[VeganMoFo] Day 14: Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival

It's VeganMoFo! What's VeganMoFo? Find out at http://www.veganmofo.com

Today my friend came to visit me and we went to the Mid-Autumn Festival Special Buffet at Su Tao Cafe. Su Tao is a vegan Chinese restaurant in Malvern, PA, about 12 minutes from where I live. They have a regular buffet every day, $9.95 for lunch and $12.95 for dinner. For holidays, they have Special Buffet, $20 a pop, featuring many fancier dishes in addition to their usual fare, and ice cream is included in the meal (normally you pay extra for ice cream).

I did not get any photos, because I was too busy paying attention to my friend and my food, and by the time we'd finished eating, most of the food was all gone. But you don't need to see pictures of it to know that it was AMAZING. Here are some of the things I ate:

garlicky sauteed bok choy
deep fried daikon puffs
gingery-garlic raw kale salad
golden eggplant triangles
giant puff dumplings with seitan and veggies inside
zucchini pancakes
spicy lemon "chicken"
crunchy shiitake mushrooms in sesame sauce

For dessert, we shared a dish each of butter pecan and cream'n'cookies ice cream, though we had to do some serious negotiating with our bodies to find room for any more food. My friend and I have both been vegans a long time, so perhaps we have evolved extra stomachs ;-)

I eat here pretty often, so next time I'll try to remember to get some photos!

[VeganMoFo!] Day 5: Dim Sum!

It's VeganMoFo! What's VeganMoFo? Find out at http://www.veganmofo.com

Last night I met up with my friends Amy and Ronald, who I know from the Post Punk Kitchen message boards. Both are visiting from overseas, so it was great to get to hang out with them in person! I've met both of them before, but not in a long while. We had dinner at New Harmony, a Kosher Chinese restaurant in Philadelphia with an all-vegan menu. New Harmony's specialty is the "all-you-can-eat dim sum". They have a menu of options, so you can select your favorites, but I usually just tell the server to "bring us whatever's good" and let them work their magic. 

We each started with a bowl of wonton soup.

Then the dim sum fest began!

vegetable pancakes! These are fried and served with a mayonaissey sauce.

spring rolls and scallion pancakes!

stir-fry! tofu, broccoli, bok choy, carrots, and zucchini in a gingery-garlicky sauce!

taro cakes! Taro is a sticky root vegetable and it's one of my absolute favorite treats.

bao! These are doughy dumplings stuffed with vegan pork.

dumplings! I don't remember what was in them, but it was tasty.

There was also another dish of little round dumplings in assorted colors and configurations, but I seem to have not taken a photo of it.

dessert! The fried coconut triangles are simply to die for!!!

[VeganMoFo!] Day 2: Lemon Soup with Chickpeas and Kale

It's VeganMoFo! What's VeganMoFo? Find out at http://www.veganmofo.com

A few months ago, I was chatting with my friend Eric, who's got some stellar recipes over at AstroNOMZ that you might want to check out if you like deliciousness. He was doing something with chickpeas, and somehow his mentioning chickpeas set off a craving so fierce and insatiable that I must have tried a dozen new chickpea recipes in a month. And believe it or not, I'm not even sick of them. Chickpeas are GREAT.

So, at some point during the Vegan Month of Chickpeas (VeganMOoCh?), I was flipping through my "I totally have to try this recipe someday..." file and found this Avgolemono-without-Avgo recipe from my friend Desdemona's blog (also chock-full of magnificent recipes). Just a few days earlier, I had been playing around with the Chickpea Rice Soup with a Little Kale recipe, and ended up putting quite a bit of lemon juice in it (and, well, a lot of kale...I don't really know how to do "a little" kale). So I took some elements from that recipe...particularly, the chickpeas, and the kale, and the rice...and started cooking in the general direction of the Avgolemono recipe, and suddenly I had this elegant pot of lemony-wonderful soup.

I make this pretty often now! Here is how I made it this week.

 2 Tbsp soy butter (or olive oil, but I like it much better with the soy butter)
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
a handful of fresh chopped dill
a handful of fresh chopped parsley
2 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp black pepper
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup lemon juice
5 cups vegetable broth
2 1/2 cups soy milk
1 tbsp cornstarch
4 cups chickpeas (pre-cooked or from a can)
1/2 lb kale, chopped into bite-size pieces (I like the stems, you can chuck 'em if you don't)
1/2 cup nutritional yeast (optional; I like the texture and flavor it adds, but if you don't like it or can't get it, don't sweat it)

Melt the soy butter (or heat the olive oil) in a large soup pot. Add the onion and saute till translucent. Add the herbs, cook for a minute or two, then deglaze with the apple cider vinegar (pour it in and stir to "clean up" the bits that are sticking to the bottom of your pot). Add the lemon juice and vegetable broth, bringing it to a boil. While it's getting ready to boil, whisk the cornstarch into the soymilk until it dissolves. Pour this mixture in with the broth, bring it back to a boil, then add the chickpeas and kale. Turn the heat down to "low" and let it simmer, covered, for about 10-12 minutes. Stir in the nutritional yeast and add salt if needed. I'll usually add a teaspoon of Vulcan Fire Salt at this point, because it's GREAT. I serve it over brown basmati rice (the best rice!)

[VeganMoFo!] Day 1: banana fana fo firfry

It's VeganMoFo! What's VeganMoFo? Find out at http://www.veganmofo.com

Today I had lunch with my friend Joan! Cooking with a friend is the best! We come up with combinations that would never have occurred to either of us on own. My friend is not vegan, but she shares my love of delicious food and my "mad scientist" approach to cooking (and life...which is why we're friends), so we set about to make a stir-fry out of whatever we could find in her kitchen. When she pulled out a banana and started slicing it up to go in the stir-fry, I knew this was going to be a memorable lunch!

Here is approximately what we did:

vegetable or canola oil for sauteing

1 medium onion, coursely chopped

several cloves garlic, minced

2-3 tbsp ginger, minced or grated

a handful each of sunflower seeds and almonds (any nuts work!)

1 banana, sliced into rounds

veggies -- you can use any you like; we used the following:

baby potatoes, sliced in half

cauliflower florets

brussels sprouts

yellow cherry tomatoes, sliced in half

spinach

optional: peanut sauce, hot sauce, any sauce you lke

Saute the onion in a little vegetable/canola oil until it is translucent. Add the garlic and ginger and saute another minute, then add the seeds/nuts so they start getting nice and toasty. Add the banana slices and veggies, starting with the most dense ones (like potatoes and cauliflower) and ending with the lighter-weights (like spinach). Stir-fry until all your veggies are the texture you prefer your veggies to be when you put them in your mouth. Add sauce if desired.