Brussel Sprouts Ruled my Week.

Exhibit A.

Roasted with Lime and Garlic.

Carrying home a locally grown, giant stalk of brussel sprouts from Uncle Paul's produce market last weekend was pretty damn joyous. In retrospect, I wish I had written a DW-style song about it. I had two strangers remark at the big, green stalk leaning on my shoulder on my walk home! They seemed impressed.

For $2.49, I had the centerpiece of my next few meals and a whole lot of roasted brussels in my future. Growing up, my family never ate brussel sprouts. I doubt I really knew what they looked like until I was in college. My family did have an appreciation for a variety of green vegetables, so I assume that my mom had been cursed with over boiled brussels when she was younger and banished them from her life.

My go-to way to cook brussel sprouts is to roast them with freshly squeezed citrus juice. I saw it on a cooking show a few years ago, tried it at home, and the method stuck.

The first way I rolled with my new sprouts was to roast them with lime juice, garlic, coarse sea salt, black pepper and a little bit of extra virgin olive oil.

I subsequently roasted more with lemon juice, crumbled Papa G's savory tofu, more garlic and cremini mushrooms.

Next up is a hodge podge meal that I like to think was more creative than desperate, but it goes both ways. I was obviously going to cook with brussel sprouts, but I wanted to do something different, and didn't have a lot to work with. And I was fiercely craving Pad Thai Kitchen, but wanted to continue on my home cooked meals streak.

Exhibit B.

Pad Thai Woon Sen with Brussel Sprouts and Seitan.

I loosely based the sauce on the recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance, sliced the brussels, used homemade seitan from The Urban Vegan cookbook and threw some crumbled peanuts on top. I was worried the brussels would overpower the dish's tangy flavor, but they didn't - and it hit the spot.

Homegrown Smoker Vegan BBQ, Last Thursday & Two More Days of Dittering

Last night I made the trek up to NE Alberta Street for Last Thursday mayhem. I was planning on going anyway to live it up dittering style, and then I found out about a new all vegan BBQ stand opening, Homegrown Smoker, and three vegan bake sales,

so I teleported there after work, an iced coffee break at Sweetpea Baking Co. and a stop at a new cocktail bar opening. Same ole Thursday routine.

Chronic Tempeh Ribs, Smoked Soy Curls, Mac and Cheeze, Molassesey cornbread, BBQ beans

Three of us split this, and I swear, it cost $8. My favorite part was the fantastic smoked soy curls. They're closed this weekend, but check them out for a real opening Wednesday or Thursday! The staff is adorable, and one of their dads does the BBQ-ing! Exclamation!

Spotted at Last Thursday:

The new roaming Voodoo Doughnuts van

The new Spud Locker topped potato cart - featuring a yam with vegan cinnamon roll topping! Must try sometime...

Some more Last Thursday photos

As I mentioned earlier, my friend Michelle Crocodile knows an owner of Petunia's Pastries who had their opening last night - many vegan treats!

My friend Michelle C, Strawberryrock and I shared this beautiful Chocolate Hazelnut frosted & filled cupcake. It tasted..beautiful.

I was worried a few months ago that I was allergic to hazelnuts when making test recipes for the Vegan Cookies book, since I couldn't breathe and my lip and eyes swelled and all, but forgot about this until just now, and phew, I was fine last night.

The initial reason we were heading to Last Thursday was for The Grilled Cheese Grill.

Michelle and I shared this grilled mozzerella soy cheeze with grilled jalapenos.

At the GCG, you can eat your sandwich in an old, decorated school bus. It's trippy.

Look at the table below. There's so much more to say, but you really need to check it out for yourself.

The obligatory Sweetpea stop. Since we're vegan.

Dittering lunch #4 - Eggplant with basil & tofu from Just Thai.

Going back in time, Dittering lunch stop #3,

a Tastebud Pita salad from the Portland Farmers Market.

I picked up apricots and sugar snap peas.

After work that day, I stopped by the Peoples Coop street fair. Not on twitter, but they're my neighbors and I heart them. There was a vegan (gosh!) salad (gosh!) stand.

For $1 from their farmers market, I picked up the cutest shiitakes I have ever seen.

Ever seen.

Anatomy of a Grocery Trip: Fubonn Supermarket & Brooklyn Pad Thai

It's been quite a while!  Somehow I've gone since September without an addition to the 

Get Sconed! Anatomy of a Grocery Trip series.  Blame the economy.  And living close to a New Seasons market.  

Yesterday I had tofu on the brain and took the bus to Fubonn Supermarket, just south of Division on 82nd Ave.

The goods:

I picked up fresh ginger, locally made fried tofu, fresh rice noodles, Mori Nu silken tofu, rice vinegar, agar agar and tamarind concentrate, which I haven't seen at Fubonn before and found on display for $1.69 or so!  I have some vegetables at home, so these were all fun, special purchases.  Once I grabbed the tofu and tamarind, I found myself walking to the fresh noodle section, and Pad Thai fell on the menu for dinner....

Brooklyn Pad Thai with thin rice noodles  

The recipe is from Vegan with a Vengeance.  This was my first time using tamarind concentrate ever - it's one of those products that I meant to buy and never had - and the taste was so close to Pad Thai Woon Sen at Pad Thai Kitchen!  I added broccoli and green bell pepper, and left out the red onions.  I used Sambal Olek as my chili component and the final product was fantastic.  Not to mention cooked in less than 15 minutes..

ho

Best Wishes to all during the end of December 2008!  I don't really celebrate anything myself, besides time off from work and the possibility of snow - and Portland had a White Christmas!!

According to the National Weather Service Forecast Office, this was an event - the probability of it happening was less than 0.08%.  End of the world, thanks!  It's now turned to rain and in the 40s again, but I was happy for real, inches of snow while it lasted and extra time away from work.  I really don't hate my job, I just prefer not being there.  Shocker.

Bittersweet chocolate and peanut butter tofu mousse

Food wise, I've been soaking beans, eating Thai, baking cookies and playing with my

new Vita-Mix.  Recently I learned that I could turn my homemade Roasted Garlic and Red Wine Marinara into tomato sauce silk.  I also took 3/4 of a block of silken tofu and blended it with chunks of bittersweet chocolate, almond milk, peanut butter, vanilla and a little bit of sugar to see if it would mousse it up, and it absolutely did.  No need to melt the chocolate beforehand! I let it set in the fridge for a couple hours and then enjoyed this vegan classic.

Chili sin Carne ala Mole - from Vegan with a Vengeance

Using soaked small red beans and black beans, I made this recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance.  I used the last of my locally made Cast Iron Seitan sample and added carrots and yellow bell pepper.  I've never had seitan in chili before and call me a fan.  

This was my Christmas eve dinner above - with a Full Sail Limited Edition Lager Recipe #1 and side of gluten free cornbread.  The only gluten free part of the meal was based on the Veganomicon recipe, using Bob's Red Mill gluten free baking mix for the flour.

Vegan Lunch Special Soup from Pad Thai Kitchen

On Christmas Eve, I ended up meeting a few friends for lunch at Pad Thai Kitchen on SE Belmont.  It's proven to be a reliably vegan friendly Thai restaurant.  

Vegan Pad Thai lunch special, with tofu and vegetables

Citrus Glitters 

From the Isa and Terry Vegan Cookie Book test kitchen - 

here's a slide show of what I've made so far.

Almond Soy Latte from Tiny's in SE Portland.

Snow Serpent from another time...

Quick trip to Seattle Foodz.

Please be prepared to wash your face upon viewing this post, it's a greasy one.  I have my new apricot facial scrub ready.

I gloriously admit that when I go to Seattle, I have Chinese food on my brain.  Portland has Vegetarian House and Bay Leaf, but neither fulfill my basic greasy Chinese take out habit that developed growing up on Long Island and going to college in Boston. In fact, going to P.F. Chang's while out of town on business usually hits that more!  Shhh.

Portland has an immense amount of Thai restaurants (Veganshizzle and I share the same favorite - Pad Thai Kitchen), yes, but they don't meet my liking for great chow mein or crispy gluten - that's what Seattle is for.  I've had the most reliably hit-the-spot meals at Bamboo Garden, but the fondest in my memory was a single meal at Teapot Vegetarian House over two years ago.  Last week, with dear visiting friend at my side, it was time to return.  

The meal then was actually a mixture of East Asian cuisines, as was my most recent one.

From Teapot Vegetarian House:

Veggie Dumplings - the first and best part of the meal.  Granted, we were super hungry and chomping down after a couple martinis and a long day...

Singapore Noodles with tofu - not the type of dish I typically order, but I was feeling adventurous.  It was tasty and curry noodle-icious, but the tofu was plain and simply cubed.

My friend ordered the Broccoli with Seitan - Classic Chinese style saucy broccoli and gluten (though not crispy, woe is us).  Saucy!

And I've heard so much about the cheezecake at Teapot and was bummed when they were out on my first visit.  This time around, they were out of the recommended chocolate cheezecake, but we grabbed a slice of mango to go.  I had a bite and found myself digging the texture but overall, it was beany and the sauce did nothing for me.  I never returned to it.

Mango Cheezecake

From Thai 65:

When we first arrived in Seattle, my friend I randomly hit up Thai 65 for quick downtown lunch before taking the historical Underground Tour.  We took a chance and the staff guaranteed that if I requested my food vegan, without fish sauce and oyster sauce, I wouldn't have a problem.

I ordered a noodle dish with tofu and vegetables - sadly forgetting which one - but it had a sweet brown soy sauce mentioned... slim on the tofu, but appetizing with noodles and fu.  No taste of fishy anything, thank goodness.

Noodles

And just when you thought this post couldn't contain anymore East Asian delectability - my visiting friend and I dined at the aforementioned Bay Leaf before she left town, back in Portland. We had the Mushroom Crisps and Sizzling Tofu.  

Sizzling Tofu

I missed cooking, but ate well.  Too well!

Making Tofu Yellow Curry!

Dinner.

I in no way have expertise in Thai cooking, but I’d like to think I’ve at least picked up a tip or two from focused reading of menus, meals out, cooking shows and cookbooks. I own red curry paste, and picked up my first yellow curry paste Saturday at the farmer’s market. I’ve searched Fubonn for vegan yellow paste previously, but had no luck. I believe all of Thai and True’s curry pastes are vegan, which is awesome. I could try to make my own, naturally (and no doubt will one day) but hey, it’s local!

The instructions on the back of the jar were simply to simmer a teaspoon of curry paste in one cup of coconut milk, add veggies and cooked protein, and heat until tender. Now, I knew there were some things I wanted to incorporate – namely fresh basil and potatoes. The next time I make a curry I want to try imitating the pineapple curry from Vege Thai. I can foresee pineapple really giving the curry a great flavor.

Enough rambling, here is what I did:

Vegan Yellow Curry with Fried Tofu

• 1 can of Trader Joe’s Organic Lite Coconut Milk
• 2 teaspoons of Thai and True yellow curry paste
• 2 peeled and cubed Yukon Gold potatoes - steamed 2 minutes in the microwave.
• 1 carrot, sliced
• 1.5 cups of sliced white mushrooms
• 2 tablespoons of frozen corn (really! trying to add a little sweetness here)
• 1 clove of minced garlic
• Pinch of minced ginger
• Pinch of white pepper
• Small handful of torn fresh basil (I used regular basil, but obviously Thai basil is preferable)
  
• 1 tablespoon tamari
• 1 teaspoon vegetarian mushroom oyster sauce
• 1 teaspoon Sambal Oelek – spicy! To taste.
• 1 block of firm tofu, drained, pressed and cubed

(Haphazard) Instructions.

1. First I pan fried the tofu in a mixture of canola and peanut oil.I did this in my large wok and it lasted 5-7 minutes, flipping on all sides.
2. I then removed the tofu from the pan and set aside to soak out some grease. Yum.
3. Next I lightly sautéed the potatoes, carrots, corn and mushrooms in some of the oil left in the pan (though not completely necessary) with that garlic and ginger for 2-3 minutes.
4. Add the can of coconut milk, curry paste and the everything but the basil.
5. Bring to a boil, then simmer, covered for at least 20 minutes – until the potatoes are just pierceable with a fork. I cooked this for 25-30 myself.
6. Stir in the fresh basil and adjust spices if necessary.
7. Serve with desired rice.

Plated with brown basmati rice

The verdict:

I enjoyed this, and was proud of myself for not only cooking something new - but something fairly easy and in a cuisine I don't tend to venture into. It's not as tasty as ones in restaurants, but I trusted my fish free dish!

Thomas seemed to enjoy it even more than I did, which was somewhat of a surprise because of the bit of spice, but his palate has been getting craftier due to his profession (barista) and growing appreciation for fancy salads. He even had the leftovers for dinner last night.

Served with a side of steamed chinese broccoli from the farmer's market:

Red Curry Seitan

First off, no zucchini blossom sighting at Saturday's farmer's market. I did pick up more morels, though. And now, a story & post about red curry...

Towards the end of my college days, I bought red curry paste, really overused it once when I first starting attempting to cook, and then gave it away. Ever since copying a recipe for Red Curry Glazed Tofu about a year ago, from Vegetarian Recipes for All Seasons, I've been meaning to try it again. When I noticed the local coop having a 1.99 sale on the small Thai Kitchen jars of curry paste, I picked one up, with another dish in mind. I saw Caprial and John make a red curry beef with coconut cream on their OPB show this past weekend, and knew I had to try it with seitan.

Since I made it from my notes during the cooking show, I don't have a real recipe to share, but I'll tell you what I did. First off, I used a can of coconut milk, instead of pure cream. I will admit, it was the talk of the "silky" cream that really caught my interest on the show, but I just couldn't do that (though I actually have coconut cream in my cupboard). You could also sub lite coconut milk. Obviously using seitan for the beef, I also threw in zucchini, carrots and red bell pepper.

Here's the chopped seitan, which is an asian variation on the ppk test kitchen seitan cutlets. I marinaded it overnight in a little bit of tamari and rice vinegar.


I tossed the chopped seitan and vegetables with oil & minced garlic, and roasted for about 20 minutes at 400F, tossing periodically. Roasting gave the seitan the texture on the skin I was aiming for, and cooked the vegetables just enough, since they'd soften in the curry itself. I left out the onions.


Apart from what I've mentioned, the curry itself also included chili paste, basil, mushroom "oyster" sauce, lime zest, juice and tamari.

Served with jasmine rice and garnished with basil. No thai basil here, I simply used what I had from the market.

I also baked up some seitan and veggie dumplings, and served them with a tamari-chili sauce.
..aka I knew my boyfriend was likely to pass on the curry and I wanted a project, and to use up the rest of the seitan that afternoon. Plus, it wasn't over 75F and I could use the oven that day!


Bonus, crap lighting shot of what I did with my first purchase of morels from the farmer's market. Sauteed in white wine, olive oil, garlic and sea salt with broccoli. Funny, I haphazardly stored them in my cabinet in their paper bag for a few days and they totally dried out and I had to rehydrate them.



Well that's it for now. I'm hoping to post again before I leave for Seattle/Bellevue for a mini work/vacation and then this weekend I'm out for a medical procedure. woo, Teapot Vegetarian House!

Vegan Brooklyn Pad Thai, Vege Thai dinner, Mushrooms and Tulips

Hell yea, I finally made (aka picked up the ingredients for) the Brooklyn Pad Thai in VWAV.

I used Trader Joe's new rice noodles (99 cents!), and left out the onion and lemongrass, which I didn't see a need to pick up, as I was already buying bean sprouts, rice noodles, chili sauce and peanut oil. I did not garnish with cilantro, as I hate it. I also julienned carrots but forgot to add them. Regardless of the changes, it was still fantastic! The noodles were a bit annoying to stir fry, but they made it through all saucy and gave me dinner and lunch. Even my 'I don't want to eat Thai food, specially pad thai' at home boyfriend said it looked and smelled like the real thing (he had already eaten).

I've only cooked with peanut oil a couple times before, and I'm really pleased I picked it up - cooking with it smells just like Vege Thai. Greasy goodness of a treat (addiction?) that Vege Thai is....

I really, really love Vege Thai, and the downtown Veggie Express food cart. In particular, the food cart has given me opportunities to try different menu items that I probably would not try at the restaurant. Above, though at the restaurant, is something I've ordered twice now, the pineapple curry with tofu, medium heat.
Thomas' favorite - Pad Sei-iew with mock pepper steak. This one is great as well, made with a dark soy sauce. I am constantly asking to his plate.
If you go, do remember to ask for the 'vegan' chicken if you are vegan, as they have both vegan and vegetarian chicken.
The other night I was just feeling mushrooms for dinner, and made this balsamic galzed (VWAV) cremini, cherry tomato, field greens, avocado, roasted garlic and vegenaise sandwich on a ciabatta roll from New Seasons. I used white balsamic vinegar for the shrooms, since that's all I have right now, but I intend to pick up some red soon. The white just isn't as deep a flavor to me.
This is a Veganomican test recipe that I made for the second time on Monday night -
Spicy tempeh with broccoli and whole wheat pasta.
I'm a big spicy, and tempeh, garlic and broccoli and whole wheat pasta fan, so yum.

One of my favorite things to make and eat - stuffed mushrooms. This was my first time marinading the caps beforehand. They were in a mixture of red wine, shoyu, garlic, white balsamic and olive oil for over 24 hours. A similar recipe of mine, Hazelnut and Red Wine mushrooms, is currently up on the Herbivore website in the subscriber section (so subscribe!).


A little pile of Italian-y foods. Baked and bread tofu, roasted eggplant and garlic, baby spinach, and sundried tomato marinara (variation of a Veganomican test recipe).
The eggplant slices were rubbed with garlic and baked for 10 minutes on each side at 400F, and the tofu was dipped in soymilk, and then seasoned breadcrumbs and baked for 15-20 minutes at 400F on each side on parchment paper.


On Saturday night Thomas and I dined for the first time at The Farm Cafe. It was a special, fancypants excursion for us, but absolutely worth it - dinner and cocktails to celebrate our 4th anniversary, blah blah!
We both highly recommend the herb crusted tofu with mashed potatoes and mushroom Marsala sauce, as does everyone else we know who's tried it. The dish was $10 and worth every penny, every bite - and it's a place that focuses on local/organic!
Thomas had the wild mushroom (vegetarian) lasagna special. Unfortunately, no photos of the meal, but here are some lovely tulips:

Somehow, Zelda has not managed to eat these yet.