Your Vegan Mom

Caramel Pecan Sticky Buns

 

This was absolutely worthy of a birthday breakfast.  Thanks for sharing the recipe, Spice Island Vegan.

Vegan San Diego: Ocean Beach

I would like to live in Ocean Beach so that I can buy my groceries at the People's Co-op.  This little grocery store is completely vegetarian, has gorgeous produce and tons of bulk bins, is reasonably priced, and has a mostly vegan deli and bakery.  Seriously, is that not reason enough to just pick up and move?

On Sunday, with the sun out after a night of rain, Paul and I headed here with the goal of a a muffin and the newspaper, and wound up with heaped plates of breakfast. There was scrambled tofu and biscuits and mushroom gravy and house-made tempeh sausage and breakfast potatoes all decked out in a nice swirl of mango hot sauce and accompanied by a cup of really good coffee.  It turns out that this was actually a wise bit of overindulgence, because though we didn't know it at the time, we were NOT about to have brunch at Spread. (They apparently no longer serve brunch, although they are still proud enough of having been voted best brunch two years ago to leave that little banner up on their website, which is insidiously misleading, and mean.  Oh, and they were also closed on Saturday night for a private party.  So I can now definitively say that they are NOT the greatest vegan restaurant west of the Mississippi, no matter how great their mythical food is.  (The space is cute though, and the people were at least somewhat nice about sending us back out into the rain on Saturday night.))  

Staggering out into the sun under the weight of our breakfast, we exposed our citified pallor to a gorgeous crisp blue San Diego morning (Man, do I love southern California after a rain).  We strolled down Newport past Roots Kind Food where we made a mental note to eat next time. We walked along the beach where couples and kids and old dudes sat with their morning beverages watching the pounding surf that the storm left behind.  We headed out onto the half-mile-long fishing pier where we watched the waves form and the morning sun twinkle on the town in the distance.  

We walked past the beach volleyball nets where we marveled at the commitment to hair removal that this sporty pastime requires, and past tiny beach cottages, and dogs, and more people sitting on stoops and sipping coffee.  We said hello to everyone we passed and quietly pretended that that house on the corner whose backyard was mostly beach was the one that we lived in.  As the sun got higher and we were forced to strip down to undershirts and yearn for a bit of shade, we happened upon Stephanie's Bakery.

I giddily narrowed the staggering selection of vegan baked goods down to 5 slices of strudel: cherry/cheese, prune/poppy seed, mushroom, spinach and cheese, and apricot, and two cookies: peanut butter and chocolate mint to take back to the hotel with us for some unforeseeable future in which we were hungry again.

I love this bakery.  I was skeptical of the strudel concept before, but I was wrong to doubt.  This is genius.  You can put anything in a strudel.  If,however, you're just not in the mood for a generous slice of flaky pastry enrobing any number of thoughtfully chosen fillings, well then why not a cookie? 

If the local vegetarian grocery store is not reason enough to move to Ocean Beach, then surely Stephanie's peanut butter cookie is.  It's big and doughy and chewy, and  the very cookie that I have been craving for months.  After we got home on Monday, upon discovering that we were out of cookie, I actually found myself, for a moment, thinking about the week ahead, calculating when Desmond and I could find a few hours to drive down for cookies.  

This is one quality establishment, oh and there's a cute duplex for rent next door.  I call dibs.  

Vegan Cheese Sauce Mix

As I told you yesterday, I love to have this easy cheese mix from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Vegan Cooking on hand for emergency last minute meals.  It's as simple as the Kraft of your youth with less orange flavor and cardboard packaging.  Here is the recipe, just as it appears in the book, reproduced with the permission of the very nice authors.  We have made it three times, so clearly we like it, but next time I'm going to cut back on the garlic and onion a tiny bit.     

3/4 cup raw cashews or almonds
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup raw sunflower seeds 
1 cup nutritional yeast
2 TB. arrowroot 
2 tsp. dry mustard
2 tsp. garlic powder
2 tsp. onion powder
2 tsp. sea salt
1 tsp. paprika 

1. Place cashews, oats, and sunflower seeds in a food processor fitted with an S blade, and process for 2 or 3 minutes until finely ground.  Scrape down the sides of the container with a rubber spatula.  Add nutritional yeast flakes, arrowroot, dry mustard, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, and paprika, and process for 1 minute longer.

2. Transfer mixture to an airtight container and store in the refrigerator for up to 2 months.

3. To prepare cheese sauce from mix, whisk together 1/2 cup vegan cheese sauce mix and 1 cup water or soy milk in a small saucepan, and cook over medium heat, whisking often, for 2 or 3 minutes or until thickened.  This makes 1 cup vegan cheese sauce.  Serve as a sauce with raw or steamed vegetables, baked potatoes, pasta, or other dishes, or use dry mix to season and flavor sauces, soups, vegetables, or popcorn.  

Variation: For a nut-free version, use an additional 1 cup rolled oats to replace the cashews and sunflower seeds.  For a quick and easy preparation, replace cashews, rolled oats, and sunflower seeds with 1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour or other flour of choice, and simply stir together with the remaining ingredients in a medium bowl.

Thyme-ly Tip: (It took me about 100 pages to stop expecting herbs in these sidebar tips.  This book is rife with those characteristic Complete Idiot puns.  After I got over my own idiotic herb confusion, I was really surprised at how many of these tips I had marked as quite useful bits of information.) To make vegan fondue, cook together 2/3 cup Vegan Cheese Sauce Mix, 1 1/4 cups soy milk, 1 1/2 teaspoons light miso or tamari, and a pinch of freshly grated nutmeg or black pepper.  If you're in a festive mood, add a little red or white wine.  Or use 2/3 cup Vegan Cheese Sauce Mix, a bottle of your favorite beer, and a little chili powder or hot pepper sauce.  (Clearly, I want beer cheese.)

The book is filled with those variations and tips - I like that - it means that there are about three times as many recipes as it appears at first glance.  

And finally, thank you so much for all of your thoughtful comments yesterday.  What a treasure trove of easy meal ideas, and just all sorts of nice sharing.  Man, I love the Internet and all you people.  

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Vegan Cooking

It is not easy to be a vegan.  In a round-about sort of way, that's why I do it.  The easy food choices are frequently not the healthiest for you nor the world you live in.  Inverting the stereotype, I was anemic before I went full-herbivore.  Back in college, in the days of grilled cheese sandwiches, and quesadillas, and plain cheese pizza, the Red Cross stopped accepting my blood.  But now, and for the last decade or so, that I have been making these tough choices, learning how to pronounce the names of exotic grains, where to find really good vegetables, and how to make my own soy milk, am I not only feeling great, but also raising a child that is consistently at the 90-95% in his physical development and an all-around model of health.  

If you are struggling with this transition, know someone who is, or are just looking for a good passive- aggressive holiday gift for that special, less-than-supportive family member, well then The Complete Idiot's Guide to Vegan Cooking may just be for you.  And hey, guess what, I've got an extra copy.  Leave me a comment, perhaps about your favorite super simple, idiot-friendly, weeknight meal, and I'll pick a winner at random next week.  (Feel free to leave a link if there is a recipe, or at least a good description, somewhere on the Internet.)

Also, I am fortunate enough to have the authors of said book, Beverly Lynn Bennett and Ray Sammartano, here today, to tell you in their own words how they make this difficult path a little simpler, and a little more delicious.    

In The Complete Idiot's Guide to Vegan Cooking, you include a great list of egg replacers.  I particularly like that you explain each one a bit so that the reader has the knowledge to set out and veganize their old favorites.  I love books that teach you how to cook for yourself rather than just offering you a collection of recipes.  In a lot of ways, I think you achieve that here.  But in a desert island sort of scenario, you are forced to pick just one egg replacer.  What is it?

 Between the two of us, we have accumulated more vegan cookbooks than you will find in most bookstores and libraries, and we agree with you that the best ones help to expand your culinary knowledge with practical tips, techniques, and trivia, in addition to expanding your arsenal of recipes!

Replacing eggs in recipes is a constant challenge for vegans. Certain ingredients work in one recipe better than in another, such as flax seeds and starches in baked goods, or nut butter or tomato paste in binding together savory items. So if we were stuck on a deserted island and could only have one type of egg replacer at our disposal, it would be tofu because it can be used in both sweet and savory dishes. In sweet treats, once blended, it can bind and add moisture to baked goods like cakes, breads, brownies, and cookies, or blended further with additional ingredients to make a creamy pudding, pie filling, or cheesecake. Alternatively, it can be crumbled to make a tofu scramble, vegan fried rice, mock egg salad, or chopped as a garnish for salads like a hardboiled egg.

I really like your vegan cheese sauce mix.  It has good flavor, and it's so nice to have on hand for last minute mac 'n cheese.  What is your favorite meal for a hectic week night?

First off, we are so glad that you like our Vegan Cheese Sauce Mix recipe from the Cheese and Dairy Alternatives chapter. As many people have a hard time giving up cheese when they go vegan, we felt that it was important to include recipes for making your own replacement products. As this recipe is made with dry ingredients only, it can be easily stored and then transformed into a sauce for topping pasta, pizza, sandwiches, casseroles, and vegetables, or if you’re feeling really rushed (or lazy), just sprinkle it over your meal to give it extra flavor.

Being short on time is definitely the #1 reason people give for not eating more healthy meals. Our fast meal suggestion features some of our favorite comfort foods: beans, grains, and greens. If we are making dinner together, Beverly often whips up a batch of cornbread and quinoa to go with this meal while Ray prepares the beans and greens. If it’s a solo effort, one person can easily prepare a batch of their favorite grains and sauté up some onions, peppers, garlic, kale or collards with pinto or red beans within thirty minutes.

Also, to help make things easier on ourselves, we always keep the fixings for a great fresh vegetable salad on hand. Once or twice a week, Beverly shreds beets, cuts up cucumbers, radishes, broccoli, zucchini, or whatever we have on hand, and puts then in individual containers. Then in a larger container she tosses together roughly chopped Swiss chard, red cabbage, carrots, and celery. This way we can always have a huge salad, which is one of our favorite things to eat. We can also use these items to make quick wraps with either hummus or other bean spread, or vegan cheese and meatless deli-style slices. Or we open a can of vegan chili and spoon it over our individual salads with some crushed tortilla chips for an easy taco salad. 

On the other hand, sometimes, of course, we want to cook to impress.  Say, you're having a presidential candidate over for dinner.  What will you make?  (And please, by all means, don't forget dessert.)

 Good question! Beverly has actually had several of her dishes served to a presidential candidate--Rep. Dennis Kucinich (he is vegan!)--when he was a customer at a vegetarian restaurant that she worked for in Berea, Ohio. So if we were fortunate enough to have him and his wife, or someone else over that we wanted to truly impress with our vegan culinary creations, we might go with a Mexican fiesta-themed meal.

Naturally, we would start off with warm tortilla chips with homemade salsa and guacamole for dipping, and a large pitcher of margaritas. Followed by a salad made with baby mixed greens, orange segments, thin slices of red onion, seasoned and toasted pumpkin seeds, spicy radish sprouts, and topped with a creamy orange juice and avocado oil dressing.

Our entree would be a dish we call Tortilla Torta, which is assembled kind of like lasagna but made with Mexican-inspired ingredients. The layers are made with corn tortillas, mashed seasoned beans, a sautéed vegetable medley of onions, peppers, corn, zucchini, and summer squash, and three different sauces (salsa verde, red chile, and vegan cheese sauce). Alongside would be a quinoa pilaf with red and jalapeno peppers, greens onions, seasoned toasted pumpkin seeds, and cilantro.

For dessert, a Mexican chocolate cake consisting of two layers of dark chocolate cake flavored with a little cinnamon and cayenne, with a mocha and cinnamon buttercream as the filling and frosting, and decorations of toasted sliced almonds and coconut curls, and dark chocolate shavings. 

I understand that this is your third published book, your second in the Complete Idiot's Guide series.  Publishing one book, let alone three, is a feat that I imagine a lot of food blog frequenters fantasize about.  Can you tell us a little bit about how you got to where you are?

Beverly has a culinary arts degree and has worked as a chef and baker in many restaurants and natural foods stores. Ray put his degree in philosophy and sociology, and his savvy computer skills, to good use by developing vegan-themed websites, including my own site, The Vegan Chef (www.veganchef.com). These websites helped us network and share ideas and information with other like-minded people, in addition to showcasing some of the vegan recipes that we had developed together and separately. As we were among the first wave of vegans expressing themselves via the Web, our websites became quite popular and definitely helped to open up many doors for us. We later self-published an e-cookbook and Beverly became a columnist with VegNews, and eventually, offers began coming in for cooking demos, speaking engagements, and interviews, as did opportunities to contribute pieces to magazines, newsletters, websites, and books.

We eventually attracted the interest of two publishers to write vegan-related books. We are very proud to be the first authors for a mainstream self-help book series to discuss the ins-and-outs of veganism and show people how easy it is to eat and live as vegans. Beverly is equally proud of her recently released solo project--Vegan Bites: Recipes for Singles--published by Book Publishing Company, which is one of the oldest and most respected publishers of vegan and vegetarian books, as many of their books have educated and influenced her writing and recipe development.

And finally, being a vegan is not always easy, but this book is filled with all sorts of little tips and tricks to make it more so.  Give us one way to make the transition to a vegan diet easier.

To easily transition to eating a vegan diet, we recommend that people start out by taking baby steps. Start by replacing dairy products with non-dairy alternatives, such as cow’s milk with soy, rice, oat, nut, or hemp milk on your cereal, in your favorite recipes, and even by the glass. You can also do this with margarine, yogurt, sour cream, cream cheese, and ice cream as most grocery and natural foods stores sell a wide variety of vegan non-dairy alternatives for these items as well. Then move on to cutting out meat, chicken, or fish from one meal or from one entire day’s worth of meals, then increase it to several meals or days per week, and so forth, until you completely eliminate animal-based foods. Freely experiment with your favorite dishes using vegan plant-based ingredients instead, like beans, mushrooms, tofu, tempeh, seitan, or prepackaged meatless alternative products (found in the refrigerated or freezer section of most stores) like veggie burgers, roasts or logs, hot dogs, sausages, chicken-free nuggets or patties, deli-style slices, crumbles, or strips. 

Again, thank you so much, Beverly and Ray, for sharing your expertise.  And You, don't forget to leave a comment for a chance to win your own copy of the book.  Though, of course, as with all the Idiot Guide books, they're awfully reasonably priced, so you can probably just buy a copy.  And also, we're all winners, because I'll be sharing a recipe from the book with you tomorrow.  Stay tuned!  

Bulan Thai: I still love you.

On Santa Monica Boulevard just below Sunset Junction, in that funky little wedge-shaped building that used to house a different Thai restaurant, the new branch of Bulan Thai is now open, and just as delicious as the original.  The space is a little more casual, but the menu is the same.  And the "crisp fish with green apple" is even better than I imagined it would be.  

Bulan Thai

4114 Santa Monica Blvd.

Silver Lake, CA 90029

(323) 913-1488

Hours: daily 11 - 10

Vegetarian