cereal and soy milk
at leona’s: minestrone soup; psychedelic salad with italian dressing; the big fat vegan burger (my new favorite vegan burger in chicago) with avocado and black olives
coffee
channa masala and aloo gobi from the vegan table; grilled flatbread from a recipe my mom found; soy yogurt; tamarind-date chutney from patel brothers grocery (a great place to get bulk spices, beans, grains, and some interesting produce); old moon zinfandel from trader moon wine co (vegan??)
breakfast: cheerios with brown sugar and soymilk. oj. chocolate chip cookie.
lunch: sandwich with trader joe’s masala patty (first time i’ve had this, it’s awesome!), roasted portabellas, tomato, alfalfa sprouts.
dinner: tj’s soy nuggets with budweiser bbq sauce. kale.
pre-dance-party snack: 2 more of those chocolate chip cookies from yesterday
post-dance-party snack: 3 slices of fried plantain, a hunk of bread (not 100% sure it was vegan but it was definitely freegan, leftover from mel’s work conference).
breakfast: piece of toast (from yesterday’s homemade bread) with Earth Balance, coffee
lunch: leftover sushi (avocado, shiitake, oshinko, vegetable, with ginger) from Japan Inn
another piece of toast with Earth Balance, leftover salad with 1 piece bbq tempeh
dinner: semolina pasta with green bean pesto (recipe) and vegan Parmesan, leftover coleslaw from yesterday, Dogfish Head Indian Brown Ale (vegan)
Roast 1/2 coarsely chopped onion, 12 whole cloves garlic, crushed red pepper, salt, pepper, and olive oil for about 30 minutes. 10 minutes before done, add about 1c frozen green beans.
Blend 1/4c toasted pine nuts, small handful of spinach, 1T lemon juice, 1T olive oil, dash of hot sauce (I used Sriracha), and contents of the roast. Add water to create desired texture (I added about 1/2c). Salt and pepper to taste.
Serve over pasta, bread, etc.
breakfast (sort of): lots of pistachios
lunch: Chipotle burrito with the vegan garen blend “meat”
dinner: roasted sweet potatoes (red and white), regular potatoes and
carrots tossed with olive oil salt and pepper. sadza ne muriwo (sadza and collard greens) altered due to crappy
options at the grocery store to sadza and kale (Click for the recipe)
put kale and onions in a large pan and cook on high heat until the
kale cooks down
add the mushrooms
add the tomato sauce and spices and let cook for a few minutes
then add in peanut butter and simmer
to make the sadza
put white corn meal and water in a pot about 1:2 (corn meal and
water), heat on high stirring constantly until the corn meal starts to
bubble. put the lid on and cook into it solidifies. take the cover
off, turn down the heat and slowly add more corn meal stirring
constantly until the corn meal is thick and very hard to stir. you are
fnished. normally there is a lawyer of cornmeal stuck to the bottom of
the pot. if you leave it to soak overnight it comes out easily (a
waste of cornmeal, but i haven’t figured out how to solve this problem)
snack: salt and vinegar chips (cape cod)
drink: Mickey’s beer
everything bagel with avocado and tomato; orange juice
leftover sweet potato and black bean enchiladas; mango
maple popcorn adapted from popcorn. click for recipe
pour over the popcorn and either shake in a paper bag or toss in a big bowl until evenly spread (not all kernels will be coated). bake on foil- or silicone-lined baking sheets for 7 mins.
armenian apricot soup and bread; a corona and a negra modelo, both vegan
whole wheat chocolate chip cookies from vegan cookies invade your cookie jar; trader joe’s vanilla soy creamy organic ice cream
breakfast: trader joe’s honey-o’s with org. soymilk, oj
lunch: some weird vegetarian pasta salad from the cafe at the bottom of the library, since i dropped the ball on remembering to bring lunch today. anyway, it has spiral pasta, broccoli, zucchini, carrots, red peppers, herbs, and garlic
departmental wine and cheese event: a bazillion different kinds of crackers, two different kinds of middle-of-the-road rieslings (like emily, i usually buy the second cheapest wine and forget what it’s called immediately), trader joe’s dark chocolate covered pretzels (vegan!!), a whole bunch of other stuff. ugh.
dinner: pesto flatbread with tofu, tomatoes.
dessert: the same chocolate chip cookies as emily with tj’s soy vanilla ice cream. plus i mixed a bunch of the chocolate chip cookie dough in the ice cream! blood orange tea.
breakfast: everything bagel, no topping; coffee
lunch at NY Dosas (vegan food cart on Washington Square): roti curry with veggie protein lunch special, lentil donut
handful of Stacy’s pita chips
dinner: barbecue tempeh (from The Washington Post’s What’s Cooking blog, with 3x the chipotle chile peppers in adobo; very very good!) with coleslaw (coleslaw recipe), grilled onions and bell peppers seasoned with paprika, and homemade buns by michael
one tequila+vodka+orange juice, one tequila+triple sec+grapefruit juice, one Dogfish Head Raison D’Être
breakfast: a lot of pistachio nuts and a banana
lunch; bread from Marvelous Market (I can’t remember what type of bread it was, but I read the ingredients and it was vegan) and leftover dumpling soup.
dinner: fish sandwich and shrimp with fries from Brookland Cafe I was excited to go there because they have “vegan Wednesdays” where everything on the Menu is vegan on Wendesdays. Also, they have additional vegan items that are not on their normal schedule. Sadly, I was informed that vegan night is not happening, at least not for the next several weeks.
desert: Ghirardelli semi sweet chocolate chips.
trader joe’s everything bagel with tofutti better-than-cream-cheese; orange juice
sweet potato and black bean enchiladas made by my mom; green salad with raspberry vinaigrette; mango and pineapple with grated dried ginger
dinner at sabai-dee, chicago’s only laotian restaurant. there weren’t a lot of vegan (or even vegetarian) options on the menu, so we talked to our waiter and he told us we could substitute tofu for any chicken or beef dishes. a lot of stuff was also made with fish sauce, and he said he could just substitute salt, but it wouldn’t taste quite as authentic. we ended up having a spicy green papaya salad minus the fish sauce, the coconut-galangal soup with tofu instead of chicken, and a tofu curry, all excellent, plus warm tapioca in sweet coconut milk for dessert (all the desserts were vegan, and also included mango sticky rice and custard sticky rice). probably wouldn’t be my #1 choice to take vegan friends since so much of the menu was off limits, but they certainly did a good job of accommodating.
the restaurant is byob, so we brought a bottle of cheap red wine from the grocery store down the block. here’s the issue with my wine habits and veganism: i drink really cheap wine! if i have wine needs outside of the vicinity of a trader joe’s, i usually grab whatever’s on sale or the second-cheapest bottle (to retain a semblance of class). the problems: 1) when i try to figure out if the wine was vegan, usually hours or days later, i can never remember the name of it, and 2) now that i have started noting the names and looking them up, there’s usually no information to be found on these random cheap bottles. this one was a shiraz from kanga reserve, which i could find nothing about on the internet. it kind of looked like yellowtail, so i looked that up and found that yellowtail’s red wines are vegan, but the whites and roses contain gelatin and therefore are not. good to know!
i am finally done with those pumpkin cookies, but now i kind of miss them ):
breakfast: banana peanut butter cinnamon oatmeal, orange juice
lunch: sandwich with homemade olive hummus, tomatoes, sprouts, roasted portabellas. steamed/sauteed kale.
dinner: flatbread pizza with pesto, marinated tofu, tomatoes (again)
dessert: organic apple with organic peanut butter and honey
breakfast: handful of blueberries, coffee
lunch (all from Whole Foods), and later snack: A. whole wheat pita, B. multigrain pita chips, 1. The Bridge tofu salad and 2. Earthly Eats tofu salad. After trying all the combinations, A2 and B1 are the best. AB is the worst.
dinner at Japan Inn: miso soup (vegetable-base; some miso soup is cooked with a sardine or bonito base), cold ginger tofu salad, edamame, avocado roll, shiitake mushroom roll, vegetable roll, oshinko (Japanese pickled cabbage) roll, Sapporo beer
hazelnut-crusted french toast with banana and “not-tella” from veganomicon. click here for french toast recipe.
in a wide, flat bowl, whisk together 1/2 c. nondairy milk or creamer (i used so delicious coconut creamer in hazelnut flavor for extra hazelnuttiness) with 1 tbsp cornstarch. on a plate, spread out 1/4 c. hazelnut meal (make your own by toasting and food processor-ing a generous 1/4 c. raw hazelnuts). prepare a large skillet with a thin layer of canola oil, heated over medium heat until a drop of water sizzles on its surface. use 3-4 pieces of bread, dipping each one in the creamer to cover both sides, then in the hazelnut meal on each side so it’s completely coated, before cooking in the pan 2-3 mins on each side, until golden brown.
i served these topped with sliced bananas and “not-tella” from ‘veganomicon’.
trader joe’s everything bagel toasted, spread with avocado, topped with sliced tomato; iced tea
stacy’s simply naked baked pita chips
tofu spinach lasagna from the vegan table. i used trader joe’s no salt added marinara, and added sauteed portabella mushrooms. also a caprese salad (sliced vine tomato with balsamic vinegar and basil ribbons), red wine.
fudgy brownie with trader joe’s vanilla soy ice cream
Breakfast: raisin toast with peanut butter, oj
Lunch: leftover chow mein with tofu over brown rice, last pumpkin thing
Snack: Homemade olive hummus (I’m not giving the recipe because it turned out kind of weird) with pita
Dinner: Flatbread pizza with pesto, tomatoes, baked tofu. Sautéed/steamed kale. Oj.
Dessert: sliced banana mixed with melted Ghiradelli semi-sweet chocolate chips and almonds
I am embarrassed by how many bagels I’m eating.
breakfast: coffee, everything bagel with nothing on it :(
lunch: another everything bagel with leftover spinach-cannellini spread, leftover vegetables from Spadaro (eggplant, asparagus, green beans, swiss chard)
Stacy’s regular pita chips, carrot sticks, cucumber slices, and bell pepper slices dipped in MORE leftover spinach-cannellini spread.
dinner: Dr. Praeger’s Bombay curry vegan burger with spinach and chipotle ketchup on whole wheat bread, Campbell’s tomato soup mixed with soymilk, sauteed mushrooms, lettuce with balsamic vinegar and olive oil, Noah’s Mill whiskey with ice
refried beans in whole wheat tortilla with avodaco, black olives, salsa
fudgy brownie; coffee
trader joe’s whole wheat pretzel sticks (honey) dipped in trader joe’s horseradish hummus; dried mango.
potluck: butternut squash and apple soup; homemade french fries; we brought general tso’s popcorn from popcorn (click here for the slightly adapted recipe)
make 4 quarts of popcorn (about 1/2 c. kernels popped in 1/4 c. oil).
preheat the oven to 300.
in a bowl, whisk together:
dump the popcorn in a big paper bag along with a c. of peanuts.
drizzle the oily mixture over the popcorn, then fold the bag over and shake until the popcorn is coated. (this may require whisking together more of the ingredients; use less oil than you think you need, because our popcorn turned out pretty oily, and it’s okay if not every kernel is flavored.) then drizzle a tbsp or so of soy sauce, and shake again.
spread the popcorn out on as many tin foil-covered baking sheets as you have; thin layers are better.
bake for about 10 mins, until relatively dry. serve in a big bowl and make everybody guess what the ingredients are.
magical coconut cookie bar from vegan cookies invade your cookie jar
breakfast: oatmeal with peanut butter, banana, cinnamon. oj.
lunch: chow mein with tofu at noodles etc. in hyde park. except i didn’t eat the baby corns, because ick.
dinner: homemade pizza on flatbread with baked tofu, sliced tomatoes, roasted portabellas, pesto (recipe)
toast pine nuts in a pan over low heat and grind in food processor. add everything except the basil leaves. when the mixture is a thick paste, add the basil leaves and pulse until coarsely ground. more s/p to taste
dessert: pumpkin thing
snacks at my new music group: baby carrots, red wine
brunch: Joe’s O’s with soymilk
snack: vegan pepparkakor cookies courtesy of Russ Erickson (slightly stale from Christmastime; recipe coming soon), coffee
dinner at Spadaro, New Rochelle, NY: Italian bread with olive oil and garlic, antipasto dishes (assorted olives, asparagus, green beans, swiss chard, sundried tomatoes with artichoke hearts, and eggplant with garlic, all cooked in olive oil, vinegar, and/or lemon), pasta with cherry tomato and parsley sauce (I confirmed that all these dishes were vegan. With Italian food, I recently learned to be wary about anchovies in many tomato sauces), red wine (may or may not be vegan)
buckwheat pancakes (this recipe minus the blueberry syrup) with apple-raisin compote (this recipe with apples instead of pears)
refried beans, rice, avocado, black olives, my favorite salsa
trader joe’s whole wheat pretzel sticks dipped in horseradish hummus; handful of peanuts; clementine; dried mango+berries mix from costco
pasta with marinara and tofurkey sausage; salad with pecans, dried crans, apples, tomatoes; red wine
breakfast: raisin toast with peanut butter, oj
lunch: a strangely delicious sandwich from some vietnamese place at argyle and broadway. it had fried tofu, pickled jalapenos, lettuce, tomato, avocado, and probably a bunch of other things that i’m not remembering
dinner: those black beans from the other day with brown basmati rice, avocado, alfalfa sprouts. also kale (sauteed/steamed with garlic and tamari).
more of those pumpkin things, and i might not even be through half of the batch i made. i don’t know what i was thinking.
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