Tag Archives: Barbecue

The Austin Vegan Riot to celebrate Austin’s Most Vegan Friendly Trailer Yard

austinveganriot

Last week the little trailer park next to Capital City Bakery closed up (probably to make way for condos) and Unity Vegan Kitchen, one of my favorite new spots in Austin, moved to North Loop to join forces with BBQ Revolution, Red Rabbit Bakery, and Taco ‘Bout It to form the most vegan friendly trailer park around at Northloop House & Yard. The only trailer that’s not vegan is the Taco Truck and even they have some vegan options so it’s, like, the opposite of all the other trailer parks in town. To celebrate they are going to have party down. Here are the details from the press release:

We are proud to announce the arrival of Austin’s first all vegan-friendly trailer space at the NorthLoop House and Yard, a trailer space and micro-business haus at 701 E. 53rd St in Austin’s NorthLoop neighborhood. To celebrate this momentous occasion the creative minds behind the NLHY are excited to kick off Austin Vegan Riot, a twice monthly party showcasing the unique offerings of this most-Austin locale. Currently at the NorthLoop trailer yard you’ll find Red Rabbit Co-operative Bakery, BBQ Revolution, Vegan Unity, and Taco ‘Bout It. Red Rabbit serves award winning donuts and other sweet things, produced by their worker owned co-op to organic standards. BBQ Revolution is the country’s only all vegan BBQ joint, creating a truly distinct take on Central Texas fare. Vegan Unity offers locally sourced favorites made from scratch. And Taco ‘Bout It brings tastes from south of the border serving several vegan and traditional options. With Austin recently named as PETA’s top vegan-friendly city it only makes sense that a trailer space would come about as the city’s first vegan-friendly destination. Be sure to stop by every 2nd and last Thursday for the Austin Vegan Riot, starting Thursday January 30th, 6-9pm at the NorthLoop House & Yard, 701 E. 53rd St, Austin, TX 78751.

Lasagna with cashew cream, vegan barbecue, and amazing doughnuts can all be had at once! And then you can dance it all off. In a Riot-like fashion. It’ll be great.

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Barbecued Arepas

If you live in Texas for a while it starts to make sense that you would barbecue everything.

Beans are often the easiest choice because although I love barbecued tofu, seitan, and tempeh as much as the next girl beans are the cheapest food to make a lot of and we haven’t been rolling in dough lately. Rolling in masa maybe but that’s another story. Wait, that is this story! I fixed up a huge pot of black-eyed peas with spinach and barbecue sauce and a little coffee for smokieness but I couldn’t decide how to serve the black-eyed peas. I thought of making cornbread but I was all out of cornmeal. I thought of tacos but wasn’t feeling it and didn’t have any shortening to make empanadas. Than it occurred to me that I could just make arepas!

Since I got Viva Vegan I have been kind of obsessed with these easy to make fat cousins or tortillas. The Venezualan ones I made first were probably the best because of the fantastic filling. I made the smaller Colombian ones as a side dish and they were delectable as well. I think that is when I realized how easy they come together.

All you do is mix salt, 2 & 1/2 cups of water with 2 cups of masarepa more or less until it resembles mashed potatoes then form into plump discs, fry or a griddle for 5 minutes on each side and then either stick in the oven for a while or eat hot off the griddle. The secret is to get the right masa, here are some more detailed instructions or a “recipe” as they say. Making arepas is even easier than making tortillas because you don’t have to get the press out and make them one at a time. After making a batch or two I don’t even have to measure anymore. I am so glad they have entered my repertoire.

It has been a depressing week. Dinger hurt his back really bad (he has a long body so it happens easily) and he might have to get surgery if it doesn’t get better. It is pretty terrible because he is usually the happiest dog in the world and instead he is just laying around in a lot of pain. His sister, Miss Willow, is depressed too because she has nobody to get super crazy with. So I have just been at home hanging out with the pups. Sorry for the downer post! He is going to get better! And it is almost July, I can’t wait for June to be over!

I went to Vegan Drinks and that was fun, I met a wonderful new friend who was kind enough to come over and give Dinger a massage. I was thinking maybe a chiropractor would help too so if you know one send me an email. Also at vegan drinks I almost won this robot, it was really embarrassingly funny because I thought I won it and I made a really big deal screaming but my friend got instead. He is so cute though! I wish it would have been me!

Barbecued Tacos

Here is another great taco idea, I cooked some lentils in water on the stove, made BBQ sauce, marinated an onion in lime juice and steamed some greens and the tortillas over the lentil pot. If I hadn’t made my own Barbecue sauce the work, including prep, would have taken 10 minutes and then the lentils just had to cook for 40 minutes or so. When everything was ready I just mixed the lentils and the BBQ sauce, put the steamed greens, the lentils, the onions and some cilantro on the flour tortilla and then ate these glorious tacos. This meal is pretty healthy too if you make you use a sauce that doesn’t contain high fructose corn syrup as a main ingredient.