Out of the Oven.

Roasted Cremini Mushrooms.

New Seasons had local, organic creminis on sale at $2.99/lb, so there I was, filling a bag. These were roasted at 425F with balsamic vinegar, a touch of olive oil, coarse sea salt and sliced garlic.

Double Apple Cake, from The Urban Vegan.

I made this with homemade apple sauce and McIntosh apples, all thanks to the Portland Apple Festival. I want to hug the spices in this. So. Autumn.

Whole wheat pizza.

Last week, I made pizza with homemade marinara, spinach, black & kalamata olives, FYH Mozzarella and a little shredded Melty White Cheezly.

I'd heard talk of FYH recently improving their formula and melting being easier than ever. I've been lucky with the majority of my FYH melting attempts over the years (psst, spritzing with oil or water can help), and it's been my long standing go-to, dependable soy cheese. How wild is the availability of nondairy cheeses these days!?! Cough, cough, when I was younger, I remember buying expensive blocks of FYH from Lifethyme in NYC and taking them on the Fung Wah bus with me back to Boston, before there was anywhere in that city that carried it... This is back when my college cooking repertoire included 123s and Chreese, fire roasted tomato sauce, TLTs, pizza and take out, basically.

I really liked my delightfully spoiled-vegan combination of soy cheeses on this pizza. I think Cheezly attempts to capture the aged cheese taste better than any brand I've had, and for that I applaud it. I'm not into it plain, but melted, it's tasty paired with other components.

Grilled Cremini & Garlic sandwich.

Chomp.

It was under 100F yesterday when I left work, so I stopped at my local New Seasons Market and picked up FOOD to COOK for dinner. I was surprisingly productive last night with my bit of cooking and cleaning for a party this weekend! I almost turned on my oven and roasted local red potatoes with dill and then considered roasting tempeh.... Thankfully for my cats, I held onto my sanity and simply ate my sandwich.

It was beautifully easy to assemble - I halved local creminis and tossed them in a golden balsamic vinaigrette with large slices of garlic, cooked them on my cast iron grill pan, threw them on top of baby spinach, in an organic olive ciabatta roll from New Seasons (splurge!) added a large slice of local tomato and there was dinner. If I hadn't forgotten my vegan staple jar of Vegenaise at work months ago, I would have likely added some.

Grilled garlic = amazing.

No Shiitake, Not again.

It's not time for excuses.  I'm sure no one is actually bothered that I'm not posting my NYC food write up yet, except for my sister, who recently told me it was about time.

This weekend I made two tofu frittatas.  They were both easily gluten free and based on recipes that will be in Isa Chandra Moskowitz's very-upcoming Vegan Brunch cookbook.  I first tested one over a year ago - the Swiss Chard.  With frittatas, you don't have to worry about making or buying a crust (and feeling semi to officially ridiculous if you do buy the crust).  You basically take one pound of tofu, some vegetables, spices and a few other key ingredients, mush it all together in a pie pan, and bake away.  Here's a link to Isa's Sundried tomato frittata recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance.  I made the first of my two tofu dishes the night before and just popped it in the oven after work the next day to take warm to a gluten free birthday potluck.  

Frittata #1.
With shiitake mushrooms, tomato, rosemary, thyme, and spinach.

Frittata #2.

Again with shiitake mushrooms from last week's People's farmers market, asparagus, and dill. You can tell that this one was made with much firmer 'fu.

I brought this one to an Eat to Live themed dinner and felt like I should've had a little "VEGAN" or "TOFU" sign on it as I walked there, with it proudly in my hands.

And rounding out my weekend that included two more tea lattes from Sip, a perfectly creamy hemp and almond latte from Sweetpea.  Yes.

decisions.

On Wednesdays, I am faced with the "problem" of "deciding" between two farmers markets. As I've mentioned lately, I look forward to the Wednesday downtown market, quite close to my office, but there's also the year-long market outside of People's Coop that grows come springtime.

Yesterday, I had a smile on my face as I had a real reason to stop by both.  I stopped by the

 downtown market late on my lunch hour for bok choy raab, red anjour pears and braeburn apples, but I also wanted garlic, so off I went to the next market at the completion of my work day.  There was no garlic at the People's market so I picked up some organic, purple garlic and a few other items in the actual coop.  At the market itself, I picked up over a pound of local shiitake mushrooms for $5.  The mushroom farmers at this market always have, by far, the lowest price. Maiitakes next time!  I cooked some in a yellow curried vegetable, seitan and chickpea roast last night.  I'm considering what to do next with the rest for two potlucks this weekend.  OoOo.

A sampling of shiitakes

I sadly hadn't been to Sip in months, so I stopped by for a Matcha Hemp Tea Latte.  It was delightful and so pretty!  I could see this becoming a habit, but in a few weeks they'll be replacing the espresso machine with the milkshake equipment, so get one while you can!  Remind me to!

Recent home-cooking.

Quinoa, chickpeas, spinach, kalamata olives, smoky orange tempeh, garlic and a bit of nutritional yeast.

Baked Smoky Orange Tempeh

Stuff:

• Check out my first Veggie Thing contribution here, and feel free to like it if you do!
• Follow Get Sconed! on twitter.
  
• Portlanders - check out the Try Vegan PDX film benefit this Sunday night, "A Delicate Balance".
• Next post: NYC food porn insanity.  
• Isa's Vegan Brunch is out later this month! I'll be posting a round up of everything I've tested around then!  

Saturday Groceries.

Rainy day be damned, I went to the second Portland Farmers Market this past Saturday.  It had returned for the season (and by season, I mean until December!) to the PSU Park blocks and despite just missing bus there, finding myself using an umbrella for the first time in over a year and grumbling more than I'd like to admit, I arrived, and got to work smiling and creepily eyeing vegetables.  

Looks like Portland.

It's mostly greens this early in the season but there are a ton of local vendors including Tastebud Pita (which I would have gotten if the wheat berry salad mix didn't have leeks, bummer for me), Dave's Killer Bread and Black Sheep Bakery.  Besides buying produce for myself, I went with the intention of buying my siblings gifts of jam and whatnot for my trip to the East Coast in a few weeks and forgot  - sorry Jenny!  Last year I brought my sister some of the sensational Blossom Vinegars.

My mini haul:

 a bag of giant Red Anjoi Pears $4

kale raab $2.25

yellow onion 50 cents (for a recipe!)

Maittake mushrooms $5

Later in the day, I hadn't enough of the rain and grocery shopping and headed to Fubonn.

I picked up white rice, dark soy sauce, wasabi powder, organic Ota firm tofu, rice noodles, green tea and red bean mochi, avocado, carrot, cucumber, nori and a bamboo rolling mat.  

It suddenly felt like the weekend to make sushi, which I'd never done by myself before. That was slightly embarrassing to admit...

From Fubonn:

Cuteness!  and Glutey-free.

The amateur sushi.

With cucumber, avocado, fried tofu tossed with sesame chili oil (frozen after my last Fubonn trip) and leftover Tempeh Croutons from a delish Joanna recipe I'll feature next post.

cookies, portabella cheezesteak & snow

Cranberry White Chocolate Biscotti -

 a tester for Terry and Isa's upcoming Vegan Cookie Book - cookie testing is back!  I believe the book is due out in late 2009.

Karla and I volunteered this past weekend as waitresses at the most recent Apron Activists dinner at Sweetpea - Dinner for the Doggies.  We poured 400 glasses of water and brought plates to and fro tables - I had Vegan Addict at one of mine, how a-dor-a-ble!  We were lucky to take home a cookie doggie-bag each after the guests had departed with theirs.  We usually go on a date to these dinners, like we used to at the Red & Black benefits, but our wallets needed a break and we decided to help out as we could.

The cookies: including sparkled ginger, peanut butter, chewy chocolate chocolate walnut and another cranberry white chocolate biscotti.

Philly Portabella Cheezesteak - a test recipe for Urban Vegan's upcoming cookbook! 

Bear with me with for the poor photo, but last week I made another one of 

Isa's Swiss Chard Frittatas.  I had previously made it as a test recipe for Vegan Brunch last winter and posted it here.  I had chard, tofu and wanted to use my oven and there ya go.  I love how easy it is - keep an eye out for this book!

And Portland has snow! Real snow!  It's may not be snowball fight snow, but it has yet to be rained or slushed on, and for that I'm giddy.  Photo by Karla.

More test cookies on my next post!

NOVEMBER FARMER'S MARKET SCORE!

Saturday morning I hit up the Portland Downtown Farmer's Market for the first time in a while with my friend Michelle. I was restocking my empty kitchen and she was preparing for her vegan Thanksgiving Potluck, to which I brought my last post's pecan pie.  

I ridiculously cherish going to farmer's markets as it is, but I knew it was the end of November and had squash and potatoes in mind.  It has been a mild fall, and to our delight and wonder, we were able to a wider variety of produce than we expected - including bell peppers and eggplant. We spotted some cherry tomatoes but we're not crazy. 

My haul:

For under $14, I picked up:

- McIntosh apples: 50 cents a poud for my favorites!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- my first delicata squash of the season

- white eggplant

- golden beets, AKA the best beets besides the band

- 3 chanterelle mushrooms - couldn't resist

- 2 large bell peppers - 2 for $1

- kale $1.75

- fancy brine and oil cured olives - $3 for a small box

- broccoli $1.25/lb - sadly, I thought I checked thoroughly but I did have a long battle with my arch nemesis, broccoli bugs, when I got home.  warm water, white vinegar, repeat, repeat, repeat, cry, scream, repeat, check, check, check.

Michelle and I both got excited by these purple brussel sprouts.  We're both big studies of local vegetables and had never seen these before and were drawn in.  We looked at each other with astonishment and glee!

She almost bought a stalk, but then we learned that they turned green while cooking and we had cash to burn elsewhere...

Last stop - The All Mushrooms stand.  I couldn't resist buying those 3 chanterelles.

Lions Mane Mushrooms.  Purr.

Fried Chicken Mushrooms.

Onto some cookings.

Roasted broccoli and the last of my Vegan Brunch test kitchen chorizo.

Red Wine and Chanterelle Marinara

Baked Tofu Scramble with olives, bell pepper, garlic, spices and white mushrooms

After the farmer's market, Michelle and I stopped by Hot Lips for vegan foccacia slices.  

The slices had delicata squash, which was adorable and delicious.  I also had a bubbly Hot Lips apple soda.  

And thanks to Bianca of Vegan Crunk for the Butterfly award note!

Hello, long weekend.

Mushrooms from Monterey Bay.

I like mushrooms a whole lot.  

Roasties

I don't want to marry them, but they are one of my favorite vegetables.  However, growing up I hardly ever ate mushrooms.  My mom was incredibly allergic to them, so she rarely cooked them.  One of my earliest fond food memories is her stuffed mushrooms and using the food processor to make them, so clearly there was hope for the future.  

I didn't open up to them until I was studying abroad in the Netherlands.  Somehow trying mushrooms (I'm talking about the vegetable here..) joined all my other new experiences that semester.  I decided that I didn't hate them!  I remember eating them with pasta and thinking, well what do you know?  These don't suck.

When I returned to school in Boston and started trying to figure out cooking for myself while living on my own, cremini mushrooms made reoccurring appearances.  I became a fan of mushrooms + balsamic, mushrooms on pizza and in crusty sandwiches.

Every couple months I'd get sick of them and thinking about the texture being similar to eyeballs and take a break, but that hasn't happened in some time.

Last night I roasted some of the portabella and cremini mushrooms I bought at the Monterey Farmer's Market, as shown at the top of the post.  They were tossed with olive oil, red wine, sea salt, freshly ground pepper and chopped garlic.

Thanks to the commenter who told me about it, I wish I hadn't gotten lost on the way and made it before the technical close.  Regardless, I got mushrooms and little Japanese eggplants and looked longingly at the Lebanese food vendors that had already closed.  

Here are some of my favorite mushrooms meals from the past year or so:

Smokey Mushrooms with Tomato Rosemary Scone, Tofurkey breakfast sausage and spinach.  The mushrooms and the scone are from Isa's upcoming Brunch book!

These are a favorite that I make from time to time - they're my recipe for Hazelnut and Red Wine Mushrooms that was published in the online edition of Herbivore Magazine.

I've only ordered these once or twice but they're addictive - Salt, Pepper & Basil Mushrooms from Bay Leaf Vegetarian Restaurant in SE Portland.

And arguably my all time favorite way to enjoy shrooms - on pizza!

Happy MoFo Day 3!  Now I want pizza for lunch......