Native Reuben

Oh my gosh!  I just had the pleasant experience of taste-testing one of Chef Tanya's newest creations at Native Foods: the Reuben.  Please don't let the picture fool you. My silly iPhone camera does not do this masterpiece justice.  Seriously ever since the Meet Market closed, I've wondered where I could find a decent Reuben (although I will admit I make a pretty decent one myself).  The trick is the seitan, which I've never been a huge fan of.  However, I don't know what voodoo magic Chef Tanya has done, but it most certainly tastes amazing.  See for yourself.

Now my only (minor) criticisms are that this bad boy was a supremely messy eat.  Because there was so much Russian dressing, it was difficult managing to get it in my mouth and not on my skirt.  So remember that this is a minimum three-napkin kind of sandwich.  Next, there wasn't as much sauerkraut as I would have liked. However, I will just share that I am in love with sour foods so I usually overdo the sauerkraut at home.  So with this being said, next time -- and believe me there WILL  be a next time -- I will ask for the dressing on the side and extra sauerkraut.

I teamed the reuben with the dill potato salad.  It was good but not Flore good.  The potatoes were a little bit harder than I like so it felt sort of borderline raw to me.  But hey, I still ate nearly all of it so it wasn't all bad.

So there you have it. I have nothing but love for Native Foods.

Animal Acres!

This weekend I went to Animal Acres, which is a sanctuary for farmed animals.  Suffice to say, it was INCREDIBLE! I've added some pics of the most darling animals you've ever seen with horrific stories.  The rooster we called Bellbottoms because he looked like he was wearing bellbottom jeans.  Pinto is the big cow.  I fell in love with a white donkey named Tonk and there were the sweetest goats, Jenko and Kirby.  It was incredible see see how these people care for all these animals and how much love there was at the farm.  I'm sooo happy that a place like Animal Acres exists and plead for EVERYONE to donate today.

The incredible tour was followed by a delicious vegan meal of spaghetti squash with pesto, pesto and/or sundried tomato bread, green beans, watermelon and amazing brownies.  It was fantastic eating and really only added to a great day for Becca and me.

After Animal Acres, we decided Sunday Funday and went for a drink at Tony Darts Away, which was on our way home. This is a fun bar that has a decent vegan menu, although I'm not a huge fan of their vegan sausages. However, kudos to them for even providing them.  Tony's is great because they offer many vegan beers and will do flights of four for cheap.  Also, they will let you sample any beer you're curious about.  Now it can't get any better, right? Wrong!  What really separates Tony's from anywhere else is the fact that they have a ton of board games!  Everything from Uno to Yahtzee to Sorry to Clue.  It's fabulous.  Becca and I played a few rounds of Candyland, some Clue and practiced our beer trivia.  Ah such a good Sunday.  Unfortunately I had too much fun and spent much of the afternoon napping on my couch.  When I got hungry I ordered Cruzer's Pizza, which is right down the street.  They make the most delicious bbq chicken pizza and cheesy breadsticks with Daiya. Mmmmmmmm.

Labor Day Weekend

So we had a long weekend and oh how I already miss it. Sigh.  Every year at this time,  my family migrates back to Seattle, Washington for Bumbershoot, a three day musical festival with hundreds of acts, games, rides, comedy, films and more.  It is utterly divine and I enjoy myself every year.  I have gone consistently since I was in the womb, that's how much my family loves this.  Also, this year I got the added bonus of meeting my 9 day-old niece Jasmine, who is adorable and sweet. I so enjoyed meeting her. However, what I quickly noticed was that for a city that boasts being vegan-friendly, it was actually pretty difficult to find food, especially inside the festival.  I mean, Coachella has vegan options!  Why is it so hard for Bumbershoot to keep from cooking veggies in butter.  Even the Indian and Thai choices were usually either a. bland or b. cooked with meat or on the same grill.  It was a little crazy so I was forced to visit the QVC grocery store quite a bit and/or eat a ton of french fries.

However, one restaurant close to my hotel was Bamboo Garden Vegetarian.  This was a tacky-looking joint that served up the real deal.  All protein in this place was vegetarian wheatmeat.  This made me very happy and I ordered that hot and spicy chicken. It was pretty good, though a bit skimpy on the portion especially since my brother ordered the hot and spicy tofu, which came in a pie pan of goodness.

For the other two days of the festival, I mostly just ate fries and fruit along with some cotton candy (sometimes I just can't help myself.)  But this made me wonder why a vegan diet isn't more thoroughly represented here, especially since Washingtonians believe themselves to be on the hippy liberal side of things.  For next year, I'm gonna beg that they get some vegan vendors in the house.

I was ecstatic to get back home to LA.  I missed my cats and just the feeling of being home. Plus, I knew that I would have a disgusting litter box to clean so I'd rather just get it over with.  Sadly, the cold I picked up in Washington is lingering so today I had some vegetable soup from Whole Foods.  In Brentwood, they also feature a vegan curried chicken salad sandwich.  It comes on ciabatta bread with vegan chicken curry, spinach, shredded carrots and Veganiase.  I also threw on some cucumbers because I believe cucumbers and avocado make every sandwich special.  I had them heat it up in the panini press and gotta say it came out nicely.  Yes, the fake meat is a little chewy and I'm not a huge fan of the sporadicly placed raisins in the curry but overall it was a satisfying little meal and one I hope helps kick this cold's ass.

Cupcakes!

I decided to finally make Chef Chloe's winning Cupcake Wars recipe.  I had some strawberries that will go bad if I don't eat through them quickly enough.  Though they did not turn out as beautifully as hers (I apparently didn't fill the cupcake wrappers up enough so they didn't rise as high.  Here's the recipe:

Chocolate Strawberry Shortcake Cupcakes
Secret Winning Recipe!

(Makes 12 Cupcakes)
Ingredients:
 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar    
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup coconut milk 
½ cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon instant espresso powder 
Frosting, recipe below
1 ½ cups hulled and sliced fresh strawberries
Confectioners’ sugar, for garnish

Procedure:
1.    Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line a 12-cup cupcake pan with paper liners. 
2.    Sift or whisk together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and salt into a bowl. In a separate bowl, mix the coconut milk, oil, vinegar, vanilla, and espresso powder until smooth. 
3.    Pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture and mix with a fork or small whisk. 
4.    Divide the batter evenly among the prepared cupcake liners until each cup is 2/3 full. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. 
5.    Once the cupcakes are completely cooled, slice off the top 1/3 of each cupcake and slather with frosting and sliced strawberries. Place the top of the cupcake back on top and add an additional bit of frosting and sliced strawberries. Dust with confectioners’ sugar.

Frosting
Ingredients:
4 cups confectioners' sugar, preferably organic
1/2 cup refined coconut oil at room temperature OR margarine (recommended: Earth Balance Organic Soy-Free Non-Hydrogenated Buttery Spread)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
¼ cup water

Procedure:
1.    Combine the confectioners' sugar, coconut oil, and vanilla extract in the bowl of a stand mixer. 
2.    Beat on medium-high speed until combined. With the mixer running, add 1 tablespoon of water at a time, until the desired buttercream consistency.

Here's what mine ultimately looked like.  And they were YUUUUUUUUUUUM!

A Very Vegan Weekend

This weekend was kickass on the friend and vegan front.  On Friday night, Becca and I were housesitting at her old boss's house.  They have a washer and dryer so we literally washed the mountain of laundry that we had accumulated, including but not limited to a dozen towels and blankets. My friends, Beth and Cathy came over and drank while we watched Cooking Network and Entourage.  It was a rocking good time even as I constantly swapped wet clothes for dry.

On Saturday I attended a Comfort Food cooking class with the Spork sisters.  It was literally THE BEST MEAL I'VE EVER HAD!!!!  If the Cooking Network called and asked me to describe the best thing I've ever eaten, I would most definitely point to this meal.  Here's a pic of what we made. First, we had a salad with homemade "bacon" ranch dressing then beer battered tempeh nuggets with chipotle ketchup.  The most amazing part of the meal, however, was the twice baked potatoes with broccoli and cheese. I've tried to make these before and though they turned out great but they were NOTHING compared to these bad boys.  Even though I was stuffed full I still had a second spud because they were simply too good to ignore.

Then there was CAKE.  Vanilla cake with the sweetest most amazing vanilla frosting ever that makes me want a cake pedestal, cover and Kitchenaid soooooo badly. Absolutely yummy through and through.  If you've never taken a class at Spork Foods, sign up asap! The prices are competitive and the sisters never repeat a meal so it's always new!  So good and you feel good about yourself when you leave. Plus you take home your recipes to make yourself, which I will be doing with the twice baked potatoes tonight.

Then on Sunday, I blew off my sewing class (boo me) but Becca and I wanted some snuggle/hang out time.  We went to the Farmer's Market on Fairfax.  There is an Italian gourmet pizza place with VEGAN pizza! Score. It's called Deano's and although the vegan options are not listed on the menu, they will totally add Daiya to any pizza. I got a personal cheese pizza on whole wheat crust.  Though technically for one person, there was plenty of pizza. My only minor qualm is that they actually used too much Daiya (I know, I know I didn't think it possible either!)  However, I peeled some of it off and it was delish, especially the crust. In the picture below, you can totally see that I went a little crazy with the red pepper flakes, which had my mouth burning for more than 20 minutes.  Of course the beer helped immensely :).

To cap off the evening, Becca and I went to our favorite LA dive bar the Short Stop where we met up with my friend Alexis and played UNO.  Yes, in the bar. We had wanted to go to Barcade but recently learned it was closed (silent tear trickles down my cheek.)  However, in spite of a few missed appointments and some disappointing bar closures, this weekend was fantastic, vegan and just what I needed.

Now the rest of the week I will continue my fitness bootcamp (Lord have mercy) every day at 6:30 am in Griffith Park. Wish me luck!

Lasangna!

So the other night, I decided to make vegan lasagna. I made it once before for Becca and her friend, Brooke who was crashing on our couch. It was Brooke's last night in LA before she moved on to the wonderful world of Philly.  Now Brooke is a cool rock n roll mama that cares little about veganism in general. Her world revolves around Hollywood nightlife, dive bars, and late nights.  Food doesn't really come into it.  However, I was very pleased to see her eat my lasagna with gusto.  She said it was as good as the real thing, which I took as a huge compliment.

So now I've decided to do it again.  I looked up this recipe on Tami Transcends Tofu. I used more spinach than was called for (gotta hide my lady's vegetables somehow) and fresh basil that I received from my CSA.  Now I don't really know what the fresh to dry conversion is but I love basil so I just grabbed a couple of handfuls and threw them in with everything else. Of course my blender decided to suck and made me wish more than ever for this is in my life.  So I had to pull everything out of the blender and put together my mini-food processor.  This thing is good enough but soo small.  Anyway, it didn't matter. It did the trick and processed my food.

I always forget that although the recipe only calls for one jar of sauce, it's actually better to have at least 1 1/2 jars.  I need to remember this for next time. Anyway, this is what I turned out with. The picture honestly doesn't do the meal justice because it was super flavorful and yummy. However, scraping it out of the pan made it a little...well a little ugly.  I had planned to saute some veggies to accompany the lasagna but I got lazy so I opened the bag of spicy mixed greens, added some CSA radish sprouts (one of my new favorite things I learned) and voila.  A ready-made albeit a little lazy meal.  Take a look.

Diaya Mac and cheese

So last night I had planned to make vegan lasagna but the mozzarella Daiya is sold out everywhere.  After checking three stores I gave up. Instead I went with vegan mac and cheese. This is one of the first dishes I learned to make upon becoming vegan, mostly because I knew that if Becca liked it, I was golden about laying off the diary products. However, I had never quite stuck wholly to the recipe because I didn't always have all the ingredients. This time, however, I stuck to everything to a T. I used the recipe from To Live and Eat in LA.   The recipe is below:

ngredients-
16oz package of elbow macaroni or pasta of choice 
3 cups shredded Daiya Cheddar Cheese
3 tablespoons vegan butter (I used soy-free Earth Balance)
3 tablespoons flour 
2 to 2 1/2 cups* unsweetened soy milk
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
Enough panko bread crumbs to liberally cover (I used an “Italian” flavored variety)
Red chili flakes to taste (optional)

Directions-
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cook pasta about 5 minutes until it’s just tender. Don’t cook all the way or it will fall apart when you bake it.
3. Drain pasta and transfer to greased baking dish. I packed it all into a smaller 8×10 dish so it would set up nice and thick.
4. Mix in about 2/3′s of the cheese into the pasta and set aside.
5. In a small pot melt the butter. Add the pepper, then whisk in the flour until combined. Stir in the milk. Keep stirring until it starts to boil, then keep stirring for about another minute until it thickens up. *(Start with 2 cups of milk but if sauce gets too thick just add a little bit more, you don’t want it to be like a paste, just a thickened liquid).
6. Pour the milk mixture into the pasta and mix everything well. Top with the remaining cheese. Sprinkle the bits of ham on top, then cover everything with a generous layer of breadcrumbs. Give the whole thing a light dusting of paprika.
7. Pop in the oven for 30 minutes or until the cheese is bubbling and top is starting to brown. If you like it spicy sprinkle some of the chili flakes on top when serving.

It turned out soo well. Here's the pic. Becca used her super sweet iPhone app Shake It in order to make it look so cool and Polaroid-y.  The best part of the mac and cheese was the TASTE.  I am so proud to stand by this meal, which also included garlic and onion Brussel sprouts. Delicious, really and truly. In fact, it was so good I will be enjoying some seconds for lunch along with mixed green salad, sliced cucumber and some Annie's Naturals dressing. So there it is. Vegan mac and cheese for everyone!