Hometown Visit: Clintonville & German Village

 

The German Village is a really pretty area south of Downtown Columbus. As a kid my family went to see all the plays at Schiller Park, usually two Shakespearean and a Musical every summer. We's take a picnic. In college my friends & I spent a lot of time at the Book Loft (above right) & the Cup of Joe next door. The Book Loft was just as I remembered, tons of rooms with different music playing in each, new and used books, and lots of fun to explore. And Cup of Joe was definately the best coffee we had while we were in Columbus. They even carry vegan treats from Pattycake. 

  

Actually, that might be the first place I knew of that had Patty Cake baked goods in Columbus. Their story says they started in 2003 in a Cup of Joe, and they didn't open their store front in Clintonville on North High street until 2005. This was the year after we moved away! Now it's an important place to stop when we visit, along with Whole World (though we missed that on this trip, since they were closed on Monday.)  I also noticed that Clintonville now has a vegan friendly hair salon in the same area. Not bad, nice to see vegan stuff doing well in the Midwest, especially in my hometown. Anyway, Pattycake Bakery has an adorable sign now, and was serving up these adorable cat cookies, aren't they great? 

Chuck's Improvised Argyle Cake

I made Chuck a pretty simple cake last week with the recipe for chocolate cake from Sinfully Vegan. The Icing recpie, however, came from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, doubled to complete cover the cake (tripled might have been a little better since I used some for chocolaty decoration.) The cake itself called for Nayonaise and applesauce, and actually tasted better as days went by. I improvised an argyle pattern, and I'm planning on making that a theme for Chuck's future birthday goodies. Next time I'll will hopefully remember to do some planing and measuring for the layout, but I don't think it turned out too bad, especially since we started eating it moments after I finished the decorations!

Veganized Molasses Cookies

Although I am about to make Chuck a birthday cake this week, we still have these cookies he randomly made over the weekend. We actually happened to have all the ingredients on hand, including the spices. Yay! They are incredibly hard to resist. It's a simple veganized adaptation of a googled recipe. The link & notes about our substitutions are below. I especially like how the large grain sucanat adds a sparkly decorative element. I'm a sucker for sparkles!

The original recipe is here.

Ingredients substitutions:
3/4 cup margarine, melted 3/4 cup Earth Balance Spread

• 1 cup white sugar 1 cup Brown Sugar
• 1 egg Ener-G Egg Replacer equivalent to one egg plus 1/2 tsp
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 cup white sugar  1/2 cup Sucanat

Belated Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Hope everyone had an excellent holiday! We spent it visiting with my Grandma, Aunt and Cousins in Ohio. My family did a great job accommodating the vegans (I'll make it plural even though I was the only one. Chuck stayed in Portland, celebrating with Lucy.) this year. Look how packed my plate was! 

 

The meal included the Hazelnut Cranberry Roast En Croute, which was really good. We picked up two bags of vegan stuffing from Whole Foods (the first year I'd seen that available) and my Mom used the mix for her recipe, throwing in celery and spices. My Aunt brought spinach and brussel sprouts, which I was happy to have. Dad made two kinds of scalloped potatoes one cheesy for the cheese fans, and a vegan recipe from the Native foods blog that used cashew cheese and fennel. There was also a parsnip and apple dish, an improvised green bean dish that turned out just right, cranberries served in one of Grandma's beautiful dishes, and sweet potatoes cooked from a recipe from Vegan Yum Yum. The meat and cheese eaters also had yeast rolls, turkey, and apple pie, but those were the only non-vegan items of the day. There were also vegan pumpkin pies just to make us extra full. Us kids all decided to have sparkling apple cider in fancy glasses too.

 

We had a lot of fun other that eating too. Watching the Macy's Day parade and the dog show (why so many breeds though...ugh) but added Lady Gaga's special to this years viewing. It was better than I was expecting and I notice Grandma clapping along and enjoying "Bad Romance." This also lead to a lot of silliness over the next few days with the family trying to recreate various dance moves. We did just a little Black Friday shopping, and I made out at the Thrift Store's half-off sale. I nabbed 7 articles of clothing and a belt for under $10. We also headed to big lots where I got lots of decent yarn for very cheap. But that was enough shopping for us, mostly we just enjoyed visiting and hanging out!

Hope everyone had as great a holiday as I did this year!

Eating Out: Native foods Chicago

Yesterday my parents and I ate out for lunch at the new Native Foods Cafe on Belmont. Too much very good vegan foods. We shared the nacho appetizer, which was my favorite dish. I love nacho plates. This dish had fresh guacamole and what I think must have been cashew cheese.

I also had the Chicken Run Ranch Sandwich, billed as what chickens would serve if the were in charge of the ranch. I also picked it because it was marked as a great dish for first time visitors. It was really good, just enough ranch dressing without going overboard. Sweet potato fries on the side come with a green spice sprinkled on top. It suited the potatoes so well I didn't even bother with ketchup. We were too full for deserts, but they looked great. I am sure we will sample those often when they open the location in downtown Portland next spring. (One just opened in Tigard, outside of Portland, but that's a bit far for us to go....although now that I know how good it is, it might be worth the trip.)

Our other activities yesterday included going to the DIY trunk show. Tons of great vendors, and I'll admit to checking out their booth setups for inspiration too. On the way there we saw a black squirrel! And we ended up ending our day watching Shutter Island. It was so good I think I'll make Chuck watch it with me again when I get home.

Birthday Cheesecake!

Wednesday was my second sixteenth birthday (okay, I'll just say it, I'm 32. I think it's going to be pretty good year.) Chuck made me this awesome vegan chocolate cheesecake from the book Sinfully Vegan. In the past few years I've been all about birthday cupcakes, but after some discussion we decide we were a little tired of birthday cupcakes. Though I still want cupcakes randomly all year for no good reason.

It was a very good birthday involving dinner at Portobello and some very good gifts. One was a nice new cellphone which I'm attempting to use to blog for the very first time right now...I'll have to check if this turns out all wonky.

And now I'm in Chicago hanging out with my family through the holiday! I'm hopeful this phone works out okay for blogging so I can post some pictures and updates of my visit while I'm here!

 

Update: Okay it turned out a bit wonky with the images, but I updated it by hoping on my parents computer for a few moments. I was just using blogger app for android, if anyone knows of a more awesome app (free preferably) for android that deals with pictures better please let me know!

Vegan Mofo: Spider Chocolate Hazelnut Cupcakes w/Cream Cheese Frosting

 

With Halloween Bat wrappers too! These were made using the standard chocolate cupcake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, and half of the Cream Cheese Icing recipe, since I didn't want piles of it on top of the cupcakes this time. Tofutti cream cheese was marked down a bit on our last trip to Whole Foods, a fact which makes me very tempted to buy several more containers and make cheesecakes, more cupcakes, and whatever other kinds of treats I can come up with. Vegan cream cheese is one of my favorite things.

I picked up the bat wrappers at our Safeway, too cute to pass up. And I was thrilled to get the Martha Stewart Cupcake Stencils on discount from Joann Fabrics last week. Unfortunately most of the faces were too big for my little cupcakes, but the spider worked out alright. I will have to start making huge, Martha Stewart sized cupcakes from here on out. I am excited about these stencils, so I may not stop playing with them even after Halloween is over. We could also use a finer sifter for these, the one we had on hand was just a little too course, allowing a bit more cocoa through than I would like. I already have plans to play with this more for Chuck's birthday, which is all the way off in January! He'll get the ravens and the skull and crossbones, though possibly on a larger cake.

The hazelnut flavor came from the cocoa used, Ghirardelli Chocolate Hazelnut Cocoa. Yummy!

Vegan Mofo: Field Roast, Garlic Spread & Fanged Pumpkins

 

Field Roast has been a favorite of ours for a long time. We first started eating it in Seattle, which is where it originates from. It was a bit more expensive when we lived in Chicago. This is the celebration loaf stuffed with "a sausage style stuffing made from butternut squash, apples and mushrooms." The stuffing is my favorite part!

We also picked up some more rolls from the Pearl Bakery this weekend. It's covered here in a simple garlic spread made from roasted garlic, blended with olive oil in a food processor. 

And then we made some new friends. Based on this great idea from Martha Stewart's site. We even used the templates for mouths she provided. Our fangs aren't plain white like Martha's, but I think they are a little more fun, since they glow in the dark! 

Vegan Mofo: Stuffed Acorn Squash

Okay, first off I could not eat all of that in one setting! So I stuffed some of the spill over back in the squash, wrapped in foil for the next day's lunch. Re-heating in the microwave was not hard at all, and it was just as tasty. The stuffing here was actually a leftover rice dish we'd had for dinner the night before. It had some soy curls, various veggies, and well, rice. For the squash dish bread crumbs/panko and carrots were added, plus my favorite part - Maple Syrup. It brought out the acorn squash-y flavor perfectly.  Also, is it just me, or are acorn squashes just really cute? I'm not so sure we won't be bringing another one home from the market tomorrow morning!

Vegan Mofo: Bombay Chaat House Food Cart

 

So I've gone a few short days without posting for Vegan Mofo because after we made tofu loaf, the lentil & sausage stew and picked up food from the Bombay Chaat House food cart, we had leftovers for many meals. We got 3 large meals out of the dinner we picked up Friday night at the food cart! 

Bombay Chaat house is located 12th & Yamhill, which
is conveniently located for us. The cart is 100% vegetarian and they indicate that they can make most of their dishes vegan upon request. Yay!

In the picture above on the right are some appetizers and sauces. The pillowy crisps are Pani Puri which we had never tried before. The instructions were on the side of the cart (pictured on the left.) They are hollow, and came with a spicy potato mixture, which you put inside and then dip the whole thing in spiced water before eating it. It was very flavorful!

We also had another potato appetizer, the great big ball in the picture on the right was a Batata-Vada. Also very spicy! With two of the veggie dishes, and some vegan friendly naan, we had tons of food. 

Vegan Mofo: Tofu Loaf with Green Beans

Somehow in 10 or so years of cooking vegan I've never tried to make tofu loaf. Tempeh Loaf a few times, but never tofu. Last week I was browsing The Chicago Diner Cookbook and it occurred to me it might be interesting to try. I very loosely followed the recipe in there, substituting oats for sesame seeds, based on suggestions in recipes like this one.  (Oprah even has a recipe for Tofu Loaf. Lots of ingredients in that one.)

I had a larger pan and less tofu on hand (it was 20oz.) than the recipes called for, so I improvised by adding the last two Tofurky sausages we had left. They were chopped and added after blending the tofu (with oil) in the food processor. They did a nice job of making the whole dish less tofu-flavored, which has perhaps been part of the reason I haven't tried it before. It also added some spices (it was the Italian style) in addition to the thyme I added. Other ingredients were shredded carrots (made it yellow!) and chopped onions.

We also had green beans, fresh from the farmer's market, on the side. Based on the suggestion in the Veganomicon, they were simply roasted with some olive oil, salt and pepper.  Also turned a few hoagie rolls, picked up at the Pearl Bakery booth at the Saturday Market, into garlic bread slices. (Not all of their breads are vegan, but they are good about providing ingredient information) Chuck had done that earlier this week. I thought it was clever so I copied it. It made for pretty satisfying garlic bread.

The tofu loaf was good both with the last of our leftover mushroom gravy and without any topping, which we had tonight:

 

I can see making tofu loaf again, plus it makes about 3 meals worth of food!

Vegan Mofo: Coffee Cake with Prunes

 

I have been looking for an interesting use for those gorgeous prunes we picked up at the market since last week. Shortly after we got them I saw this post (from Naked Vegan Lunch) in the Vegan Mofo rss feed about Hungarian Plum Dumplings. I was seriously considering trying those out right away, but I'm not sure how I feel about potato dough. Maybe another time, plenty of plums still showing up at the markets and I think I may still be intrigued. (As a side note, I've been keeping track of my favorite vegan mofo posts over on Pintrest, which you can see here.)

Then I was just googling, trying to decide what to do and streusels came up, which reminded me of the amazing Cafe Flora Coffee Cake that I hadn't tried to cook up for a long time. While we lived in Seattle I think we tried to each as much of their coffee cake as possible. Anyway, used the recipe from the Cafe Flora Cookbook which has several suggestions for variations of fruits. So I went with Italian prunes and a bit of cinnamon. The prunes were chopped into small chunks in the dough, and I sliced a few to put on top as well. Unfortunately, I am not so sure what I was thinking/doing when I made the crumbly topping, because I used too much margarine. But we saved it. It still tastes amazing, even if it's slightly mushier than it was supposed to be. I certainly don't mind having an excuse to make the coffee cake again in the near future, since it was the main recipe that convinced us we had to have this cookbook!

Vegan Mofo: Lentil & Sausage Soup

More soup for weekday lunches! This one used dried lentils, Tofurky sausage, spices, and some of the fresh veggies we picked up at the market: zucchini, assorted peppers, and onion.  You can see the veggies a little bit better in this picture of the pot. Parsley on the top was also fresh from the market, though there wasn't really any in the dish. I was also having some toast with vegan cream cheese on the side, which you can almost see in this picture. We've been having this for lunches though the weekend, and still have a bunch leftover for this week! 

Vegan Mofo: Breaded Tofu & Twice Baked Potatoes

Breaded tofu with mushroom gravy and twice baked potatoes! Tofu breading was made from wheat germ and flax seed meal and nutritional yeast with spices. The tofu was then baked at about 350 until it browned. the twice baked potatoes were cooked at the same time. Pretty standard preparation for those, using some parsley, garlic and pepper for flavoring.

 

The mushroom gravy was made from scratch using leftover flax seed meal, nutritional yeast and wheat germ from the tofu breading along with about 1/2 cup chopped mushrooms and soy milk. We actually had plenty of leftover gravy from this that we've been using on various dishes all weekend.

I have to mention, also, that we finally stopped at the vegan bar The Sweet Hereafter. We just stopped in for a quick drink, but I had "The Company Sazerac" which was lovely. Ever since Kim Dickens' character on Treme threw a Sazerac in food critic Alan Richman's face on this seasons Treme, I've really been wanting to try one. (I love that that's now mentioned in the wikipedia article for Sazerac!) So...it was at the top of the menu and there was no way I could order anything else...Chuck had a North Williams, which also seemed pretty nice! 

Vegan Mofo Day 6: Fancified Tater Tots

Loosely inspired by the white truffle fries at Violetta (a food cart which also has a permanent home in Director Park as well) we decided to fancy up some frozen tater tots this week. We happened to have some black truffle oil which does have a somewhat different flavor than the white used at Violetta. After the tots cooked in the oven they were simply sprinkled with the oil, a bit of salt and parsley to dress up a snack!

Vegan Mofo Day 4: Soy Curls

When we moved to Portland last fall I had never heard of Soy Curls. It wasn't long before we became very familiar with them. A lot of the vegan friendly  food carts and restaurants use them in all sorts of dishes. They are dehydrated textured soy protein. They are so common here in Portland because they are made fairly locally, in Grande Ronde, OR by Butler Foods. (Use this link however to find out where to buy in other states!) They look like this when you get them:

The name sounded like some kind of snack to me when I first heard it. Out of curiosity, I popped one in my mouth to see how edible they are before you cook with them. It can be done and it's not awful but they are way better cooked. Here's our dinner with rice & leftover biscuits from the night before!:

 

If it had to be compared to meat, I suppose it's most like chicken in texture, but it's pretty refreshing that none of the packaging tries to make the comparison. As with most vegan protein options, it does its own thing, which is being really yummy!

P.S. Soy Curl became our nickname for our cat Lucy this week due to the picture of her curled up in her snugly cat bed!

Vegan Mofo Day 3: Spaghetti Squash and Dinner Rolls

 

Spaghetti Squash is a really neat thing! Basically we made a simple sauce with tomato based sauce (and we threw in some broccoli.) We used the squash in place of the pasta. It makes a good side, or a nice light meal. We tried something a little new to us this week and picked up a Stripetti spaghetti squash, which is a hybrid of a traditional spaghetti squash and and delicata squash. (I guessed as much from the stripey appearance & the delicatas nearby at the market) but this ehow page was handy in confirming that. Turns out there are 3 other spaghetti squashes I would love to try.

Also pictured are Granny's Hurry Up Dinner Rolls (link to the recipe from vegweb) Which turned out really well. They have a just bit of sugar in them, but otherwise tasted a lot like rolls my Mom typically makes at thanksgiving, but vegan.

 

Above is what the squash & its innards actually looked like, simply cut it in two, baked it, & then remove the innards. When we've had traditional spaghetti squash in the past. That variety seemed to produce longer, more linguine like strands. But both of these taste pretty great and are perfect if you're looking for a lighter alternative to pasta. 

Vegan Mofo day 2: Pea Soup with Biscuits

Well, in retrospect, that was a lot of pepper! Sunday night we made a simple Split Pea soup with biscuits, & dumplings. Also had some leftovers for lunches during the week. The soup was made simply, with spices, carrots, water, and dried peas. We let it simmer for about about an hour and a half. 

 

We sampled some french toast from Mom's Vegan Kitchen at the VegFest NW last month. They are based here in Portland, so it's easy to find mixes at Whole Foods, Food Fight, etc. but they are also available from some online retailers, listed on the website. We tried out the mix for both the dumplings (dropped in the soup) and the biscuits (baked.) Both were quite yummy. 

 

Chuck regularly makes dumplings in the soup, so here he is doing the fun part. About 20 minutes before the soup was done simmering the mixed up biscuit mix got added. They turned out just right, very delicious both ways.