crack the plates

Atlanta Vegan Drinks‘ third meet-up was held Monday August 15 at a “sunny place for shady people” – East Atlanta’s own Graveyard Tavern (1245 Glenwood Ave). Thanks to affable Chef Justin Bright and the rest of the kind folks at the Graveyard for showin’ us vegans a good time.

The vegan wingz, a Tuesday night fixture, were a crowd favorite:

And why not? Pure vegan junk food deliciousness: crispy on the outside, tender on the in, drenched in homemade sauce and balanced on a sugarcane stick! Wings were served with an option of buffalo, BBQ, teriyaki, or lemon-pepper sauce. Click “more…” to see them with the vegan buffalo, and to keep reading this post:

I found this entry in my drafts section, where there are a number of others like it: all pictures, no text. I might as well post them and just try to re-create the context as best as possible.

It appears that on this particular night I went a little insane. Thinking back, it must have been the very last vegan co-op dinner of Earlham Animal Advocates United faithfuls: Benji, Jenny, Suzanne, Erinn, Hannah, & Tamar. The menu was comfort food; on the eve of summer, the last big heavy meal of the season. Benji & Jenny were the only two to make it, but they ate EVERYTHING.

The main course: no-chick’n pot pies. An original recipe and one of the best things that comes out my kitchen, it’s also super labor intensive.

• First, chop all the (organic organic organic) onions, carrots & celery quite small and saute them in the skillet with oil. Do the onions & celery first, then add the carrots and spices–a mixture of organic marjoram, thyme, oregano and whatever else sounds good. I’m partial to the first two.
• For protein, re-constitute some large-chunk TVP or used cubed extra firm tofu. If using TVP, chop it into bite-sized pieces: this helps it absorb the flavor & is more appealing to your delicate guests. Saute protein of choice in a skillet with a little oil, tamari, black pepper, & nutritional yeast.
• Prepare a vegan brown gravy. Make something easy like Bryanna’s no-fat, or go all out and do the Grit’s: up to half a container of earth balance, full-fat soymilk, lotsa tamari, nutritional yeast–tons of flavor.
• Finally, mix all this together in a big ol’ bowl:

Ta-da! That’s a lot of the recipe, but not everything.

Pour the filling to pie plates or casseroles. I doubled this recipe (because I THOUGHT I was feeding 8), so I had a lot of filling to go around:

Make the biscuit crust. Find a great recipe & go for it. Roll out the dough and use a small glass (not drinking-size, but one down) to cut out pretty little circles. Start from the middle and go outward so you don’t waste as much dough. I suppose if you wanted to be heart-breakingly lazy you could just lay the rolled-out dough over the casserole like a pie crust & do it up that way. But if I recommended that, I probably wouldn’t take so much time cutting up pretty little circles, now would I?

Apply the crust:

It looks about like this when you’re all done:

As is evident, you can use the little pieces of extra biscuit dough to fill in the corners/edges. Or, you know, just eat them.

Bake it! 350 for… half an hour? Twenty minutes? Check & see when your biscuits start to look a done. Because the filling is already cooked, it’s not necessary for it to be in the oven for ages. You’re really just trying to get the biscuits cooked through–crusty on the outside and soft within. Like this:

Ah, the macaroni and cheese…it’s all coming back to me now. This is possibly the best ever macaroni recipe. Forget it Daiya fans–this stuff’s tops, the monarch of Macs. Brian gave me this recipe in 2008 & it’s still my favorite based solely on the number of people (emphasis on PEOPLE-veg & non) it’s made deliriously happy. It’s worth buying the new Farm cookbook just for this recipe, though increase the amount of nutritional yeast from one cup to two. Jenny, take note.

I mean, look at this.

And here’s some boring boring skillet corn. Seriously, scrape the corn off the cob, add some earth balance, add some soy milk, add some white pepper, add some salt, heat. the end.

Cutting into the pot-pie:

Worthy of a deep-south diner, or, as it were, a last meal.

Apart from taking half a day, this meal is super rich–which is why I only make it a few times a year, usually for special events & non-vegetarians. That’s right, flesh-eaters, you betta watch your waist around this bitch. It tastes soooooooo good because it has 60 grams of fat and three days’ worth of calories. But all you’ll hear is my sweet little southern accent: “Go on sugar, have a second helpin’. I got chocolate cake in there for dessert.”

Just because the weather is finally getting lovely doesn’t mean there’s not a ton of people out there (bless their hearts) still getting over the yuck. I was reminded of this when I ventured out to church yesterday and the gym today, only to meet (more honestly, avoid) lots of snifflers. So be careful! And have a bowl of delightful home-made miso soup to put some spring in your step.

If you don’t know what miso is, or want to learn more about the different varieties, you’d do well to check out this great (short!) NPR article, Mastering Miso’s Mysteries. I discovered the pre-packaged powdered soup version while still in high school in north Georgia, but these days I prefer to do-it-myself with the paste. Right now I have red and white varieties by Westbrae and Miso Master in the fridge. (I keep them in the “dairy” drawer, though I’m not sure it matters–I do so just because there’s, for obvious reasons, space there.)

If you know anything about cooking with miso, you know not to boil it or pour boiling water over it. In so doing, you kill both the flavor & the enzymes–in other words, it’s no longer very enjoyable for health or taste. I get around this by setting my variable-temp tea kettle to 180 and then mashing the miso with a little water before adding the rest and stirring. You can do something similar by bringing a small pot of water not-quite-up-to the boiling point & letting it cool for a couple minutes while you do other things related to the recipe.

Miso is great mixed with warm water & a spike of soy sauce or tamari, if necessary. When I’m feeling fancy, as in the case pictured above, I boil some rice or wheat noodles in a separate pot & mix them into the miso base along with chopped scallions (green onions), a little torn dry kelp, cubed tofu, tamari, and a pinch or two of hot red pepper flakes. I’ve found the last two of these ingredients really helps the flavor of white soy miso develop.

Yung sing! (Cantonese, “Drink & win!”)

After that last intense (for a food blog) post, I feel the urge to post some pictures of tonight’s dinner:

Doubled recipe of the Asparagus and sun-dried tomato “Frittata” from Vegan With a Vengeance, made with tofu, nutritional yeast, mustard, and many other disparate ingredients that don’t sound like they’ll taste all that good together but actually makes one swoon. One of the best recipes in the book.

Looking to do something with the Dandies Candies marshmallows I brought back from Chicago (aside from gobble them straight from the bag), I googled and discovered a recipe from a fellow VeganMoFoer p.h.d.elicious called Chocolate Confetti. Simple concept: chocolate + peanut butter + fat (eBal!) + vegan marshmallows makes a veg very, very happy. :-) I threw in peanuts and added a little salt.

Befitting an anniversary, I scooped out half a container of Turtle Mountain’s Purely Decadent Cookie Dough soy ice cream, drove a sharp piece of bark into it and covered it with organic chocolate sauce and peanuts. Yowzah. (To my credit, I didn’t eat it.)

And for those who care, a picture of our darling Ra-Ra type Unix, a veteran open-source user. Yay Ubuntu 9.10! Hoorah Karmic Koala!

Having just returned from a mini-vacay where I enjoyed especially the privilege of other folks cooking for me for two days, I was reluctant to make dinner tonight. (Not to mention the fact that when N came home, his right shoulder smelled strangely of cheap Chinese food which I immediately started craving. But as that is basically too weird to have written, let’s move on.) Admitting that 1) our fridge is stuffed with raw materials purchased at the Ann Arbor farmer’s market and 2) the visit left me penniless, I decided to whip up an old, quick favorite–sweet hot n sour kale n tofu.

The recipe is based on one I read in Dr. Andrew Weil (say “while”)’s book Eight Weeks to Optimum Health, and the idea is to use your ingredients’ sweet, spicy, and astringent tastes to balance & illumine one another. Here’s what I do:

• Clean and chop some kale (I’ve used regular curly; heirloom Red Russian & Dinosaur)
• Put a little oil in your [cast-iron] skillet; generously add minced garlic (prepared or freshly minced) and some red pepper flakes to taste
• Saute, add greens with a little powdered mustard (a few pinches; it helps the flavor of  the greens); toss around well; add some tamari or soy sauce, a few tablespoons of apple cider vinegar (I like Bragg’s organic), and a couple tbsps of brown sugar
• Mix well and cover for a few minutes so that it can steam and cook down a bit (greens cook down a LOT)

To up the protein and make a full meal, use your skillet to stir-fry some (extra-)firm tofu in a little oil with garlic; toss with the cooked greens and serve over organic brown rice.

Heey, here’s a picture!

(That’s Zingerman’s vegan farm bread in the back.)