Monthly Archives: November 2008

Nice Ass Greens from the Farmer’s Market

Today I rode my bike to the farmer’s market and bought so many wonderful vegetables! I came home and made roasted portabello sandwiches with olive tapenade on flax sunflower bread.

I got Russian Kale, Mizuna, Arugula and some unknown Chinese green at one stand that I had never seen. Every bunch was just 2 dollars so I said 8 dollars worth of greens please and felt silly. When I got home I roasted the bella’s while I cooked the nice ass greens. They were so frakking good that Dan said he would be happy only eating the greens! So I recommend trying some.

Nice Ass Greens

1 sweet onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 bunch of Unknown Greens, chopped
1/4 cup of raisins
1 TBSP Nutritional Yeast
1 TBSP White Balsamic Vinegar

Caramelize the onions over low heat until browned, about 20 minutes. Add the garlic and stir for one minute. And the greens and raisins and toss until bright green. Add the nooch and vinegar to taste and Enjoy!

Jubelale!

I went to school in Olympia Washington where we were blessed with many different wonderful kinds of beer from organic microbrews to my favorite shwag beer, Oly (its the water)

Here in Texas the beer isn’t as exciting, although Lone Star is the national beer of Texas more often than not we go with PBR (hey its vegan & cheap). Recently I was shocked to find that the Live Oak Market right down the street started carrying beer from Deshutes Brewery in Oregon. It is so exciting to see the Black Butte Porter and Mirror Pond Ale on the shelf again. Ah, simpler times. Even more exciting than that is that since it is almost Xmas we get the seasonal brew Jubelale (yes it is vegan).

We first came across it on election and night and now I will always associate this festive winter ale with Barack Obama and the night that I learned to stop being afraid of Republican domination of the country. This beer is so great, spicy and peppery without being so intense that you can’t drink it. It is almost creamy but is still very drinkable. I love it! The website says they have it in Austin and Dallas now.

Original Recipe Seitan

The polenta is leftover from when I made it a week ago. I sauteed carrots & leeks and then at right before serving mixed in the spinach and some tarrago. The gravy is the Punk Rock Gravy from Vegan with a Vengence and the seitan is from Kentucky Fried Chicken. Just kidding! I was trying to decide what to do with my last seitan cutlets and googling chicken recipes and I came up with the spice mixture from KFC’s original recipe, it sounded good and I had everything so I tried it. We both liked it a lot although it wasn’t as good as Wheatsville Co-ops! Here is the spice mix:

3 cups sifted flour
1 teaspoon paprika
2 teaspoon garlic salt
2 teaspoons onion salt
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried rubbed sage
1/2 teaspoon dried powdered rosemary
1/2 teaspoon dried powdered thyme
1 teaspoon dried parsley
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper

It was really easy to mix and very similar spices to the Punk Rock Gravy so it was easy to make them together and pull together this recipe.

You know you are a vegan when….

You have 10 different recipes for mac and cheese and not one of them contains cheese! I feel like I make this dish all the time and I think at the point I like the vegan versions better. The first couple I tried tasted mostly of nutirtional yeast and I had to cover them in BBQ sauce to eat them but lately I have had several different versions that are wildly different and yet all satiate me when I want something creamy and startchy.

Although my favorite is still the I made a couple weeks ago and is a combination of the cashew ricotta from the Veganomicon and the Grilled Cheeze from the Uncheese book I really like this version from Veg News mac&cheese. The interesting aspect here that drew me to the recipe was the fact that nooch wasn’t subbing for the cheese, instead it got is creamyness from potatoes and cashews, its color from carrots, and its flavor from spices, shallots, and garlic.

I also finally found some Panko Breadcrumbs at central market and though they were expensive I bought them and then decided to bread my seitan cutlets with them similar to this recipe from Vegan Dad. I made this meal because my Dan really wanted fast food and when I was done he agreed that this was much much better.

Adopt a Turkey

Today at the office I was perusing a couple vegan blogs (on my break of course) and I came across this post about adopting Turkeys at the Urban Vegan. I asked one of my vegetarian coworkers if she wanted to go in on adopting a turkey together and the next thing I knew random people were donating money, looking at pictures of turkeys and talking about animal cruelty. We put up a bunch of posters in the office and are now collecting to save as many turkeys as possible. It is really exciting!

You can go to the farm sanctuary website and adopt one too! It is amazing how once people learn how turkeys are treated they really want to help!

Special Comment on Gay Marriage ~ Keith Olbermann

I love Keith Olberman and his special comments. I thought this one was especially good. I can’t understand why people want to take others right to marry away. It just doesn’t make any sense to me in what is supposed to be a free country. Why should the governemnt tell me who I can marry? If you don’t want gay marriage than don’t marry a gay person. It is that easy.

Fun Fun Fun Fest

Over the weekend I was at the Fun Fun Fun fest, I had a great time! I saw so many great bands including

Experimental Dental School

ColourMusic

Dengue FeverCentromatic

Octopus Project (super awesome!)

Golden Arm Trio

Yacht

Brownout

The National

I snuck in a sandwich because a vegan’s motto is (like the girl scouts) always be prepared but I needn’t have worried. There were lots of things to eat from stands selling vegan Jambalaya and rice and beans to an outpost from The Parlor selling vegan cheeze, sausage, and garlic spinach pizza.

They also had an awesome stand called McGovern’s Organics which is a company that delievers vegan and glueten free meals and pastries around town. I had one of the best brownies of my life! It was so good, they also had frozen chocolate covered bananas on a stick which was the perfect thing to eat on a hot day! What a good idea. Here is a bad picture, it got really dusty in the afternoon.So the festival was a lot of fun. I danced like crazy and had fun fun fun. I also think it is one of the greatest fests ever for people watching, so many punks, hardcore kids, and scenesters all wearing often poorly fitting and interesting outfits. The festival was about a thousand times better than Austin City Limits which I went to earlier this year. The bands were better, you could leave and go places and come back, there was parking everywhere, it wasn’t claustrophobic, there were no chair people (who set up a whole camping spot in front of the stage so that you can’t walk around), it was only 20 bucks, AND it was in a nicer park. And you can bring your puppy! I saw this one.

The next morning I went to Kerby Lane because I read on Vegans Rock Austin that they had changed their vegan breakfast platter. Its true! The new platter has baked tofu that is actually seasoned (unlike there old unpressed, over crumbled, unseasoned, watery tofu) with vegan pancakes and soysage. The latter could still use some work but I thought it was better than the inedible rock that I had the last time. The tofu was about a million times better and the pancakes were great. We even had terrific service. So score for Kerbey Lane, no longer will a breathe a heavy sigh when someone wants to go there.

Stuffed Sweet Dumpling

Did you ever want to just eat stuffing for dinner? Was there a time when you cracked open a squash and said “Where is the stuffin’ in my dumplin” well if so folks I have the meal for you. The Wild Rice & Pecan Stuffed Sweet Dumpling Squash. I think this could even be a good Thanksgiving or Christmas meal with some gravy and a cranberry dish. I was worried that it would be dry but I ended up just stuffing the squash not roasting it all when it was done. Mostly, because I was hungry and the squash was already cooked.

Recipe

2 Sweet Dumpling Squashes (or any other similarly sized squashes)
1 cup of uncooked wild rice
1 medium onion, chopped
1 leek, chopped,
2 ribs of celery, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 small apples, chopped
1/2 cup of pecans, chopped or crushed
1/2 cup of broth
1 TBSP fresh sage, finely chopped
1 TBSP fresh parsley
1 tsp rosemary
.5 tsp thyme
1 tsp marjoram
salt and pepper

First, bring the wild rice to a boil on the stove with 2 cups of water, reduce to heat to low and cover once it starts boiling. Next, cut around the stem of the squash in the same way you cut off the top of a jack-o-lantern. Remove the seeds and the stringy flesh and put the tops loosely back and place in the microwave. Heat on high for 7 minutes, rotate and flip, and microwave another 7-9 minutes. (If you don’t microwave you could also roast the squash in the oven for an hour or so). Meanwhile, heat olive oil or margarine in a large saute pan to medium high heat. Start sauteing the onion, leek, celery, and carrot until the squash is done (about 10 minutes). Open the squashes and remove as much flesh as possible with a spoon or knife without puncturing the outside. Chop the freed squashes into pieces and add to the pan. Add the apples and pecans and some broth to deglaze the pan. After apples are cooked through and starting to soften add the herbs, stir well but carefully and then add the drained wild rice. Salt and Pepper to taste. Stuff mixture into the squash and Enjoy!