Tag: vegan

Dinner at Cafe Sunflower

Yes, indeed, there has been a lot of eating out going on. I’m still working on pre-farmer’s market run photos though, so eventually you’ll see I cook stuff sometimes.

This past Friday, we had dinner at Cafe Sunflower with some friends. It’s an Atlanta vegetarian institution.

We started off with some fried okra and fried tofu. I’m not a big okra fan, but these were pretty good. Low on the slime factor. The tofu was excellent.

Then as my entree I had the Kung Pao Soy Chicken. Here it ends up being somewhere between Chinese and Thai in flavor. I think there’s Thai Basil in it or something. And it comes with brown rice so I can pretend it’s all perfectly healthy. Kevin had the stuffed acorn squash but it was extra blurry so no pic of that.

The best part about going to Cafe Sunflower is the vegan CAKE. Say hello to peanut butter mousse cake:

Not everything is vegan, but just ask. The servers with be straight up with you.

Eating out, take away

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.

Teese Pizza

The past couple of weeks, I haven’t had a chance to get over to Your DeKalb Farmer’s Market like I normally do every week. So I’ve been living off of freezer food, occasional Trader Joe’s or grocery store quick stops for essentials, etc. This pizza was one of those meals. I had some pesto, fakeroni and Teese in the freezer. So all I needed for pizza to happen was a crust. Trader Joe’s to the rescue! They sell dough balls in the refrigerator section for $1.19. A cheap and easy pizza solution.

With all the Daiya posts lately, you would think that I’ve completely forgotten about Teese. The Teese mozzarella style works really nicely on pizza. I didn’t feel like washing my grater (see, lazy), so I just sliced it thinly and then cut into sticks and scattered them over the top. They still melted up nicely.

Mac & Cheese

Apparently I can’t stop with the Daiya. I swear they aren’t paying me. Or even sending me free cheese. I’m not opposed to that though. 😀

How is it that there are so many styles of vegan mac & cheese that are so freakin’ good? You have ones based on nutritional yeast, cashews, whatever magic Soul Vegetarian puts in theirs, etc. So I had to see how Daiya would do. And the answer is, quite well thank you very much. Because I’m lazy, I used this recipe. I still had some lunch meat log so I chopped that up in place of the veggie ham. I also made a half batch so I wouldn’t be eating nothing but mac & cheese for two weeks, not that there’s anything wrong with that. When making it, I went with the lower amount of soy milk and I think I would like it saucier so next time I’ll try the higher amount at least. The taste was spot on though. I say this as someone that hasn’t eaten cheese in years, but I have been through a ton of vegan mac & cheeses and this one seems to hit closest to the blue box kind. I’d love to get the opinion of an omni or vegetarian on Daiya.

Seriously, how 70s does this plate look?

On my food to do list

Jeni’s comment on my previous post about her to do list gave me an idea for a VeganMoFo post. First of all, how do you guys keep track of the food inspiration you get from other blogs and websites? I keep up with blogs using Google Reader to subscribe to their posts. So when I see something I want to make, I just star it. Then I can go back and look at my starred items later for inspiration. If it is something on a website, but not blogged, I’ll bookmark it. Eventually, I try to put all of those into MacGourmet recipe software. Try.

So that brings me to the post idea. What is languishing in my starred items list in Google Reader? No, I’m not going to post them all. But let’s see what kind of things are hanging out in there:

Sweet Potato Falafel with Yogurt-Tahini Sauce: Sweet potatoes are so tasty, cheap and healthy that I’m always looking for new ways to use them. These would probably freeze up well for quick meal options.

Chilli Tofu with Beans and Bok Choy: This doesn’t look like your average stir-fry. That little bit of tamarind is going to give it a nice sour note.

Samosa Soup: It’s officially soup season and this one sounds amazing. Who can’t use another potato soup variation?

Seitan Chorizo Crumbles:  If you don’t have a local source for veggie chorizo or you just want to save a few bucks, make your own!

Sweet Potato Pugliese Bread: Have you got a bit of leftover sweet potato? Make some bread!

Tunisian Spicy Breads (Touarits):  Wouldn’t these make an amazing appetizer? Just replace the egg with your favorite egg substitute and it’s vegan.

Frosted Orange Cream Cupcakes: It’s always a good idea to have gluten free recipes on hand should you need them.

African Peanut Soup with Red Beans:  I love a whole meal in a bowl. This soup has got you covered nutritionally.

That’s a good start. I probably could have had a long post just on sweet potato recipes I’d saved. Maybe I’ll do one of these a week with everything I’ve got saved up.