news flash: slacker blogger to attend Vida Vegan Con

Yeah, I know I've been a total slacker at blogging & I'm going to the conference.... so I suppose I must post something before going. Hopefully all of my favorite bloggers will be there and will also hunt me down.


I have a whole slew of pics from my trip to Portland/OR coast/WA coast this spring, but they are still on my camera. I blame all of this on my cell phone because it makes me take pics w/ it and post directly to facebook. after all that, blogging seems like a lot of work :).

for the past month & a half, I've been getting my house painted inside and out + having my lawn replaced because it was an overgrown hell hole. It all looks so much better now which helps curb my annoyance of having to tend the sprinklers. I sort of feel like I'm in a live action game called The SIMS: sprinkler edition.

Earlier this year I made a bday cake for Northwest Animal Rights Network. Andy did the grass & chocolate fondant stars. I made the NARN logo in chocolate fondant & the animals in regular fondant. naturally the fondants were vegan. chocolate recipe was a veganized version from The Cake Bible. The cake was chocolate & marble & HUGE. The "lawn" was uneven on purpose, just like my own lawn. yeah, blogger is really stupid about autorotating. I give up :)
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Chippy is 1/2 sunning himself on the stairs. maybe it allows himself to stay cool enough to get more time in the sun.

Suuuuuutra

Sutra was so amazing! I've been getting nagged by Jenna for a long time to go, but only recently made it there. Bad Bethany! I should have gone much sooner.

Sutra is a cozy little vegetarian restaurant with a funky cool atmosphere. The walls are painted w/ vibrant colors that I would want in my house if I could get the energy to paint.

They have scheduled seatings with a fixed menu. If you want a vegan meal, let them know when you make the reservation - you totally need reservations. It takes about 2.5 hours for the meal. It was a very animated environment, which is fun for groups. At the same time, it is easy to filter out the conversations and be all romanticky if you want.

We sat at the bar, which gave us the opportunity to see all of the prep action in their open kitchen. Well, yours truly saw it through a haze of wine - I'm a lightweight when it comes to wine, doncha know.


It was blazing hot when we arrived as it has been for weeks now. It was nice to have some frozen grapes before dinner started. If you haven't tried frozen grapes, do it. They are like a mini popsicle.
Zucchini, Avocado, Sesame, Basil, Fresh Cayenne Napoleon with a Tomatillo Nigella Sauce. Mmmmm! As you can see, the dinner is progressing nicely.
Chioggia and Yellow Beet, Sea Bean, Cucumber, Heirloom Baby Lettuce Salad with a Lemon Ginger Hempseed Dressing. Very delicious and fresh - It was assembled right before we ate it. The sea beans were interesting and salty tasting.

House Smoked Porcini Cashew Cheese Stuffed Local Anaheim Chiles with Spinach and Rainbow Chard Saag served with Coriander Basmati Rice and a Bing Cherry Parsley Chutney. The mushroom cashew cheese in chiles were incredible. I could have eaten a pile of them. The rest of the entree was great too, but I can't stop thinking about the chiles. Must try to replicate.

Flaming Fury Peach Torte with a Pecan Fig Crust and a Vanilla Bean, Nutmeg, Coconut Ice Cream. Oooh, it was like a pineapple upside down cake w/out the cake part. I really loved it because it was satisfying w/out being filling. The perfect ending to an amazing meal. Sutra - I shall return!

Now I'm off to eat a tofu salad sandwich while I dream of Sutra.

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Here is Tubs, taking a break from trouble making. You can sort of see Chippy in the background on some laundry. It's cat laundry, so that's ok. Like I could stop them - well, maybe if I put it away. Nah, too much effort.

Vcon & Vbrunch festivus

Over the past few months, I've made some delicious Isa/Terry recipes.

Veganomicon

bean balls. I'm probably the last person to try this recipe. They were really good, but a bit mushy. I think some breadcrumbs or something like that would fix that.
Apricot BBQ Sauce w/ Tofu. This is a delicious messy way to eat tofu. Not my first or last time making this sauce. It's not spicy at all, so add some if you like it that way.

The same sauce, but w/ seitan - which is even better than the tofu version.

Vegan Brunch

Vanilla pancakes. They aren't kidding, these have a ton of vanilla in them, but are oh so good. to the left is a super blueberry banana soy guava smoothie.

Lemon Poppyseed Muffins. lots o' lemon in these. They weren't really fluffy muffins, but more dense. They didn't last long.

Pumpkin French Toast. This was the first time making this recipe and it was good. I put in lots less clove than called for and didn't soak the bread that long. Also, it wasn't a crusty husk like called for. Perfection. The second time, I followed the recipe exactly and it was too clovey and the batter (?) didn't soak evenly. So lesson is that I need to not follow recipes so closely :)

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Welcome to my closet of boxes. This was the one door that I thought I could safely open w/out cats being able to squeeze into. That was the case for the past 5+ years. Chippy decided that was long enough.

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PS. Hillside Quickies is opening a new restaurant, Plum. I can hardly wait.

PIF 3 & some sun

Here are the people participating in the double PIF. Thanks so much for joining me, it should be really fun.

Please email me your mailing address at "sdcatvegan [at] gmail.com", so I can send you your PIF loot. Note that it will take me a couple of months to make it. I'm slow, but steady.

Wingraclaire
Sal
Beastmomma
Tejolote
PirateWA
Charlotte





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I had to try this mango & coconut cake when I read about it a while back on Sal's (Alien on Toast) blog. Hats off to you, Sal, for sharing such an amazing recipe!

It was so good, that I've made it twice now. One of these days, the cake will last long enough to try the frosting recipe. The second time I added pineapple and it was even more fantastic. The mangoes don't have to be perfect, so if you get a blah mango, this is the perfect way to use it.

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Believe it or not, it's been really hot and sunny the past few days here in the Seattle area. Of course, we're now back to gloomy weather, but the sun bolstered my mood and I will survive until the next burst of sun.

Now that it is warmer, Kobie will be fighting me tooth and nail to stay outside all day and night until bedtime. Which is fine except when he is really hot and needs to cool down. Stubborn doggie! Here is a pic that I took through the window of him sleeping on the porch.


Tubs is pinning down Chippy so he can groom him. lick, lick, lick, bite. The nosy Judge is watching.

Tubs took off and The Judge moved in. Mostly so he can see what I'm doing. That's what a pesky photographer's assistant does.

Curling up w/ a good bowl of soup(s)

A couple weeks ago I took the Soup Simplifies Your Life class at PCC. It was taught by the same instructor as the last soup class I took, Marie Donadio. Marie is awesome. She teaches a hands on class where each group makes a different soup. Somehow she manages to help all of us when we need it in a room with lots of people that are all doing different things. She helps without giving too much help. I think that is a rare and important skill for a teacher.

The soups were amazing just like the last time. I love how each soup has a distinct garnish. It always has an acidic element to it to help bring out the flavors of the soup - you learn lots of stuff in Marie's classes.

Ruth's Carrot Soup. This is the bonus soup that Marie demo'd at the beginning of the class. It was really flavorful, yet simple to make. The sparkly looking stuff is just the flash. PCC isn't a photo studio. Marie was really thougthtful and got some toffuti sour cream to put on top.
Congee. OMG. this is the best soup ever. In China they eat this for breakfast. That's what I will do once I eat my way through my feedbag of oats (aka oatmeal). Though I could speed up the process by making oatmeal cookies...

It is really thick with a delicious mushroomy flavor. You can see the garnishes in a line at the top - soy sauce, ginger, and green onion.
Saffron Scented Wild Rice with Tomato Soup. This is the soup that I helped make. It contained garlic prepared 3 ways. The soup looks dry in the pic below, but it wasn't. It was perfect. It even had just enough, but not too much saffron. I'm not a saffron lover, but maybe that's because it's typically overdone. The garnish is a lemon wedge and some fresh herbs (lemon thyme?).
Caldo Verde. mmmmm... this soup had potatoes, kale and smoked paprika in it. Very delicious. You can see that I'm not very neat at serving myself because I got stuff all over the sides of the bowl.
Mulligatawny Soup. This was a super spicy Indian soup that was very thick and filling - and great tasting too. When that team was cooking up the spices (turmeric, cumin, corriander), the room smelled really good.

I was supposed to put the rice on the bottom of the bowl, but I put it on top. The garnish was a very loose variation of Haroseth. It had apples, lemon, nuts, and lemon. I could have eaten the whole bowl of garnish by itself.
You do not walk away hungry from this class.

Marie - if you're reading this, I lost your email address. can you add a comment to this blog w/ it? I will delete it afterwards.

Andy - you need to choose which soup I make first.

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Now to the curling up. The worms (Chippy, The Judge, Peepa, and Tubs) were at it again.

My new foster dog is here

I've been a total slacker w/ the blog lately. For some reason, I have lost my motivation to do anything.

I haven't tried that many new recipes that were worth blogging about, so you're not missing much. I've been sticking some of my favorites.

• oatmeal cookies from the Joy of Vegan Baking - they make about 3 dozen, delicious cookies.
• enchilada bake/stack up/lasagna. exactly the same as the enchiladas I have posted about before, but you just stack them up like lasagna.
• pancakes galore from candle cafe. Andy is really into making giant stacks of mini pancakes.
• white bean boursin from the ultimate uncheese cookbook
• The first of the 2 chickpea salad recipes on susanv's blog. this is the best sandwich spread. A good way to use up leftover celery. I just love it.
• frozen stuff that I made in December (empanadas, ravioli, stuffed shells). The stuffing in the shells held up well in the freezer, but the pasta part was not quite right. I think the trick is to not cook them all the way. Next time I'll just make eggplant parm and freeze that. or better yet, make pesto ravioli. the other 2 things were great.

Towards the end of this month a new round of cooking classes will start up, so you'll hear all about them.


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Last weekend, we went out to Bamboo Garden, a vegan Chinese restaurant in Seattle.


Corn Chowder. They have 2 kinds on the menu. This is the super thick kind. Yum. You can't go wrong w/ their soup.

General Tso's "Chicken". Delicious fake chicken battered, deep fried and covered w/ a spicy sauce. We almost always get this or the almond "chicken".

Szechuan Fake Chicken over Noodles. I forget the real name, but this was pretty good. Blurriness is due to relentless steam action.

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Yesterday. I brought home the new dog I'm fostering. Her name is Sable. So far she seems afraid of the cats. They tried hard to ger her to like them by warming up some of her beds.

And here she is... Hanging out in the yard w/ her sexy coat.

VeganSnowFo day 8,243 - or at least it feels that way

Yay, the snow is finally seeming to melt. It even rained later on today.

I'm super annoyed with it right now because of reasons that are pretty much my own fault. We tried to drive the subaru down the driveway today and surprise, surprise! After about 1/2 way down the driveway it got stuck. Now why would a car not like driving in 2 feet of snow? beats me. so we had the nasty task of shoveling the compacted snow from under the car. Then we shoveled a foot+ layer off the top of the snow on the driveway (believe me, I'm not shoveling an ounce more than necessary). We got to a point where the car isn't stuck, but didn't finish the driveway shoveling. We'll do that tomorrow. That took more than 2 hours. We gave up because it was cold and getting more tea and OJ didn't seem worth it. If we escape tomorrow, I'm thinking brunch at Cafe Flora.

Hey, this baby can deal with rain, but not 11 days of being trapped at home.

Here are some things that have to do w/ snow at my house:

1. Kobie can eat snow right at head level.
2. Kobie doesn't like the snow to be over his head. He makes an attempt once in a while to jump through it, but it's not fun for him. This rule of unfunness doesn't apply when in the cat cage, because Kobie loves going in there.

3. The roof of the cat cage got slammed with snow. It's made of net, so it stretches when it's weighted down. This was the worse yet. The part where it's touching the ground should be 7 feet off the ground. The only solution is to go out and smack at it with sticks which is what Andy is doing below. Don't worry, I have my own stick and umbrella. This type of fun needs to be shared.

4. Abominable snowvegans

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Andy made some pancakes from the Candle Cafe Cookbook and they were to die for. The texture was perfect.

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Chippy & co aren't about to go outside (even if the cat door wasn't locked). So what's a cat to do? Leech off the nearest heat source. In this case, it's Andy. No fear of him moving for hours because he's playing games (Andy, not Chippy).

VeganSnowFo day 5 - almost dark days yum-panada

This is my second time making the empanadas from Veganomicon. They are just as yummy as the first time. Delicious butternut squash, jalapenos, black beans and other goodness all wrapped up in a flour cornmeal crust. They taste even better after they have been frozen. Gotta love that.

This could almost be a dark days of Local cooking, but alas, the flour while milled in WA, is from Utah. That puts this recipe at roughly 70% local instead of close to 90%. Still, that's pretty good. Everything else except the black beans, spices, and maple syrup is from WA. I'll get there eventually. When I say eventually, I mean when I'm not snowed in. And it is STILL SNOWING.

I have to thank Chocolate Covered Vegan for her copious posts on butternut squash. They convinced me to get one and roast it to make the filling for the empanadas. Yummy!

I have to also thank Chessa for posting on her roasted squash seeds. It forced me to roast mine - typically I'm too lazy. I'm glad I did, not only are they a good source of protein, but they are really tasty. The hubbard seeds are the bigger ones. They are good, but the butternut seeds have a very thin shell, so you get more of the inside stuff per seed.

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This time of the year, Andy & I make sugar cookies from an old Veggie Life magazine. I'm in charge of cookie cutting and glazing. He does the sprinkles and oven.

Joanna, this scene of the zombie squirrel making more zombies is for you.

oh, kissing swans, what giant cranberry eyes you have...

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Chippy likes to sit on the monitor to get warm. In the background you can see the frozen tundra which is the yard.

VeganSnowFo day 2 - crescent roll ring

If October is VeganMoFo, then the winter months should be VeganSnowFo. Basically it's when you're trapped at home because of bad weather and you end up blogging about vegan this and that.

My cough must be getting better because I went out in the cold and I didn't have a coughing fit. I'm betting I won't be able to pull off that feat at night. Thank you huffing medicine!

The bonus of the snow:

• Andy is forced to work from home
• The sky is clear blue and the sun is shining. I'm getting my sun fix without having to travel. In the seattle area you need this in the winter.
• The potential of snow sculptures. Maybe I can try to make a snow cat. When I was little we made a snow dragon.
• The yard looks really good
• an acutal white christmas
• you get to see cats in the snow. They don't want to go out there, but if we do, their nosiness forces them to follow. Case in point:

Tubs. Hanging out in the tunnel that leads to the cat cage.

Faline looking grumpy.

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I found this recipe in a cookbook that assembles processed foods so you can trick people into believing that you spent lots of time in the kitchen. Though I can't imagine who would be fooled. I don't own this cookbook in case you're wondering. Some of the recipes are from celebs. This is Katie Couric's Cresent Roll Ring. It was pretty good.

You can check out the link for the official recipe, but I'll include pseudo directions in case the link disappears. I wouldn't want anybody to miss out on some prefab sweetness.

top: pillsbury crescent roll dough - just 1 sheet's thickness.

middle: jam (I used raspberry)

middle: marzipan

bottom: crescent roll dough - just 1 sheet's thickness.

She somehow arranged it in a ring. I'm sure that's why her's is thicker than mine. I just made a rectangle.

bake like you would a normal crescent roll, then slather with glaze. I just used powdered sugar, lemon juice, vanilla, water.

I didn't have marzipan, so I mixed up some almond flour, powdered sugar, water and a small amount of lemon juice in the food processor. It wasn't as smooth as marizpan, but it tasted fine. I formed it into a thick plank with my hands. I'm not as dainty as Katie.

For you sickly types out there, it tastes good with tea and is a nice break from lentil soup and toast. ha ha ha. ok, that's at my own expense because I'm pratically hooked up to an IV of tea right now.

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Chippy is still refusing to drink. Why drink water when your servants will fill you up with subcutaneous fluids?

I can tell that he is feeling better because he did some grooming today. Well, not exactly the type of grooming you're used to seeing a cat do.

I'm typically safe from this because my hair is too long. Plus Andy's hair greases up more overnight, so the yield is better.