Category: food

For Indian food lovers

If you want to cook something that is about as close to the tastiest Indian food you can get in a restaurant, you’ll want to try these lentils from Dino’s Alternative Vegan cookbook. This is one of those recipes I keep going back to. It’s another one you can whip together with mostly pantry items.

I had a couple of options for something green to eat on the side. Instead of keeping the green beans plain, I used the treatment Dino gives to broccoli and roasted them up in the oven. There might have been just a bit more seasoning than I needed for the amount of green beans I had, but it was amazingly good.

Tarragon scented white bean soup

A lovely bean soup from dried beans doesn’t necessarily mean long hours on the stove top. A pressure cooker will deliver it in about 20 minutes. Lentils are even faster. And it makes risotto super easy. No stirring!

When I’m going to cook beans, whether in the slow cooker or the pressure cooker, I plan ahead and put them in to soak in some water at least 8 hours. If I’m not going to use right after soaking, I just stick them in the fridge until I need them.

If you’re looking for a guide to ease you into pressure cookery, Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure is a great choice. And I think most recipes are either vegan or easily vegan. It comes with handy cook time charts for various beans, grains and vegetables so you can speed up your favorite dish once you get comfortable with pressure cooking.

This is the Tarragon Scented White Bean Soup from this book. In this case, navy beans. It made a great weeknight Fall meal.

New POM Wonderful Juices

You know, apparently I’m just not a big juice drinker. POM sent me two of their new juice blends to try a couple of weeks ago at least and I just today got to the second one. It’s not that I don’t like juice. I’m just more of a fruit eater than drinker.

pom_kiwipom_nectarine

Anyway, first up was the POM Nectarine. A nice blend. The nectarine did a good job of standing up to the assertive pomegranate. The POM Kiwi was much more subtle and it was mostly pomegranate that came through. I found both juices easier for me to drink than straight pomegranate but they were still a bit strong for me. Maybe a little apple juice mixed in would make it more palatable for me. I did drink a full serving of each but there was no way I could drink more than that. I guess that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Click through the links to see nutritional information, etc. I know POM has left a bad taste (ha, I’m funny!) in some vegan’s mouths because of their past animal testing. They did stop back in 2007 which is the only reason I agreed to try their products. Oh, and this is not a paid blog post. POM has sent me samples of some of their products but that’s the extent of the schwag I’ve received.

On a side note, I love how Whole Foods got all up in arms and was threatening to pull POM off their shelves over animal testing when they sell animal products. Hello?

Atlanta Vegan Lunch Group Dinner

Confused yet? We have a group that meets once a month, usually for lunch. But this past time, we had dinner. At Loving Hut. We had a nice turn out. You should join us. If you don’t have veg friends, it’s fun to hang out with a bunch of like minded folks. And even if you do, it’s nice to see every once in a while that vegans come from all walks of life.

Now, on to the food. I knew some of the things I liked from the opening day party. Their rice paper rolls were really enjoyable, so I got the basil rolls:

Kevin sneaked in an order for Heavenly Salad. I didn’t complain. I love the Vietnamese flavors in this dish.

This fried tofu also magically appeared on the table. I had a triangle and it was nice. Light crispy panko coating.

Ever since I saw Pho on the menu, I wanted to try it. It was pretty good, but I think I would prefer a more garlicy/gingery broth. This one was more beefy and had a hint of 5 spice powder. I don’t hate it, but it’s not my favorite thing.

Kevin ordered a coffee drink and it came with this lovely strawberry flavored decoration. Not sure how I would feel about strawberry in my coffee, but it sure was pretty.

Something else from the menu that I had my eye on was the rootbeer float. I mean, where can you get a vegan rootbeer float? The rootbeer was really tasty and the ice cream seemed to be standard soy vanilla. One pro tip for you, tell them to hold the ice. It seems unnecessary when you’re dumping ice cream into a cold beverage.

Kevin also ordered the hummingbird cake. If you saw my most from the opening, you’ll know I wasn’t happy with the texture of the hummingbird cake there. It was kind of mushy. This one was much better. It’s still not as good as Lisa’s, but then how could it be? 🙂

Autumn Vegetables and Tofu Roast

So, I’m copying people again. But hey, isn’t that what VeganMofo is all about? Well, partly about. Getting yummy new ideas from other people. I impulse bought a delicata squash and needed something to do with it, then I saw this. Perfect! Is there anything more comforting on a cool day than some lovely roasted vegetables? This recipe is pretty simple, but amazingly tasty. For the herb option, I went with rosemary and thyme. To go with it, I made polenta. Creamy polenta, roasty vegetables. Mmmm….

Also, if you haven’t tried delicata squash yet, you must. It’s a great lazy squash because the skin is fairly thin and you don’t have to peel it. See the little striped bits? Tasty!