tried one and didn't like it. That's right I didn't try one again until almost twenty years later. On occasion I eat guacamole now and once I even ate an avocado sandwich at a restaurant when there were no other veg options.

Earlier in the week, I purchased some organic avocados and today I decided to give one a try. I was curious how difficult it would be to cut them in half and remove the skin. It was surprisingly simple for a first timer!

These sandwiches are toasted bread with organic tomato, organic avocado, organic baby spinach and Green Garlic Dressing that I made from Cafe Max and Rosie's: Vegetarian Cooking With Health and Spirit. Now, I love garlic...but this dressing is super garlicky! I think next time I might use one less clove. The dressing is basically silken tofu, some herbs, olive oil (I used about a third of what it called for and added a little water), balsamic vinegar, and lots of garlic.

The verdict, I like the sandwiches and I guess I like avocado now.

Last night, I also made Lavender Lemonade from Mindy Cooks. Lemonade and lavender are two things I love. One interesting thing about making lavender lemonade is the color change. The lavender water infusion is purple and when you add lemon juice it morphs into a beautiful pink color. Where do you think the idea of pink lemonade came from? I wonder if the nasty artificial pink lemonades they sell now are actually an artifact from early times when people made lavender lemonade.