I stayed in for New Years and made hemp brownies. No, not that kind of hemp, silly.

These lovelies came straight from a box, ‘Nature’s Path Hemp Plus Organic Brownie Mix’. The instructions suggested using 2 eggs or a substitute for moister results. I used soft silken tofu (whipped till creamy) and it worked perfectly. The brownies were indeed moist, chewy, chocolaty and delicious.

2007 started off being pretty fantastic for me, then unfortunately devolved into my own personal version of hell. I’m glad it’s over and am looking forward to putting it all behind me. Thank you to everyone who reads my little blog here, especially those of you who have taken the time to leave your thoughtful, encouraging, helpful, funny, friendly and even sarcastic comments. I never would have thought that going vegan would have opened up so many interesting opportunities and communications for me, or that it would have brought new friends into my life, but it has. I also would have never guessed that the discipline of maintaining a blog about it would become a lifeline of blessed distraction during dark times (or that anyone other than my mom would be interested in reading it). But it did all that too.

So here’s to better days, here’s to dusting yourself off, believing in yourself and starting anew… no matter what. And of course, here’s to delicious, healthy food for all. See you next year!

Before the holidays my mom asked me to take her downtown for some bargain shopping on Santee Alley. I did my homework ahead of time and researched our food options, and decided we’d try out Tierra Cafe, a “vegetarian cuisine, organic coffee and tea house”.

They’ve got a small space in a shared food court, but this thankfully wasn’t your usually cafeteria style fast food. They’ve got a full menu including breakfast (vegan french toast!), soups (vegan tortilla soup!), salads, Mexican entrees (vegan nachos!), sandwiches & wraps (portabella panini!), plenty of beverage specialties including their own freshly made herbal elixirs.

It was early for me so I opted for breakfast with their tofu scramble, which involves tofu, onion (no thanks), tomato and mushrooms, served with La Brea Bakery bread. It was pretty simple, yet tasty, warm and filling.

My mom, being an earlier riser than I, was already in lunch mode, so she ordered “The Salad” (they have other salads but that’s what this one is called). Mixed greens, shredded carrot, alfalfa sprouts, avocado, mushroom, red cabbage, tomato, tofu egg salad and hummus with lemon-tahini dressing, dill sauce, and that same yummy bread. I usually don’t photograph or post pictures of what other people are eating, but this salad was so pretty and tasty (you know I tried it) that I figured it was worth sharing.

Good stuff to be found here, if I worked or lived downtown I’d probably become a Tierra Cafe regular thanks to their quick, healthy and very vegan friendly food.

I took an out-of-town friend by Pure Luck today, he was as excited to hear about their microbrews on tap as I am about their bbq jackfruit. Sadly they were still closed for the holidays. So instead we bucked up our chins and headed west down Melrose towards M Café de Chaya.

This yummy hunk of yum is the “Melrose Avenue Muffaletta” with: “grilled seitan, spicy seitan ’salami’, miso-cured tofu cheese, roasted red peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, carrots, arugula & olive spread, in a sourdough boule… served by the wedge”. It was every bit as good as it sounds and looks. Very action packed!

The delicious side dish is the ‘Maple Veggies and Brussels Sprouts with Chestnuts”. I’m pretty sure that the other stuff going on in there involved eggplant, yams and adzuki beans.

This place is super trendy, expensive, and trying to find parking nearby pretty much sucks, but I love it all the same.

This was the ‘Golden Milk Cereal’ at Hugo’s, and I’ve got to say it’s one of the weirdest taste sensations I’ve had in some time. That’s not saying it wasn’t good mind you, but definitely different.

It’s made with “warm, organic quinoa in a Golden Milk of turmeric, honey and raisins. Served with bananas and strawberries”. They give you a choice of cows milk, soy or rice, I went with the rice. (Note that honey is not vegan so ask them to leave that out if you don’t eat it).

So yeah, it’s pretty weird tasting! You’ve got your sweet, breakfasty flavors coming from the fruit, honey and milk, but then you’ve also got the intense, more savory flavor of turmeric in the middle of it all, turning your sweet breakfast into something more reminiscent of an Indian curry. It’s odd to say the least. I liked it and disliked it at the same. It’s something that would really take some getting used to but which is at the same time quite compelling. The dish is so healthy, which was the main reason I wanted to try it… turmeric is supposed to be an excellent anti-inflammatory among all the other good stuff it does. I’ve recently developed an allergy to Ibuprofen and have been recommended turmeric as a natural alternative, so when I noticed this item on the menu I figured I’d gave it my best shot. I wasn’t able to eat too much of it, but like I said, I’m compelled and intrigued enough by this dish to want to try it again. I don’t know that I’ll ever end up loving it, but I almost feel like this should be approached from more of a nutritional and medicinal point of view, rather than it just being about happy taste buds.

Now that the idea is in my head, I’ll try replicating this at home but start it off with much less turmeric and see if I can build up more of an acquired taste for it. It’s not that I don’t like turmeric, it’s that I’m not used to eating it along with something sweet. It’s one of those cultural things I guess.

Here’s a gander at Flore’s ‘Southwestern Seitan Quesadilla’.

Whole wheat quesadilla of cashew cheese, seasoned seitan, diced tomato and shredded lettuce. Served with pico de gallo and cilantro cream.

Very tasty. The seitan was very meaty in texture and flavor, like a well seasoned Mexican style chicken. Now that Flore has expanded their hours it was not as jammed packed as my previous afternoon visits, I was able to walk right in and get a table, which was nice.

Rahel Ethiopian Vegan Cuisine is a vegan paradise amidst the other paradisaical things down in Fairfax’s ‘Little Ethiopia’ district. Rahel is owned by the same woman who runs Messob restaurant next door, the awesome catch is that Rahel’s is all vegan.

The sign outside Rahel’s is a welcome site for sore eyes (I welcomed it and my eyes weren’t even sore). I’m imagining that to some of my readers out in cities where vegan (not to mention vegetarian or even ethnic) restaurants are hard to come by, a sign like this must look rather surreal.

For those of you who’ve never had Ethiopian food before, everyone eats with their hands off of one central plate. The different salads and stews called ‘Wots’ are scooped up with Injera, a soft bread made from an Ethiopian grain called teff.

Before the food was served our waitress came by to wash our hands. Nobody likes a dirty double-dipper!

First we were served these delicious appetizers known as ’sambussa’. They tasted a lot like Indian samosas but with African spices, and the filling was primarily lentils. Very tasty, hot and spicy.

I also tried a drink they call the ‘3D’ which involves a combination of sunflower seeds, flax seeds, barley and agave nectar. It was great, thick like a malted milkshake and hearty like a cereal. It would make a most amazing breakfast drink… I’m going to try to recreate it and see what I come up with.

We ordered the menu’s special for five people, the ‘Vegan Feast’, which consisted of: Cabbage stew, whole lentil stew, split lentil stew, YeAtkilt stew (steamed vegetables of carrots and potatoes seasoned with assorted spices), split pea stew, strings beans with carrots, zucchini stew, greens, chopped tomatoes with onion and jalapeño, and sunflower mixed with Injera.

We attacked this thing like a pack of ravenous wolves. Everything was so good, and the attentive staff made sure that our baskets of fresh Injera bread were being refilled one after another as soon as we would start to run low. We really laid into this, every single item was so tasty. The sheer size of this plate was somewhat intimidating, so I think all five of us figured we needed to go in for the kill and take no prisoners… it was either this plate or us. In the end, the plate won. Even after stuffing ourselves to capacity (more than one of us let out a button or two) there was still enough food left over to feed a few more hungry people. We were all quite satisfied by this fantastic meal, even the non-vegetarians amongst us. I love Ethiopian food and have had plenty of it. This was by far the best I’ve ever had, vegetarian or otherwise. They’ve also got a number of vegan cakes for dessert, but I was way too stuffed to even consider going for it. Next time!

p.s… check their website before you go. As of this writing, there’s a coupon to print out for 15% off.

This is was a delicious vegan special at Hugo’s, the ‘Egg-free Red Lentil Frittata’.

“Red lentils, fresh vegetables and Indian spices, topped with sauteed garlic leafy greens and a mango chutney mint sauce”. Oh man, this was so good. The frittata was perfectly crispy on the outside and the lentils a great, chewy consistancy on the inside… the Indian spices were just right. The sweet & minty mango chutney along with the tasty greens on top brought everything together. My compliments to the chef. Seriously.

I don’t know it it’s still on the current specials menu but if you get a chance to try this one, I highly recommend you do!

Speaking of Hugo’s menu, they recently re-did the whole thing and it’s very nice. What I like is that many/most of the dishes that I liked the best that came and went from their specials menu have now made it onto the regular menu, for example, the fantastic Kelp Noodle Salad and the Power of Green salad, two of my main faves. They’ve also made it easier to veganize meals by offering vegan cheese options on their casseroles and also indicating which dishes can be made with grilled tofu instead of meat.

Being a gal who loves her chickpeas, I was eager to try my hand at the ‘Chickpea Cutlets’ recipe from Veganomicon. My book arrived, the ingredients were gathered, my hopes were high.

Sadly the cutlets didn’t work out so well. I don’t really know what went wrong as I followed directions nearly to the letter. I opted to make the baked version rather than the fried version and the only change I made was using 1 tablespoon of Bragg Liquid Aminos instead of 2 tablespoons of soy sauce. They weren’t burned but came out really dry, hard and breadlike… more like chickpea flavored thick bread than a cutlet or burger. The recipe said that baking them “gives a toothsome chewy texture and firm bite”. Hmmm. I don’t think this is what they meant though, these were just too chewy/firm to be enjoyable. Oh well.

That said, the flavor was really nice. I did make my way through about a quarter of the thing before deciding to give up. I can tell it’s tasty when it comes out right. What do you think could have gone wrong considering my only change was the soy sauce?

The spinach on the side started out as inspired by another recipe from Veganomicon, the ‘Sauteed Spinach and Tomatoes’ but the mealy, unflavorful tomatoes that I brought home didn’t seem worth eating once I cut them open. Um, when you pay more for locally grown organic tomatoes, aren’t they supposed to blow your mind with tomato goodness? But I digress. I used olive oil instead of peanut oil. The recipe also calls for onions which I don’t do unless under duress. It calls for salt, which I left out as well, cuz that’s how I roll.

So basically what became of a simple yet elegant recipe turned into spinach wilted in a bit of olive oil with ginger, garlic and lemon. Thankfully that’s all good stuff and good flavor and something I’d pretty much do anyway without referring to a recipe… therefore let’s call this one modified rather than messed up.

Update: Here’s my more successful 2nd attempt at making the Veganomicon Chickpea Cutlets.

Along with the regular menu at Real Food Daily, they also offer weekly specials as well as one monthly special. For my last visit I had November’s special, the “Vermont Harvest”.

Maple dijon tempeh and winter vegetable stew over wild rice and quinoa with pan seared delicata squash, sauteed apples and walnuts over wilted baby spinach. It was fantastic. I’m not even a big fan of wild rice but I loved every last bite of how it was prepared here. It was a delicious, filling, warm and hearty cold weather meal.

I put this together in literally about 5 minutes.

My visit to Vinh Loi Tofu earlier in the day sent me home with a few of their yummy faux meat creations to-go. What you see is what I was inspired to make using their awesome fake squid. It’s made with gluten and flavored with lemongrass and chili. I don’t like seafood flavors and to me this doesn’t tasty fishy at all. I love the great spicy flavor and fun texture.

All I did was wilt up some spinach, carrots and cabbage in fresh squeezed lime juice, then added in the pseudo-squid (and it’s small amount of sauce) to heat it up. I love it when totally improvised, figure it out as I go meals come together into something healthy and delicious (as opposed to the ones which are complete failures).