Squirrel’s Vegan Kitchen

This morning I awoke to a startling surprise: my husband making breakfast on a weekday! Wha? I have to admit, I’m a bad girl. We celebrate the anniversary of our first date as a slightly more significant day then our wedding just because it was such a chance meeting. Once we knew each other there was no doubt we would get married, but there are so many little things leading up to our unlikely meeting that it has an air of mystery to it. It’s a long story, so I won’t go on.

Anyhow, I forgot about our anniversary! I remembered it last month and then things got so busy with our trip and the impending move that I forgot! Well, he didn’t. I’m not letting myself feel too bad because someone who will remain nameless forgot about Valentine’s Day, when I handmade him a very personalized gift, so I guess this evens that out.

So, this morning I was treated to a beautiful display of French toast made in a banana batter, with EB and some maple syrup, fresh strawberries, my favorite sparkling apple cider and a vase of roses, one for every year since we met. I was so stuffed that after I went to work and clocked in I left again to go for a little walk. Oof-dah! It was a wonderful middle-of-the-week surprise.

Then, as if I haven’t been spoiled enough, he made dinner! Jim’s really into Mexican food, so he picked Karen’s Mexican Burrito Pie from La Dolce Vegan. He replaced the soy cheese with Tofutti sour cream because we’re not big on the soy cheese. It was great! This was his first dinner ever made from scratch and I was so proud of him. We munched on some chips and salsa on the side and for dessert split and ice cream cone with Soy Delicous chocolate peanut butter ice cream.

Mmmm, I am one full, lucky lady!

In an attempt to lessen the bulk of food that we have stored about our apartment (especially in the freezer!) we’re trying to eat up stuff that we don’t want to go to waste/pack. So, it’s been prepacked soy food dinners! But they’ve tasted good, so that’s what matters, right?

Last night we had tacos made with TVP, whole wheat tortillas, some pico de gallo, lettuce, chips and organic salsa. Mmmm, salty. I swear, we have to start watching the salt intake. My love of salt almost rivals the fact that I’m a sugar whore. Almost.

I took some leftover tacos to work today for lunch. I tend to eat outside now that the weather is perfect in AZ (for the next week, at least). There’s an area behind my work with actual GRASS and TREES. Not that I support growing those things in the desert at all, but that’s a different topic for another day. Anyhow, after feeding most of my tortilla to the birds, I made my deformed taco and was munching away, reading, when a little piece of TVP dropped onto a paper I had. I brushed it off and thought nothing of it. A few minutes later an ant crawled by and was furiously inspecting the area where the TVP had fallen. So I broke off the smallest piece of TVP I could get (which was still huge compared to him) and he heaved it up and headed back home! Who’da thunk. Not that ants are that picky, but still…

Tonight I was craving veggie burgers and, wouldn’t you know, we had 2 in the freezer! They were the Amy’s California Veggie Burgers. We fancied them up with some ketchup and mustard, lettuce, tomato, pickles and Vegenaise (for Jim only, yuck!*). On the side we had some homemade steak fries and some steamed carrots and green beans which I tossed with lemon juice, fresh cracked pepper and sea salt. Mmmm, I have leftover veggies for lunch tomorrow!

All in all it was all good. We have a rather large pantry that I have filled rather well, yet I never have all the ingredients I need. Odd how that happens, no? Anyhow, I need to start working through it all, so you may see some strange concoctions in the weeks to come.

*Vegenaise is actually a very mayonnaisey tasting condiment, but I don’t like mayonnaise or anything that resembles it. Ick.

I added a recipes section, which is linked on the right side. I added a few for now and will be bulking it up. I will be keeping most of my baking recipes top secret, however, because I’m writing a book on vegan baking.

Enjoy!

OK, Blogger is working again, so here we go!

I forgot to take pictures of about half of our food so this is more representative of breakfasts in Portland, but you’ll get the point!

We got to Portland on Thursday after a really early flight. First thing on the agenda: find breakfast! Armed with our trusty map we navigated ourselves to The Paradox Cafe. I immediately set my sights on some French toast and Jim had a breakfast burrito. Paradox is a mostly veg*n restaurant with incredibly yummy looking diner food. They also have a huge assortment of desserts- all vegan!

We proceeded to drive to Food Fight to stock up on some essentials: peanut butter cups, jerky and nougat! Hells yes, it was delicious! I can’t wait until we live there and I can take advantage of all the incredible treats they have to offer, like vegan whipped cream in a can!

Later that evening we met up with Mr.Herbivore himself (Mrs. and Baby were out of town) and we went to dinner at Veganopolis . I forgot the camera, but we all ended up knoshing on some sandwiches. I had a seitan Caesar. Mmm…. Sadly, I was too full for dessert. They had frosted cupcakes that looked like they’d make Isa proud!

The next morning Jim and I went to hunt down the ever-elusive vegan donuts at a place called Voodoo Doughnut . They had a, um, interesting display of donuts in their case, including one that looked like male genitalia and another that was a vampire, stabbed through the heart, complete with oozing raspberry filling. We got several donughts to try and headed out to explore downtown. (Jim looks a little stoned in this picture and doesn’t think I’m posting it. Shhhh!)

Later that afternoon we went out for some vegan pizza by the slice at a place that I can’t remember the name of. The pizza, however, was named Yummy. It had a roasted red pepper sauce, veggies and tempeh. Drool…

That night we went out with a friend to a concert at The Aladdin. We saw Natalia Zuckerman and Willy Porter. I wasn’t too sure if I’d like Willy, as his songs sounded a bit subdued online, but MAN, can that guy put on a show! Half mad-scientist musician, half comedian, I was alternating between laughing and crying. Excellent show.

On our last full day (we had to leave fairly early on Sunday) we went to indulge in the breakfast buffet at Veganopolis. Included in the yummy fare was an incredible savory bread pudding, which is now my goal to recreate, tofu scramble, roasted potatoes, a spelt faux ham and cheese biscuit, some sausages, gravy and Jim and I split a delicate blueberry pancake. Yeah, we shared this and were still stuffed!

Our dinner the last night was enjoyed at The Kalga Cafe, which is a vegetarian restaurant next to Food Fight. I was tempted to order the pizza, which has vegan mozzarella, but I opted for my old standby, falafel. It had great ambiance and food, we will definitely be going back for many more meals.

So that was our trip to Portland! We basically spent 3 days driving around and eating. I never ate a single thing I didn’t like. In fact, I’m having severe French toast pangs in my tummy right now! It was a wonderful time and now I’m just counting down the 6 weeks we have left in Phoenix until we are residents there!

I want to apologize for not always being as prompt as I’d like to on responses and posting. In the past Blogger was a site that I could dabble with at my work, but it’s become a RESTRICTED page (we have this scary pop up that comes out of nowhere and scares the be-jezzes out of you), so I have to wait until I get home and I don’t always have as much free time as I’d like. So, sorry!

We are moving to Portland, OR in May, so our lives are a bit chaotic right now. We are going up there to visit and scope out housing on Thursday, so in an effort to not make dishes and to have more time to get ready for our trip, we are eating out. Tonight’s dinner was from a delicious local place called Green . They are an all vegan restaurant (they call themselves vegetarian, but I think that’s more for marketing) and they are great! They make their own vegan soft serve ice cream on the premises and you can get a “Tsoynami”, which is their version of a Blizzard. Their menu is varied and everything is delicious. I LOVE the crabpuffs!

Tonight Jim ran up there to collect dinner. We had Buffalo “Wings” with cucumber ranch, a No Harm Chik’n Parm sandwich and some Spicy Peanut Thai. As always, the food was wonderful. Not only that, but it’s so cheap! We can get an appetizer, two entrees and dessert for under $20.

My only issue with the place (and it’s a bit of an issue) is how, ironically, un-green they are. They have stickers all over their trash cans that say “Recycle!” and things along those lines. But they don’t. And everything is disposable. Disposable bowls and forks, even if you eat in. STYROFOAM cups! It’s just plain weird to me. They recently opened so I’m hoping that this is a transitional thing and not for good. It’s sadly another one of those things where Phoenix almost does something, but not quite. But, to be fair, Phoenix is really a decent place to be vegan, with tons of alternative grocery stores to choose from as well as a strong handful of good veg*n friendly restaurants. So, for that, I am grateful.

Tonight we revisited an old favorite, pinenut pasta. I picked some multicolored pasta swirls, more for color than anything else, but I typically always pick multicolored pasta for this dish. This is a really simple dish made with mushrooms (I used cremini), spinach, onions, garlic, olive oil, pinenuts and white wine. The quantities for the mushrooms and especially the spinach seem really obscene, but the spinach wilts to nothing if you cut back the amount.

I threw together a quick artichoke dip on the side with some artichokes, spinach, onions, garlic, a splash of oil and about 2 tablespoons of Tofutti cream cheese. We ate it with some tortilla chips as a little appetizer.

Nice and light, yet satisfying. I’ll be posting the recipe soon.

2 yums up!

Jim promised to make brunch this weekend, so I was excited to have the morning off. He worked yesterday, so we each did our own thing for breakfast, but this morning he was playing in the kitchen, making banana pancakes. He used a pancake mix and veganized the add-ins, with soymilk and a large mashed banana. He added his secret ingredient (which is the same “secret ingredient” that every man I know who makes breakfast uses): cinnamon, and he was off.

This was a very successful run at breakfast. We have had our fair share of melted spatulas and burnt breakfasts over the years, but now he’s got the basics down well enough to not want me supervising anymore. He used to think it was a good idea to heat the skillet on high first, to get it warm, then turn it down. Or maybe not turn it down, thinking they’d cook faster on high. And so we would have blackened pancakes with bits of plastic in them, lol. Thankfully, he’s learned the fine art of adjusting the heat and when to flip them and to not leave the spatula sitting in the pan, etc, and he’s making flapjacks like there’s no tomorrow! We had them with some banana slices, crushed walnuts, melted Earth Balance and organic maple syrup. Mmmm. Good husband!

2 yums and a tail up! (Bindhi was helping us eat!)

I decided to be ambitious yesterday and I made some marinated seitan medallions from The Artful Vegan which is the second cookbook from The Millennium Restaurant. First, the seitan is prepped and cooked in boiling water for 1 1/2 hours. Then it is cooled, sliced and then cooked some more in a marinade consisting of red wine, veggie broth, rosemary, garlic and some other spices. I halved the recipe in the book to make four servings, but it still made A LOT!

We felt like having some home cookin’, so I whipped up some garlic mashed potatoes and we still had a container of Tofurky gravy in our freezer. The picture makes it looks like a spectrum of browns, but the seitan was actually a really pretty shade of purple from the wine. It was really yummy, too yummy because we ended up having seconds then ended up feeling way too full!

For dessert I took two ice cream cones and filled the bottom tips with some melted chocolate, then put them in the fridge to set. We filled them with some Soy Delicious Neapolitan ice cream. Mmmmm… it was delicious to have that little chocolate surprise at the bottom, like a Drumstick, but better!

2 yums way up!

No dinner tonight! We have some friends in town and we’re going out. They have a very early flight tomorrow morning, though, so I made some muffins so they wouldn’t have to suffer with nasty food from the Phoenix airport coffee stands.

These muffins are cranberry banana with oatmeal. I used to make these a lot and then I got out of the swing of it, I wonder why… Oh well, that’s the fun of rediscovering an old favorite, right? The funny thing is, one of our cats LOVES these muffins. He practically attacks you when you eat them. His favorite part? The cranberries! He won’t touch them dried or fresh, only in these muffins. Silly boy. I’ll have to remember to prepare for a Ravi attack tomorrow morning when I heat one of them up!