It's that time... Bye Bye blogspot!

Please update your bookmarks and RSS feeds, I finally have my very own fancy extra-special OWN DOMAIN NAME!!!

What this means: Instead of typing in http://epicuriousvegan.blogspot.com every single time (what a chore!), you can just type in http://epicuriousvegan.com.

This could potentially save you days--or YEARS-- of typing in the long run. 

You're welcome.

So come check out my new blog, leave a comment, and be kind, because it's still a baby. I'll be adding more information and tightening it up over the next few months.

Thanks so much for reading my blog, and I hope to see you on the other side (the Wordpress side, that is!)

xoxoxoxo

Janessa

Some sneak peaks on what you have to look forward to in the next blog posts on Epicurious Vegan:

Quick and Easy Vegan Tacos

When one is hungry, one tends to turn to tacos. (If one happens to be obsessed with any sort bean wrapped in any sort of tortilla, as I am.)

Unfortunately, when one is broke because one goes out for too many drinks and takes too many cab rides home after working late-night hours, one cannot afford many ingredients for beautiful complicated taco fixins.

A typical drunken awesome night in which my net taco worth is zero.

Beautiful vegan tacos with loads of complicated & amazing fixins.
I can afford this kind when I don't partake in drunken shenanigans.

When I am hungry and want a taco, I am one lucky girl when I have these ingredients on hand:

Quick and Easy Vegan Tacos

1/2 cup beans (pinto, black, or refried)

1/3 cup daiya shredded cheddar cheese

2 or 3 corn tortillas/1 or 2 flour or spelt tortillas

1/2 cup alfalfa sprouts

1 t Earth Balance, oil, or nothing

2 T Nutritional Yeast

A few squirts Secret Aardvark Hot Sauce, or hot sauce of your choice, if you like hot sauce, which you probably should

Instructions

Using either precooked home made beans or rinsed canned beans, warm in pot on stove top over medium heat. Optional: add spices while cooking (common spices to make beans even MORE delicious are cumin, garlic powder, chili powder, cayenne, and of course salt and pepper) When hot, usually 4-5 minutes, remove from heat.

Meanwhile, heat skillet to medium heat with either 1 teaspoon Earth Balance; 1 teaspoon olive oil; or if you have a fancy nonstick pan or cook without added fat, nothing. Place first tortilla in pan, sprinkling with nutritional yeast for a sort of vegan cheesey coating. Once heated on one side, flip over. Place around 1/2 the cooked beans on one side of the tortilla. Add 1/2 the daiya cheese. Fold in half. Heat for 1-2 minutes. Flip when bottom side starts to brown. Once both sides are browned and daiya is melted, remove from heat. Open, stick in some sprouts and hot sauce, close, and take a bite.

How could I resist?

Repeat with 2nd and if necessary--or extra hungry--3rd tortilla.

Secret Aardvark Hot Sauce is not needed to make a taco delicious, but is a welcome addition.

Once you have your tacos, all made and melty and waiting for you to partake in their deliciousness, do a little taco dance. Then eat. 

This is what I look like eating a taco:

Rowr.

Of course, you can add anything slightly mexican-y to your tacos--black olives, romaine lettuce, mushrooms, bell peppers, vegan taco meat.... or anything not even remotely mexican-y--hummus, bbq sauce, chickpeas.... 

The world is your (vegan) oyster--experiment and have fun! 

* If you don't want to make tacos, and you live in Portland, and it's a Wednesday night, go to the Hawthorne Hideaway. Tacos are 2 for $1 and include TVP (texturized vegetable protein), romaine, fresh tomatoes, and salsa. 

Summer Blackberry Cobbler

Last Wednesday, my lovely friend Joette and I paid a visit to Sauvie Island. (You may remember an Autumn Trip I took out there a few years ago.)

The U-Pick Berry farms were sadly done for the season, but luckily for us she has a big truck and we both had a burning desire for berries. We pulled a bit off road and found a mecca of blackberry bushes and picked til we were dusty, scratched, sunburned and happy as could be.

I knew right away I wanted to make a cobbler, but the first chance I had was today. I just made a simple recipe with ingredients I had on hand. You could definitely do the whole lemon juice in the fruit, or vanilla in the cobbler, but I was out of both. I considered for 1/2 a minute making a blackberry violet cobbler, but my brother Ahi wisely told me to keep it simple.

So here it is, my simple summer blackberry cobbler.

Summer Blackberry Cobbler

1/4 cup raw sugar

 6 cups fresh blackberries

 2 tbs cornstarch

1 1/2 cup wheat flour

 1/4 cup raw sugar

 1/3 cup almond milk 

1/3 cup melted Earth Balance

 1/4 tsp baking powder

 1/2 tsp cinnamon 

1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Instructions

Turn oven to 400 degrees. While it's preheating, pour blackberries, sugar and cornstarch into 9" X 9" baking pan. Mix together and place in oven.

While blackberries are warming, mix remaining ingredients into a sticky batter. Gloop big spoonfuls onto the blackberry mixture. (Gloop is totally an adjective, don't worry.)  They should almost cover the pan.

Bake for 35-40 minutes at 400 degrees  until biscuit topping is done. Serve with So Delicious Vanilla Coconut Ice Cream if around. If not, serve on a plate and enjoy the essential taste of summer.

Serves: 2-8 
Calories: Does it really matter?

Some Morning Listening

My two favorite songs right now.




Langhorne Slim. Not a local band, though the lead singer just moved to Portland and they play here often. He reminds me of both Connor Oberst from Bright Eyes and John Lennon.



My Morning Jacket. This song is incredibly annoying at first, then strangely addicting. I can't get enough. Jim James, the songwriter (and falsetto singer in the song), said this song is about a London cop questioning a little girl about a crime. Whatever, it's just cool.




What are your favorite songs, RIGHT NOW? They don't have to be current songs--I'm usually between 3-30 years behind current music trends. ( I do wish I could have gone to see Lady Gaga last night while she was in town.)

Taking Advantage of Vegan Portland

As part of Try Vegan Week, Jess from Get Sconed and Stumptown Vegans and I gave a talk in Portland last night; Taking Advantage of Vegan Portland.

I'll be the first to admit how indulgent we can be, living in this vegan mecca where many establishments embrace the word VEGAN. This talk definitely wasn't going to focus on ordering the vegetarian sandwich without cheese at the local co-op or where to buy the best tofu. No, we wanted to talk about the multitude of dining options that await happy vegans all over town.

Favorite Vegan Food by Quadrant

Portland has five quadrants (it's silly, don't ask) so Jess made a great handout that listed our favorite places in each.

Portland's Five Quadrants

Pizza, toffuffalo wings, milkshakes, tacos, thai food, sandwiches, sushi, brunch, bowls, bagels and cream cheese, cheesecake, bloody marys.... this stroll through Portland neighborhoods gives you all of these, and so much more. 




Please keep in mind this is by no means an exhaustive list; they're just the ones near and dear to us or the ones we wrote down first. For more information, location, or hours, click on the links. All the links go either to the establishment's website, Yelp page,Twitter page, or Stumptown Vegans review.

+Favorite Vegan Food by Quadrant+

Northeast Portland

Back to Eden Bakery

Vita Cafe

Dovetail Bakery

Bella Faccia Pizza

The Bye and Bye

El Nutri Taco Cart

Black Sheep Bakery

VooDoo Doughnuts II

Blossoming Lotus

French Toast from Blossoming Lotus

Tacos from El Nutri. (Photo courtesy of Jess from Get Sconed.)

Downtown & NW

DC Vegetarian

Homegrown Smoker

VooDoo Doughuts

Just Thai

Tube (brunch on weekends!)

Backspace

XV

Food Front

Prasad

Indish

Laughing Planet

Andina

Someday Lounge

Ham and Cheese Sandwich with a Hamm's from Tube

Southeast

Sweetpea Baking Co.

Bete Lukas

Hopworks Brewery

Hungry Tiger Too

Portobello Vegan Trattoria

Los Gorditos - cart & taqueria location

Apex

Artemis

Sip

Fred Meyer

Food Fight

Red and Black

Peoples Coop

Fu Jin

Food Carts at SE 12th (Whiffies, Pyro Pizza, et al)

Dots

Bay Leaf

Vege Thai

Veggie Pizza with Daiya Cheese from Hopworks

(Two FarMar shout outs: Peoples & Lents)

NoPo & St. John’s:

Proper Eats

The Parlour: vegan-friendly hair cuts & tattoos

The Fixin Too

Mississippi Marketplace: Native Bowl, Ruby Dragon, Sushi Tree

Thai Food Cafe

Por Que No

Mississippi Pizza

Dalo’s

Grilled Cheese Sandwich special from Native Bowl

Want something a little off the beaten path?  Check out our Hidden Gems; places that may not be exclusively vegan or flaunted as such, but have some pretty killer (no pun intended) choices.

HIDDEN GEMS

• Alberta St Public House (happy veggie burger)
• Built to Grill (vegan pesto gnocchi)
• Jazzkats Coffee (vegan bagel sandwiches, cheese, and doughnuts from Acme)
• Cloud 7 (homemade vegan pastry selection)
• New Seasons (new vegan menu at Deli) & Wok Bar
• BridgePort Brewpub (vegan beer, vegan quinoa bowl and happy hour tofu fries)
• Food Court on SW 2nd & Taylor: Pho PDX (and late night), Koi Fusion tofu tacos

Vegan Salad Rolls from Pho PDX

• Tarboush on SE Hawthorne
• Shopping: Food 4 Less, Fubonn, Grocery Outlet, farmers markets, International markets
• Alma chocolates
• Little Pots & Pans
• Green Wok Lunch Buffet
• Barbur World Foods: specialty foods, hot pita for cheap, other deli items
• Oregon Ice Works
• DK Kitchen on Belmont
• Chili Pie Palace
• Lickety Split

Potsticker from Green Wok

We also brought up questions to ask when you dine out and secret ingredients you may want to look out for.

Questions to Ask/Secret Ingredients:

• What’s vegan? Just go ahead and ask nicely!
• Can you *make* anything special vegan? Would you  recommend anything for a vegan?
• Is there a ‘secret’ vegan/veg menu?
• Do you have a vegan Bloody Mary? Can you do one?
• Does this have honey?
• Does this contain dairy?
• Does this have animal products? I cannot eat them.
• Is this a vegetarian broth? No chicken/fish/meat?
• Is this fried separately?
• Is there anywhere around here you’d recommend for vegan options?
• Is this gluten free AND vegan? (egg whites, etc.)
• Miso soup woes (bonita flakes!)
• Soy cheese & casein
• Inari
• Thai Food: How to order
• Thai Iced Teas: sub coconut milk for condensed milk
• Beer/Wine
• Will this cost extra to be vegan?
• Pizza dough: honey, eggs, dairy

A big shout out to Heidi from Heidi Ho Organics who brought her soy-free and gluten free cheeses for snacks for our hungry audience. You can find her hand-crafted cheeses and spreads at Jazzkats Coffee in the Hollywood District.

Feel free to add any spots to the comments section; there are several amazing places not listed, so this may be a work in progress.

If you live in Portland, be sure to check out the rest of Try Vegan Week, culminating in a Vegan Prom this Saturday!

Hope this helps you navigate some of the tricky yet delicious waters of Portland Vegan food.