Okay, so maybe it was time to find the healthier side of vegan food in Seattle. Chaco Canyon Organic Café seemed like it might do the trick. Whose waffle is this? I’m definitely waiting too long to post this stuff…
This is a small Hippie Bowl which I would be happy eating some version of every day, any meal. Tofu, carrots, quinoa and sprouts in a tahini sauce.
And this juice was delicious, whatever it was.
Kevin had the Tofu Scramble Sandwich.
And a samosa made with sweet potatoes.
After this, we dropped Jared off at the airport and went up in the Columbia Center to check out the view. It was the clearest day of our trip, but we were still denied awesome mountain views.
Normally I really like this recipe for Stuffed Poblano Chilies with Garlic Mashed Potatoes. Wow, I guess I’ve been making it for almost 15 years. Sometimes I’ll mix some chorizo with the mashed potatoes. This time I threw a bunch of kale in with the potatoes towards the end of the cooking time. So back to the “normally” qualification up top. I got some weird poblanos. They’re hot. Just stinging hot. Serrano hot but without the flavor that normally comes with a pepper. So I’ve been eating them, but haven’t really enjoyed them as much as usual.
Now this Mexican Quinoa was another story. It’s a very easy side dish and it can easily be varied by using different salsas. I used Whole Foods’ store brand of chipotle salsa. This was perfect.
The beans are just some pintos that were hanging out in my freezer from a big batch made in the slow cooker. Originally the were going to be turned into refried beans, but I got lazy when it turned out Kevin wasn’t going to be home for dinner and just put them on my plate as is.
Lots of brown food, but better for you brown food.
Now here’s a good one for summer. Healthy, light and room temperature or cold. Actually, I’d vote for room temperature on this one. Remember the sources for recipe by email I posted a few days ago? Well, that’s how I found this recipe by Nava Atlas. I browsed the veggie recipes I’d collected for inspiration while making my shopping list. Kevin doesn’t like olives so I didn’t use them. And I substituted almonds for the pumpkin seeds. And the red bell pepper is there, I just chopped it up and tossed it in with the bean salad. This also made great leftovers for lunch the next day. I tossed it with some baby salad greens that needed to be used up. You could make this really pretty to serve like Nava does, or just kind of throw it on a plate like you see here.
Sunday night we went to see Thievery Corporation with some friends. Beforehand, we grabbed dinner at R. Thomas Deluxe Grill. R. Thomas is one of those places where just about everyone can be satisfied. They have some meaty stuff, vegetarian, vegan, raw. They usually have a vegan desert too. While I do feel kind of bad for the birdies in cages outside, it’s a good place to go with mixed company.
They have several bowls that can be vegan. I got the Lucky Green Tea Bowl. Except they were out of bowls, so it’s on a platter. Doesn’t matter, it ate up fine. Tofu and veg stir fry in a miso green tea sauce on top of quinoa with pickled cabbage (I think) and a pile of greens. Half satisfied me and I ate the other half for lunch the next day.
Beth was sitting across from me and got one of the raw dinners, #2 I think. I enjoy getting them from time to time.
Thievery Corporation was really good. Ton of people on stage. At least 5 vocalists. Three encores. You can kind of see in the picture how packed the stage was with stuff. One of the last songs of the night they had a bunch of girls from the audience come up and dance on stage. There was one that looked kind of like Kate Gosselin and was doing the most awkward booty dance I’ve ever seen. She was also apparently dry-humping the sitar player. I’m sorry I missed that. Or not.
So much eating out lately. Too much. It can be harder to make good choices when eating out. Especially when tempted by Soul Vegetarian’s mac and cheese. I’m not going to say that these are super healthy choices, but at least they include some good veg, even some raw, and healthy grains.
This is the small salad combo at Soul Vegetarian with carrot salad, eggless salad and beets on romaine with sprouts, cucumber and tomato. Oh, and their prince dressing. Sure can’t forget that. And a side of corn bread. The fun part about eating a bunch of beets is the surprise you’ll get after they, uh, work their way through.
R. Thomas is a local restaurant here in Atlanta. They aren’t even vegetarian, but have a decent number of veg*n options. They also have grab and go food you can pick up at a few different markets around town. This one was my lunch one day. A bean wrap, eggless wrap and quinoa salad wraps with a raw cabbage salad.
