Pimientos de Padron!

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...

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

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

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

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. Froozie'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!

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?

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

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...

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

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

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...

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...

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

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

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...

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

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

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!?!

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

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.