Mid-Week Goodies

Already I'm breaking my promise to continue talking about Boston.  I just wanted to gush over the few goodies I brought home from NYC and the return of the weekday downtown farmer's market in Portland.  You're reading a food blog, so I'm sure if you have access to a local farmers market, you go.  It's the best place to shop for produce, period.  In Portland, I usually go to two markets week. They're a big part of my life and a highlight of my week.  Shopping locally with a huge variety of local produce is a thrill, really.

The goodies from NYC.  

Price Chopper chips are vegan and taste like sweet nibs of Earth Balance!

In both cities I met up with friends from the Post Punk Kitchen, some of whom I've known for years!  Lisa from Panda with Cookie and Bazu of Where's the Revolution gave me butterscotch chips and a precious vegan Peppermint Ritter Sport!  I heart those girls so much.  I went to a PPK dinner in Boston at Grasshopper and a potluck and Arrested Development viewing in Brooklyn, which also included Sarchan of Emo Potato, Debya of Vegan Drinks and Paula of Semicircular Vegan.  All this makes me smile to think about.  I had such fantastic times with everyone.

Potluck plate - followed by Paula's incredible rugelach, my favorite cookie, and the best homemade vegan ice cream flavor ever - Lisa's Chick o Stick!

And from the weekday downtown farmers market in Portland:

Sweet choi, red anjou pears and asparagus

I can't find anything online right now about sweet choi, but the farmer told me to use it in a soup or stir fry.

Local asparagus season!!!!!

Grilling some asparagus and herbed homemade seitan on the stove:

Fine, I dislike chives, but they're so pretty!

Downtown.  Walking distance from my office, holla.

Back from Boston: Being Fancy & Raw at Grezzo

I've been trying to write this happy post the past three days I've been back from vacation. Already, I've hit up a new vegan-friendly food cart (Just Thai - the return of the I Love Thai Food cart owners) and this afternoon I stopped by the first Wednesday downtown farmers market for sweet choi, asparagus and red anjou pears.

There's simply too damn much I want to talk about, so where the hell do I start?  I'm going to take the lead from The Urban Housewife and break things up like she does on her grand travel posts.  

Let's begin with the first part of my trip in Boston, MA where I went to college.  The city was vegetarian friendly, for sure, when I lived there, and has gotten vegan-friendlier since the nearly five years I've been gone.  This includes vegan ice cream, the transition of the pizza shop next to Grasshopper that introduced a small vegan menu into the all-vegan TJ Scallywagles, my old favorite Buddha's Delight which is now My Thai Vegan Cafe, the classic Veggie Planet(I swear their oven wasn't working every third time I went there and I'd order 'pizza' over rice), and the all-raw, upscale Grezzo in the North End.

I stopped by the raw restaurant for lunch with my friend Emily, who I studied abroad with in the Netherlands back in 2002.  While neither lunch or dinner menu entirely terrified me with its prices, I wisely decided on lunch to save some cash.  

Cemented in front of the entrance:

Creamy, nutty gnocchi with fresh peas, pea shoots and fabulous eggplant bacon.

Sliders and Cassava chips

Emily and her virgin Bloody Mary

The dining room

Exterior

Around the corner from an Italian bakery - aw, North End.

And desserts!

Brownie Sundae

Cheezecake with Lavender infused Agave and Chocolate Ice Cream

The waitress/chef (she was in a chef's uniform) told me this would be the best cheezecake I would ever taste.  I have to admit, for a raw cheezecake, it's definitely the best, and quite likely the creamiest I've had in years.  

A full review will be coming on Stumptown Vegans.  I would definitely return and try more items.

Feeling fancy....

Going to Grezzo makes me yearn for a fancier vegan restaurant in Portland.  I take the vegan culinary arts seriously, and get excited when anything from a smoothie stand to a sushi restaurant to a fancy restaurant purposely offer vegan options.  When you're not reliant on animal products, you learn to taste the flavors in actual, fresh vegetables!  You can do fancy things with vegetables and tofu, whoa.  Despite the controversy over the formerly all vegan Nutshell that closed last year in Portland, I was a fan and was proud the level of esteem it achieved as a restaurant (formerly) solely serving vegan food.  I'm proud to see the new Portobello class things up with their vegan trattoria, and I am confident that Portland will have additional restaurants to pair with the likes of Candle 79,Vegiterranean and Millenium. 

Coming next - More Boston grub, sights and the tackling of NYC.

JD in NYC

I have a few days left to go on my much-fucking-needed vacation, and have made my way to NYC to spend time with dear, old friends and in the company of both of my younger siblings. There's too much to tell and no time to spare, but let me at least share this potato knish from Yonah Schimmel. I've been fulfilling my home-state cravings of falafel, bagels and Chinese food, as well. Of course.

Potato Knish and Cream Soda

LIVE from Boston.

Greetings from Boston, MA! The city I matured in, or thought I did. At least went to college in. It's been a while, and it's always grand to return, even if I keep calling the "T" the "max". Lame! I've been back three days now and later today I'm meeting a friend at Grezzo for lunch and we're stoked. I've strolled through the Public Garden, seen obnoxious buildings Emerson has built and seen the Back Bay buildings I loved living and learning in become condos. After a big morning of wandering and shopping (so sue me, I missed H&M), my friend Maria and I stopped at the always-hip Otherside Cafe for lunch, just like we used to, a billion years ago. Their menu has expanded on the vegan options, and it fondly reminded me of many places in PDX.

The Public Garden. aka my front yard during most of my college years.

With Mass Ave and Boylston behind me.

A classic Tempeh Lettuce Tomato at the Otherside Cafe.

Oh, and I went to Grasshopper last night and will be returning tomorrow evening...

VACATION

Maybe you'll hear from me, maybe not - I'm off to Boston and NYC till the end of the month. Ciao!!

I'll miss you Zelda, and Huxley, and Portland....

Edited by Tiffany.

Chicken Seitan Parmigiana with Roasted Broccoli

The week before I made this meal, I had been busy after work and missed dining at home. Not just cooking, but the practice of changing out of my officey clothes, feeding my two cats and winding down in the kitchen. Weekend hit and it was time to lose myself in my kitchen for a couple hours, while entertaining side projects like cleaning and petting cats while things simmered and roasted.  

I recall channeling my Italian parents and after successfully making boiled seitan (which is actually simmered) for the first time in years and thinking about the mozzerella teese in the fridge, I set out to make Chicken Seitan Parmigiana.  In the same afternoon, of course.

Mangia!

The boiled seitan was made with vegetarian chicken style bouillon cubes and based on the recipe from Veganomicon.  I used fresh thyme, rosemary, dried bay leaf, extra pepper, garlic and nutritional yeast.  After it was done simmering I put aside some in the broth, froze a tray of broth ice cubes and cut off a section for the parmagiana cutlets.  

Here they are, freshly...pan-fried in extra virgin olive oil:

I can't say that I'm a fan of kneading bread dough, but I don't really mind seitan.  It's more forgiving, for sure.  Savoury productivity.

After simmering:

The breading station:

The fundamentals of vegan Italian breading go as follows - dip in flour, dip in a water or soymilk cornstarch slurry, dip in pulverized breadcrumb mixture.  

My third mixture was of homemade breadcrumbs, various herbs, black pepper, sea salt and nutritional yeast.  Doing this takes me back to making real animal cutlets and dipping them in egg and flour as a little one....and I say that fondly.

Ready to pan-fry:

Pan-friend, and served with homemade red marinara over multigrain and flax penne, roasted broccoli with olive oil, garlic and sea salt and mozzerella teese, ready for melting.  Using teese really made the meal memorable was was the best faux cheeze I've tried for the job.

Melted, sliced and shortly, devoured.

Truly no need for dessert following this.

Three Updates! One Local, One Travel & One Ridiculously Internet Based

Portland area folks with an interest in vegan gluten free baking - you're in luck!  

• My friend Chelsea of Flavor Vegan is teaching a Gluten Free Baking Class on Thursday April 16th at 7pm at the Sunnyside Church in SE.  It is being presented by Try Vegan PDX and more details are available here.  She's a passionate vegan chef and if I was in town, I'd be there!  There is certainly an art to gluten free baking and she knows her flours.  Please sign up in advance.

• I will, however, be on my vacation to Boston and New York City till the end of the month to see family and friends.  

My scheduled stops for Boston includes Grasshopper (duh), Grezzo, Bagel Rising and a bunch of places I'm forgetting.

As for NYC, I'm stopping by Babycakes, Vegetarian Dim Sum House, Stogo, Lulu's and hopefully Counter...and a million places more.  Shoot suggestions my way!

• My ridiculously internet based update is of course, twitter.  I've had a personal account since the summer and recently made a get sconed! that you can add here if you like.  It is updated with new posts, dining finds and randomness related to my vegan life in Portland.
  

And in recent dinner updates, last night I grilled homemade seitan in BBQ sauce and served it noochy roasted potatoes and sorta coconut rice.   Go grill pan!

Review and Indian Dinner: WK Pacs

Chola Curry, Peas & Potato Sabji, Coconut Rice

When I crave Indian food, I usually go to a cheap food cart downtown.  I'm talking SW 12th and Yamhill.  There's a lot of murmur recently about the new management of the original India Chaat and the curiously opened Bombay Chaat House next door, which an old owner opened - but I'll save that for another time.

Indian food hasn't made it into my regular cooking repertoire.  I've made curry and samosas at home before but it's a special occasion thing when I do.  When the folks at Waverly Kitchens offered to send me some Indian meal spice packets that promised quick, authentic meals with the addition of a few fresh ingredients, I was intrigued and made two of the three packets they sent on Friday night - the Curry and Sabji you see above.  The coconut rice is based on the recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance.  I also received a packet for Pineapple Raita to make with soy yogurt.

TIME TIME TIME

When it comes to dinner time, I don't mind putting in an hour's worth of work into most meals, it helps me relax and focus on my own life after a day at the office, ha!   While I rarely find myself eating packaged dinners other than the few times a year I pick up Trader Joe's craptastic Soy Nuggets, I don't mind the notion of using pre-mixed quality spices in my own cooking, which this basically was.  I buy cajun and chili spices in bulk.  The WK pacs don't contain scary preservatives - what they do have is authentic spices, simple instructions and a shopping list on one side of the packet with the few vegetables you need for dinner for two.  

For example - for the Sabji I needed a bag of frozen peas, two potatoes, lemon juice and cilantro. Yeah, I skipped the cilantro because I'm a hater.  I can handle it very well mingled into salsa and Indian food, but I gleefully left it out here since it just garnishes the dish.  On Friday night I started the coconut rice in my rice cooker, dropped the first set of spices in canola oil for the curry, and within 30 minutes, all three dishes were done. 

There are two sets of spices in the one packet for each meal that I made - the top half has the spices that cook first:

After a couple minutes, you move onto the next step.  Easy.  Add garlic (and onion or onion powder) for the Curry:

White garlic from the farmer's market

A can of chickpeas and spices from the bottom of the the packet-

.....and you've got nothing left to do but simmer.  The Sabji didn't require any sauteing, just two diced, peeled potatoes and frozen peas that I've had in my freezer waiting for a day to shine. The final products were impressively flavorful for meals not only made quickly, but a type of cuisine I enjoy but don't bother to cook at home.  Two thumbs up!  I have to give the packets street cred for not ripping, or at least canvas bag cred, because I carried them around with me for a few days so I wouldn't forget to make them.  

I was curious which type of oil to use and opted for canola, and my only criticism is that I wish I had two paks of the curry, in particular!

They have starter kits available on their website here and they are all vegetarian, and can be made vegan with nondairy substitutions.  Definitely keep an eye out for these, I was really happy with my dinner.  

I Love Joanna Caeser Salad with Tempeh Croutons

Joanna's Caeser Salad with Tempeh Croutons

You don't see a lot of salads on this site, but I do eat them.  You know how it is - they've been a way of life since I was ten and ordering salads at chains with a side of ranch dressing and thinking croutons were great stuff while my sister ordered chicken strips.  

Come late spring and summer, when I shop exclusively for produce at the farmers markets, I find myself making a lot of simple and boring ones at home.  Sorry, it's true.  These days I order salads by default when dining with my office at restaurants with limited options, and while I typically choose to take Portland restaurants up on dishes that don't bore me, I'll give a shout out to the Caeser salad with Tempeh Bacon at Hungry Tiger Too as a salad I dig.

Therefore, when the incredible Joanna Vaught of Yellow Rose Recipes shared her new recipe for Caeser Salad with Tempeh Croutons, I thought, "Hell yes", "I love Joanna" and "I need to buy tempeh"!  It's going to be in her upcoming cookbook sequel, so stay tuned to her website for more on that.  Joanna posts about her cooking projects, life and comical and informative lists of tips featuring smart grocery shopping and seitan troubleshooting.  Her seitanic post includes a recipe for chicken seitan cutlets and if you've ever doubted your seitan making abilities or have yet to make it - read it!  There are only so many food blogs I can handle, and this is one I make sure to follow*.

Tempeh Croutons!!

Leftover Tempeh Croutons on Teese'd Pizza

with cherry tomatoes, kale raab, maittake mushrooms, garlic, kalamata olives and homemade marinara.

Last night I went to Paradox Cafe for a dinner meeting and ordered a hot salad with tofu.  Okay, #2 with tofu, which is really a stir fry with tossed with seasoned potatoes.  Wholesome.

*Disclaimer:  Fine, I'll out myself as being actual friends with Joanna Vaught, on and off the internet. Not to boast too much, but earlier today we exchanged emails about last night's episode of LOST that included multiple exclamation points, questions marks and my repeated love and respect for Mr. Linus and her squealing over the previews for next week.  She rules, and so does the Caeser!  A non-boring salad I'd make again, for sure.