Portland Eats n' Vegan Conference

For my readers who weren't at the Vida Vegan Bloggers Conference and who don't currently reside in Portland (Hi Mom and Dad!), I'm going to give you a re-cap of the conference, my impressions of Portland, and discuss stuffing my face.


(This is brunch at Sweetpea Vegan Bakery. It was transcendent, and I ate only the biscuit portion of this offering to the Gods. Clearly, we have to move to Portland.)

We stayed with our friend Bernie, who began a string of awesome host actions by picking us up at the metro station. Although we'd had all sorts of dreams of exploring Portland together by bike, Jon had unfortunately broken his toe boogieboarding so instead was relegated to one of those embarrassing knee scooters.

Before I arrived in Portland I printed out my list about 90 restaurants in Portland, and didn't even bother including food carts. I don't know if you've ever been to a food cart in DC - a tiny rectangular tin coffin with gummy oversalted soft pretzels and hot dogs - but I was entirely prejudiced against food carts - how could good food come from them? Thankfully, my yelp-loving husband convinced me to try the highest yelp-rated food cart in all of Portland Kitchen Dances. H-O-L-Y S-M-O-K-E-S, that is some GOOD FOOD.

We feasted on the tempeh Reuben, the raw beet ravioli, and then bought tacos not due to any hunger or actual room left in our bellies, but because that's just how good the food was. We then said 'boy, we should have photographed this food before we wolfed it down like savages'. I kind of felt like with a conference of 200+ vegan bloggers, someone else would probably do the heavy lifting and take better photos than I would have anyhow.

At the conference I got to try two new products which I'm super excited about.

1. Earth Balance's new coconut oil based margarine, cuz it doesn't taste like coconut people, it TASTES LIKE BUTTER!! I totally went back for a few extra samples.

2. Upton's Seitan Italian Sausage style seitan. I'm not much of a sausage person, even when I ate actual sausage, but I really like this product.

3. Is it even possible that I didn't even try the new greek yogurt despite my husband being an old friend of Ken's who MADE the greek yogurt himself? Yes, somehow I didn't realize it was even there. I probably spaced out during an important conversation in which Ken stated "we will have samples of the Greek Yogurt there". Instead of hearing this important information, I was off in Vegan Lady Land..."OMG Isa is here, she is like at the same bar I am at. She is my hero but I can't be a complete fan girl and say anything stupid to her. Okay, think of something not stupid". So as you can see, I was unaware of the greek yogurt being available for tasting.

Our friend Bernie got us two loaner bikes to bike around Portland with! Although Jon couldn't use his too much, I was able to bike to the conference and all around town - hardly getting lost at all, which is unusual for me. I'm lucky Portland is basically a grid - it was designed with the map challenged like me in mind :)

I had a total bikegasm when I encountered my first street sign that indicated that cars HAD to turn left or right, despite the fact that a perfectly full sized street lay ahead, but bikes, and bikes ONLY, could proceed straight. I can't tell you the amount of joy it brings to a cyclists' hard and leathery heart (yes, we cyclists are all very tough and leathery from exposure to the elements and hard bike seats) to see things like a big fatty green painted bike crosswalk with a flashing light that says "yield to cyclists" on a big high speed bridge. Yes you motorist, with your eco-disaster death machine, YOU must stop for ME! (Oh, by the way in case you wondered if I am sometimes an eco-disaster death machine driver, yes I am) anyhow, BikeJOY.

Back to food. Yeah, we had the vegan donuts. They were okay, but I was spoiled long, long ago by the best donuts in the universe, to which none can measure up. My family who eats non-vegan donuts agrees with me that this one bakery in Wildwood, NJ has the best donuts they have ever tasted, and no other donut can ever measure up. Next time I'm there I'm going to do some outreach and see if I can get them to make me a vegan donut. Wish me luck!

Portobello: a fancy vegan restaurant in Portland. Jon is making me write about it, but I'm not a fancy food lady. I don't think I can give P. the proper treatment in writing, but I'm pretty sure Jon will wake up masticating and moaning 'Gnocchi' for several months to come. For the potty minded out there, masticating means chewing.

I highly reccomend a food tourism trip for any vegan who has the cash to spare. Would you like to eat a vegan caramel, a vegan danish, a vegan donut, a vegan _______? <----fill in the blank. Go to Portland.

Winter Coat Without Harm

I opened up the latest Mooshoes email and browsed around in the link to Vaute Couture, a vegan clothing company specializing in coats. I found a coat I really liked, but it was $300 (a special introductory price) and that's a lot for me to spend.


Unrelated Pig Photo

The problem, aside from simply finding a coat made without fur trim or goose down, is that most coats are made from eco-unfriendly fabrics and made by people who aren't getting treated well or paid well at their work.

Many vegans work at non-profits, and it's difficult for them to afford ethical products. Its hard to get into the mindset of - hey, I only buy a coat once every 5 to 10 years, I can save up to buy a nice one - because we're so trained to be able to immediately afford clothes and shoes.

I personally hate shopping, so I only go once or twice a year. Generally only when my existing clothing becomes embarrasingly and irreparably stained or worn looking. I go shoe shopping even less. I used to purchase new running shoes more often, but then the whole barefoot running thing became popular and I started to question the value of 'support' in a shoe. Now my gym shoes are super old and worn looking, complete with holes. I make up for my frugality in this area by spending a LOT on food (and my education).

I'm totally sold on the value of organic food, and supporting local farmers who practice organic farming methods. If I ever waver about that $4 organic red bell pepper, I just think of that pregnant mother who picked grapes for a living and whose child was born with a rare deformity associated with exposure the pesticides sprayed on the grapes she was picking. I think about how she didn't have any health insurance. I think also about whether or not she will get cancer or suffer other health impacts from exposure to those pesticides. I've long since forgotten her name which I learned on a radio show eight years ago, but her story is burned into my brain.

My "solution" to avoiding sweatshop labor and buying eco-friendly in the last several years has been to buy used. I purchase my clothes at Goodwill or other second hand clothing stores. I realize this is kind of a copout because I should be directly supporting ethical businesses rather than not directly supporting unethical ones. Its difficult for me to convince myself to spend a lot on clothing. However, I sure could use a really warm coat this winter. I'll let you know if I end up buying the coat, and I'll review it too.

Coming up next (once I find the #*!&$ camera cord): Monstera Deliciosa, Indian Salad, Tom Yum Eggplant Stir Fry & Creamy Tomato Soup!

Greek 'Feta' Salad Sandwiches

(this post from was a while ago, but since I lost my camera cord, I didn't post till now!)

The dog was tired enough to not even bother waking us up, so we didn't roll out of bed until ten thirty am! We had our friends Noelle, and Joe (of Carpe Vegan) over for dinner last night, and even more folks came over for board games after that and we played until the wee hours. We made a few dishes for dinner, but the star of the show was the Greek Sandwiches - a recipe of Jon's we enjoy every few months.

I just started uploading the pictures to Jon's flikr account as he was heading out the door, and he called over his shoulder "make sure to only upload good pictures, I don't want any blurry ones in between" and "make sure you tag everything properly". That cracked me up that he actually cared about the quality of the photos in his feed, whereas I treat flikr like one of those catchall drawers filled with paper clips, expired coupons and museum putty.

Jon wrote up his recipe and the associated blog post, so here's Jon:

One of my favorite sandwiches as a kid (after I went vegetarian but before I went vegan) was a Greek sandwich from Cross Rhodes in Evanston. Cucumber, Tomato, Red Onion, feta, olive oil, and vinegar in a thick, soft Greek pita. Damn. I tore those sandwiches up in my youth. While investigating the various cheese substitutes out there, we have made two key discoveries:
1. All vegan "feta" cheese you can buy at the store is disgusting. The range is from "bland and weird and unpleasant" to "please erase my memory of that flavor."
2. Sheese "strong cheddar" flavor does not taste much like cheddar, but in context DOES actually taste quite a bit like feta (more so than homemade feta we've made)

This led me to chase my dream of recreating that sandwich, and lo, it was glorious. After making it about a half dozen times I figured I should measure the ingredients I add and write the recipe down. Also, originally I would shred and crumble up the cheese into little bits and make a light dressing more like the basic sandwich. But I hate screwing around with trying to make fake cheese crumble, so here is a simpler recipe where you just blend it with the dressing. It is still all kinds of delicious, and much less work. Also, the original recipe only used half the block and then the other half would spoil in the fridge. After doing that several times I just started doubling it and freezing the unused sauce for later. Here's the recipe:

3 cucumbers, sliced
4 vine-ripened tomatoes, chopped (can't get good tomatoes? don't bother with this recipe, as they are key)

1 small red onion, sliced into thin crescents (quarter the onion then slice thin)
Optional: lettuce, or sprouts, or whatever else you like (I skipped them in the batch shown in the photo)
Greek pita or lavash (Greek pita is thick and soft and awesome, but if you can't get it normal pita will suffice)


Sauce:
1 block Sheese “strong cheddar” flavor vegan cheese
2 large cloves garlic
¼ cup + 2 Tbsp olive oil
¼ cup + 2 Tbsp lemon juice (~1.5 lemons)
3 Tbsp fresh oregano (or ~1 Tbsp dried oregano)
¾ tsp black pepper
¾ tsp sumac (optional, but awesome)

½ tsp dried dill (optional)

¼ tsp salt
1 cup water (after cutting the tomatoes & cucumbers up, drain them into the measuring cup to start with and add plain water until you get to 1 cup)

Note that this recipe makes about twice as much sauce as you need, but just freeze the other half and next time this recipe will be crazy easy. Just cut up the veggies and let them drain a bit to start. Mix all of the ingredients for the sauce in the food processor (I add everything except the sheese and water first and puree it for a while to get a nice base, then add the drained tomato juice & remaining water & sheese). You can either toss the veggies with some of the sauce to taste and eat on the pita bread, or just spread the sauce on the pita or lavash and add the veggies. Definitely don’t pre-mix the veggies and sauce if you’re not going to eat it all right away or it gets watery. Adjust any ingredients to your liking, this is just a rough guide rather than a hard and fast recipe

Eggplant Rasavangy

Jon bought 6 eggplants at the farmers market in his enthusiasm for the different skin colors and shapes. We hadn't decided what to do with this aubergine bounty, but he had suggested Baingan Bharta. I checked out the Dakshin Vegetarian Cuisine from South India (whew, what a name!) cookbook to see if they had a recipe, because our Baingan Bharta "recipe" is more of an outline and I wanted some tasty Indian food. I didn't find Baingan Bharta, but there was a similar enough dish called Eggplant Rasavangy which I used as a guideline.

The dish calls for Sambar powder, which we didn't have but it gives a recipe, which I made a variation of.

Sambar Powder:
1/4 cup dried red chilis
3 TBS ground coriander
1/2 TBS Cumin seeds
scant 1/2 tsp fenugreek powder
1/2 tsp whole black peppercorns
1/2 tsp brown mustard seeds
1/4 tsp yellow dal
1/4 tsp red dal
1/4 tsp poppy seeds
1/4 stick of cinnamon
3 curry leaves
1/4 tsp ground turmeric



I separately fried up the red chillis in about 1 TBS of oil. Then I took all of my whole spices (peppercorns, cumin seeds, mustard seeds, cinnamon stick, my rinsed dals and curry leaves and roasted them in a dry cast iron pan (removing the curry leaves once they looked dry/crispy), until the mustard seeds popped for about 20 seconds and removed from the heat. Once my red chili peppers had fried for 3 minutes I removed them and placed on a paper towel to get the oil off since I was concerned about gunking up my seed grinder with oil. I put the red chilis and whole spices into the seed grinder and whizzed til finely ground. Set aside - you will only use a portion of this powder.

Coconut Paste:
3/4 cup dried unsweetened coconut
2 serrano chilis, de-seeded & finely diced
11 dried red chilis (really that was too many so I recommend 6)




I fried the serranos and dried red chilis in the leftover oil from the previous chilis for a few minutes, then added the coconut and toasted, stirring frequently, until it turned light brown. Then I removed from heat and after cooling a bit, ground it up in the spice grinder.

I cooked up 3 cups of red lentils in an ample amount of water until they were super duper soft and any extraneous water had evaporated off. Sorry for being so inexact but I'm sure the Internet can tell you the right proportions.




Jon was kind enough to chop up about 2 cups of onions, and about 6 cups of eggplant so all I had to do was clean 4 cups of cherry tomatoes and stab each with a knife so they would cook down nicely and not remain whole (don't know if that was needed, but did it anyhow). I added 2 TBS earth balance, 3 curry leaves, 7 more dried red chilis, 3 teaspoons of mustard seeds and the onion to the electric pressure cooker and set it on brown. Once some of the onions had started to get brown I added the eggplant and tomatoes and set it to high pressure for a few minutes time. It didn't actually get to pressure, but I was trying to get the eggplant and tomato to cook down enough that I could actually stir it, because before it was so full I wasn't able to stir without things falling out. Once I had stirred it I set it to five minutes on high.

After it beeped, I drained off about 5-6 cups of tomatoey/eggplanty water and reserved it for some other dish (lentil soup!). I removed the 7 whole chilis. Then I added the cooked red lentils, coconut paste, 2 TBS + 1 tsp of Sambar powder, 1/2 TBS asafoetida powder, 1 tsp tamarind liquid, 1 TBS brown sugar, and 1 tsp or 1.5 tsp of salt. At this point I wished I'd put less chilis in the coconut paste because then I could have added more sambar powder, such a more nuanced flavor, and still had an appropriate amount of heat in this dish.

Ahh, looks like baby diarrhea, but tastes like a little spoonful of heaven!

Simple Summer Dish

I ate the remainder of last night's dinner out for breakfast, so once lunch rolled around I went to the fridge to see what I could find. I was surprised to discover perfectly good fresh green beans and two bags of tomatoes (one still good!), along with some beet greens. I also noticed the little plastic container with thyme in it was still good, so I had enough to make a dish of some sort.

2 cups sweet orange cherry tomtoes (sliced in half) or some tomato with high sugar content, diced
1 medium onion, sliced thinly
1 can canary beans or white kidney beans
2 TBS fresh Thyme
1 cup fresh beet greens or spinach
1/2 teaspoon Seitenbacher Veggie Broth Powder
2 cups diced fresh green beans
2 shakes of freshly ground black pepper
a few sprays spray oil
salt to taste, if needed

Firstly I turned the burner on medium low and sprayed with a little oil and waited for it to heat up. Then added the sliced onions and let them cook pretty slowly, I wanted to caramalize them. I let them cook for about 15 minutes, stirring every few minutes. Once they looked brown enough, probably not officially caramalized but good enough, I added the tomatoes and green peppers, added 2 TBS of water, and covered for 15 minutes. Then I realized I should probably add the thyme in there, so I got to removing the thyme leaves from the tough stems. It helps if you grab the stem about 1/2 centimeter from the top, and drag your fingers while pinching downward. Then you can pinch off the top which is soft enough to add to the dish, and discard the woody stem.



Then I added the thyme and vegetable broth powder, stirred and covered for another 5 minutes. Then I added the beet greens and covered for another 3 minutes and then stirred. At this point I stirred uncovered for a bit until the beet greens looked like they were nice and evenly wilty. Then I added black pepper and a drained, rinsed can of canary beans from goya, which come already super salted so I didn't have to add any extra salt to the dish. It came out really nice with a very sweet tomatoey oniony goodness to it. I suppose I should eat this with rice or bread but I'm too lazy to make rice and we're out of bread. Actually, I feel like this would go even better over some soft white rice noodles or something else with the texture of egg noodles.

Curry Leaves!!!!

As a birthday present, Jon's mom sent me a large branch of fresh curry leaves. Your average joe would probably open said gift and say "whuh?" I however was overjoyed, and instead responded with: "EEEEEeeeee!" Fresh curry leaves, like pomegranate molassas, or rosewater, are in that special list in my head of coveted items I'd like to cook with when I get a chance. She included recipes which she had photocopied, and some of them had stars next to them. One was curry leaf sambar, which contains an astonishing 30 curry leaves. (don't worry, still no shortage, and you can store 'em in the freezer too!)

The recipes are from a cookbook we also happen to own but I have regarded with fear since Jon explained "its really good but everything takes like 4 hours to make, its crazy hard". However, these particular recipes really weren't bad at all. It all came together at the speed of a normal meal. I decided to make the curry leaf sambar and some vadai to go with. I have never made either before, so it was an adventure.

For some reason we had Urad dal (also called black dal, although its tan colored) in our cabinet. I think we had a reason for that. Anyhow, it came in handy because the recipe required 3 kinds of dal! The orange colored ones, yellow, and urad. I rinsed them this morning before work and let them soak in the fridge all day. Those were to make the vadai, which are apparently just blended up soaked lentils with some ginger, chilis and onion - who knew?


Sambar, before blending

The sambar was a little more work, since it required frying two sets of spices. I didn't have asafoetida, but I put some white pepper in there instead because it had a similar smell, according to me. The recipe called for tamarind paste and we had concentrate, so I wasn't sure how much to put, nor how the final product was supposed to taste, so I had to wing it. In the end, I did end up adding some of Jon's magic powder, which is some chutney powder we add to Indian food if it needs that extra kick.

So I start frying my first vadai, and I'm watching the oil bubble, and I'm waiting for it to get brown, and then giving sidelong glances to the large tub of batter which hasn't been fried yet...and then it occurs to me. We have donut pans! This was something I picked up for my birthday last year, because it was a donut party and I made some gluten free donuts in it. So I was like, why stand around forever like a sucker frying these up in batches when I can get them all done at once in the oven? I know, I know, hardcore vadai types are going to be rolling their eyes and groaning at this point. Hey man, if your legs can take it, feel free to fry 'em. I however biked to work and back AND to whole foods in a vain asafoetida effort during lunch, and my legs weren't having it.


Vadai before baking, with some sprayed on oil

Final results: I loved the sambar and the combination of the vadai and sambar. The fried vadai did have that extra special edge to them, but overall they weren't so far superior to the baked that I feel its worth the effort to fry. I approve of baked vadai!

Vadai in Sambar

Oh, one other thing. I made lime-tamarind-agave soda! I love sour things, and had some limes & club soda in the fridge. The soda is good, the only problem is its brown, and not clear brown like coke, but cloudy brown, so it has image issues. It kind of reminds me of that Austin Powers movie where he grabs the beaker and drinks from it and exclaims "ahh...kind of...nutty!". I'm just going to allow you to Google that if you want to gross yourself out, unless you've figured it out already, in which case I'm not surprised.

TV Dinner

Sometimes we want to sit down and watch a movie and be lazy, but still have vegetables calling to us from the fridge nagging us about how they are going to go bad and we'll have wasted our money. On those days, we usually do all the chopping work in front of the TV - but this time, we took it to a new level and brought the plug-in pressure cooker out onto the coffee table, and did part of the cooking there too! If we were only making Ratatouille, we could have made the whole thing while watching a movie, but crazy me I wanted to make Ratatouille lasagna. There are a lot of vegetables here, but they do cook down. Even though it went above the recommended fill line, we jammed all the veggies in and it worked out fine. We have the Fagor 3-way 6 qt. pressure cooker/rice cooker/slow cooker. I have only used the pressure cooker feature, but I can't recommend this product highly enough to save time and hassle. We got Lorna Sass' Pressure cooking cookbook so we could take full advantage of it. Pressure cooking allows you to use less oil, and cook your food in half the time. Modern pressure cookers are extremely safe now as they have safety release valves so the pressure can't get too high.


Above is our chopping & cooking setup in front of the TV. Note our dog Leeta wondering if that onion is any good to eat :)

This will be an even more ideal recipe for about a month or so from now, when eggplants are widely available from the organic stands at the farmers market. Its a great way to get a variety of vegetables into your meal while not being too "healthy" tasting.

Ingredients:

12 Lasagna noodles
3 medium zucchini, sliced into 1/4 inch slices

For Ratatouille:
2 1 lb eggplants, peeled, 1/2 inch tall and wide matchsticks, 2-4 inches long
2 onions, roughly chopped
2 red bell peppers, de-seeded and sliced into 1/2 inch strips
1 lb fresh Roma tomatoes, roughly chopped plus 1/4 cup vegetable broth OR 1 32 oz. can diced tomatoes, drained, but with 1/4 cup of their juice
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil OR 2 tsp dried basil
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 pinch red pepper flakes
3 gloves garlic, minced
1/4 tsp salt
1 bay leaf
2 tsp olive oil

For the Creamy Cheese Part:

1 TBS capers
1/2 cup pitted black olives (for best flavor, get the pricier brands that come in glass jars, not the canned type)
1 lb firm tofu, pressed
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 TBS lemon juice
1/2 tsp salt





Its no beauty queen, but it sure does taste good!

Preparation:

Place the tofu between two cutting boards, and place a heavy object with a wide bottom (like a cast iron pan) on top for 15-20 minutes. This squeezes any excess water out, so you'll want it to slant slightly towards the sink so the water goes into the sink rather than all over your counter. Chop all veggies for the Ratatouille part - keeping the zucchini separate from the rest. Put your electric pressure cooker on the 'Brown' setting (or if you have a cooktop pressure cooker, put stove on medium), put 2 tsp of oil in your pressure cooker and wait till its hot. Add onions and the dried spices (bay leaf, salt, red pepper flakes, and fennel seeds - if you are using dried basil rather than fresh, add that now as well), and garlic.

While that is sauteing and you are stirring occasionally, put a large bowl of water in the microwave until hot ~5 minutes. Pour the hot water into the lasagna dish, and place lasagna noodles in to soak for 20-25 minutes - no longer! While they are soaking, go back to your onions. Once the onions are translucent, add the other veggies (eggplant, red pepper, tomatoes - not the zucchini) and bring up to high pressure and cook at high pressure for 3 mins. Pre-heat the oven to 350.

Now to prep your "cheese". Break up the tofu into a few pieces, and place into a small food processor (not a large one, otherwise you won't be able to blend properly). Add your cloves of garlic, lemon juice, and salt. Now add the chopped olives and capers, close up the machine, and run until the olives and capers are really well blended and it all looks smooth and uniform.

Drain the water off of your noodles and slide them onto a separate plate, make sure pan doesn't have any remaining water. Place your first layer of noodles into the lasagna pan. Drain your Ratatouille but keep the fluid you drained off*. Find and discard the bay leaf. Then add 1/2 of the Ratatouille, then layer of zucchini. Now add half of the "cheese" and spread around the top till its fairly even. Add the second layer of noodles, and, if using fresh basil, put 1/2 cup chopped basil here. Then add remaining Ratatouille, and remaining "cheese" Then add the final layer of noodles. Then spoon enough of the leftover fluid from the Ratatouille over the lasagna that it comes up to almost the top but not quite. Try to pour along the edges so it goes down rather than sitting on top. You don't want fluid overspilling and messing up your oven, but dry lasagna is bad. You can always put a large jelly roll pan on the shelf below (not the same shelf) the lasagna to catch the drips if you are worried. Make sure the top layer of noodles is wetted down with the leftover Ratatouille fluid to prevent drying out too much. Place the lasagna in the oven, uncovered, for 30 minutes. The top noodles will have dried out some, but I just drizzled a little more Ratatouille water on them at the end and they softened up again.

*To be honest we placed our Ratatouille fluid in a large frying pan and reduced it until it was about 2/3 of what it started out. We were able to add most of the fluid back into the lasagne then - and reducing it concentrated the flavors. However, for ease of preparation, I decided not to put that in the recipe.