To Live and Eat in L.A.

Cornmeal crust, homemade pesto, mushrooms, red bell peppers, marinated green olives, broccoli, fresh oregano, red chili flakes, olive oil and a half ton of garlic.

I told you The Valley was rad. It just got that much radder with the opening of yet another all-vegan establishment, this time on the far west end of Woodland Hills. Juice Ladies, an organic, vegan sandwich/salad/juice & smoothie shop is located on Ventura Blvd., way out past Topanga Canyon, just off the 101 Schoup exit. Now everyone from Chatsworth to Canoga Park to Tarzana and into the no-mans land beyond has tasty & healthy vegan goodness practically right at their doorsteps.

The shop livens up an otherwise forgettable strip mall which is anchored by Starbucks (what strip mall isn’t?). They don’t have a lot of seating inside but there’s plenty of it outside under umbrellas. The foods they offer are a fresh and exciting alternative in this part of town where vegetarian & vegan options are few in between (aka, it’s a nice change of pace from Follow Your Heart). They offer a variety of excellent sounding salad and sandwich options, as well as a giant list of juices and smoothies, ranging from yummy berry, chocolate and coconut drinks to green drinks to some pretty hardcore immunity boosting drinks involving stuff like garlic and onions. Ewww!

Let us banish the thought of drinks with onions in them and move on to the stuff I did like…

First I tried the Nori Rollup, because how could I possibly not? Grated jicama, pine nuts, garlic, purple cabbage, red bell pepper, miso, hummus, nori sheet (I love garlic when not in the form of a drink). They use the jicama instead of rice… how clever is that? Not only clever, but also cool and delicious. The pine nut paste stuff was awesome and I scarfed these beauties down in no time flat.
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Here are two very different pasta dishes I recently cooked up.

This first one began as a saute of fresh organic zucchini, fennel and garlic. The pesto was made with a whole bunch of basil leaves, sun-dried tomatoes, cashews, lemon juice, olive oil and dehydrated garlic bits (I like their garlicky crunch). The whole shebang was mixed with brown rice pasta.

This next pasta plate involved spelt pasta noodles and a saute of asparagus, mushrooms, artichoke hearts, fennel (can you sense a theme?), grilled seitan and a lovely organic heirloom tomato. Seasoned to taste with lemon juice, rice vinegar, black pepper and oregano.

Here’s another healthy snack platter concoction. These are Wasa “fiber rye” crackers topped with some amazing fresh cilantro-pumpkin seed pesto which I picked up at Whole Foods. Then we have some slices of baked tofu (I think it was “Hawaiian” flavored… but what exactly Hawaii tastes like I can’t tell you) and roasted red peppers. Man, this really hit the spot.