Category: food

Cenci, new veggie restaurant in the ‘hood

At the vegan potluck last week I learned that there was a new vegetarian restaurant…right in my neighborhood! I really need to get out more. The place is called Cenci and is in the old Burrito Art space. Warning, that link is a myspace page, but here is the menu so you don’t actually have to defile your browser with the horror that is myspace: page 1 | page 2 | page 3 | page 4

The inside is really nice. Still casual but also would be nice for a date night. I read on EAV Buzz that they will have a liquor license soon. Most things on the menu are vegan and the server seemed to know which items were just vegetarian and was happy to answer questions. I’d actually like to see their menu marked kind of like Green Sprout does with the little egg next to the couple of things that have egg in them. Then at the bottom it says that items with the egg have eggs and they can be left out upon request. Maybe they could use a bee, an egg and a cow head for honey, eggs and dairy.

They have a bunch of nice sounding smoothies and juices so I went ahead and got the Royal Sun, a juice mixture of beets, carrots and blood orange. It was nice, just slightly. Wonderful color. Then I got the blackened fish sandwich. Sorry I was slack and didn’t have my camera with me. I’m not a fan of fake shrimp, but have been wanted to try something fishy for a while. The blackened seasoning was spicy but not hot. I could use some hot, but it was also good as it was. I don’t really know how to describe the “fish.” They were like thin fillets and the texture was something between tofu and seitan. I liked the texture but it wasn’t really reminiscent of fish. Which is perfectly fine with me. It did taste of the sea and seemed to get that flavor from sea vegetables. All in all a satisfying sandwich. You get the choice of a side salad or fries. I took the salad and it was huge! I’d also like to know where they found flavorful cucumbers this early in the season. The basil vinaigrette was also very nice and seemed fairly light on the oil. I was sad that they didn’t have desserts yet, but they will soon. Right now they’re sort of in a pre-opening status. Anyway, I can’t wait to go back and try some more things.

Cenci 1259 Glenwood Ave, Atlanta GA 30316 (404) 627-0533

Orecchiette with Broccoli, Chickpeas, and Tomatoes

Okay, obviously that’s not orecchiette. It’s whole wheat rotini. And it stood in quite well. This is another one from Vegan Italiano. I can’t recommend this book enough for people who want quick and easy food made from easily found ingredients. Oh, and there are no meat substitutes in it either. A great cookbook for a new vegan or a novice cook.

orecchiette with broccoli, chickpeas and tomatoes

The start of this year’s garden

This  year I’m going to step up my little garden a bit. Last year I had yellow bell peppers, grape tomatoes, serrano chilies, and basil. I also have oregano, sorrel, thyme and sage that hang out year round. I tried to grow squash from seed, but all it would do was bloom, no squashes ever appeared.

This morning, I headed over to a local church’s plant sale. They have people with disabilities grow the plants. They have a greenhouse on the grounds of the church. Pretty cool I think. Ah, here’s the info…it’s the Seedtime & Harvest Greenhouse of the Episcopal Church of the Holy Comforter, 737 Woodland Ave SE at Ormewood. It’ll go on until 2pm today. They’re also going to have another sale in 2 weeks. You can usually find the sale listed in the garden event calendar on walterreeves.com.

So here’s my haul for today: (start back left corner & go clockwise) sweet tangerine peppers, mini chocolate peppers, basil, thai basil (heh, I cut off it’s head in the pic), cilantro, purple tomatoes, roma tomatoes and yellow perfection tomatoes.

baby tomato herb and pepper plants

Warmer weather, lighter food

For some reason I’m not so much feeling like soups anymore. Maybe because in typical Atlanta fashion, we have moved from winter to summer with only a brief glimpse of spring. So far I’m holding out and refuse to turn on air conditioning in March. I think the highs are only supposed to be 80-ish (yes, only 80-ish!) so I should be able to hold out until April.

So the warmer weather has brought lighter food. Here is the Happy Hen Salad from Vegan Vittles next to a spinach salad with a few olives on the side.

happy hen salad from vegan vittles

This one is Sweet and Sour Vegetables from A Vegan Taste of Thailand. Instead of eating with rice, I used rice noodles. Some weird ones I had hanging around in my cabinet. They were about 3″ square sheets before cooked. Then as they cooked they rolled up. I kind of was looking forward to the big, flat, square noodles, but they were probably easier to eat this way. No, your eyes aren’t broken. the photo is a little blurry. Sorry about that.

sweet and sour vegetables from a vegan taste of thailand