Recent Foods Eats - Kitchen & East Bay

I bought The Oh She Glows cookbook right away. Since I am a fan of the blog and the recipes I know the book would make me happy and our bellies happy. I have tried a few recipes and our fave is the balsamic tempeh. It smells so good in the oven and once out of oven, the flavors are simple but magical.

I tossed the tempeh on a salad with roasted chickpeas, hummus, dressing and greens. A slice off leftover bread toasted rounded out the meal. I am making the tempeh again tonight, another salad combo but with a few twists, like a different dressing. I used to buy dressing all the time - now I have my mini mason jars and love combining oils, vinegars and spices to create my own.

We spent last weekend in San Francisco and Berkeley. I bought some kitchen and lunch essentials at Republic of V.  The chips are tasty, light cheeze flavor, not super oily like other chips and have a strong crunch factor without cutting into one's gums.

We ate at Flaco's twice over the weekend. Both times I got the huarache plate with black beans! The extra thick corn tortillia is so good! The huarache is my go to as well as stealing bites off Matt's taquito plate.

Speaking of picking off Matt's plate...He ordered the savory brunch on Sunday at Timeless. I have a headache and lack of sleep had the genius idea to have more caffiene and a bear claw...I picked off his plate of french toast delight....Then ordered myself more sugar and coffee to go!

On Monday to keep it simple and clean up all the fried food and caffeine in my system it was gluten free pizza night and a simple salad tossed with red wine vinaigrette and topped with hummus.

[Vegan MOFO] Mama Mia Monday - Pesto Salad

A few weeks back on a day trip to Sacramento I had an awesome pesto salad for lunch at The Plum. It was creamy, herby, tasty....really good! I thought to recreate it at home.

I wanted to make pesto - get this with a mortar and pestle, real old school. I could not find organic basil in a decent quantity around town, so instead of getting frustrated I moved on to plan B. Plan B consisted of buying Simply Organic's Sweet Basil Pesto, making the sauce following the packages instructions (adding nooch) and then letting it sit in the fridge till dinner time.

I spiral cut a bunch of zucchini, tossed it with some Tuscan kale + olive oil, added cherry tomatoes and the pesto sauce. For a nutty boost I added a nice sprinkle of pine nuts on top.  First off the Tuscan kale I bought from Trader Joe's was really rough and bitter. It just made the salad hard to eat. The pesto sauce was not pesto-y enough...At least we had garlic bread to save the meal! Again - I tried...

[Veagan MOFO] WWGFE Wednesday - Pittsburgh Portobello Salad

On DDD Guy stops by a place and they create a steak salad. The salad comes complete with fries, croutons, steak, ranch dressing and cheese crumbles. I thought that sounded intriguing so I set out to create my own vegan version.

I used an organic lettuce blend as the base, topped it off with oven baked fries (with a Johnny Garlic's twist: nooch, garlic and pink sea salt sprinkled on top), homemade basil croutons, portobello strips marinated in: vegan worstisheir sauce, spices, liquid smoke and Braggs, habanero ranch dressing and some spicy cultured cashew cheeze I bought from Whole Foods.
I had more veggies to use that day but I forgot them! I hate when that happens. It was a great salad, even for a mushroom dislike-r like myself it was tasty and good. I could have used vegan steak strips but wanted to try something new!Salads do not have to be all wimpy - if only every restaurant had a vegan salad option like this!

[Veagan MOFO] WWGFE Wednesday - Bacon Salad

If there was a way to log TV time, my charts would say that I watch 90% Food Network and Cooking Channel shows. I am kind of addicted to watching shows that are mostly stuff I will not eat. However the shows I watch give me inspiration to cook my own versions of what I see.

One cook/TV host that comes through each time with ideas for our meals is Guy Fieri.Whether he is at a 'funky joint' or cooking at home I am drawn to his food. Often when I need a meal idea I ask myself What Would Guy Fieri Eat?

 

In Guy's latest book he has a chapter dedicated to pork and in previous books he has had a lot of pork recipes and even a disturbing photo of dead pigs...Bacon seems to be the hold-strong trend lately so I thought my first WWFE would be something bacon related. 

I created a tofu bacon slab salad. I know that tempeh is the go to protein source for vegan bacon fun but I wanted to create a thicker cut and I am a tofu gal! I took strips of super firm high protein tofu and marinated them in liquid smoke (which he explained in a show he used to not use because he thought it was cheating or something), maple/agave syrup, cayenne powder, garlic, Himalayan pink salt and pepper. After about 30 minutes, I heated up some oil in a frying pan, fried each slab till it was brown.

The salad was organic greens, organic cherry tomatoes, rustic seasoned croutons, tofu-bacon slabs with my habanero ranch dressing on top (Guy is a fan of hot sauce). I added a side of cheezey garlic bread and it was all good! Maybe it is still to healthy to appear on a dive menu but the pigs will thank ya - not to mention your heart!

Chipotle Sofritas & Tofu Tacos

After doing a walk through of the local Earth Day celebration as we chatted up some people/friends and I held a snake we headed out to Chipotle to try the new sofritas tofu concoction on the menu. I used to love me some Chipotle but I always felt shy (and I am not a shy person!) about asking them to wipe down the line and change their gloves due to contamination issues. I put my anxiety behind me and we ordered some food!

I got a salad bowl (minus the dressing of course! it is not vegan FYI) and had the corn salsa and fresh tomato salsa all up in the mix!

Matt got a burrito bowl with a flour tortilla on the side! He asked for extra tomato salsa and brown rice.

Verdict: it is good! The taste of the sofritas is something like a cross between a tofu scramble and soyrizo. Nice kick and texture. I hope this option stays around. A few years ago Chipotle tried out another vegan meat sub and it was very limited in release and did not stay long. I did not get to try it, but even if I could - it was Gardein so chances are I was allergic.
I know some people are complaining about not getting guacamole for free now on the veg burrito, this whole argument is dumb and kinda makes me mad. People stop being cheap, or simply do not eat out at places if you only can complain. If you are getting the tofu you are getting the good stuff, not some unknown GMO block  but Hodo tofu from Oakland. I heard on the news that the development for the sofritas took awhile to perfect and I hope it does stay around - another option.

 

Inspired by Chipotle I made  crumbled tofu tacos on Monday night for dinner. One block of the high protein extra firm stuff, crumbled and sauteed with a diced red bell pepper and one packet of taco seasoning prepared as directed from the package. I added salsa from the neighbor's garden, hand smashed guacamole and a side of rice! Not the same but a nice meal that was easy to make and not to pricey!