Eat Me.

Anything you can do we can do vegan.

Friday, November 30, 2007

Redemption

Earwax Cafe has redeemed itself with hot coffee and seiten rubens.

I totally forgot it was critical mass tonight so we went (completely unprepared) and had to leave early because I couldn't feel my toes anymore and the numbness was spreading up to the balls of my feet into the arches... so we stopped half way home for some dinner and hence the redemption.

We also got our first ever CSA box full of root vegetables I managed to burn to a crisp. It was the worst leftover lunch ever. No other culinary tales.

Maybe we should make this microwave caramel corn?

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Cranberry-Orange Relish

Our friend Jordan asked us to pass along this recipe. We made it last year for Thanksgiving and I usually make it a few times during the year when I can get your hands on some fresh cranberries. My family has been making it at Thanksgiving ever since I can remember. (Although I didn't like it much as a child!) It also made an appearance in our wedding cake as the filling layered between lemon pound cake. Amos and I slather it on just about everything - cake, cookies, toast, vegetables. The tartness and lemonyness is a perfect contrast to all those sweet things we are bound to have around the house during the holidays.

Cranberry-Orange Relish

1 12-oz. Bag Fresh Cranberries
3/4 C Sugar
1/3 C Orange Liquer
1/2 C Orange Juice
1/4 Tsp. Allspice
1/4 Tsp. Ground Cloves
1/4 Tsp. Ground Ginger
1 Tbsp. Orange Zest

Combine all ingredients in a non aluminum pan and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to medium low and simmer, stirring frequently. The cranberries will begin to pop (my favorite part!) and the mixture will thicken slightly. This should take about ten minutes.

Remove from heat and store in an airtight container in refrigerator or serve warm.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Morrissey

So this morning I did my yoga, toasted a bagel and innocently started browsing the Food Fight website. Where I happened upon a link to this. I am going to copy a selected poem here because I think it will probably be the only time any of us will hear the tenets of vegetarianism stated so eloquently in a poem about Morrissey.

Morrissey - by Emiko

The beautiful child,
Different from the others.
Though he was a boy - grown up in a day.
A librarian was his goal, he had to take singing.
He sings like a tapping spoon on a glass of wine.
Making me cry is what he wants -
All he wants.
Don't eat your friends -
Meat is murder.
Cow, Pig, Turkey, Fish.
Why can't people settle with yogurt or cheese?
Morrissey is everything -
He will always fill my heart.

If that poem doesn't brighten up your Sunday morning I don't know what will.

In other news my dad and step-mom came over for dinner last night and it was super good. I picked out the menu and prepped the desserts ahead of time but Katie did a great job timing the entrees and it all came out great. I also made foccacia from my new baking cookbook that turned out fantastic. Try out Sbrisolona - a cake I found on the NPR website. (Veganize It!) Ridiculously easy.

Also I really really want to pick up (or at least take a look at) Veganimocon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romeo. Maybe after Pankakes we are going to pick up a copy of the Darjeeling Express soundtrack somewhere on Milwaukee and could maybe see if Quimby's has it in stock. It's getting cold...

(Note: Veganized the sbrisolona with 1 eggs worth of egg replacer mixed into lemon juice instead of water. Also used whole wheat pastry flour. And don't forget the Earth Balance. It also seemed to do fine sitting prepared in the fridge for a day before baking.)



Sunday, November 11, 2007

Ras Dashen

Ras Dashen definitely steps up to the plate in combating the Midwestern blandness I have been encountering at other restaurants. It was exactly what we needed after yoga class tonight and we had been itching to go back since the last time we were there about 16 months ago. Self described on their menu as "Comfort food from the mountains of Ethiopia" you can order from a variety of vegan dishes that will come served on a huge piece of injera bread. Injera is like a sourdough crepe that is really stretchy and has this incredible spongy texture. You use pieces of the bread to pick up the food. For different reasons throughout the meal Amos and I would exclaim:

"We should definitely take Diana here!"
(Because she loves good food and already eats with her hands half the time.)

"We should definitely take (Amos') Dad here!"
(Because he would talk about it for years.)

"If Victoria comes to town we should definitely take her here!"
(Because she loves spicy and good food too.)

We had the chickpeas in berbere sauce with four sides, the most memorable being pickled beet salad, mild yellow split peas and the greens. We didn't try their coffee (roasted fresh daily) but did get the chai (also good). The night-time ride down Lakeshore drive to get to the restaurant didn't hurt either.

If you are in Chicago and you want to eat here check out their website for location and times. There is plenty of street parking. Also they have music on Friday and Saturday nights. If you don't live in Chicago maybe there is an Ethiopian restaurant near you - look at Ethiopian Restaurant Worldwide and find one and eat there!

Cookbook Addict / Last Day of Freedom


Image totally lifted from CompassionateCooks.com.

While we were at Mooshoes in NYC I picked up two pairs of shoes and yet another cookbook. Because normal people buy their cookbooks at shoe stores. At any rate it is so good it tricked my mother into eating tofu. (Shhh! I didn't tell her!) Of course it was only 1/4 of a cup to replace some egg but still. So far I have only tried the lemon bars and brownie recipes but they came out pretty well. They were the first things for me to try because up to now all vegan brownies I have found have been such a pain in the ass to make and I had no idea how to veganize lemon bars.

So maybe you would like to know what this book is. It is The Joy of Vegan Baking: The Compassionate Cooks' Traditional Treats and Sinful Sweets by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau. It is 288 pages long and includes beautiful photographs, a glossary, conversion tables, a polite explanation why milk sucks (if you don't already know) and other useful tips.

Also this is the last day of freedom before Amos and I start our new jobs. Blagh. If you know us and actually care where we will be working I am working here and Amos here. Did I already post this information? Who knows.

Friday, November 9, 2007

What We Ate In New York


Menu from Vegetarian Dim Sum House.

New York is a great city for vegans. Instead of vegan restaurants just being a few folding tables with plastic tablecloths staffed by volunteers you can go all out and eat vegan on all levels of the restaurant food chain. Not that I dislike vegan restaurants with plastic tablecloths and folding tables but sometimes it is nice to have a choice to go to a regular place or fancy place.

First things first: There are about a million vegan dining guides for New York. I downloaded a printable pdf version available from Friends of Animals here. Honestly this is pretty much the only thing we did to plan for our trip. Since we are totally over the touristy activities it was great to just plan around eating. Seriously eating and a visit to Mooshoes were the only things we planned on doing. Otherwise we just drank coffee and read the newspaper. Our friend Victoria was the best ever in catering to our vegan-centric plans over the three days we were there.

So two restaurants to mention. The first and our favorite is Vegetarian Dim Sum House in Chinatown. On the menu it clearly states multiple times "All we serve is vegetarian dishes." And since they didn't really have any dairy or anything like that they might as well have said "All we serve is vegan dishes." We went around 2 on Sunday ready to eat and drink tea for as long as they would let us sit there. Victoria actually lived in Chinatown until she was ten and her parents own a Chinese restaurant in Louisiana and she liked it so I guess it gets the gold seal of approval. She also laughed her ass off after I accidentally ate the rice paper on the bottom of my mock roast pork bun. I thought it was a bit chewy. Very good - go here.

Our other dining extravaganza was a visit to Candle 79 on the Upper East Side to celebrate our one year anniversary. So Candle 79 if you don't know what it is is the fancier version of Candle Cafe - an infamous vegan restaurant in the same vicinity. It had an intimate, quiet and elegant atmosphere in what seemed to be an old townhouse. We also met up with our Jersey City inhabiting friends Kyo and Chris who were intrigued by the idea of making cream from cashews. (Kyo and Chris just bought a place of their own - Congratulations!)

At any rate the price and atmosphere were comparable to Emeril's or some fancy-pants restaurant like that. Before we went there I checked up on the restaurant and it was rated #3 for vegan food in New York on Super Vegan but mostly everyone said the staff had an attitude. I'm not sure if it was an attitude really but sort of a daze that affected their ability to take our drink order within half an hour of sitting down. Plus the waiter sort of just flung/pushed a straw off his tray at Victoria instead of picking it up and setting in front of her. But lets talk about the food.

The food was pretty good. That's it. Not exceptional. It was nice to go somewhere fancy and be able to order anything from the menu but it's one of those places you want your parents to take you. For now I guess my tastes lay at places where volunteers serve food on folding tables with plastic tablecloths.

Saturday, November 3, 2007

Too much going on.

In chronological order:

Our first batch of home-made seitan. Bicycle scavenger hunt. New friends. Pankakes potluck brunch. Halloween. New Job. Visit to Grandma. Lunch with my dad. New York City. One year wedding anniversary.

The seitan went well. We had some vital wheat gluten sitting around and used the recipe in Vegan with a Vengence. I used half of it to make a mushroom stroghanoff (good even though Amos bought sparkling Burgundy to put in the sauce - woops!) The other half I stuffed in green peppers from my aunt be-be's garden and everyone loved them.

If I didn't mention the bicycle scavenger hung or new friends or the pankakes potluck I will update later as I have pictures and such. However the potluck was definitely not vegan - we had forces trying to put bacon fat in our pancakes!

Lunch with Dad - the Federal Reserve Cafeteria is cheap but not a vegan paradise.

Lunch with Grandma - Red Lobster smells funny.

New job - apparently everyone has heard of my firm but me.

NYC!!