Your Vegan Mom

Southern Bean Dip

Tomorrow I won't talk about beans. We'll talk about okra, or fried green tomatoes, or peaches, or plums, or my in-laws, or Austin, or pizza, I haven't decided yet. I promise, I'll let off with the beans for some time. Really I do eat other things. But this is just one little area where the South treats a vegan awfully well. As I'm pretty sure I've mentioned repeatedly, there are just so many kinds of beans down here. In flippin' Super Target you can find dried varieties that a California girl had never even heard of, so you can imagine that the farmers market is a giddy treasure trove of tasty little gems right now. I love it. 

Also, I love party food. That's why practically that whole pot of fresh lady cream peas was turned into a dip. The beans were already so tasty that they didn't need much doctoring to turn them into a luscious smoky puree. I whirred some with the immersion blender along with a few more shakes of chipotle powder, a squeeze of lemon juice, and a pinch more salt. Topped with a smattering of spring onions, we ate it all week, warm or at room temperature, with chunks of crusty toasted bread, or with fingers scraping the bottom of the bowl when the bread was gone. 

I was thinking, wouldn't this be perfect as part of a southern tapas-type meal? I had intended to accompany the beans and bread with a dish of bourbon mushrooms, and wedges of cornmeal crusted fried green tomatoes, a turnip green omelette, and smoked paprika dusted roasted potatoes with melty sweet onions, but our weekend got so busy that it just didn't happen. I think that would make a pretty great party spread though when we get home.  So get out your stretchy pants* friends and family of Los Angeles - we're coming home July 5th!  

*(That's a quote from Paul's favorite casino buffet billboard - freakin' gross, man.)   

Spiral DIner, Dallas, TX

So we went to Dallas last weekend and got the boy's sleep schedule all jacked up.  The happy result being that it's 7:45 AM, I'm on my second cup of coffee, and the boy's still sleeping.  We'll see how long this lasts, but it's pretty lovely at the moment.  

Even though we were there for a very important graduation, we made time for lunch at Spiral Diner, a trip to the Dallas Farmers Market, and a whirlwind shopping spree through Whole Foods.

Spiral Diner was good.  Apart from the sheer radicalness of being a haven of veganess in the eastern half of Texas, what I appreciated most about the place was the thoughtful kids menu and the brownie.  

Lunch was pretty crazy.  As the boy and his parents were already fairly sleep deprived by this point in the weekend, the meal was more of a frantic juggling act to keep the kid entertained than a leisurely, savor-our- food-and-then-write-about-it kind of repast.  We had a couple good sandwiches, some potato salad that was too heavy on the dill, and brought home a smorgasbord of desserts.  

They were delicious.  By the time we got home, the blueberry pie and strawberry cupcake weren't much to look at, and the chocolate mint cookie milk shake was gone, but the brownie was perfect.  This is the fudgie brownie that I have been trying to make my entire vegan life.  To be honest, I didn't think it was possible.  But the brilliant bakers at Spiral Diner have proved me wrong.  Oh, thank you.

And they're willing to share their secrets with you on June 16th from 7 to 9!  If you're going to be anywhere near Dallas, sign up for their baking class right now because that's really soon.  It's 40 bucks.  They need your money to hold your spot.  I for one, am never putting a toddler in a car again, not even for the perfect brownie, so I won't be there, but maybe you can hook a girl up with a recipe. 

New Southern Kitchen

I’m not from the South. Nobody passed me down a biscuit recipe. The only fried chicken I ever had came in a bucket from KFC, once, to take on a picnic to the seaside lagoon in Redondo Beach. It was kind of greasy. Growing up there was cioppino and mostacolli aplenty, but no gumbo or grits. So thankfully, I have found an adoptive grandmother in the form of Damon Lee Fowler. His New Southern Kitchen has become just the reference that I was looking for. I was skeptical at first. The moment that I came across the curry powder in his spiced pecans I set him aside for more traditional dowagers like those Junior League ladies and their many spiral bound collections of recipes. I love those. But when I needed a great biscuit recipe it was Damon Lee Fowler that delivered. This particular recipe was so well written - helpfully detailed, yet enjoyably idiosyncratic - that it forced me to reconsider the book. This time when I flipped through the pages it was his straightforward, honest treatment of the best seasonal ingredients that caught my attention rather than the occasional little dip into the realm of fusion cuisine. I found a perfect balance between traditional recipes and more modern treatments of old ingredients indigenous to the South. This cookbook is not remotely vegan, nor is it even particularly vegan-friendly. Fowler occasionally gives a recipe using olive oil where traditionally butter or lard would have been used, but it's rare, and chances are the recipe calls for some other animal-derived ingredient anyway. Thus far, that has only been a challenge and not an actual obstruction from enjoying the recipes. Even though he insisted that lard be used in the southern breakfast biscuits, they were wonderful with vegetable shortening, and that buttermilk fried chicken recipe... that’s dinner tonight, with a few modifications. Here’s the plan: Start with: 4 seitan cutlets (Your favorite recipe - I’ll post the one that I’ve been using later this week. The chicken recipe from Nonna’s Italian Kitchen would work well here, as would her breast of tofu recipe if you want to go a slightly different direction.) Mix together: 1 c. buttermilk (1 Tbsp. lemon juice + enough soy milk to make 1 cup. Stir. Let sit until thickened, about 5 min.) 3 cloves garlic, crushed and peeled a few shakes louisiana hot sauce In a paper sack, shake up the following: 1 1/2 c. flour 1 tsp. black pepper 1/4 tsp. cayenne 2 tsp. salt Marinate seitan in buttermilk mixture for about 30 minutes to an hour. Over medium-high, heat enough oil (DLF recommends peanut, I’m using canola because we have it and the boy’s not allowed to have nuts yet) in your cast iron skillet to come half way up cutlet. Remove cutlets from buttermilk, place in paper sack, shake to coat with seasoned flour. Fry in hot oil until golden brown on both sides. Remove to cooling rack placed over cookie sheet to drain. I'll keep you posted on how it turns out.

Natchitoches, LA

About an hour south of here, the Cane River Green Market opened for the season in April. On the gloomy day that we visited it was all onions and greens, but I can only imagine what they have now. All of a sudden, spring is coming on so quickly. Oh, and that's nack-uh-tish to those of you that aren't blessed with a mama-in-law from these parts.

Johnny's Pizza House

My mom is in town from L.A. this week. As we debated where to go for my birthday lunch last Friday, she was saying something along the lines of "Straw Hat Pizza and Chuck E. Cheese! Those were the only places we went to when you guys were little." Which is funny because that is exactly the opposite of how I remember it. I'm sure the truth lies somewhere in the middle and our opposing memories are pretty easy to understand when you visit the neighborhood pizza joint as an adult. That place is awful.

As we approached Johnny's Pizza House, a small child was quickly scaling the pole out front, no doubt high on corn syrup and bleached flour. Entering the restaurant, the first thing I noticed was a preteen dressed as some kind of slightly thread-bare giant stuffed animal strutting her stuff and working the tables. Somehow undaunted, I made my way to the counter and placed our order for a medium bell pepper and onion pizza, no cheese. I was impressed, both by the counter guy's nonplussed acceptance of my order and the fact that it actually came without cheese.

The pizza was fine, not bad even. The crust was not too thick, kind of pleasantly puffy with a crisp exterior. The sauce was slightly over seasoned, but not terribly so, a bit on the sweet and pasty side, but not bad. The peppers and onions worked - as my only non-canned vegetable option, they provided a bit of crunchy freshness to contrast with that pillowy dough and sweet sauce.

I certainly wouldn't go out of my way to eat here, but in the company of the sticky-fingered, tends-to-wail set - which I generally am - I could see (shudder) coming back. Desmond was so in awe of all the running around that he mostly just sat and chilled, which was a fabulous novelty. And as I scooped my little dining companion out of the booth and did my best to clean up the smattering of cracker crumbs left behind on the seat, the floor, the table, I realized just how well we fit in here. It seems that, for at least the next decade or so, this is my kind of place.

Thanks for all you've put up with Mom.