Eat Me.

Anything you can do we can do vegan.

Monday, August 27, 2007

Don't Do It

Fuck meat and dairy. Just don't eat it. It's really friggin' easy.

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Are we REALLY that scary?

Just a quick note: it appears Mercedes at Desert Candy is not going to take me up on making one vegan ice cream out of twenty-one during her August Ice Cream Challenge. I guess she has a plan and is sticking to it. Not to mention I dared her to make a vegan ice cream when she was nearly 70% of the way through her challenge. It's too bad because the fig and strawberry ice creams Amos and I make with coconut milk as the base are by far the best I have ever had in my life. The fig ice cream was like eating clouds. Still - very interesting flavors and interesting project.

Also I updated my Vegan Guide to NOLA to include our two favorite Middle Eastern restaurants.

And really quick the bananas around town are almost ready to eat! Screw chocolate city New Orleans is banana city! I can't even describe home grown bananas except they are like a grocery store banana times ten but in a smaller package and free.

Back to Nature: Brewery Tour and Tubing

Yesterday Amos and I partook in and activity that everyone in the South has apparently been doing since the dawn of time: tubing down a lazy river on a hot summer's day. Tubing was really really really relaxing. We had like 17 people in our group and it was funny to see all our friends floating around in huge inner tubes with just their arms, legs and heads sticking out. Besides the cute little green and brown snake that decided to say hello by swimming up onto my stomach everything went pretty smoothly. My car stopped at this place called "Hog Heaven" before we reached Wayne's World (the tubing outfitters) that had these really good fresh cut french fries. Luckily they were fried in vegetable oil not pig lard!

I almost forgot to mention we first visited the Abita Brewery in Abita Springs, LA. In New Orleans Abita is probably the most-drank beer in the whole city (discounting all the tourist bars). Abita produces an amber, wheat, golden and light beer. They have Turbodog (which is like the chocolate milkshake of beer) and Andygator (which is like the highest proof beer in existence). Restoration Ale is a beer they made where 1$ of each six pack goes to rebuilding. They have a fall fest beer, a pecan beer, a raspberry beer called Purple Haze and a strawberry beer brewed only during the spring strawberry harvest.

The Abita Brewery tour is free and they make it feel like hanging out at a friend's house on a Saturday afternoon. First they let you in this air conditioned room with six beers on tap and mountains of plastic cups (plus their root beer) and let you sit in there for about 45 minutes. Then on to the brewery tour which was hot as balls and lasted about 15 minutes. Ok - maybe it was about 25. Then back to the room with the beer where we were encouraged to hang out for however long we wanted. If you are in the area I highly suggest taking the tour. Or if you can't make it just try their beer - it is really good and I think trying the different types of beer available in the little air-conditioned room is the real tour.

But on to the food experimentation part of this post. In preparation of the trip I decided to make some cookies to bring along. I definitely got my cookie mojo back. No more cookies that taste like bread. Here's how I did it: Butter (unmeasured amount) plus 1 cup evaporated cane juice. Thawed banana, 1tsp salt, 1 tsp baking soda and 1 tsp vanilla extract. 2 cups flour (more or less). Then some almond milk. Next I divided the dough in half and put some cinamon and 1/4 cup of cocoa in the first half. Then in the other half I added some oats, coconut flakes and whatever was left over in the bag of chocolate chips I have been eating out of for the past week. Baked at 375 for 11-13 minutes and they were super perfect. I chilled them in the freezer really quick (it was about 85 in the house) and put them in the cooler for after our tubing trip yesterday.

Barely any measuring and they were perfect. Who knows. It seems things like that work best.

P.S. Mercedes of Desert Candy asked me to make the following corrections to my August 24th post: She is a singular person (I referred to her as a "they" since I didn't take the time to read about her) and she uses a pre-freeze bowl on her Cuisinart not the kitchenaid attachment as I thought after seeing the pictures. Sorry Mercedes!

Friday, August 24, 2007

Blog Browsing

As today is (probably) my last day in the office I am cleaning off my desk. Meaning I am copying my bookmarks that I have compiled over the past two years. As you are all aware I took some time off to work on the house and haven't perused my favorite sites in quite some time. Well it seems like other bloggers out there haven't taken the past six weeks off. Two old favorites (although not vegan) Desert Candy and 28 Cooks have been very busy!

Desert Candy has been up to making a ton of ice cream. It seems she is doing some sort of insane ice cream challenge. She is on day 13. I don't really know. I'm going to read more about it when I get home. Or check it out for yourself. But for starters they have made quince ice cream, avocado ice cream, blueberry ice cream, orange blossom ice cream. Goodness gracious. Maybe I should comment they should do a vegan ice cream? Let's see how that goes - I think they have a week left.

And 28 cooks? Green Tea and Wasabi Almonds (perfect for my upcoming party!), Asian Grain Burgers and Thai Coconut Curry Hummus. YUM. That's all I have to say about that. I owe it to 28 Cooks because they turned me on to the idea of DIY microwave popcorn and potato chips. Perfect for contraband snacking at the movies. Love!

(Party: 6-10 at our house on the 28th.)

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

So it's been awhile.


























What was left of the one little watermelon our garden made...



Sorry I haven't posted in forever. Not like anyone probably still reads this thing but still I'm sorry. Seriously the stat counter has been at 1400 since I posted that picture of blueberries on tastespotting. We have been traveling and selling our house and back to work. But we sold the house and are now trying to figure out what the heck is going on. All I know is we haven't been eating very well - there are 4 carrots in the fridge and I don't want to buy anything because it will just end up in the trash or someone else's cabinet.

Have there been any food highlights these past few weeks? No, not really. Our trip to Illinois turned out to be not very vegan as I was fooled by some fake meatballs my sister bought. Friggin Parmesan Cheese. I ate the dumb things then Amos asked how I got the cheese out. Then on to Florida where we were encouraged to eat chicken marsala by Amos' grandma. "It's only a little!" Poor thing - she also bought all these frozen dove bars I think for us to eat and just didn't know about the no-milk thing. She's so sweet but there was no way I was trying to explain to her over the phone what veganism is. She got her phone at the store for deaf people (I'm not kidding) and routinely hangs up on you mid-sentence. We were there for her 90th birthday however so you have to give her some slack.

But lets not dwell on the negative. I forgot we went to the Chicago Diner for some vegan cake after a great dinner in Chinatown with my Mom, Ralph and Sasha. The next day my mom kept explaining to people on the phone at work "It was vegan cake. And it tasted just like real cake!" That is because she got the chocolate chip cheesecake and it was really fantastic. We had a few good meals in St. Augustine too - notably the pea and sweet potato curry Diana convinced us to mix with peanut butter. Crackaliscious. And Sasha made us some granola we never got to eat because we didn't plan our trip very well and never got to stay with her in the city. Put it in the freezer. We will see you soon!