Dijon potato salad

I tried to think of something cool to say about mayo-free-potato-salad, and none of it made any sense, so I will just be straightforward. We made dijon potato salad with fresh dill this weekend, not so much as a football game accompaniment, but as a... weekend-long side dish, I guess you could say. We actually went to Duffy's Irish Bar, a Packers bar near U street station, to watch the game--they have veggie dogs! And veggie burgers. We just had fries. I'm not sure if the buns there are vegan, we've never ordered them. Anyway, back to the potato salad:

It might appear blurrier than it is, or maybe I did move the camera... I can't tell if it's an illusion or not!

We bought a new bowl just for this! Not really, that bowl was $3 at Target and we didn't already have one that size--good deal. Anyway, this is something my mom used to make to go with veggie burgers (recipe from my mom's blog here). We used green beans, small potatoes, fresh dill, toasted almonds, and dijon mustard. I think this weekend marked the end of barbecue and potato salad season... so we went out with a bang, by making this and also going to an office barbecue (in the rain, but that didn't actually dampen the occasion much!) where the hosts made three great vegan salads--lentil/orzo, bean/avocado/tomato, and spinach with raisins--and we brought some veggie dogs and tofu burgers to eat. I love it when people think creatively about 'salad' and 'vegan' together -- beans in a salad is a big thumbs up from me.

So, if you want to feed a vegan at a barbecue with something other than veggie burgers (or make an entirely vegan barbecue), I hope I've given you a few ideas to add to your repertoire... think beyond the lettuce!

District of Pi Pizzeria

Last week, a friend from Japan arrived in town, and we planned a JASC get-together for Friday the 13th...which happened to be his birthday (as I discovered after planning it!) Since we were all coming from different metro lines, we picked Metro Center as a location, and District of Pi (where Dan and I have been once before) seemed like a good group option for omnivores and vegans alike.

We shared a vegan and a non-vegan pie, since everyone there would happily try vegan pizza (though thankfully they left us ample servings of the vegan pie!) District of Pi makes deep dish pizzas, but sadly the deep dish dough is not vegan. Anyway, the thin crust is still delightful!

Vegan pie from District of Pie

We ordered the above pizza, and the first time they brought it out, they actually forgot the vegan cheese and put real cheese--I recognized that it wasn't anything Daiya-like (the vegan cheese most pizza places, including this one, use), and asked the waiter. They recognized it as well and took it back, bringing a newly vegan pizza within ten minutes. Our friends were amazed that I'd recognized the cheese issue, but then they saw the Daiya-covered one and noticed it's slightly different -- not that Daiya isn't totally convincing & delicious, it just comes in the pre-grated shreds that leave a different impression once melted. Anyway, I've heard the District of Pi has the best vegan pizza, and at this point, I'd say it's definitely up there. I actually like Rustik Tavern a lot, which uses a different vegan cheese, but it always smells like sausage in there... We've tried almost all the vegan pizza options in DC at this point, and it's really nice to know that there's a pizza restaurant that will cater to us in almost every area, especially for group situations. We all had a good time, and took our friend to Red Velvet cupcakery later on for him to have a birthday cupcake (they have vegan cupcakes there, which are AWESOME.) A good night overall -- sorry I didn't get a cupcake photo :(

Sorry again for less posting lately for MoFo -- starting work has meant less time to kill during the day, and I prefer to spend my evenings away from a laptop! But, we've been cooking up some stuff lately that I'll share next week, so stay tuned.

An eventful week makes for boring cooking

I'm a little self-conscious of posting 'boring' foods like spaghetti and soup on here, or posting too much about eating out... but we haven't made anything novel since those scalloped potatoes (yes, a sad life when scalloped potatoes are 'novel'.) What we have done is make some spaghetti, ramen-not-the-instant-kind, eat bibimbap at Rice Bar, and order veggie Chinese food from Peking Garden in Adams Morgan. I think last week we made a pretty great vegetable soup, too. So, I'll share what I've got photos of...

Vegetable/pasta soup, in our inherited chipped bowl--we only have one nice bowl, this is not it!

Dining out DC: Meridian Pint

A few weekends ago, we went to Meridian Pint for brunch with a friend. They have two or three vegan options for breakfast (more if you include the rest of the menu, which I think is available at brunch time.) I went here about a year ago with some coworkers and ordered the french toast, which was great then. Still great!

Vegan french toast

Food-ball week 2

We watched the Packers play again Sunday, winning big against Washington's home team, whose name I won't mention... to go with our football beers, we made a layered dip for chips. This is at least the fourth layered food we've had during MoFo--lasagne, baklava, scalloped potatoes, and this dip!

Can you see the layers?

Linda's scalloped potatoes

About a year and a half ago, someone called "Linda" on Twitter started following me. Their handle was @scallopedpotato. I'll let you find the account on your own--there's something endearing about the seven tweets on there, see for yourself.

I've never actually made scalloped potatoes. I don't know if I've even had them, maybe something resembling scalloped potatoes that my mom used to make, but I paid way more attention to pasta casseroles than layered potato dishes as a child*. After finding some good potatoes at the local farmer's market, we decided to, uh, scallop them? this weekend.

Scalloped potatoes--not the most attractive dish--and broccoli

Vegan in DC just gets easier and easier...

A new Protein Bar location opened up near Dan's work in DC. I'd wanted to visit the one near Chinatown for a while but never got around to it, so it was my first choice lunch-food when I went to eat lunch with Dan last week. They have plenty of vegan options--many things can be veganized as they serve tofu and Daiya cheese.

Vegan Original Bar-rito

Some extras

A MoFo edition of "What we eat", even though we've been posting almost every day--some stuff has been left out! So, a quick run-down of the food that didn't get its own post...

Tofu and bok choy in mushroom broth

Baklava, baklove

Baklava is not the easiest or cheapest dessert to make. Especially if you shell out $12 for shelled pistachios (ha, see what I did there) and some more $$ for ground cardamom. I avoided the latter expense by buying only 2 tbs from the bulk section of Whole Foods, and later learned I could have avoided the former by using another kind of nut (or getting them from Trader Joe's)... not all baklava recipes use pistachios!

BUT, after all that, we came out with lovely baklava that tasted pretty much perfect (after cutting off burned edges... yeah, that nice golden color is not intentional)

Flaky, nutty, spicy, sweet...

Football dinner

A quick post this morning in lieu of a post last night--we got too busy watching an intense show, which I won't go into...! On Sunday, though, we were watching the Packers play (and lose....), so we made some food to accompany.

Beyond Meat buffalo chicken, celery, and vegan ranch dip

We picked up some Beyond Meat from Whole Foods when it was on sale. I actually prefer Morningstar Farms chik'n strips when it comes to vegan chicken, but maybe those have some terrible ingredient tat I should avoid, or something. However, I think just about everyone else has chosen Beyond Meat Chicken-Free Strips as the winner in taste and texture. It's pretty good, just a little too firm for me. Anyway, Dan marinated the strips in a homemade buffalo sauce and baked them. The marinade made them just spicy enough and added great flavor without dealing with the breading & frying that we might otherwise do for buffalo chicken strips. The ranch dressing is from Organicville. This was an easy, filling snack for Sunday!

We didn't get a picture, but we also made Roasted Corn Salsa from my mom's recipe site, subbing tomato for the red pepper. It would be cool to have bean chips with this, since corn chips and corn salsa seems a little excessive, but I think ours were yellow corn chips... anyway, we ate this in the early evening after having a late ramen lunch, and we were full enough to go without dinner! If only the Packers had won...

Black bean stew & pineapple salsa

Did you know that pineapples and black beans go really well together? Something about contrasting colors, maybe, or just sweet and savory together... on Friday, we made a black bean stew over brown with sour cream and pineapple salsa.

Sorry for the kind of awful picture, we need more attractive bowls for this stuff!

Best of DC -- Everlasting Life Cafe on Georgia Ave

We got an $8 gift certificate from Everlasting Life about a month ago as part of a rewards program they do. Feeling empowered with our eight dollars, we splurged on a late lunch to-go from there on Saturday, getting a main course, two sides, a salad, and a dessert. As expected, everything was just about perfect! Everlasting Life Cafe is an all-vegan restaurant in DC near Howard University that serves a slightly different menu every day, cafeteria-style. The food is relatively inexpensive and the atmosphere is homey. We were lucky to move just three blocks away from EL last January, and have been going there pretty often this year. Check out what we got for a discounted price:

The fried "chicken" main dish is amazing--they have it available as a main on Saturdays, and you can order it in a sandwich any other day. I mixed up a barbecue sauce to go with it (they have it at the restaurant, we just forgot to take some to go.) The mac and cheese is the best vegan mac and cheese I've tried, so we often get that as our side, and the greens are tender and smoky. We tried the potato salad for the first time. It tasted classic; it would fool any non-vegan at a potluck for sure. We also had one of their desserts, an unlabeled slice of cake that was maybe half-cherry half-brown sugar, for the first time -- big mistake, because it was so freakin' delicious we'll want to get it every time! We'd managed to avoid the cost and calories of desserts here before, but now I'm not so sure we'll be able to do that...

If you're a vegan living in DC or visiting DC and want to check out the vegan food scene, this is a must-visit, especially if you can go on a Saturday. We also love their fried cabbage and eggplant parmesan... and pretty much everything else we've tried there. It won best vegan restaurant of DC from the Washington City Paper's Readers Poll in 2013, so it's definitely one of the top vegan places-to-be in DC.

Sweet potato gnocchi

Yesterday I was reading a list of "The Ten Healthiest Foods on the Planet". I don't really pay much attention to lists like this, since I like to figure out what foods make me feel good and healthy & also help the planet to be healthy, and try base my diet off of that... but we needed ideas for what to cook. I sent the list to Dan, and said to pick anything but garlic, avocados, and obviously, salmon. From this, we came up with a plan to make sweet potato gnocchi--maybe not the most healthy way to prepare a healthy food, but certainly enjoyable!

Sweet potato gnocchi with herb white sauce

Baked kale chips

I'm sure there are people who don't love kale, but I've never heard of them. We've wowed both of our families (vegan and non!) with these baked kale chips. They're perfect for snacking on while the rest of your dinner is cooking, or just eating whenever you want, without guilt. See below for the recipe!

Crispy crispy kale chips! (Try typing that without typing "cale" by accident...)

Red on red

When we were thinking of dinner yesterday, Dan mentioned quinoa, which I knew we had a package of somewhere buried in cabinets. I knew we also had veggie beef in the fridge, from H-mart, as well as carrots, spinach, and onion. We've also had a bottle of red wine hanging out for about six months that we haven't yet broken into. So, with all these need-to-use ingredients in mind... veggie beef in red wine sauce over quinoa? Sounds pretty good.

I also thought it would -look- good, until I brought out the package of quinoa and realized it was red quinoa. Red on red? And it's not even February... well, either way, it turned out well, and would be a great dish for Valentine's Day!

A lot of red, with some green and orange for balance.

Lasagn-yum

On Monday (technically Labor Day, but we didn't really 'celebrate') we decided to make lasagne (lasagna?) with spinach, mushrooms, and tofu. We had the tofu already, but went to the store to buy noodles, tomato sauce, spinach, and mushrooms. The cashier--who was working on Labor Day, mind you--recognized our ingredients, and asked, "You guys making spinach lasagne?" ...how did he know! We also bought wine and some frozen juices, which he suggested we mix together. Not such a bad idea.

Lasagne we did make, and I'll share the (very easy) recipe with you!

Out of the oven.

Harmony Cafe, Georgetown

We've mentioned this place in our DC Eating Out Guide, but Harmony Cafe in Georgetown lately re-captured our interest when we were in the area. There's a lot to love about Harmony Cafe: you can get a vegetarian/vegan version of almost everything, it's nearby a ton of shops, a movie theatre, and gorgeous waterfront, and--especially for Georgetown--it's pretty cheap. The one drawback is that on weekend evenings it becomes full of Georgetown students during the school year, and service slows down because they have a small staff. However, if you go for an early dinner, you practically have the restaurant to yourself.

Crispy tofu tomato sauce from Harmony Cafe 

Tempura pancakes, and happy Vegan Mofo

Four years ago when I started following vegan blogs (a year after going vegan), I noticed a trend going on in the Fall. Everyone was talking about "Vegan MoFo". At first, I thought it was just some catchphrase, like, yeah, vegan m****f****!!!! But no, it's much more classy than that--Vegan MoFo stands for "Vegan Month of Food"--sounds deliciously humane! You can read more about it here on the website, and look at a full list of blogs (we're listed on some of the category pages, but I think the overall list is still being worked on.)

So, this month, we'll try to post every day (or more often), with lots of photos, recipes, tips, and reviews all focused on vegan food. We don't quite have a theme, other than... feeding two on a vegan diet in DC. We'll accompany posts with a graphic like this, to show... solidarity? support? participation? all of the above:

Anyway, onto the post... tempura pancakes!

Vegetable tempura pancakes and miso soup