laura, Author at abracapocus

Washington DC Food Porn

Wedding, monuments, art, yada yada yada. I think what most people reading this want to see is the food porn. If you want to see that other stuff too, it’s in my flickr account.

We landed Friday afternoon and after we got settled into the hotel, went out in search of food before meeting up with everyone at the Brickskeller. Teaism in Dupont Circle turned out to be one of the options in between the two, so that’s where we went. They had a few vegan options right off the menu. I got the bento box and Kevin got a seitan stir fry.

When the food came out, it looked small to me at first. Until I started eating. It was deceptively small looking food. Turned out to be really filling. The bento box had grilled veggies, edamame, sweet potatoes, brown rice and tofu. The grilled veggies and edamame were served cold. I liked that, but I know it might put off some people. Here are a couple of dark, blurry pics along with a middle finger for anyone that has a problem with that.

Saturday, we had certificates for breakfast at the hotel. Fruit, peanut butter and jelly sammiches, coffee, juice. Standard hotel stuff. We had lunch at Java Green. I try to get to Java Green every time I’m in DC. This particular day part of the proceeds went to Compassion Over Killing. Bonus! I felt a little carb heavy from breakfast, so I opted for the Chili “Chicken” Wrap and a live juice mix, I forget which one. The wrap turned out to be crazy hot. Someone got extra happy with the rooster sauce, I think. Whew! I like hot, but wow. I think Kevin’s sammich was “chicken” and “cheese” on a ciabatta roll.

I should have taken pics of our food at the wedding. We had cucumber and avocado sushi rolls and a tofu veggie stir fry that the made up for us special. It was really nice of them to cater to us like that.

Sunday morning we headed to Sticky Fingers for breakfast. We split a soft, fluffy and fresh cinnamon roll. Then Kevin had pancakes and I tried the grilled cheese made with Daiya. I had it on whole greain bread, so that makes it healthy, right? To me, Daiya has the tastiest vegan cheddar style cheese I’ve had yet. Plus it gets all melty like Teese does. Can’t wait until Cosmo’s has it in. Also, there’s a pizza chain with some Metro Atlanta locations that is going to start carrying Daiya.

Sticky Fingers Grilled Cheese — Sticky Fingers Grilled "Cheese"

Apparently most vegan friendly non-asian restaurants near us Sunday were closed. So we ended up at Pizzeria Paradiso. I think I liked it more than Kevin did. The brick oven did lovely things for the crust. They didn’t have any fake meaty toppings, so we went with basil, red onions and red bell peppers. I think they were using Follow Your Heart cheese. It couldn’t have been too bad. We ate it all.

For such a short trip, we definitely packed in a lot of sight-seeing and yummy vegan food. The best way to approach DC is to say that you’re coming back. Because there’s no way to do everything in one trip.

This CAKE loves the USA

Ever since I saw this picture, I’ve been obsessing over vibrantly colored cake batter. What better excuse than a 4th of July gathering to experiment. I gave the batter a light lemon flavor with zest and extract. The frosting was just vanilla, mainly because I ran out of lemon extract. Strawberries and blueberries on top rounded out the red, white and blue theme. All in all, it was a hit. I need more excuses to bake cakes. Excuses that involve it not being left in my house.

Reviving dormant sourdough starter

So what happens when you take an active sourdough starter, stick it in the fridge and ignore it for 6 months or more? Apparently nothing bad. This is exactly what I did. Actually, I have 4 starters in the fridge. Last week I decided to try and revive the Italian starter and attempt a batch of bread.

How did I do it? I pulled the starter out, stirred the hooch in (the liquid on top) and put it on the counter in a new bowl. Leaving it on the counter, I fed it with half a cup of flour and half a cup of water twice a day. At each feeding , I poured off about half the starter into a container of excess. But I’ll get to that later.

Friday night I began the Vermont Sourdough from Hamelman’s Bread. Saturday morning I worked through the shaping and then retarded the two loaves in the fridge overnight. Then Sunday morning I baked them off one at a time on my pizza stone. The first loaf I steamed once with ice cubes. The 2nd loaf I added a second steaming. The second steaming seemed to give the 2nd loaf a little more spring. The taste was mild but clearly the starter did its job. Nice rise, good crumb. Chewy crust. Sourdough bread is such a process that it’s even more satisfying when it all goes well.

So there have been sammichs, bread slice snacks, bread with salad, etc. And I haven’t cut into the second loaf yet! So what to do with the cast-off starter created when feeding? There are a bunch of things you can do with it, but this time I chose scones. (Obviously, I veganized that recipe.) It really doesn’t act to rise the scones, but flavors them a little and keeps you from having to throw the excess in the garbage.

It’s been a while, so I’m going to submit this post to WildYeast’s Yeastspotting. Head over there every Friday for a collection of baking porn from around the internets.

Salad Time

I really do love eating giant salads. I just don’t always feel like making them. So if I do feel like it, I go with it. This week has definitely been saladoriffic. Romaine is my favorite lettuce. It lasts pretty long in the fridge and stays nice and crispy. Carrots are always there. Red, orange or yellow bell pepper. After that, it’s really up to whim and what catches my eye at the market. This week I also had radishes, cucumber, summer squash, and cucumber. Then a sprinkling of almonds or walnuts. And this week I added protein, tofu or a fake chicken patty. All were tasty and satisfying. Maybe they make up for the parfait I ate and the chocolate chocolate chip coconut muffins I made. Probably not.

A Most Excellent Bake Sale

The Atlanta Vegan Bake Sale this past Sunday was amazing! We raised just over $700 for Catsnip! Thanks to Leigh, Ken, Kevin, Britney, Steph, Ashley, Lisa, Idalys & Howell and Lillian at Criminal Records for helping make it happen! Oh, and all of you that came by and picked up goodies.

And here are my contributions to the bake sale.

Check out Leigh’s set of pics from the sale for more food porn.