Cold-weather food

DC weather has been weird this month--we saw the effects of the polar vortex just like everyone else, then it was 50 degrees days later, followed by some near-freezing days. I can't remember if the past two years here were like this, but it seems really erratic.

Anyway, it's been generally cold, and we've been making some soups and curries to warm ourselves up lately. Check it out --

Ramen with smoked vegan goose, baby corn, and bok choy

More vegan holiday meals

We went to Dan's house in Wisconsin for Christmas week, and had some awesome food -- homemade pizza, soups that his mom made, and an all-vegan Christmas dinner!

Dan's mom cooked pretty much everything but the gravy (which I made, but I didn't do that good of a job!) and I helped bake the Field Roast, which is pretty low-maintenance. Clockwise from the very left, you can see the perfectly shaped homemade rolls, Field Roast with gravy and cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes & squash, brussels sprouts, and fruit. I know the sizes seem small, but this filled me up.

This was my first time trying Field Roast, and while I really like many of their products, I have to say I prefer Tofurkey to their holiday roast. But, it did its job filling us up, for sure.

Cinnamon rolls

I also carried on my family tradition of having cinnamon rolls before opening presents in the morning. When I was little, we did the Pillsbury rolls, but I don't think those are vegan -- even if they were, these are way better. I use Vegan Yum Yum's recipe and it always works, even when I accidentally use like half the yeast needed, like this time (needed, or kneaded? ha ha...) I was happy these turned out so well and Dan's family got to try them. 

Dan's mom is also an amazing baker & made tons of vegan cookies and treats -- I didn't get a photo of those, sadly (I was busy taking photos of a kitten...) -- but believe me when I say the cookies were picture perfect & their taste more than lived up to it. 

For New Year's, we were back in DC, and didn't do much on New Year's Eve (I went to work the next day, & we didn't feel much like going out). But, on New Year's Day, we made black eyed peas for good luck.

Black eyes peas, rice, and yes, that's cabbage

The recipe for the black eyed peas is from Fatfree Vegan Kitchen. We might have subbed a few of the vegetables with whatever we had on hand, but it turned out really yummy. The grocery store was out of cabbage heads -- everyone had the same plans, I guess -- so we got some shredded purple cabbage, which is totally not for this purpose, but it's such a nice shade of purple! We put some salt and apple cider vinegar on it and it all worked out.

I hope everyone else had a good holiday season and a great start to the new year. I don't really do resolutions, but I do plan to maintain a lifestyle that helps me and the people around me to feel good. Dan and I will be starting our first year as a married couple, and while I don't think marriage is what makes a partnership special, it will be great to celebrate our happiness this year with our friends and family, and then with each other for years to come. 

On that sentimental note, have an amazing 2014!

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...