Happy World Vegan Day!

Oh, and Happy Vegan Month of Food! Day one!


I came home today after a long weekend with friends in Chicago. I'm pretty jealous because a) Chicago has way more vegan choices for restaurants, and b) the tap water is drinkable. I'm also in love with Ellie and Tim's beautiful house and pantry. A pantry! I now have a new prerequisite for future apartments.

Ellie picked me up at the airport on Friday, and we went straight to Demera. We have a tradition with Ethiopian Diamond, but this is a new place that deserved our gusto for all things served on injera. The tikle gomen was amazing. The ye-misir wot: heavenly. We destroyed our lunch before I had a chance to take a picture of it in it's whole form, so here's the damage:



Afterward, we hit the Asian market and Whole Foods. Once loaded up with provisions, we planned out the food and timing for the Haunted Housewarming. We caught a sliver of a show at The Empty Bottle, and headed home. Saturday was going to be busy as hell, so I insisted on brunch the next morning. We went to Lula Cafe in Logan Square. It got all kinds of raves on Yelp for it's vegan-ness, but I was stuck with one menu item. Tofu Scramble, which I wanted anyway. What didn't do it for me was the cubed tofu (I like my scramble scrambled), the goddamned cantaloupe in the fruit dish, and that stuff there on the right? Not Earth Balance.



The Gimme Lean sausage patties and the coffee were good, and it fueled us for our day in the kitchen.

I truly suck at life because Ellie and I made a TON of sushi, and I got no pictures of it. Two platters each of nori rolls and inari parcels. I made three batches of rice; one that was made pink with beets, one that was yellow with shiitake mushrooms and green onions, and one that was red with raw beet, carrot, and spinach. We rolled cucumber, bell peppers, green onion, and avocado. The inari pouches (plain fried, turmeric yellow, and spicy red) were stuffed with ginger and the different kinds of rice. I guess they were a hit, because they were inhaled.

Ellie whipped up a batch of my Mediterranean Red Lentil Iron Chef Soup:



And I finished making the cupcakes as people started to arrive. They are gluten free, chocolate with peanut butter caramel filling, and chocolate ganache. This picture sucks.



The weird holes on top are from filling them by hand. Chunky peanut butter + Wilton pastry bag = peanut butter caramel explosion. Which doesn't sound that bad, but it is when you have guests storming the kitchen.

Now, as for Mofo...I have been contemplating several themes. Magazine recipes veganized, candy week, squash week...but am looking for more. Tomorrow will be a late night post, I'm sure.

In case you missed it...

Mofo is November this year. I was disappointed, because I seriously need a kick in the ass and was hoping I'd get it sooner. Anyway:

PROS: I'll be in Chicago until the first, so my first entry will be about all the yummy stuff I ate/made while there.
Thankgiving!
Two words: Squash Week.

I can't think of any cons, since my creative mind has been a dusty, echoey storage bin lately. But I have been thinking about themes, hoping for some Iron Chef memes, and looking forward to a Facebook wall full of delicious porn.

No promises, but I'll try to warm up this month in preparation for the marathon that is Mofo.

Trying out some fancy

I know, there's lots of stuff to talk about. Iron Chef (me!), the Waffle Party, my trip to Los Angeles, my first annual 39th birthday, and blah blah blah. I've never had so much to blog about and had so little time. It used to be the reverse.

So, just quickly, for tonight, here's a taste. My friend Ed told me that some restaurant in St. Paul served a chickpea-wild-rice burger. Not to be outdone, I ransacked my kitchen in search of ingredients. I had dried chickpeas, so I did a fast soak and slow cooked them. I had some wild rice, but...ew. Have you seen what happens to bagged grains if you don't use them for eight months? I can't even say it, let alone type it. So. Grossed. Out. I did, however; have a brand new bag of brown basmati (which I immediately transfered to a Rubbermaid container). This is what I came up with.

Chickpea and Basmati Burgers (with mashed potatoes, sautéed garlic scapes, and a balsamic reduction. Someone thinks she's all gourmet n' shit)

I made a ton of these and I just need to tweak it a little before I post a recipe. If you want it. It kind of sounds like how vegan food sounds to asshole omnivores (before you get all upset, notice I said "asshole omnivores," not "omnivore assholes"); kind of beige, a little hippie, and for sure blah. Not the case. They were very hearty in texture (one might say, "meaty"!), sweet and savory, and a little spicy. More to come.

Mistress of my domain.

Brandon the Awesome set me up with downhomevegan.com because he's rad and I'm a luddite when it comes to all this .com stuff. It appears to be working. You should see www.downhomevegan.com up in the url bar instead of the blogspot.com url. Right?

Anyway, today was supposed to be potluck day, but it looks like everyone called off due to rain. This is a mixed blessing for me, as I have just rolled out of bed (goddamn Rescue Me keeping me up til 4:00am), and I have nothing to bring. The thing starts in an hour, and here I sit blogging when I could be running to Whole Foods and then jumping on a bus out to Tangletown to possibly no one. I have an LA trip to save for (now that a simple mistake led to a MILLION repercussions with my money), and I have dinner with my brother tonight.

I also hate the rain. It sucks ten times worse when you don't have a car.

Catching up.

Oy, I have not much of an excuse for staying away for so long. One is that I am lazy, and the other is that I lost my camera. But then I found it, so laziness wins out.

Much stuff going on in the little vegan world in Minneapolis. I'll start with two fun and successful bake sales! The first one was to benefit Kinship Circle; an organization organizing rescues for abandoned and injured animals after the Haiti earthquake. The Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale (Twin Cities style) took place at Ethique Nouveau on April 24. Here are some pictures from both (this was also my chance to get some shots of the new store!) :

This tree is in the front window. I love that they bought Aqua Globes.



Beautiful jewelry, handbags, and cosmetics.





Those avocado brownies were awesome. Really. I swear.



These cranberry-almond muffins got many five-star reviews.



Celeste's truffles. By popular demand, they also appeared at the next bake sale.



These are mine. Lemony macadamia white chocolate scones, and double chocolate muffins.



On May 14, I attended a sushi class at the home of Ciree Linsenman. I had a blast (hanging out with other vegans usually is), and found out that assembling sushi is really not that hard. I'm looking forward to having some friends over to roll our own. These pictures were taken with my new Samsung Behold II phone, as I had misplaced my camera. As you can see, it takes pretty okay pictures of food, while my digital camera leaves much to be desired. I guess six years is long enough. Time to get a camera that takes good food pictures, dammit.

Gobo Boats: red quinoa with pickled burdock root. Color is from beets.



Tavo Tavo Maki.



Tavo Tavo Maki, pre-rolled.



Rainbow Inari parcels.



Black Dragon Back Roll (in the back, with the bok choy sticking out).



Coming soon: Waffles! Iron Chef! Skin Trade movie premier! Stay tuned.

Scrapping the Deen Project.

I got the book. I should have browsed it before ordering it, but at least it cost next to nothing. Holy shit. This woman really can't cook, and just buries it under Ritz crackers and cups of butter. There is no way I could put that many containers of Tofutti and Earth Balance through any of that. The PCRM was right; I thought they meant worst as in it's lack of nutrition, but seriously, folks. This chick makes my arch-nemesis Sandra Lee look like Julia-freaking-Child. Here's a gem from Main Courses:

Cheeseburger Meat Loaf and Sauce

2 lbs ground cow
2 tsp House Seasoning (salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Fancy!)
1 medium onion, chopped
1 medium bell pepper, chopped (the veggies stop there)
1 cup grated cheddar
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
1 cup sour cream
1 cup crushed Ritz crackers
1 tsp Lawry's Seasoned salt
8-10 slices of white bread.

Now, for the sauce:
One 10 3/4-ounce can condensed cream of mushroom soup
1 soup-can measure of milk
1 1/2 cups grated cheddar

I imagined subbing Gimme Lean for the cow, vegan versions of Worcestershire, cheese, and sour cream, and it still sounded like something I'd find splattered on the sidewalk on a Saturday morning walk to work.

I'm keeping the book, though. It will remind me why I'm vegan, and will make for good drunken conversations. I can make trashy American food without her help, and have it be delicious.

Back to the drawing board. There must be a "good" omni book out there I could rewrite. Right?

Seriously? March already?

I've been feeling very unmotivated lately. I'm trying to find a new job, which requires getting up before 1:00pm, but what I really need is a project. I was so motivated and full of energy during VeganMoFo, and I need that back. I decided to take on a Julie & Julia type project, but not something like making everything in Robin Robertson's new book (1000 Vegan Recipes). Instead, I am going to buy Paula Deen's Kitchen Classics



(used of course), and veganize every recipe in it.

Two things you should know about this book: 1. It's actually two cookbooks (The Lady & Sons Savannah Country Cookbook and The Lady & Sons, Too!) so it's over 400 pages. That's a lot of recipes to make in one year. Yep, one year. 2. The Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine called it the worst cookbook of all time in terms of nutritional value. The whole thing is dripping in butter and cream. I'll try to make everything without using nearly as much in vegan substitutes. Earth Balance is expensive, yo!

When will I start this? As soon as I get the book and make a big trip to the store. I have no idea yet what I'm getting into.