5 cookbooks in 5 days, 2: The Urban Vegan

Welcome to the 2nd installment of this week's 5-part cookbook review series! As I mentioned last night, I will be reviewing a new vegan cookbook (and 1 zine!) every day of this week. Tonight, I have The Urban Vegan: 250 Simple, Sumptuous Recipes from Street Cart Favorites to Haute Cuisine, by Dynise Balcavage of the Urban Vegan blog.

True story: Urban Vegan was the 2nd vegan blog I discovered, way back in the summer of 2006, and it was one of my main inspirations to start this blog. As anyone who reads her work knew, it wasn't if, but when Dynise would come out with a cookbook. I love the way she distills the essence of urbanity into her recipes- diverse, edgy, cosmopolitan, unexpected, but ultimately, homey. If like me, you are an urban person at heart (whether or not you live in a metropolis like Philadelphia), you have to pick up this book. What I love is how the recipes are inspired by Dynise's travels to all corners of the world, but somehow fit together very nicely. Check out some of my favorite recipes:


alternative granola - Peruvian influence, a use I'd never imagined for quinoa!


spätzle- you don't need any special tools for this Central European comfort food


chickpea paprikash- daiku's favorite recipe from the book- the paprika taste is so deep and rich, it'll blow your mind


Havana beans and rice- a little taste of Cuba, right in your kitchen


punka pie- I never even liked pumpkin pie before this!


blue mosque ayran- a refreshing and minty drink from the Middle East, perfect for hot summer days

crème brûlée - yes, you heard me!


tiramisu- oh man, possibly my favorite recipe from this book. boozy and decadent and coffee-y- wow!


portobello burger- so simple, yet so good


Here's the tiramisu that Luciana and I made for our recent Halloween party. We called it "fetalmisu"- get it? Ok, even if fetus humor isn't your thing, you have got to get your hands on this book!

Stay tuned for installments 3, 4, and 5. In the meantime, check out my first cookbook review from last night, 500 Vegan Recipes.

5 cookbooks in 5 days, 2: The Urban Vegan

5 cookbooks in 5 days, 1: 500 Vegan Recipes

It's such an exciting time! Those of you who are cookbook addicts, and I dare say that's more than a few of you, might be aware that a ton of new vegan cookbooks have been published recently. This week, I've decided to give a few of these books some love- so I've decided to do a series called 5 cookbooks in 5 days, one each day until Friday.

The schedule will be as follows:
Mon (today!) - 500 Vegan Recipes by Celine Steen and Joni Marie Newman
Tue - The Urban Vegan by Dynise Balcavage
Wed - Potluck Mania by Joanna Vaught
Thur - The 100 Best Vegan Baking Recipes by Kris Holechek
Fri- Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero

Just a quick note to let you know that I know all of these authors, I have tested recipes for most of these books, and as a result have received free copies of some of them. I won't lie to you, I'm going to highlight what's good about these books! However, I think you'll agree that there just isn't much bad to say about any of them.

On to today's book!

500 Vegan Recipes is brought to you by the lovely and prolific bloggers Celine (of Have Cake Will Travel) and Joni (of Just the Food). Just as its name implies, this is a big book, and has an encyclopedic selection of recipes for every meal, mood, and occasion. The book gives lots of background on ingredients and techniques, enough to give beginners the knowledge to begin and more advanced cooks confidence to experiment. The recipes, however, are anything but basic- both Celine and Joni are creative enough to write truly enticing and unusual recipes. A broccoli salad with candied nuts? It's good! A muffin made from a cookie? It's possible!

Here are some of my favorite recipes:



Cannellini All'Italiana (hearty, stick-to-your-ribs, lip-smacking yet oh-so-simple to make)



Homemade bacon bits (much better than the overpriced chemical stuff at the store!)



Braised brussels sprouts and apples (so simple, but so good)



"That" broccoli salad (a perfect old-school blend of healthy and decadent, savory and sweet)



Agave bread (a wholesome bread with a light and delicate taste)



Mole bread (a wonderful complex bread with cocoa and spices)



Mexican hot mocha (a hot and comforting drink- with a kick)

5 cookbooks in 5 days, 1: 500 Vegan Recipes

what was I eating this time last year...?

Just a flashback post from the archives tonight... If you remember, Daiku and I were living in England last Fall, and by the end of October, we'd established a pretty good food routine and were trying to eat like the locals.

Breakfast might be some delicious scones with margarine and jam.

Dinner might be sampling a vegan entrée from Sainsburys supermarket, such as the steak above, with some mashed potatoes with greens, and some local Kent apples on the side.

I even started making proper puddings! The one above was made with some stewed and spiced sour cherries, topped with Bird's custard (made with soya milk), and some crumbled ginger biscuits on top. I was proud of myself!

And tea. Lots of tea. Always tea. Long live tea.

what was I eating this time last year...?

grandma's recipe- fesenjan

For today's mofo, I'm going to write about my grandma and give you one of my favorite recipes of hers. This article was originally written for Herbivore magazine.

Give It Up For Grandma!

My grandmother’s name is Houra, and she is a wonderful human being and nurturer. In my whole life, she is the one person who has never raised her voice at me or spoken in anger. Even more importantly, she is the foundation of the vast majority of my memories about food and cooking. To this day, getting a whiff of fresh dill or cilantro conjures up the warm feeling of nestling my face in her apron and standing at her feet as she cooked.

Houra was born in northern Iran in the 1920’s. She recounts happy early childhood tales of playing with her siblings and cousins, but also the sadness of being taken out of school while still a young teenager. Grandma tells stories of wistfully watching other kids going off to school, and these stories have ensured that all of her children and grandchildren have placed great value on education. Grandma has also instilled a love of traveling in our entire family, setting an example by visiting far-away lands starting in her 50s and 60s. She has been to Saudi Arabia on pilgrimage, to Sweden, to Dubai, to England, to Romania, to the former Yugoslavia. She was with me when I visited Turkey for the first time as a young girl.

I became vegan over five years ago, and my grandma has always been the most supportive member of my family. Due to health concerns, she herself is not a big consumer of meat or dairy. She comes from a culinary background that places great emphasis on fresh, seasonal produce, and her table is always full of vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts, and herbs. It is only now, as I learn more and more about food that I see how rich her food world really is. For her, sun-dried tomatoes are not a gourmet ingredient on a high-priced restaurant menu, but what you make in late summer to make sure you have tomatoes in the winter. Fruit leathers are not a silly childrens snack, but a way to capture the bounty of whatever fruit you happen to have in abundance. Herbs are not merely decorations on a finished dish, but an integral flavor and nutritional component of that dish, meant to be savored rather than discarded. I credit grandma with the fact that I have such a taste for fruits and vegetables today, without which being a vegan would be pretty damn difficult!

For these reasons, eating vegan at grandma’s house has always been easy. Most of her recipes are easily veganized, and she takes great joy into observing me replace the eggs or meat in her dishes, just as I took great joy watching her cook for all the years of my life. Here, I have veganized fesenjan, a delicious, nutritious, and iconic Iranian khoresh, or stew. The recipe is very flexible, and you should approach it in terms of flavor instead of exact measurements. You will be surprised at the lip-smacking flavor that such a seemingly unexpected combination of ingredients yields. The rich taste of fesenjan and its deep brown color make it perfect for the fall and winter.

Fesenjan

Ingredients:

• 2 cups fresh raw walnuts
• 1 medium white onion, grated
• ¼ cup pomegranate paste*
• 3 TB tomato paste
• 2 – 3 cups water
• 1 tsp turmeric
• ½ - 1 tsp cinnamon
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 cup of your favorite vegan chicken (I used baked tofu, but seitan, tempeh, packaged faux chicken, or even legumes such as lima beans also work well)

Directions:

• Using a food processor, grind the walnuts until they form a paste with a smooth nut-butter consistency
• Crumble the walnut paste, along with the grated onion, the pomegranate and tomato pastes, and spices into a stock pot over medium-high heat, and stir in enough water until smooth. You want a thin consistency, like tomato juice, this will thicken up substantially. Make sure to get rid of any lumps in the sauce.
• Bring to a boil, lower heat, and simmer for about an hour, stirring occasionally. As the mixture thickens, the color will darken to a deep brown.

• Add your baked tofu (or whatever chicken substitute you are using) at this point, and allow it to simmer for another 30 minutes. Towards the end, you can add 1 or 2 tablespoons of ice water to the mixture once or twice, to get the beautiful reddish walnut oil to rise to the top for presentation purposes. This step is totally optional.
• Serve warm over rice. White basmati rice is traditional (click here for the recipe for Iranian-style steamed rice pilaf -scroll down), but I also love fesenjan with my favorite brown rice.
• Enjoy!

Optional: eggplants also taste good in this dish. You can drop chopped eggplants, raw or cooked, into the stew for the last 30 minutes or so of cooking, in addition to or as a replacement for the chicken.

* Pomegranate paste is a thick, intensely sour paste that gives many Iranian dishes a distinctive flavor. You can find pomegranate paste at Iranian supermarkets, or hit up your closest Iranian friend! If you can’t, however, you can replace it in this recipe with pomegranate molasses or juice, changing the amount of water accordingly. The juice and the molasses are not as tangy as the paste, however, and you should probably add some lemon or lime juice to make up for this fact.

grandma's recipe- fesenjan

and then... they had kitchen equipment

*cue heavenly music*

so by our second week here, Daiku and I finally sorted out the kitchen situation- and got a bunch of basic equipment! I'd never been so happy to see ordinary pots and pans before. and what was the first thing we cooked after living off of packaged and convenience foods for so long? if you know me, it should come as little surprise that the answer involved: brown rice! lentils! and greens! I could probably eat some version of this meal every day. the brown rice and lentils were cooked together, and on top went a mixture of greens sauteed with garlic and olive oil, topped with raisins, sultanas, and balsamic vinegar. heaven on a plate. 

ATTENTION: For those who generously made donations for my sky dive last month, I will be holding the long-promised drawing on this blog in the next couple of days. Watch for your name! If you win, I'll need you to email me about the prize (and your postal address, of course!)

and then... they had kitchen equipment

institutional to transcendent: vegan in the heartland pt. 2 (kansas city)

this was the one of the pieces of "art" in my hotel room in Kansas City...

As some of you know, I have been an AP art history reader for 3 years now. I greatly enjoy reading the ever-increasing numbers of exams, and having a chance to hang out with fellow art historians for a week. For the last two years, I have gone to New Jersey for this assignment. However this year, they moved us to Kansas City.

As I hopped on the train for the 4-hour trip from St. Louis, I was excited to get a chance to visit a new city, and I eventually ended up much to love in a city known for its BBQ and steak.

First, work food:

When I showed up, I found this sign in the vegetarian food line at the ballroom of the Kansas City convention center. I was relieved that there was a dedicated section for veg. food- but I soon found out why the sign was there. According to my colleagues, the food at the convention center was so bad that people were flocking to the vegetarian food, thus causing the food to run out before actual vegetarians had gotten their meals!

How bad could the food be? Well, let's just say it was... institutional. The above image is a collection of some of my breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. As you can see, it wasn't too difficult to eat vegan, and by the end of the week, there were even some pleasant surprises (tofu! tacos! beans!). I also noticed some signs saying "brown rice available for vegans." Which, great, I love brown rice, but did I miss the memo that said that only vegans could eat it? (You guys already know how I feel about needless food segregation and weird definitions of veganism.) The food was honestly not that bad, but very bland and extremely repetitive. (Especially since I'd been spoiled for good fresh veg. food in New Jersey, as you can see in this post from last year.) By the third day, the thought of veggie sausage for breakfast again was enough to make me ill. As you can see in the mosaic, by the end of the week (top photos) I had resorted to drinking soda with my meals just to settle my stomach, and I (like many other readers) started skipping dinner.

Here is a shot of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, a giant and wonderful museum that I happily got to visit a couple of times while in K.C.

Still Life No. 24 by Tom Wesselmann, 1962, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

Here is a work of art by Tom Wesselmann that speaks to some of our worst fears about American food- packaged, processed, and bland. After a few days on my institutional diet, this piece really made me think. It's funny how distorted the promise of plenitude has become in the American psyche, isn't it?

Fortunately, there was a whole other side to my visit. First of all, I was lucky to have found a wonderful yoga studio within walking distance of my hotel. At Kansas Siddhi Yoga, I got to work out the kinks in my neck and shoulders, but more importantly, work out the negative attitude that was starting to take over my mind.

Taking advantage of the Kansas City Veg. Restaurant Guide, the advice of fellow bloggers and PPK-ers, and the convenient and cheap K.C. public transportation system, I finally found enough time one evening to get myself to Eden Alley Café. When I saw the specials list, I knew exactly what I needed to get: watermelon gazpacho! This raw dish, bursting with fresh ingredients (a gazpacho of watermelon, cucumbers, apples, and tomatoes, served with a big scoop of guacamole and topped with sprouts and lime juice) was the counterpart to the bland food I'd been having all week.

Fresh lemonade

House-made sourdough bread drizzled with a green and fruity olive oil

And gazpacho! I can't tell you how good this meal was. It was totally worth the trip, and getting caught in a thunderstorm on my way back!

Especially because my awesome server slipped this chocolate lavender cookie to me after my meal, for free! This cookie let me have something awesome and healthy to enjoy as everyone else snacked on candy bars during our reading the next day.

There were so many other vegetarian and vegan-friendly restaurants that I still wanted to try in Kansas City, but I ran out of time. Good thing I'll be returning here for work every June for the foreseeable future. My yoga class allowed me to have gratitude- not only for the extraordinary vegan food at Eden Alley, but also for the quite ordinary food at the Convention Center. I was reminded that even though I complained about it, it was still food, vegan food. And that is something to be thankful for.

Restaurant Information:

Eden Alley Café
707 W 47th St
Kansas City, MO 64112
(816) 561-5415

institutional to transcendent: vegan in the heartland pt. 2 (kansas city)

Washington D.C. : Sticky Fingers

I love my visits to Northern Virginia, because they give me a chance to sample some of the many great vegetarian and vegan restaurants there. (See these two previous posts.) On this latest visit, Daiku, my mom, and I got to visit perhaps the best-known of them all: Sticky Fingers. I don't know why I'd never been here before, because it was definitely worth the visit.

Somehow, even though we were faced with this amazing array of sweets, including a huge selection of cakes and cupcakes, Daiku and I opted to go with savory options. You can see from the below photo that we had a lot to choose from:

(Yes, those red tubes you see are Teese!)

Daiku went with the tempeh chicken salad sandwich. The filling was very flavorful, and punctuated with little bits of red onion and raisins.

I decided to treat myself to a veggie dog. When they asked if I wanted that topped with chili and cheese, I had to go for it. And the result was yummy! Even though it looks really decadent, the chili-cheese dog is a nice, edible portion of hot-doggy goodness, and very affordable too.

My mom was the only one who went for dessert- along with her coffee, she ordered the oat square.

Even though it looked really plain compared to the flamboyant cupcakes and sticky buns in the display case, the oat square was delicious and was definitely an excellent choice. It was not too sweet, and had a pleasant chewy texture with a tasty creme filling. Yum! We had to take some coffee and desserts to go with us.

Sticky Fingers was very crowded and filled with groups of friends hanging out and sharing good food. They also had plenty of take-out options- I wish I worked around there so I could have lunch here every day! I can definitely see myself going back there on future visits, laptop in hand to take advantage of the wi-fi and coffee refills on offer.

Our stay was otherwise very low-key, we enjoyed a lot of home-made meals. However, one thing stood out at my mom's house, that I just had to document and share with you. My mom had picked up some vegan ice creams in anticipation of our visit. My aunt also brought some over during one of her visits. I also found a stash of ice creams on sale at the local Whole Foods. The result? Kind of ridiculous, but also kind of fabulous:

From top to bottom: Sharon's coconut sorbet, Purely Decadent chunky mint madness, Temptation peach cobbler, Sharon's lemon sorbet, and Trader Joe's cherry chocolate chip. It seems like overkill, but when you combine a big family and a very hot summer, we had no problem working our way through these. I was grateful, as always, to have such a thoughtful (if sometimes over-the-top) family!

Restaurant Information:
Sticky Fingers Bakery
1370 Park Road NW
Washington D.C. 20010
Phone: (202) 299-9700

Washington D.C. : Sticky Fingers

in which we eat while watching "Lost"

A kitty watches us watching Lost.

Daiku and I are fanatical about Lost. He introduced the show to me in season 1 and I've been hooked since. Back then, I lived in California while he lived here and so we would always discuss the show on the phone after it aired. Getting to watch the show together was one of the fringe benefits of me actually getting to move back to the east coast!

Flash-forward a few years. Last December, at the holiday party at Daiku's school, we were talking to a friend of ours who had just moved here from California. She mentioned that she and her husband are big Lost fans too. It just seemed natural that we would get together to watch the new season once it started airing. Two other friends of ours looked at us like we were crazy- they wanted to know what this show was and why we seemed so crazy about it. Well, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to bring two more people to the dark side! And so, starting with the first episode of this season in February, the 6 of us got together every Saturday night for food, drinks, and fun while watching Lost. I have to say, it has been the funnest semester, and an awesome way to watch the show. Sure, it meant a nail-biting wait between when the episode aired and when we got to see it, but it was so worth it! Through bad weather and dark nights, through school holidays and exams, through teaching highs and lows and travel and family obligations, we managed to watch almost every episode of this crazy show together, as a group.

One of the coolest things for me was that our friends made huge efforts to make sure that there was always vegan food for me to eat at their houses. In return, I made sure to cook the most delicious foods I could, so that they'd be happy and satisfied with the vegan offerings at hand. The result? Lost of delicious food!

Let me show you:

homemade pizza with tons of veggie toppings at R. & D.'s house. I love broccoli on pizza, don't you?

also at R. & D.'s house, homemade focaccia with marinara dipping sauce

an entire plate of vegan goodness at H. & E.'s house: black bean and sweet potato wraps, mango salsa, and pineapple rice. Wow, these were good! Notice how the wraps have a "v" baked into them, to made sure we could pick out which were vegan vs. which had dairy cheese in them- a thoughtful touch. I believe that these were all Moosewood cookbook recipes, and they were so good.

Here was an awesome make-your-own burrito station at R. & D.'s house- rice, beans, salsa, tortillas and tortilla chips, cilantro... all the goodies.

I especially liked R.'s "no tomato salsa" (no tomatoes here in Syracuse in the winter!) with hominy. I love the toothsome texture and satisfying flavor of hominy and it went well with all the other burrito ingredients on hand.

H. is the master of salads- here was a colorful and tangy mixed bean salad she made.

And here's the striking beet and parsnip slaw that she made, from Veganomicon! This salad was so good- we were all oooohing and aaaahing at the bright pink color and amazing flavor. Who know you could eat raw parsnips? Yum!

Here's one of our contributions. Daiku made this black-bean chili with cornbread topping on a particularly icy night. The spicy chili, comforting cornbread, and toppings (onion, cilantro, lime) really hit the spot on that snowy night.

But we mainly contributed desserts. Here you have some chocolate cupcakes with chocolate mousse topping. (That chocolate mousse is my favorite frosting recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. It is so flavorful, and yet so light).

Here you have Brooklyn brownie cupcakes with my own invention, a chocolate mint crumb topping. These cupcakes are so awesome- I'm sad I didn't discover them earlier! (There are so many cupcakes yet to be discovered in that book, right?)

Here we have a Lost cake! The design on the top is my clumsy rendering of the Dharma Initiative logo, and the blue frosting on the sides is supposed to represent the ocean. Ok, I'm not the world's best decorator!

But, what the cake lacked in looks, it made up for in flavor. I made Kittee's red velvet kake recipe- and it's a winner! It has a unique flavor and all our friends loved it.

Of course, one can't live on cake alone. (Well, one could but perhaps shouldn't...). Daiku made this fruit crisp for one of our get-togethers, using his favorite apple-cherry crisp recipe from Whole Foods. However, since this was the middle of winter, we had to improvise with the fruit a little bit, so we threw in what we had in the freezer- we ended up using frozen apples, peaches, blueberries, raspberries and cherries, as well as canned pears and fresh lemon juice and zest.

The result was an awesome and flavorful apple crisp. I love freezing as many fruits as possible in the summer, because then you can be rewarded with comforting fruity creations such as this one in the winter.

Finally, we had to have drinks! Usually, we drank lots of wine at our gatherings.

However, it is worth noting that prosecco (a dry and mild Italian sparkling wine) also goes well with vegan feasts and cupcakes.

And, if an episode of Lost is particularly mind-blowing, there is nothing wrong with drinking some absinthe to add to the effect!

Tonight is the season finale of Lost. This is a bitter-sweet moment for me. It is the last time we will see a new episode of the show before next February (!), and it is the last of these weekly get-togethers with our awesome friends before we all scatter for the summer. This the last full day Daiku and I will be in Syracuse before embarking on our June travels. This semester would have been a lot less enjoyable had it not been for the good food and good company that we got to share almost every weekend while watching the weirdest of shows!

After today, my posting will be sporadic, but watch here for updates from Virginia, St. Louis, Kansas City, and St. John! And for those of you watching Lost tonight, let's toast to each other- namaste!

in which we eat while watching "Lost"