Roast Duck

Just kidding! Did I get anyone? I'm just taking the night off from cooking from my pantries :-)

OK, so if you DID want vegan roast duck, you should get it from Singapore, a Kosher, ALL VEGAN restaurant in Philadelphia's Chinatown.   They do a pretty convincing mock-meat thing there.

We ordered the Sesame Herbal Duck (#147) and it was really great.  Per the menu, "vegetarian duck meat, shitake mushroom, ginko nuts, wolfberry seeds, carrots, seasonal Chinese green, cooked in sesame five spice sauce."

We also got the Dim Sum for Two, which had: crispy spring rolls (no big deal), pan fried scallion pancake, chicken drum stick (my favorite!), pan fried curry dumplings (also excellent), steamed vegetable buns, sesame noodles, leek dumplings (I think), singapore latkes, and probably a few I am missing (the list is at the restaurant, I only have the menu, so am trying to figure it out!).

My fave "chicken" drum stick.  I need the secret to their seitan!!!

We ate the other platter of dim sum (all the steamed stuff and noodles) before I could photograph it!

They have some sort of amazing secret seitan that they use for their mock meat dishes, and it is truly unbelievably delicious.  The only problem is that, from what I can tell, like seventy percent of their menu is deep fried, but I've only been there like two or three times, so I'm not totally sure.  Most of our food was deep fried, and honestly, it was a little much for me.

Oh, and these babies, seriously awesome:

Vegetarian Crab Meat Claw

(Everything is vegan but they call everything "vegetarian") 

What fun vegan vittles are you all enjoying on your Friday night?

Chard Chips!

So, I was finally pressured into trying to make "chips" from greens due to an old head of Swiss chard I had in my fridge and did not want to waste!

Thank goodness for VeganMoFo, and for running across this lovely recipe post for Kale Chips by Sonnet! I used her recipe to make my Chard Chips and it worked out great.  Without MoFo, that chard probably would have bit the dust.

Here they are...Chard Chips!

Just preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Get out a nice, dark cookie sheet and spray it or wipe it with olive oil (probably like 1 tablespoon all together).  Take out the ribs from your greens and rip up the leaves into pretty big pieces.  Arrange in one layer on your baking sheet.  Spray with a little more olive oil on top.

Bake for 10 minutes, remove, flip the Chard Chips (this is a little tricky, Swiss chard is more delicate than kale, and I had to use my fingers to flip the pieces, but it was fine) and bake about 5 minutes more until nice and crunchy but not burnt!

Sprinkle with salt and nutritional yeast, and serve.

Almost Friday...when you can eat your chard chips and watch movies :-)

Twelfth Night: Reader's Choice!

OK, guys, let me know which one of these you'd like to see me do a recipe post for by leaving a comment below!  Each recipe uses something that was hanging around forever in my fridge, freezer or basement pantries :-)

 #1:  Simple Fried Tofu.  This was SOOOOOOOOO good and so easy!

#2: Sweet Potato Latkes. This was also easy and very delicious! 

 #3: Pumpkin Cowboy Cookies, YUM.

 #4: End of Season Garden Pesto.  YUM. Oh, and easy.

 #5: A 1-4 Exacta Box.  

#6: Swiss Chard Chips! Also super easy and way tasty.

Let the voting begin! 

Pantry Permanents

I do not need help using up the following items:

Cat and Starbucks bag.  I love my cat and I love my Starbucks!

Starbucks French Roast: I cannot live without it (especially once I entered parenthood) and you can see it tucked into various places in my pantry shelves if you look closely.  

By the way, don't be fooled into trying this stuff:

It's Starbucks "via," their line of instant coffee.  I really really wanted to like it since I don't always feel like brewing coffee when I want just one cup.  Unfortunately, it was the worst "coffee" I have ever had. Way worse than the old instants of yesteryear.  I got it when we weren't supposed to have power for 2+ weeks due to Hurricane Irene.  I returned the unopened packages I had.  YUCK.

And, if you have any of this left, don't rush to use it up!

Trader Joe's Organic Peanut Butter (made with Valencia peanuts) is NOT being made/bought anymore by TJ's!!

I spoke with store staff and emailed TJ's a few weeks ago on a standard TJ's run when I went to pick up several jars of this, my all time favorite peanut butter.  It has 9 grams of protein and only 2 grams of sugar for the standard two tablespoon serving and it tastes amazing with the perfect texture and amount of moisture (the consistency is very smooth and creamy, akin to a commercial, sugar infused, non-organic peanut butter). 

They said, basically, that they cannot get the Valencia peanuts anymore.

The solution may be Arrowhead Mills peanut butter, though not organic, is still made with Valencia peanuts and is the favorite of the laziest vegan, John McDevitt (Isa Moskowitz's boyfriend :-)

What are your pantry permanents? I have others...

Attention Cat People!

Do you guys know Simon's Cat? It's incredibly accurate and hilarious.

Here's mine:

Happy Monday!

Pumpkin Ice Cream!

Well, I’ve gone and used all the canned pumpkin in my pantry.  Now, I have to get more! Seriously, it’s on my grocery list for tomorrow. 

Here’s a delicious taste-alike to Bassetts’ pumpkin ice cream, which was one of my very favorites as an omni.  This vegan version is very convincing.  The flavors are right-on.  I used Isa's recipe for vanilla ice cream from Veganomicon as a base and worked from there.  Gotta love Vcon!

Put all of your ingredients (besides the sugar and the spices, obviously) in the fridge the night before or at least a few hours before you make your ice cream!  Make sure your ice cream maker bowl has been in the freezer overnight as well so it’s ready to work.

Ingredients:

One can of organic coconut milk (full fat) you’ll be harvesting ½ cup of the solid cream on top of the coconut milk once it is cold.

1 cup liquid: ½ cup soy milk, ¼ cup coconut milk (from the can where you got the cream!), ¼ cup organic soy creamer (I use Trader Joe’s) OR: you can just use 1 cup of full fat soy milk if you prefer.

¾ cup organic sugar

4 ounces (½ cup) silken tofu.  Hint: this is 1/3 of the 12 ounce brick (full fat, “firm” silken tofu in the aseptic box)

¼ cup full fat soy yogurt (plain or vanilla)

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp nutmeg (1/4 tsp if you are afraid of nutmeg)

½ cup of organic pumpkin puree

Just put everything into a blender or food processor and puree it.  I just use my Hamilton Beach blender which I’ve had for almost twenty years and works just as well as those high powered three hundred dollar things!  Anyway, pour the cold puree into your ice cream maker and follow the directions for your specific maker. 

To give it a nice, firm texture, freeze for a few hours longer in a tightly sealed Tupperware container before serving.  And try not to eat it all in one sitting!

Have a great week, everyone.

MoFo Post #8: Wine, Olive Oil, and Ice Cream

Last night was…Date Night! We had a BABYSITTER, and actually went out to dinner for the first time in four years (I am counting some of my pregnancy, because you cannot drink when you are toting around a developing fetus).  We have done dates during the day while he is at day care, school, etc. but never gotten a sitter for an evening before.  It was quite the revelation.

We got sushi, which I had been craving.  Question: why isn’t there more vegan sushi at sushi places? Like that awesome deep fried silken tofu I always get, can’t you put that in a roll with some avocado and carrots or something? Maybe next time I'll ask them to make me a fried tofu roll.  It was great regardless.

The place was a BYO and so we brought this great, yet very reasonably priced wine (It was a Dry Riesling from Chateau Ste Michelle) so I went crazy and drank two glasses of wine at dinner, and then we went to this store I’d been dying to go to for like months, A Taste of Olive.  I ended up spending $50 on olive oils and vinegar, but to me, that is the best fifty bucks that you can spend.  You can taste all (or at least as many as you can handle) of the oils and vinegars and once you choose one (or more!) they bottle it for you right there and seal it with their fun machine.

Yup, that's my cat's tail on the right, there.

So, the bottles have their logo on one side, and on the other they print out custom labels for whichever ambrosial liquids you chose to go inside:

 My husband's choice.

I needed a great, all-purpose balsamic vinegar.  This was it. I was difficult to go basic with the dozens of amazing vinegars they carry.

My choice of oil.

My husband and I each preferred a slightly different profile to our oils, so we got two.  He chose a Spanish oil, La Trinidad, which was grassy, fruity, and had a sharp, peppery finish that got you in the back of the throat.  I chose Kaldi, a Greek oil that had a lot of fruit up front and a peppery finish that didn’t linger too long on the back of the throat.  Anyway, I’ll get a flavored one next time, but it was so hard to choose, I went for the great all around oil.

So, today, we hit the Farmer's Market and then really wanted to use our new bottles.

Hubby made a fresh vegetable terrine with zucchini, mushrooms, tomatoes and fresh basil:

I mixed in some chickpeas, and some sauteed fresh spinach (hubby also made that, sauteed with leeks, from our farmer's market purchases).  I dressed it with my balsamic vinegar and my olive oil.  Hubby does not like balsamic vinegar, so I made a separate dish.  

We ate these over pasta: capellini dressed with garlic and oil. I'm sure you can imagine a better picture than I could have taken because I was starving!

And then, since it was like 75 degrees (Fahrenheit) today, I made some pumpkin ice cream.  I was trying to get a craving for Bassetts pumpkin ice cream out of my system:

It turned out exactly like my beloved Bassetts, but, better. And vegan.

If you guys want the recipe to either of these, comment below and I'll try to make it happen.

Have a great night (or day)!

<3 Dawn