Posts tagged bread
Cooking Our Way Vegan
Learning to cook, one vegan meal at a time.
Vegan Apple Chunk Banana Bread
You guys!! Ari baked. Talk about role reversal! Though I read the recipe to him and instructed him on mixing strategies and adjusting baking time based on our lack of correctly sized loaf pan, it appears that he did a good job.
I snagged this recipe from FitSugar and the prep time was literally 10 minutes, with 40 or so minutes of baking time (would be more if we had the correct sized pan).
We’ll let you know how it turns out!
DC Trip - Cafe Green!
Last night I met up with my sister-in-law at Cafe Green, the more souped up “restaurant-y” version of Java Green - the veggie lunch place I’ve started to frequent during my many (MANY) DC trips. I’ve been wanting to eat there for a while, but it was a tad outside walking distance from the hotel I usually stay at while in DC. With the hours I typically work when I’m in DC, I’m always too lazy to make it up. Since my usual digs were sold out, I scored a spot that happened to be near Cafe Green. Finally! After all this time.
First things first. It’s always lovely to be able to go to a restaurant where I can order everything and anything off the menu. Though I’ve cheated a bit with dairy recently (damn you Ari and your bagel and cream cheese!), I’m still 90% vegan and on my way to making a more permanent change. That being said, onto the review:
Mac and Cheese
As expected, I was skeptical of anything vegan that says “cheese.” While daiya cheese has been decent, any mac and cheese version I’ve thought tasted just strange. I was actually pleasantly surprised with Cafe Green’s take on it. It was creamy without the strange taste. The closest thing I’ve had that resembles cheese in both taste and texture. The pasta was cooked perfectly and the scallions added a good kick.
Lemony Sauteed Kale
Kale is one of those greens that I eat occasionally, because apparently it’s awesome for you and has important things like iron, calcium, fiber, etc., but I’m not in love with the taste. It’s a little bitter and I feel like I have to chew it for five minutes. The Lemony Sauteed Kale at least got rid of that issue, and as much as I like lemon, it was a little overpowering here.
Cornbread
You can tell the light changed and it was now dark when this photo was taken because it’s so blurry. That’s because it took literally 45 minutes for this to come out (the service was painfully slow there, my biggest complaint). Anyway, this was something that the first bite was “eh” but as you keep at it, and add a crap of Earth Balance to it, you are pretty sure it’s tasty. It actually tasted like it had Matzo Meal in it - which who knows, maybe it did. Wasn’t the best thing in the world, but it hit the spot.
Overall
I’d go back just because I barely made a dent in the menu and I’m curious what else they got. Overall it was a mixed bag. I’ll go again, but will make sure that I have a good year to eat because I was definitely there for 2.5 hours (which was fine because I had great company!), but if alone would have been irritating.
Seeing as Ari is a teacher who expands young minds through physical activity, he has the summer off to do such things as spend hours on his bike and cook me dinner. And cook me dinner he did. Back on the challenge, we (or he) made our first Veganomicon recipes in weeks. And seeing the amount of food it yielded, we will be eating it for weeks as well.
Sweet Basil Pesto Tapenade
This is awesome and we will be no doubt making this for our next party. It contained such wonderful things as walnuts, olive oil, basil, MAPLE SYRUP, olive oil, lemon zest. Combine that with the lovely garlic bread from Wheatsville (SIDE NOTE: This isn’t your traditional buttery garlic bread that is definitely not vegan. This is basically a baguette with HUGE cloves of garlic embedded. It’s glorious). It was a bit sweet, but that can be modified the next time around. Love.
Seitanic Red and White Bean Jambalaya
We all know that our first stab at seitan was underwhelming, but this dish converted us. It was a thick, meaty and fulfilling stew that we can stash away and use to sustain us for weeks in case the aliens land in our yard.
Obviously a very fulfilling meal. Having a househusband in the summer is awesome.
