Veggies for Carnivores

As a vegan, I sometimes forget that non-vegans eat vegetables too. I tend to think of veggies as "our domain." But of course, I know we all need vegetables to survive. Omnis like vegetables too. And cookbook author Lora Krulak's new book Veggies for Carnivores: Moving Vegetables to the Center of the Plate is a good reminder that, vegan or not, veggies are good for everyone.

This cute little volume is about the size of a thick owner's manual. You know, the kind that comes with a new appliance or something. But instead it serves as an owner's manual for the vegetables lurking in your refrigerator's crisper.

Her recipes are very simple. They tend to focus on one or two veggies as the star of a dish with only a few spices for flavor. She lets the natural flavor of vegetables be the star of the show. Recipes are organized into a few short chapters. There's one for sauces and dressing, another for broth-based soups, another for blended or raw and crunchy salads, one for small plates, and one for smoothies.

I chose to try two simple recipes, both of which seemed appropriate for winter. I made the Roasted Onion and Parsnip Soup with Curry and Hot Chili:

This simple soup is a twist on traditional French onion soup. Parsnips and onions are roasted and then simmered in a vegetable broth with curry and hot chili powder (I used a super-spicy chili powder that I picked up at the Asian market).

At the end of each recipe, Lora includes add-in ideas and variations. Some of those include meat or dairy suggestions, but she never includes those things in her actual recipe. For this dish, she suggested topping the soup with cheese like one would do with a French onion soup. So I topped mine with a little Follow Your Heart mozzarella. The sweet parsnips were a perfect balance to the nearly caramelized onions. And the curry brought all the flavors together (plus, it made my kitchen smell wonderful for two days!).

I also made Lora's Roasted Carrot Hummus:

There's no chickpeas in this hummus. Instead, roasted carrots are blended with tahini, garlic, and onions for a delicious spread. The sweetness of the carrots adds a lovely flavor. Plus, it's nice to sneak veggies into hummus since I tend to eat way more protein than veggies.

These two dishes were delicious, and I have my sights set on a few more. I've bookmarked the Roasted Root Fries (made with beets!), Cauliflower Steak with Harissa Sauce (you had me at "steak"), and the Secret Guacamole (it has celery, maple syrup, and red peppers in it!).

No matter your dietary lifestyle, we could probably all use a little veggie boost in our lives. Lora's book can help!

Places to Stuff Your Meat

You know how I like to take a good thing and just post it to death? Well, that's what I'm doing tonight. Sort of. I had planned a post reviewing a new vegan cookbook, but I stayed up too late watching The Campaign (OMG, hilarious). So I'm saving that post for tomorrow and making this one short and sweet with few more holdovers from Atlanta.

Yesterday, I blogged about the vegan meats I purchase at Gutenfleisher's Deli inside Dough Bakery. I purchased a half-pound of vegan roast beef and vegan "fire" turkey (hot turkey with flecks of habanero). Tonight, I want to show you a couple ways I've used the meat so far. Of course, you could do these with any vegan deli slices, like Tofurky or Yves.

After our 7-hour drive home from Atlanta on Sunday night, I was famished. I'd not eaten since brunch at Soul Vegetarian (aside from a little popcorn on the road). And after that drive, there was no way I wanted to cook anything. What's a hungry, tired girl to do? Go to Subway. Yep, I went down to the Subway by my house and ordered a foot-long Veggie Delite (And yes, that's 9-Grain Wheat, which apparently has honey ... which I just learned about. So I'll get Italian White next time ... live and learn). I had 'em stuff it with every veggie in the place and some Sweet Onion Sauce. Then I stuffed one side with the roast beef and the other side with the turkey. Instant club sandwich:

The next day, I wanted to use more of the roast beef. So whipped up a French Dip Sandwich with the deli slices and Vegenaise. I used my beef broth recipe from Cookin' Crunk for the dippin sauce:

Delicious! Now, before I retire for the night, I want to share a short clip that one of the Atlanta VegFesters — Seth — filmed of me during the event. Apparently, my favorite words are "um," "super awesome," and "yummy."

Atlanta Vegan Eats

If you've seen my posts from the past two days, you know I spent the weekend in Atlanta for their first-ever VegFest. Yesterday, I showed you all my pics from the super-successful fest. But tonight, I have pictures from everything else I ate in Atlanta (aside from Friday night's dinner at Cafe Sunflower, which you can see here).

My mama and I stuffed ourselves with free samples at VegFest, but we were still pretty hungry for dessert come 6 p.m. when the fest was over. We met the dudes from Dough Bakery at VegFest, and they informed us that their store is located just a few blocks from the place where we had 8 p.m. dinner reservations. So we decided to have a little cake appetizer.

My mom immediately headed for the dessert case, which was packed with vegan desserts. Dough is a totally vegan bakery:

While I was busy doing something else (more on that in a sec), she was ordering us a big ole slice of Hummingbird Cake — a banana-pineapple cake with cream cheese frosting. She cut it into two pieces for us to share:

While mama was choosing our cake, I was preoccupied with the other side of Dough Bakery! On one side, they serve sweet treats. But the other side is a vegan deli called Gutenfleischer's. They sell homemade vegan deli slices by the pound! They're wrapped in white paper and sold in deli bags, just like at a meat deli.

Here's the "vegan butcher"!

I chose a half-pound of Roast Beef and a half-pound of "Fire" Turkey (turkey slices with habaneros!). The butcher sliced the meat:

And then he weighed the meat:

And then I stuffed it in a cooler to take home to Memphis. After cake and meat slicing, my mama and I killed some more time shopping in Little Five Points. Then, we headed to Sauced, a retro-themed restaurant and bar where the ATL Vegan Drinks chapter was holding a very special post-VegFest after-party.

The four-course menu was ultra-fancy:

I'm not used to eating such fancy meals. And although I prefer comfort food with simple names 99 percent of the time, it's occasionally fun to do the whole farm-to-table foodie thing. The first course included two appetizers — Bluebird Biscuits with Peppered Scuppernong Jam (I have no idea what "scuppernong" means, but it was damn tasty):

And Nori-Wrapped Seared Tofu Scallops with a Balsamic Reduction:

Next up was the second course of salad and soup. The salad was Smoked Portabella Mushroom Carpaccio, Field Arugula, Pomegranate, and Crisp Shallots. Now, I'm no fan of arugula, but it was actually okay here. The smoked mushroom and shallots were wonderful:

The soup was a delectable and soul-warming Roast African Squash Soup with Fuji Apple Compote. I could eat this all day:

For the third course, we had a vegan buffet! Yep, all you can eat. I filled my plate with Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Pickled Purple Frills Mustard Greens and Cider Beurre Blanc, Hen-of-the-Woods Mushroom Stew with Crowder Peas, and Celeriac Cornbread Dressing with Fresh Sage Gravy:

Wow! Everything was so delicious. I think the mushroom stew was my fave. It had some of the biggest crowders I've ever seen! Plus, there were wheat berries, and I LOVE wheat berries. The gnocchi was also something special.

After all that food, I barely had room for dessert. But I wasn't about to miss out on Bittersweet Chocolate Peanut Butter Crisps, Warm Sorghum Pie, and Lavender and White Grapefruit Consume. Although not-so-pretty in this pic, the pie was my absolute fave!

We left Sauced thinking we'd never eat again. We were so full! But the next morning, I woke up with a growling tummy, just like I always do. We met Andrew and Liz from the Book Publishing Company at Soul Vegetarian 2 for a down-home brunch before hitting the road home. Here's me and mama:

The brunch special at Soul Vegetarian includes Tofu Scramble, Vegan Sausage, Sprouts, and Pancakes:

Wow! This was one of my favorite brunches ever! The tofu was moist and perfectly seasoned. The sausage was apparently homemade (most places in Memphis just serve Gimme Lean), and the pancakes were the fluffiest vegan pancakes I've ever had. And with the maple syrup, they tasted like glazed donuts!

I didn't get to eat even a quarter of the vegan awesomeness available in Atlanta. So I'll be back! If you're planning a trip to Atlanta, check out the Crack the Plates guide to veggie restaurants!

Atlanta VegFest!!!

Yesterday, I showed you the dinner I ate at Cafe Sunflower on my first night in Atlanta. But tonight, I have pictures from the actual Atlanta VegFest event. Tomorrow, I'll show you everything else I ate during my stay.

This was the first-ever Atlanta VegFest, and I was thrilled to have been invited to do a cooking demo! I'd never been to Atlanta, and I'd never attended a VegFest (the only other one I know of in the South is  in New Orleans). So I was way super excited!

The event was held at Ambient Plus Studio, a loft-style photography studio with an abundance of natural light. When my mom and I walked in around 10:30 a.m., the place was already packed. And it had only been going on for 30 minutes! There were rows and rows of vendors offering free samples of all kinds of vegan deliciousness.

I immediately spotted my publisher peeps over at the Book Publishing Company table. They had a giant poster of my book cover, so I couldn't resist being a nerd and posing by it:

And Andrew and Liz from BPC were hard at work peddling books. They had all sorts of titles from classics like Tofu Cookery and the Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook to Miyoko's hot new Artisan Vegan Cheese cookbook:

My mom and I decided to walk around and try free samples and shop. One was the first tables we came to was for Dough Bakery/Gutenfleischers Deli, an Atlanta-based vegan bakery and deli (they have a vegan butcher, y'all!). I'll post more about this fab place tomorrow since we visited the actual bakery, but my first taste of their delicious treats were these vegan meats! There's roast beef, turkey, and ham!

As we made our way around, I noticed my favorite vegan potter Jeanette Zeis, the maker of VeganDish mugs, plates, bowls, and other ceramic kitchenware. I have several of her items already, and my mom bought me a couple more at her booth to put away as a Christmas gift for me:

You wouldn't believe how delicious these vegan dips by Judyfood were! Wow! Judy lives in Georgia, and she makes four flavors of delicious dip. They taste very Vegenaisey, but they don't actually contain Vegenaise. She makes her own blend using non-GMO canola oil, veggies, spices, and nuts:

I sampled a vegan scallop from Sophie's Kitchen:

And we got very generous sample scoops of Peanut Butter Gelato and Espresso Gelato from Revolution Gelatos. My mama raved about her PB gelato all weekend. She said it was her favorite thing she ate while in Atlanta:

After we filled up on samples, we watched Atlanta native/cookbook author Alicia Simpson (author of Quick & Easy Vegan Comfort Food and Quick & Easy Vegan Celebrations) talk about how to make vegan food lighter without sacrificing taste. Afterward, I bought her new book, Quick & Easy Low-Cal Vegan Comfort Food:

Next up, Terry Hope Romero showed us how to make Seitan Gyros with a cashew-based Greek sauce. Wow! The sample bite was soooooo delicious. Also, Terry is hilarious. During her demo, she actually forced someone in the audience to eat straight nooch. Anyway, I also bought her new book, Vegan Eats World:

Jenny Brown, founder of the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary was up next, but I had to miss most of her talk to prep for my own cooking demo, which started directly after her. I demonstrated how to make the Deviled Tofu Bites from Cookin' Crunk. I think this is a shot of me cheating and looking at my recipe:

And here are my lovely volunteers helping me fill a pastry bag with the "egg yolk" filling. They were so helpful! They even cleaned up my dishes while I signed cookbooks afterward!!!

I sold lots of cookbooks! And I met some amazing people ... including one guy who bought the book for someone named "Kyle" but he requested that I spell his name "Kale."

VegFest was a HUGE success! And the Atlanta vegans did such an amazing job keeping everything organized and on schedule. Here's Adrienne, who used her supreme organizational skills to manage the demo room:

I had a chance to chat with her more over dinner, and she is a truly amazing lady! Thanks Adrienne and Leigh and the rest of the VegFest folks!!!!

Hotlanta, Day One

I just arrived back home from my weekend in Atlanta for their first VegFest, and boy is my driving foot tired. But the six-and-a-half hour drive from Memphis was totally worth it. I have loads and loads of pictures from the fest and my cooking demo there. But I'm going to break this up into three posts. Tonight, I'm posting pics of our Friday night eats.

My mama and I left for the road trip from Memphis (well, she picked me up after driving an hour here from her home in Jonesboro, Arkansas) on Friday at 7 a.m. But we stopped for potty breaks, Taco Bell Cantina Bowls, and a little shopping in a random Harley-Davidson store in Alabama (my parents are bikers). So after the time change (we lost an hour), we arrived in Atlanta around 4 p.m., right in time for the busiest rush hour I've ever seen.

After sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic for well over an hour, both on the interstate and through town,  we checked into our hotel in Buckhead/Lenox Park. And then we braved the traffic again to get to Cafe Sunflower in Buckhead for dinner. It took us 45 minutes to drive four miles in crazy traffic from the hotel to the restaurant!!

But once we arrived and met our dinner dates, Andrew and Liz from the Book Publishing Company, the wait was totally worth it. Cafe Sunflower is an upscale vegetarian restaurant with mostly vegan selections. They do use cheese in a couple of dishes, but it looks like that's about it. The inside is decorated with these playful red Chinese lanterns, which cast a sophisticated glow on everything.

We started with these crispy Spring Rolls, which were filled with veggies and glass noodles:

I had a really hard time choosing my entree because everything sounded so good! The selections ranged from American comfort food to Thai to Italian. After much deliberation, I finally settled on Homemade Ravioli filled with tofu-spinach ricotta and topped with spinach, green beans, mushrooms, and a kabocha squash sauce:

Wow! I've never had pasta with a squash-based sauce, but I'm gonna have to work on making my own version of this recipe. I know from experience that ravioli-making is a pain in the ass, but it's so worth it.

My mom had an even harder time choosing what to eat from the massive menu. She finally settled on two items from the appetizer section. One was Pan-Fried Dumplings, which I somehow failed to photograph. But the other were these beautifully presented Fried Green Tomatoes topped with hummus and drizzled with a balsamic reduction:

Liz, who handles the marketing for Book Pub Co, went with a special-of-the-day, Wild Mushroom Risotto. It looked so very creamy, and it was topped cute little enoki mushrooms:

And Andrew, a photographer at Book Pub Bo (the guy who shot the pics in my book), chose what was, perhaps, the most creatively presented dish — the Garden Loaf:

That's a generous slice of veggie meatloaf, mashed herb potatoes with miso gravy, and asparagus shaped into a triangle! Here's another angle:

The meal was delicious, and though I'd hoped to save room for dessert (they had gluten-free Georgia peach cobbler!), I just couldn't eat another bite after polishing off the ravioli. Amazing!

Tune in tomorrow for pictures from VegFest!

Off to Atlanta!

If any of you lovely readers lives anywhere near Atlanta, come see me at Atlanta VegFest this weekend! I'll be demonstrating how to make tofu deviled eggs from Cookin' Crunk and signing cookbooks.

And I'm sharing a bill some awesome vegan celebs — Terry Hope Romero (I hear she's making seitan gyros!), Alicia Simpson, and Jenny Brown (founder of Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary!). Plus, lots of awesome vegan companies will be there with product samples and coupons. And there's an Atlanta Vegan Drink VegFest after-party!

It's Atlanta's first VegFest and my first too. I promise to share loads of pics when I return. But until then, all I have to offer is this humble Whole Wheat Buttermilk Biscuit with Vegan Sausage and Apple Butter:

The biscuit is from Cookin' Crunk. The sausage is Gimme Lean, and the apple butter is R.W. Knudson. Good stuff! I'll be eating this again in the morning before hitting the road to the ATL at 6 a.m.

Bluff City Vegan Eats: Derae Restaurant

Sorry I failed to post last night. I was out way too late celebrating Barack Obama's win!! And the gay marriage and recreational pot victories! It's the dawning of a new era, folks: A good one where folks are enlightened and rad.

But before I get all sappy and Age of Aquarius on you, let's get to the meat (or veggies?) of this post. About a week ago, my friend Leslie invited me to lunch at this new Ethiopian joint — Derae Restaurant.

I adore Ethiopian food (mostly because I love injera and eating with my hands). And not only was the food mind-blowing at Derae, the owner was super-sweet too. He hooked us up with free appetizers, soup, and even let me take a bite from his personal breakfast plate (a flatbread with sweet vermicelli). Anyway, we started with these Sambusas:

Much like its Indian cousin (the samosa), the Somalian sambusa is a fried, triangle pastry stuffed with awesome.  This one had lentils and spinach, but traditional sambusa can also have beef or lamb (apparently Derae doesn't do lamb though).

Next, the owner brought us some Marak, a Somalian vegetable soup. This savory broth was filled with green beans, carrots, and some other veggies that I can't remember. But it was delicious, especially with a squeeze of lime juice:

The owner also brought us a complimentary bowl of tangy Tabbouleh Salad!

Then it was time for our main course. Leslie and I split a Vegetarian Platter:

There's sauteed kale, sauteed cabbage, lentils (red and yellow), green beans, and an amazing eggplant and okra saute. It's all served over a bed of spongey injera bread. In case you don't know, you're not really supposed to use a fork to eat Ethiopian food. You tear off bits of injera and grab food with the bread. I love any opportunity to trade my fork for bread.

And of course, we had extra injera for scooping. I ate all of my mine, but Leslie has more self-control and managed to limit her injera intake.

Memphis has a few Ethiopian restaurants, but Derae is my new favorite. Delicious food + the best service ever. They also serve Ethiopian breakfast all day long, so I'll be trying that soon.

Derae Restaurant is located at 923 S. Highland. Call 901-552-3992 or visit their Facebook page.