Beans and Greens

Tonight I made Hunan Fried Rice from Robin Robertson's new vegan cookbook, Vegan Fire and Spice. The recipe is actually here on her amazon blog. We liked it a lot, but thought that next time we would cut down on the cayenne. Oww, my mouth is burning. I guess the book is called FIRE and spice. I used an unrefined peanut oil to cook with instead of canola which gave it a touch of peanuty flavor and was a really good modification. I have this wonderful peanut oil that I accidentally bought (thinking I was buying refined peanut oil) and it smells like peanut butter. So good for stir frys.

I finally found the good camera (post-move) and took some nice pictures. Here is a picture of the final product, served with broccoli. There are some prep pics in the extended entry.

As a little housewarming party, we had Mike's new co-workers over for a Cuatro de Mayo party. I said we were just doing appetizers and drinks, but it kept growing and growing and growing. Here is the what was on the menu:

Homemade Margaritas (Mike's specialty - recipe below)
Chips, salsa, guacamole (store bought)
Acorn Squash and Black Bean Empanadas (from Vegamonicon)
Vegan Tamales (store bought - we have the most amazing frozen tamales from Ricos. I was going to make them till I tasted these).
Black Beans and Brown Rice (Black Bean recipe from Vegan Lunchbox)
Jicama salad
Margarita Cupcakes (From Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. And yes, they have tequila in them. Sorry, the pics for these just didn't turn out.)

The empanadas were a huge hit and the black beans were too. We had empanada filling leftover so the next night we turned that into soft tacos and I think it was the best soft taco filling ever! The cupcakes were also loved and everyone wanted to see the recipe. When I pulled out the Vegan Cupcakes book, they promptly picked out their request for the next batch of cupcakes.

I can't figure out if people here are more tolerant/knowledgable about veganism or whether they know nothing about it. It is just not a big deal at all to Mike's co-workers (so far). We've gotten very few questions and no one looks at our food like it might have vegan cooties. The local crowd here in Park City seems to be made up of Bostonians, New Yorkers, and Californians. So maybe it is the former and it's just not a big deal to them. In Boston, I would sometimes bring lovely pretty food to parties to have it be shunned because it was the vegan food. I can happily see that is not going to happen here.

This is the recipe for Margarita's (from Cooks Illustrated) - we tripled it for the party and mixed it all in a pitcher just before the party started.

4 teaspoons grated lime zest
1/2 cup lime juice from 2 to 3 medium limes
4 teaspoons grated lemon zest
1/2 cup lemon juice from 2 to 3 medium lemons
1/4 cup superfine sugar
pinch table salt
crushed ice
1 cup 100 percent agave tequila preferably Reposado
1 cup Triple Sec or Cointreau or Grand Marnier

Combine zests, juices, sugar, and salt in large glass bowl or measuring cup; cover and refrigerate at least 4 hours, 24 is best.

Strain the juice mixture. Combine juice with equal parts tequila and triple sec (so 1 part juice to 1 part tequila to 1 part triple sec), shake with crushed ice and pour over more crushed ice to serve.

In 2 weeks, I have managed to eat at Vertical Diner in Salt Lake City THREE times. This is an amazing feat since I live 25 miles away from it. Thursday, after taking my car into Salt Lake for service, I rewarded myself by hitting the Vertical Dinner for the Thursday night special "Chicken Fried Steak" and mashed potatoes. Yum! Take a look:



Today, Mike and I had to go into SLC to run some errands. I had to pick up colored sugar sprinkles from Sur La Table so I could make margarita cupcakes (pic coming soon) for a party tomorrow night amoung other miscellaneous errands. So of course, we needed brunch. I got "The Avalanche" with French Toast instead of pancakes. Mike got the straight up Avalanche, which comes with pancakes, tofu scramble, hash browns, and vegan sausage. The tofu scramble was a little runnier than usual, but still tasted great. We both got smoothies too. I had the Blue Monkey (apple juice, bananas, and strawberries). Here are a couple of pics.







All pics are compliments of my iPhone (so the quality might not be the best).

This morning I made Peanut Butter bread (by hand) using Have Cake Will Travel's recipe. It just came out of the oven. It looks like it came out well. It is still cooling. The smell is killing me. I want to go in the kitchen and cut a big chunk out of it and eat it.

Mike and I went to Vertical Diner on Saturday. We had to go into Salt Lake to get the car turned up and run some errands which gives us the perfect excuse to eat a good vegan meal. Vertical Diner is really cute. It is off on a side street and there is parking in back and there is an entrance in the back. This vegan restaurant has such yummy things like all day brunch, fried chicken, a thurs night special of Chicken Fried Steak, and some nice sandwiches.

We got a couple of smoothies and a couple of entrees. My smoothie was called a "blue monkey" and it contained bananas, apples, and strawberries. It was soo purpley-blue that I felt like a kid drinking it. And boy did it taste good. Mike has some sort of berry conconction that I couldn't be bothered with as I was sucking down my blue monkey. Ok, I did taste it and it tasted like raspberries.

We split two entrees and both were really good. We had the Biscuits and gravy with tofu scramble and vegan sausage, and Fried "Chicken" with hashbrowns and gravy. We loved the biscuits and gravy and the tofu scramble. We both were kind of meh on the sausage. We also both loved the fried chicken. The hash browns were ok. We'd have prefered some mashed potatoes with that gravy. The two main dishes and smoothies came to about $35. Very reasonable

This is our new favorite place and we plan to come eat at it everytime we go into Salt Lake City. This includes any time we have to pick up people from the airport. They will have to go to Vertical Diner with us (whether they like it or not).

I have this great new bathtub in my new place and some really dry skin. I need bath products. Does anyone have suggestions for some nice vegan natural bath products? I'm getting a little tired of Lush. Please let me know what products you are currently in love with.

I'm really counting on my friend Liz to have lots of suggestions here!

Sorry there hasn't been much activity here lately. We just moved to Park City last week so things have been quite hectic. If you wanted to see how the move went, or how the cats did in their cross country trip, or you are just looking for something else to read, my livejournal chronicles our trip.

Last weekend, Mike and I went to Sage's in Salt Lake for a birthday dinner. We have been there before and previously had the portobello philly "cheese steak" and the tempeh philly "cheese steak" respectively. We loved it and couldn't wait to go back again.

This time, I had the vegan "chicken" philly and Mike had the mushrrom stroganoff and we had bruschetta as an appetizer. The bruschetta was great with pesto, tomatoes, and a little sliver of tofu. I loved the "chicken" philly and think that it totally kicks the tempeh philly in the booty. Definitely get the vegan "chicken" if you go there. They make their own and it is really good. Also, ask for extra "cheese" sauce with your philly. Mike's stroganoff was not very good so we do not recommend that dish. It was giant wide and thick noodles in a watery mushroom sauce. I highly recommend this place, but don't get the stroganoff.

I also learned while I was there, that the same person owns Vertical Diner in Salt Lake. We will have to try that soon. They have all day breakfast! Tofu scramble, biscuits, pancakes. Yum.

This article on the AP today about pharmaceuticals leaching into our water is pretty horrifying to me. Basically they have found that people take lots of drugs and some parts of those drugs are absorbed by the body and the rest pass through the body as waste and are flushed down the toilet and into our sewer system. The water treatment plants don't treat the water to remove drugs and so they stay in the system. They even think that chlorine added to the water to treat it might make the drugs even more toxic. What made me really mad was that they indicated that they don't generally release the results of tests on the water for drugs because the public might be "unduly alarmed". But the article also says:

And while researchers do not yet understand the exact risks from decades of persistent exposure to random combinations of low levels of pharmaceuticals, recent studies — which have gone virtually unnoticed by the general public — have found alarming effects on human cells and wildlife.

So, yeah, I am alarmed, but I think I am duly alarmed. They have found sex hormones, anitbiotics, epilepsy medication, heart medications, mood stabalizing meds, cholesterol medications...

Sixty-three pharmaceuticals or byproducts were found in the city's [Philadelphia] watersheds.

But wait, there's more. Not only are drugs from people in the drinking water, so are all the drugs they give to factory farmed animals.

Human waste isn't the only source of contamination. Cattle, for example, are given ear implants that provide a slow release of trenbolone, an anabolic steroid used by some bodybuilders, which causes cattle to bulk up. But not all the trenbolone circulating in a steer is metabolized. A German study showed 10 percent of the steroid passed right through the animals.

Water sampled downstream of a Nebraska feedlot had steroid levels four times as high as the water taken upstream. Male fathead minnows living in that downstream area had low testosterone levels and small heads.

Other veterinary drugs also play a role. Pets are now treated for arthritis, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, allergies, dementia, and even obesity — sometimes with the same drugs as humans. The inflation-adjusted value of veterinary drugs rose by 8 percent, to $5.2 billion, over the past five years, according to an analysis of data from the Animal Health Institute.

Filtered water and well water are also not safe. Well water is evidently contaminated by chemicals seeping into the ground from septic tanks. This whole thing makes me mad because I try really hard to not put things into my body that it doesn't need. I don't even take advil unless I am in SEVERE pain. So, what's a girl to do?? I think I'll be switching to underground glacier water.

Since I am moving to Park City at the end of the month (and recent visited for a house hunting trip), I've been doing a lot of research into where to eat. I read a lot of comments on the web about how un-friendly Park City is for Vegans, but I found this to be entirely untrue. Park City felt more vegan friendly to me than Boston. Below is the list of places that look like they have vegan options. Always ask, of course, at the restaurant to be sure. As I try out these places, I will update this post and link to my own reviews.

350 Main
BBQ Tempeh, Jamine Rice Cakes

Bangkok Thai on Main

Butcher Chop House
Vegan Roasted Veg Soup, Onion Rings, Hummus, Pizza w/o cheese?

Chimayo
Vegetable Tamales with Seitan (expensive, ask if these are vegan)
Salad - Stuffed Avocado with Marinated Vegatables

Good Karma Restaurant
Indian, Persian, Japanese Noodle

Shabu
100% veg broth, tofu bento or coconut encrusted tofu with stir fry veg. Pineapple sorbet

Spencer's Smokin' Grill
Smokin' Tofu and Fire Roasted Vegetables (not sure if the bbq sauce on the table is vegan)

Squatters Roadhouse Grill
Brewery with vegan stuff actually marked on the menu
Lots of choices - charbroiled tofu tacos, tempeh salad, veggie burger, edamae hummus, vegan tofu scramble for brunch

Taste of Saigon - Vietnamese

Morning Ray's Cafe
Breakfast and Lunch - Tofu Rancheros is excellent

Cafe Trang

Szechwan Chinese Kitchen - 612 Ute Blvd # 103, Park City, UT

Reef's - Vegan options: Hummus, Falafel, Couscous, Salads.

Salt Lake City
Sage's - review

Vertical Diner - review

Last night I made the best vegan pizza ever. It had roasted butternut squash, roasted garlic, carmelized onions, Field Roast Apple Sage vegan sausage, and a tofu ricotta. I'm really sorry I didn't take a picture of this one. It was really good. I'll be making this again and again and again so I see a picture coming in the future. This recipe looks like a lot of work, but you can do it in parts and place various components in the fridge for later use and it comes together nicely.

A recipe of sorts:

Butternut Squash and Roasted garlic pizza

pizza dough (I like the recipes from Vegan with a Vengeance and The Vegan Lunchbox). Or you can use this one.
olive oil
1/2 butternut squash, cut into 1/2 in. cubes
1 head garlic
1 Field Roast Apple Sage Sausage, halved lengthwise and sliced
1 1/2 onion, sliced thinly
Tofu Ricotta (recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance - but I used 1 tsp dried basil instead of fresh)
salt
pepper
sugar

Make tofu ricotta and set in refrigerator for flavors to meld.

Remove papery outside from the head of garlic and slice off the top of the garlic to expose the tops of the garlic cloves (See Lolo's pic from Vegan Yum Yum). Place on a piece of foil. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Wrap the foil tightly around the garlic with the ends meeting at the top of the garlic.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Place the butternut squash on a foil (or nonstick foil) lined cookie sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Stir to coat. Place the foiled garlic head on the cookie sheet too. Cook for about 20 minutes, stir squash,, cook for another 20 minutes or until tender. Remove the squash from the oven and place the garlic back in the oven for about another 10-15 minutes. Remove from oven and open foil to cool.

Meanwhile, add about a tablespoon of olive oil to a skillet and heat over med-high heat. Add onions to the pan and add some salt and pepper. Add about a 1/2 tsp of sugar to help with the carmelization. Turn heat down to medium. Stir occasionally (every 4 minutes or so). Cook until light brown and carmelized. This will take about 25 minutes or more.

When garlic is cool, squish out the garlic from the garlic head into a small bowl.

Place a pizza stone in the oven and preheat oven to 500 degrees for about an hour before placing the pizza in the oven.

Once the stone is hot, we can assemble the pizza. Roll out the dough till thin. Place on a pizza peel that has been sprinkled with semolina or corn meal. Drizzle with olive oil and spread the oil around with your fingers or a brush. Sprinkle with salt. Rub ALL of the roasted garlic onto the crust. You can leave a few larger pieces for a nice garlicky bite occasionally. Add the caramelized onions. Add the butternut squash. Add the sausage. Then add some tofu ricotta to the top. You can either add it in 2 Tbs sized dollops or, as my husband likes it, just sprinkled over the top (You will have a good bit of the tofu ricotta leftover for some other recipe). Drizzle with olive oil.

Move the pizza to the pizza stone and cook for 8-10 minutes.

Note - you can get Field Roast sausage at some Whole Foods locations (not mine!) or you can order it here. It is really worth ordering it.

In April, my husband and I are moving to Park City, Utah. We are pretty excited about it and I was surprised to find it more vegan friendly than Boston. I attribute this to the Sundance Film Festival.

Yesterday I learned that if I wasn't moving that I might become fat really quickly... my local Whole Foods in Framingham has Cafe Indigo Carrot Cake. Yum. If you haven't tried this yet and see it in your Whole Foods, make sure you grab a slice. I am probably preaching to the choir here since most Boston vegans have tried this cake over at My Thai. I was so happy to see that Whole Foods was bringing in this yummy locally made vegan cake and helping to keep this local vegan business going.

I recently returned from Whistler. Before I left, I tried to investigate where we should eat since our hotel room didn't have a kitchen. I found lots of people asking the same question, but no real answers. Whistler's menus aren't the most vegan friendly, but we did find that no one blinked an eye when we said we were vegan and everyone seemed to understand what that meant without any further definitiions needed. We did manage to find some lunch and dinner spots, but breakfast was not great.

Breakfast
My hotel (The Fairmont - we had free hotel vouchers!) luckily had soy milk for my coffee and toast with peanut butter; they also had oatmeal.

Lunch on the mountain was hard, but once we figured out which lodge had the vegan food, we were all set. You will want to eat at the Roundhouse Lodge. This lodge has several options - vegan chili, baked potato with vegan chili, noodle bowl with tofu and veggies (not sure if the noodles are vegan - I think they might not be, so beware), black bean soup. Note that there are several little cafeterias in this lodge so if you don't see something at the first one you look at, walk around a bit. And it gets really crowded so eat lunch around 11 or 11:30.

Dinner
The first night we ate at the Dubliner (or Dublin) cafe. This is a cute Irish pub with a vegan burger (ask for no cheese and no mayo) - not sure about the bun and lots of beer and french fries. It's pretty good and will fill you up.

The second night we had a free restaurant coupon for listening to some stupid time share presentation so we went to Aubergine at the Westin. This place is pricey, but has a couple of nice vegan options. They brought us a basket of bread which they made sure was vegan and along with the bread, they gave us hummus and an olive tapenade. They made us a mixed greens salad with a nice vinaigrette (slight modification to a salad on the menu). The for dinner, Mike had a vegan mushroom risotto which was to die for. I loved it. My spoon kept sneaking across the table for more... and I hate squishy mushrooms. I had a tofu satay with broccolini. It was ok. Go for the risotto.

Other places that we did not try, but looked like they would have vegan friendly options:
Hot Pot Etc.  - Shabu Shabu
Mongolie Grill - A fire and ice kind of pick you own food to be stir fried. Sauces are supposedly vegan.
Amsterdam cafe - vegan rollup
Wildwood Bistro - vegan vegetarian napolean
Longhorn Salon - 2 veggie burgers
Thai one on
Kypriaki Norte (Greek) - has a Filo tower that might be vegan (with seasonal grilled vegetables, mashed yam and potato layered between basil filo pastry squares and topped with a tomato basil sauce)

Some other random notes I found from various posts on the internet:

"There is also a small place next to the pharmacy in the village (sorry, can't remember what it's called) that serves tofu terriyaki and veg wraps that are vegan. It's a very small place, mostly take out."

"There's also a cafe right next to the IGA that has vegan soups, salads and sandwiches. There is also a burger place just around the corner from IGA that makes great vegan burgers. "

If you get a chance to stop in Vancouver to eat on your way in or out, I highly recommend Naam. We stopped their for breakfast on the way out and had tofu scramble and really fantastic vegan sausages. It is right on the way back from Whistler on route to the airport!

When Eric mentioned The Hungry Vegan in a recent BVA newletter, I hopped right onto the 'internets' to get more info and try it out. Here is the lowdown: The Hungry Vegan is a new nationwide vegan and organic meal delivery service. It offers a new menu each week. The food is shipped overnight or in two days. The shipments provide for about five to seven days of lunches and dinners. Orders should be placed about a week before you want the food. The order has to be in by Sunday of the cooking week.

I've always thought it would be cool to have someone come to my house and leave me food each week, but the costs for that kind of service is way to high for me and being vegan makes it unlikely to find such a personal chef. Having it shipped to my house is the next best thing and the cost is just right. So, I ordered a weeks worth of food for 2. The cost was $140 (for tw0) plus a $14 delivery fee. I ordered on a Friday, the food was made on Tuesday, and then arrived at my house the next Friday.

When the food arrived, we immediately froze anything that was not tofu or potatoes, as they suggested. Then about 1-2 days before we wanted to eat a particular item we'd take it out of the freezer and put it in the fridge to thaw. Then it was just a quick microwave for dinner. We had plenty of food for dinner for the week - and a lunch leftover or 2 (some servings seemed to be more than a serving size for me). The great thing is that you don't have to eat it all in one week since you are freezing it and then you can pull out dinner when you know you have a busy night coming up.

The food was pretty good. Not as good as I'd make myself but freezing tends do that to food so it was expected. I think my favorite of the week was the pinto beans with sweet potatoes. We also liked the pasta with olives (and I hate olives). Other dishes we got included a rice pilaf, a lentil stir fry, black bean chili, tofu in a green curry sauce, potato turnip soup, roasted beets and apples, and a peanut bread. We also got 2 slices of pumpkin cheesecake, and 2 servings of blueberry cobbler. These sadly got crushed in delivery, but it didn't stop of from scraping the desserts out of the containers and eating them anyway. I mentioned the desserts to the hungry vegan and they will be changing their containers for future deliveries. They had been trying out a recycled environmentally friendly container that just didn't work out.

I definitely plan on ordering from them again. You should give them a try.

x-posted to bostonvegan.org

When I first started this blog, I was answering lots of odd questions I got from people about being vegan. I haven't had a new one in quite a long time. Well, last night I was at a party and was asked "how I get my creatine since it is only found in fish and meat"? Since I'd never been asked that before and didn't remember reading about it in my vegan nutrition bible, I was stumped.

After pulling out my copy of "Becoming Vegan" by Vesanto Melina I had my answer. I also did a little googling and then replied to the person from last night. Here is the answer in case any of you out there are curious:

Creatine is biosynthesized in the human body from the parts from three different amino acids - arginine, glycine, and methionine. The human body generates enough to meet its needs.

There is actually a lot of controversy surrounding the topic. Body Builders take it because it helps to bulk up muscle, but some studies suggest that it is merely making the muscles retain water which will be lost as soon as the person stops taking the creatine (not actually creating or building more muscle). Vegans tend to have less muscle mass, but not less muscle strength. In addition, creatine supplements have been linked to hypertension, kidney disease, liver disease, muscle cramps, and dehydration. The long term effects are generally not known and the studies showing it to be useful are also pretty suspect.

So, you are better off without it. Your body can take care of building muscles just fine without a supplement.

This article, "Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler", in today's New York Times is a very interesting read about the effects of the meat industry on the environment. It is written by Mark Bittman, a cookbook author who wrote "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian" and prior to that he wrote a well know book on cooking fish.

The article points out many of the pollution problems with the livestock industry including groundwater contamination and the losses of the rain forest in order to make more land to grow grain for meat. I do wish he'd done more than barely mention the UN study that pointed to livestock production as the main contributor to greenhouse gasses. One reason I wanted to post this article is because I have many friends who are environmentalists and worry over ever mile driven and the gas consumption of their cars but never consider that going vegetarian might be the best thing that they can do for the planet. I don't want to be too pushy about this, but the United Nations report says that rearing livestock produces more greenhouse gases than driving cars so I think that going vegetarian should at least be worthy of consideration in the eyes of any environmentalist.

Here are several interesting quotes from the NY times article (but I encourage you to read the article itself):

The environmental impact of growing so much grain for animal feed is profound. Agriculture in the United States — much of which now serves the demand for meat — contributes to nearly three-quarters of all water-quality problems in the nation’s rivers and streams, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Americans are downing close to 200 pounds of meat, poultry and fish per capita per year (dairy and eggs are separate, and hardly insignificant), an increase of 50 pounds per person from 50 years ago. We each consume something like 110 grams of protein a day, about twice the federal government’s recommended allowance; of that, about 75 grams come from animal protein. (The recommended level is itself considered by many dietary experts to be higher than it needs to be.) It’s likely that most of us would do just fine on around 30 grams of protein a day, virtually all of it from plant sources .

Perhaps the best hope for change lies in consumers’ becoming aware of the true costs of industrial meat production. “When you look at environmental problems in the U.S.,” says Professor Eshel, “nearly all of them have their source in food production and in particular meat production.

World meat consumption is expected to double again by 2050, which one expert, Henning Steinfeld of the United Nations, says is resulting in a “relentless growth in livestock production.”