What I've Been Up To Lately

Wow, nearly six months without a post! I can think of dozens of excuses, but it all boils down to this life thing being so busy all of the time. Some big changes have happened as well. 

Summer is over, and I feel like all I did was drive back and forth to Wisconsin for business trips. I completed fifteen of these torturous events over the past nine months. Ugh.

I also just finished moving. I made the decision to get out of my propane-sucking behemoth of a house, sell, donate, and give away most of my stuff, and move into a tiny one bedroom apartment half a mile from my job. It's saving me oodles of money every month, especially since it has free heat. I decided to go microwave-less, mostly since I can't fit one in my tiny kitchen. Finally having a gas stove/oven is kicking so much butt that I don't even miss nuking my leftovers. I can do that at work if I absolutely have to.

My boring life aside, here are some photos to catch up on my recent food adventures. I have an iPhone 5 now, so much better pictures are on their way!

First up, photos from dining out:

Veggie combo platter from Nile Ethiopian, my favorite restaurant for the past few months.

 Surprisingly delicious "Cantina Bowl" from Taco Bell of all places. It's hard to believe that this came from the same chain that stuffs tacos into Doritos.

Big basket of steamed tofu and spinach from Bamboo House in La Crosse, WI. Silken tofu served with sauce on the side. Very filling.

"Weedwhacker Roll" from Shanghai Bistro in Hudson, WI. It tasted as pretty as it looks.

Giant bowl of Sechzuan Tofu from Shanghai as well. Lots of silken tofu, topped with mounds of cracked black pepper.

Now on to some pizza adventures. Did I mention that I have a boyfriend now? Well, I do. He's amazing, and he makes amazing pizza. Here is one all topped and ready to go in the oven.

Here it is, cooked and fabulous.

With bonus hairy man-legs in top right corner!

Here is another, super thin and crispy. Simply dressed with fresh veggies.

This one was topped with some ground seitan and Daiya.

Some homemade pretzels on a dreary Sunday morning. The weird looking black stuff is some weird looking black salt crystals supplied by the BF.

Some faux pasta made from spaghetti squash. The sauce was a can of diced tomatoes blended with red lentils, garlic, and herbs. It tasted like creamy tomato basil soup.

Besides making epic pizza, the man also owns a smoker and we've been experimenting with smoking tofu. Pictured below is a "tofu marination station"

Tofu, marinated and ready to go in the smoker. A couple of blocks were left plain to bake and dip in BBQ sauce later.

A tray of applewood-smoked goodness! The last-minute addition of mushrooms to the smoker was a stroke of genius. They were gobbled up in minutes.

My latest obsession, African peanut soup. So gross sounding, but so tasty! After trying some at the local coop, I was determined to make my own. It turned out way better.

That's it for now! Now that I have a better camera and super fast internet, hopefully I will be motivated to update more.

Scrambled

I've haven't been home very much lately, as usual, so here is a post to catch up on a few things.

I tried yet another very vegan-friendly restaurant in the cities.. This one was on "Eat Street" in downtown Minneapolis; The Bad Waitress. It was a neat little corner-diner establishment where you ordered your food at the counter and they brought it to you. I got excited when I saw their vegan scramble, and opted for asparagus and red onions as my allotted veggie add-ins. It also came with hash browns and whole wheat toast.

 

Now I am a little biased when it comes to tofu scrambles because mine is the best in the world (I'm so modest), but this sucked pretty hard. It consisted of big dry lumps of tofu, barely warmed on the grill and dusted with a very small amount of tumeric. I really couldn't taste any other seasonings. Besides my onions, which came out as regular yellow onions, not red. Luckily there was a bottle of Chalula on the table, which I liberally drenched my plate with. Except the toast...but that doesn't mean I didn't think about it.

To prove that my scrambles are far superior to the mess above, I have a picture of an epic veggie scramble I made for breakfast on Mother's Day. Behold:

 

My scrambled tofu doesn't always have this many vegetables in it, but my mom's fridge is always stocked. It's like a mini farmer's market at my disposal. This time I tossed in some onions, carrots, broccoli, and spinach. Adding lots of veggies helps stretch the dish out, along with making it more of a meal.

We also discovered something amazing on Mother's Day. Grilled avocados.

 

Which make some super amazing guacamole.

 

This was incredible. I almost want to get a grill just so I can make this every day. The avocados were warm and oozy with just enough char and smokey flavor from the grill. My mom likes to make her guac with tomatoes, onions, and lots of fresh lime juice, which is all fine by me!

Vegan Runza: A Tutorial

Sometimes unplanned purchases can end in awesomeness. Like this big bag of shredded cabbage I snagged at Sam's Club.

 

I buy heads of cabbage a lot because it's a cheap and filling vegetable that can go in almost anything. This bag contained 2 pounds of shredded green cabbage, along with some barely-there red cabbage and carrots. Bags of this mix were strategically placed near huge jars of coleslaw dressing. Ick! I wasn't certain what I was going to do with my bag...stir fry, maybe?

It turns out that other inspiration would soon strike me. Seemingly random inspiration. How about runza? I haven't had that since BV (Before Vegan) times. I am pretty good at veganizing dishes, so I decided to give it a shot.

The first thing I did was make up the dough. Runza dough traditionally has eggs and milk in it. I figured I could just make a regular yeast dough, but as I was flipping through cookbooks I came across a recipe for soft pretzels. I decided that this dough would be an excellent choice, keeping in line with the pseudo-German aspect of this dish. So I whipped up a batch using a recipe from this book. You can always find one online, they're not complicated at all.

 

Once the dough had done its thing, I divided it into twelve pieces

 

And then flattened them into disks.

 

 

Then I worked the filling. To start, I chopped up half an onion

 

I sauteed this in a little bit of olive oil while I thawed and chopped some Boca burger patties. 

 

You could use whatever vegan ground beef analog you wish. Trader Joe's makes a pretty good one, or you could even use cooked chopped mushrooms. Go crazy.

Once the onions are starting to turn translucent, add your meat substitute and stir it in.

  

 Then cover the whole thing with cabbage.

 

Cook until the cabbage is tender, but not mushy. Season with lots of black pepper and hot sauce if that is your thing.

 

Next, roll your dough chunks out until they are about 4-5 inches across. Top the bottom half of a dough with about 1/4 cup of your filling.

 

The top with a healthy pinch of Daiya.

 

Fold the dough in half, and crimp with a fork to seal. 

You don't really need to create a high-performance seam here. You will be tucking in the runza to bake anyway. 

Like this.

 

What turns pretzel dough into baked pretzel goodness is a baking soda wash. These are shown already "glazed".

They bake up nice and golden like this.

 

Ok, so there are a little splotchy. There must have been some dried flour stuck on in some places. I baked these at 350 for about 30 minutes, and they turned out perfect.

 

Nice and hot and crusty out of the oven!

 

This was easily the best Daiya application I have discovered so far. It melted and blended perfectly into the savory filling and soft innards of the roll.

This recipe may seem like a lot of work (it was), but it's totally worth it, I promise!

 

Hot and Sour Soup: A Recipe Review

My sister and I have been obsessed with our crock pots lately. I've have had one for a while (it hadn't seen much use until recently) and my sister just got one. We have been emailing and texting each other for weeks detailing the contents of our crocks and what we are planning to make in them. That led to to come across this recipe. It pretty much had me at "frozen peas". For some reason, I am obsessed with them. I actually just scored a 5 pound bag at Sam's Club. Yep, that obsessed.

This soup turned out to be super tasty, but mine did not look nearly as pretty as the one on the recipe page. Thank goodness my sister is mailing me back my camera charger, because these iPhone pictures suck even more than my usual photography.

This soup turned out to be super tasty, but mine did not look nearly as pretty as the one on the recipe page. Don't let this bland soupscape fool you, there was plenty of flavor here. The only things I tweaked with this recipe was double the liquid, double the peas, quadruple the garlic, and use 100% shitake mushrooms, as opposed to a mixture of shitake and button mushrooms. Shitakes rock the house, and I know where to buy them almost as cheap as the much less exciting button shrooms. I also only cooked this on low for about 4 hours. Actually, if you don't have a crock pot, I am pretty sure you can just toss this all on your stove and have it ready as soon as the mushrooms are cooked. The most time consuming part is chopping everything up.

I ate almost half of this soup last night, and I enjoyed another bowl tonight with some baby carrots, and "omelets" I made with some okara leftover from my soy milk making adventures.

I'm full.

April Concert Bonanza

Oh boy...I just pulled a three day concert bender in two states and damn am I worn out! It was all totally worth it though. With all of my business trips and concert attendances, it seems that vegan cooking may have to take a back seat for a while. I am also being super frugal with food in order to fund my concert addiction. Here are some great finds from the past week:

Vegan Tempeh Reuben from French Meadow Bakery in the Uptown district of Minneapolis. Yes, I finally got to try an infamous tempeh reuben! It was pretty delicious, but it needed a lot more sauerkraut and the bread, though delicious, was a little greasy. I even got the choice of adding chips and salsa as my side. French Meadow blew my mind. They had an extremely extensive menu, loaded with vegan options. I really want to go back and try their tofu scramble, just to see if it's nearly as good as mine.

For dinner that same day I ate at Senor Wong in St. Paul. This place was crazy, just check out their menu. It's an eclectic mix of Asian and Mexican food, with elements of both in some dishes. I ordered the only item that already came vegan, the mock duck tacos. I wanted to get a picture but it was pretty dark in there. They were fabulous and came with a bunch of fun sides like pickled jalapenos. Dinner was very reasonably priced, even if the drinks were not. Plus, even if you order Asian food there, they still bring out chips and salsa. This was my kind of place.

Yesterday I stopped in my college town on my way back from Des Moines. I ended up eating at a plain little restaurant in the back of a middle eastern grocery store. Everything is made from scratch in house, and they have a pretty extensive menu that includes a lot of vegetarian/vegan options. Like this:

This was the best humus I have ever had in my life. I dove into it before thinking of taking a picture because it looked (and ended up tasting) super delicious. It was homemade and simply but elegantly garnished with olive oil, tomatoes, kalamata olives, little pickle spears, parsley, and big pinches of paprika. It came with some pita bread, which I was not too impressed by. I ended up eating most of it with a fork.

On to my metal binge. I will post the shows by day and add a quick review of each band.

Day 1: Decibel Magazine Tour @ Station 4, St. Paul, Minnesota

In Solitude: Power metal band from Sweden. They sounded really good, and were all very talented musicians. The vocalist was wearing some kind of dead animal around his neck. Perhaps a fox or a mink or something. It was interesting to watch him head bang with it on. Also, his English was not very good.
The Devil's Blood: Female fronted, mellower "metal" band. I did not care for them, too slow. My companion thought that they could have used an unusual instrument to complete their sound, like a sitar or synthesizer. I think they could have shut up and quit putting me to sleep.
Behemoth: The headliner and definitely my favorite black metal band. They are from Poland and have been around forever. They opened with my favorite song and ringtone of almost two years, "Ov Fire and the Void". It was performed well, but I kind of wish it wasn't their first song. After witnessing them perform "Alas, Lord is Upon Me", I am pretty sure it is my new favorite Behemoth song. They wore their corpse paint and had some neat light and smoke machine effects. It was really creepy to see the vocalist with a shaved head as opposed to his long black hair. This was probably a result of his recent battle with Luekemia. Overall, a great show.

Day 2: Soulfly's 15th Anniversary Tour @ People's Court, Des Moines, Iowa

I met up with my dear friend and guitarist from my college band for this show. It started early and there were six opening bands. Most of them terrible. The first one was a local act from Des Moines. They were decent I guess. The vocalist was super duper short, and had the bodily proportions of a rotisserie chicken. The next band was another local one and it pretty much all went downhill from there. I'm not even going to mention names because they don't deserve the recognition. One of them had a super nasty female "vocalist". She was obviously a product of her record company, and she sounded like a pinata full of bats being beaten by a flaming stick. The only opening band worth a mention was called Incite. They probably weren't even that good, but compared to the other turds that played before them they were gods.

Until Soulfly came on. I'm not even a huge Soulfly/Sepultura fan, but Max Cavalera is a god and they kicked some major ass. I even spent about half of their set in the mosh pit, that's how much fun I was having. I have some bruises from it, but that's all part of the fun.

Day 3: Cannibal Corpse's Torture Tour @ People's Court, Des Moines, Iowa

I have seen Cannibal Corpse several times before but HOLY CRAP THIS WAS HANDS DOWN THE BEST SHOW OF MY LIFE. Even better than the epic Meshuggah performance I witness in February 2009. Sorry Meshuggah, you will have a chance to redeem yourself next month. Here is a breakdown of the bands:

Arkaik: Never heard of them before, but they were brutal and definitely made a fan of out of me.
Abysmal Dawn: They were even better than Arkaik! I had never heard of them either, but now I want to buy all of their albums.
Exhumed: I had high hopes for this popular deathgrind band, but they really didn't do much for me. They sounded good and everything, but their stage presence came off as a little fruity in my opinion.
Cannibal Corpse: Wow, just wow. These guys were definitely at their best. They completely blew me and my buddy away. They are probably the fastest band you will ever hear live, and they are just too brutal for their own good. Just when you think that human beings could not possibly play instruments any faster, they speed up and a guitar rips out a crazy solo that sears over everything. The vocalist, Corpsegrinder, has an amazing stage presence, and is easily the undisputed headbanging master of creation. They played everything I wanted them to play also. I won't list the songs here, because their titles are pretty explicit. I left this show feeling like I never really knew what death metal was before I got there. A great end to a great vacation. Except maybe the getting punched in the throat in the mosh pit part.

Spring Cleaning

I have been heartily embarking on a mission to clean out my cupboards and freezer of all of the stuff I have been hoarding. An additional plan has been put into action to drain the condiment reserves from my refrigerator before the door falls off. So I haven't done too much exciting cooking lately besides thawing frozen soups, boiling dried beans, emptying cans of vegetables, and putting hot sauce on everything. I did manage to make some pretty tasty "cupboard soup" as I like to call it, made by dumping a bunch of random things into a stockpot and boiling with some herbs and fresh garlic. This batch turned out pretty tasty. And red.

To make this I used:

• One large can of Hy-Vee brand tomato juice
• One can of Sam's Club brand diced tomatoes with juice
• One can of Hy-Vee brand french-cut green beans with liquid
• One can of Hy-Vee brand diced beets with liquid
• One can of Aldi brand sweet peas
• One small can of Aldi brand sliced mushrooms

The reason I am naming names here is because ONE OF THESE CANS WAS FULL OF SAND!! I know that I am a cheapo, and I can I only expect as much from time to time, but seriously. I know that vegetables grow outside, in the dirt, exposed to any potential filth that may be tracked in by animals or whatever. I know that some vegetables are hard to clean due to their delicate nature. I still kind of wish I hadn't haphazardly dumped everything into the pot at once so I knew who peed in the pool, so to speak. Not that I would necessarily complain. I work as a quality control coordinator for a food company, so I know how much it sucks to get a customer complaint. But I expect bottom-shelf canned vegetables to be mushy and rubbery, darn it! Not peppered with crunchy sand! This soup cost under $5 to make and so far I have enjoyed it for 4 meals. And I still have half of it left.

Is It Spring Yet?

I feel like I have skipped a winter. Not quite as much as when I moved to Florida a couple of years ago, but really: where is all the snow, Minnesota? That being said, I probably angered some winter gods and inflicted a blizzard or two upon us all. But seriously. It was 63 degrees a couple of days ago. In the first week of March!

I am really looking forward to a couple of things this year. Residing in only one state is at the top of this list. I have an asparagus patch in my yard, and I am planning on growing some tomatoes, peppers, and herbs in pots on my patio. I can already feel the press of spring when I go to the grocery store. Asparagus is abundant and affordable for a change. I picked up a couple of pounds at Hy-Vee the other day and created this dish.

Roasted Asparagus Caponata

I am a big fan of roasting vegetables, and asparagus is no exception. The asparagus spears were cleaned, trimmed, then tossed in a little olive oil, salt, and pepper. Then roasted at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes. I made the sauce by simmering a can of diced tomatoes with garlic, Italian herbs, and diced red bell pepper. At the end I tossed in some capers and garnished with a bit of nutritional yeast for that parmesan effect. This was ended up being a side dish to accompany some stuffed peppers.

I know it's kind of hard to see what is going on because I made a last minute decision to smother things with Daiya. Sometimes you just gotta! It really added a nice dimension to the dish and helped everything stick together. To make this, I cut some red bell peppers in half and stuffed them with a mixture of brown rice, lentils, carrots, onions, garlic, tomato paste, nutritional yeast, tamari, and red wine vinegar. I baked them at 350 until the peppers were tender. One thing I am glad I did was add some water to the filling and in the baking dish before tossing it in the oven. Otherwise I think things would have dried out a bit. Here is a picture of my dinner all together:
What a great meal! Rarely do I eat more than one dish at a time, or use plates for anything. It was nice to have a real sit-down meal for a change!

Northern Hospitality

I went to Alaska a couple of weeks ago to spend time with my amazing sister, and went off to Wisconsin again the day after for business. I have been meaning to post this trip recap for a few days, but of course, life got in the way again. Anyway...

Anchorage is a very vegan-friendly city. Like everything else in Alaska, dining out can be very expensive. There are a couple of places I have to stop at each time I am visiting. Like Middle Way Cafe (I don't think they have a website). Middle Way is a fairly standard hippie-infested coffee shop/cafe. My dad took me there for lunch one day, and I was slightly bummed to miss their breakfast menu by about 20 minutes. I asked what a popular vegan lunch item was, and the cashier recommended the vegan version of the avocado melt.

This was literally the best sandwich I have ever had. I might have said that about some other sandwich before, but this one overruled all. I mean, it was stuffed with veggies and warm, gooey avocado slices, smothered in melted Daiya and Vegenaise. Sinful, but delicious. Speaking of sinful, I also had a vegan chocolate cupcake with cardamom coffee buttercream frosting.

Holy crap this was good. I don't think I have had such an indulgent vegan dessert since I lived by Vegan Treats a few years ago. I am not usually a cake/cupcake person, but I had to try one since it was vegan and looked so good. The frosting was very saturated with cardamom. Not in a bad way, it's just a spice you don't come across a lot.

A couple of days later, my sister and I drove to Girdwood and took the tram up the mointain at Aleyeska resort. Awesome pictures were taken.

We were going to go into Girdwood for lunch but the place we had in mind was closed until dinner. Lame! She took me to another amazing hippie restaurant instead, the Organic Oasis. We decided that we wanted to try a wheat grass shot, so we got a couple of them freshly prepared with ginger.

These were okay to sip very lightly. Gingery, grassy, not too strong. Then we took the rest as a shot. GROSS. The shots were super sludgy in the bottom, and I mean that in the most unpleasant way possible. If you want to simulate our experience, mow your lawn, scrape a bunch of crap off of your mower blades, and eat a big blob of it while stuffing fresh ginger root up your nose.

With my entree, I was offered a selection of soups. They were all vegan too! I was leaning towards the coconut potato soup, but our waitress informed me that it was slightly sweet. Not really my thing. I followed her recommendation and ordered the jewel yam stew.

This soup was a little underwhelming. It was pretty plain. Just some yams, zucchini, herbs, and not much else. What did it for me was the homemade bread slathered in tahini that it was served with. Why did I not think of this?? Probably because I don't usually eat bread. For my entree I had the "Vegan High Protein" wrap.

Like the avocado melt I had a few days prior, this blew my mind. I love love love tempeh, and this wrap included a big slab saturated in hummus and vegenaise, with some fresh veggies tossed in and some spirulina to give it that creepy blue-green hue. My sister opted for the tofu salad which was also accompanied with amazing tahini bread.

We actually learned a lot about tahini on this trip. Mostly that it is amazing on everything. We experimented with some salad dressings at her condo and made our own tasty blend of tahini, lemon juice, tamari, garlic, and ginger. Yum! We even brought a batch of this to my dad's house for a family dinner. My family and even my closest friends still crack me up when it comes to my diet. I am lucky that both of my parents and my sister all love vegetables almost as much as I do, but they still freak out when it comes to feeding me. My dad went all-out to make certain that I was included in the rare family meal. The dish that amazed me the most was his braised tofu.

This dish was quickly gobbled up by the entire gang. I can't tell you how it was made, because it seemed complicated and I didn't pay attention. It was full of tasty tofu slabs and green veggies. I did witness my dad slicing up some seasoned seaweed to toss in at the end. I took note to add seaweed to my stir-fries because it kicked ass.

After returning from my sub-arctic vacation and yet another business trip, I realized that I forgot my camera charger in Anchorage. Oh well! I guess it's more craptacular iPhone pictures for a while, but better that than nothing. Someday I swear I will get a nicer camera and learn how to take decent pictures. There are a lot of vegan blogs out there that make me jealous!