Vegan Eats in Atlanta (and Birmingham!)

I spent last weekend in Atlanta for the second annual Atlanta VegFest, and I blogged all about the awesome demos (Isa! Betty Goes Vegan!), vendors (cupcakes! vegan meats!), and more in my last post. But tonight, I'm going to share pics of some of the food I ate on the way to Atlanta and the first night I was there. Tomorrow, I have more pics from Saturday dinner and Sunday brunch in the ATL.

Since I live in Memphis, the best way to get to Atlanta by car is through Birmingham, Alabama. Last year, when I went to Atlanta VegFest, my mama and I found a Taco Bell in Birmingham for quick vegan Cantina Bowl salads. But this time, my friend vegan Cassi was with me, and she recently did a guest post on this blog about vegan options in Birmingham. So she knew just the place to go for lunch when we passed through on Friday — Golden Temple Cafe. 

Omg, I loved this place! It's just the kind of restaurant I like. No frills, hippie-owned, laidback, sandwiches and soups, bean bowls and nachos, vegan cheese options. There was a sign in the window that said the place was celebrating 40 years! Anyway, I ordered the UAB Special (UAB stands for University of Alabama) of a Grilled Vegan Cheese and the soup of the day, which was Split Pea Soup.

Their portions are HUGE! I took much of this hearty soup, which was chock full of onions and greens, to go. The grilled cheese was made with Daiya mozzarella.

Attached to the restaurant is the Golden Temple store. And we just had to look around before hitting the road. I've been looking for the perfect Kwan Yin statue (Goddess of Mercy and Compassion) for some time as she's my fave goddess of the moment. And look what I found! A whole shelf of Kwan Yins! I ended up buying that little purple one.

We got back on the road and hit Atlanta right around 5 p.m. We checked into the sweet-ass hotel that my publisher put me up in, and then we met up with Thomas and Rhiannon from the Book Publishing Company for dinner. We settled on the all-vegetarian, mostly vegan Cafe Sunflower in Sandy Springs.

Last year, when I went to ATL VegFest, my mama and I ate at the other Sunflower location in Buckhead. This was one was just as lovely (except this one didn't sell booze ... bummer). Thomas ordered Spring Rolls for the table.

And then we were all given these tasty salads with white beans, bulgur, and sesame-soy dressing. Nothing beats cooked grains on a salad! I'm gonna start doing that at home.

And these melt-in-your-mouth soft, fresh rolls with Earth Balance!

For my main course, I went with the Sweet and Sour Soy Chicken — fried bits of vegan chicken in a sweet and tangy sauce with pineapples, broccoli, peppers, onions, and water chesnuts over brown rice. It really hit the spot. I had been craving Chinese food.

I didn't have room for dessert, sadly. But someone sitting at the next table over ordered cake, and it looked amazing.

Well, that's all for tonight. Come back tomorrow for more Atlanta eats!

Atlanta VegFest 2013

Hey everybody! I'm back from Atlanta VegFest, and I didn't even get eaten by zombies (okay, I know ATL people are tired of the Walking Dead jokes, but I can't help myself). My friend Cassi (who came with me) and I ate so much food, watched some great cooking demos, got Isa to sign Isa Does It, and met some fun new friends.

I have so many pictures from the weekend-long trip, so I'm breaking my pictures into several posts. Tonight, I'm posting about the festival itself, and tomorrow (and maybe the next day) I'll show y'all what I ate when I wasn't at VegFest.

This was the second year for Atlanta VegFest, and it was twice as big as last year! I've had the honor of doing demos and signings both years, and those Atlanta kids are so much fun. And so well organized. The event took place at Le Fais Do-Do, large event venue with two speaker/demo rooms and two vendor rooms.

I made the Eggless Tofu Olive Salad and Vegan Pimiento Cheese from Cookin' Crunk during the first demo of the day. It was nice to get done early.

Here's my standing-room only crowd!!

It's so exciting when I can demo to a packed room. I've had more than one occasion where only a couple folks showed up to watch a demo (not at VegFests but at local events on occasion). In the words of the great Macklemore, "that shit will check your ego." But Atlanta had a great audience!!

We had a little time before my demo, so Cassi and I took care of the basics —bought a VegFest tee, some Crazy Rumors vegan lip gloss, and entered tickets into the raffle giveaway. And then Cassi went on a quest for sugar. She found the Mama Bakes Safe Cakes booth. Look at that giddy face.

And she settled on a Chocolate Raspberry Cupcake.

One of my favorite vendors was Judyfood. She lives in Georgia and makes this amazing vegan artichoke dip and spinach dip. She wasn't selling it at the event, but the local Atlanta Whole Foods stores carry it. I went looking for some at a Whole Foods after the fest, and they were all sold out. Sadness.

Gutenfleischer's Deli/Dough Bakery had the best crowd all day since they were giving away samples of their homemade vegan meats, cookies, and Treeline cashew cheese. Here's Simon sampling some roasts. This stuff was so good.

Lots of vendors were selling meals this year. So around lunchtime, I tried the offerings from Loving Hut's booth — Tofu Spring Rolls and Vegan Ham Fried Rice.

I spent much of the day at my publisher's table signing copies of Cookin' Crunk. Here I am with the Book Publishing Company's Rhiannon.

VegFest had a stellar cooking demo line-up this year. Vegan rock star Isa Chandra Moskowitz was there demo-ing a quinoa salad from her new book, Isa Does It. I'd been waiting to buy my copy at this event so I could get her to sign it.

And finally, the day ended with an awesome demo by my internet pals Annie and Dan Shannon of Betty Goes Vegan.

They made macaroni salad and vegan ranch dressing. I've been following them since the old Meet the Shannons blog days. And Betty Goes Vegan is one of my favorite vegan cookbooks. I brought my own copy to have them sign it there, but stupid me left the book in the hotel room. D'oh! Instead I had them sign a piece of paper that I can tape inside my book.

Well, that's all for VegFest! Here's Cassi excited that the day was ending so we could grab dinner and wine. But more on that tomorrow.

Roasted Green Beans!

Hey y'all. I'm heading out to Atlanta VegFest bright 'n' early in the mornin'. If you're in the ATL area, stop by and see me! I'll be demo-ing and signing copies of Cookin' Crunk. But more importantly, if you stop by Atlanta VegFest, you'll also get to see the one and only Isa Chandra Moskowitz demo-ing from her new book Isa Does It. And you can see the fabulous Annie Shannon of Betty Goes Vegan Betty Crockerin' it up in the demo kichen. And you can try Fran Costigan's vegan chocolate goodness from her new dessert book, Vegan Chocolate. Basically, it's gonna be bad-ass, and I can't wait.

But if you can't get to Atlanta VegFest, you can just make these tasty green beans instead. This is a quick and easy recipe that I came up with a few nights ago when I wanted to try something different with green beans. I typically steam them or saute them. But this time, I made Roasted Green Beans.

I just made enough for little ole me. So here's the recipe for one. Double or quadruple as needed.

Roasted Green Beans
---------------------------
1 cup fresh green beans, ends trimmed
1/4 medium Vidalia onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp. extra virgin olive oil
Salt
Pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees,

Toss beans, onion, garlic, oil, and salt, and pepper in a mixing bowl, making sure all the beans are coated.

Transfer to a baking dish. Bake for 35-40 minutes, stirring beans halfway through cooking time. Keep an eye on them because thinner beans may burn.

Eat!

Magic Mushrooms

No, not those kind of magic mushrooms, silly! I'm talking about the magical medicinal qualities of gourmet 'shrooms.

There's a local mushroom farm down in Potts Camp, Mississippi called Dickey Farms, and they grow all sorts of good-for-you mushrooms, like shiitake, osyter, lion's mane, and pioppino. They don't grow button or portabella mushrooms (because you can find those anywhere!). They asked me to pick up some of their mushrooms at the Cooper Young Farmer's Market (where they sell each Saturday), but I got there super-late last weekend, and they were all sold out of fresh mushrooms.

But they did have their Sun-Dried Mushroom Powder and Medicinal Mushroom Tea.

Mushrooms are an excellent source of vitamin D. Since I'm still getting over the world's slowest-healing foot stress fracture (it's been 10 weeks and it still hurts!), my doctor has told me to take extra vitamin D. I've been taking a vegan D2 supplement, but it can't hurt to get a little natural vegan D from my food, right? (FYI: vitamin D3 is not vegan. It's sourced from animals).

The Medicinal Mushroom Tea is basically a bag of sun-dried mushroom bits (the sun-drying adds even more vitamin D). You boil water, add a tablespoon or so of the dried mushrooms, and let it simmer for 45 minutes. Then you strain the mushrooms off and drink it, straight up, no sugar. It tastes just like drinking mushrooms, which admittedly sounds a little weird at first. But I'm a savory tea drinker (I even put shoyu in my umeboshi plum tea), so I loved this!

Medicinal Mushroom Tea is said to help fight cancer, viruses, inflammation, and bad bacteria, while reducing cholesterol, tumors, respiratory issues, and a host of other things.

The Sun-Dried Mushroom Powder is my favorite though. I've been sprinkling it on EVERYTHING for extra vitamin D. Here I've sprinkled it over some of my leftover Thai Noodle Salad from yesterday.

I also sprinkled it over toast with Earth Balance this morning. It's made from shiitake, oyster, lion's mane, and pioppino mushrooms. If you're looking for fresh versions of any of those mushrooms and you're in the Memphis area, stop by the CY Farmer's Market and check out Dickey Farms! And just FYI: They may stop making the tea and powder products soon to turn more attention on fresh mushrooms, so scoop these up at the market soon!

Moosewood Thai Noodle Salad

The Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca, New York is the stuff of vegetarian legend. I've never been to New York, but if I ever go, a stop at Moosewood is a must. One of my first — no, definitely my first — vegetarian cookbook was Mollie Katzen's The New Moosewood Cookbook. The Perfect Protein Salad from that book is one of my old vegan standards that I made often in the days when I only had a handful of vegetarian/vegan cookbooks.

In case you're not familiar, the Moosewood Restaurant was opened in the early 70s by a group of hippies. It's collectively owned and run on principles of shared support, mutual responsibility, and a lack of hierarchical structure. The cooks there are not classically trained. They're just people who love food. It sounds like my kind of place.

It's not totally vegan though. They do serve some cheese and fish, but there are vegan options. And the many volumes of Moosewood cookbooks published over the years have plenty of vegan recipes and many more can easily be converted by swapping out an ingredient or two. Their latest book, Moosewood Restaurant Favorites, is a massive 400-page tome of comfort food.

For my review, I wanted to try something naturally vegan, and it wasn't hard to find a vegan recipe. Flipping through, it looks like the majority of the recipes are, indeed, vegan. The fish stuff is only a small chapter that I'll just pretend isn't there.

I picked the Thai Noodle Salad.

This cold noodle salad is so flavorful! You can't see the sauce because it's made with coconut milk and tends to blend in with the pasta, but you can definitely taste the mixture of lime, coconut, rice vinegar, cilantro, garlic, scallion, and coriander. The pasta and sauce are tossed with sauteed red bell peppers, carrots, shiitake mushrooms, and snow peas. The recipe called for asparagus, but I subbed snow peas because I couldn't find asparagus this time of year.

It was really tough narrowing this down to one meal. So much of this book is just mouth-watering — Moroccan Vegetable Stew, Country-Style Soft Tofu, Vegetable-Tofu Lasagna (it's vegan!), Confetti Kale Slaw, Muffuletta (with baked tofu), Creamy Vegan Rice Pudding, and Vegan Chocolate Cake.

I may not have the chance to visit the Moosewood Restaurant for years. But until then, I'll just use this book and pretend I'm there.

Vegg-tastic Announcement! And a Vegg Cookbook Giveaway!

Memphis Crunk readers, guess what?! You'll never believe it, but the Memphis Whole Foods is set to be the first Whole Foods in the country to carry Vegg powder! Memphis is rarely the first in anything (except maybe rock 'n' roll). My pal Rocky, inventor of the vegan egg substitute, shot me an email last week to let me know Memphis vegans will see Vegg on the shelves here in a matter of weeks. Here's the fancy new canister, which looks much more user-friendly than the old silver bags.

For the rest of y'all, don't worry. I have good news for you too. You can always order Vegg from Vegan Essentials, which is what I've been doing since it hit the market. And the makers of Vegg — Rocky and Sandy — want to give away a copy of The Vegg Cookbook to a lucky crunk reader. Details at the end of this post.

If you're not familiar with Vegg, it's a powder that when mixed with water is magically transformed into a very realistic vegan egg yolk. It's great for dipping French toast, pouring over scrambled tofu, or if you're really adventurous, making fascimiles of vegan fried eggs with the runny round yolk and the soft fried white.

The Vegg Cookbook gives instructions for all kinds of ways to use Vegg (including that impressive fried egg recipe). I've only ever used Vegg for breakfast stuff, but there are chapters in the book dedicated to main dishes and even desserts. There's a recipe for Vegg Carbonara (the eggy pasta dish), Vegg Tempura, Indian Quinoa, Pea & Potato Croquettes, Jalapeno Poppers, Vegg Rolls, and Homemade Vegg Pasta. And for dessert, there's Date Nut Bread, Mocha Tofu Cheesecake, and Vegg Nog Pie.

Rocky sent me a book to review, and after much deliberation, I finally settled on the Baked Frittata. It's an eggy mixture of Vegg powder, silken tofu, and cornstarch baked atop roasted potatoes, onions, peppers, and green beans.

Look how (V)eggy that is! I've made tofu frittatas before, but none were as eggy as this one. The frittatas I've made in the past probably couldn't fool an omni, but I know this one could! Here's an inside look.

Anyway, all these recipes can be yours! Just leave a comment on this post letting me know what eggy dish you'd like use Vegg to recreate. Be sure and leave an email address in your comment if you're profile doesn't include one (otherwise, I won't be able to contact you if you win!). I'll randomly select a winner next Monday night.

Fun Times at India Fest

This Saturday, the India Association of Memphis hosted the 11th annual India Fest at the Agricenter. My friends and I go every year, and we stuff our faces with samosas and dosa and all manner of Indian fare. It's a huge event with thousands of people roaming the aisles of food vendors, getting henna tattoos, and shopping for saris.

Here I am in front of the awesome chariot they built to honor the past kingdoms of India.

And here's my friend Cassi with her son Keithon.

When we arrived, we were famished, so we went on a mission for food. Vendors sell regional fare from most of the states of India, so there's plenty of variety. I always seek out chaat (Indian street food) because it's usually super-cheap, and eating snack foods means I can eat more before I'm full. I started with Pani Puri.

Pani Puri are these little crispy, hollow pillows that you stuff with a chickpea and onion mixture. And then you pour a sweet and tangy tamarind sauce inside. These are fun because you get to build your own snacks. Here's a pani puri that I assembled and promptly stuffed in my face.

Next, I grabbed a Samsosa, because, samosas! Nothing says comfort food like a potato- and pea-stuffed fried dumpling.

When I spotted the Bhel Puri at another vendor table, I had to have it. This is one of my favorite Indian snacks — crisp puffed rice, crunchy sev sticks, cilantro, tomato, onions, and bits of fried dough coated in tamarind sauce.

By this point, I was getting pretty full. But I couldn't do India Fest without a Masala Dosa served with Sambar and Coconut Chutney! Dosa is a thin, savory pancake, and these were stuffed with seasoned potatoes. You tear off bites and dip them in the sambar (veggie stew) and creamy chutney.

With full bellies, we were finally ready to venture into the marketplace area where people were peddling saris, bindhi stickers, and all manner of shiny jewelry. These necklaces were 5 for $20!

Cassi and I both picked up lots of jewelry we intended to buy, but in the end, we put everything back and Cassi settled on a scarf. I bought this adorable statue of Ganesha, the Overcomer of Obstacles.

I usually get a henna tattoo on my hand while I'm there. Most henna artists there charge about $5. But last year, when Cassi and I both got henna, Cassi quickly learned that she's apparently allergic. Her hand got all puffy and itchy under the henna ink. I didn't want to make her wait on me to get henna since it takes awhile. So I forwent the henna this year. We had a lovely time, and now I have some serious exercising to do to work off all those fried carbs.