Giveaway: The Complete Vegan Instant Pot Cookbook

My long-time blogger friend Barb Musick — of That Was Vegan blog fame — has a new cookbook out! And I am so proud of her! The Complete Vegan Instant Pot Cookbook is just what it sounds like — a comprehensive guide to vegan cooking in the Instant Pot. We'll be giving away a copy at the end of this post!

When Barb reached out to me about reviewing her book, I had to admit — I didn't actually OWN an Instant Pot. It's one of the few kitchen gadgets that I just haven't gotten yet. But my parents have one, so I was happy for an excuse to borrow theirs.

Barb includes lots of great tips for Instant Pot newbies like myself. And since my parents' pot isn't an Instant Pot brand pot (it's a generic version called GreenPan), I found that section of the book very helpful for translating some of the Instant Pot settings to other instant pressure cookers.

I've made a few recipes over the past couple weeks, and I am so thrilled with everything I've made! From the breakfast chapter this week, I made Barb's Strawberry Oats with Maple Toasted Walnuts. 

These creamy steel cut oats are sweetened with a little brown sugar and topped with fresh berries and candied walnuts (made on the stovetop while the oats are cooking). Steel cut oats always take forever on the stove, and they still took awhile in the Instant Pot. But I was able to set the timer, walk away and take a shower, and come back to finished oats. No need to watch a pot on the stove. Love that!

I picked two recipes from the Vegetable Mains chapter to try. First, I tried the Butternut Mac & Cheese because I LOVE a vegan cheese made from butternut squash and cashews.

This is SO creamy, and the whole wheat pasta cooked in the Instant Pot in just 2 minutes!! The squash was roasted first (I did that the night before to save time), so that made for a very flavorful sauce. But the recipe doesn't call for that; you can use B-nut squash cooked in any way. I just prefer roasted squash. I served this with broccoli for a balance meal.

I tried the Tempeh Sloppy Janes last week. Best vegan sloppy janes (or joes) I've ever had!

The sloppy jane mixture is made with a base of tempeh and refried beans, which is unlike any I've had before. I love the texture of the beans, and the recipe made so many servings. I had it on buns with diced red onion, bell pepper, and pickles for several days. And when I got tired of eating it on buns, I served it atop whole wheat pasta for a very yummy and filling meal.

All of Barb's recipes are based on whole foods, which is how I try to eat at home most of the time. There are so many things I want to try from this book, so it looks like I'll be asking for an Instant Pot for Christmas! Other recipes on my list: Chickpea Kale Korma, Savory Tofu & Potato Casserole, Taco Chili, Red Thai Curry Cauliflower, and the Layered Mexican Casserole.

Want your own copy of The Complete Vegan Instant Pot? Just leave a comment on this post that includes your email address (so I can contact you if you win!). I'll randomly choose a winner on Monday, June 10.

New Vegan Options at Midtown Crossing!

New vegan options are popping up at Memphis restaurants all over the city these days! Just yesterday, I blogged about the new vegan scrambles at Brother Juniper's, and tonight, I'm highlighting even more vegan options on the menu at Midtown Crossing Grill — my neighborhood pizza joint/ sandwich shop/watering hole.

Midtown Crossing released their new menu last week, and there are a few new vegan options added, including VEGAN NACHOS!!

Paul and I stopped in last night so I could give them a try. Plus, Monday night is $3 draft night so we love to go there for beers on Mondays. The vegan nachos are covered in a made-in-house vegan queso made from almonds and potatoes. It's creamy and delicious and made from whole foods! Also atop the corn chips are black beans, corn, tomatoes, scallions, and a generous scoop of guac. Perfection.

Here's the new dinner menu. I love that vegan options are now clearly marked in green. Other new items include a Hummus Platter with roasted, pickled eggplant, kalamata olives, and sliced flatbread and Spring Rolls!

To be clear, there were spring rolls on the old menu, but there was just one variety. Now, the kitchen will prep ingredients for different kinds of spring rolls every day, so you might get smoked tofu one day and peach pecan the next. It's a surprise! But they'll always be vegan.

Of course, the Bianca Banh Mi (named after yours truly!!) is still on the menu. Midtown Crossing owner Octavia named this delicious tofu banh mi after me because I wouldn't stop bugging her about vegan options when she first opened a few years back.

I didn't get a picture of the new pizza menu, but there's a new Herbivore Pizza that's loaded with veggies. It comes with dairy cheese by default, but Midtown Crossing always has vegan mozzarella on hand to make any pizza vegan. You can also sub vegan cheese to make the potato skins vegan (like these!!).

And don't forget about brunch! Midtown Crossing has an awesome weekend brunch with tofu scramble (served in a cast iron) and vegan biscuits & gravy. It's not new, but it's amazing and you should go!

New Vegan Menu Items at Brother Juniper's

Brother Juniper's is a Memphis institution. This brunch spot is so well-loved that people expect to wait 45 minutes to an hour for a table. On weekends, there's ALWAYS a wait. And it's always bustling and loud. But that's part of the charm. You just have to make sure you have a small snack or light breakfast before you go!

Brother Juniper's had always had vegetarian options, but for the past few years, the only vegan option was something you just kinda had to know about it. The Fahim's Special — a tofu scramble with portabellas and roasted red peppers — used to be on the menu years ago, but it was taken off because they stopped carrying one of the dishes' main ingredients — kalamata olives. After it was taken off, they'd still gladly make it without the olives. But only in-the-know folks knew to ask.

Now, they've added the Fahim's Special (minus the olives) back to the printed menu! And they've added another vegan option — Spicy Tofu. Paul and I met up with folks there on Sunday morning to check out the new dishes.

The Spicy Tofu is a Southwestern-style scramble with black beans and jalapenos, served over home fries and topped with avocado spread. SO DAMN GOOD. The jalapenos make it a little spicy, but I'm a spice lover and thought it was perfect. Loved the creamy, generous dollop of guac on top.

You get a choice of grits or home fries on the side, so I went the home fries route even though there were already some under the scramble. You can't have too many potatoes. You also get a choice of toast or biscuits, but the biscuits aren't vegan. So toast it is! They bake it fresh in-house and serve with homemade jams and jellies.

Here's that Fahim's Special, which is back on the menu. My mom and I always bring our own olives so we can get the full effect.

Note to vegans: There's also a Veggie Sausage Scramble dish on the menu, but last time I checked, they were using non-vegan Morningstar Farms sausage. That may have changed, but definitely ask before ordering this one.

New Dole Vegan Bountiful Salad Kits!

Confession: I love bagged salad. I know it's more economical (and more zero waste) to opt for whole heads of lettuce, but there are few kitchen tasks I hate more than washing lettuce. I hate it so much that I've been known to skip that step and just eat the dirty lettuce right off the head. I'm sure that's not a good idea though, and it often results in me getting a mouthful of grit!

I've come to accept that, if I'm going to get in my daily bowl of fresh greens, it has to be in bagged salad form. Even more convenient is when the salad toppings also come in the bag, but so many salad kits contain cheese or non-vegan dressings. Sure, you can leave some toppings off, but I want the full experience! And now I can get that with Dole's New Vegan Bountiful Kits! There are two new vegan kits in their salad line — Lentil Cucumber and Triple Quinoa. They sent me a few bags to review.

The Lentil Cucumber kit features a salad mix with green leaf, iceberg, red cabbage, and radish, plus a little package of marinated green, black, and red lentils. The dressing is a tangy, cooling cucumber vinaigrette.

The bag says this makes several servings, but I ate the whole bag as one meal! You could dress this up with additional veggies, but I had it as is and it was filling (with a side of pita and hummus).

The Triple Quinoa was my fave! It's a kale salad with a kale-carrot blend, a topping made from red, white, and black quinoa and chickpeas, and a refreshing lemon-basil vinaigrette. I massaged the kale a bit and let it sit overnight, so it was perfect and tender the next day for lunch. Again, I ate the whole bag as one meal.

One tip: I try to limit my oil intake, so I used half of the dressing on both of these salads, and it was PLENTY to add flavor. You could use the whole thing, but I don't think that's necessary.

These salads are GREAT! And I will definitely buy them when I see them in the store. Anything to make my salad-eating habit easier!

Memorial Day Fun & Food!

After I ran the Great American River Run Half-Marathon on Saturday morning, I headed to Nashville to spend Memorial Day weekend with my partner Paul, who works in Nashville.

I got in kinda late, and I'd packed a salad to enjoy when I got there. It was Paul's dad's 80th birthday, so I ate my salad while everyone else had cheese/meat pizza and birthday cake. I was totally okay with that because I'd had a very decadent post-race lunch!

After dinner, Paul's parents decided to let us take over a campsite they'd rented for Memorial Day. They'd parked their RV there the night before and had stayed there (it was only a few miles from their house), but Paul's mom couldn't take the extreme heat. She wanted to stay at their house that night instead, and Paul and I were more than happy to go camping!

We spent the night in the camper and woke up early to go workout — I ran 5 miles while Paul biked (he has a sprained Achilles tendon). After our workout, we met up with Paul's sister Sheila for brunch at Wild Cow in East Nashville!

I got one of my long-time faves — the OG Bowl with added grilled tofu. This is so simple and so delicious with just brown rice, pinto beans, garlic kale, grilled tofu, and garlic aioli. I'm definitely making this at home soon. I had a mimosa too because brunch.

Paul and I went to Koko's Plant-Based Ice Cream after brunch (see the full post here) for the most amazing vegan ice cream! And then it was back to the campsite for another night. We had a lovely walk around Old Hickory Lake.

For dinner, we decided to stay at the site and grill out! We picked up some Sweet Earth Black Bean Burgers and prepared them on the grill. 

Here's my plate — Burger, Salad, and Kettle Chips! 

I drove home Monday morning, but it was a very lovely trip. Getting to camp for free was a total added bonus. 

Koko's Plant-Based Ice Cream!

After my half-marathon on Saturday, I hopped in the car and made the 3-hour drive to Nashville to spend Memorial Day weekend with my partner Paul, who lives there part-time for work. He's home in Memphis most weekends, but his work schedule wouldn't allow him to come home this past weekend. So I went to him.

I'll do a post tomorrow on all of the yummy Memorial Day eats from the weekend. But tonight, I want to talk about one very special place we visited in East Nashville on Sunday afternoon — Koko's Plant-Based Ice Cream!

This is an all-vegan ice cream shop that I just discovered on Instagram about a month ago. It's located next to Avo, my favorite high-raw vegan place, in the OneC1ty development (which is made out of shipping containers). This cute little shop makes all their own creams using a coconut base, and I'm here to tell ya now that THEY ARE AMAZING. They're also nut-free for all y'all folks with allergies.

And they have vegan waffle cones! You get two flavors in a small order, so I opted for Mint Chip and Cookies & Cream.

Paul went with two scoops of Peaches & Cream (packed with real peaches!). Of course I tried some of his too, and it was creamy perfection.

Koko's will definitely be a must-visit for every future trip to Nashville (and now I can't wait to go back). Hey Koko's, come to Memphis and open a shop here!

Great American River Run Half Marathon + Post-Race Eats!

On Saturday, I ran my 7th half-marathon — the Great American River Run in downtown Memphis. This race has only been around for four years — it's the close-out event for the annual Memphis in May International Festival — and I've run it since the beginning. The first two years, I ran the half, and last year, I could only do the 5K because I was coming back from a fractured foot (the first of two fractures last year!).

The course runs through downtown Memphis, including a jaunt down Beale Street, a loooooong slog down Second, a shade-less stretch through Harbor Town, and a victorious spring to the finish down Riverside Drive. It's always pretty hot in Memphis by the end of May, but this year was especially brutal with temps in the high 80s and low 90s for all of the race. And it was super-sunny the whole time with very little shade.

I actually set my half-marathon PR of 2 hours and 33 minutes on this course a couple years back, but that year, it had stormed all morning and was overcast for the whole race — so it wasn't as hot. This year, race officials were warning us to take it slow and not aim for PRs. And I didn't get one, coming in at 2 hours and 45 minutes, quite a bit slower than my best time.

But that was okay! I was just glad to be done! Here's a lovely pre-race pic reppin' my No Meat Athlete tank, before I got all sweaty.

And here's what I looked like at the end. Rough!! This was after pouring lots of water over my head throughout the race. I was soaked with water and sweat.

There wasn't much post-race food left when I was done. But there were a few apples and small bags of pretzels, so I grabbed an apple for immediate post-race carbs and saved the pretzels for later. And I had my celebratory free beer after the race of course!

I didn't hang around the post-race party long though. I headed straight home for a shower, and then I headed straight to the Cooper-Young Farmers Market for Lulu's Baked treats before the market closed. I got the Potato Bialy to eat with a salad for dinner that night, the Strawberry Rosewater Muffin to have as a pre-run snack on Sunday, and the Smoked Carrot Cashew Cheddar Bun to enjoy later in the weekend.

Just down the road from the market is Imagine Vegan Cafe, and I deserved something decadent after that tough race. So I ordered the new Vegan Shrimp Po' Boy and a side of Potato Salad to go. That crispy fried shrimp sandwich (they use Sophie's Kitchen, I believe) with remoulade, lettuce, and pickles hit the spot!