Garden of Awesome

It's been far too long since I used my beloved Sarah Kramer cookbooks. The Garden of Vegan was actually my first vegan cookbook. I wrote an email to the publishing company requesting a catalog of their books because I'd seen one at work. In the email, I mentioned how excited I was to order The Garden of Vegan. And to my surprise, the whole book was in my mailbox a few weeks later — for free!

I wasn't even vegan then, just vegetarian. But I remember being quite inspired by the healthy recipes. Back then (somewhere around 2002), I was living on Ramen noodles, mac & cheese, and frozen pizzas. Fast forward to 2009. Flipping through my much-neglected, well-worn copy of Garden, I stumbled upon the recipe for Awesome Asian Noodle Salad:

Now, this isn't really the kind of dish that needs a recipe. But I probably wouldn't have thought it up on my own. Thanks to Sarah Kramer, it'll be going in my regular repertoire. I subbed flavored tempeh for the tofu in the recipe ... just because. The noodles are soba, and the mushrooms are baby bella. The sauce is a simple mix of rice vinegar, sesame oil, soy sauce, and fresh ginger.

A word on the tempeh: I used those new Lightlife Ginger Teriyaki Tempehtations — pre-cubed, flavored tempeh. It was tasty, but not really worth the $4 I paid for the teensy package (and that was on sale ... regular Whole Foods price was $5!). Next time, I'll marinate some plain tempeh and save a few bucks.

In case you didn't notice the Vegan Mofo banner to the right, I'm participating this year! Yea! It's my first year actually getting around to signing up. For those who don't know, Vegan Mofo stands for Vegan Month of Food. For the third October in a row, hundreds of vegan food bloggers are pledging to post as much as possible throughout the month.

I pledge to post every weekday in October (with the exception of Oct. 23-28 cause I'll be on vacation in New Orleans!). I typically post most weekdays anyway, so I don't think it'll be too much of a challenge. The real challenge will be keeping up with all the other Mofo-ers. For a full list or to sign up, go to Kittee's Cake Maker to the Stars blog.