Veggies and Musings II

My schedule and a new course that I didn't do enough prep for this summer caught up with me last week and I got so busy I had to let the week go. Then I got sick! How does that happen? Here I am eating all this healthy goodness and blaaaaaargh! Sick. Diagnosed Wednesday as a multidimensional sinus infection... in other words it had spread to my right ear, throat, and was heading for the chest. Yippee.

Needless to say, I haven't done a whole lot of thinking about food. Well that isn't really true. I spent a few hours one day laying on the couch looking at vegan recipes for Thanksgiving. But cooking has been a chore, best left undiscussed. I have stuck to my vegetarian diet, but it has consisted of a lot frozen veggies, Boca Burgers, and eggs.

While surfing around the net and reading vegan/vegetarian blogs I ran across a posting about how many cookbooks vegetarians own. In my case, I've been collecting cookbooks longer than I've been vegging. My omnivorous collection is pretty big on its own, but I have enjoyed picking up the odd vegan/vegetarian cookbook.

So today I offer a mini review of my collection presented in no particular order.

Veganomicon - Isa Chandra Moskowitz & Terry Hope Romero

This is my go to book. I must admit it has become my vegan Joy of Cooking. This is the book that I can look in the refrigerator, see what I have and find an idea of what I can make. When following the recipes, I have never had a recipe not turn out. Besides, this is just a fun read.

Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World - Isa Chandra Moskowitz & Terry Hope Romero

Love, love, love this book! I've made fourteen of the cupcake recipes and my current favorite is the gingerbread. Yum.

Vegan with a Vengence - Isa Chandra Moskowitz & Terry Hope Romero

I got a gift certificate for B&N and bought this book. Honestly, I haven't done much with it. I did try the tempeh sausage crumbles and really enjoy that as a topping for eggs and rice.

Soy of Cooking - Marie Oser

I picked this book up at Powell's Books in Portland, Oregon a couple of years ago. I been tempted a by a couple of recipes, but really haven't tried any seriously. I guess I was a bit turned off by finding Gimme Lean products included. Although, flipping through it right now, it fell open to Tofu in Burgundy Sauce. That looks interesting.

The Everyday Vegan - Dreena Burton

I got this with a couple of other books from Half.com. The recipe for "Neat" Balls is tagged and I was thinking about another meatlessball recipe this weekend. I really like the introduction to the book, like Vegonomicon, it is very informative.

The New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook - Louise Hagler & Dorothy Bates

I bought this from Half.com with The Everyday Vegan. I was looking for information on making soymilk before I bought my soymilk maker. Really made it look like a lot of work. I do like the instruction for making tempeh, tofu, and using dried beans.

The Vegetarian Epicure - Anna Thomas

I got this from the library at the high school where I used to teach. I admit, I haven't done a thing with it.

Other books - not strictly vegetarian I find helpful and actually use!

The Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook - Beth Hensperger & Julie Kaufmann

Great recipes and helpful hints for using the rice cooker for more than rice. Love the instructions for cooking beans.

Dim Sum: The Art of Chinese Tea Lunch - Ellen Leong Blonder

Where to begin. I love this book. The recipes are easy to follow and prepare in an American kitchen and I am a sucker for dumplings! Many vegetarian recipes are included.

Sushi: Taste and Technique- Kimiko Barber & Hiroki Takemura

Dedicated mostly to seafood, there are some vegetarian recipes offered. Overall a great book for the techniques that are explained with easy to follow instructions and a lot of pictures. My kids bought me this for my birthday.

Japanese Cooking at Home- Hideo Dekura

My favorite Japanese cookbook. The first one I bought for myself. I have made many recipes from this book including: O-nigiri, Yaki-meshi, Yaki-soba, Tamago-yaki, and Agedashi-dofu.

Today's brew: Eight O'clock 100% Colombian

Bunnies like eggs...

Breakfast is my least favorite meals. I would much rather dig into the refrigerator for some leftovers, down enough coffee to kill the hunger, or wait for brunch.

The little diner by my house called the Wooden Spoon has an omelet on its menu called a Bunny Omelet, a blend of veggie and cheese. On of the better vegetarian options in the county. I always order this when I eat there and make several; versions of it myself. This summer when I was living up north on my own for a few weeks this was one of my favorite meals and I wasn't too concerned what time of day it was!

Today's brunch was another version.

I used left over broccoli, carrot and cauliflower mix, a couple of mushrooms, and a small onion which I sauteed in a nonstick pan with some Earth Balance and cooking spray. When the onions were soft and the carrots cooked a bit I stirred in a couple of eggs and and some Swiss cheese. My free form omelet: all the flavor and none of the fold.

A word on eggs - This summer we saw the danger of commercially produced eggs. This wasn't the first time that the egg industry was scrutinized for unhealthy practices. Even the expensive all-natural, free range, vegetarian fed designer eggs may not be all that they are cracked up to be... egg humor! I buy eggs from a small goat farm up the road from my house. They sell their eggs on the honor system in a small fridge near their main gate. I have been buying eggs from them for almost three years now and love the quality of the eggs I'm buying. There is nothing like a farm fresh egg.

Today's brew: Eight O'clock Dark Italian Roast - the one in the purple bag!

The Search for the Perfect Meat-less-ball

Today I tested a vegan meatball recipe that I found online at Supervegan.com. I liked the idea that it was made from beans and did not contain any vital wheat gluten, which can sometimes upset my tummy. This was one of the tastier recipes for vegan meatballs that I have tried, but it did not stand up to the sauce and got rather gooey after sitting in the sauce for a while.

Here are the "balls" before going into the sauce.

The texture wasn't what I was looking for, more pasty and gooey rather than the tender toothsomeness of it carnivorous cousin. But I am undaunted and will experiment more to find the perfect vegan meat-less-ball.

Don't you think they need a better name?

The big hit of the Sherlock and Finger-food event was the gingerbread cupcakes from the recipe found in Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. I made twenty-four mini cakes and three full-sized treats. I love the ginger and lemon combination. I bought crystallized ginger at the Ypsilanti food co-op and it is spicy, sweet, and yummy on its own. I chopped extra for the topping on the cupcakes giving an added bite of ginger. I have made a lot recipes from VCTOTW and haven't run into a bad one yet. It is one of my most recommended books for those interested in vegan baking.

Today's brew: Eight O'clock Dark Italian Roast - I found this at the local Meijer!

Well, that's not what I planned...

I planned an early trip to the grocery store to pick up supplies for tomorrow's Sherlock and Finger Food event, but things never go as planned... sometimes.

I found a recipe online for mushroom ravioli with a walnut sauce at Suite101.com that I wanted to try. That will have to wait until later this week because my quick trip to the store didn't happen. We finally got home after 9pm and there is no way that I'm up to starting dinner preparations at that time and we can't really eat out in the veg-unfriendly town of Jackson.

To the freezer...

Tonight's dinner: pizza! We made two. Digiorno's Mushroom, Spinach & Garlic and Amy's Pizza Pesto.

Now, I will admit that my hands down favorite frozen pizza is the DiGiorno's Mushroom, Spinach & Garlic. I love the smoky flavor of the mushrooms and the chewy texture of DiGiorno's crust. If I can't lay my hands on a Lawry's veggie pizza because Ishpeming is too far away than this pizza will satisfy. The Amy's pizza was a test run and... it passed. I liked the fresh quality of the tomato and broccoli, but the pesto was a bit overpowering for the vegetables. I really only got a good taste of the tomato when it slid off the pizza in a bite and I have to say it looked better than it tasted.

I spent some time searching the net to see if the DiGiorno pizza was truly vegetarian and found mixed opinions. One posting claimed that the low-moisture part skim cheese did not use an animal-based rennet, so I'm going to consider it good-to-go, but under evaluation.

What's next...

Tomorrow is Sherlock and finger-foods. I am planning a cider cheese fondue with some fresh cider from Sweet Seasons Orchard, a new veggie "meet"ball recipe, and plaintains patacones. I don't know what else will be brought, and I don't have the lowest calorie or fat menu, but there will be a ton of veggies to fill up on.

Today's brew: Eight O'clock 100% Colombian

Veggies and Musings...

I was very geeked to participate in VeganMoFo and then I found out it was going to be November. When I lurked around some of the MoFo sites I followed I really couldn't figure out why the change, but I did find that it is Vegetarian Awareness Month and today is World Vegetarian Day.

HAPPY WORLD VEGETARIAN DAY!

I took the pledge and am going to go VEG this month. I'm still planning my menus and working on some exciting lunch ideas. You can find out more about the pledge and how you can participate at www.worldvegetarianday.org.

So, in honor of VeganMoFo I have pledged to go VEG this month and blog about it! I think of this as a warm up to VeganMoFo. November is going to be a tough month to be devoted to a completely vegan diet. I live with large omnivores who are expecting Thanksgiving dinner... including the bird. To my omnivorous sons, it was bad enough that I stopped making Campbell's soup based green bean casserole, how are they supposed to celebrate without a turkey coma?

What about now?

My plan for today is to prepare the menu for next week, including lunches for the teaching days. I'm also having veg-loving company on Sunday and need some finger foods for the occasion and I'm thinking vegan "neatballs". Time to peruse the cookbooks!

Today's brew: Eight O'clock 100% Colombian

Date Night - Sushi in Spring Arbor? Really?

My darling husband gave our weekly date night a surprise treat by discovering Ichiban Japanese Steakhouse & Sushi Bar just a few miles away in Spring Arbor. The restaurant replaces a Chinese restaurant that was, to be kind, disappointing.

Ichiban Japanese Steakhouse & Sushi Bar does not look like a "sushi bar" - more like a strip mall coney island with some Japanese flair - but the food we were served was top notch.

My darling husband has teriyaki salmon: two small salmon fillets with stir fry vegetables and rice. His meal came with a house salad that had delicious miso ginger dressing. The salad dressing was one of the best items we were served.

I wanted a bento box, since all the selections were meat or shrimp I passed. My meal was a la cart - sushi cucumber roll, tempura vegetables, fried tofu, miso soup, and seaweed salad. Everything was very well prepared, but to break things down: the sushi roll was similar to any other cucumber roll, but very fresh - you could still taste the cucumber! The tempura was crisp and hot, served with yakisoba sauce with a dollop of chili paste in the middle, like a spicy floating island. I didn't care for the chili paste so avoided that when dipping. The tofu was the best! Crispy tender shell surrounding creamy tofu. I haven't had tofu that good since Portland!

My one disappointment was the seaweed salad. I LOVE seaweed salad and always order it! But this offering was old looking, smelled really fishy, and tasted like refrigerator. When our server came by I sent it back. No big deal, I would have still paid for it, after all I was one that ordered something like that from a Spring Arbor sushi bar! But, toward the end our meal the chef came out and asked about the salad - I fumbled through my explanation. I did want to seem like a stupid American who ordered something they know nothing about... I can't tell you how many times I've tried to make seaweed salad myself... but he took it off our bill.

While at our table I asked the chef if would make a vegetarian bento. YES! I can't wait. I know that Japanese vegetarian usually means that there is some dashi in there somewhere - I can deal with that. I can't wait to go back!

The Jackson area now has two Japanese restaurants - Asa Sushi and Ichiban - who would have figured!

Today's brew - Jackson Coffee Company - Panama!

Just a Cheap Date

I'll confess.

I'm a sucker for live entertainment. Being a person who has no musical ability I love to watch a good performance and will even sit through a bad one. Last night was not a bad one.

The darling husband and I are practicing being empty-nester's. We have been scheduling date nights and have had a few spontaneous evenings out during the week. This has been great, it has helped take my mind off of my impromptu retirement from traveling the forensics' circuit and we get to be each others captive audience for a few hours. Last night, the darling husband and I went to Jackson Coffee Company for the their free Friday night entertainment. Performing last night was Bill Bynum and Co. (www.billbynum.com). While I'm not a country music fan, and own very few folk albums... this group charmed me. Bill, the lead singer and song-writer is funny and charming in a Garrison Keillor kind-of-way. He had me cracking up during their version of "She left me for Jesus." At one point during the performance he asked me why I was sitting over there with a big grin on my face... Hey, I was having a good time! I even bought their album last night.

Andy posted a clip on Facebook which I will share to my wall.

I'm glad the evening ended on a high note because it started out bad.... very bad. We were looking for a cheap date... and you get what you pay for!

For dinner we went to the Michigan Avenue Los Tres Amigos. We eat at both locations on a pretty regular basis and usually really enjoy the food and find the ambiance amusing. More about amusing later.... Last night we started out by ordering the special - two dinner combinations for $10.99. We have ordered dinner combinations before. As a matter of fact, the guys usually order dinner combination when we go there because they like to sample a few things. We were NOT served the standard combination: the rice was flavorless and had chunks of potatoes in it; the beans were canned... had to be - flavorless and smooth like baby food; the taco and enchilada were okay, but there was nothing to put on them... no pico de gallo, sour cream, guacamole, or salsa. I ate what I could, but Andy asked for a menu and ordered something else!

I can understand a restaurant trying to bring in more customers and offering a special at a very reduced rate... the combination plates are usually $8.99 each. But, we were not given what we are used to getting at Los Tres Amigos... A lesson in "buyer beware" - we got what we paid for when you order a $5.50 meal... something that wouldn't even pass at Taco Bell!

And about the ambiance... Why do restaurant put television in their dining areas? We don't eat in front of the television at home. Even to this day, when all the kids are home we turn the TV off and sit together at the dinning room table. So, who thinks its a great idea for televisions... big screen tv... to be the focal point in a restaurant. Do you have any idea how many people I see staring at the television and not talking with the people that they are paying good money to go out for a meal with. Maybe this is just a Jackson thing... I will have to investigate... Mangia, Mangia... keep the television out!

Today's brew.... Jackson Coffee Company - House Blend.