crack the plates

hey gals n’ pals! First, welcome to all the new visitors Google Analytics tells me I’ve had recently! (Yup, I spy on y’all.) I’m so glad you stopped in and I hope you find something you like. Questions/comments/ancient family recipes for sharing? Check out the “About” tab for contact information.

Second, an apology for my sudden, totally unintentional departure! A certain cable in my computer’s innards gave up the ghost and it’s been in the shop for over a week. In the shop? It almost feels unreasonable to type this fact. Yeah, yeah, you Appleheads might be pretty used to sending your crapintoshes to Applecare, but among us trusty Lenovo users, a shop situation is pretty unThink(pad)able! Okay, maybe just for this Thinkpad lover. But I couldn’t resist the Apple jab! Or the corny pun. Forgive me/deal with it!

On top of things, the internet is out in our apartment. Worse still, it’s projected to be down for a few more days! All of these facts add up to few (AKA no) posts at Crack the Plates. But never fear! Your vegan darlin’ has been up to plenty of fun things. I’ve already uploaded a bunch of pictures and planned five other posts, including recipe tutorials, so (be well, do good work, and) keep in touch.

For now, sweetheart & I are holed up at White Windmill on Buford Highway. Owing largely to the fact that I discovered accidentally-vegan mini donuts here tonight, it’s pretty much become my favorite place in Atlanta! Behold:

Closer, closer…

I love White Windmill! It was recommended by one of my favorite undergrad professors, a certain Wu, and though this is only my second visit, it’s one of my favorite places in Atlanta to hang. Call me corny, but I dig the cutesy cafe decor. It doesn’t feel prefab or corporate at all… mostly, it reminds me of my epic twenty-seventh birthday. (Relive those incredible mad tea party memories through pictures here.) Since you’ve probably never been here – I don’t personally know anyone who has, aside from my prof (correction! friend Jefferg loves the place!) – here’s a little tour.

Umbrellas inside.

Lots of little study nooks – with TONS of outlets for your gadgets – like this one.

Pots with flowers everywhere. See what I mean about the birthday connection?

Trees and topiaries abound.

The entrance, where you can pick up local papers and lots of stuff in Korean.

I love this random smiling lady. She saw the camera and knew what to do. Surprise grinner! I salute you.

The (upward) view from my seat.

So yeah, White Windmill is the best. There are tons of vegan treats, excellent quality soymilk for coffee drinks, a selection of weird & wonderful other beverages, and we’re pretty much the only white people here. Bonus! You know how I love diversity. If you’re ever in the neighborhood (Buford Highway Farmer’s Market? Harmony Vegetarian? Chef Liu?) definitely stop in. Open til midnight on Fridays!

What else is new? For one, the vegan carne asada tacos at Whole Foods recently made the short list of my favorite cheap eats in Atlanta. By recently, I mean yesterday. And by cheap? $2.25 for a giant grilled tortilla filled with at least a half pound of beautifully seasoned marinated seitan and a salsa of your choice. I heard about these on twitter via a bunch of local vegans howlin’ about WF’s short-lived injustice of taking them away. Dear Whole Foods, I’m so glad you learned your lesson about snatching beloved yummies away from your (bitchy/outspoken/assertive) vegan friends, if only because it gave me a chance to try them. I’m hooked! I mean, wouldja lookit that?

There’s way more to tell, but it’ll have to wait for future posts. My coffee cup has run dry and it’s too late for a refill. Check back for collard greens and crudites, an update on my Vegetable Husband, outings to Cottage Ethiopian, L’Thai, Noodle, and Udipi, recipes for curried turnip greens and haricot vert with vegan bacon (?!?!?!) and finally, a super-special ice cream cone. Mwah!

This post is brought to you by our friends the adjectives – as in, let’s see just how many modifiers I can fit into a single subject line!

Turns out, quite a few!

Last night’s dinner was boss. No two ways about it, just crispy deep-fried tempeh surrounding a bed of sweet and sour greens, topped with the now infamous greens-ribs relish:

It started easily enough – cubed two blocks of tempeh (I used a multi-grain variety) and threw it into some bubblin’ coconut oil. I recommend chopping the tempeh carefully, with a very sharp chef’s knife while cold for a clean cut. Tempeh can crumble, yanno, and nobody likes crumblies in the fry pot.

Cook til brown, turning every couple of minutes.

The greens came together rapidly since I had cleaned and chopped them the previous night. I offered my own (possibly confusing) annotated instructions for this recipe in the last post on kolhrabi, but just for reference, here is the original recipe from Eight Weeks to Optimum Health by Andrew Weil:

ingredients

• one pound of greens (I’ve used kale, collards, turnip, kohlrabi, bok choy…)
• 2 teaspoons of canola oil (I use coconut oil only!)
• 2 large cloves of garlic, minced (I use a lot more than that!)
• 1/4 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes (ditto!)
• 1/4 teaspoon dry mustard powder (pretty much the only thing I don’t change!)
• 2 tablespoons rice vinegar (or apple cider vinegar!)
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce (or wheat-free tamari!)
• 1 teaspoon light brown sugar (now you know I use more sugar than this!)

Wash and drain greens, remove any tough stems, slice leaves into 1/2-inch shreds. If using bok choy or Chinese cabbage, trim off the end, slice stems 1/4 inch thick and leaves 1/2 inch thick.

Heat the oil in a skillet (or a large covered pot! Less messy this way) over medium. Add the garlic and red pepper flake and stir-fry 1 minutes.

Add the greens along with the mustard powder and stir to coat with spices.

Combine the rice vinegar, soy sauce, and sugar and add to skillet/pot. Stir thoroughly! Cover! Cook covered over medium heat til greens are tender, about five minutes (more for collards, etc, yaddayadda).

***

Okay, back to the tempeh.

Drain the cubes on paper towels, sprinkle with salt immediately (Bryant Terry tells me that you have a very short window of time for the cooked tempeh to absorb the salt – don’t challenge him on this!). Transfer to a big bowl. Add freshly-cracked black pepper and nutritional yeast to taste. Toss merrily! Ok, done.

To plate, make a pretty little bed of cooked greens in the middle. Surround with tempeh. Top with greens relish, if desired – recipe to come in a future post. This is a great recipe for a date at home or meal-in-lieu-of-dinner-out. Dressed to impress, it looks special, tastes delicious, and makes you feel all-around fancy.

Please let me know if you try the greens recipe, and especially if you fuss around with the measurements. Andrew Weil calls it “Hot and Sour Greens” — I have willed it into Sweet and Sour Greens. Which ingredient will you highlight? Do tell!

The most marvellous thing happened last Wednesday: my Vegetable Husband arrived!

No, I didn’t tie the knot – especially not to a turnip! (Though let’s be real, I’m over the moon for the brassicas.) I signed up for a weekly produce delivery service! Margie Thorpe’s Vegetable Husband is a kind of CSA for CSAs. Instead of buying a share of a particular farm before the growing season and paying up front for regular deliveries over a period of time  (i.e., traditional Community Supported Agriculture), Margie scouts a bunch of great local farms for her own selection of goodies, collects them for her subscribers, and has local deliverers truck ‘em to your front door in precious little baskets. If I understand correctly, it’s kind of like she buys a giant CSA share for all of her fans and then parcels out the gems. Even if I’m totally confused, it’s clear that she maintains great relationships with a variety of farms and gets some truly beautiful food as a result.

These pictures are all of my first (unofficial) basket, a discount-rate “tester” that arrived last Wednesday afternoon. From delivery to use, I’ve been totally delighted with everything. Especially since I am paying the same amount that I spend at grocery stores on organic items trucked in from California and heavens-knows-where-else. No joke! Just $35/week buys enough local, organic produce for two folks to last until the next delivery.

Left to right: arugula, (duh), lettuce, flat-leaf parsley poking out.

Japanese turnips, Red Russian kale.

Close-up of the turnips, a rainbow of bound chard stems.

Perhaps my favorite part of getting a surprise basket of vegetables is just that – the surprise! Like an actor thrown into improvisation, I’m forced to get creative and go with whatever’s tossed my way. This week? Kohlrabi.

Pictures above and below: different varieties of the same vegetable, the so-called “German turnip”!

Kohlrabi’s made it onto my plate before, but never as a result of my own effort. When a new vegetable shows up on my cutting board, I pull out a particularly heavy book: Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini.

I’ve owned it for the better part of a decade and, at almost 800 pages, it has served me well! The entries are well-organized and clearly written, a nice balance of anecdotes with chef’s notes and general curiosities.

The second volume I consult is The Flavor Bible. As with so many other awesome things, the lovely Lagusta of Resistance is Fertile (personal blog) and Bluestocking Bonbons (world’s best chocolates) turned me on to this one. As you can see, it’s a book of flavor affinities. Look up any whole food, cuisine type, or sometimes, even concept (like, “slow-cooked”, or “luxurious”) and find a list of ingredients that pair well.

So I sought kohlrabi, and what did I see?

Well, ingredients in bold are said to go especially well. So what have we here? Unsalted butter, cream… hold it right there! Apparently a classic pairing/preparation has a lot to do with the milk “products” of another species? Not exactly down with that, I wondered… what’s something super rich, fatty, and flavorful that might work instead? Hmmm… it’s stretching the boundaries of my little vegan brain… but oh… I think… I’m… on to something…!

Kohlrabi three ways

• Simply shredded and sauteed with shallots
• In cream sauce
• Sweet and sour greens

For the first two ways, you’ll need

• At least four small-to-medium-sized kohlrabi
• Two or three shallots
• Coconut fat/oil
• Good-quality organic dried ginger
• Coconut cream
• Sea salt and freshly cracked pepper

Peel the kohlrabi and shred it in the food processor (or with an old-timey grater, if you’ve got some time on your hands).

Mince two or three shallots.

Heat some coconut fat over medium in a cast-iron skillet, like so:

Add kohlrabi shreds and shallots; sauté four minutes over medium heat, stirring frequently.

I think it’s a good idea to taste new foods in relatively un-fussed-with states, so that you know how to build on their strengths and downplay potential weaknesses. That’s why before even shredding the kohlrabi I reserved a few thinly sliced pieces raw. The idea behind this first preparation is to taste kohlrabi lightly cooked with only two other influences, so you can really taste it.

preparation one: sauté shreds four minutes in coconut oil with shallots. Serve.

preparation two: to sautéed shreds, add a pinch of organic dried ginger and a couple tablespoons of coconut cream:

Mix thoroughly while cooking two minutes more. Season with sea salt and freshly-cracked black pepper. Serve. (Psst: I’m super-proud of this recipe because I googled after I made it and couldn’t find anything like it anywhere! Maybe it’s because it’s so simple, but I’d like to think it’s cuz I’m just a clever gal!)

preparation three: sweet and sour greens, adapted from a recipe by Andrew Weil

You’ll need

• Greens from four kohlrabi, stems removed, rinsed and chopped
• red pepper flakes
• three or four cloves of garlic, minced
• apple cider or brown rice vinegar
• brown sugar
• tamari or soy sauce
• dried ground mustard, preferably organic

pre-step: thoroughly combine about two tablespoons of the vinegar with about two teaspoons of the brown sugar and a teaspoon or so of the tamari. (sorry for the “abouts” – I’m not trying to be vague. It’s really to your taste!)

Greens rinsing/soaking in purified water.

Chopped. I kind of roll the greens together in little stacks and then cut them width-wise. Can you tell?

step one: add coconut fat/oil to a pan over medium-high. add minced garlic + red pepper flakes to taste.

step two: cook one minute, stirring. please *don’t* allow your pot to get so hot the garlic burns. that just makes everyone sad.

step three: add the shredded greens and a generous pinch of dry mustard; mix thoroughly.

step four: pour in the vinegar/brown sugar/tamari mixture. mix thoroughly. a “pot liquor” or brown cooking liquid should start to form from the wilting greens.

step five: reduce heat to low and cover. depending on how thick the greens are, steam. kale likes less than five minutes; collards? at least fifteen, unless they’re really young and tender. kohlrabi greens seem to be somewhere in the middle.

and now, the fun part – serve!

Try it raw first. Raw kohlrabi tastes to me like a radish without the bite. So what’s that? Cool, creamy, sweet. Refreshing. Crunchy!

Next, lightly cooked. Try the steam-sauteed kohlrabi with coconut fat and shallots but no other seasonings. Yummy:

Your patience is a virtue. Now, an entire plate of tender kohlrabi cooked with aromatics and seasoned with cream, salt and pepper! A comfort food explosion – totally rich and creamy but absolutely different from anything you’ve ever had before. Eat it all! You’ve totally earned it, and it’s not like you’re gonna be able to stop anyway. It’s just that good!

The tangy greens are a lovely foil. Don’t forget to lick all the pot likker off your plate!

A new vegetable three ways, and in way less time than it took to write this blog post! Mmm. Thanks, Vegetable Husband!

These days, Scoutmob is the only reason I need to try something new. Not only is the write-up always entertaining and alluring, but just about every restaurant featured comes with a 50% off coupon! Such a deep discount emboldens me to be spontaneous – with such low barrier to entry, I don’t feel like I have much to lose. And their selections seem pretty well curated to begin with!

Friday night Nate & I were on our way to Harmony Vegetarian to celebrate a week of hard work and job applications when I asked him to use the “nearby” feature on Scoutmob to see what was close by. I seemed to recall an Ethiopian restaurant coming up in recent weeks, so he did some quick sleuthing. Indeed! Pardon the pun, but a wonderful little Ethiopian Kitchen became our Desta-nation! (Sorry, Harmony.)

At first we wanted to sit in the swingin’ “tree house” outdoors, but our hunger overruled any desire to wait in line for a coveted seat. Dinner – the vegetarian combo for $10 – came within minutes. Here’s what we’ve got on the plate:

Or,

Some definitions:

• injera: sour, flat, spongy bread made out of teff flour
• shiro: Ground chickpeas simmered in a rich house sauce spiced with olive oil
• tomato fit fit: finely diced tomatoes, onion, pepper and garlic mixed with house dressing and bits of injera
• split pea stew: yellow split peas with onion, garlic, ginger, spices
• cold lentil salad: green lentils, onion, pepper, ginger, garlic
• red lentil stew: lentils stewed in a rich berbere (mild blend of dried chillies) sauce, onion, garlic and ginger
• collard greens: aw, y’all know what those are!

We needed to kill a little time between dinner and the gallery opening, so we decided to stop in at Nakato for a little “Man Mountain” sake, wakame salad, and my favorite, nasu dengaku : primo Japanese eggplant flash fried and glazed with sweet miso.

In through the out door… most folks take advantage of the free and fast valet parking at Nakato, but it’s really worth it to park yourself round back and take a stroll through the carefully maintained back garden. The restaurant’s founding patriarch and all-things-green enthusiast still tends it.

And then on to MINT Gallery for Aubrey’s opening! Ok, ok, it wasn’t all about Aubs… but clearly, I’m biased. I think he worked on one of the pieces on our couch with a lamp attached to his head. Or maybe that was a Cloud Castle? At any rate, brilliance:

Can you tell which one I halped with? (Hint: read that again.) Check out Nate’s Lovecraftian impossible geometry at the bottom.

Saturday mornings are made for calls to Grandma and traipsing in the garden. Right, Unix? Now, if only she’ll stop eating the snapdragons and focus on her catnip.

$6 worth of organic in-shell English peas from the farmer’s market. How could I resist?!

I mean, come on.

Oh wait, you’re reading this post for a recipe? Here it is! One of my very own, creamy pea pasta stelline.

ingredients

• coconut fat/oil
• two shallots, minced
• good-quality organic dried thyme
• fresh peas, shelled, steamed, and set aside
• coconut cream, at least a quarter cup
• pasta stelline, boiled, rinsed, drained and set aside
• fresh mint, plucked, rinsed, and chopped
• organic lemon zest, grated – about two tablespoons; reserve lemon for squeezing
• sea salt
• freshly ground black pepper

directions

• Pour a little liquid coconut fat (or place a tablespoon sized knob of solid fat) into a cast-iron skillet on medium.
• Add minced shallots and a little dried thyme (rubbed between your fingers) to the pan; sauté 5 minutes
• Add steamed peas to the mixture, sauté 2 minutes
• Add about a quarter cup of coconut cream to the mixture; combine thoroughly and season with salt, pepper, and half a lemon, squeezed:

• Add the cooked pasta to this mixture:

• Check for consistency and seasonings. Add more salt and pepper if needed. If dry, add more coconut cream, or coconut water if you’ve skimmed off all the cream. Or just add a little water! When everything tastes right, incorporate the lemon zest and fresh mint.

Voilà!:

We also had a little salad made with local lettuce and arugula, mint from my back porch garden, chopped shallots, pumpkin seeds and a super-aged organic red balsamic dressing.

The spread! For the first time in our entire relationship, we shared an entire bottle of sweet white wine over a meal. Thanks, Richmond friends who gave it to us 2+ years ago! We finally drank your precious gift. Please, give us another bottle for 2014.

A perfect bite.

For dessert, we broke into Lagusta’s Bluestocking Bonbons Chocolate of the Month –  vegan strawberries and cream bark! Since she says it better than I ever could, an excerpt from the website: “this sweet, easygoing bark is a swirl of (Non-waxy! Totally vegan! Not gross or bland in any way!), delicious housemade white chocolate paired with bittersweet 60% dark chocolate, studded with crunchy bits of freeze-dried organic strawberries.”

“Just a bit more complex, but just as tasty, is Fig and Caramelized Fennel Bark. Bittersweet chocolate packed with rich organic Calimyrna figs with sparkling little sugary diamonds of caramelized toasty fennel seeds. If you’re not a fan of savory flavors in your sweets, you might want to give this one a try anyway—the fennel isn’t overwhelming, and the lovely figs really round it all out.”

Why are you still reading this blog entry? GO BUY SOME RIGHT NOW.

Nate + Perl = perfect.

Nope, this picture is not a mistake! It’s the best evidence I can think of that Scoutmob works! To wit: we loved Desta SO MUCH our first visit, we actually went back the VERY NEXT NIGHT to have dinner again! And thanks to the ‘mob, we were able to use a second 25% off coupon as a return perk! Amazing, eh? Go sign up now, if you haven’t already! We spent $41 including generous tips for two nights of memorable dining.

I’m embarrassed to admit that on my first night I reflexively reached for non-existent silverware, like the Ugly American I Truly Am. (j/k, j/k!) At Desta, your silverware is your yummy soury spongy bread, inerja:

We loved “the potato thing” (not on the menu) so much we ordered it as a side.

Fun’s fun, but even with Scoutmob discounts, somebody’s gotta pay the check. And sometimes that somebody isn’t Nate! (Ha!) I was so pumped to make a special order on Sunday I went way above and beyond with candied pecans, reconstructed strawberries, and made some of the best dang chocolate frosting ever.

So pleased with these!

And all our cats did all weekend? Sleep. And occasionally wake up from sleeping to gripe.

Seriously, ma? That was a good ‘nip hangover I was sleepin’ off.

Sigh.

Last week I decided to join the rest of civilization and upgrade to a bona-fide google smartphone! Now I’m wondering how I ever lived without it. Since we’ve both been working extra hard recently, Nate & I decided to take a break and have what came to be dubbed our very own freezerpop rollervegan day!

As is the case with most great days, it began with a photoshoot with Perl.

Lookit that belly! It’s irresistible!

Note that she rests with her little paws touching, like the vampire that she is!

Next we biked over to Dulce Vegan in Kirkwood. Remember my bike? I love my bike. The cages need a fair bit TLC, though…

Dulce Vegan

We had a cookie…

…and a marinated tofu pesto sandwich of extreme delight and deliciousness.

Dulce Vegan is just getting started in their retail/cafe space (they’ve been doing catering for a while), and that means a lot of hard work and insanely long days. I took the opportunity to advise co-owner Howell of the French stagiaire method – just find some hardworking local talent to put in a bunch of hours for free in return for on-the-job training.

Sadly, I think that’s illegal here. Sigh!

Next we drove up to Marietta for Nate’s first visit to Cosmo’s Vegan Shoppe! I hadn’t been there since 2007 or 2008, when they were housed in the N. Highland location. We picked up some DrCow vegan cheese from Brooklyn and even got to meet the baby!

On the way home, a stop at King of Pops – cuz you can’t call it Freezerpop Rollervegan Day unless you eat a freezerpop! He had only two flavors left in stock, and weirdly, they were perfect for us! Nate chose the grapefruit star anise (?!?! “You know that means LICORICE!?” I barked) while I drooled and dribbled over the honeydew lime zest. Perfect.

It’s no secret to anyone who knows us that our hands-down FAVORITE restaurant in Atlanta is Harmony Vegetarian in Chamblee. When I moved back here in January after a nearly four year sojourn at grad school in Indiana, I was so excited to return to a place with *REAL*LIVE*VEGAN*RESTAURANTS* that we ate there up to four times a week. (Sheepishly, I’ll admit – once I even ate there twice in one day!)

Note: this is a major reason we started budgeting so carefully these last few months.

House-made battered & fried “shrimp” with vegan duck sauce, above; Nate’s gorgeous smoky Buddhist delight lo mein, with two different kinds of tofu and three kinds of mushroom, below.

My favorite dish at my favorite restaurant, “lamb” with string beans. Not too pretty, but so delicious it’s almost last-meal worthy.

I haven’t confirmed this with the kitchen at Harmony, but I’m pretty sure the faux lamb is made out of black trumpet mushrooms, like the one above. (Only, you know, a darker-colored variety.)

With an order for 100 mini cupcakes for Mother’s Day at Nakato looming on the horizon, I decided to do my signature raspberry shortcake, topped with an organic berry. These prices suck, but the moms of Atlanta are totally worth it, so I sucked it up and paid almost sixteen dollars for the amount needed. That’s what I get for buying berries out of season!

I went down this aisle for organic roasted chestnuts – probably about the only bagged thing that didn’t have “essence of prawn” as the first ingredient.

I make these. Except for, yanno, organic and vegan. And with slow-cooked, small-batch anko. Hey, I ain’t braggin’! It’s a lot of work, but you can tell.

Who can resist?! Sadly, my pocketbook.

The best way to end Freezerpop Rollervegan Day: with a childhood favorite, Ghostbusters!

For future reference, I think the original is *much* scarier than the second one – and Nate kept telling me it’s “more of a comedy!” Pshaw.

/Freezerpop Rollervegan Day – 7am wakeup to bake from 8-noon on Mother’s Day. Mmm!