Vegan Iron Chef

On Sunday, June 6 Try Vegan is hosting an event in Portland called Vegan Iron Chef. Yes, it's exactly what it sounds like. Tickets are all sold out, but there will be live-streaming!

The chefs:

Aaron Adams from Portobello Trattoria- yum! All new restaurant opening in a few weeks!

Quasu AsaaseYaa of Asaase Ital Palace- a food cart which I hear is delicious!

Wes Hannah of Blossoming Lotus- killer Sunday brunch menu and I hear the 4 "Cheese" Lasagna is amazing!

vegan chefs are dreamy...

If you watch the live streaming, look for me! I'm the judge (or chef...can't remember) liaison and will getting whatever they need so may end up on camera a little bit.

More Teese, please!

This weekend I had a great birthday celebration vacation with some friends in preparation of my big 30th birthday on Wednesday. It's nuts that I've lived in Portland for over 5 years now, but what it's even more nuts is that I no longer will be in my 20s!! It's not that I don't like getting older, I'm totally fine with it. It's that I don't feel like I thought I would at this age. I still haven't had, what I would consider, a real adult relationship. I haven't had someone I called my "boyfriend" since I was 18. I have definitely matured a bit, but I would say I feel more like I'm 25. And I definitely look less than 25. Well, at least when you don't see the darkish circles under my eyes... :o)

But you're not here to read about my circles, or my feelings, right? Right! So back to food. After I received the 2 small (but still a lot) tubes of Teese a couple months ago, I received an email saying they (Chicago Soy Dairy) were sending me a tube of their new formulated Mozzarella style Teese. It's supposed to be less liquidy after it melts and to be more stretchy. I did notice my first tube of Mozzarella had been a bit liquidy after it was melted, so I looked forward to testing this new one out.

The time to test came when we decided on making pizzas for Saturday dinner. None of my friends that came to the weekend are vegan and I had deemed this an all vegan weekend because there's nothing better than being able to eat *anything* (which is why I love vegan potlucks so much!) and not have to ask if something's vegan, etc. Some friends made the pizza dough and pizza sauce and for toppings we had: fresh asparagus, sauteed onions, mushrooms, zucchini, Tofurkey Italian Sausages, shredded Mozza Teese, fresh tomatoes, kalamata olives (I didn't partake of the pizza with those awful things on it). Of course, there was optional hot sauces and nooch. Johnny made 5 pies total and did an assortment of pies. My favorite was asparagus, sausage, zucchini, onions and Teese. It was so good!!! I wouldn't consider the Teese stretchy exactly, but I enjoyed it on my pie, it held the ingredients on to the crust. One friend didn't even think about it til afterwards that the cheese wasn't the real stuff. Two of my friends thought it tasted good uncooked, though I disagree. I wouldn't waste eating it raw when I could eat on a pizza!

Unfortunately, I forgot to take close up shots of the pizza, but shoot on over to Jess Sconed and check hers out!

Johnny & Amanda- makers of pizza pie!

Thanks to Chicago Soy Dairy for the awesome samples!!!

New Blog & A Review

I've been ignoring this blog a bit, somewhat due to that I now have another blog. I had been discussing with a friend that I frequent coffee shops with about how I was thinking of starting a fashion blog. So many times I'm looking online at online shopping, fashion blogs, etc and I think "what the eff??" and I feel the need to show someone else what crazy thing I have seen. So I've been posting links on my Twitter, but I don't get much feedback from that and you can only fit so much in 140 characters and I feel annoying if I post several posts in a row. While I was discussing this with my friend I got the fun idea that we could co-host a blog together. I have a friend that does a blog with a penpal of his. It's like they're talking back and forth to each other, a conversation in photographs and art that they've done. But this way I could also interact with whoever else was interested. So 'anchor and crow' was born...So far I'm the only that has posted, but I hope soon (nudge, nudge) Miss Crow will post something.

This, my dear readers, is a delicious vegan frozen dinner. I've been really diggin' fried plantains as of late (Mostly from a great dining experience at the food cart Fuego de Lotus). Description of product:

Plantains with roasted sweet potato, black beans and kale. Spicy ancho sauce with pumpkin seed garnish over Kashi seven whole grain polenta, plus amaranth.

I tried amaranth for the first time a few months ago. It kinda looks like a smaller version of quinoa. Mine ended up pretty gloppy, but I think it's supposed to actually stay separate. I don't love love love it, but it's not gross. It's eatable and knowing that it's very good for me persuades me to continue eating it.

I was surprised by how much I liked this. If stars were given, I would probably give 4 out of 5.

If it's on sale, I'll definitely buy it again for those desperate times when I don't have any food prepared and don't feel like making any.

Teese Experiment #2

As I mentioned a week or two ago, I received 2 types of Chicago Soy Dairy's Teese to play around with. This past week I did something with my Mozzarella style. I had some cremini mushrooms to use up and also had some Gimme Lean sausage on hand, so I decided upon Baked Stuffed Mushrooms with Sausage & Mozzarella. I didn't follow it exactly. I didn't have green onions and I didn't use any faux Parmesan (even though I had some...I think I just forgot to put it in). I didn't have Italian Seasoning, but had the separate ingredients and I may have added thyme. What I love about this recipe is that it allows you to input how many servings (which for this recipe equates to how many mushrooms you have) and then it changes the recipe for you so there's no thinking "hmm, what is 2/3 of 1.5 teaspoons?" They do all the work for you!) Also, I added some s & p.

I didn't love this recipe, but I did like the mozzarella Teese! I noticed that the more I used, the better it tasted! If I used this recipe again next time I would use less sausage and add some bread crumbs. Oh, and more mozza Teese!

Yesterday, I made another dish with the mozzarella Teese. I had no recipe this time and just used up the veggies that were going bad in my fridge with some marinating tofu also needed usin' up. The tofu had been marinating in tamari, water, sage, rosemary and nooch. I sauteed some leek, garlic, red bell pepper and the tofu in olive oil and after it was done cooking I grated some of the mozza into it and stirred it up. I put a piece of Good Seed bread in the toaster oven with a couple slices of the mozza, then plated it up, piling the tofu/veggie mix on top. I enjoyed this quite a bit! Next time I would add more mozza and perhaps some kind of gravy. Yum!

I definitely think this is the best mozzarella vegan cheese I've had so far! I look forward to making a panini sandwich with it with some pesto and summer-fresh tomato!

Eggplant Burger

Eggplant Burger with a side of my mom's favorite, lima beans!

So I finally got to the other eggplant product by the folks at Dominex! Woot! Finally!

Well, so there's the Eggplant Burger. I put it on a slightly toasted whole wheat bun with some vegenaise, ketchup, yellow mustard, lettuce and a piece of Tofutti "American" cheese. I didn't realize that this was going to be a like a Boca patty, as in, meaty soy product. For some reason I didn't get that idea from reading the box, but I didn't read it very carefully and I just glanced at the ingredients and didn't really think of it. I thought it was going to be, like, 98% eggplant....which I thought sounded kinda weird. So when I was cooking it on the skillet in a little oil, I was, like, oh, it's just a fake meat patty with some eggplant thrown into the mix.

Flavorwise, not impressed. It tastes a bit off and it's definitely not as good as Boca, which is one of my favorites. The texture is fine and since my nose has been stuffy and my memory is bad, I don't have anything to say about the smell.

Yeah, this burger did nothing for me except give me some nutrition.

The lima beans are frozen from Grocery Outlet, I think they were Green Giant but I can't find any proof online about that. I believe they were 99 cents. You take them out of the box and put them in the microwave for 5-6 minutes and walah! Ready to eat limas! Semi-dry tasting, just as I remember from my youth!

Green Chili Cheese Grits

*Cilantro for looks only

I am one of the many bloggers that are participating in the Teese vegan cheese challenge. I was able to choose which of the flavors I wanted (we picked a back up flavor, they ended up giving us both, which so awesome!) and then were asked to make something that really hadn't been done before.

The flavors I got were Mozzarella and Nacho Sauce. First up: Nacho!

I thought and thought, trying to come up with something I hadn't seen yet. And based on the google search for recipes, this isn't something that's come up lot. Perhaps it's because there's only a small population of people out there who actually like grits.

I normally only see cheddar cheese in Cheese Grits, but I thought the Nacho would give a nice mexi flavor. This is the recipe I ended up with:

3 cups water

3/4 cups quick cooking grits (I used white)

2 garlic cloves, put through a garlic press (roasted garlic would probs be alot better)

salt

2 green chilies from a can, chopped small

2-3 T nooch

fresh ground pepper

1/2 t red pepper flakes

Teese nacho cheese sauce (a 1/4 of the small tube...maybe 1/4 cup?)

I boiled the water, the lower heat to simmer and put in the grits, salt and garlic. Whisk, leave uncovered and stir occasionally for about 5-7 minutes. Stir in the rest of the ingredients and top with hot sauce if desired.

Personally, this isn't my favorite. I think I would prefer it with a non-nacho cheese, but I am going to try it again tomorrow because I believe time will make the flavor better. It's not bad, but it's just not something I'm excited about. Perhaps it could also use some baking? The cheese has an odd smell to it, like an artificial smell, that I found a bit disconcerting. But it didn't taste weird. I would like to try it as a melted queso sauce and will perhaps try other things with my leftovers of it. Do you have any suggestions?? Also, suggestions for the mozzarella?? I'm thinking of stuffing mushrooms with it..

Update, next day: I just ate a delicious breakfast burrito that consisted of the chili cheese grits, avocado, sauteed Gimme Lean sausage, green pepper and onion. So yum!! Also, the grits do taste better with a little aging (doesn't that look misspelled?)!

Butter Pee-can

I came across Soy Dream's new flavor, Butter Pecan, at Fred Meyer's tonight and I was feeling old (have you ever heard a 5 year old ask for some Butter Pecan ice cream? I didn't think so...), so I bought some. My sister, our housemate Helena and I usually watch the new episode of Greek on Tuesday nights together, so I thought ice cream (I mean, non dairy frozen dessert*) would be a nice accompaniment. Helena was missing, but Kim and I dug into the pint of Butter Pecan. We thought it was good, especially when you had a lot of pecan pieces, but it wasn't great. I don't think it's something I would buy again unless it was very on sale. It's just that with the greatness of Trader Joe's/Double Rainbow Soy Very Cherry Chip, you feel ripped off when something else you bought just doesn't make you as swoony. It makes me wish they had more flavors at Trader Joe's. The problem with the Butter Pecan was the soybeany aftertaste and the ice cream didn't have the luscious creaminess that Double Rainbow's has. 

I give this 3 out of 5 stars.

* Did you know that in America, your product has to be at least 10% milk fat for it to be legally called "ice cream"? Stupid. To me, that's like saying you can't call a vegan sausage a sausage because it doesn't have real meat in it. I've encountered people who have gotten up in arms about the ice cream thing (I'm talking to you, commenter dude, on Grant Butler's vegan blog!). I sorta get it because you want ice cream to mean literally iced cream...but no. Actually, I don't get it. As long as it's labeled correctly, with either "non dairy" or "vegan" before the words "ice cream", why does it matter? Those words describe what it is, or trying to be. "Frozen dessert" could be anything; push pops, fudge pops, creamsicles....Ok, rant over...