Key Lime Pie

When I purchased some graham cracker crusts during the holidays my first thought was key lime pie. Months later, I still had not managed to find a suitable recipe even though I scoured the internet searching. When I found key limes on my grocery trip last weekend I knew the time had come. Recipe or no recipe, I was making key lime pie.

I really had no recipe even to base my recipe on so I went with my gut. Silken tofu, lime juice, lime zest, agave, cornstarch and a little vanilla (and a little bit of food coloring). I didn't really imagine it would set up so super well, but I imagined it would taste delicious. Unfortunately, when I poured the concoction into the crust, it fell short of the top by a good 1/4 inch. What to do!? I vaguely remembered Katie's post on making your own coconut butter out of shredded coconut so I tried to do something along those lines to make a creamy coconut topping. Note the word tried. I processed and processed and processed my coconut but it remained grainy. I mixed it with some agave and coconut oil and even tossed in a bit of water, but it remained grainy. So I went with it.

The result is a pretty darn good pie.

Yum. Unfortunately, the rest of the dinner I prepared last night was not as photo worthy. Lentil rice loaf, mashed cauliflower and onion gravy. Have you ever made onion gravy? I cannot believe how easy it was. Melt tablespoon of earth balance in cast iron skillet, add onion. Cook until brown. Remove onion. Add in 4 tablespoons earth balance and 4 tablespoons flour. Cook until well mixed. Add back in onion and 2 cups veggie broth. Stir until thick. Season with salt and pepper. I almost ate this off the spoon it was so delicious.

Have you tried dessert hummus yet? Want some more incentive?

Graham crackers. Banana slices. Dessert hummus. Need I say more?

Dessert Hummus

I know what you're thinking. But hear me out. Today I read a tweet from @mama_pea about having to make the choice between grocery shopping and making dessert hummus. I was hooked instantly. I had everything at home except something to dip in it. I went to the store and got some graham crackers and I was ready.

Once home I rinsed the garbanzo beans, pulled out the food processor, tossed in some peanut butter, maple syrup, vanilla and a pinch of salt and started that baby up. Minutes later I mixed in some mini chocolate chips I conveniently had on hand and tasted one of the most intriguing foods I have tried in a long time. It wasn't oh my goodness love at first bite, but after a few bites I was hooked. Luckily my desire to produce a great picture for all of you stopped my boyfriend and I from devouring the whole batch in one sitting.

This is currently chilling in my refrigerator. Can I have dessert for dinner?

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Dessert Hummus. This guy's a genius.

A Jalapeno Kind Of Dinner

Tonight's dinner (which took me a good 2 hours in the kitchen to make) centered around farmer's market finds. Last Sunday I bought a basket of jalapenos and a basket of tomatillos with absolutely no plan for them. Over the past week, a plan was formed. I give you:

A Jalapeno Kind Of Dinner

I have a couple more things I'd like to get done tonight so I'll leave you with only a short description, some links to recipes I used as well as two more pictures of kitchen basics.

Back during MoFo, Vegan Eats & Treats did a post about pupusas. I was immediately intrigued but forgot all about it until Wednesday when I went to the Ocean Beach farmer's market and my friend and I started discussing the pupusas they were selling on the side of the street. I googled Viva Vegan Pupusas and found this recipe. I may have to look into actually buying this cook book because these were (apart from some minor trials and tribulations) delicious and fairly easy. I stuffed the pupusas with a veggie mix that contained roasted jalapenos, garlic, onion and sauteed chard, bell peppers and more onion. For my boyfriend I stuffed his with refried beans and a little cheese. Note: I do not recommend refreid beans for stuffing. Use only solid foods for ease of preparation.

Next, I made jalapeno cornbread from this recipe. Oh! And while I'm thinking about it, I have to thank reader Becky who suggested that I try google bookmarks for keeping track of the recipes I'd like to try. This was exactly what I was looking for! I hit bookmark, change the name, add a category if I choose and then there is an app on my phone that I can click on to bring them right up. Genius! But back to the muffins. I left the roasted jalapenos out of half of them for my boyfriend and used whole wheat flour because that was all I had on hand. These were really good topped with a little Earth Balance.

The main goal I had when I set out 3 hours ago though was to use up the tomatillos by making a green salsa. I roasted garlic, tomatillos, jalapenos and onion and here's where you get kitchen tip #1 and #2.

Roasting your veggies in muffin tins is super easy and convenient!

An oven thermometer (even a dirty one) can really help when baking to show you whether or not your oven is really at 400 degrees or not.

But back to the salsa. I roasted everything and then took the seeds out of all the jalapenos. I threw everything except for about half the jalapenos, a quarter of the onion and one of the heads of garlic into the food processor with some cilantro and lemon juice and blended it up. I used no specific recipe for this and it turned out delicious!

Finally, I made a wild rice blend that I seasoned with lemon juice and salt and pepper after cooking.

Plated, I added refried beans and the veggie mix to the top of my pupusas and drizzled with the salsa. This was way too much food but was definitely delicious. Now that I know how all the ingredients go together I think I will be making these more often.

Sorry for the detour from Portland. Probably one more post before I get to it as well as I have one more food I am dieing to tell you about!

Portland: Saturday

I'm still here and I haven't forgotten about the rest of my trip. I'm sure you are all on the edge of your seats waiting for the rest of the story (or at least you were 3 weeks ago when I posted Friday's recap). Without further ado, I give you: Saturday in Portland.

As when someone learns the fact that I am vegan is so often met with the question "Where do you get your protein?", so too is the fact that I want to live in Oregon often met with the question "You know it rains a lot there, right?". I patiently explain that I am well aware of this fact while I roll my eyes in my imagination. My mom and I were pleasantly surprised to find that it did not rain once on Friday. Of course, we joked, it would rain all of Saturday when we had plans for doing things outdoors. Boy were we ever right about that. One of the major things I wanted to check out while we were there was the Farmer's Market at PSU. So we set out Saturday morning with the plan to go there and to the Saturday Market which is a sort of art market. When we left the hotel it was already raining. But, if I was to ever move to Portland I would definitely not let a little rain stop me.

We headed out once again across the Willamette and easily found the market. We also managed to find a parking space pretty close. The market was mostly deserted but was filled with so many beautiful stands of fresh vegetables and fruit. We made our way around about 3 times just to make sure we didn't miss anything before I decided what to get. Since we were staying in a hotel there was very little I could do with vegetables, but fruits I could bring home with me. The only thing I hated about the rain was that I didn't want to have my camera out and get it all wet, so there are no pictures of the actual market but I do have some I took later of my finds. This was especially sad because on my 3rd trip around when I had stopped once again at a stand filled with vegan baked goods, I ran into the fabulous Sayward of Bonzai Aphrodite and her beautiful family! At this point though I was totally drenched and freezing so we didn't stay long and chat.

And when I say drenched, I mean drenched. I had an umbrella and what I thought was a rain proof jacket. I gave the umbrella to my mom as I had a hood and said jacket. This did nothing to protect my legs and as I learned later, really no part of me. My pants were soaked all the way down and my hands were frozen. We left the market after a fairly short time and headed to the Saturday Market.

My mom had suggested the Saturday Market and I am so glad she did. I dried up only a tiny bit on the way there and then we were back out in the rain but with so much to see. There were hundreds of artists of all kinds selling their handcrafted work. I ended up buying some gifts as well as some artwork for myself.

I got this hanging glass art for my boyfriend's grandma as well as a rainbow necklace for his sister that I neglected to get a picture of. I also neglected to get a picture of these totally awesome earrings I bought for her that were made with this metal that changes colors at different thicknesses.

I got these two pieces of art done by artist Sienna Morris. They are drawn entirely with numbers of the clock. There is not one line drawn. If you have the time, I highly suggest checking out her site.



Walking out of the Saturday Market we were even more soaked than before and I suggested we stop in some place to dry off a little bit before getting back in the car. We happened upon Kell's Irish Restaurant & Pub and our initial thought was possibly some Irish Coffee but then my mom asked what kind of soup they had and would you know, it was vegan! 

Hot apple cider, Irish soda bread and kale and white bean soup! This was so delicious and clean and warming and I absolutely couldn't wait to get home to try to recreate it. I am pretty sure it was just vegetable stock, kale, carrots and white beans but it was sooo yummy. I have recreated it since then and mine turned out a little too oily (I don't think oil was even necessary). This restaurant was great though, they took our coats and we attempted to dry off at least a little. This was when I learned that my jacket was not rain proof. Oops.

After we left Kell's we headed out with no specific agenda. We drove around a lot that day and the heater in the car managed to get me almost 100% dry. We went to a couple of used clothes stores but nothing was too great. We went to Bridge City Comics which was a very nice store.

We drove past my Aunt's old house.

I studied the street structure of Portland. There are little inlets on each corner where water flows and stays instead of an underground sewer system. Also, many, many houses had raised gardens in their frin yards! I absolutely love the look of the older houses in Portland.

We traveled to a Trader Joe's that is right across the street from a 24 hour fitness. We didn't go inside either but the Trader Joe's had to have been 3 times as big as the one I shop in.

For a late lunch we ended up at the most awesome block I have ever seen. On the left was Sweet Pea Bakery, then Herbivore Clothing and finally, Food Fight Grocery. All vegan! If I could move in right across the street I think I'd be the happiest vegan on the planet!

At Sweet Pea Bakery I got a seitan filled sandwich. I can't remember what it was called or exactly what was in it, but it was delicious.

My mom and I also got a slice of carrot cake to split after our leftover Thai food back at the hotel. Sorry for the horrible picture. Bonus points though, the container was compostable. And according to blogger, compostable is not a word....Get with the times blogger.

Back at the hotel I was finally able to take some pictures of the days goodies away from the downpours

Delicious gingerbread spice cake with lemon ginger icing.

Peanut butter & chocolate crispy treat.

Hot pepper marionberry jam.

Apples and Pears.

And that takes us pretty much to the end of Saturday. It was a wet but wonderful day and I felt like I got a true taste of Portland.

Hopefully it wont take me three weeks to get back to you about Sunday and Monday.

Thanks for reading! Also, please pardon the formatting of this post. I am tired and do not have the energy to figure out why I can't get the spacing right.

Oh My Yum!

Before I started my dinner tonight I already knew it was going to be a winner. Sometimes you just know. I took a bunch of pictures because, I just knew. And sure enough, it was out of this world. I got the recipe from Busy Vegan Mama and since I had some spinach leftover from my CSA I thought it would be the perfect dinner for one of these nights right before Xmas and end of the year when I am so uber busy. Without further ado, I give you:

Spinach Pesto Pasta

Sorry for the super up close picture. I have yet to master taking pictures of certain things. Bowls of food being one of them. But don't let that detract from the beauty of this bowl. I followed Sara's recipe to a T except for adding a few extra vegetables to my pasta so check out her site if you'd like to get yourself over to her site and try it out for yourself.

Spinach

Pine Nuts

Garlic

Salt

Chili Flakes

Olive Oil

Blend

Stir & keep blending

Perfect!

Add pasta to boiling water per package directions. About 3 minutes until the end, add all veggies except tomatoes. I used zucchini, green beans and red pepper. Add tomatoes when there is only one minute left on the pasta. Seriously, they only need a minute.

Toss together gently and try to master the art of taking a picture while simultaneously blowing steam away from the camera.

Go back for seconds.

Seriously, if it hadn't been for trying to take some artistic photos and posing my ingredients, this dinner would have taken me 15 minutes to make and that includes boiling the water and cooking the pasta. It helps that somehow I managed to buy whole wheat pasta that only took 4 minutes to cook. Ok, but really, go make this. Right now. You are only 15 minutes away from a delicious dinner.

Now I'm off to wrap presents!

Portland: Friday

My entire life I have dreamed about moving to Oregon. I think it's the blackberries. Or maybe the creeks. All I know is that every summer my family used to travel from San Diego by car to visit my Aunt and Uncle in Oregon and ever since then, I have dreamed of living there. If you'd asked me what stopped me from going there for college I wouldn't have an exact answer for you. If you asked why I didn't go after college I'd say a number of reasons. I have recently gotten to a point in my life where I feel that the time might be right. And by that of course I mean probably 3 more scouting trips over the next 1-3 years before making any actual plans. Personally, I could probably up and move tomorrow but my boyfriend is not so quick to upend his entire life. That's ok though, I have patience (sometimes). This first scouting trip to my hopefully someday future home town was taken not with said boyfriend but instead with my Mom. My mom is anything but vegan, and in fact made her living as a manager of meat departments all across San Diego Vons stores but she hardly complained at all that in 4 days we went to only one restaurant where she ate meat. She did however want it noted that we did not encounter one vegan restaurant that served Diet Coke. This post is not planned to be super in depth as it is the weekend before Xmas and I still don't even have my decorations up from the garage, I have biscotti to make for a gift and a gift or two to try to track down but I wanted to share with you all the amazing things I saw.

We flew into Portland at 9:40 on Thursday night. We had rented a car and our hotel was the Phoenix Inn in Beaverton. I would have liked to have stayed a little closer to Portland and I would love on my next trip to try and take the public transportation for most of the trip, but this worked well for my mom and I. The main things on my scouting list were:

Grocery Stores
Comic Shops
Restaurants
Farmer's Markets
Saturday Market
24 Hour Fitness
Places to Hike
Resale Stores (Clothes, Furniture, Cookware, etc)
Getting a feel for which part of town I would look on Craigslist for a house

We succeeded on all fronts. Except maybe the comic shop, but I will get to that. The car we rented was a Chevy Aleo, which I had never heard of. Turned out to be a totally cute car that got about 25 miles to the gallon driving all around Portland.

Friday morning we woke up bright and early and headed out to explore. First on my list was the People's Co-Op not to be confused with the OB People's Food which is also a Co-Op.

Ever since I heard about this place at Bonzai Aprodite I couldn't wait to check it out. As a result of this being the first place we visited, it became my main point of reference. We used my mom's GPS and had plotted out a list of places to check out before we left. Let me tell you, a printed map with everything roughly plotted goes a long way towards understanding the roads you are driving. I loved the GPS but it was difficult to get a feel for the streets. We drove all over the city that first day, back and forth. I think we crossed the Willamette about 6 times, each time across a different bridge.



At the Co-Op we got lunch (we had eaten breakfast at the hotel. Not so great but not the worst.). I went a little crazy and bought some Gingerbread beer that sounded delicious and festive along with some Theo chocolate bars that I had just seen Hungry Hungry Hippie talking about and my favorite eat of the entire trip:

Vanilla Creme with Karmal & Chocolate. Oh my god. Coconut, cashews, cocoa, maple, maca, mesquite, lucuma, vanilla, salt, soy lecithin. Vegan, raw, local and oh so decadent. We went back right before we went to the airport so I could get one for the plane, but they were out. And I was sad. In case you have delusions that this is all I would eat for lunch you are oh so wrong. I had a raw mock tuna salad wrapped in chard. It was decent but not the best thing ever.



Friday we also went to:

Excalibur Books & Comis (ok)
Gilded Closet (ok)
Seams to Fit (really expensive and not my style but very nice)
Village Merchants (freakin awesome shop!)
Vintage Pink (not on my list but I am soooo in love with this shop)

In fact, I found this coffee table there that I really want to find someone to recreate for me. It had the perfect size display coves for comics.

In our search for one place (and due to our GPS's lack of knowledge that Burnside St and Sandy Blvd become one way at one point) we got turned around and ended up at Voodoo Donuts. I had written their downtown location on my list and then crossed it off. I had heard that they had vegan donuts but that the lines were long. I figured we would be going to enough vegan restaurants and bakeries that I wouldn't need an extra donut. Who am I to argue with fate when we stumbled upon a second location so easily? Besides, who doesn't love a maple bar?

This is not a maple bar but is instead, a voodoo donut. It is shaped like a person (sort of) and then it has a pretzel stick stuck in it like a pin. The kicker?

It's filled with "blood". Mmm vegan blood. That makes me smile. We may or may not have hit this place up before the airport to take home some vegan donuts.

The other comic shop we visited on Friday (please note, this is all still the first day there) was Bridge City Comics. I liked this store quite a lot. It was well stocked and well set up. It was a little more north than I would have loved, but travel for good comics is not the end of the world. Oddly, I happened upon one other comic shop on our way to the airport that had not been on my list. It is called Future Dreams and it was in the basement of a building that looked to be making furniture. I only got a chance to glance inside but we will definitely be checking out these two locations when we come back. One of the reasons that we feel Portland is the right sort of city for us is that my boyfriend is working towards being a comic book writer and Portland seems to be the west coast comic creator central. Comics are quite an integral part of our lives.

So day one, as it started to get dark, we were debating what else to do. I didn't want to go back to the hotel but we weren't quite hungry enough for dinner. We ended up at one of the resale clothes shops (I can't remember if it was even on my list or which one it was) and decided to go across the street to this little bar and get a drink. I got this oh so yummy cocktail of vodka infused with strawberries (made by the bar) mixed with soda water and lemonade. It was delish! 

Afterward, we went to a Thai restaurant for dinner. I ordered a mostly mediocre stir fry with tofu and my mom got a curry bowl. We took the leftovers home in the tupperware that I had brought my plane food in. (Just a note, tupperware is great for saving the throw away to go containers, but make a note to get a hotel with a real sink rather than just a bathroom sink. It was a pain washing them and I think I may have clogged the sink a bit). Finally we headed back to the hotel and called it a night.

And with that, I think I may have to extend this trip into more than one post if I hope to get everything done today that I need to. Please join me again next time for Portland: Saturday.

Insane Goal for the Morning

Update:

Ultimate Vegan Oatmeal Raisin Cookie

1/2 dozen baked, 1.5 dozen frozen

Salt Kissed Chunky Peanut Butter Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies



1/2 dozen baked, 1/2 dozen frozen



Pumpkin Pie Banana Chunk Oatmeal Cookies

1 dozen baked, 1.5 dozen frozen

Vegan Dark Chocolate Peppermint Cookies x 3

6 dozen baked, 1/2 dozen frozen

Ultimate Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 dozen baked, 1 dozen frozen

Added bonus:


Pumpkin Ginger Snaps (cause I didn't have enough on my plate)

Chilling in the fridge to be rolled out and frozen. 2 dozen.

Morning success!

Going to a cookie party tomorrow at noon. Bringing 6 dozen of the peppermint cookies but I also wanted to make chocolate chip for my boyfriend. I couldn't decide between the two so I am making both. I have an over ripe banana on hand and some pumpkin thus the pumpkin pie banana chunk and the oatmeal raisin sounded so healthy and yummy to take on my upcoming trip. Thus, 5 types of cookies; 7 batches in total, before noon tomorrow so I still have time to go pick up my CSA. Can I do it? I think so. Luckily I will be freezing a good portion of them without baking so that cuts down on my time. Now if I could just find a sous chef. Or at least a dish washer.


Oh, and my upcoming trip? To the vegan mecca? That's right! Portland, Oregon! I am so excited. I leave on Thursday night and am there through Monday afternoon. Anyone have any tips or suggestions for while I am there?

Thanks!