Almost, but not quite...

I'm almost back... but not quite yet. I wanted to let fellow Seattle people about some events that are coming up.

Vegan Bake Sale at Sidecar for Pigs Peace
December 12 & 13 from 1 to 8 PM

Vegan baked goods... need I say more? I'm hoping that there will be lots of holiday cookies to chow down on. I'll be there Saturday until 4 PM and very briefly on Sunday to drop off some more baked num nums.



Live just outside of Seattle? The bake sale is a great excuse to make a journey to Seattle. In addition to what I consider a normal trip to Seattle (eating out, then going to sidecar), you get the bonus of the bake sale and all of the holiday items at Sidecar.

If you’d like to donate a baked good for this event, please email my alter ego, seattlebakesale[@] hotmail [dot] com for more information.

All proceeds go to the Pigs Peace Sanctuary.

Pigs Peace is a safe haven of love for pigs and their friends (other animals). It is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to providing a safe home for unwanted, abused or neglected animals in need and is committed to spreading the message of compassion and respect for all animals.

Sidecar For Pigs Peace
5270 B University Way NE
Seattle, WA 98105

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If you're looking for somewhere to spend Thanksgiving and you're in the Seattle area, here are 3 vegan potlucks. Note that the AFA potluck is not on TG, but earlier.

•Action for Animals Thanksgiving Potluck
4-8pm Sunday, November 22, 2009
203 21st Ave. NE, Seattle, WA
Contact Amanda@afa-online.org if you have any questions

•Veggie Activity and Adventure Group's Thanksgiving Party/Potluck (I'll be attending)
5pm Thursday, November 26, 2009
736 N 90th St, Seattle, WA
Visit the meetup page for more details and to RSVP

•Seattle Vegan Meetup Group's Thanksgiving Potluck
4:30pm Thursday, November 26, 2009
Wayward Vegan Cafe 901 NE 55th St, Seattle, WA
Visit the meetup page for more details and to RSVP

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Even though I'm not back, why not clear out some pics that I've had kicking around since July? It's all from Vegan Brunch. mmmmmm.... I've made all of these recipes many many times and will continue to do so.


Basic Omelette w/ mushrooms and cheddar cheezly. It would have been even better slathered in pesto (which I have done before).
Swiss Chard Fritatta. Easy to make and can be made the night before for maximum laziness.


Chelsea Waffles. Best w/ a lake o' maple syrup - can you tell I grew up in VT?

East coast coffee cake w/ a lot of blueberries or blackberries. I don't remember which. I used a bunch more brown sugar than is called for in the topping.

Lemon Bars. Ok, it's from Veganomicon, but I consider that the same family. I love these bars. When I see lemons I crave these bars.

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Had these Mozzarella Sticks at Wayward (using Daiya). Not part of their regular menu :(. Might be for the best because my meals would consist of mozzarella sticks and hash browns. Ah, vegan mozzarella and wayward, you make me think of one of Rhianna's songs:

When the sun shines, Wayward and I will shine together
Told you I'll eat here forever
Said I'll always be your customer
Took an oath to order hashbrowns 'till the end
Now that it's raining more than ever (totally in Seattle)
Know that we'll still have each other
With your melty mozzarella ella ella eh eh eh

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Peepa and his bff, the sun. Not really any chance of blazing sun like in this pic now that we're into November. Poor Peepa.

2 Seattle events in October

I hope you all are mofo'ing up a storm right now! I miss you :)

I'm not back in blogland until sometime in November, but thought I'd post about these 2 October events that are near and dear to my heart.

Vegan Bake Sale at Sidecar for Pigs Peace
October 10 & 11 from 1 to 4 PM

Vegan baked goods... need I say more? This was really fun in June and seeing all those vegan homemade goodies under one roof was awesome. I'll be there all Saturday and very briefly on Sunday to drop off some more baked num nums.

All proceeds go to the Pigs Peace Sanctuary.

Pigs Peace is a safe haven of love for pigs and their friends (other animals). It is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to providing a safe home for unwanted, abused or neglected animals in need and is committed to spreading the message of compassion and respect for all animals.

Sidecar For Pigs Peace
5270 B University Way NE
Seattle, WA 98105

If you’d like to donate a baked good for this event, please email my alter ego, seattlebakesale[@]hotmail[dot]com for more information.


NARN Halloween Party
October 30 at 7 PM

$10 at the door gets you into a great party with music, games and vegan snacks. All proceeds go to Northwest Animal Rights Network.

Skin Deep Dance Studio (there is lots of free parking)
El Centro de la Raza
2524 16th Ave S, suite 311
Seattle

Northwest Animal Rights Network is a Seattle-based animal rights organization. NARN has been dedicated to ending the exploitation of animals by raising awareness of animal suffering in the food, entertainment, experimentation, and fashion industries since 1986. Our efforts include outreach, demonstrations, litigation, and educational events.

I'll be the witch that's hanging out w/ the warlock.

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Faline will be at home keeping everybody behaving (not), but she thinks you should go to these events and say hi to me.

Time to take a blog vaca

I've been feeling super busy lately, so I've decided to take a 2 month break from blogging. I'll be back in November to tempt you with all the food I've been eating as well as what's been happening with the critters. I'll miss all of you! You'll probably see some comments from me on your blogs over the next few days as I catch up on what you've been doing before I take off.

Before I go and do some yard work, I thought I'd shower you with a ton of restaurant pics.

Golden Chopsticks
This is an eastside not completely veg restaurant in Redmond. I love this place. They are really consistent with the dishes and I have a favorite waitress.

Szechwan Tofu. I ask for this with pineapple. mmmm! The tofu is fried to perfection, and I'm not typically somebody that likes fried tofu without breading.
Kung Pao Tofu. delicious.
Leftovers. Yeah, I'm the type that brings my own takeout containers.

In the Bowl

This is the first time I've been to this place. It's a very tiny vegan place in capitol hill that serves up asian food. They have a huge menu and it took forever to decide. I don't exactly remember what we ordered, but you can still look at the pretty pictures :).

They are not kidding w/ #2.

Some kind of fake rangoon. They did a good job w/ the deep frying, but I wasn't a huge fan of the inside part. Should have gotten a spring roll.

I don't remember. Knowing Andy, it would have to be General Tso's.

Don't know the name, but the picture is on the menu. The noodles look strange in this pic, but they also looked like that in real life. The taste of the dish was good, but the noodles were overcooked. Thanks to house rule #2, I didn't need to use the big ball of hot sauce they put on top.

I absolutely love it when they give you oranges at the end of the meal.

Cafe Flora

Yeah, I know. I love to whine about this place as well as praise it. This particular visit was for lunch.

Coconut Tofu. They always have this on their menu. It is fried to perfection w/ a nice coating. The first one you eat is divine. After that the law of diminishing returns kicks in. I finally figured out that they must soak their tofu in brine, because it's always so salty. The solution, only order this if you are with a group - unless you are a saltoholic.

Polenta with sour cherry sauce. This was alright. I mean, you can't really go wrong w/ fried up polenta, can you?

Falafels. I typically don't order this in a restaurant, but their other vegan choices didn't excite me. They were good.

Blue Star Cafe.

Surprisingly, they have a couple vegan items - including french fries!

Hummus Wrap. I didn't get this, but it looks good.

Boca burger. oddly, they have a garden burger (non vegan) and a boca burger (vegan) on their menu. be careful to clearly specify you want a vegan boca burger. then check it when it comes to the table. if it looks like their are lots of grains in it, then it's not the boca burger. I didn't write that to freak you out, just as a heads up.

Georgetown Liquor Company aka GLC

If you haven't been to this veg restaurant/bar, you have to go! They make the best sandwiches - all of which are veganizable. Plus every Wednesday, they have a free trivia night at 8:30. ooh, they also have atari game consoles that you can use for free.

Beer and a really strong blueberry lemonade. Perhaps I got a bit drunk off it. Leia's Tacos. These tacos were good, but let me tell you, you should only order a sandwich because you'll be stuffed. Andy, why do you torture me by ordering too many tasty vittles?
The Lowell. This is my current favorite. Vegan ‘ham’, green chiles, baby greens, roma tomato and chipotle aioli on a toasted whole wheat hoagie bun. perfection!

R2 Pita 2. This was a sloppy delicious mess! By now, I think you are seeing there is a pattern to their naming process.
should I do one more??? why not!

Tilth
This is a non veg restaurant that gets just about all of it's food locally. They don't have a huge vegan menu, but it's very good. The type of dinner that can take more than an hour.

Full Circle Farm Lettuces. Walla Walla Onion (cold) Soup. I almost sucked this whole thing down before I remembered I had to switch w/ Andy.
Pot au Feu. Pretty tasty stuff.

Risotto. I think this might be the same one that is on the menu, but I can't remember. Let's just say that they got me to love a risotto and I'm a risotto hater.

We had the sorbet for dessert, but it was nothing special. I wish they would have cracked open vegan cupcakes take over the world...

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Tubs looks like he's up to no good in this pic. He might look calm in this pic, but really he's surveying the cat cage in hopes of causing some mayhem.

See you all in November and have a great September and October!

Kobie picks his own blackberries

All of the eating and venturing in this post was back in June, except for the Kobie footage. I'm a bit behind as usual. I know I've cooked since, but sometimes I feel like I eat away from home too much. Oh, what a difficult life :)

Carmelita

This will be my 3rd time eating here. The first time was fantastic, the second so-so, the third was pretty amazing, except for the just ok risotto. I don't remember any of the names of the dishes, so I'll make them up. That's ok because they have a menu that changes.

Super delicious stack of asparagus topped with nasty bitter frisee and some lentils on a bed of lemony creamy stuff. This was back in asparagus season and I could have eaten the whole thing, but I always split my food w/ Andy.

Red Quinoa crunchy things. No idea what was in them, but they were tasty.
Sunny pasta with hazelnuts on a bunch of portobello mushrooms. The sun was starting to set and made a mess of my photos.

Really tasty asparagus on top of really boring risotto. I should never have listened to the obviously not vegan waitress when she said to not get the pizza w/out cheese because it needed the cheese. What was I thinking?

Balls that were filled with rice pudding like stuff w/ an almond in the center. on top of a bed of cherry sauce and then topped w/ crispy ginger. Pretty cool.

Chocolate mousse on top of sour cherries. I'm not usually a mousse fan, but this was really really good. We totally scored w/ the desserts. Typically Carmelita has sorbet for the vegan dessert. Hey! Sorbet is NOT a dessert. It is an in between courses palate cleanser.

Ballard Locks.

They connect Lake WA to the Puget Sound. Lake WA is higher up than the Puget Sound. It's also fresh water and the Puget Sound is salt. The Locks keep Lake WA from getting salty.

I like this pic because it has some really bright neon green moss. pretty...

That bridge has nothing to do w/ locks, but looks cool. When I took the pic, I was standing on the locks (you can walk across them).
Fish ladder.

Zao

This place is in University Village. Vegan items are clearly marked. I was happy w/ the selection (meaning we had around 5 choices and could get an appetizer) and the taste. For some reason, I don't see the fresh rolls we got. Hmmmm... I'm a slacker.

Some Kind of Noodle soup w/ lots of veggies.

Tofu stir fry type deal.

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I was picking blackberries on my driveway and Kobie decided to join in. Yeah, WTF. Here is a video to show you I'm not messing around w/ photoshop. Sort of a blurry video because they make it too big, but it's my 2nd youtube attempt.

Random Cookery by humans and robots alike

Robots unite! First there was the Donut Robot. Now there is the ChefStack, a robot that can crank out 200 pancakes per hour. If only Asimov were around to see this.

In comparison, here are Andy made pancakes. He switches back and forth from the Candle Cafe cookbook and Vegan Brunch, so these could come from either cookbook. The blueberries are from the recent harvest.

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Back in mid July, I was lucky enough to find garlic scapes at PCC. Garlic scapes aka ramps aka whistles are the flower stem of garlic. Some farmers cut off the stems before the plant flowers so that it can focus it's energy on the garlic bulb instead of making a flower. I'm all for that because I like to eat them. They have the texture of asparagus and taste slightly like garlic. I used them in a stirfry.
Next up is a veganized version of my mom's version of Rinctum Ditty. It's pretty simple stuff that might sound gross, but it's tomato cheezly goodness. If you search online, you will find recipes that ask for more ingredients and pour it over toast (as well as some disgusting definitions, ignore them). Using crackers is much easier than making toast.

• Heat up a can of stewed/diced tomatoes (use about 1/2 the liquid, reserve the rest).
• Add some grated cheddar Cheezly and stir once in a while.
• When the cheezly has melted, and it's runny enough (you might need to add some of the reserved tomato liquid), pour over crushed saltines.

I had a craving for English Breakfast recently, so I fulfilled it with canned baked beans, toast, slightly fried tomatoes, fried mushrooms, gardenburger brand fake sausage, and tea. Andy, if you're reading this, we're having this again for dinner tonight.

Glutino makes "Dark Chocolate Candy Bars". They look like chocolate coated styrofoam in the pic below, but they taste like kit kats! Seattle peeps, you can get them at Sidecar.

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Meet my newest employee, Tubs, Chief Laundry Guard. He makes sure the cats don't get on the laundry. Hey! Wait a minute!
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Kobie and I are going outside now to see if the blackberries are ready for harvest. I might as well take advantage of the plant that has invaded my yard.