Today's Word is "Quiescence"

I learned a new word at breakfast today, thanks to the creative title of Bryant Terry's steel cut oats recipe in Vegan Soul Kitchen — Brown Steel (Cut Oats) In the Hour of Quiescence:

"Quiescense" refers to a state of being quiet, still, or at rest. It's more commonly used in its adjectival form — quiescent. These creamy oats — cooked in almond milk and topped with maple syrup, raisins, and toasted pecans — certainly offered a relaxing start to my Monday morning.

In Vegan Soul Kitchen, Terry offers soundtrack or movie suggestions for each dish. For this one, he recommends "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos" by Public Enemy (see where he gets the cute name for the recipe).

Though I love me some Public Enemy, I prefer to listen to my politically-charged rap in the afternoon rather than at the crack of dawn. So no Chuck D for me this morning ... just a comforting bowl of quiescent oats.

NashVegan Potluck

In July, while camping at Veganstock in Asheville, North Carolina, I had the pleasure of meeting fellow PPK-er and Tennessean JohnP. He lives in Nashville most of the time but also has a house in Asheville. Since our homes in Memphis are only three hours away from Nashville, John invited Stephanie (Poopie Bitch) and I to the NashVegan Picnic Potluck in Dragon Park this past weekend.

I wanted to bring something savory and something sweet, so I settled on the Quinoa Tabbouleh (with added chickpeas) from The Vegan Table:

And the Mini Jelly Donuts from Vegan Yum Yum's donut recipes in the new Vegetarian Times:

The quinoa was tasty, but the raspberry jam-filled donuts were absolutely amazing eaten straight out of the deep fryer. I had to make them on Thursday night for Saturday's potluck, so they weren't quite as fresh when everyone else got to try them. But all 20 or so donuts were gone by the end of the potluck, so they must not have been too stale.

About 10 awesome vegans showed up, all bearing more food than any of us could finish off. Here's my first plate:

The sandwich was JohnP's contribution — a "chicken"-fried tofu sandwich with gravy spread. So, so delicious! Steph brought the Pineapple Beet Salad from the Veganomicon, a recipe I'd never even noticed before. It was really tasty. I heart beets!

On the far side of the plate, there's a schmear of raw pimento "cheddar" nut cheeze that JohnP purchased at the Nashville Whole Foods. A local woman makes and markets several flavors of raw nut cheezes in Nashville and it was so amazing. I wanted to buy some to bring back, but a package of it was priced at $13! Too steep for my broke ass.

After the main courses, we pigged out on dessert. Besides my donuts, there were JohnP's delicious Red Velvet Cupcakes (the icing melted a little in the hot sun) from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World:

Theresa brought the Lemon Bars from Veganomicon:

These were amazingly lemony! They get their jelliness from agar-agar.

And Annie brought some super-moist East Coast Coffee Cake from Vegan Brunch:

By the time I finished my dessert plate, I was miserably stuffed ... like on a ridiculous Thanksgiving level.

The park where the potluck was held is actually called Fannie Mae Dees Park, but it's nicknamed Dragon Park. See why....

Bam!

No Dirty South cookbook would be complete without a jambalaya recipe. I'd been planning an eggplant jambalaya recipe in my head for ages, but I finally got around to bringing that idea to fruition this week. Bam! I bring you Eggplant and Creole Sausage Jambalaya:

Sauteed eggplant (sans the skin, but you can leave it on if you're into that sort of thing) meets spicy creole-flavored steamed sausages, brown rice, fresh veggies, tomatoes, and plenty of heat. The sausages were inspired by the Julie Hasson method of steaming sausages, but I came up with my own New Orleans-inspired flavor combo. They're also a little softer than the Julie sausages, which is nice since these are sliced and pan-fried.

I served my jambalaya with Roasted Okra Pods:

I have to think Erin of Vegan Homemade for introducing me to this technique of roasting whole okra brushed with a little olive oil and salt. I've always fried it or boiled it in soups and stews. But this preparation was equally delicious. Thanks Erin! Oh, and thanks Melinda (my co-worker) for gifting me with fresh okra from her garden.

Saved the Best for Last

Back in June (god, is it already almost September?!), the awesome folks at Bountiful Vegan sent me a sample package of their gigantic vegan Intention Cookies. Not only are these cookies delicious, they're also said to possess a little mojo magic. Each cookie is supposed to bring about positive qualities — love, prosperity, harmony, and well-being — as you eat it.

Over the last couple months, I tried the Love (Chocolate Chip Orange), the Prosperity (Chocolate Choco Chip), and the Harmony (Lemon Snickerdoodle). But today, I finally dug into the best cookie of all — the Well-Being Coconut Pineapple Cookie!

For some reason, I'd imagined that this would be my least favorite. I typically always choose chocolate over fruit flavors. But in this case, choosing chocolate first was just the crazy wrong thing to do. The Well-Being cookie's pineapple flavor is pretty mild. In fact, I didn't really taste it. But the coconut flavor is out-of-this-world. It lends a very buttery taste to the cookies that tastes so naughty, and so, so good!

My only complaint — the cookies don't list any nutritional information. While that's kind of a good thing (it's hard to feel guilty when you have no idea how many calories you're consuming), I might practice a little more restraint if I knew. They do, however, list the all-natural, whole food ingredients that go into the cookies.

Wanna try the cookies for yourself? The folks at Bountiful Vegan are holding a sample pack giveaway contest on their site. You still have time to enter, as the winner will be announced on September 15th.

Hey testers! There's a new recipe posted on the tester site. Check it out....

Enchiladas for Breakfast?

It's never too early in the day for Mexican food. But it can be a tad too early for spicy habanero pepper salsa. I learned that the hard way with Monday's breakfast — Black Bean Tofu Scramble Enchiladas:

This is another cookbook recipe, though it's not totally Southern. Maybe kinda Tex-Mex-ish. Anyhow, it's one of my favorite breakfasts. I typically use a mild salsa, but on Monday, I accidentally used the super spicy salsa thinking it was roasted tomato salsa. They were the same color!

On Tuesday morning, I made sure to use the mild version and my sensitive morning tummy was much, much happier. Basically, these corn tortillas are stuffed with a Mexican-flavored black bean tofu scramble and Follow Your Heart Nacho cheeze, then topped with salsa and more cheeze.

I make my scramble and grate my cheeze the night before. In the morning, I simply stuff the tortillas and bake to heat (sometimes the FYH cheeze on top melts, sometimes it doesn't ... but the inside cheeze always gets nice and gooey).

Summer Soup

I've never really understood the whole soup-as-winter-food thing. A light and fresh veggie soup is best enjoyed when all the ingredients are in season — like, um, now. Nearly every ingredient in my Summer's Bounty Veggie Soup came from the Memphis Farmers Market:

Whole, fresh tomatoes were cooked down to make the base, and then I added summer squash, okra, potatoes, onions, corn, carrots, celery, and purple hull peas (that I shelled with my very own hands). I even made the broth from scratch by cooking down odds and ends of veggie scraps.

The full recipe is going in my cookbook, but this is a meal I only recommend for summer or early fall. It just wouldn't taste the same with yucky old winter tomatoes and crappy canned corn.

On the side, I baked a loaf of my Whole Wheat Beer Bread:

I'd intended on purchasing a crusty whole wheat baguette to dip into my soup. But I couldn't find a purely whole wheat loaf without driving all the way out to Whole Foods. I had a few extra beers in the fridge and figured a beer loaf would be the quickest route to carb heaven.

I've posted the beer bread recipe before, but I've made a few changes since then. Here's the revised version.

Whole Wheat Beer Bread
------------------------------
3 cups whole wheat pastry flour
3 tsp. baking powder
1/2 Tbsp. evaporated cane juice (or white sugar if you please)
1/4 tsp. sea salt
12 ounces of tasty vegan beer (I used New Belgium black English ale, but PBR will work too!)
1 Tbsp. soy margarine

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix dry ingredients. Add beer. Stir to combine. Pour into a lightly greased loaf pan. Bake for 30 minutes, and then brush margarine over the top. Bake an additional 20-25 minutes or until a tooth pick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Farmers Market ExtraVEGANza!

On Saturday, I met up with my fellow vegan buds Stephanie (a.k.a. Poopie Bitch) and Lindsey (who doesn't have an a.k.a., but we should give her one!) for a day-long shopping trip at two farmer's markets. First, we had soy lattes at Bluff City Coffee in the South Main Arts District. Steph brought her famously-delicious Egg McVegans:

These are so much better than the real thing! The "egg" is made from tofu and topped with Tofutti cheeze and Gimme Lean faux sausage. It was the perfect start to our morning. After fueling up, we headed to the Memphis Farmer's Market, downtown's weekly Saturday sale of locally-grown fruits and veggies.

At the market, we ran into my buddy Uele of Groovy Foods, who makes the best vegan granola on the planet. She sells it at the market, and it's so addictive:

Then we saw Keith Forrester (he's ducking in the background), a local farmer who sells to-die-for heirloom cherry tomatoes from Whitton Farms. His wife Jill is responsible for those lovely flowers:

After stocking up on tomatoes, fresh corn, eggplant, okra, and some tasty vegan pre-made soups, we headed to the Winchester Farmer's Market (about a 20-minute drive from the downtown market). Even though the name implies that the Winchester store is a farmer's market, it's actually not one at all. Instead, it's a massive Asian and Mexican supermarket with a large selection of faux meats, exotic produce (not local), and steamed buns. I posed with my corn and goofy 80s shades outside the market's front door:

Inside, we found plenty of great deals on inari wrappers, veat "meat," and soy sauce. We also found some, um, interesting labels. I took this iPhone photo of Steph with a package of Cock Flavored Soup Mix (definitely not vegan!):

And Lindsey bought this huge bottle of Housewife Soy Sauce because she couldn't resist the funny label:

Finally, I'll leave you guys with this hilarious shelf tag:

It was the price for a bag of dried white mushrooms, and we're assuming the "fun" means "fungus." After all, $3.79 sounds like too great of a deal for "Premium White Fun with Asian Taste." :-)