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Vegan Drinks Atlanta III

Finally I made it out to a Vegan Drinks event AND got to eat. This month’s gathering was at The Graveyard. It would’ve been criminal if I didn’t show up considering that’s 2 miles from my house. I even tried to ride my bike up there, but got a flat a block away and ended up driving. I am an asshole though and didn’t socialize and instead hid at a table with friends.

The Graveyard put out a nice menu with some great options. I got the in ponzu sauce over soba noodles w/ julienned carrots and bok choy.

My only complaint is that the tofu could’ve used a little marinating. The only flavor I could get off of it was the sesame seeds and maybe sesame oil. I love sesame oil so that’s not a terrible thing. The amount of food was perfect and left a space for dessert. We had the choice between a duet of sorbets or coconut cake. CAKE.

Lovely, dense, coconutty cake. No complaints.

Kevin had to fly out of town and came by for a quick scarfing, so I ordered him some food in to go boxes. I had one of his wings and it was tasty as always. Get ’em Tuesdays during wing night. You’ll have a few vegan sauce options. And as an entreé he had the BBQ tempeh w/ chipotle rice and sautéed spinach. I ate his leftovers the next day for lunch and they were really good, especially the chipotle rice. Looking forward to the next installment!

July 4th NOMfest

The plan for the Fourth of July was to have a potluck at Star & Simon’s, then go up on the roof to watch various fireworks shows. Instead, it stormed and it was difficult to tell the fireworks from lightning. And standing in the rain trying to figure out the difference sucked.

But the NOMfest went on as scheduled. So, funny story, after taking pictures of CAKE in progress, I forgot to bring my good camera. So most of these are taken with my crappy camera. The screen wasn’t working so I just had to point it and guess if the subject was going to be in frame. You’ll see…

What better excuse to bust out the crazy food coloring than July 4th? Here is CAKE in progress:

And frosted. I wanted to spell ‘merica, fuck yeah! in blueberries, but didn’t think I had the space or blueberries to pull it off.

Mmmm…beverages with and without alcohol:

Star & Simon made oyster mushroom calamari?? What, what??

And jalapeño corn balls with cheeze in the center. Work that deep fryer!

Hello, appetizers. Fried plantains with a dill dip and crackers with Gutenfleischer’s pimento cheeze.

Kevin working the deep fryer. See what I mean about the crappy camera?

And here is one of my half cut off plates of food: king ranch casserole, artichoke potatoes, greens raw and cooked, jalapeno corn ball, and some kind of macaroni thing.

Fajitas and chipotle fruit kabob.

CAKE, all busted into.

Oh, and there was more food too. Steph brought a delicious apple pie with cheezy crust. Lisa’s raw peach cobbler was amazing. And there were cupcakes I didn’t even get into. And I’m probably missing some things. Wow, I shouldn’t have written up this post while hungry. Now all I want is a big hunk of CAKE.

Tofurky Vegetarian Feast

How do I keep getting so lucky? A couple of weeks ago, I got an email from a representative for Turtle Island Foods asking if I’d like a free coupon to try one of their vegetarian feasts. Um, yeah! It took three tries before I found it in stock. Sevananda ended up being the winner, but Whole Foods has since gotten some in. It was stored in a big freezer until it was time to drag it home and cook it. And even then it waiting in my fridge for a few days before it worked out that I could cook it.

Here it is taking a ride home:

Which was almost a disaster. At some point I rode over a bump that busted open the box. Luckily I noticed in time to keep from losing anything.

My Tofurky was fully defrosted so I was able to cook it in about 75 minutes. I used the olive oil, soy sauce and sage recipe for basting because I have fresh sage growing in my yard. For the veg, I used an onion, a carrot, a sweet potato and half a delicata squash. Everything went in my big Le Creuset lidded pot lined with foil. Pro-tip: spray foil with oil before you start loading it up. I didn’t and had a bit of stickage. Here’s the little buddy right out of the oven:

Sorry for the dark pics but it was, dark. An inside shot:

Plated up with gravy (included) and broccoli:

The veg turned out lovely. Some of the sweet potatoes were caramelized and everything just melted in my mouth. I’ve always liked Tofurky and, yeah, it’s still good. The gravy was a little thick, but very tasty. I could’ve thinned it but went with it as it came. Oh, and the broccoli is just a box of frozen stuff I had because I am lazy. There is a “wishbone” but I have to admit it’s still in its package. I’ll probably gnaw on it as a snack at some point.

Oh yeah, the cake. An Amy’s chocolate cake came with the feast. It was also fully defrosted. The cake was pretty moist and had nice chocolate flavor. I was wondering if it was going to be more poundcake like, but it was normal cake like. The downside is that it doesn’t have frosting. Cake needs frosting. Or ice cream. Or both. I had some extra vegan cream cheese frosting from something else, so I gave it a little topping.

Perfect!

If you aren’t really a cook or need something easy to take to some horrible meat filled holiday meal, this is a good option. We all know there are a few holiday roast options out there now. This one seems to be the most reminiscent of turkey if that’s what you’re looking for.

Petit Fours

Vegan petit fours? Now that’s a Happy Birthday! I used this recipe as a guide. Except the birthday girl just wanted vanilla, so there was vanilla buttercream between the layers instead of jam. I did try jam in some of my testers and it was yum!

I won’t lie to you, these were kind of a pain in the ass. A digital candy thermometer would make this so much easier. If you want your fondant to be white, get the whitest vegan sugar you can find. The Whole Foods house brand vegan sugar worked well. Also, invest in clear vanilla extract.

Bake Sale Success!

It was nasty, rainy and a little icy but people still came out. Atlanta’s Vegan Bake Sale for Haiti this Saturday raised $1365 for Doctors Without Borders. Holy Crap! A special thanks to Kristin for organizing the whole thing and Criminal Records for not just agreeing to let us do it in front of their store, but letting us take over the back of the store when the weather turned nasty. Those guys rock!

Kristin has a great round-up of participants here. I’d like to also add thanks to Alicia Simpson, author of Vegan Comfort Food, Alison Brown, Lisa Bennett and a guy named David, I think, for bringing out goodies to sell. The hard work of everyone involved enabled us to turn a bit of labor and ingredients into a much larger donation for Haiti.

And now, for some of my crappy pictures!

Setting up in the back of Criminal Records

Some of my contributions: