VeganMoFo day #19 - Country Kitchen, Hot Damn and Hell Yeah

Brunch today was totally inspired by Bex at how to feed a vegan. She made some country fried tofu from Hot Damn and Hell Yeah, a really cute cookbook. Bex's came out so good, that I had to try it out. I had also been neglecting this cookbook. It's in good company. I've been ignoring lots of them. Time to start forcing myself to break the ice w/ some of these cookbooks.

In addition, I also made the biscuits and gravy from the same book. Woohoo for brunch!

Anyhow, this meal was very very good. I even sat at the table to eat it. Typically I lay around when I eat.



There is a lot of prep work, so I started yesterday. I decided to make their BBQ sauce which is a component of the tofu marinade. It was good, but I still think Veganomicon's apricot bbq sauce is my fave. The recipe made buckets of sauce, so I see a BBQ'd tofu post in my future.



Marinating tofu:

The thick soy milk bath:


The bread crumb tank:


The spicy flour dredge:


After going through all the stations, I fried them up in my cast iron pan. I found part way through that you really need to oil up that pan. They weren't sticking, but they weren't being properly fried. oil solved the problem.


Here is what the final pile up looked like. The gravy was made with crumbled up sausages. Very tasty.


Here's a picture of Peepa lounging underneath a laptop so he can leech off its heat. That cat is never warm enough. I think I'll make him another sock hoodie this year.

VeganMoFo day #18 - Hot Steamy Mango & a cat that does laundry

Had to go grocery shopping today, so we went out to lunch first at Square Lotus. We had heard really great things about it's vegetarian menu.



The text at the top of the menu said that their vegan menu is all vegetarian. Well, that's a good start. Then I noticed that they kept talking about egg noodles in the dishes. After talking to the waitress, she had no idea about what vegan meant. She said that there were eggs and milk in some dishes. Confusing, but we got around it. We avoided the mock meats. I was happy w/ the meal, it was really good. The also had pho, but I wasn't in the mood for a mega bowl of soup. Portions were really huge. If I had known, we would have gotten 1 less dish because I had forgotten my tupperware.



The Lotus salad had shredded lotus, carrots, fried tofu and a sweet but slightly vinegary sauce. It was different, but yummy.




The Phad Thai minus eggs was really good. I like a really wet phad thai. The only exception was a place that made a great dry phad thai. Never had it better than that place. Too bad it was pre vegan food.

The Mango Tofu was really good. Fried tofu, huge mango chunks, veggies, and a nice very slightly sweet sauce. If you ever go there, get this dish.


Spotted devil cat likes to lick this particular cat blanket thing. He also likes to lick the dog, select other cats and occasionally people noses. In addition to having mommy cat tendencies, he is a huge bully at times. His is very skilled at cleaning this blanket. It comes out nice and fluffy - even better than what the washing machine does.