This past Sunday was a monumental day of fantastic vegan food eating for myself, VegYogini and Your Vegan Mom (let’s just call her Trina). It started off as a beautiful sunny day brunch at the home of Trina with her lovely family and friends. It ended with an amazing dinner at a new (not-yet-open but sure to blow your mind) vegan Japanese restaurant in Little Tokyo. I’ll be telling you all about that special adventure soon, but for now let’s get back to brunch, shall we?

We were greeted first thing at Trina’s to a basket of scrumptious, freshly baked muffins and mimosa. One type of muffin involved apples and all other manner of yummy, the other muffin was carrot… and dang, I don’t really remember what all went into these. In a testament to their awesomeness though I can tell you that I ate them in multiples (and got to bring some home with me too).

VegYogini and I got to lend a helping hand in sectioning grapefruits for a fresh citrus salad with mint and agave nectar.

Trina’s pièce de résistance were these incredible little mini crustless quiches. They were based on the recipe over at the Fat Free Vegan blog but using different veggies. One was made with Swiss chard, the other with sweet potato and roasted Pablano peppers (it’s highly possible that I’m getting the details all wrong, so if Trina is reading this, feel free to correct any errors). Anyhow, these were soooo good! They tasted exactly like an egg quiche but were in fact totally vegan… and totally delicious. I’ve got to try and make these.

Tasty rosemary roasted potatoes.

And here’s my plate bringing it all together…

What a groovy way to spend the day. I highly suggest that you find someone to invite you over to their house for a homemade vegan brunch. Or if you’re up to it, host one yourself. Then invite me.

Check back soon for “Foodeater’s Day of Vegan Feasting, Part 2: Dinner”

I’ve written before of my love for Korean style barley tea (Mugicha). I’d heard it was pretty easy to make so I decided to give it a go. I combined what I learned about making it from various online sources, as well as some info I picked up from Alton Brown on his recent Good Eat’s episode on barley.

First I dry roasted the barley in a skillet. I wasn’t sure exactly how much to roast them, so I let them go until they got nice and browned, removing from heat just before they were about to burn.

The roasted barley then went into 2 liters of boiling water, continued to boil for about 3 minutes, then was removed from the heat and left to steep. I also added in about a quarter cup of agave nectar and half a lemons worth of juice.

After steeping for half an hour, I strained the liquid from the barley and set it aside to cool. The cooked barely looked and smelled really good too, I’ll get back to that in minute.

And here’s the result! It came out pretty good for my first try, though it wasn’t exactly like I wanted it to be. I didn’t like the lemon, or maybe I just used too much of it. The lemon idea came from Alton Brown (damn you, Alton!)… next time I make this I’ll leave out the lemon all together and add some in afterwards if I think it needs any. Also the tea had taken on a bit more of the roasted flavor than I would have like, so maybe I did let the barley roast for too long after all. It didn’t taste burned, but the taste had crossed over from a delicate tea flavor to more of a roasted coffee flavor.

Now back to the cooked barley. When cooking barley to eat it should be cooked longer than the half hour I boiled this batch for, but because it was left to steep in the hot water for a while, it got cooked through and was only slightly “al dente”. It had a wonderful nutty scent and the taste of sweet agave nectar had been cooked right in, so instead of wasting it I decided to make a hot cereal out of it.

I added in some rice milk, cinnamon and drizzled on a little bit more agave… and this turned out to be one of the tastiest late night breakfasts I’ve ever accidentally invented by way of making something else.

And it’s with those delicious New Year’s eve brownies that I kissed off a bittersweet 2007. Now that it’s 2008 I’m getting back to basics after some much deserved indulgences.

This was a quick sauté of chickpeas, mushrooms and red chard in small amount of olive oil, lemon juice, Bragg’s, fresh garlic and red pepper flakes. I served it over a mound of quinoa tabbouleh which I picked up from HealthyCA. I’m not sure exactly how they make it but I can tell you that it’s better than crack. Yeah, it’s that good.

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!

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.

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).

When making food for myself, the simpler the better. Here’s a few recent meals…

This was an easy salad I put together of shredded purple cabbage, garbanzo beans, red grapes, fake bacon bits and Bragg’s vinaigrette dressing. Good stuff I tell ya.

This was two firsts in one. My first time making the ‘Vegetarian Nature’s Burger’ by Fantastic Foods and my first time using my new cast iron grill. The veggie burger mix comes in a box and you just add boiling water, then cook ‘em up. I’ve been wanting to try my hand at the chickpea cutlets from Veganomicon that everyone is raving about, but I don’t have the book yet (it’s on the way!) and this was the closest thing I had going on in my pantry that would satisfy the craving in the meantime.

Once I concocted the mixture I could tell it didn’t smell all that flavorful, so I added in some chopped fresh garlic and ginger as well as about a tablespoon of the FYH ‘Unforgettable Balsamic BBQ Sauce’. The grill worked out really nice and the burgers were quite good for something out of a box as well, though I’m glad I added the embellishments as without them they would have tasted quite plain.

This was a quick saute of broccolini, bell pepper, shitake mushroom and baked tofu in a little bit of fresh garlic and ginger, sesame oil, rice vinegar, chili flakes and a dash of nutritional yeast and gamasio to seal the deal.

…and it went without a hitch thanks to the fine ladies of Spork Foods. Their specially prepared vegan menu included:

Truffle Scented Thyme and Mushroom Gravy
Sage Whipped Mashed Potatoes
Sourdough Stuffing with Caramelized Onions, Apples and Pecans
Juicy Herbed Vegan “Turkey”
(the asparagus in the photo was made by my aunt)

Everything was very tasty. The faux-turkey was moist and flavorful and had a very meaty texture to it. I don’t actually know what it was made of but I assume it was some sort of seitan/gluten concoction.

Here’s how it was lovingly packaged for me beforehand, and I even get to keep the cute bento-like tupperware. Score!

This was the yummy dessert, ‘Maple and Cinnamon Apple Turnover with a Coconut Whipped Topping’. It had just started to burn as I was heating it but I got it out just in time (the dark parts look darker in the photo than they really were). It was delicious and the coconut topping was fantastic as well.

See my previous post for more info on Spork Foods…