Category: photo

Dumplings and Hunan Salmon

Maybe it’s all the years of Chinese food being one of the few vegan options when eating out, but now it generally isn’t my first choice when eating out. I don’t hate it or even dislike it, I guess I’m just not excited by it. I like Thai, Vietnamese and Korean much better.

But we still go out for Chinese and it’s still good. This time we headed to Green Sprout to celebrate J.J.’s graduation. We started off with steamed dumplings. They were okay, but I like Harmony’s and Chinese Buddha’s better.

And I had Hunan Salmon. It’s vegan salmon, duh, lightly battered and deep fried with a nice assortment of vegetables. Don’t get me wrong, it was good and I was happy to eat it and the leftovers. But like most Chinese food I just can’t get excited about it.

Raw & Cooked at Healthful Essence

If Healthful Essence was more convenient, we’d definitely eat there more often. It’s kind of like a healthier version of Soul Vegetarian. Here’s what we got last trip.

Kevin had the raw lasagna. It was good but could have used some fresh basil and maybe garlic.

Lacking originality, I got rice & peas, collards and BBQ tofu. With a couple of bonus slices of plantain on top.

This time, they had patties, callaloo patties!

Is it wrong that I like mine better? I make the callaloo a little spicy. These are still good though and didn’t require any work on my part.

 

Polenta with Lemony Asparagus and Chickpeas

Now I know I’ve made Polenta with Lemony Asparagus and Chickpeas before, but I guess I didn’t blog about it. It’s an awesome Spring dish. I used the stove top method for the polenta, used a little oil to fry up the onions and roasted the asparagus rather than steaming it. Polenta isn’t as hard as people make it out to be. It’s pretty forgiving.

Korean broccoli fried rice

Last time I made a batch of brown rice, I froze the extra to use for quick meals. When making out my grocery list for the week, I ran across Korean Broccoli Fried Rice in World Vegan Feast.

The recipe calls for leftover tofu scramble. I was just going to skillet fry tofu, but the tofu I had went bad. So I used some May Wah chicken nuggets I had hanging out in the freezer instead, baked them, then chopped them up. We don’t eat a ton of fake meat products at home, but they are kind of nice every once in a while.

It doesn’t sound like there’s much by way of seasoning in the recipe, but it turns out great. Of course, sesame oil in anything usually pops it into the delicious category for me. Mine is also sprinkled with the gomashio that I keep on hand to sprinkle on whatever I can and a pretty squirt of sriracha. And at about 2 o’clock you’ll see a little pile of “seasoned parched seaweed” I found at Your Dekalb Farmers Market. It’s a little oily so I use it sparingly but it adds a great flavor punch. Oh, and it’s pretty good for you, or something.

Birthday pizza

For Kevin’s birthday, we staged a (mostly) vegan invasion of Uncle Maddio’s Pizza Joint. If you don’t know, Maddio’s carries Daiya, had tofu as a topping and the whole wheat crust is vegan. It’s also inexpensive. This pizza, a beer and a soda was around $22.

Alison brought this old pic of John & Kevin. WTH, who is that guy?

After pizza, we headed to NOT secret bowling at Suburban Lanes. And we closed the place down getting our money’s worth for the all you can bowl for $5.99 special.