Thanksgiving food

(I know this is late for Thanksgiving, but wanted to post in advance of any Christmas or New Year's meals people might need ideas for!)

Thanksgiving has its drawbacks--it's based on a misleading story and it has turned into a tradition of killing and eating turkeys and then watching the news about people duking it out over stuff on sale (I know of more people who make fun of black Friday shoppers than who actually go shopping, which is kind of just as bad?)

I will take any excuse to cook a big meal once or twice a year, though. But our family Thanksgiving tradition, if we ever have kids, will be to explain what actually happened when Europeans came to the 'new world' here, and also how life was much better for turkeys before that time.

This year, we ordered a few vegan smoked goose packages from May Wah and cooked those along with a ton of other dishes:

Too much for one photo!

I'll try to list the dishes from top to bottom: We've got cranberry sauce, sweet potato casserole, store-bought rolls off to the side there, gravy, brussels sprouts, smoked non-goose, stuffing, and green bean casserole. And lots of wine, of course!

Birthday food!

Last Saturday was my birthday, and I got to have some spectacular food...

Tiramisu cake

Vegan ramen in DC (part two, kind of)

We previously posted a comparison of a vegan ramen shop in Tokyo (T's Tan Tan) compared to vegan ramen from Daikaya, which is in Chinatown, DC. We've also visited Sakuramen in Adam's Morgan, which has a vegan ramen. Both Daikaya and Sakuramen have pretty good vegan ramens, which are tasty in large part because of the awesome mushrooms included in the soup (if you like that kind of thing.) But today we tried out the vegan ramen from Taan Noodles, also in Adam's Morgan, and it's definitely my favorite of the three DC options we've tried.　本当においしいよ！

I'll lay out my reasons for giving Taan Noodles top place in vegan ramen below:

Vegan breakfast/brunch

I have to start this off with a bad review, unfortunately -- I had been really excited to visit The Coupe, a few blocks from our house, since I'd looked at their menu and seen vegan pancakes and french toast. We went up there last weekend when some friends were in town, and within like weeks of me looking at it, the menu had changed -- the only vegan brunch option was a tofu dish. Super, super disappointing, since I prefer sweet to savory brunch, and they just didn't have anything that fit the category. But, to try and make up for it, I ordered buffalo seitan tacos, which were on the lunch menu. They were awful! I don't know if it was badly made seitan or terrible buffalo sauce, but something was extra salty in there and they were just inedible. I really hope no non-vegans try them, as I'd admittedly be put off from seitan and its capabilities by that one dish. Dan had the vegan tofu dish on the brunch menu, and it was OK, but really not worth returning for when Meridian Pint is down the street offering curried tofu scramble and vegan french toast. Sorry, The Coupe. You should have kept the vegan pancakes on the menu--it's SO EASY to veganize pancakes! I don't have a photo of my food, but maybe that's for the best...

OK, rant over--now, for some happy thoughts of vegan breakfast foods that everyone can make at home instead of going out to get terrible seitan tacos!

I have a sweet tooth, so I usually for stuff like this:

Sorry, was hard to show the filling in a good photo, but yum!

These are jelly filled muffins from this recipe. The batter was like cake batter, it turned out really moist and nice, and the jam-filled centers were great. We filled some of them with jam plus vegan cream cheese, which is totally indulgent but really good. Filling the batter seems hard, but even when I did a crappy job, they came out OK, so don't fret. Anyway, I definitely suggest making these if you like to indulge on a sweet breakfast during a weekend!

Vegans eating food

OK, time for another one of those stuff-we-eat posts, a glimpse into our tummies (OK, that would be gross, my photos look a little better than stomach contents usually...)

Are you ready for some photos?

Brown sugar carrots with rigatoni casserole

It's really hard to get a photo of baby carrots that don't look like fingers. I know baby carrots are all a conspiracy anyway, or something like that. I knew it when I was little, too:


Anyway, we adapted this recipe to make these and served them with rigatoni casserole. They were good, better than I remember them being when I was 3...

Apple pie!

This is from Vegan Pie in the Sky... yum! It was really good, but it lasted too long since we were the only ones to get to eat it...

Recreating perfection?

During the past few trips to Busboys and Poets, I've branched out from the usual selection of $9 dollar sandwiches and appetizers (seriously though, those appetizers are filling) and tried some entrees for a few extra bucks. That's kind of a lie, the first time I tried an entree was because Dan's mom ordered their orzo dish a few weeks ago, and she let me have a bite. But, with that bite, it instantly became my new favorite dish.

And, since I now have a job to go to instead of blogging every day (sorry!) I can afford to buy my own $14 entrees sometimes. So, last weekend when we went there with a friend, I ordered the pan-seared basil tofu. My new new favorite dish!

Sorry, trendy restaurants --> crappy photos, but yum!

This was pretty much perfect (if you like tofu, but even if you don't love it) and I ate it in like 5 minutes. It's really not enough food for a dinner, so if you're already spending the $14 on the entree, go ahead and get an appetizer or a side. I was lucky & had Dan's calzone (also amazing, but not quite as mind-blowing as this) to share.

I didn't really have conscious plans to try and cook something like this at home, but then Dan started talking about tofu and quinoa the other night... we pretty much made this same thing, but subbed the tomato cream sauce with chipotle remoulade.

Pan-seared tofu over quinoa and chipotle remoulade

It came out really well. We didn't have the same quality of herbs to really get the tofu right, but the pan-sear turned out pretty well (OK, not as beautiful as theirs, I'll just have to keep trying!) The broccolini, which Dan sauteed with some lemon juice, margarine, and salt & pepper, was a really nice touch. We added raisins and sun-dried tomatoes to the quinoa -- I could do without the tomatoes, actually, but quinoa went great with tofu and broccoli.

There's not really a secret recipe here, but we based the quinoa & chipotle remoulade off my mom's stuffed peppers dish here. Pan-searing the tofu (or is this pan-frying?) just meant rubbing the tofu with some herbs and cornstarch, heating up a pan with a thin coating of oil, and letting the tofu sit there for a few minutes on each side. This is the same way I cook up marinated tofu to put in soups and stuff (see blog header!) so it wasn't really anything new, but putting the meal together was pretty novel for us -- and delicious.

I'll try to blog some more this weekend, I have such a backlog of photos to put up! Enjoy November, everyone.

Vegan "steaks" with gravy & potatoes

I used to hate the smell of nutritional yeast as a teenager, whenever my mom cooked with it. But after having these veggie-crumble steaks with gravy, I started craving nutritional yeast gravy all the time. We re-created this recipe from my mom using Trader Joe's beefless ground beef. The steaks were really delicious--and even better as leftovers (as many things are!) I guess they're more like burger patties than actual "steaks", but that doesn't make them any less awesome to eat with potatoes and gravy...

The gravy might be the best part!

These are really easy. We also happened to make the most perfect mashed potatoes, that might have been the 2 tbs of Earth Balance I stirred into them... the original recipe is here--note that it is from over 8 years ago! So, consider my version the "updated" recipe... though it's not really that updated.

Crêpes!

When my sister and I were younger, my sister's favorite breakfast food was crêpes. My favorite breakfast food was also secretly crêpes, but I never admitted it because I wanted to like different things than my sister. My dad would make them with raspberry syrup and cream cheese with walnuts, and it was pretty much dessert for breakfast--as it should be on the weekends!

Last weekend, Dan pulled up this recipe from The Everyday Vegetarian and started making these while I was in the shower--a nice surprise! We didn't have any vegan cream cheese or raspberries, but we filled them with homemade cherry jam from Dan's mom, applesauce, and chocolate peanut butter.

Crepes with jam and applesauce

These were probably a little healthier than my childhood favorite, since they are sans cream cheese frosting, but they were awesome! A word of caution: the crepes were not very hard to make, but that is probably in part because we used a non-stick griddle whose non-stick feature is very, very useful in this recipe. I'd recommend using your most frictionless pan for these.

This morning, we did happen to have cream cheese and walnuts in stock... so, we made these again, the "proper" way (with the cherry jam subbed for raspberry syrup.) They were perfect -- and eaten too fast to snag a photo! I used half a tub of Tofutti vegan cream cheese with some powdered sugar (probably about half a cup, but I just added until it was sweet enough), a squeeze of lemon juice, and about 1/2 tsp vanilla, mixed with a handful of almonds.

Anyway, if you have a good non-stick pan, make these for sure--you don't have to go the sweet & fattening route like we did, these would be good as savory crépes as well, and they're great with just applesauce or jam, as we discovered!

Imagine Vegan Cafe, Memphis

While we really regret missing DC VegFest this year, I'm glad we got to go to middle Tennessee to see family, and we did try to make up for it with our own vegan goodies on the trip. One of the best parts was visiting Imagine Vegan Cafe after we flew into Memphis. It was my second time to Imagine, and Dan's first. We really loved it! The atmosphere is similar to my favorite vegan cafe in Florence, MA (Cafe Evolution), and the food options are pretty much perfect.

The outside of Imagine Vegan Cafe

An apology! And the last week of MoFo, condensed.

So, I do sort of have of an excuse for the 2 weeks of no posts. We had some unexpected family news last week and had to make a last-minute trip down south, and this past week, Dan's parents have been visiting, so we have been hanging out with them instead of blogging! Forgive us?

Our sudden change of plans meant we missed out on DC's VegFest this year. VegFest is like Christmas  (or pick your holiday) for me -- free samples, coupons, deals, vegan food from PA, VA, and MD that we don't get to eat usually, and talks and demos throughout the day... we will have to wait until next year, though.

We DID get to go to Imagine Vegan Cafe in Memphis, though, which will get its own post later!

Anyway, here are some photos I had been planning to post for the last week of MoFo:

Red beans and rice with vegan sausage

We made red beans and rice from my mom's recipe, using some multigrain rice (it had seeds and stuff in it, it was good) and leftover seitan sausage from a while ago. I love red beans and rice. I think it is one of the meals I'd be OK living off of--maybe because we used to have it almost every week when I was little, and I never got tired of it.

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

A Tale of Two Ramens

Ramen, one of the tastiest staples of the Japanese diet can be difficult to enjoy as a vegan, but if you look in the right place you can find tasty, guilt-free ramen in Japan and closer to home. I'd like to share two ramen experiences I've had in the past few weeks, one in Japan and one back home in DC.

Typically in Japan a ramen shop is not a friendly place for vegans to eat. Most ramen is heavy on animals, not only using pork and egg as a topping, but having thick, meat-based broth. Usually it's fruitless to ask for veggie broth and just noodles, because most places won't have non-meat broth on hand and they will have a hard time understanding why you're even asking for just water and noodles. That's why the one vegan restaurant I was looking forward to visiting the most in Japan was a specialty vegan ramen shop in Tokyo station, T's Tan Tan.

T's Tan Tan signs about the virtues of veganism

The entrance to T's near the Keiyo Street shopping section in Tokyo station

Photos from the Bay Area, finally

My phone was sent back to me, with photos intact! A miracle. So, this will be a picture post, for anyone who wants a visual vegan tour of the SF area, or if you just want to stare at vegan food and drinks... here goes!

Cha-Ya roll from Cha-Ya

Seitan sausage paella

**This is a recipe posted a little over a year ago on our former blog. We're re-posing because it's a good recipe for summer, and it's still summer out there, as DC heat reminded us this week. Enjoy!

This is the only photo we got of the paella, sadly. Other photos not of paella will accompany this post.

Every time I cook something that has potential to be spicy (as in spicy hot, like chili peppers on a Thai menu), I cook it in a way that fulfills that potential and then some. My own threshold for that kind of spice is so high that only certain brands of salsa and a few four-chili dishes at restaurants can hit it. Dan’s tolerance is about on par with mine, so if we cook to our respective levels, it usually works out for both of us. Since I’ve started cooking for more guests after moving into the JASCastle , though, I’ve gotten some cues that maybe not everyone can enjoy the same kind of heat in their food--mainly due to remarks like “wow, this is spicy--good, but...really spicy”.

Almond Alfredo sauce

Sorry for another week of absence -- it's not that I've been that busy, it's that I haven't undertaken many interesting endeavors in the culinary or gastronomical spheres. I did make something good last night, though, even though I was the only one who got to enjoy it! I used this recipe to make an almond-tofu Alfredo sauce, which we've made once before, and it turned out really well.

Marinara, Alfredo, pasta, and some broccoli...

Vegan at home and vegan afar

We don't have any fun and exciting recipes to share, just some advice, I guess. I've been at home, cooking for one (which means hardly cooking at all; I'm not the type who's motivated to cook for only myself.) Dan's been in Japan, trying to find vegan food in three different cities (going on four.) So, I share with you, "How I eat my ramen noodles"... or, "The sad, sad life of a stay-at-home-vegan".

Ramen, with trimmings?

Bay Area part III

I got some good news the other day that someone turned my phone in to the BART lost and found--really unexpected, but hopefully I can have it sent back to me with photos intact, and publish some of them in a later post. Meanwhile, here's more from our last few days in California...

Juice from Google headquarters

Bay Area adventures, part II

I already shared most of the photos I salvaged (see the last post to hear about my phone fiasco), but I'll try to share details and reviews of what we ate and did during our trip to Berkeley. Thanks to the lack of photo documentation, I can't *quite* remember exactly when we did everything, but I do remember the names and locations of where we ate, as well as the food and how it tasted! And most of it was pretty great (not sure if "hella" is a more appropriate descriptor here, given that it's CA? Does anyone say that anymore?)

Pie a la mode from Saturn Cafe (a year ago)

Back in action, Bay Area part 1

Sorry for the absence--we were in Berkeley, CA from the 26th until the 1st, and I was planning to post all the food photos I took there once we got back. The universe had other plans, and decided that my primary photo-taker, my iPhone, would not be returning with me from Berkeley! It was either lost or stolen at some point while I was trying to find a place to pee. Sad, sad news, especially because I hadn't backed anything up since February! Luckily, we do have a few photos from Dan's phone, so I'll share those.  Anyway, read on for more about our trip.

And, the perfect summer cookies require no oven!

No-bake peanut butter oat cookies

We used my mom's recipe (which is actually kind of my recipe, on my mom's blog) to make these, but cut down the oats by 1/2 cup and used 1/4 cup agave with 1 cup sugar (instead of 2 c sugar). I think I added a few tablespoons of peanut butter too. They came out brilliantly (they were brilliant in the British sense, they weren't actually intelligent, we don't eat intelligent beings).

Recipe here. Stovetop required, but no oven, so your kitchen can stay cool!

Summer lunch: Vegan BLT and gazpacho

BLT with gazpacho, and scissors...

We went to the farmer's market last weekend hoping for some good tomatoes, but it looks like this weekend or next weekend would be a better week for that--one stall was selling them, however, and we managed to get three good red tomatoes and one yellow, as well as a cucumber and a multigrain bread loaf elsewhere at the market. We then picked up lettuce and LightLife® Smart Bacon from the grocery store. Then we came home and immediately made BLT sandwiches and gazpacho!

The gazpacho was made up of about two and a half tomatoes (yellow and red), one cucumber, some seasoning, a half piece of bread, and onions (which we cooked first, because I don't do well with raw onions/garlic.) The BLT had the Smart Bacon (fried lightly in a pan), those amazing tomato slices, lettuce and veganaise. Together, the soup and sandwich made for one of the best lunches we've had this summer! So, next time you're at a farmer's market, we recommend that you pick up some tomatoes and cucumbers and bread and make this for yourself...

Randy Radish at Truckeroo

Every month throughout the summer, food trucks of DC gather for the Truckeroo Food Truck Festival outside of Nationals Ballpark. We've avoided this food-and-drinks festival in the past due to rumors of long lines and lackluster vegan options. However, we heard that new all-vegan food truck The Randy Radish would be there this month, so we decided to brave the crowd and the heat and try what they had to offer. We were not disappointed!

Veggie corn dog, jackfruit bbq sandwich, and spring rolls with chipotle ranch sauce

We ordered three of their menu items, which are on the small side but priced fairly low ($5-7 each, so $18 for all three). The corn dog is a Field Roast dog with a delicious corn batter. The spring rolls have a Southwestern twist with corn and black beans, with the chipotle ranch sauce as a nice kick. The jackfruit barbecue was perfect! Way better than the last jackfruit bbq we tried at another restaurant. The cole slaw and bun were wonderful compliments. The sandwich was the star of the show, but all three options were great. I'm not crazy about Field Roast hot dogs, but the corn dog batter was excellent. Glad we got to check out this vegan food truck, and we hope The Randy Radish makes its way to DC again soon!

Vegan egg-less salad

I'm the type of vegan who doesn't really miss cheese or milk at all. Even before I was vegan, I would take the cheese off my pizzas and only eat the ice cream toppings, leaving the ice cream to my friends. I'm guilty, however, of having a thing for egg salad sandwiches when I was younger. I'm not sure if Dan feels the same way, or if he ever spent his summer lunchtimes boiling eggs for an egg salad sandwich, but I definitely did. When I moved to London I would buy egg and cress sandwiches daily from the local Pret A Manger. I thought going vegan meant saying goodbye to the precise taste of egg salad, which I admit isn't super appealing, but it was comfort food nonetheless.

I was wrong! I saw a recipe for vegan egg salad with tofu and black salt (kala namak) and it totally tastes like the egg salad I remember.

This tofu is cage-free!

My version is a little less firm than "authentic" egg salad, but that's because I skipped some refrigeration steps out of excitement. I also added about 4 tbs water (recipe calls for 7, but with the potato flakes I used, I actually should have used about 2). Mine has a teaspoon of brown mustard and a few teaspoons of relish as well, which I think made for the perfect final touch. We were out of bread but had some leftover hot dog buns, which is why that's not quite a sandwich in the photo.

If you are like me, and miss eggs and egg salad, you should make this -- the kala namak (black salt) is pretty much necessary for the eggy taste, but if you're turned off by eggs and want to try this anyway, you could do without. I admit that the kala namak smells kind of gross, but the taste is less overpowering than actual eggs, so it works out really nicely. Keep in mind the tips about the amount of water or it'll be really runny, but still good! Here is the recipe--it comes highly recommended!

What we're eating, part 3

No original recipes this time, but links and photos are almost as good, right?

This week we indulged on vegan raspberry cheesecake and baba ghanoush, among other things.

Vegan and better than ever.

Vegan news in the District

First, if you haven't been to Sticky Fingers lately, you need to go there and try a shake (orange creamsicle and cookies and cream are our favorite so far.) Better yet, go on a Tuesday or Thursday and have a donut as well (while supplies last). This Thursday they had a creme-filled chocolate glazed donut that was impossible to resist, and a blueberry glaze we saved for later. I was never the biggest fan of non-vegan donuts, but I've had so many awesome vegan donuts. These were no exception; they could compete with vegan offerings of the famous Voodoo Doughnut of Portland--though they're not quite as flashy, yet!

Creme-filled, or is it cream filled? Second only to jelly-filled.

In other news, two vegan food trucks have popped up this summer, but not in downtown DC. Everlasting Life of Maryland has two food trucks in Montgomery County, it looks like they're primarily located in downtown Silver Spring. The menu looks just as awesome as that of the restaurant, I would love to try it! Also, Northern Virginia now has The Randy Radish food truck, offering lots of vegan sandwiches, small dishes, and desserts! I know food trucks downtown have a lot of vegan options, but I wish trucks like these would start appearing--vegan mac and cheese and tofu reubens? Yes please.

Also, according to Twitter users, District of Pi in Penn Quarter has the best vegan pizza. Now we're obligated to go there, since we haven't yet... 

Have a great weekend, everyone.

Spicy Peanut Sauce

What's the deal with broccoli lately? People kept mentioning it on twitter, and it made us hungry for broccoli with peanut sauce... so, last night we cooked up some rice noodles and vegetables in a pad thai. We always make a peanut sauce from scratch, and this is the first time I actually wrote down what I used! The stir fried vegetables and tofu are pretty standard, we sautéed chopped onion and mushroom for a few minutes, then added broccoli and tofu with some scallions, and added the cooked rice noodles with the peanut sauce. Nothing fancy there, but I'll share with you my recipe for a somewhat spicy, tangy peanut sauce that's great with pad thai or stir fry with rice.