Cookie Chick

We have been longing to go the LA County Museum of Art lately. There is a women’s surrealist show called “In Wonderland” that looks intriguing. It features many originals from Frida Kahlo, one of my favorite artists, which is a big plus.

My husband suggested finding a local vegan restaurant to add to the day’s festivities. I used an iPhone App called “VegOut” that helps you find vegetarian, vegan, or vegetarian-friendly restaurants locally. There are reviews to help you find something you’ll enjoy. It’s kind of like Yelp for vegetarians powered by HappyCow.net.

Hunk of Burning Love from Real Food Daily

We decided to go a little out of our way and head into Santa Monica first to Real Food Daily. We arrived a little before they opened, but were pleasantly surprised to find a lovely library right across the street. We were able to visit the library, use the restroom and spend a little time before Real Food Daily opened.

It’s a bright and cheery restaurant. We were seated upstairs overlooking the counter and dining area below. It was a little loud when they were running the steamer and juicer, but the lovely scent of cinnamon and freshly juiced carrots made up for it.

Total Rueben from Real Food Daily

I ordered the Hunk of Burning Love special, which was a kung pao tempeh fried rice with pineapples and cashews. Dave ordered the Total Rueben which was baked marinated tempeh on toasted rye bread with tofu cheese spread, thousand-island dressing and tangy sauerkraut. He got a Cesar salad as his side dish.

So how was it? It was good. Not great. I’m not sure if we are spoiled by having a Native Foods and FreeSoulCaffe so close by, but our standards for vegan food are pretty high. Both meals were good enough, but not something I would go out of my way for again. I’m not sure if it is because it is LA, but the prices were much higher, too. The place was crowded however, so people must like it. Maybe it’s the location since it is in a nice part of town. Most of the patrons seemed well off.

So if you are in Santa Monica, should you go? Sure. It’s good enough to be worth a try, especially to support a vegan business. I think I’m just spoiled by Tanya Petrovna’s exquisite cuisine at Native Foods. If only she would open a nice sit down restaurant, I’d be in heaven.

Oh, and the surrealist show at LACMA? Go see it! It was wonderful. I even found a new women surrealist painter to admire named, Sylvia Fein.

I was given some Callebaut cocoa powder from a fellow baker recently. I’ve been trying to find new ways to try out this treat. I made some chocolate raspberry brownies that were wonderful and some chocolate cupcakes that were not. Wow, those cupcakes have to go down as one of the worst things I’ve ever made. It’s my own fault for trying to veganize a recipe and not really know what I was doing. Ha ha.

Not wanting to end in failure, I used a tested vegan recipe from “Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar”.  These ladies have never let me down, and once again they came through with an amazing marriage of chocolate and coffee in a gooey, rich package.

I highly recommend this book. If you are new to vegan baking, make sure to read the beginning to see what ingredients you may not have in your pantry. There are some tricks to getting traditional favorites to work without the use of dairy and eggs.

The Espresso Fudge Brownies were a good choice because I had everything on hand including some good dark chocolate, the Callebaut cocoa powder and some espresso powder. The mix came easily together in one bowl, which is also a big plus. Less clean up makes me a happy baker. I feel like I’m always cleaning up after I make a huge mess in the kitchen. I’m thinking of training the cats as sous chefs. I’m not sure sous chefs do actual clean up, or just prep work. I’m also pretty sure they would just get cat hair in everything. I may have to rethink that plan.

The brownies did turn out very well.  I don’t have permission to post the recipe, but it is available in the book. You can preview some of the recipes using the “Look Inside” feature on Amazon.com or Google Books. Isa Chandra Moskowitz is a lovely person who shares many of her recipes on the Post Punk Kitchen. Check out her site and buy her book. It’s well worth it to support such an awesome asset to the vegan world.

I was a very picky eater as a kid. It wasn’t until I became a vegetarian at 22 that I had to broaden the types of food I would try. The funny thing is that I liked almost everything I tried. I was the only one limiting myself. Who knew?

One of my favorite dishes, which I still love, is macaroni and cheese. I’ve moved on from the ubiquitous box of Kraft with it’s neon-orange powdered cheese. (My favorite was actually the Kraft Deluxe with the pouch of orange cheesy goodness, but it was more expensive.)

Over the years, I enjoyed homemade macaroni and cheese more than the boxed type. It’s not a very healthy food, so the extra effort was a good thing, ensuring I didn’t eat it as often as I wanted to. Now, that I’m giving up dairy, I needed to find a vegan way of getting my fix. I tried using Daiya and it was pretty good, but I’m not actually a huge fan of Daiya and it upsets my husband’s stomach.

I did some research online and came across Chloe Coscarelli’s version of Mac N Cheese. It got rave reviews, had ingredients I had in the house including my favorite nutritional yeast, so I gave it a shot. I omitted a couple of ingredients (lemon juice and agave syrup) because I didn’t have them, but it turned out great anyway. I also used cashew milk because I had some. I think that helped make it really creamy and delicious. The second time I made it I cut way back on the garlic powder. It’s good, but a little overpowering.

Overall, it’s a great recipe and forgiving. Use any pasta and feel free to make some adjustments. The last time I made it I used some high-fiber penne from Trader Joe’s that worked quite nicely. I’m still trying to not eat it as often as I’d like, for although it’s healthier I wouldn’t call it healthy.

I saw this recipe for Dilly Stew with Rosemary Dumplings on the Post Punk Kitchen blog and knew I had to try it. I’ve been wanting to try a veganized version of chicken and dumplings and this looked too delicious to pass up. I followed the recipe pretty closely. The only modifications I tried was omitting the beans and adding Gardien chick’n instead to try to get closer to a chicken and dumplings dish. I also used Better Than Bouillon’s No Chicken broth.

I have to say that this dish was pretty easy and really tasty. One thing to note, when making the dumplings, you may have to add more soy milk. It’s been really dry here, so that may have been a factor. If the dough seems to dry, try adding in more soy milk a tablespoon at a time until you get a soft, moist consistency.

We have been in the process of remodeling our kitchen for the past month or so. While it is not completely done, it is fully functional which is allowing me to get back to cooking and baking! I’ve missed it. This morning I decided to try a new recipe for vegan pancakes. I usually make Alton Brown’s incredible recipe, but that calls for buttermilk which I usually don’t have in the house. Also, we’re trying to limit our intake of dairy and eggs so a good vegan recipe would be a plus.

Scouring the web, I found a recipe at AllRecipes.com that got rave reviews and had common ingredients that I had in the pantry. I did adjust it slightly to use almond milk instead of just water and added some cinnamon for kicks. I also used some frozen blueberries for a delicious anti-oxidant boost.

If you have leftover pancakes, they heat nicely in a toaster oven.