Recreating an Indian Meal | VeganMoFo 2018 Day Two

September 2, 2018September 2, 2018 / Kelly / 6 Comments

Week One: Inspiration Week
This week is all about using different things as your inspiration for great food.

I don’t think I tried Indian food until college. Not that my parents were unadventurous eaters, but we didn’t splurge on meals out much during my childhood, and for the most part we were pretty unaware of Rhode Island’s Indian restaurants during that time. But during college in small-town Minnesota, of all places, I would occasionally splash out for dinner at Chapati, the local Indian joint. The flavors were new to me and utterly delightful; I quickly fell in love with paneer-based dishes in particular. (I was a vegetarian at that point. Isn’t paneer always the gateway ingredient?!) Sure, I wouldn’t have been able to point out any differences between North and South Indian dishes — much less regional or state-based variations — but I was game to try just about anything veg.

Since then, I’ve broadened my affinity for Indian food, and our trip to South India this summer deepened it further. What surprised me most about the dishes we enjoyed was how few of them included rice. Sure, the lunchtime thalis featured a big scoop of rice, and we had some delicious fluffy local rice during a traditional meal in Kerala, but for dinner? Not so much. Instead we’d order platters full of bread: pillowy garlic naan, flaky paratha, simple chapati. It would arrive, piping hot, alongside small tureens of rich gravies, three or four or five to share. We’d tear into the breads, using them to scoop up the gravies, everyone sharing everything. For a lighter dinner, I sometimes ordered a dosa, the crispy, thin crepe-like bread served either stuffed or plain, with chutney and sambar for dipping.

It was all very different from the typical Americanized Indian food experience, where you order a bowl of rice and a curry and eat it for yourself. So, after being back in the States for a few weeks, I wanted to recreate — on a small scale! — a more authentic Indian-inspired meal. I knew just where to turn: to my two favorite vegan Indian bloggers, Richa and Vaishali.

Dal is one of my all-time favorite dishes of any cuisine, so Richa’s dal fry recipe was a no-brainer. Yellow lentils are tempered to create a creamy, flavorful, rich dish that’s perfectly scoopable. I paired the dal with Richa’s okra and onion stir fry. I’ve been buying okra just about every week at the farmers market, and my go-to preparation is to halve it and roast it with olive oil, salt, and pepper. This time, I sautéed it with lots of onions, turmeric, and a little chili powder. Delicious! On the side? Kachumbar, a simple tomato, cucumber, and onion salad, also featuring veggies from the farmers market. Finally, I turned to Vaishali for the bread: Her flaky oil-based parotta came together easily (and quite tastily).

Although this meal was smaller in scale than some of the epic spreads we enjoyed in India, the experience — sitting at the table with Steven, using our hands to tear the bread and scoop up portions of dal — was just reminiscent enough of our trip to satisfy me. And the tastes? They were pretty close, too.

I’m calling this India-inspired dinner a win.

About Me | VeganMoFo 2018 Day One

September 1, 2018August 28, 2018 / Kelly / 5 Comments

Day One: Introduce you!

Tell us a bit about you, your veganism, and what you like to cook and eat!

Hello, hi, it’s me, your absentee blogger dropping in for the annual Vegan Month of Food, aka VeganMoFo. This is my ninth year (!) participating, and things are gonna be a little different this year for a few reasons.

For one, I haven’t fully recovered from the Great Cooking Slump of Late 2017. Although it would be unfair to say that last year’s MoFo caused my sudden and extreme dislike of planning/prepping/cooking dinner, it certainly didn’t help. Dinners these days are typically planned and cooked by one or both of us, with Steven often prepping ingredients during the day (he works from home) and me doing the actual cooking when I get home (I do not work from home). Last winter and spring we did a lot of meal planning on Sundays, but that’s actually gone by the wayside this summer. Instead, I go crazy at the farmers market on Saturdays and then plan simple, produce-forward meals based around what I buy. So, really, there’s not a lot of innovation happening in my kitchen, and I’m certainly not developing original recipes left and right.

And the second reason my MoFo experience will be different? Well, I’m just not that into food blogging anymore. Don’t get me wrong; I still really enjoy blogging as a practice (despite my consistent inability to be, um, consistent). But my focus has shifted. Veganism — or more accurately, vegan food — has become so much more mainstream in the nine years I’ve been vegan that I feel less called to talk about it. Vegan-centric websites and social media accounts and blogs are so abundant, and I don’t really feel like I have too much to add in this space. There are plenty of people doing the vegan blogging/recipe-development thing full-time, and I appreciate their devotion. And that’s why, over the past few years, I’ve slowly bowed out of the recipe-centric space.

But! I am not going anywhere! Because I still have Things to Say. I feel more strongly than ever that my vegan lifestyle is inextricable from other ethical practices that call me: embracing a waste-free lifestyle; growing my own food; buying only ethically produced items; practicing some form of minimalism. And on top of that, during the past few years I’ve gotten to a financially sound-enough position to indulge my lifelong love of travel, and I enjoy the challenge of remaining environmentally conscious (and, obviously, vegan) while traveling. All of these hobbies and practices tie into veganism, and those intersections are what I hope to explore in the future. (And, really, have been doing for some time now.) That’s the content I most enjoy reading these days, so naturally it’s what I most enjoy writing about.

So, self-indulgent self-reflection out of the way, what can you expect during this VeganMoFo? Me being relaxed and talking about food! I’m thinking that as my blog moves away from a focus on food, VeganMoFo can become a more enjoyable opportunity for me to have an annual dipping-of-the-toes back into that space… but with some changes. Fewer original recipes; more reviews. A more relaxed interpretation of the themes. (This year, I’ll be loosely following the weekly themes but not the daily ones.) Me being lighter, less uptight and less of a perfectionist… although I sincerely hope not to break my nine-month streak of posting every day during MoFo! ;)

And on the aforementioned lighter note, how about some rapid-fire answers to the questions for today’s prompt? :) I don’t always include personal details here, but I’m not being purposefully cagy or anything. Here are the basics:

I’m Kelly and I’m 31. (That’s me with a sweet lil hen at Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary earlier this year.) I live in suburban Maryland with my partner, Steven, and our two dogs, Moria and Rosie. I grew up in Rhode Island (and visit family there frequently), went to school in Minnesota, and lived in Wisconsin for three and a half years before moving here. I’m a senior editor for a big animal welfare organization. (Yes, I get a paycheck for writing about animal issues, and yes, it’s great.) I occasionally pick up some freelance writing and editing. (Need help? Let’s talk!) I’ve been vegan for just about nine years and was vegetarian for four or five before that. I’m vegan for the animals, but environmentalism is also important to me. The health benefits are just an added bonus.

I love vegan doughnuts and traveling… and combining the two, preferably during a solo trip. In my downtime, I’m usually reading (friend me on Goodreads!), playing with my pups, or rewatching The Office for the millionth time. I dabble in lots of different crafts and have a pitifully neglected Etsy store. Volunteerism is really important to me, along with making charitable donations. I’m a penny-pincher but I’m not cheap. I’m patiently waiting for a vegan version of angel food cake and will happily recipe-test for any culinary geniuses out there who are cracking the code.

And that’s enough of that. Happy MoFo, friends!

Two Weeks in South India: Vegan Food Galore, Street Animals, and my Plastic Penance

August 27, 2018November 13, 2018 / Kelly / 14 Comments

As an opportunistic traveler, I’ve always got my ear to the ground for chances to travel. Friend is spending the last year of her art history master’s program in Florence? Book a flight to Italy. Other friend accepted a temporary position in Auckland? Time to fulfill my dream of visiting New Zealand. So when my brother Ian announced that he and his then-girlfriend P. were getting married, and that they would be celebrating not just in the U.S. but in India, I was thrilled. Hello trip to India! (And, y’know, yay for them getting married and stuff.)

That was a couple years ago. Since then, Ian and P. got married in a small civil ceremony in Seattle (where they live) and celebrated with their west coast friends. My parents began thinking of an east coast reception. In the meantime, P.’s parents — who are from India but currently live in Thailand — began planning the Indian wedding. We were invited, of course, but not just for the wedding: They wanted to take us on a tour of South India. They wanted to plan everything for us, from organizing a big van with a driver to booking our hotels to engaging tour guides for the temples we’d visit. A little stunned by all this work they were doing on our behalves — on top of planning the wedding itself! — we said, “…okay!”

Last month, all their planning came to fruition. Steven, my parents, my cousin, my sister, my sister’s boyfriend, and I (and Ian and P., of course) all trekked to South India for a two-week wedding and road trip extravaganza. Truthfully, I wondered whether all the planning would diminish my enjoyment. I’m not typically a group traveler, preferring to plan things myself and strike off on my own or with another travel companion. So how would a weeklong road trip with 11 other people, where our itinerary was scheduled in a massive Excel spreadsheet, work out?

Well. It worked out juuust fine. As soon as I realized I’d have to give up any control over our destinations and day-to-day plans, I did just that. I readjusted my expectations and decided this was an opportunity to sit back and enjoy myself, stress-free. No planning needed. No worry about scheduling intra-India flights or booking a tour guide or deciding where to visit. P.’s parents took care of everything, from providing bag upon bag of homemade vegan road trip snacks to booking hotel rooms in some seriously beautiful locations. I can’t imagine how different this kind of trip would’ve been if I’d been left to my own devices, and I’m actually glad they took the reins. India can be kind of a tough country to travel through, and I appreciated all the insider guidance. We packed a lot into our two weeks, with stops in Kochi, Coimbatore (for the wedding!), Chennai, Mahabalipuram, Pondicherry, Chidambaram, Swamimalai, Darasuram, Thanjavur, Srirangam, Madurai, and Munnar… whew! During the week-long tour portion, we stayed in a different city location every night, packing our days full of sightseeing. The majority of sites we visited were temples, with a few museums and local attractions (including a tea plantation!) thrown in to spice things up.

Of course, we had to fuel those long temple tours under the blazing Indian sun… and we did so with gusto. And since we’ve been back, curious friends have asked a common question. They’ve seemed less interested in the sites and more interested in the food! Ha. We’ve been barraged with questions along the lines of, “How was the food?!” And, “Was it difficult finding vegan food in South India?”

The food was, in a word, plentiful. It was also delicious. And rich. Very, very rich. Fully half our group was vegan (!), and we also had one vegetarian with nut allergies, so we were quite a mixed bunch with very specific needs. We were able to get vegan food with relatively little fuss, though the nut-free requirement for my sister was a little more challenging.

Ian and P. (the happy couple!) are both vegan, so their wedding meals (yes, meals plural) were vegetarian, with ample vegan options. Those fancy catered meals went on and on — we sat down to a big banana leaf “plate,” which had a little pile of salt and a scoop of my new favorite food: pickle. (This kind of pickle, not pickled cucumbers.) And then the food started coming. Big scoops of fluffy rice. Steaming hot chapati or naan or parotta. Three or four types of gravy, what many of us in the U.S. call curries. Another gravy. A small dish of raw veggies in coconut milk. Another gravy. A bowl of vegan carrot halwa for dessert. Waiters coming by every few minutes, pressing us to take another scoop of this, a little more of that. Me, stomach bursting, having to say no, I can’t, I really can’t, I’m going to explode if I eat more food!

…and then doing it again a few hours later for another meal.

Reader, I am not exaggerating. Those catered meals were epic. But even our everyday meals — whether at the hotels we stayed at or at the little roadside restaurants where we stopped for lunch mid-drive — were also incredible. We’d roll in to a restaurant, all 12 of us, and P.’s mom would start her schpiel with the head waiter: “No ghee or butter in the gravies for these six. Please cook the naan in oil. No cashew paste in the gravies for this one. No ground nuts for her either, she has an allergy!” Then, ten minutes later, out would come a stack of metal platters for a thali. Or, more frequently, a vast assortment of breads and gravies, and maybe some rice (but not usually), and we’d begin stuffing our faces again. Protestations of “But I’m not hungry; I rarely eat this much at home; really I can’t eat now!” were met with alarm and were typically ignored.

If my stomach was protesting another heavy, rich meal, I’d opt for a ubiquitous offering on nearly every menu: Chinese noodles. This Indo-Chinese fusion dish was deceptively simple and could be ordered with lots of veggies; my favorite iteration was a peppery garlic dish I would love to recreate. Another favorite for a lighter meal? A crisp, thin masala dosa, served with coconut chutney and assorted other gravies, maybe stuffed with potatoes. So good.

One thing I didn’t indulge in very often? Dessert! Nearly all South Indian sweets are made with milk, so ordering off the menu could be difficult. That said, P.’s lovely mom had a friend specially make some vegan coconut burfi for us, which we gobbled down during our road trip (along with assorted other homemade Indian snacks). One hotel was able to specially make payasam with coconut milk, and another hotel gamely attempted a vegan chocolate cake for P.’s dad’s 60th birthday (an especially important birthday, which we were happy to celebrate together). And the halwa we had during the wedding was superb. We did also indulge in some uber-rich vegan chocolate gelato at Auroville, a sort of utopian settlement with an earth-friendly vibe. It was more than welcome in the heat.

In that gelato photo, you can see the mehendi on my hands. Since my sister, mom, cousin and I were all part of the wedding ceremonies, we were encouraged to get some mehendi done. Of course, our designs were tame compared to the beautiful — and expansive! — bridal designs that covered P.’s entire lower arms, hands, and feet. P.’s mom also provided saris for us to wear during the wedding, taking our measurements for custom-made blouses and specially ordering jute (rather than silk) saris for my mom and me, which I so appreciated. I felt a little hesitant about wearing a sari at first, not wanting to engage in cultural appropriation. But since we were part of the wedding and were being encouraged to wear them, I obliged (and loved it!). Two women came in to wrap us, then they pinned fragrant jasmine blooms in our hair and encouraged us to put on bindis and our matching jewelry. P.’s mom also bought tunics and pants for us to wear during the tour portion of our trip, which was so gracious. I just surrendered to the experience. :)

Another new experience for me? Seeing street dogs. I’ve traveled pretty extensively in Europe, but never anywhere with a large population of street animals. I won’t lie; it was difficult. I felt like I had to turn off the part of me that sees an animal and automatically wants to pet/love/save her. Actually, though, the dogs we saw didn’t seem to be too badly off. Most looked relatively healthy, not emaciated or otherwise ill, and a few even had collars. We only saw one really unhealthy-looking dog, and that was admittedly pretty difficult. But watching a mama dog curl up by the side of a random woman one night while we sat listening to some traditional music at a temple? Beautiful. The woman was a little unsure at first, only petting the dog hesitantly, but soon they warmed up to one another and it was so sweet to see.

We also saw plenty of cows and goats (obviously owned), and they all seemed pretty happy, scrounging for fruit and veg on the side of the road. It was a little hard to watch when they were nosing among piles of trash, though. We couldn’t help wondering how much plastic waste they accidentally ingest. Which leads me to the biggest thorn in my side during this trip: my usage of plastic.

Before this trip, I couldn’t have told you the last time I drank out of a disposable plastic water bottle. Truly. I have my own metal bottle, and I just abstain if I’m without it. Steven and I try to cut down on our single-use plastics, but on this trip? We went through so. many. plastic. water. bottles. It hurt my heart.

To ensure that our drinking water was safe and wouldn’t make us ill, our hosts bought water bottles in bulk. I drank from them; sometimes there wasn’t an alternative, and I was glad our hosts had provided them. Becoming dehydrated during our tours was not exactly a viable alternative! That said, I did have my reusable bottle with me, so whenever we saw potable water available, I filled up. But that happened only rarely; there were filling stations at the Coimbatore airport when we were flying to Chennai, and the aforementioned Auroville also had them. I also drank from the pitchers at restaurants whenever possible, but still: I used a lot of plastic. And I feel terrible about it.

So now that I’m back in the States, I’ve imposed a kind of plastic penance on myself. I’m being extra conscious about my plastic usage; a new grocery store with an expansive bulk section just opened nearby, so I want to increase the amount of staples I buy in bulk. Shopping at the farmers market and gardening helps, too. Plus, our local Trader Joe’s is moving to a much less convenient location; while I’m gutted that I won’t be able to drive five minutes during the workday to pick up ingredients for dinner, I’m also kind of glad not to have the temptation to pick up whatever vegan convenience product catches my eye! I’m definitely guilty of making impulse Trader Joe’s purchases, and they’re rarely packaged sustainably. A lot of their produce also comes pre-packaged in plastic; I try to avoid that stuff, but sometimes I cave. No more.

That’s a bit of a diversion from my ramblings about India, but it’s all related. My actions here in Maryland have a greater, wider effect, and I try to be conscious of that fact. The movement to cut down on single-use plastics is worldwide; while reading Indian newspapers, I saw plenty of articles about plastic bag and plastic straw bans, and the one time I bought something (tea and spices, ha), the shop put my purchases in a reusable bag that’s become my lunch bag. (That said, the spices were packaged in plastic. I buy bulk spices here, but I couldn’t pass up the super-cheap pack of bay leaves, fennel seeds, coriander seeds, dried ginger, star anise, nutmeg, and peppercorns.) But again, I digress. :)

…so, India? Yeah, it was a pretty good trip. And I can’t wait to go back.

The Two Leaf-Free Easy Vegan Salads I’m Loving this Summer

August 19, 2018August 20, 2018 / Kelly / 4 Comments

I say this every year, but: I can’t get enough summer produce. Warm tomatoes right off the vine, crisp green beans with a satisfying snap, juicy peaches and nectarines and berries… whether it comes from my local farmers market or my own backyard, summer produce is a treat to be savored.

Our farmers market is tiny. But among the three produce vendors, the two bakery stalls (including one with vegan cookies!), the brewer, the vintner, and the coffee roaster, it gets the job done. (We won’t mention the butcher’s stall. I try not to look at it.) The first two summers after we moved into our house, I had a sweet Saturday morning routine of getting up and walking to the market. It’s less than a mile away, so even during the hottest and most humid of summer days, it was manageable. Sometimes I’d treat myself to a cookie and an iced coffee (back when Brewing Good exhibited at the market). This summer, the routine has changed a bit — I visit a hospice patient every Saturday morning, so I just stop by the market on my drive home — but the joy I get in wandering the stalls and watching the offerings change with the season hasn’t diminished.

Nor, of course, has my sheer pleasure in devouring fresh produce. It’s been a hot, hot summer, so Steven and I have enjoyed a fair few stove- and oven-free meals. Simple salads were a staple side dish earlier in the season, but now that lettuce isn’t as readily available from our market vendors, we’ve switched to some lettuce-free summer salads that still make use of all that juicy produce. Here are a few we’ve enjoyed.

Panzanella

Bread in salad: A genius pairing, or the most genius pairing? Plenty of cultures have their own take on transforming stale bread into soup or salad, and I’m here for it! I’ve been making my own bread since I got a sourdough starter from a friend in the spring, and occasionally my loaves get a bit dry before we have time to finish them. (Clearly we’re doing something wrong.) Enter panzanella! We’ve enjoyed a few spins on the dish, but my favorite actually didn’t include regular bread at all.

Instead, it used… pita bread! This is the Falafel Fattoush (p. 99) from Real Food, Really Fast, an ingenious cookbook by Hannah Kaminsky of BitterSweet Blog. She’s put together a collection of creative and satisfying dishes you can prepare in 10 minutes or less, with lots of tricks and hacks to allow for these speedy suppers. I keep intending to use Real Food Really Fast as my cookbook of the month, but we’ve been cooking from lots of sources this summer and I haven’t used it exclusively enough to feature. But everything I’ve made from the book has been spot-on, even if it’s taken me more more than 10 minutes to prepare some of them! (I’m not usually in a major rush, so I don’t mind taking my time.)

Hannah describes the Falafel Fattoush as an “herbaceous Middle Eastern panzanella,” but whatever you call it, it’s delightful. Featuring toasted pita shreds, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, chickpeas, and herbs along with lemon juice and lots of spices, the dish is an unquestionable winner. It’s surprisingly filling, too — I had to finish Steven’s portion!

No copy of Real Food, Really Fast on your cookbook shelf? No worries. Here are a few other panzanella recipes that have caught my eye this summer. (Although I really do recommend Real Food, Really Fast — I’ve loved everything I’ve made from it!)

This Fattoush Lebanese Salad from Kalyn’s Kitchen looks like a decent alternative to Hannah’s recipe, although this one does require lettuce.
I looove the idea of including fancy olives in a panzanella, so this recipe looks delightful!
Sweet summer corn and juicy summer peaches are two of my favorite farmers market finds, but I have yet to eat them together. Enter this recipe, which makes that combination possible!

Tajín-Spiced Simple Veggie Salads

Do you ever buy a cucumber (or pick one from your garden) and then think, What is even the point of cucumbers, besides putting them in dainty teatime sandwiches? Yes, me too. You can’t really cook with them, so they must be eaten raw. (My old roommate and I once tried braising a cucumber. I do not recommend it.) Yet all too frequently I find myself with a slowly softening cucumber in the produce drawer, its increasingly pockmarked skin an indictment of my rash purchase.

WELL. Imagine my delight when this article from Food52 showed up in my feed, touting the deliciousness of a simple cucumber salad with a “magic spice blend.” And imagine my further delight when I read that the magic spice blend is “not unlike cucumbers with Tajín” and recalled that, just a few months prior, a coworker had returned from a trip to Mexico with small bottles of Tajín and handed them out to us, and that I — sadly ignorant of the magic that is Tajín (and also unable to open the plastic cap) — had stowed the bottle in my spice drawer for future use. So, inspired by the article (and newly able to open the Tajín), I made a super-simple cucumber salad that was, quite literally, just sliced cucumbers and Tajín.

AND IT WAS AMAZING.

If you, too, have spent your life devoid of the magic that is Tajín, let me enlighten you. Per the Tajín website, it is a “unique seasoning made with … mild chili peppers, lime, and sea salt.” (You can find a DIY recipe here.) I’m in love with it. It’s the perfect addition to pretty much any vegetable, from simple sliced cucumbers to sweet roasted corn on the cob.

But I digress. My point is to say that chopped veggies + Tajín have become my new favorite leaf-free summer salad. Inspired by this kachumber recipe from Vegan Richa, I used all the veggies plus Tajín and had myself an absolutely delicious spicy summer salad. I cannot recommend this combination highly enough! If you want to incorporate more raw veggies in your summer suppers, adding Tajín is the way to go.

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So… what are your favorite lettuce-free summer salads?

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Cookbook of the Month: Plum: Gratifying Vegan Dishes from Seattle’s Plum Bistro

July 8, 2018January 12, 2019 / Kelly / 5 Comments

If you asked me when I visited Seattle for the first time — and when I dined at Plum Bistro — I’d have a quick answer: “Oh, a couple years ago.” Well, color me surprised when I looked back into the ol’ blog archives and discovered that my first trip to Seattle was just about five and a half years ago. Sigh. Insert cliché about the passage of time here.

If I visited Plum more than five years ago, I probably received its owner’s cookbook just a year or two later. My brother Ian gave me Plum: Gratifying Vegan Dishes from Seattle’s Plum Bistro for Christmas one year, since he and his girlfriend brought me to the restaurant in the first place. It’s a gorgeous book, and I’ve leafed through it admiringly more than once. But I have to admit that I rarely cooked from it… making it a perfect choice for my June cookbook challenge! I was excited to give Makini Howell’s creative recipes a fair shake. Here’s how it went down.

Recipes from Plum: Gratifying Vegan Dishes from Seattle’s Plum Bistro

Eager to hit up our local farmers market when it opened in early June, I selected the leaf-free Avocado Salad with Seitan Bites (p. 36) for a Saturday lunch. Cucumbers, red onions, tomatoes (I used cherry since the big slicers weren’t in season yet), and avocado jump in a bowl with seitan chunks and a simple dressing to make a shockingly filling dish. (We used Upton’s seitan, but you could surely use homemade.) The salad was quite tasty, if surprisingly heavy: The dressing calls for 1/2 cup of oil! I reduced it by half(ish) and still felt it was a little bit much. We had quite a bit of salad left over after lunch, but unfortunately it didn’t keep well; everything kind of lost its liquid so that the leftovers I brought to work the following Monday included browning avocado chunks swimming in dressing, tomato juice, and who knows what else. It was, frankly, unappealing. I opted for a sandwich from a local shop instead and foisted the leftovers on Steven, who has a mercifully less picky palate. Overall, though, I really liked this idea; I would never have put together these ingredients. Seitan in a salad?! Madness. But it works. I’d like to play with this concept, lightening up the dressing and maybe adding some arugula for bite and a little extra nutrition.

You’ve had barbecue jackfruit, barbecue seitan, barbecue lentils (just me?). But now, enter barbecue mushrooms! In Howell’s Barbecue Oyster Mushroom Sliders with Pickled Onions (p. 62). recipe, meaty oyster mushrooms get sautéed with garlic in barbecue sauce, then nestled in burger buns with a scoop of barbecue-infused mayo and a forkful of pickled red onions. I opted for regular buns instead of sliders and used the barbecue sauce recipe from The Homemade Vegan Pantry. I really enjoyed this new take on a pulled pork-esque sandwich. I’m excited to play around with oyster mushrooms in other recipes, too. My only quibble? They were a little oily, even though I reduced the 1/4 cup called for. Howell’s recipes are rich!

Although a classic corn chowder was a semi-regular dish on my family’s dinner rotation while I was growing up, I was never a fan. Something about the sweetness and creaminess of the dish was anathema to me. So when I saw the recipe for Creamy Millet Corn Chowder (p. 41) — an elevated take on the classic dish, made hearty with the addition of millet — I knew the time had come to try corn chowder again, this time as an adult with a more appreciative palate. Steven put this one together one evening, and as he got ready to serve the finished product, he gave it a taste. From the living room, I heard him curse. Alas, the single jalapeño rendered the chowder surprisingly spicy, overpowering any nuance of flavor. It was certainly edible, but not ideal. Still, this updated chowder was a definite improvement on the chowders of my youth, and I’d love to make it again without the jalapeño. (I should note that the leftovers were less spicy, although they soaked up all the liquid and turned into more of a chowder-y mashed potato dish than a stew. Not that I was complaining; it was quite good!)

Although I have no objections to seitan, I really don’t cook with it all that often. The store-bought variety is pricy, but if you want to make it at home for a specific recipe, you need to plan ahead. Yet two out of the four recipes we tried from Plum were seitan-based! True to its name, the Oregano and Parsley Grilled Seitan Steaks (p. 81) require you to marinate juicy seitan steaks in a slurry of oregano, parsley, red wine vinegar, and other spices to give them a nice fresh kick. I used the seitan recipe from It Doesn’t Taste Like Chicken, which was really juicy and toothsome. After steaming the steaks per Sam’s instructions, I switched over to the Plum marinade and let the steaks soak up those flavors overnight in the fridge . Then they just needed a little time on a cast-iron pan to heat up. (Alas, I have no grill handy.) I served them along with millet and kale for a super filling dinner. I enjoyed the herby marinade as well. We have oodles of oregano out back, so I appreciated the chance to use lots of it up at once.

Overall thoughts on Plum: Gratifying Vegan Dishes from Seattle’s Plum Bistro

Aesthetically, Plum scores plenty of points. I appreciate that although it’s a hard cover, it has no dust jacket; they seem impractical for cookbooks. The design is relatively simple yet elegant, with a fair amount of photos sprinkled throughout the recipes. Charity Burggraaf’s photographs are thoughtfully composed, with just enough style to avoid coming off as forcedly rustic.

And the recipes themselves? So creative. Makini Howell has a masterful understanding of flavor, and she combines ingredients in surprising ways to create both fresh takes on familiar recipes and inspiring new dishes. Although I didn’t make too many recipes from this book, the ones I tried were memorable. Yet the fact that I didn’t burn through these recipes is telling: This is not a book for the casual cook just hoping to get a quick dinner on the table. The recipes aren’t exactly pantry-friendly; rather, they require you to plan in advance and shop for ingredients with care. Once I put my finger on that nuance, I understood why Plum sits on my cookbook shelf without getting frequent use, and now I know exactly when to bust it out: When I’m planning a dinner party or other gathering and want to wow my diners with inspiring, gratifying vegan food.

The verdict? Plum is a worthy addition to your cookbook collection, but not a necessity. Best for advanced home cooks who want to experiment with new flavors or who have dinner guests to impress.

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Small-Bite Sundays: June 3, 2018

June 3, 2018 / Kelly / 2 Comments

A year ago today, I was nervously setting off on my first wholly solo travel experience to the Netherlands and Belgium. It was just a few days after Luna had passed, and I had no idea how I would feel during the trip. I ended up being so, so glad I hadn’t backed out; it was the perfect time to get away from home and to distract myself with all that Amsterdam and Bruges had to offer. It also confirmed a fact I’d long suspected, but hadn’t had enough solo travel time to confirm: I am my own #1 travel partner. No disrespect to the many family members and friends I’ve travelled with, but I freaking love my own company! As if I needed more confirmation that I am an introvert through and through. (Steven, for the record, is my #2 travel partner. He’s also an introvert. We can feel alone even when we’re together.)

I haven’t got any solo travel plans this year… yet. I’m always on the lookout for cheap flights, and I’d love to book something for Labor Day weekend. I have managed to get a little traveling in during the first half of the year, though; I went to New Orleans with a couple friends (loved it!), spent five days in Kansas City for work (a surprisingly neat city), and went to Chicago for a quick weekend trip to visit some friends and meet their baby (<3 Chicago, and the baby was pretty cool too). I’ll be in Rhode Island next weekend to hang out with family members visiting from across the country (and meet another baby), and then I’ll be in South India for two weeks in July to celebrate my brother’s wedding. I’m counting down the days ’til this trip, although it’s going to be wholly different from the aforementioned solo travel experience: We’re going with my immediate family, various partners, and my cousin, and we’ll be traveling together for most of the time… not to mention attending the wedding ceremony/reception and various events with my sister-in-law’s family. Lots of socializing, basically. Gonna have to carve out some introvert recharge time!

Anyway, on to the small bites for this weekend.

Food52 has been publishing some really lovely pieces lately, including this sweet little story of a fig tree cutting that traveled from Sardinia to Dallas and helped the author’s two sets of grandparents bridge a linguistic divide. Valerio Farris’ description of eating a juicy, swollen fig makes me wish I liked the fruit!

A thoughtful analysis of Solo, the new Star Wars movie that gives us — at long last — Han’s back story. I’m not sure I agree with every point here, but it does help explain why the film felt a bit flat. Which is not to say I didn’t enjoy it; it was entertaining enough. But it didn’t feel like a real Star Wars movie in the way The Force Awakens did, and it’s certainly nowhere near as solid as Rogue One. The frenetic pace, unnecessary subplots, and quick tour through lots of locations with no chance to get to know them were just a few reasons I disliked The Last Jedi, and unfortunately Solo has similar issues.

I’m a newcomer to Jack Monroe’s work, but I enjoyed this piece on the privilege inherent in going vegan and the damage the so-called “militant vegan” can do for folks who are curious about plant-based eating. While I personally find it very difficult to understand self-professed “animal lovers” who eat meat, and I have a negative gut reaction to someone who eats vegan 90% of the time yet consume the occasional meat or animal product, I also know that someone eating vegan 90% of the time is someone who is drastically cutting down her consumption of animal products… and isn’t that what we all want? There are entire books to be written on the tired debate about the labels we use and what “plant-based” vs. “vegan” means and whether a “part-time vegan” can actually exist (*eye twitch*), but overall I think we need a hefty dose of both pragmatism and empathy in this movement. Jack’s piece speaks to that need.

Small bites: to watch

The Office, as usual! I just discovered that Michael Scott and I share a birthday. I can’t believe I didn’t realize that until now.

Small bites: to eat

I’m not one to eschew rice for any reason, but I am one to eat cauliflower as often as I can get it! Therefore, this cauliflower rice kitchari from Minimalist Baker sounds excessively tempting.

Spoiler: We’re cooking through Plum: Gratifying Vegan Dishes from Seattle’s Plum Bistro for our June cookbook challenge, and yesterday I put together a seitan, avocado, cucumber, and tomato salad that was shockingly filling — and tasty. Our first recipe from the book was less successful, so I was glad the salad was satisfying!

I am (quite literally) salivating at this strawberry margarita pie, featuring cashews and lots of coconut. The perfect summer dessert?!

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Aaand that’s all I’ve got for you today. Let me know if you’ve read/watched/eaten anything of note lately!

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A Year Without Luna

May 31, 2018June 1, 2018 / Kelly / 8 Comments

Today Luna has been gone for a year. I can’t say it or think it without a little catch in my throat, still. A year without getting to pet — ever so gently — her bony little back, feeling the knobby rises of her spine and the strange, hairless plane of her hips. Seeing her increasingly bare, almost scaly tail and feeling both immensely protective and just a little repulsed. Hearing her coughs and hacks and those surprising rare sharp barks. Cleaning her mukes, even. Staring into her unblinking, too-large eyes and feeling such a rush of tenderness.

I can look at photos of her just fine, usually. Yes, they fill me with a bittersweet sharp longing, but seeing her face is better than the alternative. I can even watch the videos, watch her perform her bizarre roll on the rug to scratch that bony back. I can engage in a staring contest with past-Luna that I know ends when she gulps and looks away. Remembering her spirit, the idiosyncrasies of her movements, is better than the alternative.

But what I can’t handle is thinking about the day she died. I watched a documentary recently and suddenly, without warning, there was a euthanasia scene. All of it, down to the dog’s tongue lolling on the table when it was over. It hit me so hard.

Because what haunts me now, one big reason my throat catches when I think of her, is the fear that we made the wrong decision. That we could have saved her. It all happened so fast — she was swaying on her feet, we took her to the emergency vet, the vet delivered the news, we had to make a decision. Her kidneys were failing and they didn’t know why. She was septic and wasn’t responding to fluids. They could have admitted her and put her on an aggressive treatment plan for the sepsis, but even if she had come through that (which was unlikely), there were still her failing kidneys to deal with. Given that fact, given her other ailments, I asked the vet, “Are you saying we should euthanize her?” Not unkindly, the vet told us that was probably the best thing we could do for her.

But of course now I wonder, could they have treated the sepsis? Could she have gotten more time out of those kidneys? Did we do wrong by her? She was so tough. She fought through everything else; why not this? We could afford it. It wasn’t about the monetary cost.

One of my last photos of Tunie.

In the moment, though, here is what we pictured. We imagined her getting admitted for sepsis treatment and being confined to a crate. We imagined her hooked up to IVs and monitors, getting blood draws and injections. We imagined her not making it through the sepsis. We imagined her in unrelieved pain, dying alone in a cold crate at the emergency vet. Without comfort. Without us.

And that, I know, would have been unbearable. For her and for us. More unbearable than this continued worry that I still have, that maybe we didn’t make the “right” choice. I didn’t want her to die alone, in pain, without her people.

So instead she died with us, literally in our arms, swaddled in a blanket and placed on a pillow like the princess she was. My little baby. She was out of it, but she recognized us. I want to imagine that seeing us was a comfort, that she slipped away feeling a measure of relief. That she felt our love, not our worry or our guilt or our pain.

It was about the incalculable, unmeasurable, indefinable cost of her comfort. We all throw around the term “quality of life” in discussions like this but I don’t know how to define it. Maybe she had kidney disease. Maybe kidney disease wouldn’t have been so bad. Or would it? My childhood chihuahua died from it, a long, slow, drawn-out disengagement with the world that ended with her slipping away in my sister’s bed. Was that our alternative? Fighting the sepsis, stabilizing her, bringing her home, giving her comfort until her organs, finally, gave out? Would a death at home have been “better” for her than one at the emergency vet, wrapped up and bathed in our tears?

Of course there is no “right” answer here. Of course I say this with a secret and shameful desire for absolution, for compassionate people to tell me that we made the best decision for our girl so that she wouldn’t suffer. It’s what I would tell anyone, any friend, any person I cared about, anyone who told a similar story to me. And of course that doesn’t matter; we judge ourselves far more harshly than any loving friend or family member would.

Luna burrito

I don’t want to be haunted by these regrets. I don’t want them to color my memories of Luna, which are plentiful and sad and painful and happy and every other adjective. They are rich. She was so special. It’s difficult to articulate why, but if you met her, you felt it. Like many small dogs, her personality outstripped her size. But she had none of the swagger, the bluster, many small dogs seem to adopt. She was serene and accepting. Put her in a front pouch and carry her around that way for 30 minutes after she ate? No problem. She didn’t struggle. Wrap her up in a blanket burrito after a meal? No problem. (Though she did, occasionally, bust loose after a while.) Yet she was so strong. She didn’t bark or bare her teeth or growl often, but when she did, you had to back off. You knew she meant it. She didn’t show affection often, but when she did, you cherished it.

Her influence lingers. I know I am more patient because of her, because of the constant mukes we cleaned up, because of the recurring health problems we had to diagnose and treat. I know my patience isn’t perfect; the weekend before she died she was extra gurgly and I was so, so annoyed that I had to keep cleaning mukes off the sofa. I hope she knew my irritation was transient, that affection and love and a fierce protectiveness could overpower any negative emotions I felt toward her. I like to think she did.

A year later and I feel like I haven’t properly memorialized her, like I need to ink her into my skin to keep her with me. Instead, this. A reflection, a few words.

~~~

And a photo. It was uncanny how many people commented, upon meeting Luna, that she reminded them of an AT-AT. Even folks who weren’t Star Wars super fans would do a double-take then say, “She reminds me of something…” Inevitably, that something was an AT-AT. Especially when she started losing fur and all her angles came through. But it wasn’t just her looks. It was also the way she carried herself and the way she walked, sometimes.

So, for Christmas a few years back, I commissioned this amazing Etsy artist to make her into one for real. I had a couple prints made and gave one to Steven, framed, for Christmas. It’s too good not to share.

I did mention the painting, briefly, last year. But it deserves to be shared again. The print is up in our living room now, in a little memorial area with Luna’s tiny collar. (We used a cat collar on her, a little pink one with a bell.) I smile when I look at it.

Cookbook of the Month: Isa Does It

May 30, 2018July 15, 2020 / Kelly / 8 Comments

When fellow blogger Jenny Marie suggested a monthly cookbook challenge earlier this year, I was immediately into the concept. I’m not the worst offender when it comes to ignoring my cookbooks, but I could certainly use a little kick in the pants to crack them open more often. Yet because Steven was still doing most of the cooking, I didn’t participate right away — I didn’t want to impose a challenge on his cooking or place any limitations on his meal-planning.

But then, a couple weeks ago, Steven mentioned that he was feeling frazzled by his solo dinner prep duties. Not by the cooking itself, but by the meal-planning. What timing! I happily volunteered to take over, recognizing it as a perfect opportunity to join this cookbook challenge. Now we’ve reached what I think is a really lovely equilibrium, and perhaps one that will work in the long term: I meal plan on the weekends (usually for just three to four meals, because we typically have a leftovers and/or fend-for-yourself nights every so often) and make the shopping list, one of us does the shopping, and then we jointly tackle the weeknight cooking. Although Steven still does the majority of it, we’ve found a great compromise that gets me back in the kitchen without overwhelming me: Since Steven works from home, he can do some prep during the day (chopping veggies, measuring ingredients, generally getting the mise en place ready), then one of us can just put it all together when I’m home after work. It makes everything SO much easier, especially for me. If we keep up with an arrangement like this, I hope to never experience that horrible cooking burnout again.

But I digress. Back to the cookbook challenge! This May, I opted for a criminally neglected book on my shelf: Isa Does It. Gifted to me by Steven’s mom a year or so ago, I flipped through it upon receipt, dog-eared a few pages, and then… really didn’t cook from it much at all. Given my belief that Isa can do no wrong, I had to rectify that mistake. So! Together, over the month of May, Steven and I cooked the hell out of this book so that I could write up a long-overdue review of Isa Does It. (Incidentally, Jenny highlighted the very same book back in February; check out her post for even more recipe reviews.)

Recipes from Isa Does It

For years I assumed all cheesy broccoli soups were just variations on a slightly boring theme. Tasty enough, and definitely something I’d whip up occasionally, but not a recipe I’d seek out. But Isa’s Cheddary Broccoli Soup (p. 53) proved me wrong in a major[ly delicious] way! Whereas I tend to add almond milk to my ad hoc broccoli soups, Isa relies on cashew cream to great effect. We blended this one just enough to destroy any big veggie chunks while still leaving lots of texture. It made a marvelously satisfying meal served alongside sourdough chive biscuits. (And yes, I did top my soup with sprouts in direct replication of the photo in the book because I am unoriginal. 10/10 would sprout-top again.)

A tipsy bake while I was home alone one weekend night (hold your tongue), the Chai Spice Snickerdoodles (p. 276) proved a simple and satisfying treat. A relatively straightforward sugar cookie dough gets rolled in a bath of flavorful spices, including cardamom, ginger, cinnamon, and cloves. Easy to make and easy to eat.

I think chickpeas might well be one of my top five ingredients. I’ll eat them in anything! They work especially well in the simple, satisfying Chickpea-Rice Soup with Cabbage (p. 32), where they’re paired with cabbage (as mentioned), carrots, and just a few seasonings (think thyme and dill). Isa describes this chunky, hearty style of soup as “babushka-style,” and I know exactly what she means. It hits the spot. It especially hit the spot when I came down with a cold over Memorial Day weekend (…) and needed something simple to soothe my throat. Steven suggested using wild rice instead of the jasmine rice recommended in the recipe, and it was a good decision: The wild rice provided a nice toothsome element. I paired my soup with some rye crispbreads and was quite satisfied with the choice. (I will note that there was an element of this soup that hit my palate the wrong way. Nothing overpowering, and I can’t put my finger on what it was exactly, but something to note. I’ll play around with the spices next time I make it.)

One reason I am so into the cookbook challenge concept is that it forces me to dig deeper into a cookbook rather than simply preparing recipes that jump out at me upon first thumb-through. For example, the Curried Peanut Sauce Bowl with Tofu & Kale (p. 199). Now, we make bowls like this on a near-weekly basis, and I would usually never think to use a recipe for the sauce. But because I had already exhausted my top choices from Isa Does It a couple weeks into May, I started choosing recipes I might otherwise have ignored. And that was a good thing! This curried peanut sauce is solid, even if Steven and I had a minor communication breakdown while preparing it. But the sauce withstood my skipping a few steps and turned out just fine. Otherwise, this bowl is just rice and tofu and kale, which is a classic combination that needs no elaboration.

After a painfully long and lingering winter, we skipped spring and jumped into summer (for a while, at least) in early May. Temperatures jumped into the upper 80s/low 90s, and what did I decide to make? Stew. Dilly Stew with Rosemary Dumplings (p. 151), more specifically. This was one recipe where Steven did the chopping and measuring prep during the day, and then I put it all together after work. I highly recommend that approach, if possible, because this isn’t the quickest recipe: It takes a while for the stew components (namely celery, garlic, carrots, and Yukon Gold potatoes) to cook through, and then you add the rosemary dumplings and let them simmer for another 15 or so minutes. The long lead time is worth it though; we both loved this recipe, even though we were eating it in the middle of a heat wave, and even though the dumplings never really cooked through. Whatever; they still tasted fine! This was not an appealing-looking dish, however… hence the lack of photos. But it’s tasty AF. Make it.

Alas, a (minor) dud: the Farro & Fennel Salad with Oranges (p. 70). Incorporating roasted fennel, chilled farro, arugula, orange segments, and toasted walnuts all tossed in an orange vinaigrette, this salad unfortunately did not impress us. Perhaps the proportions were slightly off, but the dressing was barely noticeable — only the orange segments provided any real orange flavor. (Admittedly, I did reduce the red wine vinaigrette ever so slightly. I DON’T LIKE VINEGAR; SUE ME.) And although the fennel was lovely and flavorful right out of the oven, it seemed to lose flavor when it hopped into the salad bowl with the other ingredients. The toasted walnuts and orange segments, on the other hand, did provide a lovely textural contrast and burst of flavor. We made this recipe in tandem, with Steven getting the fennel into the oven to roast, getting the tofu a-marinating (see below), and toasting the walnuts before I got home from work. I then took over and finished up from there, making the vinaigrette, slicing the roasted fennel, baking the tofu, and assembling the whole shebang. We served our salad alongside the Classic Baked Tofu (p. 238) because I wanted to make it a more a filling meal. While I am typically wont to throw together my own mish-mash marinade of an evening, I decided to give Isa’s a try because it’s always nice to jazz up your marinade game. Unfortunately, we both found it overwhelmingly salty. Steven did admit to dumping in a bit more Bragg’s than the recipe required in order to finish up our bottle, but even accounting for his addition this was far too salty. Umami overload!

Isa’s Puffy Pillow Pancake (p. 253) recipe is also available in Vegan Brunch, Vegan with a Vengeance, and online, but you can’t fault her for quadruple-dipping this one: It’s a solid pancake recipe to keep in your arsenal for Sunday mornings. I’ve made these pancakes prior to this cookbook challenge and will make them afterward as well. They are fluffy, puffy, and just sweet enough. You can’t go wrong.

I feel like nobody actually eats fava beans; we all just make “…and a nice Chianti” jokes about them. Well. I am here to tell you that I will now add fava beans to my regular bean rotation. I just adore their obscene size and nice toothsome bite! They play a starring role in the Lemon-Garlic Fava Beans & Mushrooms (p. 152) alongside chopped mushrooms and a garlicky sauce, which gets reduced and turns into a sort of gravy with the addition of breadcrumbs (!) and time. I thought this was a smart and unexpected dish, although Steven was not as thrilled with the favas as I was. (He didn’t care for their somewhat tough skins.) We paired the beans with Garlicky Thyme Tempeh (p. 236), a solid preparation for this oft-overlooked protein. (No fresh thyme? No worries. We used dried and it was fine.)

Time to get our summer burger-makin’ on! I chose the Island Black Bean Burgers (p. 90) as our first homemade veggie burgers of the year. Featuring both black-eyed peas and black beans, this is an all-around solid bean-based burger. Note that it doesn’t hold together particularly well, so if you are the type of vegan who grumbles when your burger crumbles, you may want to augment the recipe with an additional binder. But the flavors were quite nice, especially when topped with the accompanying Nectarine Salsa (p. 90). We opted for mangoes instead of nectarines since I don’t care for out-of-season stone fruit, and it was an excellent substitution.

I have never been much of a raisin fan, especially in cookies. Give me chocolate chips over raisins any day! But you know what? I now (partially) understand the appeal of these wrinkly buggers, and I get why oatmeal-raisin cookies are a thing. That’s thanks to the Jumbo Oatmeal-Raisin Cookies (p. 275), a recipe I made twice during the month. Yes, I had to dig out an expired bag of raisins from deep within the pantry, but they still couldn’t diminish the deliciousness of these cookies! They’re everything I want in an oatmeal cookie: texturally diverse and sweet with just a little cinnamon spiciness. They’ve also got that buttery, melt-in-your-mouth smoothness that makes them go down easy. I also love that this recipe uses both oil and applesauce; it made me feel slightly better about chomping on two of them for breakfast one day at work when I’d run out of healthier options! :D The only issue? They were a little crumbly and might benefit from a little more ground flax. I might also reduce the sugar next time I make them; they were verging on too sweet for me!

I’m not quite sure why, but I never think to make chocolate cookies. Maybe I assume they won’t taste chocolatey enough, so I might as well eat straight-up chocolate instead? Regardless, after the massive success of the oatmeal cookies, I decided to try the Kitchen Sink Chocolate Cookies (p. 278) as well. In my attempt to be faithful to Isa’s recipes as written, I quashed my growing alarm as I poured mix-in after mix-in into the bowl. The result? A cookie dough positively exploding with raisins, chocolate chips, and peanuts. This is an unruly dough; as I tried to corral spoonsful onto the baking pan, I had to fight chocolate chips and peanuts that wanted to pop out every which way. I was worried there wouldn’t be enough actual dough to rein in all the mix-ins once baked, but luckily they stayed together fairly well after about 12 minutes in the oven. That said, I would likely reduce the amount of mix-ins to 1/3 cup each rather than 1/2 cup, and I’d roughly chop the peanuts as well. Steven also didn’t care for the raisins in this cookie; I could take them or leave them. Overall, a cookie that was surprisingly chocolatey, yet not quite as satisfying as the oatmeal cookies. Ah well.

My go-to banana bread is the lower fat version from Veganomicon, but I was excited to mix things up and try the Marbled Banana Bread (p. 268) from Isa Does It. I wish I had a photo of the bread after I baked it, but you’ll just have to settle for the before shot to get a sense of how visually appealing this quick bread is. And guess what? It tastes as wonderful as it looks! I whipped this up the night before Mother’s Day, and Steven brought it over for brunch. (I, alas, was en route to Kansas City for a work obligation and only got to try a butt-end piece.) He reports that his mom loved it! And who wouldn’t. It’s chocolate bread! I also tried to make this again for a Memorial Day weekend cookout, but I was in a cold-induced haze and screwed up the recipe. I won’t bore you with the details of my mistake, but suffice it to say that you do, in fact, need to split the six tablespoons of boiling water between the two batters, and you should not, in fact, add more water to compensate (!?!) unless you want a stodgy bread that will never cook through. Sigh.

Isa describes the Quinoa Caesar Salad (p. 61) as a bit much for weeknight cookin’, and she’s not wrong. The recipe itself isn’t too complex — it’s a salad, for crying out loud! — but it does have quite a few components. There’s quinoa, marinated tempeh “croutons,” and a homemade cashew-based Briny Caesar Dressing (p. 62) that incorporates a head of roasted garlic. Yet Steven managed to pull it all together on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend, giving us a nice healthy start to our holiday. I would’ve helped, but alas — the aforementioned spring cold had me feeling a bit run-down. The verdict? This is a solid salad. It will fill you up thanks to all those proteins (quinoa, tempeh, cashew dressing) and nice healthy fats (avocado!). However, we do recommend omitting the raw garlic in the dressing; it added a slightly unpleasant bitter tang and overpowered the briny flavor that should’ve come from 1/4 cup of capers. Steven upped the arugula to counteract the dressing, and that helped. (Yes, this caesar salad includes arugula, but don’t worry… it also calls for romaine for all you purists!) He also recommends reducing the Bragg’s in the tempeh marinade, as it was quite salty.

We made the Sweet and Sour Brown Rice Salad (p. 78) during that early May heat wave, and it was a much more seasonally appropriate choice than stew! I made both the rice and the sweet chili sauce over the weekend, and then Steven assembled it all before I got home from work one day. This chilled salad features adzuki beans (we subbed small pink kidney beans), mung bean sprouts, peanuts, scallions, and LOTS of fresh mint and cilantro, dousing them all in a sweet and sour chili sauce. Interestingly, I halved the sauce recipe — intending to halve the entire recipe — but Steven missed my cryptic note on our meal-planning notepad and prepared the rest of the salad to full proportions. It still worked, and I almost think the full amount of sauce would’ve been overkill. It could’ve used some additional lime juice, however, because the sour aspect was not noticeable in the sauce.

Technically we didn’t make the Smoky Incan Stew (p. 165) during May, but it’s a recipe Steven has put on our roster of favorites because it is fantastic! Quinoa, sweet potatoes, black beans, corn, and tomatoes comprise the bulk of the stew, and they’re dressed up with lots of smoky spiciness from chipotle peppers in adobo and a hefty sprinkling of cilantro. Although I have to give the “Incan” adjective in the recipe title a bit of side-eye, this is a winner. The recipe produces a ton, making it a great bulk cook for lunches and leftovers.
Unlike Isa — who admits as much in the headnotes to her Tabbouleh of the Sea (p. 74) recipe — I quite like traditional tabbouleh. Therefore, I don’t exactly need a flavorful spin on the dish to render it palatable. In fact, if I consider this recipe against traditional tabbouleh, it falls short: I prefer the standard recipe to Isa’s take, which subs whole wheat couscous in place of the traditional bulgur wheat and adds smushed chickpeas and capers for a briny take on the dish. Best to consider the recipe as something separate, with “tabbouleh” removed from the title. Do that, and the dish comes into its own as something wholly unique and quite satisfying, with the capers adding a lovely little briny bite. Maybe not my absolute favorite from the book, but definitely a dish I’d make during the summer for easy cool lunches and leftovers. It’d also hold and transport well, making it an excellent candidate for picnicking. I particularly want to make this one again so I can use my own home-grown tomatoes and cucumbers; we had to rely on store-bought tomatoes for this one, and they were just sad. I typically avoid tomatoes during the winter, but I wanted to follow the recipe closely for accurate judgment. Since it was May when we made this, and Steven chose some lumpy, heirloom-y tomatoes that seemed vaguely promising, we had high hopes, but, alas, they were bland and flavorless. I’m holding out for home-grown! (On that note, you should give the Go Vegga Instagram feed a look for garden-y goodness! This year, I’m documenting my rough-and-tumble garden for your viewing pleasure.)

Overall thoughts on Isa Does It

This is a gorgeous, hefty hardcover! I love the full-color matte photos, which are plentiful and inspiring. For the most part they seem true to the recipe, although Isa specifically recommends making the dilly stew in a cast-iron Dutch oven yet shows the recipe in a cast-iron sauté pan (with FAR FEWER than the estimated 14 dumplings the recipe makes!). The instructions read clearly, and the headnotes have that signature Isa voice. Vegan with a Vengeance was my first-ever vegan cookbook, and I love how Isa’s tone hasn’t changed too much since then.

I also really appreciate Make Ahead tips sprinkled throughout the recipes. I’m usually pretty well able to plan out my cooking steps in a time-efficient way, but I still like seeing time-management suggestions provided for me.

Looking back, I’m actually quite impressed that we cooked so much from this book, especially since I was out of town on a business trip for five days, and then we were in Chicago together for a weekend! I guess it helps when you use it as your single source while meal-planning. :D

The verdict? Isa Does It is a winner! What are your favorite recipes from this one?

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Vegan Travel: An All-Vegan Cruise in Norway

April 23, 2018September 5, 2018 / Kelly / 8 Comments

A little over six months ago, Steven and I were drinking our weight in vegan Irish coffees, gorging ourselves on all-you-can-eat vegan food, and enjoying some of the most breathtaking scenery I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing.

We also happened to be on a cruise.

Which, if you know me, may seem like an odd choice. For one, I’m a bit of a control ~~freak~~ enthusiast when it comes to traveling, preferring to make my own plans and set my own schedule. (And, as an introvert, I prefer to spend a decent amount of that schedule alone!) Plus, I’m frugal. “All-inclusive” and “luxury” are not exactly in my personal travel vocabulary. And finally, I’m leery of the environmental effects of cruises and of their less-than-savory reputation when it comes to how they treat their employees.

So why, then, did Steven and I put down a big chunk o’ change to spend a week WITH OTHER PEOPLE on a CRUISE SHIP that was essentially ALL-INCLUSIVE?!

Well, friends, we were on an all-vegan cruise, where we could stuff as much vegan food as we wanted down our gullets before spending our days immersed in pristine, gorgeous nature. Curious? I don’t blame you. Settle in, because I’ve got a LOT to say about this experience — all completely candid, of course.

What is a vegan cruise? Who operates them? Why would I want to join one?!

The first time I heard about Vegan River Cruises (aka Vegan Travel), a German company that organizes all-veg cruises throughout Europe, my ears perked right on up. (Or rather, my eyes bulged — I’m pretty sure I saw it on Reddit first!) I’d always been more interested in the concept of river cruising than ocean cruising, because the boats are smaller, newer, and more eco-friendly, and I loved the idea of seeing European cities from a new perspective. But I’ve always hesitated when it comes to all-inclusives (including cruises) because I don’t want to miss out on the food. Sure, the kitchen might be able to churn out a vegan meal each night, and yeah, you might have access to a salad bar, butttt… let’s be honest. That is NOT the equivalent of the buffets and smorgasbords that characterize most cruises. I would be a grumpy vegan if I had to watch people stuffing their faces 24/7 while I twiddled my thumbs and counted down the hours till dinner. So, when I realized that literally ALL THE FOOD on the VRC ships would be vegan, I was instantly tempted. And when I learned that all toiletries on these cruises are also vegan and cruelty-free, I put another tick in the “SIGN ME UP NOW” column.

Let me backtrack for a second, because it’s important to understand exactly what Vegan River Cruises does. The company itself does not operate or sail ships. Instead, they make arrangements with existing cruise companies to run one-off all-vegan sailings, typically on the company’s existing routes. The boats are still captained and serviced by their regular staff, but behind the scenes, the folks at Vegan River Cruises work super hard to make sure everything is vegan. Well in advance of the trip, they work with chefs — often bringing in an advisor or consultant — to help veganize existing meals and dream up new veg options. They also recommend cruelty-free toiletry brands to stock the bathrooms and vegan vintners to stock the bars.

I’d been monitoring Vegan River Cruises’ upcoming journeys for a few months when I saw a new one pop up: their first-ever cruise of the Norwegian fjords. These majestic soaring mountains and their pristine waters had been on my must-visit list for a while, and I’d always heard that the best way to experience the fjords is by sailing through them. (That’s why many tour companies in Norway offer day-long sailing trips from popular ports.) So, we figured, why not make a week-long trip of it, hitting up quite a few of these picturesque ports and gorging ourselves on endless amounts of vegan food?

That’s just what we did. We booked our tickets in January 2017, and in September, we hopped a flight to London and prepared to set sail.

Are vegan cruises a good value?

This is definitely a “your mileage may vary” question! Compared to my typical vacation style, the cruise was definitely more expensive. (We did cut down on costs by booking round-trip tickets to London, from whence the cruise departed, on airline points.) We paid £1,249 each for our cabin, which had a really nice-sized window. (No balcony, but it was chilly anyway!) That’s roughly $1,700 a person with today’s exchange rate. (I’m wincing just thinking about that price. This was a splurge for us!) This price included seven nights of lodging and all our meals (including breakfast the day of departure) and averages out to about $250 per day per person. We stopped at four ports: Eidfjord, Flåm, Nordfjord, and Bergen. (We were scheduled to go to Geiranger rather than Nordfjord, but weather conditions prompted a change of plans.)

For a trip to Norway, this was a decent value… but that’s because Norway is notoriously expensive. In fact, the one day we had lunch off the ship at a cute place called Kaf in Bergen, we were pretty shocked at how much a relatively small — albeit delicious — meal cost: nearly $50 for both of us, including a drink for Steven. (Grainy photo at left!) Had we paid for lodgings, all our meals, and transportation to all the ports we visited in Norway without being super frugal, I have no doubt we would have spent nearly as much as our cruise cost. Plus, there’s the intangible benefit of not having to worry about finding food, booking lodgings, and arranging transportation… and I think that does count for something!

It’s worth noting that the smaller — and more traditional — river cruises tend to be less expensive. VRC just started advertising a December cruise of a few Christmas markets in Switzerland and Germany (!!!), and it’s actually quite reasonably priced; twin cabins start at just 499€ for five nights, and obviously that includes all your meals as well.

What does a vegan cruise include?

See above — a cabin and all your meals. You can also tack on a drinks package with unlimited beer, wine, and cocktails, but Steven and I did the math and realized we would have to drink quite a lot each day to make it worth our while. I know myself — and my desire to make every penny count — so I knew I might get a bit obsessive ensuring that our drinks package was worth it. Not wanting to force myself into drinking more than I might want/need (always a good strategy, eh?), we forewent the drinks package and just told ourselves we could splash out on drinks as desired. They were relatively inexpensive anyway, and we never felt deprived.

The cruise also includes all onboard entertainment… and yes, that did mean we had — gulp — a cruise director. He was exactly what you would expect, and he seemed a bit puzzled by the whole vegan thing, as evidenced by his embarrassing garbling of the word “quinoa” at one point. Come on, quinoa is like the least bizarre thing vegans eat! It’s mainstream now! Ahem. Other onboard entertainment was more targeted to the audience; Vegan River Cruises had booked the likes of Macca-B, Dr. Michael Greger, Joyce Tischler (of the Animal Legal Defense Fund), Gene Baur, and Tobias Leenaert (the Vegan Strategist). There were multiple talks and panel discussions each day, many of which were stimulating and inspiring.

So, other than drinks, what’s not included? Optional gratuities for cabin stewards, of course, although tipping culture is not as big a deal in Europe as it is in America. Transfers to and from the Tilbury port, which you could arrange on your own or pay to join a coach from Victoria Station. You will also need to pay for shore excursions, if you’d like. Steven and I researched each port and discovered that most of them had gorgeous hiking trails just literal steps from where our ship would dock, so we only ended up booking two days’ worth of excursions (we stopped at four ports total). As mentioned above, rough seas prompted a rejiggering of our itinerary and we didn’t end up stopping at one of the planned ports, so we got our money back for that. We also ended up canceling our second one because we loved the DIY approach: disembarking on our own time and choosing our own activities. (An absolutely gorgeous hike in Olden, Norway, gave us spectacular views… and a chance to see a few grazing cows. <3) We also independently booked tickets on the Flåm Railway, an absolute must-do. We could’ve booked them through the cruise, but it was less expensive to just do it ourselves! On that day, we rode the railway up to its highest point, turned around, then got off a few stops later and hiked down the mountain ourselves, along with some newfound vegan friends who wanted to do the same thing. It was a great decision: We were almost entirely alone in the middle of towering forested mountains, passed by the occasional blur of a biker whizzing downhill.

I feel pretty good about our choice not to opt for any excursions. While I’m sure some of them were really neat, and they gave you the chance to go a bit further afield, our hike-heavy independent excursions satisfied me just fine.

What kind of people go on a vegan cruise?

You probably know the stereotype: Only wealthy elderly folks take European river cruises! That was not the case on our vegan cruise. We had quite the mix of folks of all ages, from hippie families with young kids to a seventy-plus-year-old grandma who had raised all her kids vegan (and without ever going to see a doctor, butttt that’s another story entirely). I would guess that the average guest was middle-aged, probably white, and probably vegan for health reasons. Which leads me to my next point…

What types of vegans go on a vegan cruise?

Oh, I was so ready to indulge in a favorite habit on this trip: people watching! I was incredibly curious about the kinds of vegans who’d take this trip… and they were all over the map. There was the 20-something Dutch couple we chatted with at dinner, comprised of a vegan nutritionist and her not-quite-vegan partner who was gamely enjoying his animal-free dining experience. There was the middle-aged Liverpudlian couple we sat with during another dinner, chatting about vegan food in Liverpool and their (extensive!) travels throughout the United States. There were lots of Brits, since the cruise left from London, and many Europeans. We met some Americans at Tilbury Port — from Alabama, of all places — and they told us this was just one of many trips they’d taken with Vegan River Cruises.

Anecdotally, it seemed that many, if not most, of the guests were vegan for health reasons. Which is not to say that they didn’t also care about the ethics, but it seemed that many guests were relatively new vegans who’d been inspired by Forks Over Knives or similar documentaries. In my extensive observations (ahem) of the guests, I noted that many seemed ready to buy in to the most outlandish, non-scientifically-valid theories, i.e. the idea that veganism is a panacea. I personally find settings like this uncomfortable and off-putting, where the general attitude is that veganism is the One True Diet and that it will Cure All Your Woes, and people indulge in a sort of cultish celebration of their superior life choices. I heard a fair few people complain that the food (more on that below) was too unhealthy, with too much fat, sugar, and “processed” ingredients. To which I say: SHUT YOUR TRAP AND LET ME STUFF MY FACE. IS INDULGENCE NOT THE ENTIRE POINT OF A CRUISE?!

…so, overall, there was some anti-science bullshit that turned me off, yes. But on the flip side, there were plenty of animal welfare-driven, more old-school vegans to balance it out. Plus hearing from folks like Joyce Tischler and Gene Baur — people who have dedicated their lives to protecting animals in one way or another — was a wonderful experience and a humbling reminder of why I’m vegan.

What is the food like on a vegan cruise?

The million-dollar question, right?! The food on our cruise was best described as hit or miss. There were some really delicious dishes — especially the sweets! — and some that fell flat, occasionally because they were bland and occasionally because they didn’t seem coherent. For example, every morning, the breakfast buffet included a tofu bacon/sausage (really not sure which) that was more or less a stick of tofu, marinated in something extremely salty, then dehydrated (?!?) till it was incredibly dry. Not chewy or toothsome, just dry as a bone. I kept taking one for breakfast because I thought they would improve their cooking method, but no — it was always the same dry stick of tofu. Bizarre.

Vegan afternoon tea on a vegan Norwegian ocean cruise

On the other hand, I loved nearly all their afternoon tea selections! The tea buffet always included a mix of savory and sweet, with little finger sandwiches, scones, biscuits, and other lovelies — along with vegan cream for topping. Mmmm. There was an almond scone that I particularly enjoyed. And because everything was bite-sized, I could really fill up my plate and try them all!

Like most cruise ships, this one offered either a buffet or a sit-down restaurant experience for dinner. We availed ourselves of the sit-down option twice, and found it wildly erratic. My first main dish was a seitan-based stew that was, not to mince words, pretty gross: The seitan was far too spongy and the broth lacked flavor. It was, quite frankly, difficult to finish this dish.

The buffet was a safer bet, because there were always dozens of options — everything from a massive salad bar to multiple hot mains. One winner was a whole-grain risotto, which I’d never even thought of trying. I want to recreate it at home! The buffet was available for all three daily meals (plus afternoon tea), or you could custom-order something at the outdoor junk food bar (my words), like a pizza, hot dog, or hamburger. I only ever got a veggie burger once, but I enjoyed it — it was nice and soft and veggie-filled. Overall, the buffet had something to offer any style of eater, and I never ever left hungry.

Two anecdotes: First, this ship did a great job of labeling what was oil-free (thanks for that, One True Diet vegans!) but was horrendous when it came to labeling anything that contained nuts! Are nut allergies just not a big deal in Europe?! I kept thinking about my sister — who is extremely allergic to cashews, walnuts, peanuts, and other nuts — and what she’d do on a cruise like this, when nothing was labeled but they were presumably using nuts in a fair few dishes. How exhausting to have to ask about each dish.

Second, something more positive: During breakfast on the latter half of the trip, I overheard a family sitting next to us chatting about the food. The dad had seemingly just realized everything was vegan, and was asking his daughters about it. “Yeah,” one of them said, “Do you not see all the signs?! It’s all vegan.” This was interesting for two reasons: One, because how on earth did they book an all-vegan cruise without realizing it?! (My hunch is that Cruise and Maritime Voyages, the operator for this particular cruise, had some extra cabins to sell close to sailing and offered them at a discount… perhaps without highlighting the vegan aspect. Yikes.) Two, if it took this family three to four days to figure out they hadn’t been eating animal products, the food must’ve been pretty “normal!” (…or maybe they were just unobservant. And considering that all the signage at embarkation included “SAIL AWAY THE VEGAN WAY” in massive lettering, in truth all signs point to blissful ignorance.)

What is the ship like on a vegan cruise?

Time to ‘fess up: My Norway cruise was not actually a river cruise; it was a true ocean cruise. In fact, it was Vegan River Cruises’ first-ever ocean cruise, and I admit I didn’t really digest what that meant until Steven and I were at Tilbury Port, just outside of London, staring at a honking, massive, legitimate cruise ship. We had seen the ship in pics but hadn’t appreciated how large it was until we saw it in person.It’s difficult to get a sense of scale in photos, y’know? If you’ve ever been on a traditional Caribbean cruise, it was just that type of ship. Ahem:

Honestly, I was a little disappointed… but I have only myself and my (willful?) ignorance to blame. I had been looking forward to seeing a smaller, more modern river cruise ship, but we were instead on a very large, very regular cruise ship.

And… it wasn’t great. The Columbus was built in 1987 (hey, just like me!) and it was showing its age (…I set myself up for this one…). Vegan River Cruises typically works with newer, smaller ships on their river cruises, and this one was not the norm. It felt dated, from the layout of the cabin to the overall decor. From what I’ve seen of the typical VRC ships, they make excellent and strategic use of space, so even a small cabin feels (relatively) spacious. Not that ours felt particularly cramped, but the overall style was just… bland. Dated. Plus, while newer ships are built with energy efficiency at top of mind, this one had one of those massive smokestacks that blasted out smoke into the otherwise pure Norwegian air. Not a pretty sight, and I cringed every time I saw it. That said, the ship had just that year been retrofitted and redone to meet new environmental standards, so presumably it’s about as good as a 30-plus-year-old ocean ship is going to get!

(On the related topic of working conditions, I have to admit that I didn’t investigate this as much as I should have — and I feel quite guilty about it. I know typical Caribbean cruise lines have pretty bad reputations, but I’ve always had the Pollyanna-ish assumption that European lines would not be so horrible, and that river cruises in particular would be much less stressful for staff. But this wasn’t a true river cruise, and this was a massive ship, so who the hell knows.)

What is the vegan cruise experience like, overall?

It’s actually a bit difficult to describe. For one, the entire experience was a little disorganized, on the part of the cruise line itself and on the part of Vegan River Cruises. The cruise line, for example, sent out horrendously incomplete and oblique emails beforehand, and it was painful to try to figure out how to book anything. Their website was a beast to navigate, a personal pet peeve. And the Vegan River Cruises staff seems quite small and overworked, so getting answers directly from them was also difficult. Many of us relied on a Facebook group to crowd-source answers, which is never what you want to have to do as you plan a wincingly expensive vacation.

That said, this was absolutely an amazing way to see Norway, and I so enjoyed the absolute indulgence of all my meals.

Should I go on a vegan cruise?

If you can lean in to a somewhat quirky and a little disorganized experience, go for it! If you enjoy VegFest-type experiences — and especially if you’re the type of person who attends lots of talks at VegFests — you would probably enjoy it! If you prize efficiency and getting the absolute best bang for your buck, maybe plan your own vacation, or opt for one of the company’s less expensive options.

I will note that although there were quite a few Americans on our trip, Europeans really get the better deal here. Most cruises are charged in euros (ours wasn’t because it departed out of London), so you won’t have to deal with the nasty exchange rate that we did. Plus, you won’t have to pay for transatlantic flights to get to your port! We also met a few people who booked their trips at the very last minute (as in, a week or two before departure!) and scored solid deals on their cabins, which you could probably not do as an American who would also need to book flights across the pond.

Personally, I would love to try a more traditional river cruise… and quite honestly, I’m seriously considering the Christmas markets one next December! I’ve been to Germany before, but I’d love the chance to tick Switzerland off my list. Plus, Steven and I had already batted around the idea of a Christmas market-focused holiday trip, and this could be a fun way to make that happen. Who’s in?!

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Disclaimer: This is a wholly candid and unprompted review! We paid for our vegan ocean cruise and have no affiliation with Vegan River Cruises.

Vegan-Friendly Restaurant Review: Barking Mad Café in Gaithersburg, Maryland

April 20, 2018April 20, 2018 / Kelly / 4 Comments

I’m not usually a burger person. Sure, I’ll order them every so often at veg restaurants if the mood hits, and there’s definitely an uptick in my patty consumption during the summer months, but in general I could take or leave them. When I do take them, I typically opt for a burger that’s more veggie than meaty.

At least that was the case until I tried my new favorite restaurant meal: the Beyond Burger, served with tempeh bacon, sautéed mushrooms, BBQ sauce, and all the veggie fixins on a big ol’ wheat brioche bun.

It might look like your average veggie burger, but oh. my. goodness. It is phenomenal, and I’ve eaten it an embarrassing number of times over the past few months. It’s juicy, sweet-and-savory, and full of so many delicious textures… and it’s served alongside my favorite style of french fries: skin-on, nearly shoestring, with just enough salt.

It certainly doesn’t hurt that the restaurant that serves this burger par excellence happens to be located just 10 minutes from our house, and just a couple minutes down the street from my office. The place is called Barking Mad Café, and it boasts an impressive range of vegan options on the lunch and dinner menus. Aside from my beloved burger, plant eaters can also enjoy a soba noodle bowl, a pizza (with mozz, caramelized onions, figs, tempeh bacon, and arugula), a farro salad, a kale salad, or a quinoa salad. I’ll be honest: I’ve only ever ordered the burger. But Steven had the pizza and was impressed, and another friend loves the soba noodle bowl. Plus, Barking Mad has a vegan affogato on the dessert menu, and you can veganize the fried cauliflower appetizer with spicy avocado sauce. (We did try the latter once, and I wasn’t impressed — too oily and not enough flavor.)

Barking Mad does both sit-down meals and take-out, which is a boon for those of us who live close and prefer to eat while wearing jammies. I’ve only done a sit-down meal once, on my birthday, and found the ambiance and service a bit mystifying. There’s a back bar section, which seemed quite busy, and then a surprisingly massive table section with chrome and hot pink accents and a big window opening onto the kitchen, with the massive brick oven taking center stage. Although the bar was hopping the night we went, the rest of the place was not full by any means, yet the service was surprisingly slow. It took me an age to get my old fashioned (meh), and our food was similarly delayed.

On the plus side, in warm weather you can sit outdoors on a lovely — and large — patio. Barking Mad is situated in a fairly new mixed-use complex, with apartments facing a small retail development. There’s a splash pad, community lawn, and “performance park” in the central shared area, though I’ve personally never seen any “performances” other than dogs straining to have a pee on the artificial turf!

All in all, while the service may be disappointing, the vegan food at Barking Mad is anything but. And the restaurant itself is a great addition to the dismal vegan scene in Gaithersburg. During the warm months, their cold-brew nitro coffee is my occasional morning splurge on the way into work: It’s gorgeously smooth and a perfect, hyper-caffeinated start to the day. Now if only they’d add some vegan options to the brunch menu!

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vegan food, travel, and lifestyle