Easter means chocolate things. This year, they meant vegan peppermint patties shaped as Han Solo encased in carbonite.
These were, of course, made by Sarah, and were as good as ever. She made them a little while back, but I saved Han encased in Choconite for today.
That reminds me. Sarah still needs to see Empire Strikes Back. I wonder how I’ll get her to do that.
Nom Solo!
There are many, many great things about living in Seattle. From vegan donuts to the amazing beach parks. But while other cities have both of those things, I don’t believe any other place has The Root Beer Store.
Seattle is blessed with two locations. Thankfully, one is pretty close to us. We trip trapped down to Seattle and took advantage of the beautiful day. You can see Sarah’s take on it here.
Today was a big day at the Root Beer Store. They had a free root beer tasting event, which is WAY less annoying than a wine tasting. In fact, the Root Beer Store’s logo is “Wine less, smile more, drink root beer.” Hard to complain about that.
One of the cool things about the Root Beer Store is that they don’t just stock root beer. They’ve got weird and random sodas from all over the US and even some from Australia. Smartz and I each got six flavors. Want to know what they are?
Get off the table, Juniper!
I got…
-MacFuddy Pepper Elixir (Supposed to be like Dr. Pepper, but with more pepper. From Mulikteo, WA!)
-Boylan’s Birch Beer (You have NO idea how much I’ve missed Birch Beer since moving west. It’s not out here. From NJ!))
-Leninade (No idea what this is, but it’s got a hilarious bottle. )
-Gold Coin Sarsaparilla (There’s not much sarsaparilla out here, either.From Connecticut!)
-Sioux City Birch Beer (I used to drink this a lot as a pup. From Connecticut again!)
-Abita Root Beer (from Louisiana!)
Smartz got…
-Capt’n Ele’s Orange Pop (from Maine!)
-Blenheim Ginger Ale (from SC!)
-The Original Fireman’s Brew (from California!)
-Good & Delish Root Beer (from … Walgreens?)
-Rachael’s Lemonade (from Mass!)
-Bundaberg Ginger Beer (from Australia!)
We don’t drink a lot of soda, so it’ll take us a few weeks to get through all of these. But I’ll let you know what I think of them as I go.
Sometimes in the evening, it’s nice to have a treat. Luxuries aren’t abundant in the Smartz-Herc household, so popcorn is a typical post-dinner snack. But when we really want to class up the joint, we have ice cream.
My go-to flavor is always So Delicious (Vegan) Vanilla. If I got all crazy, I could eat a quart of this in one sitting. But that’s a fairly stupid thing to do, so I came up with a plan.
When I was a kid, I always wanted my parents to buy ice cream cones. For some reason, they never did. This may have been to cut costs, but from what I’ve discovered, you actually save money by buying cones.
If you were to scoop out a bowl of ice cream or (like me) just eat it straight from the quart, you’ll notice that you go through the entire container in a couple of sittings. This isn’t cheap and isn’t really all that healthy.
On the other hand, if you get a cone and fill it with a few scoops, a quart will last you eight or so such helpings. But why is this?
Simple. When you eat ice cream from a bowl, you eat it with a spoon, scooping up relatively large gobs of ice cream with each bit. But when you eat ice cream from a cone, you lick it, taking relatively small amounts of goodness with each swipe.
Maybe it’s a mental thing. I know that when I have the quart in front of me, there’s nothing to stop me from eating the whole thing (including tummy aches). But if I have a cone, when it’s done it’s done. And you get to eat a cone! Those are fairly cheap and, aside from a tiny bit of sugar, fairly neutral.
Also, there’s something magical about eating an ice cream cone. When you go to the beach or the a carnival, you get ice cream on a cone. Getting it in a bowl just seems like you’re slumming it. You could do that yourself at home. But with a cone, you’re living like a king! You are sole monarch of all you survey when you have a fist-full of ice cream cone!
So, fatty, instead of sitting down with a quart of rocky road, get yourself a cone. The ice cream will last longer, making each sitting a cheaper foray into extravagance. And you’ll be eating ice cream from a cone – a delicacy reserved only for Little Leaguers, county fair-goers and the Hollywood elite.
Have an ice cream cone – because you’re worth it!
It’s been a long long long time since I posted a recipe. And hey, I’ve been working on one for a few days now and I think it’s pretty near perfect.
The main recipe is for the BBQ sauce, but I’ll show you an example of how it can be used. Let’s go!
Let’s first talk about ingredients…
1/3C Tamari (it’s like soy sauce, but much better)
3T Sugar (I use unrefined, no idea how white sugar would work)
2T Tomato Paste
1T Molasas
1t Rice Vinegar (not regular vinegar)
1/5t Arrowroot
1/2t Hing (also known as Asafoetida – if you don’t have it, do without)
1/2t Fresh Ginger (grate it – if you only have powder, use 1t of that)
1t Sesame Oil (hot sesame oil is great!)
1/2t Five Spice (it’s a mixture of star anise, cloves, cinnamon, Sichuan pepper and ground fennel)
1t Liquid Smoke (it’s BBQ sauce, afterall)
Mix it all together in a bowl with a whisk…
So do you want to see how to use it? Ok! Let us go!
Here’s what you’ll need…
The BBQ Sauce from above
Three kale leaves
One pound of extra firm tofu (maybe it’s 14oz, whatever)
Three dried Oriental chili peppers
Oil for some frying
Fry the tofu separately, please. And follow the directions for the noodles. It’s a good idea to maybe not cook them the whole way.
After tofu is fried, fry chilies for a minute.
Then add mostly cooked noodles.
Then add that tofu!
And then the kale!
Ohhh and then the sauce!
Fry it up until leaves are wilty (not long)...
And then….
I’m actually quite surprised at how good this is.
Instead of rice noodles, you could just use rice. Or other stuff. Knock yourself out!
I’m very all about cheap snacks, even (and especially) if I have to make them myself.
So anyway, I was standing at the checkouts at work when I saw a magazine called Fine Cooking. It had some fine looking crackers on the cover with the caption “Home Made Crackers.” I spent a ton of time looking through the stupid magazine for “Home Made Crackers,” but came up with nothing. For some reason, the inside of the magazine called the crackers “Three Seed Crackers,” which is a pretty crappy thing to do.
I was hoping to just jot down the recipe, but it was too long and I figured that it would be online somewhere. The Fine Cooking website has a ton of recipes! So I searched for “Home Made Crackers” and “Three Seed Crackers,” but came up with nada. So I typed in “crackers” and with a bit of searching found “Seeded Crackers.” Same crackers, three different names. Brilliant marketing.
Well, anyway, I decided to make these multi-named crackers. I don’t really care for seeds on or in stuff (same goes for nuts), so I just made salted crackers. Fun, no?
Here’s the recipe…
1-1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour; more for rolling
scant 1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
1 tsp. table salt
3 Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil (I used one part olive oil, one part canola oil)Preheat oven to 450F
In a large bowl, whisk the all-purpose flour, whole-wheat flour, and table salt. Add the olive oil and 1/2 cup water to the flour; stir with a rubber spatula until it collects into a soft, crumbly ball of dough. Use the spatula or your hands to press the dough against the sides of the bowl to gather all the stray flour.
Set the dough on a lightly floured work surface and portion it into thirds. Pat each portion into a square. Set two squares aside and cover with a clean towel. Roll the remaining dough into a rectangle about 1/16 inch thick and 7 or 8 inches wide by 14 or 15 inches long. Whenever you feel resistance, lift up one edge of the dough and sprinkle more flour underneath before you continue rolling.
The recipe then rambled on about how to cut them and when to put the seeds on them. It warned “Don’t bother trimming the edges; rustic edges add character.” Awesome, huh? Edges add character. What I want more than anything from these crackers is character.
Bake these for about 10 minutes. The best thing to bake them on is one of those cookie sheets with the air in them. Hopefully you know what I mean. Otherwise, the bottoms could burn. They should be browned, but not burned. Quite tasty.
Sorry for the crappy pictures. They were taken with a webcam.
For the past three weeks, people have been visiting both Sarah/me and Ryan/Jaime. First, there was Sarah’s parents and then Jaime’s moms and then Ryan Full and Jason from back east. During this time we ate out a lot. So much.
It really showed us all the great vegan things that Seattle offers. Even though Sarah’s folks aren’t vegan/veg, they were GREAT sports and ate vegan with us most of the time (thanks!). Ryan Full and Jason are veg.
Around these parts, we have found more than enough vegan eateries. From donuts at Mighty Os to pizza at Pizza Pi. We round it out with breakfast at Wayward Cafe and Chinese at Bamboo Gardens or Thai at Araya‘s.
These places are great. You look at the menus and you know that anything listed is not only edible for vegans, but probably really tasty too!
This is in stark contrast to my life back east in Central Pennsylvania. There, I could pretty much only eat Chinese. There would be maybe two tofu dishes on the menu and you’d have to trust the cook to not use a meat-based sauce (most Chinese places use chicken broth in their sauces – enough to make *all* Chinese places a no-go for me). Once in a while I could get Indian food in Harrisburg or Lancaster, but only the Lancaster place had the vegan dishes marked as such.
I got really sick of looking at menus and wondering, “what can I eat here?” The answer was usually “nothing at all.” But in Seattle, at the places we go, there is nothing I can’t eat! There are more choices than I could ever work my way through!
Another important aspect is quality. A lot of the places we go to use organic veggies. The dishes are fresh and look as good as they taste. The Chinese places we’d go to in PA had veggies that looked gray and beaten to death.
Sure, sometimes I miss central PA. It’s where I grew up, it’s where I’m from. But I’ll never miss the nasty excuse for food. Oh my no!
The first thing I ever learned how to cook was scrambled eggs. From that, I would always make egg sammiches. I took two pieces of extremely white bread, slathered them with ketsup and then ate ‘em up.
Well, I’m older and wiser now. I don’t eat white bread and I don’t eat eggs. So my option was one: make scrambled tofu and put it on wheat bread.
Here’s what you’ll need:
-1 package of extra firm tofu, 14oz.
-1 T “butter” (I use Earth Balance) – for fryin’
-1/2 t hing
-1/2 t black pepper
-1/2 t cumin
-1/2 t salt
-1/2 t basil
-1/4 t black salt
-2 t nutritional yeast
-1 t tamari
-1/2 t turmeric
And here’s what you do:
1) Mash up tofu with a fork while you put the dab of “butter” in a skillet or wok and get it ready to fry. Med heat is fine. Here, I throw in the hing and the black pepper and fry them for a spell. Not long though.
A couple of stray thoughts…
*Thanks to Kurma dasa for the black salt idea! Black salt in very sulfuric and makes it taste a bit eggy. I may even start adding 1/2 teaspoon rather than just 1/4.
*Ok, let me grippe a bit about vegan bread. WHY does vegan break have to automatically equal small? The slices are thin and the loaves are too small and too short. What gives, vegan bread-makers? Let’s have normal-sized vegan bread. Oh, and please, no nuts in the bread, ok? Just normal bread.
Enjoy!
