Pimping the Vegan Babe…

I attended NYC’s Vegan Drinks last Thursday and I met Brooke who runs the awesome website vegan babe.
“Vegan Babe is a free weekly newsletter and website covering the newest beauty, fashion and lifestyle trends for chic and faithful vegans, as well as those simply curious about compassionate alternatives.”
Check it out! Click here to sign up for the newsletter.

Here’s some picks for vegan winter coats.

From the pantry…New challenge

I’m no Morgan Spurlock but I think 20 days of not grocery shopping, bringing my lunch, and eating only items I already had in the house went pretty well.

The fridge is emptier and the plastic storage tubs a little lighter, but I still have a ways to go. What I’m going to do starting now is to try to only buy what I’m going to use that week and continue to whittle down the pantry surplus. Bringing my lunch has been a really good thing and I’m going to keep that up as well.

I am also participating in the Dark Days local food challenge. One day a week, I will prepare a meal using 90% local ingredients. This is not a vegan group, but there are a few other vegan’s participating.

My local suburban farmer’s market has its last day for the year tomorrow. The Union Square market in NYC is year round, so I’ll have to check that out. This will be a challenge indeed, but I think I can make one meal a week local, right?

Pantry Raid day 20 – Health food tastes good

It’s not just because I’m hungry, my canned lentil soup is pretty good.

Yet another reason to be glad I’m cleaning out the pantry. This can o’soup expired 9/26/08, and the rice is the brown and wild rice mix I brought in for last week’s make-my-co-workers-eat-vegan-and-like-it lunch.
I didn’t make enough for lunches this week (I had my artisan bread with frozen TJ’s veggie burgers up ’til now.) So I’m glad I found the lentil soup and was smart enough to figure out how to work the can opener on my swiss army knife.
Lentil soup on brown rice is about as hippie health food as I’m gonna get. I’ll have to try to make my own and spice it up a bit. I know there’s a bag of lentils in the pantry…

Thanksgiving Turkey Adoption

I’m totally copying Tara, but with good reason. It’s Turkey time! Adopt a Turkey from the Farm Sanctuary!

We both adopted Phoenix. For 25 bucks you can sponsor a Farm Sanctuary turkey!
No, you don’t get to take him home, but you can make sure he’s taken care of at the awesome Watkins Glen farm sanctuary. Start a new holiday tradition today! Sponsor a turkey.

Pantry Raid Day 17 – Sage pasta

Yeah I know, pasta, burritos, pasta, burritos, but after a long day at the office I can whip this up in 20 minutes and I’m not popping lean cuisines into the microwave.

1. Boil water. Add salt. Add pasta. Cook until al dente.
Meanwhile…

I had some sage from the farmer’s market that I had dried. Air dry for a few days then store in an airtight container. Better than commercially dried.

I chopped 3 sun dried tomatoes and put it in a small bowl with about 1 TBS sage and a good sized pinch of salt. Added about 1/4 cup boiling water to rehydrate the sage and tomatoes.

Sauteed a garlic clove in some olive oil and add the sage and tomatoes. Saute a few minutes and add a little water so it’s a light saucy consistency. When the pasta is done, add to saute pan and stir a few minutes so pasta absorbs the sauce. Voila! Dinner in a flash.

Pantry Raid Day 16 – Vita Mix Rules!

Oh, Joanna you just had to go and ask about the vita-mix. I thought I raved in the MoFo, but I don’t think I ever got to it. I have not the words to describe my love for what may just look like a blender….this bad boy is expensive for a reason. It’s got a 2 horsepower motor.

My first crush came when I worked in a restaurant at age 16 and when the bartender got busy, I got to make the “virgin” drinks. Then I actually bartended and made more than my share of coladas for the boardwalk bar. The perfect blended drink should be thick enough so a straw stands up, not have ice chunks, and be able to pour from the blender. Vita mix delivers every time.
Basic rule of frozen drink thumb is put in some ice or (frozen) fruit and then fill up to the level of the ice/fruit with liquid (juice, daiquiri mix, colada mix, whatever.) Blend on high for not even 30 seconds, and pour and enjoy.
Yeah, you can do this in a normal blender, but I’m telling you, the consistency is better from a vitamix. One of the bartenders used to make a dirty banana with the whole super ripe banana, peels and all. Perfect consistency.
So when I moved to Boston and got a real job, I missed the vita-mix. I really did. I bought mine probably 10 years ago, at some point in my life when I had extra cash, like tax refund or bonus or something. It was roughly the same price then, expensive. I think I paid slightly less than $500 for both the wet and dry containers. The dry container grinds grains.
Works as well now as the day I got it. In fact, I don’t even use it enough. The dry container lets you grind whole wheat berries, then there is a recipe for bread where you add the ingredients and the vita mix kneads the dough, and you just bake. I haven’t made it for awhile, but it’s totally awesome and super fast. (Sorry, Jo, there are lots of other gluten-free things you can do with it.)
And purees soup to velvety consistency. There are speed controls, so lower speeds will give you chunkier results.
The newer ones look like they have better handles, and there’s an additional smaller container.
My friend Mandy’s brother inherited her mom’s vitamix when her mom upgraded. Forcing Mandy to shell out for a new one. She bought hers around the same time as me. All still work great.
They use them at Jamba juice, and whatever one I see in malls. Orange Julius, maybe? I haven’t been to a mall for awhile.
I need to use this more for nut milks. I think I made almond milk a million years ago.
Makes perfectly smooth hummus.
I could infomercial on and on.
They do sell refurbished ones, too, that are a little cheaper.
One of the chefs in the raw book suggests that every time you use your old blender, set aside a dollar and when the motor blows, you’ll have some savings to buy a vita mix. Really, you’ll never ever need another blender.
Here’s my green drink from this morning. 2 frozen bananas, 2 TBS Trader Joe’s Very Green powder stuff, some white grape juice that came off some TJ’s jarred pears, and some OJ.
And unrelated to the vita-mix, here’s another loaf of bread from my now chilled artisan bread dough. The chilled dough was easier to work with and stayed ball shaped. Made a nice puffy loaf. I can’t wait to dig into this.

Pantry Raid day 15 – Artisan Bread

My mom had just bought this book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day the last time I visited, and I wanted to give it a try.

On this rainy Saturday, I think I can whip up a batch of home made bread. I know I’ve got flour in the pantry.

Tami is also a fan of the book and has made some awesome breads. Her cinnamon swirl french toast looks amazing…
The bread is not a secret recipe, it’s basic bread dough with a more water to flour ratio, more like a sponge.

3 cups water
1 1/2 TBS yeast
1 1/2 TBS salt
6 1/2 cups Flour

This is the container with the water and yeast. The Swedish dough whisk is available at King Arthur and is about the awesomest thing for mixing doughs and batters. The container came from KAF also.

This is the dough before it has risen.This is the dough about 2 hours later. It more than doubled. Here a dough ball has been shaped (well, sort of) and is resting before going in the oven.

I just slashed it like a tic-tac-toe board and threw it in the oven on the pizza stone…450 degrees 30 min. For steam, I added 1 cup of water to the broiler pan in my gas oven and the pilot light went out because it had come up to temp, but I was really afraid that I had put it out with the water. Whew.

It’s a little flatter than I would have liked. You’re supposed to let the dough chill out in the fridge after rising, but I really wanted some now. This is only about 1/4 of the recipe (the point is that there is always dough ready in the fridge) so I’ll try again with the chilled dough tomorrow.

Maybe a little too much flour on top…I wish I could post the smell.

Dipped in a little olive oil…holy cow this is good.

Pantry Raid day 14 – Raw

I picked up the Complete Raw Cookbook. I don’t have a dehydrator or a juicer, but I do have the awesome vitamix. I’m going to have to try some of these recipes out. Especially the raw nut things.

I like that some bloggers pick a day a week or month to have a raw day. Maybe I’ll try something like that.

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Book-Raw-Food-Second/dp/157826278X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1226767093&sr=8-6

Pantry Raid Day 13 – Vegan lunch for co-workers

I still have only eaten from the pantry for Nov, so when invited to lunch, I suggested I cook and we eat in the company cafeteria.

I made more chicken style burritos with brown & wild rice and kidney beans (used 1tbs liquid smoke in cooking liquid.) Chipotle veganaise on the side. They were a big hit with my 2 omni co workers and I got to pass along the seitan recipe. Praise Seitan! My friend brought this awesome tomatillo salsa and I’ll post the recipe when I get it.

Yet again I forgot to take a photo…