Negril Caribbean Cafe

Tuesday I had to take an all day class and then an exam at the health department in downtown Atlanta. It sounds kind of terrible but it was actually pretty informative. And the test was pretty easy. Anyway, we were only going to have an hour break for lunch so I had to figure out ahead of time what to eat. Calabash looked to be a bit too far to walk, so after some googling around I found Negril Caribbean Cafe. Their menu showed some veggie options. Cool!

Naturally, it was raining all day. So I stomped through the rain the 3 or 4 blocks to the restaurant. I asked about vegan options and it was pretty much all the veggie options. Cool! So I got the blackened tofu, peas and rice and green beans. She said the blackened tofu came with sweet and sour sauce. I asked for it on the side. The blackened tofu wasn’t really spicy. At all. So that was kind of odd. But everything was pretty good. The sweet and sour sauce was kind of like asian sweet and sour sauce. It also had a strip each of raw onion, bell pepper and carrot in it. And two tomato chunks. I ended up dumping it on half the rice and half the tofu. I think the green beans were just canned, but they weren’t cooked to death so I was fine with that. They also had some veggie stir fries, a curry and other stuff on the menu I’d like to try.

I almost forgot that I picked up a callaloo patty for later that became part of dinner. The greens had a bit of a kick. Very nice.

Holy crap! That wraps up my 2nd VeganMofo! 31 posts in 31 days. I might be a little blogged out….

Something to drool over

This past weekend I missed a quick trip to Asheville because I had to study for an exam on food safety. It’ll be another week before I get the results, but I’m pretty sure I aced it. Kevin was a sweetie and brought me back a box of chocolates from French Broad Chocolates. They’ve been delightful. I’m not sure which is my favorite yet. I guess I’ll just have to keep eating to figure that out. And of course, all of these are vegan.

Vegan bachelorette/lingerie party

Fellow vegans, I’m sure you’ve been to many events where you can’t eat most if not all of the food, right? It gets old, doesn’t it? I know I just stopped going to any work events a long time ago because they are completely uninterested in making sure there’s something for vegans to eat. So fuck ’em.

But this weekend I attended a bachelorette party where EVERYTHING was vegan. How awesome is that? Plus, I didn’t have to cook any of it. See, you can put out an amazing spread without making animals suffer. Warning: there is a sort of naughty dessert towards the bottom. Just don’t scroll all the way down if that’d get you in trouble at work.

cucumber sandwiches
cucumber sandwiches
chocolate clusters
chocolate clusters
veggie plate
veggie plate
veggie dogs in blankets
veggie dogs in blankets
a shot of the spread
a shot of the spread
penis cupcakes
penis cupcakes

Sweet & Sour Chipotle Tempeh with Sweet Potatoes

It’s been nice cooking lately instead of going out. While we’re lucky enough to have quite a few vegan options here in Atlanta, there is a ceiling. And sometimes you get tired of eating the same stuff all the time. At least I do.

But when you cook at home, your possibilities are almost endless. The Sweet & Sour Chipotle Tempeh with Sweet Potatoes from Eat, Drink and Be Vegan were another excuse to turn on the oven for an hour. Plus, I don’t cook nearly enough tempeh. I forgot to get pineapple and toyed with the idea of using mandarin orange segments but then just left out the ingredient entirely. The dish did not suffer for it. There was plenty of sauce and plenty of sweet and sour goodness.

Tanya’s Asian Creation

Apparently I’ve been revisiting old favorites lately. The piles of Fall squash in the markets always make me think of this dish, Tanya’s Asian Creation from How It All Vegan. Another one that comes together quickly with ingredients that can hang out for a while without going bad. I love to have a few of those up my sleeve for weeks when you don’t really know what you’re doing one night to the next.

This time I used a cute little butternut I had hanging out. Even though it was small, I had extra that I put in the freezer already cubed for later use. Oh, and make the gomashio. It makes the dish and is quick and cheap to make.