ARCTIC! BLAST!

I'm supposed to be enjoying 70-80 degree weather at this exact moment in my hometown of Sarasota, Florida. But no. I'm stuck in the winter wonderland that is Portland, Oregon. We've been dealing with snowy weather for 2 weeks now and it's gotten pretty old. I'm over it. I don't see how people deal with this as part of their normal winter weather. I prefer rain. Rain doesn't delay/cancel flights. I was supposed to fly out Monday night but i had to reschedule and now i'm leaving Saturday morning. I was looking forward to Christmas at home and New Years in Portland, but fate had it planned differently. So i'm trying to roll with it. My mother is none-too-pleased and thinks i should make them give me a flight since that what i was paying for or at least a voucher. 

I don't know what i would be doing without my new rain/snow boots from Rocketdog. (which apparently were being sold for only $15 on that website....i paid a bit more for them...but not $89) I probably wouldn't leave the house as much for fear of my feet being cold and wet. They have a trim inside of some kind of brown furry material. I've been wearing them nonstop. Kinda like my new jacket that i got from Papaya. (i'm the one on the far right). It's quite warm for being only $35. 

I've been spending a lot of time at Sweetpea Baking Co. They have soup nowadays, which is great.  I like having "real" food to choose from. They were out of it since Jessie, their soup guy, went on vacation, but i did see they had it again yesterday. It was the Chik N Noodle kind. It has chunks of seitan in a broth with noodles. Tasty stuff. I just would like to mention again, out loud, that i would love Lisa forever if she decided to make biscuits and gravy a regular menu item. I love Hungry Tiger Too's version since it's only $4 and it's got faux sausage in it and the biscuits don't suck (::coughparadoxcafecough::), but the one time i had Lisa's version at a brunch, i was diggin' it. It's a nice southern white gravy with no heavy spices but pepper and her buscuits are light and fluffy. HT2 has a lot of herbs in it, which isn't what i look for, i just want a good ole southern sausage gravy.

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah! It doesn't feel like Christmas Eve to me. Probably because i'm not at my parent's house that's all decorated. I only remember once not being home for Christmas and that was the year i went to Germany. I'm not a huge family-gatherings person, but it's tradition for me. And i like tradition. I'm glad that i do have a lot of friends that are still in town. My roommate is leaving tomorrow evening so we'll be together for our first roommate Christmas.   :o)

Be safe, y'all. Curl up under the covers and watch While You Were Sleeping or some other nice Christmas movie.....heh....seriously, love that movie though....

it's on the B.L.

Yesterday morning i woke up in a hotel room with snow flurrying about outside my window. It's like i was in a movie or something. But instead of being snuggled up next to a boy, i was in bed with 3 girl friends. One of those friends had gotten a free night's stay at Hotel Deluxe and we made the best we could of a king size bed in the smallest hotel room i've ever been in. They did have a "Make It So" motto, where you could call them and ask for whatever. One of those things was a wide selection of different pillows, like body or one of those special neck pillows. We totally made it so....By breakfast/brunch time there was 3 of us left.

We walked to Blossoming Lotus for breakfast. I had never been there for breakfast before. Me and Maeve's feet were about frozen when we got there. I was wearing Chucks and a thin pair of socks and she had on boots that had a hole in one of the heels and weren't wet-proof. 

They didn't have much in the warm side for breakfast. Really, there was only one choice and that was toast...So i ended up ordering lunch (which they serve after 10am). 

I chose the Smokey Maple Tempeh Sandwich. 

Yeah, look at that plate of deliciousness....mmm.....so it's copious amounts of vegan aioli (i don't know what makes this aioli, it tastes like Vegenaise to me...yum..), alfalfa sprouts, tons of ripe avocado, lettuce and slabs of warm smokey, mapley tempeh on spelt bread. It was so good. I was only able to eat half of it (i polished off the leftovers last night...).  This picture was taken by Jess. She herself had gotten one of their bowls filled with pinto beans, tempeh chunks, kale and quinoa (or rice?) with a peanut sauce/ginger sauce mix. that was pretty tasty too.

Unfortunately, i wasn't able to order some of their delightful vegan soft serve. The flavor of the day was Nog, which probably would've been fun to try.

I like Blossoming Lotus, but it's not for breakfast place unless you're looking for a muffin, juice, granola or smoothie. I'm looking for warm and comforting when i go for breakfast. Oh, they have oatmeal, but i don't usually roll that way...

Ice Cream!!!!

We all scream for it, don't we?

Recently I had the chance to pick some flavors out from the Turtle Mountain company and give them a try. I had had some before so I knew they weren't going to suck. Here's a list of the flavors some friends and I tucked into:

Snickerdoodle- this has a nice cinnamon flavored ice cream with bits of snickerdoodle cookie dough. I didn't like the cookie dough part. Partly because I'm still cookie doughed out from when cookie dough was popular when i was a young teen, and partly because it tasted like i was eating small balls of brown sugar...weird......My other friends that tried it and loved it, so apparently I'm the only one that disapproves of the dough...

Coconut Craze- this is one of my favorites. The ice cream is just damn straight delicious. I believe I've already spoke my love of this flavor before here. 

Turtle Trails- caramel sauce and praline pecans in vanilla ice cream. I thought I would fall for this flavor completely. I didn't. Not that's bad. I would just buy other flavors before I would buy this one.

Peanut Butter Zig Zag- I don't think I like peanut butter in my ice cream. A friend of mine and his 8 year daughter love this stuff and helped polish off the pint. 

And I also tried some of their new Coconut Milk line as well. These aren't totally soy free (they use soy lecithin and other soy products depending on the flavor), but for those looking for a little less soy in their life, it's great. The flavors:

Cookie Dough- I liked everything about this flavor except for the dough part. I loved the ice cream flavor and texture and the chocolate chips, but I ate around the balls of cookie dough. I'm just so not into frozen balls of dough....which is sad, because this ice cream is good.

Chocolate- good, i would like to make a banana chocolate milk shake with these. Sip has probably already done that.

Coconut- this is probably my favorite coconut ice cream I've had. A lot of people like the Coconut Bliss brand and though it's not bad, it doesn't have the creaminess I look for in an ice cream. 

I've also previously tried the Blueberry Cheesecake and Cookie Avalanche. The Cookie Avalanche is a cookies-n-cream flavor that I really like. It nostalgia from my days back in high school when that was my favorite flavor. I love the idea of the Blueberry Cheesecake, but it didn't quite do it for me. The chunks of crust are very dough-like....meaning I'd rather they weren't there. Also, I'm not a huge fan of blueberries in food except for scones and muffins. Oh, and beer. That's food, right? I once heard it called "liquid bread." 

Oh, also the Blueberry Cheesecake is gluten-free for all you gluten-free peeps out there.

Sorry, this is pictureless, I forgot....

Canadian 'Couv...oh, and Thanksgiving

Across the border, of Oregon that is, there is a town called Vancouver in the lovely state of Washington. My sister lives there in a cute house and i, occasionally, visit her. Most people call Vancouver by it's nickname, the 'Couv. I am one of those people. Kinda how we call Beaverton (a Portland suburb) "Beavertron" and Gresham "Shithole." Heh...i kid on that last one. Seriously, no ill will towards Gresham, i just don't want to live there. 'Cause it's not Portland....

anyhoodles, this is all really just to say i went to the "real" Vancouver this past weekend. Yeah, as Michael from a recent The Office episode says, i went abroad. I have a friend that lives there and i haven't seen him since moving to the Northwest 3 1/2 years ago and i wanted to see Vancouver again. I had a 5 day weekend because of Thanksgiving. It probably would've been better had i used all 5 days, but i really wanted to spend Thanksgiving here with my sister and her in-laws and also with my friends (i had two Thanksgiving meals). 

Short side note on Thanksgiving:

I made my first Pecan Pie!

I had leftover filling so i made some pie dough (i had to make a second batch, the first was with whole wheat flour which is why there's such a color difference in the one to the very right) and smooshed it into some cupcake/muffin tins. I loved these mini pies! i'm sure i'll make them again. I used a premade graham cracker crust that needed to get used for the big pie. I do believe graham cracker crusts aren't the best for pecan pie. The Pecan Pie recipe comes from a PPK thread, it's Toddx's recipe and it was adapted by Jess, which is where you'll have to go to get the recipe b/c i can't seem to copy it from the document i have it on....

But back to Vancouver. The weather was rainy and my feet got wet and cold (wearing Chucks in the rain = ridiculous), but other than that, it was a great trip. I walked around downtown and shopped and ate. I ran across Gorilla Food, which i had heard about, and decided to eat some raw food. I had a kale/seaweed salad that was tasty and a carrot-beet-apple juice that was large in size and kinda tasted like dirt. You know how sometimes carrots have that dirt flavor? yeah, that. I could've used more apple....i left there early b/c there was a strange guy that sat next to me and made me uncomfortable with his words, such as "can i come visit you?" and "will you remember me?"....and also b/c when i shook his hand, he didn't let go and he rubbed it...

i also ate at Naam, which i was excited about. Unfortunately, half way through the meal my stomach became upset. But, this place has big portions and, best of all, open 24 hours! I got a dragon bowl, but i think i should've picked something else...it was good and all, but i have a feeling i would've liked something else more. grass is always greener, eh?

I also had a hot dog at Japadog, a hot dog stand known for its' japanese style toppings. I just had the  holy trinity of toppings: sauerkraut, ketchup and yellow mustard. The grill there dogs, so it takes a little longer than the boiled kind, but it's definitely worth it.

I also picked up a 24 pack of Dr. Pepper. They don't use high fructose syrup there. Or any other country, right? We're the only ones that refuse to give that shit up, i think....

I had a good time in Vancouver and hope to go again when it's sunny out....

Skipping....

Hey, guys!

I forgot to write what i ate and now i can't remember. but for the most part it consisted of:

Yogurt muesli or english muffin toasted with pb & homemade-by-my-roommate j

snack of raw almonds, red hot blues tortilla chips and pretzels

mixed baby lettuce with sunflower seeds and Goddess dressing

Boca Melt without the Melt at East Burn- comes with carmelized onions and mushrooms

French Fries

Beers

Cocktails

Coffee

Glazed Donut

Brussels Sprouts with Garlic from VWAV

Sauteed mushrooms, tofu, leeks and carrots with quinoa, Better Than Sour Cream and Srirachi

 

Yup....

Today was:

Yogurt muesli

Nachos from Hungry Tiger Too

My roommate had the Portland Scramble and declared it the best scramble she's had out and about. And they have hash browns like Jam on Hawthorne, so that's a plus. I tasted the scramble and thought it good, but i thought the portion size of the scramble was quite small for $9. Seriously, i should have leftovers for that much....yeah, i'm having a serious issue with HT2's prices.....

PBR

dinner will probably be the leftovers of the veggie/tofu/quinoa from last night

Food Journal Monday and Tuesday

Monday:

Yogurt muesli- Vanilla yogurt with rolled oats, banana, shredded apple, fresh squeezed orange juice, sunflower seeds, raw pumpkin seeds and flax meal. I love this stuff and make about one large container of it at a time. I started eating it while i was in Germany, they call it "muesli." I usually put some soymilk in it for liquid but i had an orange in the fridge that badly needed to be used. 

Coffee with soy and sugar

Snack: Red Hot Blues chips, spelt pretzels, raw almonds

Tuno Casserole leftover with Srirachi

Pad Thai Woon Sen- yeah, i had it again

Tuesday:

Yogurt muesli (see above)

Roastaroma tea with French Vanilla Silk creamer and honey 

Snack: Red Hot Blues chips, spelt pretzels, raw almonds

Tuno Casserole leftovers with Srirachi

3 (yes, three!!) Vegan Ham & Cheese sandwiches. I was going to stop at 2, but then Jess

just insisted i take one off her hands. So for her sake alone, i did.

1 Greyhound

1 Whiskey Sour

Tonight's America's Next Top Model! It's getting close to the end, which is kinda sad because that means there is an upcoming 3 month break between "cycles." Sad face.

Food Journal 11-8 and 9

I had a great day with my friends Corinn and Philip (he lived here until a couple months ago, but he's currently visiting for 6 days) on Saturday. It was actually quite nice out and the sun was shining most of the afternoon. I actually got to wear just a T-shirt (and jeans) when we sat outside the Gold Dust Meridian for a drink. Well, until the sun sneaked behind the building across the street...then it got cold and we went inside.

I slept in quite late on Saturday so my first meal was lunch.

Pad Thai Woon Sen

Dr. Pepper

Coffee with soy and sugar

Ginger ale and Gin with lime

1/2 Meatball Sub and Brussels Sprouts from Bye & Bye

Nebraska- hot apple cider and apple cinnamon rum

Stockholm- lemon infused vodka with ginger ale

Session

Pad Thai Woon Sen leftovers

By the way, all that alcohol was within an 8 hour period so i wasn't obliterated at the end of the day, if you were wondering. 

Then on Sunday..

Bite of bagel that may or may not be vegan. My roommate was trying not to starve to death (b/c of our friend philip's lack of speed to get ready for breakfast) and was eating one of her Kettleman's bagels that she buys in a mix bag. i took a bite and was like, that's a pizza bagel. that's probably not vegan...

Coffee with soy and sugar- $2.25 a cup at Junior's! yowza! that's almost as bad as Zell's! (i'm pissed at them b/c they charge $2 but 50cents more for soymilk.)

Vegan Potatoes from Junior's- i'm not sure why i get these since i'm not a fan of their potatoes. Ok, actually i do know why i get these, i'm a sucker for corn, mushrooms and their spicy tofu sauce. But, really, their potatoes kinda suck. And the only person that doesn't agree, that was in our party, is my roommate.

Homemade Tuno Casserole- i've had a frozen tube of Tuno (R.I.P.) for at least a year and i've been wanting to make a tuna casserole with it. My roommate and i topped ours with our respective hot sauces, her Aardvark and me Srirachi. It was comforting stuff. I added peas because what's any casserole without peas??

Southern Blend Greens (from Trader Joe's) with garlic and olive oil

Trader Joe's Soy Creamy Very Cherry Chip ice cream

Food journal 11-7-08. Part II

So yesterday. (just assume that anytime i mention "sausage", "yogurt", etc, it's the vegan version of them)

At work i ate:

Tofurkey Smoked Turkey Sandwich with Veganaise, lettuce on Dave's Killer Bread

Spinach hummus (this stuff is so good! it's that brand that you can find in all the fridgerated section of almost every grovery here) with organic blue corn chips

Plain yogurt mixed with rolled oats, the juice of a small blood orange, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, raisins

Chocolate silk milk

I got home and me and my roommate went to Hungry Tiger Too. They have a separate vegan menu now. It's nice to have but they've upped some of the prices *and* they make you pay a $1 (for crinkle french fries) or $2 (tots, salad, or soup) extra with your sandwich. Wtf??? Who do they think they are, McMenamins?? So they prices are technically the same, except you have to pay more for fries or tots.....You're free choices are chips or coleslaw. The secret vegan club sandwich is on the menu, but it's now $10.50 (and, again, you have to pay extra for tots or fries......so you would have to pay $12.50 (!) for a club with tots.......), it was $9.50ish before. They do now have homemade corndogs, which is what i ended up getting. I knew it was bad idea though. It's 2 of the corndogs on a bed of tots for $7. Who can eat all that, i ask? It's too much grease. I about died. The corndogs were good though. I asked the waitress if it's possible to get a half order, b/c i only need one corndog at a time, thanks. She said she didn't think so but she would mention it to someone. The shitty part of our visit was that there was a table of about 12 people and they were kinda drunk (i think) and they were talking so loud and shrill, it hurt me and missy's ears and we could just barely hear each other. 

I also had a PBR to drink there.

I went to a show and i drank a gin and giner ale.

After the show i ran into my lovely friend Philip, who had just gotten into town for a week long visit and we went and had a beer at Squeez. I had a Shock Top Hefeweizen.

And that was my day.....

What i ate...

I've been thinking of doing a food journal of what i eat each day. That would actually get me posting more (because that's what y'all are dying for, right?) b/c it's easy. I thoroughly enjoy looking at what people eat. Not even looking, just reading about it is fun. I work for a naturopathic doctor and sometimes she gives people a diet to follow and i just like reading it. It's not even meals to make, just a list of foods to eat or avoid. And sometimes patients send in what they've been eating each day and i read them. I don't know what it is about them that i like so much.....

So, so far today i've had:

Maple Sausage Waffle from FlavourSpot

Coffee with sugar-in-the-raw and soymilk

Yeah, that's it. I haven't gotten very far today....

The Last VeganMoFo

So this is my 12th post for VeganMoFO. I didn't even do half the month.....but really, i'm not surprised. Or, actually, i should say i am because i didn't think i'd even get through this many.

This is just going to be a spazz post about several different things. Maybe a list of my favorite things...

1. Trader Joe's Very Cherry Chip (actually made by Double Rainbow). This stuff is creamy delicious.

2. Trader Joe's 3 Buck Chuck. Can you beat a $3 bottle of prize winning wine that tastes good? Only if you're in California (where it's $2)

3. Wildwood Garlic Aioli. Currently, you can buy this at the Hollywood Grocery Outlet for $1.29. I like this best when used as a dip for veggies, especially red bell peppers. It's a match made in heaven....

4. Tofutti's Better Than Sour Cream. I put this shit on everything i make. (that is savory...not sweet stuff...) It makes anything i make taste good, magical stuff....

5. Tofu. Gosh, how did i go for so many years without this? Probably because my mom's afraid of it and the first time i tasted it was in Food Prep class in 10th or 11th grade and it was given to me raw.

6. Tube's Vegan Ham and Cheese. It's what my dreams are made of. It's taste is part nostalgia and part hot faux ham and cheese with chipotle vegannaise.

7. Dr. Pepper. I'm a pepper.

8. Vegan Chicken Nuggets from Food Fight! R.I.P. They are no longer available (because they are no longer made), but i still think of them....

9. Sweetpea Baking Co.'s Glazed Donuts. I've mentioned these many times, but there's a reason for that: they're delicious!

10. Apples. Probably my all time favorite fruit. Favorite types being Gala or Honeycrisp. One kind that i won't touch with a 10 foot pole: Red Delicious. Ok, maybe i would if i was tricked and they were baked in something, but damn! the skin of those is drying to the mouth!

11. Chocolate. I'll take it in many forms. My favorite being Missionary truffles, Chocolove Dark Chocolate with Almonds and Cherries, Terra Nostra's Ricemilk Choco with Dark Truffle Center, bits of it in ice cream....

12. Faux sausages. I cut those up and it gives flavor and protein to any veggie saute i make...or pizza....yum....

What are some of yours?

I do hope to blog more than i have. It's been nice having everyone blog so often. There's always something new to read.

Happy Halloween, y'all! Watch out for the poisoned candy!

Would i like to try some chocolate?

I was asked this question. I replied by saying something to the effect of "is the pope catholic?" I'm a bit of a whore when it comes to free samples. Maybe not a whore, because i don't have to actually do anything for it....except talk about it, and that's not even mandatory. 

So the Missionary Chocolates have been around for quite a few months. I believe they officially debuted at the VegFest in May. Jess (of GetSconed) and Webly (of Fueled By Popcorn) invited me to be on their podcast that they were doing for the their collective blog, StumptownVegans. We talked about VegFest, which we had just been to and we oohed and ahhed over the Missionary Chocolate truffles we gotten to taste there. 

They have a lot of flavors and they're sold in various shops here in town in Portland (Food Front and that store in Jantzen Beach that sells local stuff....can't remember the name! it's in the Target building with the carousel and food court...) 

Vanessa kindly dropped off 10 flavors for me to try. I don't know which one i was most excited to try, they all sounded delicious. I had a few friends and coworkers to help me out. (i couldn't do it all myself! they're too rich! it would've taken me a long time to get through them all. ) Almost all the ingredients are local and some are organic, the chocolate is fair trade and they're all handmade. 

Peanut Butter Passion (according to the website it's called Treasures now): i actually couldn't really detect the peanut butter in this, so i wouldn't consider it very "passionate", but that didn't mean it didn't taste good! I thought it was creamy delicious. My friend Anna declared it "fuckin' delicious!" and my roommate Missy said it was rich. 

Boule d' Amandes (Almond Ball): The center of this one was almost fudge-like and it was creamy chocolate goodness. Anna was a fan of the fudgyness and said it was pretty much perfect. Missy really liked the crunch of the nuts that coated the outside of this truffle and i believe it was her favorite.

Meyer Lemon Explosion: The won the award for the #1 People's Choice at the Northwest Chocolate Festival. I wasn't too excited about this one since i'm not big on citrus-y things, but i liked this one. It was surprisingly tasty and it had a nice tart flavor. Anna said it was the perfect amount of tanginess and was clean and refreshing. Missy wasn't a fan and said people with TMJ need to be careful with this one.  :o)

Coconut Haystacks: I thought this one was going to be my favorite, but i was wrong. Don't get me wrong, it was good, there wasn't a bad chocolate in the bunch. I think i just like a creamy/fudgy inside to my truffles and this one had shreds of coconut in it and didn't have as much coconutty flavor as i thought it would. Anna liked it alot, but did wish it had more coconut flavor to it. 

Sweet Raspberry Heart: I took this to work with me. I have a gluten-free coworker that i thought would enjoy trying out some chocolates (these are all gluten-free....i'm not sure how many chocolates actually have gluten in them, but it's nice when they're labeled as such). I liked this one more than i thought i would because i'm not a big fan of raspberries and mixing fruit with chocoate(though i have been known to love cherries in my chocolate). Vanessa told me they simmer the berries for 6 hours and then mix it with chocolate ganache. Another coworker of mine really liked the flavor of this one and said she couldn't tell it was vegan. 

Dark Chocolate Delights: this was the other one i took to work and my gluten free coworker liked this one a lot. This may be my favorite. I was told by Vanessa that it's usually a little different but i can't remember how. Maybe something about how it's not usually as soft? I liked that it didn't have a shell around it, just some cocoa. So it was like eating a ball of fudge. 

Smooth Espresso Spheres: Smooth, indeed. A little more coffee taste than i'd like but maybe if there was more chocolate i would like it better. Though my roommate Missy had the exact opposite reaction, she wished for more coffee flavor and chunks of bean. She really liked this one. Our friend Corinn said it was a smooth mix of coffee and chocolate.

Peppermint Perfection: i thought this one tastes like an Andes mint, which i kinda miss eating as a vegan. It was Corinn's favorite of the ones she tried and she said it was a good combination of flavors. 

Ginger: Tasted like the pickled ginger that you get with sushi.....that's all i could really taste. I couldn't really taste the chocolate part. Not bad, but not something i'm looking for in chocolate. Missy, on the other hand, said "OMG"....yeah, she liked it. She likes ginger a lot more than i do.

Cinnamon & Chipotle: Spicy! Tastes like burning! ok, it's not that bad, but i sat there kinda waving my hand at my mouth until the burning stopped. Missy liked this one, subtle and delicious. This is a girl that uses Aardvark Sauce on everything, so it was right up her alley.

These were really good chocolates and for about $4 each, a good treat when you want or need one. You can really tell they are high quality and made with really good ingredients.  I look forward to some of the other flavors, such as the seasonal Champagne and the Black Cherry Bombs. 

 

The cheese i most miss...

Actually, Vegan MoFo is supposed to be about all the good stuff that is vegan, not what we're "missing" out on....but really, i haven't posted in days and i wanted to post something. i haven't uploaded any new pictures lately and i'm not ready to post about the Missionary Chocolates (coming soon...hint: they were damn good!).....

So the cheese i most miss: feta, i would have to say. I'm a sucker for salty things. When i eat pretzels i usually suck some of the salt off before biting down on them. And when i get to the bottom of the bag, i lick my finger and dip it into the fallen-off salt like it's a Lik-M-Aid. When i was in Germany, my boss made me a special Christmas dinner of a block of feta (about a 3/4 inch thick, 5x3) wrapped in puff pastry, the others were having the same thing but with meat inside. It was tasty. The Greek salad is just a....man, i can't think of that expression! you know like peanut sauce is to noodles....and um.....i don't know....

But really, when it comes down to it, i don't miss cheese. I don't daydream about it. I don't spend time thinking about how i don't get to eat something anymore. I will have occasion thoughts, like "man, havarti cheese sandwiches were really good" or "cheese pizza is damn good." But they're fleeting thoughts and i continue about my day. I've read that cheese has some kind of enzyme or something that makes you kinda addicted to it, so once you haven't had it for awhile, you don't crave it. I don't think i had an addictive response to quitting cheese. Perhaps b/c i still have it on rare occasions? (i don't send food back when i get it accidentally with cheese, i'd just rather not waste. i don't grossed out by cheese, meat, on the other hand, would be sent back) 

In my year in Germany i ate a lot of cheese. I gained 15 pounds, my face rounded out. My sister was excited, thinking that i finally wouldn't be as thin anymore. But, alas, i came back to America and lost the pounds. Not eating bread with butter and cheese, with lots of milk chocolate in addition, will help you lose weight.....

Crispy Rice

I had the chance to try 2 of the Envirokids Crispy Rice bars, the Peanut Butter and Berry (which i think are called something else....i thought the word "drizzle" was involed in the pb one....ok, i found out i had the Peanut Choco Drizzle....oh, and i think i had the Fruity Burst one not "berry"....so yeah, neither are pictured here.....). Anyways, these kinda remind me of rice krispies treats and they're probably supposed to. 

The berry one had a pleasant berry "essence" to it. It was reminiscent of Fruity Booty, a Robert's American Gourmet snack, you know, the same people who make Tings. It's not something i would normally buy, but if i was ever offered one again, i would accept. Not exactly a glowing review, but fruty stuff  just ain't my thing.

However, the Peanut Choco Drizzle one was more my thing and i found it enjoyable. It was crispy, peanut buttery and chocolatey. A good combination, indeed. 

I think it's nice to have a gluten free option like that for those poor kids that can't have gluten. I did notice these have honey in them, so if you're not into that, stay clear....

don't call me [slacker], not fit to....

Yeah, Pearl Jam....
but i am fit to....

Anyways, thanks be to Jess of Let's Get Sconed, i'm posting today. She did a survey on her blog today and, if you know me, you know i *love* surveys. For realz....


What was the most recent tea you drank?
Sleepytime Tea by Celestial Seasonings. I really like the taste of that stuff.

What vegan forms do you post/lurk on? If so, what is your username? Spill!
I post on the PPK and i'm theprocrastinatingcook. I live up to my name. I don't go on any other vegan forums, though i used to on veganfreaks and when Food fight! had one.

You have to have tofu for dinner, and it has be an Italian dish. What comes to mind first?
i don't cook italian much. maybe stuffed shells? i've never made them before.

How many vegan blogs do you read on an average day?
probably about 4-5.

Besides your own, what is the most recent one you’ve read?
Lets Get Sconed! Jess has a great blog and she's a friend of mine so it's fun to see what she's making and if i've made it into a post :o)

If you had to base your dinners for a week around one of the holy trilogy – tofu, seitan or tempeh, which would it be?
Definitely the tofu. I love the other 2, but tofu is very versatile.

If you had to use one in a fight, which would it be?
frozen block of tofu

Name 3 meals you’d realistically make with that tough protein of choice!
i don't use frozen tofu often but i would do the "chicken nuggets" (breaded and baked or fried), miso soup, enchiladas

What’s a recipe in vegan blogland that you’ve been eyeing?
gosh, there's so many......and i can't think of a particular one actually...

Do you own any clothing with vegan messages/brands on them?
yeah, i'm a sometime model for Herbivore (herbivoreclothing.com) and i get them on discount so i end up with a lot of their stuff. I have the Cowhugger green longsleeve, wings are for flying hoodie and boatneck, green on black herbivore cross hoodie, elephant black sleeveless

Have you made your pilgrimage to the 'vegan mecca' yet? (Portland, duh)
i live in it.

What age did you first go vegan? Did it stick?
umm.....about 26. pretty much.

What is the worst vegan meal you’ve had? Who cooked it?
i'm not a big fan of most tofu scrambles at Cup & Saucer. but i'm sure i've had worse things

What made you decide to blog?
Jess kept on hounding me to...

What are three of your favorite meals to make?
pizza with Hot Lips crust, some kind of grain with sauteed veggies and tofu topped with better than sour cream and srirachi(sp?), chickpea noodle soup from V'con

What dish would you bring to a vegan Thanksgiving-themed potluck?
sweet potato casserole or mashed taters

Where is your favorite vegan meal at a restaurant? How many times have you ordered it?
the vegan ham and cheese from Tube, seriously. i was there on Tuesday and had 3 of them (they are english muffin sandwiches)

What do you think the best chain to dine as a vegan is?
Sweet Tomatoes, maybe...

My kitchen needs a………
blender and/or food processor.....side note: jess, you don't have a sifter??

This vegetable is not allowed in my kitchen…..!
not a big celery fan.

What's for dinner tonight?
i'm going out tonight so i don't know yet...

Mac N Chz

Unfortunately, i haven't taken a picture of the mac and cheeze that i will be referring to, maybe i will later....

On the PPK (Post Punk Kitchen) someone started a thread about VegNews' Mac N Chz recipe. I'm not sure when it was printed but here's the link: http://www.vegnews.com/pdf/veganize_it.pdf....I was intrigued since it had cashews in it and cashews seem to do magical things when used to veganize recipes, like my sister's cashew "whip cream." And this recipe contained no nooch (aka nutritional yeast, for those who don't know veg slang), which i'm not against but i wanted to see how "cheesy" it would be since nooch is used for that reason.

I made it for the first time a few weeks ago at Joanna's (of yellowroserecipes.com) BeRightBack brunch(and no one took pictures of the food there, which is weird since all the vegans i hang out with are always taking food porn whenever they eat). The recipes called for potatoes and i didn't have any, so i added some zucchini, which i knew would kinda change the recipe since it's not at all the same consistency and more watery. It's a very easy recipe, the only annoying part is how many dishes you end up dirtying. Everyone at the brunch seemed to enjoy it, especially Maeve (http://strawberryrock.wordpress.com/) and Big Rubes (the 3 1/2 year old daughter of Josh and Michelle, owners of Herbivore). It has a bit of kick to it from some cayenne. Maeve had about 3 servings of it and requested that i make this for our Gossip Girl night the next day, so i took that as a compliment. It was good though, and i had added some chopped up chard before baking it for some extra nutrition and color.

I made this again on Saturday evening. I used potatoes this time and definitely noticed a difference when i was stirring the sauce with the pasta. Like it had a stretchiness factor. It was kind of weird actually. I used a little more cayenne and I also sauteed up some mushrooms and, again, added chard. The first time i didn't use all the bread crumbs but this time decided to go for it. I think it made it too dry, so i think next time i'll just use 3 slices of bread. Maybe add some peas and/or corn.....Yeah, you can do a lot to this to use up whatever veggies you got kickin' around in your fridge or freezer and it's just makes a great comfort food on these cool, crisp fall nights. It makes quite a bit so invite some friends over.....

Farmers Markets: Produce on Parade

Yesterday i found myself at the farmers market on the PSU park blocks for the first time in months. The weather was sunny and cool and crisp, a perfect day to go. It definitely has been feeling like fall here in Portland the last week or so. It's a welcome change but i'm not looking forward to rainy winter weather just yet, the days when you just don't want to get out form under the covers. I do have a plan ticket home for Christmas, so at least i know i'll see some good ole Florida sunshine then.

I'm not sure why i haven't gone to the market in so long. Although i guess maybe it was partly because i was dating a boy that worked at an organic produce distributor so i was kinda gettin' the hookup. Why pay for veggies, right? I do love the market, for not just its' produce, but for the people watching and the wholesome feeling that it exudes.

I went with my roommate Missy and we met up with my sister Kim, her dog Mo, and her husband Ben. It was lovely day. Me and Miss spread out our bounty so that you could see what we got:


Apples, kale, celeriac, pear, garlic, green onions, Dave's Killer Bread: Good Seed, radishes, multi-colored bell peppers, zucchini, leek, red potatoes and shallots

Pretty produce....taken by Missy



I still end up buying produce at grocery stores around here and when i do, it doesn't feel the same. It's nice buying directly from the farmers/farmer helpers.

Fundraiser meal- vegan style

A few months back I went to a fundraiser dinner cooked by Isa Chandra Moskowitz (of Veganomicon and Vegan with a Vengeance) that raised money for....hmm....good question...i don't remember what it was for, but it was an all vegan meal that used seasonal produce and was 4 courses long!

ok, so i looked into it and found out it was a benefit for the Let Live Conference. Here was the menu:

Soup
Spicy Cream of Sweet Potato with Lime
A creamy puree of sweet potatoes and a little parsnip, with a kick of lime and chili

Salad
Jicama Salad in Citrus Vinaigrette
A Thai inspired salad of crisp, sweet jicama in a tangy vinaigrette of orange, lemon and grapefruit. Served with grilled and chilled asparagus and garnished with beansprouts, cilantro, roasted peanuts and avocado

Main
Blackened Seitan With Corn Pudding And Chocolate Chili Mole
Cajun rubbed blackened homemade seitan and grilled zucchini over a sweet and savory creamy corn pudding, with a mild chocolate chili mole

Dessert
Raspberry Brownie And Vanilla Ice Cream
A warm raspberry brownie with chocolate drizzle, raspberry sauce and vanilla ice cream

Homemade ginger lemonade will be served. Please bring your own beer and wine.



The jicama salad was off the chain deliciousness! I do remember that my salad was avocado-less and my dining companion let me have some of hers. I love me some avocado....

Everything was good, but i'm really looking forward even more to the next one that Isa's planning. It's on Friday, October 24th and there's a limit of 40 place settings so go PayPal it up before it gets sold out. The price is sliding scale, from $40-100. All proceeds are going to the House of Dreams, a no-kill kitty shelter that a friend of mine works at. I'm not a huge cat friend, but i know that if it were for dogs i would tell people to go whether they liked them or not. Plus i am selfish and do it for the food.

Here's what Isa concocted:

Soup
White Bean And Roasted Garlic
A puree of navy beans and sweet smoky roasted garlic with leeks and fresh herbs

Me: leeks?? i love leeks!

Salad
Golden Beet And Shallot
Warm roasted golden beets and baby greens in a creamy vinaigrette with caramelized shallots and a handful of toasted walnuts

Me: beets! shallots! oh my!

Main
Autumn Plate
Cornbread and homemade sausage stuffed acorn squash, smoky grilled tempeh in a wild mushroom ragout served with garlicky purple kale

Me: smoky grilled tempeh w/mushroom ragout (whatever that is) with garlicky kale?? get in my belly now!

Dessert
Caramelized Apples
Warm apples in a caramelized maple sauce, served with crisp gingerbread shortbread and topped with homemade coconut based vanilla bean ice cream

Me: OMG!

Housemade hot chai will be served. Please bring your own beer and wine.

Me: don't you worry, i will




Yeah, i'm totes excited!
For reals...

Good bar food: it's not any oxymoron

One of my favorite bars here in Portland is Bonfire, SE Stark and 28th. I've gone there for twice as part of my birthday celebrations. In my most humble opinion, they have the best fries in Portland. And i don't think that only because they're the cheapest! It's $3.50 for a motherload of well seasoned fries. McMenamin's charges $5 for tater tots! But i won't get started on my love/hate relationship with the McMenamin's company, maybe a different post...

French fries is what i look for at a bar as my primary way of judging their food selections, but in Portland you'll find a lot of substantial food and there's usually some good vegan options. I think it's the law here to serve some kind of food as long as you're serving alcohol. I really should know this since i took a mandatory 6 hour long alcohol class so that i could work at Hot Lips Pizza....

Anyways, at bars around here you can almost always count on a hummus plate and french fries (though there's a few bars that don't have that have, if you can just imagine that! i'm looking at you, Beulahland, Roadside Attraction, Tube and Hedge House! man...there's quite a few....), but you can also count on something more filling, such as the tofu or tvp tacos at Bonfire, which is what my friend Matthew above is about to devour. They also have a curry burrito, which i've never had. My friend Corinn loves the portobello gyro, which can be made vegan. Side note about the waitstaff: they can be a bit more-hipster-than-thou, but there's at least one awesomely nice server there named Sean.

The Tube downtown has the yummiest $2 Ham & Cheese english muffin sammies during their Happy Hour (which last i checked ended at 10pm). The Bye & Bye, our town's only all-vegan bar, has quite a few options including a delicious, but messy meatball sub and several different bowls, which are nutritious and delicious. Oh, they are also fry-less.....sad face....

As you can tell, i'm not looking for good-as-in-healthy bar food, though it's possible. I just know that when i visit home in Sarasota, Florida i don't even think about trying to get anything vegan that tastes good when i'm out and about.

What's your favorite bar food?

My Story, Part Zwei

My long story didn't really include why i am vegetarian, so i thought i would explain a little. Explaining things is not a strong suit of mine, i tend to babble and i don't have the ability to make it clear and ideas are a little disjointed. So bear with me.

I started becoming veg because i became grossed out by red meat and also just because my older sister was doing it. I also figured out that I am unable to actually kill an animal myself and i think that if you can't do it yourself, then you don't deserve to have someone doing it for you. Growing up in a "city" and not a farm, you don't really put the 2 together that what comes in a nice clean package first went though a disgusting slaughterhouse. It's just a nonmoving lump of "meat." The German word for meat is "fleisch" (pronounced "flysh"), literally "flesh." I think if i grew up calling meat "flesh" i would've been a little weirded out that i was eating it.

While i still lived in Florida with my parents, i started learning more and more about the dairy and egg industry and i didn't like what i found out. They are connected with the meat industry. Dairy cows produce male calves that are good for nothing, so they get sent to veal farms. (I have family friends that run a veal farm and i remember visiting the air conditioned barn when i was young. i didn't think much of it, just that it was dark and coo inside. the husband has mentioned that he thinks veal calves have an excellent life. i guess he just feels like just sitting without being able to barely move is a great life. i do believe he is nice to them, but the not being able to move is what gets me, and also that they are separated from their mothers...) Since male chickens aren't needed for egg producing they get disposed of or sent to farms that grow chickens for meat. Some of them get disposed of by being thrown into garbage bags and die by suffocation.

The way most of the dairy cows and chickens live just sucks. Like, for real, it's not what God intended. The standard American diet uses too much of these products. Years ago, before factory farming, people ate meat once a day and butter was used sparingly and you got whatever eggs your own chickens laid or whatever you could afford to buy from the local farmer. Chickens weren't "shocked" (put in darkness and not given food) so that their bodies would produce more eggs for awhile long before being killed.

Slaughterhouses are gross. Stun guns don't always work and animals are sliced open still alive. People that work in slaughterhouses get injured and die from falling into dangerous equipment. The speed they must work at to keep up with their quotas is mostly to blame.

And then there's the shit. Literally, shit. Animals produce a lot of it and it produces a lot of greenhouse gas. It gets into our water and even into the meat you eat. One of my favorite quotes from Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser is "The medical literature on the causes of food poisoning is full of euphemisms and dry scientific terms : coliform levels, aerobic plate counts, sorbitol, MacConkey agar, and so on. Behind them lies a simple explanation for why eating a hamburger can make you seriously ill: There is shit in the meat.

Some people aren't fazed by killing an animal. I don't, personally, understand that, but i realize it's why the motto "meat is murder" and the like are not going to change someone's mind to stop eating meat. I am not like a lot of Portland vegans and vegans worldwide in that i'm not eating vegan for animal liberation. I don't mind people owning animals and i don't think animals are just like us humans. I don't put them on the same "level" as humans. But I do have compassion for them and animal cruelty is something i find despicable. It's a living creature and if you're a christian or whatever and believe that God put you on this earth and you have dominion over all the animals, it doesn't mean you can treat animals like shit. Shooting squirrels for the hell of it with your bee-bee gun is something i'll never understand. Putting a lizard in an emptied tennis ball and lighting it on fire....these are things boys, like my cousin benji, did. I don't know where they get this from....

I always find it humorous when people find out your veg and they get all worried about your protein intake or whatever. It's like, hello, my diet even if low in protein (which it's not) would be 10 times better than what you eat. i eat plenty of grains, legimes, veggies, fruit, nuts, etc. You, with your white bread devoid of any nutrition, your 40 oz of soda a day, your processed cheese and your red meat full of saturated fat is not healthy and you're not getting all the nutrition you should be getting......We don't need as much protein as some might think and i eat tofu and beans, i'm just fine. So just lay the fuck off. Thanks!

Waffles and Me

I've posted about waffles before on here. It's not my favorite breakfast food, but when it comes to quick and easy, frozen waffles are just the manwhores of breakfast foods. Especially when someone else is making them for you....and adding maple "butter" and vegan sausage. Then it's just flippin' golden! Look how happy Katie is!



Yesterday Katie (of Sweetpea Baking Co) and i went to the Flavour Spot cart at N. Fremont and Mississippi (the other location is somewhere on Lombard, google if you want specifics, i'm unable to do links...). We met up with our friends Kevin (www.tofuligans.com), Jeff, and Susie. Kevin is currently visiting from the great north (aka Canadia.....yeah, Canadia) to do photography for Isa Chandra Moskowitz's new brunch book (yay!). Jeff is a recent transplant from....Iowa? This here is Susie, a recent transplant from Vancouver...Washington. Heh....She's into science and molecules and how to make vegan whip cream.(http://parsnipparsimony.wordpress.com/)


Anyways, back to food....

I had been hearing about this food cart for a very long time, but it's quite far for me to go just to get a waffle, no matter how good that waffle is. I finally went a few months ago when i was house/dogsitting for the Hooten's, who live out near the Lombard location (and also the Fremont/Mississippi location wasn't open just yet). I fell pretty hard for this delightful mix of flavors and textures. I had to go again the next day. And then again a few days later....The wait can be a little long at times. The cost is $4.50, which isn't bad.

Bellies full of goodness:

My First MoFo Blog....a day late...

Yeah, it didn't happen yesterday. So sue me.

This first post will be about my veg story. Back in high school, my sister, who was 3 grades ahead of me, took a Food Prep class where she got interested in food and somehow (i never actually asked...) got interested in vegetarianism. She stopped eating red meat, which was a big deal in our family full of deer hunters. Me and sister didn't exactly get along until after she left for college, but she's always influenced me. I don't remember her telling me about why i shouldn't eat red meat, but it got in my brain. One day during summer school when i was on break at McDonald's having my usual cheeseburger (plain, as always) and i was eating it in the way i had since i was young. I eat about half of it and then i pull the bun off and just eat the meat and cheese. When i pulling the bread off i saw one of those weird slimy, brown "slugs" that gets on hamburgers and just got totally grossed out and vowed not to eat red meat anymore. This was big for me, it cut out a lot of favorite meals: Poor Man's Steak, Arby's roast beef sandwiches, deli roast beef sandwiches, this one casserole my mom makes.....and, of course, cheeseburgers. I believe i even started calling myself a vegetarian at this point, which now makes me wince and laugh at myself.

i continued to eat any other kind of meat for the next few years. My sister eventually became a pescatarian (vegetarian that eats fish), which she still is to this day. I worked Chick-Fil-A as a senior in high school and definitely got my fill of their chicken nuggets, which were my favorite growing up. I was never grossed out by white meat, which is why i continued eating it. i'm still not grossed out by white meat, cooked anyways.

I was in Germany for a year from Aug 2002-Aug 2003 and decided to be pescatarian (but mainly veg) while there so as to not worry about the meat situation, they eat some weird meat over there. I worked kitchens while there and i once had to cut up some bloodwurst, which was disgusting! Also, i prepped bread for the old people at a nursing home i worked at and one person, just one, wanted schmerwurst (known in america as braunschweiger, it's smearable meat), which made me gag every time.

I ate chicken once during that year, when i was out dining with an american friend of mine. when i came back home, i ate chicken once and decided to give it up altogether. well, except seafood, which i clung to. i'm one of those people that consider seafood differently than land animals. Some people don't get this, and i understand that.

I was living in Sarasota with my parents for over a year and working at a small health food store. I wanted to go vegan then but at the time i had access to free, recently-out-of-date yogurt and eggs. soon after moving here to Portland, i stopped eating seafood. i moved in with a vegan friend and that's when i became the vegan i am today. i'm not 100%, there are times where i will eat dairy and, honestly, i don't feel like explaining the various situations that i do.
oh, and i'll eat honey. i would kill a bee and you can't torture them, like cutting off their tails, debeaking them, etc. that's how i see it anyways....

Vegan MoFo

Last year Isa Chandra Moskowitz, of the Veganomicon, Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, and Vegan with a Vengeance cookbook trifecta, started the Vegan Month of Food blog challenge. It's not really a challenge per se....but for me it definitely will be. I have been a terrible blogger and have only been posting once a month. With Vegan MoFo the guidelines this year are for the blogger to post every weekday during October. I'll most likely do the weekend as part of that and take off 2 weekdays.

"Join us for VeganMofo - the Vegan Month Of Food. The idea is to write as much as you can for the month of October about vegan food. The blog entries can be about anything food related - your love of tongs, your top secret tofu pressing techniques, the first time your mom cooked vegan for you, vegan options in Timbuktu - you get the idea."

For more info and the list of participants: http://theppk.com/blog/2008/09/16/veganmofo-is-upon-us/

So make sure you check all the blogs out, it's going to be fun to see what everyone talks about and what ideas they come up with to talk about....Let me know if you have any splendid ideas or anything you wish for me to talk about.

Sauerkraut...not just for Bavarians anymore

Yeah, this is kind of a lame post. I haven't been eating very many new things lately. I've just been very blah when it comes to food. If y'all have any food suggestions, please let me know!

So, did you grow up eating sauerkraut? i did not. Or, at least, i don't remember eating it. Perhaps my mother tried feeding it to me and i recoiled in disgust. But the first time i remember eating it was when i was about 13 and i was in ohio at my aunt's house and my sister was just eating it out of a cup with a fork. i think i tasted it and was just not impressed.

A few years later, my sister, her husband, and i were living next door to my parents in their rental house. We had a New Years meal (which we now have every year) of kale with black eyed peas (a Nava Atlas recipe that is totally delicious), mashed potatoes and sauerkraut with vegan bratwursts. I became enamored with sauerkraut after that. When i lived in Germany for a year i became acquainted with red(rote) sauerkraut, which is sweeter, usually made with cloves, and is very delicious with mixed in with mashed taters. (isn't everything good with mashed potatoes?)

I moved in with my current roommate in February and that's when i found out we have a common love: sauerkraut. Although her love definitely surpasses mine, no question. We always keep some kraut in the fridge and when our friend Redhead Anna comes over we bond over our sauerkraut love.

We find that we like the nonraw kind. Like, there's this brand called Bubbies and we found that it's too crunchy for our liking. i don't know if it's usually cooked, but this kind keeps it's cabbage crunch. We normally get Eden's(above....obviously), but really any will do. This past weekend i made BeerBQ (from Let's Get Sconed....see links) sandwiches and i ate one with sauerkraut on it and it was delicious!

And, oh my goodness, i was looking through Flickr for sauerkraut picture and i came across Potato, Sauerkraut and Soy Cheese Casserole....that sounds so damn good! see it for yourself: http://www.vegalicious.org/2006/11/30/potato-sauerkraut-and-soy-cheese-casserole/

Spicy Hummus

ok, so i feel i kinda talk about the same things over and over again on here. ice cream and sausage and trader joe's all get mentioned pretty frequently....i just can't help it, i suppose.
i discovered TJ's Spicy Hummus a couple months ago when my roommate and i were doing some shopping and i was wanting something to snack on right away. i also picked up some of the multi-colored tortilla chips (that are great) to dip with. after about 3 chips, i was in love. it's got just enough kick to it and great texture. it's not one of those dense hummus's, like Emerald Valley. you know, the kind that breaks your chips when you dip them in? my only problem with it is that it comes in such a damn small container. it usually only lasts me 2 snacktimes....really more like 1 1/2 snack times. it seems wasteful to go through those little containers all the time. maybe we should all write TJ's and let them know how we/i feel about that...at least twice the size would be nice!
of course, because it's a TJ's product, there are no pictures to be found. i'll try to remember to take some and post an update.....

Cake, cake and more cake! and cupcakes!

So i haven't been eating much lately....well, new stuff anyways. I've been eating a shitload of Tofurkey Sausages (which, by the way, are currently buy one, get one at Fred Meyers here). But i've also been baking cakes. Three in the last 3 weeks. It's birthday season here, apparently....First, was my friend Corinn's:

swear cakes are all the rage right now, in case you didn't know. because they're funny. or at least, i think so...
This was my first cake ever. Like, from scratch and layered, nothing from a box. I had a lot of icing help from my wonderful friend Katie, who's Cake Bitch at Sweetpea Baking Co here in portland. She had me do some of the frosting, but i made her do the pretty stuff. I used the Super Moist Chocolate Cake recipe off of vegweb.com and the "buttercream" icing from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World (VCTOTW)
The next week was my roommate Missy's birthday. I was dogsitting at Joshivore's (herbivoreclothing.com) house so i was working with unfamiliar space and mixers. It turned out pretty well though. Oh, except for the one layer, which i figured out wasn't at all done baking, and was put back into the oven after cooling a bit, so it was kinda dense....

the donut is from VooDoo and not a vegan kind...Same cake and frosting, just decorated with chocolate chips...
So next was my friend Jessica's birthday last weekend. This time I used the Basic Chocolate Cupcake recipe from VCTOTW (i didn't use it before because i wasn't sure what one recipe equaled, layerwise...I used the "buttercream" frosting again, because you can't go wrong with that stuff. It's delicious! I liked this chocolate cake recipe better than the first one i used. I used the leftover icing from the wording on corinn's cake for the middle and also put sliced strawberries in there. I then decorated with strawberries on the outside. I really disliked the red frosting's taste. Not sure if it was because it was a bit aged, but all i could taste was "food coloring" and that freaked me out...


I made too much frosting every time so I made cupcakes to use up the extra. I made the Basic Golden Vanilla cupcakes from VCTOTW and they freakin' rocked my world. I never realized that i liked vanilla cake. They were perfectly moist and delicious. I made them for my neighbor's game night and they were loved whole-heartedly. i made another batch last night but i ran out of unbleached all purpose flour and had to use my roommate's whole wheat flour. They were still good, but they tasted healthy, or "bran-y" as my friend matthew mentioned. Cupcakes aren't supposed to be healthy, kids, make sure you're using unbleached!

sausages....get in my mouth!

Now, y'all, don't let your minds go in the gutter. Too late, right?
Well, fine....I went to VegFest a couple weekends ago and sampled quite a bit of stuff, but my favorite item is always the fake meat stuff. Tofurkey and Field Roast are always there, which fills my heart (and stomach) and makes me happy. My birthday was the following Monday and my friends and i got together and made pizza. Well, what goes better on pizza then faux sausage, right? Right! We had Tofurkey Sweet Italian with Tomato and Basil and we cut them up and sauteed them a bit before putting it on our pizzas and cooking them.
This is what my pizza looked like:

Good, right? It looks like it's missing cheese, but it was still killer, i swear. I put some tomato sauce, sauteed mushrooms, onions, and spinach, a few blanched broccoli florets, and the tofurkey sausage. After it was baked i put some pepper rings on it. With added nooch, it was just some of the best pizza ever! I just wish Hot Lips would carry some of the Tofurkey sausages to put on their vegan pies. I think i would go there a lot more. They don't really cater to the vegan crowd though. I used to work there and i would mention and hint to them to get some kind of protein topping for their vegan slices, but they would just say "yeah, we're working on it. we tried something with tofu but it didn't work, blah, blah, blah..." If you hadn't had their crust before, you should try it. They sell the dough so you can make your own pies at home.

Also, I would like to note that the girls of StumptownVegans invited me to be a guest on their podcasts that they do and i did it and it's now up to listen. It's all about the VegFest, so check it out. www.stumptownveganspodcast.com.

such a slacker...

Apologies to the onlookers of my blog. I could try to make up some good excuse for my absence, but i don't have one and i don't like lying. I have been thinking about posting and it's the thought that counts, right? oh! i just did have my birthday, that's a good excuse, yeah?
I did go to the VegFest last weekend and got to do a little sampling. Not a lot of new things though. I got to try some tasty chocolates, the much talked about Temptation Ice Cream from Chicago, hazelnut hemp butter, hemp crackers, Wildwood burgers, and some other various things.
ProBar was there. They have some new ProBar flavors that i'll be trying out soon. They've got a new line of flavors called Sweet & Savory and so far i've had Kettle Corn and the Cherry Pretzel. So far, so good. I'm a fan of kettle corn in general so i was excited to try that one. (by the way, for those don't know kettle corn is just popcorn that has been sweetened. it's what you get over in Germany at movie theaters. They apparently don't like salty popcorn...)
The lovely girls of StumptownVegans.com invited me to do a podcast with them discussing VegFest and that should be up on their site soon. The podcast was fun to do but it's like i got all verklempt as soon Jess's Tommy started recording us. I mainly let Webly and Jess do the talking. Good times, good coffee (made by Tommy, lover of coffee).

Hopefully, i'll be posting something real soon...until then enjoy this picture of the cake my friends made me. carrot cake with vanilla "pudding", and carob chips.

Galaxy Brand Hummus

My good friend Jess (letsgetsconed blog, see links on right) gave me the Spicy Chipotle Hummus as a housewarming present. i was kinda worried that it would be too spicy for my taste buds. I have been trying to create a higher tolerance for spicy and i feel like i've improved, but i still feel like a wuss. Especially compared to my roommate Missy and our friend Matthew. They are spicy freaks!

So the other night I finally found the courage to open it up and taste it. It was delicious! I almost ate the whole container in one go. But i controlled myself and stopped. There was just something about the taste that i found very enjoyable. The first bite, honestly, left a weird taste in my mouth, but after that second bite I was smitten. It was just the right amount of spice. Any spicier and I think it would've kicked my ass.

I'm not sure how much this stuff costs, but since it seems to be mainly sold in grocery stores such as Albertsons (in Florida) and Safeway (Northern California) I have hope that it's affordable. I also don't know where it's sold here in Portland since there's no mention on the website. I look forward to tasting the Roasted Red Pepper and Garlic kinds as well. I do love flavored hummus!

Sweet & Sara S'mores

I had heard of these S'mores for a long time, but every time I had gone to buy one at Food Fight they only had the Peanut Butter type and I was just really wantin' the Original. I love peanut butter and chocolate together as much as the next person, perhaps even more, but when it comes to a s'more I want to keep it simple.
The other week I finally got one. They cost $4.00, which, yeah, is a lot, but everything in moderation (including pricey things), right?
It seems like my expectations were set too high. Not that I wasn't amazed at the marshmallow part. I feel like it's a big joke or something, like how can it be vegan? It's soo marshmallow-y! And I liked it, but I didn't $4 love it. Maybe there wasn't enough chocolate? The graham cracker part was crumbly, but that's to be expected when it sits in the fridge and has come across the U.S. for out tasting pleasure.
I have had the coconut marshmallows that Sweet & Sara make and they were awesome. I think what i would prefer to do is just buy some of their marshmallows and make my own s'mores. Or make Isa & Terry's S'mores Cupcakes (from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World), which are tasty-delicious.

The inside:

Sock Dreams!!

My sister has been in love with Sock Dreams (www.sock-dreams.com) for awhile now. She was psyched to find out they're a local company, however they didn't have a storefront. Well, that changed on April 1st! They had a soft opening and are open 11am-4pm every day. They are located at 725 SE Powell. I'm not sure of the veganness of the socks, but i'm pretty sure there's going to be a lot to choose from.


cute mannequin legs, right??

Updates

I updated the donut post. It now has pictures!

more ProBar talk....

I did a post about these bars not too long ago. Kendall from the company contacted me and asked if i wanted to try some that were fresher than what i had eaten (i had gotten the Apple Cinnamon Crunch about a year before i ate it at a vegan fest) and, of course, i said Hell, yes!
He/She? sent me, upon request, the Original:


Whole Berry Blast:


and Superfood Slam:



Of the three, i would say my favorite was the Original. It was tasty and had great texture. This is not to say that the others didn't have good texture. They did. I knew beforehand that i wasn't going to love the berry one. i'm just not big on chunks of dried berries in things, especially raspberries and strawberries. My roommate that had some of it, really liked it. The Superfood Slam just had a more healthy taste, which i usually don't mind. I think it's only because i could compare it to the Original and the Apple Cinnamon Crunch that i would say i didn't like it as much.

Kendall told me that there was a new flavor coming in April, so i look forward to trying that one out. These bars are kinda pricey for a snack, but if you're hungry and don't have time for a meal these would do you good. The ingredients are natural and almost all organic.

an update

So i got another box of Trader Joe's Meatless Soy Nuggets and i'm now officially addicted. I've found that when i eat them dipped in vegenaise/yellow mustard/ketchup they totally remind me of the fish sticks of my youth, which i LOVED!
If anyone bought any and didn't like them (and lives here in Portland), your truely will take them off your hands....

Tubesdays....my favorite day...

My friend Jess(of GetSconed!) and her boyfriend occasionally meet up with friends at the hipster haven Tube on Tuesdays, therefore dubing it Tubesday. The place is downtown right down the block from Dixie Tavern and across Burnside from Dante's and Voodoo donut. I remember going into the bar before they renovated and made it bigger. you literally felt you were a hamster in a tube. It's still small but it's do-able. The bartenders are usually hipster hot and pretty friendly (which kinda defies the hipster's stereotype). They have the latest happy hour that i know, besides that of Portland City Grill. It's from 5-10pm and the well drinks are $2 and they're strong. They have a lot of vegan items, my favorite being the Professor McGonickle. It's a hot ham and cheese on an english muffin for $2 during happy hour. i think they misspelled McGonagall (it's from Harry Potter, y'all) because it may have originally contained a pickle....but that's me guessing. Maybe whoever named it doesn't actually read Harry Potter books...or can't spell......or maybe it has nothing to do with Harry Potter after all.....

Anyways, the piece of "cheese" on it is ridiculously small but it doesn't take away from the tastiness of the sandwich. i could eat those things all damn day long. They seem to use the ham log (that can be bought at Food Fight Grocery) and the menu says it comes with chipotle veganaise, but i would swear that wasn't true. there's something that kinda looks -not tastes- like balsamic vinegar on the muffin. It's just heaven...

They do serve a regular ham and cheese that comes on foccacia bread and with a good sized salad for $7. Here's the menu(click on it to enlarge):


and happy hour:

"FUNNY HOUR" MENU:

PROFESSOR MCGONICKLE MUFFIN - Sliced fake ham, vegan cheese, & our homemade chipotle veganaise on an english muffin, $2

VEGAN TACO - Our homemade tofu scramble in a grilled flour tortilla, topped with shredded lettuce and sliced tomatoes, $2

GHOST DOG - Real or fake dog on a bun with kethcup and mustard, $2

CHIPS AND SALSA, $2

POTATO CHIPS, $2

ZESTY TUBE PASTA SALAD - Big bowl of our amazing homemade pasta salad, $4


DINNER:

GHOST DOG - Real or fake dog on a bun with kethcup and mustard, $4.50

VEGAN MEATBALL SAMMY - Meatless meatballs with our homemade marinara sauce on a grilled hoagie roll, served with homemade pasta salad, $7

VEGGIE HAM AND CHEESE - Grilled slices of fake ham, vegan cheese, & our homemade chipotle veganaise on grilled focaccia, served with side salad, $7

TUBE SALAD - Tossed salad with our homemade Goddess dressing, cucumbers, carrots, red onions, tomatoes, and slices of grilled fake ham or real turkey served with focaccia, $7

VEGAN SPAGHETTI AND MEATBALLS - Just like mom makes, only with meatless meatballs. Served with grilled focaccia and side salad, $7

TOFU SCRAMBLE DINNER PLATE - Our homemade tofu scramble with veggies, served with zesty pasta salad and grilled focaccia, $7

VEGAN TACO DINNER PLATE- Our homemade tofu scramble in a grilled flour tortilla, topped with shredded lettuce and sliced tomatoes, served with chips, salsa, and side salad, $7


and now that i've read the menu i'm kinda suspicious of the veganness of the ham. they call it "veggie ham and cheese" but on most of the other vegan menu items they straight up call it "vegan"....jess, have you asked them about the ham?

The Tube is also popular with the vegans because the serve a vegan White Russian. I have never got this because it's $4-5 and i always end up with a $2 Cranberry Vodka with lime. I have heard mixed reviews of the White Russians, but i would still like to try them some day....