Author: laura

Chipotle-kissed Red Beans and Sweet Potato Chili

No, I’m not done with the bowls but I did save some other posts to break them up a bit so it wasn’t bowl, bowl, bowl, bowl, bowl….

Slow cookers are awesome if you don’t know that already. You can turn dried beans into a big pile of mouth-watering bits to eat as is or freeze in batches to use in recipes. All without pot watching. Nothing better than getting home from work to find your kitchen already smells delicious.

This one is Chipotle-kissed Red Beans and Sweet Potato Chili from Robin Robertson’s Fresh From the Vegetarian Slow Cooker. Look at that color! If you follow the recipe it’s pretty mild, so punch up the hot stuff if you like to feel the burn. And there’s only a little bit of oil in the whole pot so it’s pretty much just a bowl of goodness. Not pictured: unhealthy bread or corn bread slathered with Earth Balance.

 

 

This Potluck Had a Theme

Over some silly conversation at a previous potluck we joked around about having a potluck with a theme that was a topic of conversation. I debated revealing the theme since there are going to be some folks dropping by for Vegan Mofo that aren’t expecting that sort of strangeness, but fuck it, Mofo or no this is my blog and if someone is offended they can just not come back, right? This is also the warning for the easily offended to stop reading, don’t click any links, and just look at the food pics and move on. Actually some of the pictures are pretty silly. Best just skip it.

Anyway, at this potluck, we got onto the topic of docking. Not the horrible practice of docking dogs’ tails. Not parking a boat. Something else entirely. What foods could we use to represent that? So this potluck represents the result. Some of the food strayed off topic a bit, but not too far.

So I made artichoke and hazelnut cannelloni with lemon soy bechamel sauce or docking stations.

My plate loaded with tasty bits: a docking station, fish taco, wiener in a blanket…

You can never have too much dessert, so we had three. Vegan Twinkies. Yes, we’re all 12-year-old boys.

I also made the chocolate strudel from Vegan Italiano.

Ice cream sandwiches!

Queenie was unimpressed with the theme, but loved all the extra attention she got.

Then we headed to the roof to check out the view of Atlanta. Look at my crappy picture. LOOK AT IT.

 

 

 

 

A Beefy Stew

Oh, hey Vegan Mofo people. So I was warning folks earlier this week that most food I’ve cooked lately has come in bowls. And I wasn’t even kidding. The top rack of my dishwasher is full of bowls and there are two plates in the bottom part. Ridiculous. But something about the turn to Fall makes me immediately start craving soups and stews. And it isn’t even really cool yet. It’s just no longer unbearably hot. Which is a good thing.

There are a few beefy type stews I enjoy making. This happens to be the one from Vegan Vittles, the Chuckwagon Stew. Instead of the tempeh, I used about a half a cup or so of dehydrated faux beef chunks and just tossed them in and let them rehydrate in the stew. I also tossed about a half a cup of frozen peas in towards the end of cooking for extra vegetabular goodness.

 

 

A visit to Healthful Essence

You know where we don’t go enough? Healthful Essence.Vegan Caribbean food and raw items served cafeteria style. We would totally eat here more if it wasn’t a special trip kind of out-of-the-way. At least it isn’t far, but it’s not an area of town we generally have any other business in, the West side. But the folks are really nice and the food is delicious.

This is the $8.xx plate plus a lil something extra. I’ve got BBQ tofu, some black beans and greens. The extra part is the plantains you see on top. Bonus! She also gave Kevin this patty for everyone to share that tasted like Thanksgiving. Have no idea what it was. I’ve had their unfish before and it’s also really good. If you like mock fish stuff. The ginger beer, they make it there, had quite the bite to it so if you are a fan of spicy ginger, get it!

 

 

Unclog That Drain

You have these in your cabinet, right? Did you know you could use them to unclog your drains? It works pretty well and isn’t poison. Here’s what I did recently to unclog the bathroom sink drain. First, take out the stopper and dump a bunch of baking soda down into the drain. Next, pour some vinegar down there and quickly cover the drain with your hand to stop it up. It’s going to bubble up and froth like one of those volcano projects kids do for school. You want all that fizziness to push down and eat at whatever is clogging the drain. If your drain stopper creates a tight seal, you can just use that. When it’s done fizzing, run hot water down the drain. Still slow? Repeat. See, easy!