Thursday, March 31, 2011

Spicy Jambalaya

With the pot pie and this jambalaya, I am back on the wagon with the PPK cookbook challenge #2. I know I'm way behind, but the recruiting weekends and my trip to Louisiana interrupted my cooking rhythm. Figured I could finish what I started - one recipe per book per week. I mixed up the weeks for American Vegan Kitchen and 500 Vegan Recipes, but at least I'm on track again. :)

This red jambalaya is from 500 Vegan Recipes. When I was looking over the recipe, I saw that it serves 8 and required 2 cups of rice. Last time I made a jambalaya (from Veganomicon, reviewed here), it also used 2 cups of rice and it made a casserole dish of food! I don't want to eat any dish more than 3 days in a row, so I decided to reduce this recipe. Instead of cutting everything in half, I made the rice in a separate pot from everything else. I followed the recipe for everything else, including using 2 tsp of cayenne, which makes the non-rice component of the dish very spicy! I think it would have been mellowed out by cooking the rice in the jambalaya, but oh well. I made the rice with Kitchen Basics vegetable stock (no added salt! - thanks, Jess, for the recommendation). Since the recipe did not include a protein source and I was making this for dinner, I added a box of cubed tofu and a can of red beans (drained and rinsed, of course).

What's interesting is that there is okra in the dish. Last time I cooked with okra (as shown here), I did not give the dish a very good review because the fresh okra was slimy, which really bothered me. This recipe called for frozen okra. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I liked the okra in the dish. I would incorporate okra into more dishes as long as it's frozen, so maybe that gumbo could get a second chance to impress me one day. I've read that you can wipe your knife after every cut when working with okra to reduce the slime, but that seems like a lot of work when frozen okra is already slime-free.


Photobucket

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Eating Tour

Since Jess just returned from Chicago, she told me about the Chicago Diner - an all vegan diner in the city! I'd love to do a vegan eating vacation, bouncing from place to place devouring vegan treats. Here's a list of what is on my radar currently:

Random locations
- Chicago Diner and Quesadilla, La Reyna del Sur in Chicago, IL
- Vegan Treats in Bethlehem, PA
- Ronald's Donuts in Las Vegas, NV
- Spiral Diner in Dallas, TX (apparently there's a veggie state fair too!)
- Like No Udder in New England
- Cake Walk Bakery in Salt Lake City, UT
- Rhapsody buffet in Montpelier, VT
- Blackbird Pizza and Mi Lah in Philadelphia, PA
- Double Wide Grill in Pittsburgh, PA
- Trolly Stop (vegan specials on Monday nights!) and Fuel Cafe in Memphis, TN
- Ice Cream House in Williamsburg, VA
- Freeman's Natural Hot Dogs (don't think this is entirely vegan) in Reno, NV

Florida
- Darbster in Lake Worth
- Raw Kitchen in West Palm Beach [visited!]
- Babycakes in Downtown Disney
- Ethos Vegan Kitchen and Cafe 118 in Orlando
- Consciousness Blossoms in Palm Harbor
- Tallahassee: Soul Vegetarian, Sweet Pea Cafe (not entirely vegan), Lofty Pursuits ice cream (not entirely vegan), Lucy & Leo's Cupcakery (not entirely vegan, but their vegan cupcakes are supposed to be delicious!)
- Return to Sublime in Ft. Lauderdale, Sugar Apple in Key West, The Cafe in Key West, Christopher's Kitchen in Palm Beach Gardens

Washington, DC
- Sticky Fingers Bakery
- Meskereme Ethiopian Restaurant
- Founding Farmers
- Ella's Pizza
- Busboys and Poets
- Asylum
- Sticky Rice (not totally vegan)
- Everlasting Life Cafe
- Soul Vegetarian's Exodus
- Elizabeth's Gone Raw

New York City
- Babycakes
- Candle 79
- Lula’s Sweet Apothecary
- Natural Gourmet Institute (four course dinners served on Fridays!)
- Blossom Du Jour
- The V-Spot (in Brooklyn)
- Angelica Kitchen
- Provisions (in Sag Harbor)
- Caravan of Dreams
- FoodSwings
- HanGawi
- Gobo
- Zen Palate
- Wild Ginger
- Counter
- 3 Brothers Pizzeria mentioned in this NYT list for Long Island

Boston
- Wheeler's Black Label Vegan Ice Cream
- Peace o' Pie vegan pizza
- Grasshopper (mixed reviews here though)

California
- Mendocino: Ravens' Restaurant
- San Francisco: Millenium, Dinosaurs
- Los Angeles: Pure Luck, Shojin, Real Food Daily, Native Foods Cafe, Veggie Grill, Madeline Bistro, Babycakes
- San Diego: Evolution Fast Food, Loving Hut, Olive Oil organic cafe, Peace Pies, Spread, Stephanie's bakery, Greenery raw food cafe, Viva Pops!, Veg.N.Out
- Berkeley: Cinnaholic, Vital Vittles, Pepples Donuts, Hella Vegan Eats, Souley Vegan, Shangri-La, No Worries, Black Orchid Bakery, Nature's Express, Cafe Gratitude, Herbivore, Fellini, Cha-Ya Vegetarian Japanese, Gather (not entirely vegan), Maoz Vegetarian

Oregon
- Portland: Native Bowl, Homegrown Smoker, Portobello Vegan Trattoria, Blossoming Lotus, Voodoo Doughnut, Vita Cafe, Paradox Cafe, Red & Black Cafe, DC Vegetarian, any of these late night eats, any restaurant listed on Try Vegan PDX
- Seattle: Hillside Quickie, Mighty O Donuts, Chaco Canyon Cafe

Mail order places
- Gone Pie bakery
- Baking for Health
- MaggieMudd

Lots of these are from the Vegan Bucket List. There are some vacation options on the bucket list, like cruises and hotels catering to vegans.

Monday, March 28, 2011

Pangea shipment & snacks

I recently placed an order with Pangea through their Amazon storefront. You can order directly through their website too. I ordered Butler soy curls, caramels produced by Pangea (tried one - delicious!), Nacho Mom's vegan queso (in both varieties - original and fire roasted), and Wizard's vegan Worcestershire sauce (yeah, bet you didn't know Worcestershire sauce contains anchovies!). I am looking forward to trying the soy curls and queso since both have great reviews on other vegan blogs.


Photobucket


Since I'm posting, I'll post this photo of some more gummy treats. I was at Nutrition World the other day for Solaray's iron/B12 supplement, since it was on the way to Waterway Cafe. I found some more Surf Sweets sour gummy candies (the regular gummies and jelly beans are *not* vegan). I also found a bag of Tasty gummy candies. I am not much of a candy eater, so it's going to take me forever to get through my little stash. Seriously, it took me over a year to eat two dark chocolate bars! I figure if I can find vegan treats, I'll buy them and store them until I finally eat them. :)


Photobucket

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Pot Pie Amazingness

Since I managed to have a day to myself after expecting to work all weekend, I decided to make a meal that was too time consuming for a normal weekday. I selected the Cajun pot pie in American Vegan Kitchen following the variation for a more traditional pot pie. I also used spinach since I couldn't find chard. This afternoon, I made the seitan lite cutlets (also in the book) and the dough for the crust. The cutlets take about 2 hours to cook, whereas the dough needs to rest in the fridge for an hour. I made the dough in my KitchenAid stand mixer since my food processor is small. This evening, I prepared the filling and the sauce. I cut 4 cutlets into cubes, then placed them on the bottom of my pie pan. I poured the filling over the seitan cubes, then placed the crust on top. The dough was damp and sticky, therefore I used a bit of flour (maybe 1/8 cup) when rolling it out. I served the pot pie with some Cajun red beans that I defrosted.


Photobucket


The author of American Vegan Kitchen runs a blog called Vegan Appetite.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Lentil & Tomato Dhal with Aloo Saag

I was flipping through my copy of 175 Hot & Spicy Vegetarian Recipes and saw some very tasty looking Indian dishes. I selected a red lentil and tomato dhal as the main dish and aloo saag (potatoes & spinach) as the side dish. That's a complete meal - lentils for protein; tomatoes, onions, and spinach for veggies; and potatoes for carbs. I added some cayenne pepper to the leftovers today to spice it up!


Photobucket

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Thai Green Curry

Tonight, I whipped up a super simple Thai green curry inspired by this NYT recipe. I did not measure the vegetables, instead just throwing the whole vegetable into the pot. I also doubled the sauce recipe and added cubed tofu for protein. I served this over jasmine rice, as suggested. I finally figured out why my jasmine rice has been so nasty in the past when I used my rice cooker. The water to rice ratio was off. It should be ~1.5 cups of water for every 1 cup of rice. Whoops.


Photobucket


I like the look of centered photos, but (for whatever reason) have never thought to add the extra HTML code. It only takes two seconds, so that has changed! :)

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

La Bamba - Jupiter, FL

On Sunday, I had lunch at one of my favorite places - La Bamba! I always order the vegetable fajitas. In fact, I've never ordered anything else! I order a side of yellow rice so I can layer rice, veggies, lettuce, and guacamole in the warm tortillas. I discovered this place driving around one night looking for a place to eat, and everyone I've told about it just loves it as well. Score one for veggie fajitas for MeatOut 2011!


Photobucket


Also, there are some contests going on that I'd like to participate in, so I'm posting links here as entries. The first contest is hosted by Bianca of Vegan Crunk where the prize is a copy of Speed Vegan. The second contest is hosted by Matthew of Vegan Heartland where the prizes range from coupons to free goodies. I about jumped for joy when I saw his comment that So Delicious will be releasing a vegan Greek yogurt. I see that in recipes all the time, but I always dread the possibility of draining plain unsweetened Wildwood to get a thicker consistency like Greek yogurt. Personally, I want to win the Wayfare coupon for a free item or the original Parma flavor. We'll see if I win anything! :)

Monday, March 21, 2011

Indian Inspiration

After enjoying Indian flavors for dinner on Saturday, I was in the mood for similar flavors tonight. I've been craving quinoa since a friend posted about it, so I decided to make a samosa quinoa bowl. This was definitely delicious, although I will add more cayenne tomorrow when I eat the leftovers. I took a shortcut and cooked my potato in my microwave, but I'm sure this would have been great with roasted potatoes. I used 1/2 cup peas, added ~2 Tbs chopped garlic, and added some grated fresh ginger.


Photobucket

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Spring is here!

With St. Patrick's Day last week, I really wanted to make something that had green ingredients in it. I have seen lots of desserts with green, but I wanted a meal. I surprisingly finally found vegan English muffins at the grocery store. The generic Publix brand are vegan! I snagged a couple containers and made my way over to produce, knowing immediately that I wanted some type of pizza on these English muffins. I decided to layer tomato sauce, spinach, and basil tofu ricotta from VwaV. I added Italian seasoning, onion powder, and garlic powder to the tomato sauce. I know this looks funny, but it was so delicious and unbelievably healthier than dairy-laden pizza.


Photobucket


On Saturday, I went to see a spring training game between the Florida Marlins and the St. Louis Cardinals. Both teams use Roger Dean Stadium for spring training. The game was okay (baseball isn't really my thing), but I enjoyed the company of Cristin, Jess, Julie, and Alicia. I had on sunscreen so I fortunately did not get a sunburn. The game did make me extremely tired, so I didn't make it to my friend's defense celebrations in the evening.


Photobucket


Being extremely tired, I did not feel up to cooking so I hit up the Whole Foods hot bar. They had seitan fajitas with Daiya cheese on top, which looked dry, and no appropriate sides for fajitas, other than baked plantains. I chose Indian food instead, filling my container with a layer of basmati rice and various dishes. From the top left going clockwise, it's baingan aloo (eggplant and potatoes), spinach saag (creamed spinach), Madras curry vegetables, and channa masala (curried chickpeas). If I could live on two foods for the rest of my life, it would be tofu and chickpeas.


Photobucket

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Happy Belated Pi Day!

So I know I missed Pi Day yesterday, but I totally forgot to go to my appointment on PGA near Whole Foods. I knew that if I was on PGA, I would stop and get this little "pi" that I had my eye on for the last several visits. I was able to reschedule for today without any penalty fees (since the doctor didn't show up for a previous appointment when I did show up). We'll get to the sweet treat in a few lines. :)

Tonight's dinner was slightly less lazy tacos. I sauteed some chickpeas with sweet peppers and taco seasoning. I stuffed that into store-bought taco shells and added romaine lettuce. Of course, I have to serve tacos with fat-free refried beans. The little brown circle on the bottom left is dessert.


Photobucket


It's a smores original by Sweet & Sara!! It tastes like a smores meets a moon pie!! Yummy!! Look at this thing - it was delicious!!


Photobucket

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Lots of Goodies

Tonight, I decided to find an excuse to use my new bottle of Parma Chipotle Cayenne. I made whole wheat penne pasta and topped it with a tomato and basil sauce with sauteed tofu cubes. I sprinkled the Parma on top.


Photobucket


When I was in the BR Whole Foods, I immediately recognized the Parma bottle and had to buy one.


Photobucket


Speaking of goodies from the BR Whole Foods, here are some other tasty items I couldn't resist.


Vegan gummy candies made exclusively for Whole Foods
Photobucket

Chocolate and gummy candies
top row: Lake Champlain dark chocolate with almond squares, Bissinger dark chocolate bunny ears
bottom row: Annie's organic bunny fruit snacks
Photobucket

Dark chocolate with mint crisps made exclusively for Whole Foods
Photobucket

Monday, March 14, 2011

Another Busy Weekend

This weekend was the second recruitment weekend for my program. Only 6 prospective students were visiting, so it was much easier to keep track of everyone this time. :) Here's a quick recap:

- Thursday: Dinner at Yard House. Last time, I ordered the crispy orange Gardein chick'n, so I decided to get the chick'n veggie rice bowl this time. My recruit was very talkative and friendly, so I had a great time talking with him.
- Friday: Interviews and Night Out. The prospective students have interviews all day, followed by a mixer. The mixer had a taco bar this time, which was suprisingly good. We took them to Crab House after a short break at the hotel. I don't know why we served two dinners essentially, but at least we didn't under-feed them like last time! After Crab House, we walked over to Square Grouper. It was a fun time with the most of the recruits going home after closing. Some hosts decided to keep partying and they went to Jumby Bay and NY Bar & Grill.
- Saturday: Boating and West Palm Beach. We chartered a deep sea fishing boat again, but through a different company this time. We got really lucky to see a leatherback turtle! (Click here for info on leatherback turtles.) Students were able to catch several different species of fish, so they were happy and generally not seasick. For dinner, we went to BB King's again. However, since we had a smaller group to manage, we decided to check out other bars in City Place. We went from BB King's to Wet Willie's (a daiquiri bar) and to Blue Martini. I left after that, because a recruit was tired and I was tired of watching a new transfer student bat her eyes at my ex and try to flirt with him. (She was grabbing at his shirt on Friday night too, with him pushing her hand away periodically.) Apparently, the rest stayed out dancing a bit and then returned to the hotel in two groups, with one group going swimming and into the hot tub. There is a possibility some hosts passed out at the hotel...


Photobucket
Photo Credit: ScienceBlogs.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Thai Grand Palace - Jupiter, FL

I love Thai Grand Palace in Jupiter. I *always* order the panang curry with tofu. Here are some leftovers with added peanuts. I had this earlier in the week, but had totally forgotten that I photographed it. :)


Photobucket

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Mellow Mushroom

I've been to Mellow Mushroom before and ordered the mega veggie pizza (no cheese, no feta, add Daiya). However, when I was in BR, I ordered the tofu hoagie. They didn't dress it completely so I didn't photograph it. Mellow Mushroom recently opened a store in my hometown so I went there yesterday for lunch. Here's the delicious tofu hoagie in all its glory - teriyaki grilled tofu, grilled mushrooms, grilled onions, grilled peppers, Daiya, and sprouts. I asked for no mayo, no Provolone, and no tomatoes.


Photobucket

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Lagniappe

Lagniappe is a Cajun word for “a little extra.” For lunch yesterday, I really wanted to get a Southern Chicago style tofu dog from Frankie’s. It was pouring down rain, but I made the drive across town anyways. Turns out they were closed for the holiday! There are a ton of other places around Frankie’s, such as Chelsea’s (great live music here), Pinetta’s European (small place, but good food), Zippy’s Mexican, Schlittz & Giggles (great pizza, had some at downtown location), Rock-n-sake, Parrain’s Seafood, and Jimmy John’s. There’s also Juban’s and Acme Oyster House on Perkins that were a few minutes away. However, I decided that I’d go to another place I really wanted to eat while in BR – Rotolo’s, a pizza place right outside TigerLand that I loved for $5 calzones on Wednesdays. Turns out they were closed until dinnertime in observation of the holiday. I tried to look up the menus to Plucker’s and Brew-Bacher’s Grill on my iPhone, hoping to find a veggie burger but neither place offers that. I settled on Plucker’s because it was closer and the rain was still coming down heavily. I ordered a salad and requested to not have the chicken or honey barbeque sauce put on the salad. I ended up pushing the fried onion straws to the side of my plate. My friend ordered a half order of fried pickles for appetizers, so I tried them. I love fried pickles, but these weren’t the best I’ve had.


Photobucket


Since Rotolo’s opened in the evening, I went there for dinner. I ordered a small pasta salad, which had shallots, sun-dried tomatoes, and olives. I requested just balsamic dressing instead of the balsamic/ranch combination normally served with the dish. I was torn between calzones to order, but settled finally on the Sicilian without cheese. The Sicilian has artichoke hearts, sundried tomatoes, garlic, and an olive oil based sauce. I always used to order the four cheese calzone with peppers and pineapple, but I’d explode if I ate that much cheese now.


Photobucket

Photobucket


Some other places to eat that I saw while driving around include Thai Kitchen, Red Zeppelin Pizza, Albasha Mediterranean, Zoes Kitchen, and The Bulldog (more of a bar, but whatever). Another great place to eat is Copeland’s – their potato soup and cheesecake are amazing. I used to always order that soup, a salad with cheese toast points, and cheesecake. When I was in NOLA, we didn’t get dinner, but I was hoping to go to Bennachin, an African restaurant. Next time, perhaps!

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Happy Mardi Gras!

Laissez les bon temps rouler! This giant cookie is from Truly Free Bakery and I can't wait to eat it later today.


Photobucket


Yesterday, I went to Izzo's Illegal Burritos for lunch with some friends. I got a vegetarian burrito with rice, black beans, grilled onions and mushrooms, lettuce, corn salsa, and guacamole. The tortilla was chipotle cayenne! I got a regular size burrito, but they have two larger sizes. The Illegal size is insanely big, enough to feed two to three people maybe!


Photobucket


Then, I went to LSU to see Mike the Tiger. This is Mike V, a mix of Siberian and Bengal tiger. He was born at a sanctuary that is not supposed to breed tigers, but apparently a male tiger ripped through a fence to get to a female tiger. LSU "donated" money to the sanctuary to receive the tiger, since it's illegal to buy a tiger in Louisiana. LSU used to keep the tiger in a really tiny cage, but a $1M habitat with heated turf was built when LSU almost got sued by some animal rights group. In addition to heated turf, there's a pool and waterfall, some toys, and logs to scratch.


Photobucket

Photobucket


I heard the Northgate has been developed a lot, so I walked around there in the afternoon. Northgate is home to The Chimes, Roul's deli, Northgate tavern, Louie's, Cane's, and Reginelli's pizzeria. However, the Northgate is now home to all those shops, as well as Buffalo Wild Wings, Menchie's fro-yo, Koi sushi, Storyville, Akasha Express, Pita Pit, and a few other new shops! It's nice to see BR developing.


Photobucket


After returning to my friend's house, I had a strawberry cupcake filled with cream cheese from Truly Free Bakery and a Zevia diet coke. The soda was terrible. It tastes really chemical-y, like what I imagine bug killer tasting like. It has a weird after-taste. However, the cupcake was delicious so I was still very happy. :)


Photobucket


After stuffing myself with so much food on this trip, I decided to grab a sandwich at Inga's for dinner last night. I ordered the veggie burger, but then I noticed it looked like Subway's veggie patty on the sandwich. I'm pretty sure that patty contains eggs, so it's not vegan. I was already half-way done so I just finished the sub. Inga's offers lots of Zapp's flavors, so I picked Spicy Cajun Crawtaters for my chips.


Photobucket


I returned to good ol' Truly Free Bakery for breakfast today. Ordered the tofu scramble again and bought these little cinnamon rolls to go with it. The rolls were soft, gooey, and cinnamon-y. They really hit the spot. :)


Photobucket

Monday, March 7, 2011

"Throw me something, mister!"

Yesterday, I went to Truly Free Bakery with high hopes of getting the waffles I had seen listed on the breakfast menu. Turns out they are closed on Sundays, so I tried going to Perks Coffee & Tea for a bagel. I just put "bagel place" into Google Maps and picked Perks since it's in a part of town I never really went to. Well, they had a big notice on the door and were not open. I saw a breakfast and lunch place on the way, so I turned around to go back to Zeeland Street Market, only to discover they were closed too. I drove to the nearest CC's coffee on Perkins and got oatmeal, which was terrible because it had too much water. I dumped out a bunch of the water in their bushes out front, spilling hot water on my jeans, which led to lots of cursing. Anyways, after a terrible breakfast, I made sure to get a damn good lunch! A friend had told me about Frankie's Dawg House because they serve tofu dogs. The shop was super cute with great outdoor seating. They have a ton of dressing combinations, but you're free to make your own dressing with the available ingredients. In addition to tofu dogs, they have alligator and duck too, if you're into things like that. I ordered two tofu dogs, one dressed Greek-style (hummus, artichoke hearts, olives, and red bell pepper) and one dressed with simple grilled onions and peppers. I would have switched regular black olives for Kalamata if they had them on the Greek dog and added banana peppers to the other dog if I had thought about my topping choices harder. The dogs were sooo good and the side of fries was a giant basket! The service was great, because the employees came outside to my table to ask if I was enjoying the food. Apparently, they sell a lot of their tofu dogs! (FYI: They use LightLife Jumbo dogs.)


Photobucket


Due to yesterday's rains, Endymion was moved from Saturday to Sunday, meaning Endymion would roll after Bacchus. We stayed in BR on Saturday night and took it easy. Sunday, I drove us down to the Crescent City and successfully managed to navigate the city and find parking without having an anxiety attack. We went to hang out in the Ritz Carlton, where a friend is staying, after watching the daytime parade on Canal St. We ventured out to Bourbon St. to hit up my favorite bar, the Bourbon Street Blues Company. I absolutely love it there. I just missed two of my friends, so I was pretty bummed because I haven't seen them yet on this trip. We partied and danced, then walked down the street to get snacks and people watch.


Best Bar on Bourbon
Photobucket

Captain Morgan promotion team
Photobucket

Ritz Carlton courtyard
Photobucket

In case you don't want to show your real boobs, buy these.
Photobucket

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Living It Up in Louisiana

Last night, I went to Brightside Bar & Grill, which was my favorite bar when I lived in Baton Rouge. A few of my friends showed up, including Scott. I finally was able to return his extra set of keys for his Snap-On tool box. He was shocked that I still had them.

This morning, I went for a 3.8 mile run down the new sidewalks! Way to go, BR, for finally putting a sidewalk all the way down Brightside. After taking a shower, I went back to Truly Free Bakery for breakfast. This morning, I bought tofu scramble (tofu, red and green peppers, red onion, tomato, potato). I wanted the tofu scramble tacos, but the homemade tortillas were all gone when I showed up. I added Daiya cheese and avocado to the tofu scramble. When I got home, I had a soy yogurt and a banana.


Photobucket


I bought some little gluten-free vegan doughnuts to enjoy later in the day. These were essentially my lunch with a Gala apple. They were so freakin' good. I can't believe ALL of the baked goods are gluten-free AND vegan. They were moist, the frostings were delicious, and they didn't have any weird after-taste (which I kinda expected from gluten-free).


Photobucket


On my way home from breakfast, I saw this float parked in someone's yard. It must be from last night's SouthDowns parade.


Photobucket


For dinner, we went to Whole Foods on Corporate Blvd. I bought tofu mataar, channa masala, rice, and madras potatoes from the hot bar, then a cup of vegan chocolate pudding and a Lake Champlain dark chocolate square with almonds.


Photobucket

Friday, March 4, 2011

Truly Free Bakery - Baton Rouge, LA

I arrived this morning in Baton Rouge! Hooray! I made a list of vegan friendly places in all of the cities I'd be visiting. Today, I went to Truly Free Bakery for lunch. Besides the meats on the menu, almost everything is vegan. EVEN THE BAKED GOODS! Nom nom nom. They have tofu and tempeh too! They don't carry big name sodas, but instead offer Oogave (agave sweetened soda) and Zevia (stevia sweetened soda) for diet choices.


Quinoa bowl with tofu and homemade teriyaki sauce
Photobucket

Chili with chickpeas, black beans, and veggies
Photobucket

Whoopie pie!
Photobucket

Strawberry jam-filled eclair
Photobucket


I have a feeling I will be spending a good portion of my food budget on Truly Free items while I'm in Baton Rouge. The place opened almost two years ago, which means they opened just after I left. Darn!

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Let them eat cake! Hello Kitty cake!

Today is my roomie's birthday, so last night we celebrated. We had originally planned to go Vietnamese Express Cafe, but decided instead on Yu-Mi. There were 4 people in our party, which is a large party for a place as small as Yu-Mi. After waiting 1.5 hours, we finally gave up hope that we'd get a table and walked over to Ale House. At Ale House, our server gave my roomie a decadent piece of ice cream cake. Makes up for the crazy wait for a table we never got at Yu-Mi. After that, we returned to our apartment for Hello Kitty cake and gift exchange. For the cake, we used a chocolate cake recipe, adding in some Sunspire semi-sweet chocolate chips. Unfortunately, the cake was darkening on the edge but didn't cook completely in the center. I told my roomie to turn the oven heat down and keep baking it, but she was afraid it would burn. The frosting was veganized from the buttercream recipe provided with the pan, which is similar to this recipe. The ear piece that I ate was delicious. :)


Photobucket


In other news, I got a new camera! It is a Canon Powershot SD1300 IS. Cristin has the same camera and highly recommended it. Let's hope that I don't lose this one!


Photobucket


To see how awesome the photos will be with 12.1 megapixels, I snapped a photo of my burrito at Moe's tonight. This is a Homewrecker burrito with a wheat tortilla, rice, black beans, double tofu portion, guacamole, corn salsa, and lettuce. Nom nom nom. Devoured this... And all the chips and side of guacamole...


Photobucket


Alright, I'm on vacation! Mardi Gras weekend, here I come! :)