Author: laura

Adventures in Soy Curls

You may have seen or heard of Butler’s Soy Curls in shops or on other blogs. They are awesome in their simplicity: soy beans. And guess what? They’re really easy to use too! I just rehydrate with warm water and use in recipes that call for seitan or TVP.

Here’s a recipe from A Vegan Taste of Thailand that called for TVP. I think it’s called Soya Mince with Rice Noodles and Peas. The sauce base is coconut milk and red curry paste. I used yellow curry paste instead. Still delicious. This is the only one of the “a vegan taste” series that I own, but I’ve been pretty happy with it. I know the various books get so-so reviews on amazon.com. But they are fairly inexpensive, so the risk is pretty small. I should try another one soon.

And here, I was easily able to substitute the Soy Curls for seitan in this Persian Seitan in Pomegranate Sauce from The Vegan Epicure. Bonus, I was able to use some of the Pom Wonderful Pomegranate juice sent to me a while back. I usually just make this dish with pomegranate molasses. I was hoping using the juice would have it turn out a little less brown, but I didn’t get the concentrated flavor from it that I like. So I ended up adding the pomegranate molasses anyway. We just ate it over bulgur.

South Indian Food Love

You know, it actually took moving to Atlanta before I had really good South Indian food. The few places I tried in San Francisco in the 90s were definitely of a Northern sort, and gringoed to boot. I will say that I’ve been back to SF since and discovered perfectly lovely South Indian food between Union Square and the Tenderloin.

Atlanta, though, has a ton of South Indian options. Even so, sometimes I like to cook it. I’m too lazy to bust out enough dishes to fill a thali, but recently I did manage two dishes and dosas. I think a full out scratch recipe for dosas isn’t hard, but making them from a box, a box less than $1, is way easier. It’s pretty tasty for a mix and will do when you’re feeling lazy from making two other dishes.

Both of these dishes come from Healthy South Indian Cooking. This is not even a vegetarian cookbook, but it has many, many vegan recipes. I’ve gotten so I don’t mind some meat recipes. Usually they can easily be veganized.

This is a blurry Potato Okra Mandi. I accidentally made two things that were pretty soupy. D’oh. This one is full of sour tamarind goodness. I’m not usually a fan of okra, but they don’t slime up in this dish.

I thought Beans Kootu was more dry last time I cooked it. Heck, it probably was. At least it wasn’t a full on soup. Sugar snap peas in a coconutty bean sauce.

And here it is all together with the dosas.

Speaking of Indian stuff in Atlanta, one of my favorite places to stock up on supplies is Taj Mahal Market. Spices, beans, mixes, chutneys, thali, etc. This week I made a quick trip up there during lunch for black mustard seeds and came back with that plus red lentils, tamarind paste, saffron, black salt, coconut milk, two dosa mixes, young jackfruit in brine, roasty tasty (peanuts covered in a bean flour coating, not fried) and rose spread:

Even if you don’t need anything, it’s worth stopping in for a browse.

Vermont Sourdough with increased whole grain

You people might be tired of looking at these, but I’m still amazed every time I open the oven and pull one of these loaves out. I did that? This time I went with the Vermont Sourdough with increased whole grain from Jeffrey Hamelman’s Bread. And again, it’s about perfect. The rye flour in it doesn’t weigh it down at all. It does take some planning to produce a bread like this, but it’s totally worth it.

I enjoyed my first slices with a raw kale salad and marinated grilled tempeh. A pretty healthy lunch.

Slip & Slide Party

It’s not as dirty as it sounds. Well, yeah, it was dirty. But in the muddy kind of way. Danielle and Matt hosted a slip & slide party to celebrate her art show at Youngblood. We brought over our soft serve machine and I cranked out a huge batch of vegan waffle bowls. Yep, vegan waffle bowl sundaes. We know how to do things in Atlanta.

Here’s my waffle bowl making station. The vodka gimlet helped when I wasn’t pouring them all over the floor. D’oh.

Here’s a lovely waffle bowl sundae. Mmmmm….

Oh, and this isn’t the little plastic sheet of a slip & slide. This was an inflatable, 2-lane slip & slide, with palm trees and a pool at the end. Insane!

Oh, you need action shots? Here, they’re taking a cue from Wipeout and spinning around before heading for the slide. Kevin didn’t quite make it.

Cookie Time

Most of yesterday was spent busting out cookies for Danielle Distefano’s art show opening at Youngblood. If you didn’t come down last night you missed the cookies, but the show runs through August 31st. So you can still check out all the lovely ladies. And I dare you to get out of Youngblood without buying something.

So what about those cookies? These cute little guys are Almond and Rosewater cookies. I even made Kevin decorate some of them.

Kevin suggested we do some thumbprint cookies. These are kind of a pecan shortbread filled with strawberry jam. All filled by Kevin!

Sometimes, you just have to make something ridiculously decadent. Chick-O-Stick white chocolate chip cookies are absolutely decadent. Where the heck do you get vegan white chocolate chips? From Cosmo’s of course! Chick-O-Sticks? Your local gas station or convenience store.

These were a last minute decision. How can you make a bunch of cookies without including any chocolate? So I made a batch of cappuccino cookies with chocolate chips.