Garden Gille - Fregola Bowl

We stopped in for dinner at one of our favorite haunts, Garden Grille Cafe in Pawtucket Rhode Island.  I've written about it before on my dining guide, but failed to post pictures.  This entry should help, though I'll be better about documenting our food adventures in the future!

Garden Grille recently remodeled and changed up the menu.  The wooden tree branching out over the bar definitely impresses on your first visit to the new digs.

It is almost guaranteed that we will order the Barbeque Chipotle Seitan appetizer with the wasabi mustard dipping sauce as well as the special greens of the day.  We shared the smoked cauliflower hazelnut bisque which was delightful.  The seitan was fabulous and we especially enjoyed the extra crispy pieces.  The greens of the day were also quite nice.  There was a beautiful plate of collard greens, chickpeas and garlic.  Thursday there was a special that caught my eye, but I had no idea what fregola is!

Smartphone to the rescue.  I quickly learned that fregola or fregula is a pasta from Sardinia.  It resembles Israeli couscous.  The pasta is toasted in the oven before packaging which gives it some color.

We ordered the Fregola Bowl in addition to our standard meal.  I really enjoyed the variation in this dish. 

Cauliflower, hearts of palm, french horn mushrooms,

charred endive, with preserved lemon aioli.

Vegan Superbowl

Well, I can't say I am much of a football fan.  However, the Superbowl gives me an excuse to cook for my friends and this is perhaps the one time I look forward to commercials.

Sunday I made up a batch tempeh buffalo wingz.  It is an awesome recipe from a friend's zine. You can find a copy of it online here: http://donteatoffthesidewalk.com/the-zine/sample-recipes/ (Scroll down to the 3rd recipe!)

The wingz were a hit and we'll probably try some other variations in the future.

Awhile back, I saw some blog posts about root beer float cupcakes and couldn't wait to try them.   Root beer extract was rather elusive though and it prevented me from making up a batch.   A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled upon a jar of the stuff and Sunday seemed like the perfect day to crack it open.  You can find the recipe here: http://vegan.com/recipes/vegancom-top-10-recipes-of-2008/root-beer-float-cupcakes-vegancom-top-10-recipe-2008/

The cupcakes were good, though everyone agreed that tasting root beer out of context was a bit weird.  It is unlikely that I'll try this recipe again. 

Back on the Blog Wagon...

Lately I've been reading lots of blogs, but I've really missed posting.  What better time to start than today?

At the end of October, I headed to the Boston Vegetarian Food Festival with my girlfriend.  We had a blast.  It was especially nice because this year, they sold tickets to attend the first hour.  That means there was some time to wander around and meet with the vendors before it got too crowded. We managed a decent haul of freebies and coupons and purchased a few items to try out as well.

Uncle Eddies's Vegan Cookies were there this year.  I'm a huge fan of their chocolate chip peanut butter flavor, so it was nice to see them.  Vegan Treats Bakery was also there with an amazing spread.  They had cannolis which I couldn't wait to try.  Unfortunately, I wasn't a fan.  I'll definitely stick to their more interesting pastries like the Chocolate Peanut Butter Bomb, in the future.

We picked up a couple of items at the Cosmo's Vegan Shoppe table as well.  They actually had imitation pork rinds. Seriously! Who thinks of these things?

Pic From Cosmo's Site

I don't recall ever wanting to eat pork rinds, but I couldn't resist buying these.  Even though I normally wouldn't try something, I'm often feel compelled to try a vegan version if there is one.  Why, we'll never know.

The verdict...  Not bad.  They were just crunchy squares of thin, salty dough.

That's all for now.  I'll be posting soon about making watermelon radish pickles because there was a pound of very pretty watermelon radishes in my organic veggie box last week.

Raw Marinated Artichoke Salad

I stumbled upon the BSI (Blogger Secret Ingredient) Event and thought it sounded like fun.  This week the ingredient was artichokes.  With my recent live foods kick, I was worried about whether, this could work.

From Google, I learned that raw artichokes are commonly served in Greece and other countries.

Here's my first brush with raw artichokes:

This salad is the kind of thing you just throw together, so feel free to make substitutions or changes.  My recipe and instructions are below.

Raw Artichoke Salad Recipe

2 fresh artichokes
chopped tomatoes
marinated mushrooms (baby bella is what I used)  and onions
Kalamata olives
crumbled cheese (cashew cheese in this case)
greens (baby arugula in this case)
sliced scallions
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
lemon juice
Nama Shoyu or soy sauce
Italian spice blend

First, slice the mushrooms and onion.  Mix  a splash of Nama Shoyu, olive oil, and vinegar with a generous sprinkle of the spices.  Add the mushrooms and onions and mix to coat.  Refrigerate for a few hours or days.  The longer the better. (Shaking the bowl to mix it up occasionally is a good thing.)

Juice a lemon and mix with a bowl cold water to prevent the artichoke from browning.  Prepare the artichokes by removing tough outer leaves and the fuzzy choke as well as any purple leaves in the center.  Dip in lemon water as you work.  Slice the artichoke thinly and leave in the water while you prepare the salad.

Mix tomatoes, chopped olives, marinated mushrooms and onions in a bowl.  Add the artichoke slices and a splash of vinegar.  Stir again to combine.

To plate:  Start with greens, add the artichoke mixture.  Garnish with crumbled cheese and sliced scallions.

Hope you enjoy it!

The artichokes were a little tough at first, but the texture grew on me.  I've added my remaining artichoke slices to the mushroom marinade in the fridge and will check to see if that softens it up without destroying the color.

ETA: I'm so excited to say that this recipe actually won the contest.  It is very encouraging so see a vegan recipe beat out standard fare.  In this case raw vegan made the grade!

Raw Beet Patties

I saw a recipe for smokey beet cakes that Alicia Silverstone posted and decided they could easily be converted to a raw dish.   With a few ideas in mind, I also searched to see what others have already tried.  This recipe followed pretty closely to what I was thinking already.

Soaking walnuts takes up too much time, so I opted to use sunflower seeds and ground flax instead.  The rest was a matter of what was in the fridge.

The final product with some onion bread and crumbled cashew cheese.

There were a couple of  Twitter requests for the recipe.  It certainly wasn't exact, but here's an attempt at documenting it.  

 

Raw Smoky Beet Patty Recipe

1 cup of carrot/celery pulp leftover from the juicer (whatever you have will work)
1/2 red beet
1/2 yellow beet
1 onion

1-2 cloves of garlic

1/2 tomato

1/2 cup raw sunflower seeds

2 Tbl of ground flax seed mixed with 2 Tbl of water

1  tsp of smoked paprika

Salt or Nama Shoyu to taste

Food process to incorporate, adding water if necessary.  Basically, you just need a consistency that allows for making patties.   Form patties, then dehydrate at 105 degrees overnight.   These were best right out the dehydrator with a crispy outside.  Though they are still great the next day and keep well.

 

Enjoy!

Tal Ronnen and Gardein - Conscious Cooking

Today I was excited to know Tal Ronnen would be demonstrating recipes at Whole Foods near my office.  At lunch time I headed over there.  He was set-up in a small area speaking to an audience of about 10 people and showing them how to make recipes.

I sat down and watched while he made Gardein Chik'n Marsala.  The sample was delicious.  You can get the recipe on Gardein's site by clicking here.  Unfortunately, my seat didn't facilitate photo taking for this dish.  Tal was so friendly and down to earth and really tried to speak with everyone.   At one point he took a break to sign cookbooks.  I was bummed that my copy was on the shelf at home. 

The second recipe that Chef Ronnen prepared was Asian Gardein Beefless Stir Fry.  While he was making this dish he talked about his cookbook, The Conscious Cook: Delicious Meatless Recipes That Will Change the Way You Eat. I was surprised to learn how popular it is outside the vegan community.  The book actually made #3 on the New York Times Bestseller list.  Epicurious also named it one of the top ten cookbooks of the year!  While it is great to see a vegan book making a mainstream smash, it is disappointing that some of the other great vegan cookbooks out there don't have as much commercial support.  Hopefully, Tal's influence will make people explore some other titles.

Below is a picture of the stir fry before Chef Ronnen served it up.  This dish was also mighty good.  After that, it was back to office for me!

Raw Kale Chips

With the recent bout of warm weather, I've been experimenting with a high raw diet. So far I'm really digging it and feeling great.

Most of my meals are simple salads, fruit or smoothies. Occasionally, I've prepared a more involved entree like raw tacos. This week I'm planning on raw pizza. The crust is actually in the dehydrator right now!

Awhile back I checked out Prana Raw Cafe and really enjoyed the kale chips that came with my meal. These have been on my list to make for awhile. Google turned up some complicated recipes, so I opted to wing it.

Basically, I mixed together a little cold pressed olive oil, nama shoyu, and raw sesames seeds. Then I poured the mixture over some kale leaves that I had torn up. After mixing it up well and making sure all the pieces were coated, I tossed them in the dehydrator for about 5 hours. These came out great. Prana definitely used more oil, but I was happy with these results.

The yellow/orange you see in the picture is some nutritional yeast.  I sprinkled about 1/3 of the chips with nutritional yeast, to add some cheesy flavor.  Both varieties are great.

Many people make kale chips in the oven, so no dehydrator necessary.  Soy sauce works fine in place of the nama shoyu if you aren't trying to adhere to a raw diet.

Give these a try, kale chips will surprise you.