Cookin' Crunk Has Arrived!

The day has finally arrived, folks. After five long years of recipe development, testing, tasting, editing, editing, editing, and more editing, Cookin' Crunk: Eatin' Vegan in the Dirty South is finally here! The first copy arrived at my office this morning before I even made it in. My managing editor texted me, "I think your book is here." I was at home listening to a Memphis City Council meeting online for work, but I wrapped that meeting up and booked it in so I could hold the first printed copy in my hands!

Check it! In a few short days, I'll have another three cases in my possession to sell around town and on this blog. But if you don't want to wait, you can order it here on Amazon. Also, most major booksellers should be able to order copies.

Locals, I'll be scheduling a few booksignings for October and a release party for late September. Whole Foods and the Booksellers at Laurelwood will have copies soon. Stay tuned to the Vegan Crunk Facebook page (or this blog) for details. Anyone who knows me at all knows I'll pimp the hell out of this to the point of shamelessness. So don't worry. You'll know the date when I do.

Anyway, holding the printed copy in my hands was nothing short of magical. The occasion called for something special. So I decided to open the bottle of Vegan Vine Cab Sav that I picked up in Portland last year when I was there for Vida Vegan Con. I've been saving it for a special occasion, and this seemed to be it:

 Yep, it's been a pretty, darn good day.

Food Diary

I typically post photos from one special meal of the day. But every once in awhile, I like to give y'all a glimpse of what I eat all day long. As much as I talk up fried food and ramen, I don't actually eat that stuff on a daily basis (although I do tend to eat a few bowls of ramen each week). I typically eat pretty healthy, and today was a good example of that.

I started my morning around 6 a.m. with an Apple Jack Smoothie from the 2012 Happy Herbivore wall calendar. This tastes EXACTLY like Apple Jack cereal in a bowl of milk, but it's actually made of good-for-you stuff like spinach, apples, bananas, dates, plant milk, and cinnamon:

Then I went for an hour run through Overton Park. After my run and shower, I had my second breakfast — a bowl of Chocolate Soynut Butter & Ricemallow Cream Oats. Like a peanut-free Fluffer Nutter with chocolate!

I tend to have a mid-morning snack of nuts or trail mix at my desk at work, but this morning, the oats carried me through until lunch. That's when I had a plate of leftovers — my Tempeh Wellington and Hearts of Palm Salad (which I blogged about last night). About 90 percent of my lunches are leftovers from the night before. I ate this at my desk since Monday is deadline day:

The puff pastry on the Wellington wasn't as flaky when re-heated. But it was still tasty. I don't mind the diminished quality of some leftovers. Food is food, and I enjoy just about everything — fresh or not. I just like to eat.

Around 4 p.m., my tummy started grumbling. So I went to the breakroom and grabbed my afternoon snack — Carrots and Roasted Red Pepper Hummus:

I only cook dinner a couple nights a week, and the rest are spent eating leftovers or cobbling things together. Tonight was a combination of both. I made a Vegan Patty Melt using an Amy's All-American Burger, Wayfare "We Can't Say It's Cheese" Cheddar Spread, pickles, lettuce, and ketchup on "buttered" whole wheat bread. Better than any fast food burger I remember:

On the side, I had some leftover Summer Tomato Salad, a recipe from Cookin' Crunk that I made for a picnic at a Duran Duran concert on Friday night. It has fresh summer tomatoes, cucumbers, a yellow bell pepper from my front yard garden, red onions, and a sweet-n-savory homemade vinaigrette:

So there you have it. That's a pretty good example of what this vegan eats in a day.

Mad World

As some of you might remember, I'm already hard at work on my next cookbook project. With Cookin' Crunk due in my hands any day now (the printed copies have arrived at the publisher!), I have to hit the ground running with my next book. The concept: recipes through the ages. It'll be divided by decade throughout the 1900s.

I've been getting loads of ideas for the 1960s chapter from Mad Men, which I'm currently working my way through on DVD. Every time Don or Betty Draper orders a dish in a restaurant, I jot it down. I've also been getting great ideas from the Food Timeline website. That's where I got inspired to create this Tempeh Wellington:

It's marinated, pan-fried tempeh topped with a mushroom duxelle (that's just fancy talk for diced, sauteed mushrooms and shallots), wrapped in a flaky puff pastry. Delicious! And so fancy. Y'all know I don't usually do fancy, but this recipe is actually easy as hell.

On the side, I made a Hearts of Palm Salad, inspired by Mad Men. Don Draper ordered one when he met Bobbi Barrett for dinner at Sardi's. He also ordered steak tartare, but I don't have the faintest idea of how to veganize that! Anyway, back to the salad:

I'd never had a hearts of palm salad before. But I like it! It's pretty simple — hearts of palm, tomatoes, avocado, and a red wine vinaigrette.

Bluff City Vegan Eats: Evergreen Grill

Midtown Memphis is a collection of neighborhoods. There's Central Gardens, Cooper-Young, Overton Square, Annesdale-Snowden, the Broad Avenue Arts District, etc. I live in a little historic district called Evergreen. It's one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city. But the state threatened to split the community with an interstate back in the 1970s, and some of the old homes were torn down. The citizens rose up and fought the plan. And they won! New homes that were built to look like old houses went up in their place, and those are dispersed throughout the neighborhood. I live in one of the new homes.

It's a cute little area — close to Overton Park (the BEST park in the city), the Sears Crosstown building (the BEST abandoned warehouse ever), and the V&E Greenline (the BEST greenline in the city). Yes, I'm a little biased. But we don't have much in the way of businesses. It's mostly residential. But there's this cute little strip of shops along Overton Park Avenue, and when I saw that a new restaurant had opened there, I had to check it out. I was just hoping that it would be vegan-friendly.

It's called Evergreen Grill, and it's located in an old pizza joint. Luckily, when I checked the menu online, I saw several items that sounded pretty vegan. So my co-worker Hannah and I went there for lunch. The place serves mostly Italian food, but it's not limited to that.

We started with the Bruschetta. The menu didn't say anything about cheese, but when we asked the server, she confirmed that it did have cheese on top. So we asked to have that left off. Unfortunately, they forgot and added cheese anyway. We had to send it back and make sure they understood what vegan meant. Here's what we ended up with:

Now, sending things back is annoying, for sure. But it was so worth the wait. This has to be the best bruschetta I've ever put in my mouth. There is so much garlic in the tomatoes, and they were so juicy, fresh, and flavorful.

For my entree, I opted for the Roasted Vegetable Sandwich with Roasted Asparagus:

Tasty. The veggies were squash, mushrooms, and onions, and the whole wheat bun was spread with avocado. The asparagus was delicious, but I'm a big eater, and I could have used a bigger portion.

Hannah ordered the Spaghetti with Marinara:

I tried a bite, and it was pretty yummy. We didn't inquire as to the vegan-ness of the pasta though, but it doesn't seem like the kind of place that would have fresh pasta. However, I would ask before ordering that for myself.

On the side, she got an order of Roasted Potatoes, which also accidentally arrived topped with cheese. But she sent them back, and the new ones were perfect. Crisp and coated in olive oil:

Evergreen Grill was nice. I like knowing that I can get vegan Italian food in the neighborhood. Plus, I love that they have a roasted veggie sandwich (with avocado!) on the menu. But the one thing truly worth returning for again and again is that bruschetta!

By the way, Hannah is our food writer at the newspaper we write for, the Memphis Flyer. You can read her story about Evergreen Grill here.

Evergreen Grill is located at 1545 Overton Park Avenue. Call 901-249-2393.

Cuban Meets Southern

I've not done much world traveling. Okay, so I've done NO world traveling outside of a quick stop in Mexico on a Carnival cruise in 2010. But even though world travel is out of my budget, I can still taste my way across the globe through exotic vegan recipes. Hands down, the best vegan collection of worldly fare is The Healthy Voyager's Global Kitchen.

Each chapter is dedicated to a country, and when flipping through most recently, I set my sights on Cuba. Something about the No Es Vaca Frita (or Fried Beef and Onions) intrigued me:

These are strips of homemade seitan boiled in a pepper-onion broth and then fried with onions until caramelized and crisp. The seitan is baked, so it has that deli-meat-chewiness that I love in a good seitan. Honestly, you could make lunch meat from the seitan loaf before slicing into strips. But the strips were so delicious fried up in olive oil, garlic, and lime juice.

Although the recipe suggests serving this dish with rice or beans, I'd been craving some of my Corn Casserole from Cookin' Crunk: Eatin' Vegan in the Dirty South (the book arrives from the press at my publisher's office this week!!):

This is one my Granny's classic Southern recipes, and it's so easy, it should be illegal. Frozen corn is mixed with a tub of vegan cream cheese (I used Galaxy's vegan cream cheese, which was provided free because Galaxy is awesome, and they keep sending me free stuff!) and vegan butter. Oh, and there's chilies and pimentos. It's baked until bubbly and very, very creamy. This stuff is like velvet with corn stuck in it, which doesn't sound so appetizing now that I think about it. But it's way good, y'all. Way, way good.

Also on the side, I made some Butternut Squash Puree:

I didn't use a recipe for this. It's just fresh butternut squash from the Cooper-Young Community Farmers Market, sliced in half, roasted for about 45 minutes, skinned, sliced, and pureed in a food processor with a pinch of salt, some vegan butter, and a bit of water. 

Better Than Sugar or Honey

A few years ago, after reading Skinny Bitch, I attempted to give up as much granulated sugar as possible. I switched from white sugar to evaporated cane juice (which is guaranteed to be vegan while white sugar can be questionable) in baked goods. That was an easy switch. But in my attempt to cut down on the more refined granulated stuff, I started using agave in my coffee. And I grew to love it even more than sugar.

Now I know there's some agave controversy these days. Is it the same as sugar health-wise? Is it worse? To be honest, I really don't care. At the time I switched, it was a health move. But my healthy changes are always phases. I'm not a health food vegan. I'm an ethical vegan, and I like things that taste good. I also like things that aren't honey that taste kinda like honey. Agave haters, don't hate.

Xagave offered to send me a bottle of their raw organic white and blue agave to review. And they sent me a giant bottle!

First, I tasted it by itself. Tastes like agave. All the brands I've tried taste about the same. Then I put some in my coffee. Delicious!

Since just using the agave in my coffee would make for a boring review, I decided to make one of my favorite fruit salads that calls for agave — the Classic Ambrosia from Raw for Dessert:

It's just banana and orange slices mixed with dried, unsweetened coconut and agave. So simple, and yet so satisfying. I'm not a huge fan of fruit, but I do love anything with coconut. And bananas are my probably my second fave fruit. The agave adds a touch of decadence to an already naturally sweet salad.

While I didn't notice a huge difference in taste with the Xagave over other brands, I do love that it contains both calcium and fiber. I'm always trying to work more calcium into my diet, so I can avoid supplements.

I also like the packaging better than most other brands. The back of each bottle contains a Sugar Exchange Table, which tells you how to convert sugar measurements to agave measurements in baking, cooking, and beverages. I've always been scared to bake with agave unless a recipe calls for it because I've never understood the exchange rate.

The chart also shows the calories saved my using Xagave over sugar. Since its sweeter than sugar, you don't have to use as much and, thus, you save calories. Let's see – it's tasty, it's sweet, it contains calcium and fiber, it's not mean old honey, and it can save you calories because you use less. That's a winner in my book.

Green, Local, and Homemade!

I love to cook as much from scratch as possible. But for some reason, when it comes to things like curry paste, I always buy the pre-made stuff. And honestly, when I was flipping through my trusty old copy of Vegan with a Vengeance, and my eyes landed on the scrumptious-looking image of Green Thai Curry, I figured the dish would call for a storebought paste.

But I should have known Isa Chandra Moskowitz wouldn't stand for that. Of course, her Green Thai Curry recipe would call for a homemade paste:

Luckily, nearly all the ingredients were hanging out in my pantry (and pepper garden). The green paste was made with Thai green chilies and jalapenos, both of which are growing in my front yard (it doesn't get more local than that). And it has stuff like cilantro, fresh ginger, lime zest, garlic, etc.

The paste is simmered in coconut milk and lime juice. And as you can see, there's red onions and red bell peppers (also from my garden) and fried tofu. I tossed my tofu triangles in a little cornstarch before frying, even though the recipe didn't call for it. The cornstarch gives the fried tofu that crusty Asian restaurant look.

I think, from now on, I'll be making my curry paste from scratch.

What ingredients do you tend to buy in a store rather than make from scratch?