I ♡ you, salad pizza!!

So the love affair with salad continues... now in pizza form! Long before I was a vegan, I was a fan of the salad pizza. Now I have grown to realize that it's not a universal thing, but a local feast only to be found in New York City, Long Island, and surronding areas.

What is it? Basically a vegan pizza lover's dream- a slice of pizza (with the crispy/chewy uniquely New York style crust) topped with... salad. That's it. Most salad pizza comes without cheese, but you can also ask them for a cheese-less slice. The slice you see above, from Brooklyn, has tomatoes, zucchini, red onions, and fresh basil. I've had slices with variations of toppings- sometimes even lettuce! What sets salad pizza apart is that the toppings are raw or only briefly heated. The combination of refreshing salad and comforting pizza is something that should not be missed. Make sure to seek one out (usually at local neighborhood pizzerias- the kind where you can buy by the slice) next time you're in the area!

I ♡ you, salad pizza!!

I'll admit it- I love salad!

I like to think that I don't fit a lot of vegan stereotypes. Well, nobody does! However, there is one stereotype that I wholeheartedly embrace: I love salads! I always have, and always will. If I had to eat only one food for the rest of my life, it would be salad. Of course that would be cheating a little, because there are so many different kinds of salads- so many ways to mix flavors, textures, tastes, and colors. Warm or cold, spicy or sweet, light or substantial, oh, I could sing salad's praises for a long time.

Above, you see a photo of a meal I enjoyed this summer while Daiku and I were visiting my mom in Northern Virginia. We went to The Corner Bakery Cafe, which is s chain of coffee shops that you might be familiar with. To my delight, their menu gives you the option of combining any three salads, which you get with a side of mixed greens (a FOURTH salad!!) and a roll. I chose (clockwise from top) fruit salad, Greek salad (hold the feta), and Asian slaw. This, my friends, is my idea of the ideal meal. Give me produce or give me death!

And where did I get this insatiable taste for fruits and veggies? I'll have to give my mom credit for that one. She says that my brother and I didn't taste refined sugar until we were in preschool. Instead, she filled our plates (and shaped our palates) with fresh fruits and vegetables, homemade juices, and homemade baby food. When I was a kid, there were some fruits and veggies that I didn't like, but I have grown to love them all as an adult. Now, there's no vegan food I've met that I don't really like! I think it's important for kids to be exposed to a wide variety of fresh produce from early on. Would I have ever grown to love grapefruits the way I do now, if my mom hadn't patiently peeled them, separated the juicy fruit from the pith, and fed it to me in manageable segments? (What you see in the photo above is me snarfing up fruit at about 1 year old as my mom peels away.)

Thanks, mom!

I'll admit it- I love salad!

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"

party, giveaway, and news!

birthday lilies

Hi everybody! In this post I want to share some birthday wonderfulness with all of you. Usually, I don't make a huge deal out of my birthday, but this year we had a group of friends come together, and the results were too fun and too delicious to keep to myself. So here are some scenes (and recipes) from our little partay this past weekend:

Do you remember my vegan ceviche from last year? I decided to make it again, with a few tweaks to the recipe. Once again I used sliced jarred hearts of palm because of their pretty shape, great taste, and eerie resemblance to calamari. This time, I marinated together:

1 jar of hearts of palm, sliced into 1/2 inch rounds
2 ripe but firm avocados
1/3 large red onion, sliced thinly
1/4 red bell pepper, sliced thinly
1 small jalapeño pepper, minced finely
the juice of 2-3 organic lemons, plus 1/4 c. fresh-squeezed orange juice
splash olive oil
sea salt, freshly cracked black pepper, and a tiny smidge of powdered coriander

this is what it looked like after a few hours of marinading in the fridge

and this was the ceviche in martini glasses, ready to be passed around at the party

for an entrée, we finally whipped out the Camellia red beans that Kittee had sent us back around Mardi Gras, and Daiku made his famous New Orleans red beans & rice

here it is, served with white rice and garnished with chopped parsley and Tobasco sauce. These beans are so simple, and yet taste so otherworldly, they make me fantasize about traveling down south. Mmmmm.

We also decided to pass around tapas-style potatoes. To make them, we simply steamed these tiny white potatoes, and then tossed with coarse sea salt, parsley, and truffle-scented olive oil,

and served with this improvised aioli sauce comprised of vegannaise mayo, lemon juice, garlic powder, and paprika.

My friend Heather baked a birthday cake for me by veganizing her favorite orange pound cake recipe! Gorgeous, no? This cake was so good, full of orange juice and zest, spiked with orange liqueur, and topped with cinnamon and powdered sugar. I am so grateful to friends like her, willing to step outside of their food/baking comfort zones and making this vegan birthday girl very happy indeed! (another baked treat veganized by my friend Rachel, but devoured too quickly to be photographed: banana bread! I have to get a picture of this some time soon, Rachel has perfected the art of making her banana bread create a pudding-like layer at the bottom... words would not do it justice)

Of course, I had to bake too. I'd been craving tiramisu cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World for way too long to hold out any longer! These little guys were composed of golden vanilla cupcakes soaked with an espresso/Kahlua mixture, topped with dollops of cream cheese frosting and cocoa powder and finished off with dark-chocolate covered espresso beans. Oh my.

The term 'food porn' was invented for moments like this!

Our party fell on the night of Black Out For Earth Hour - and thanks to a reminder by Tracy, we managed to turn out our lights from 8 to 9 to participate in this event for the environment! As you can see in the above photo, this hour turned into a kind of campfire moment- we all sat around with only candles for light, eating, drinking, and sharing funny stories. It was so fun!

birthday spring bouquet

* * *

Ok, I promised to share my exciting news with you guys, so here it is!

But first, the small matter of the pool. I had a lot of fun reading your guesses as to what I was going to say. I don't want to choose one winner! So I've decided that everyone who guessed can be a winner. The prize? Some of my beloved sourdough starter so that you guys can have as much fun at home baking sourdough bread (and pancakes and biscuits and waffles and pizza...) as I do!

I've even created a blog email address for this event: wherestherevolution (at) gmail (dot) com. So if you made a guess on this blog, would like some sourdough starter and instructions in the mail, and live in the U.S. (I had to it this way, I'm not sure about the advisability of mailing live cultures through international mail), email me with your address! I will wait 1 week, or until the first 10 requests have come in, whichever happens first, to mail them out.

Ok, without further ado, here's the news:

Daiku and I are moving* to England!!

(woo woo!)

*Ok, it's not a permanent move, but for 5 months starting in late August or September, we will be living in Canterbury. For a time at least, we will be British Bloggers, and I can't wait. So all you Brits out there, please, I could use all your advice! And when I come over, I hope you know there will be meet-ups galore! This vegan's going international, yo.

a map showing Canterbury, in the southeast corner of England (click to enlarge)


birthday begonias

party, giveaway, and news!

quick update

Hi everybody,

Just a quick post to say I haven't disappeared, I'm just a little buried in schoolwork right now! I have lots of blog posts up my sleeve, but it might take a few more days before I'm back to regular posting. For now, check out my sidebar- I've updated my links and added a large number of really cool blogs and websites that I hope you'll have fun browsing!

One last thing before I go- if you're looking for a recipe to make, make the caesar salad from Veganomicon- NOW! The croutons are awesome (especially if made with *cough*sourdough*cough*) but the dressing itself is the star. So creamy and garlic-y, it's perfect as a spread for bread and sandwiches, as a dip for veggies (or even fruit- try it on apple slices!), as a topping for beans, or just to eat out of the jar if you happen to be stressed, under a lot of deadlines, and hungry!

Have a great week, and I look forward to catching up with everyones' blogs soon.

quick update

veg on veg

Well, if it wasn't for VeganMoFo, I probably wouldn't be blogging at 10:30 at night, right after getting back from a long drive and a weekend away from home. But this is the month of vegan food, darn it, and I'm nothing if not dedicated!

Tonight, I want to talk about "veg on veg" - one of my favorite types of meals. Veg on veg is a meal that simply involves vegetables, vegetables, and more vegetables. Anyone who knows me knows that I love grains, beans, and tofu. They know that tempeh holds a special place in my heart and that I love experimenting with seitan. They know that I love baking, whether a big loaf of bread or a decadent dessert.

But sometimes, you don't want any of that. Sometimes, your vegan heart just wants to sing about the love for produce. Pure, unadulterated, produce. So you end up with a meal like what you see above.

This was a meal that Daiku and I shared last week, consisting only of produce. The main course was a dish of roasted vegetables: butternut squash, potatoes, carrots, and onions. I love throwing onions into roasting winter veggies, because they caramelize and lend a great sweet flavor to everything. The veggies were very simply seasoned with olive and chili oils, salt, pepper, a dash of cinnamon, and a touch of sage.

To go with them, we had a simple green salad dressed with a robust dijon vinaigrette. The slight heaviness of the dijon mustard and white balsamic vinegar paired well with the heartiness of our roasted veggies.

As a final accent, we had a dish of fresh cranberry sauce that I whipped up while the veggies were roasting. I cooked some cranberries with orange zest and frozen apple juice concentrate until the berries had burst and the sauce had thickened up slightly. (Cranberry thickens up even more as it cools and sets.)

So there you go: veggies, veggies, (fruit), and more veggies. Veg on veg, one of my personal favorite aspects of veganmofo.

veg on veg

the BBQ dinner post

Happy October, everybody! Thank you for your kind comments about the sourdough post. I went away to Virginia for my mom's birthday this weekend, and was so happy to come back and find that it had gotten such a good response. I am having a lot of fun with it.

Well, the voodoo stew seems to have worked better than I could ever imagine! Clear, sunny weather and record-breaking warm temperatures have been hanging around, and I figure, as long as I keep getting warm days, I'll keep posting warm-weather foods!

On September 21, Daiku and I took advantage of the newly warm weather to pull out our trusty little hibachi grill to make some barbeque. This little cast-iron guy is very near and dear to our heart. We bought him very cheaply a few years ago when I was still living in California, and the heavy, sharp, rusty thing has managed to follow us to New York. (Let's just say multiple trips were involved).

The main course was some mock duck (canned seitan from the Asian market) marinated with a peppery barbeque sauce. Here is the duck getting basted with reserve marinade.

The salad was inspired by this beautiful ripe red pepper from the garden.

I used it, along with some fresh tomatoes and raw corn from the farmers market, some scallions, olive oil, and sherry vinegar to make a salsa. I've only recently discovered my love for fresh raw corn, and am snapping it up every chance I get. I figure it'll only show up at the market a couple more times, tops. This particular corn was white and especially sweet and tender. I may never cook corn again- seriously.

I then poured the salsa over a huge bed of spinach, also from the market.

Along with some garlic toast, plain corn on the cob, and some barbecued broccoli and green onions, (and some amazing grilled peaches that I forgot to photograph), this was a satisfying dinner for the last day of summer. The last day according to the calendar, anyway...

To be continued!

the BBQ dinner post

brunch with friends

A long time usually lags between when something happens in my life and when it shows up on my blog! Case in point, it's already been almost two weeks since I met another blogger friend in real life!

Jody (from Vegchic) and her friend Jenna were driving through New York on their way back home from a wedding, so of course I asked them if they wanted to make a pit-stop in Syracuse. Happily, they did, and we got to have brunch together and talk. It was a really nice morning.

The best part was that instead of just Daiku, I now had 3 willing test subjects for two recipes I was testing and two that I was making for the first time- {cue evil laugh- mwahaha}

The first two recipes were testers for Melody - and both of them were awesome.

Veggie cream cheez spread (here served atop a sun-dried tomato bagel). Filled with goodies like carrots, pepper, and scallions, this is the perfect brunch item. Even though I had made a huge container of this spread, it was gone in less than a week. And the flavor kept getting better and better with each passing day.

The superstar of the day was this arugula salad with grapes, figs, pecans, and more. The complex and aromatic dressing really made this one stand out. I love salads, but I definitely fall into ruts. And yet, I never would have thought to follow a recipe for salad if I wasn't testing- now I want to test more salads!

Up next, a recipe from Joni's new book, Cozy Inside. I downloaded this book a couple of weeks ago (you can order a hard copy too, but since I have a fear of clutter and a desire to save money, downloading was an awesome option for me) and I'm blown away by the sheer number of mouthwatering recipes inside... I can't wait to try more out!

Here we have her tofu egg salad. Neither words nor this photo do any justice to the deliciousness of this salad- and this coming from someone who has made a lot of these! I loved this recipe, and it was perfect served on bagels or rolls, as you see above.

Finally, we have dessert. I chose to bake the crimson velveteen cupcakes with old-fashioned velvet icing from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. I have to admit, I was fantasizing about fire-engine red cupcakes, but these looked more like regular chocolate cupcakes. What was really cool was the old-fashioned, cooked icing. I love regular buttercream, but appreciated the different taste and technique of this icing- it had a gentle, subtle flavor. The fact that it has less shortening, margarine, and sugar than regular buttercream didn't hurt either!

For brunch, I also had a platter of cantaloupe and yellow kiwi (sorry, Jody, I didn't realize you don't like cantaloupe!) that I forgot to photograph. You can see the yellow kiwi in this previous post, though.

A good brunch, but what was really great was getting to share it with great company! It was so great to meet Jody and Jenna, and I hope they come through New York again- I know I can't wait to get to go to their neck of the woods...

Bazu, Jody, Jenna - pardon the special effects, I get carried away with iPhoto!

One year ago today: What I was blogging about on 31 August 2006

brunch with friends