Pesto: Made Vegan and Full of Kale!

Sunday Dinner: Flour City Pasta's Rasta Pasta and Gardein's Chick'n Scallopini tossed in Kale-Pecan Pesto and topped with Zima tomatoes! 

Well, I wouldn't be a foodie, if I didn't love cooking. One of my favorite things is to read recipes and testing them out. If the recipe isn't vegan, I'm just to the challenge for making it so!

Recently, we were going through some of magazines when Artie came across a recipe for Kale-Pecan Pesto from the January/February 2011 issue of Vegetarian Times. Kale-Pecan Pesto? I never heard of pesto being made with kale before then (spinach, yes. kale, no). Plus, we don't have pesto very often. So, we both thought it would be good to try for Sunday evening's pasta dinner.

The recipe wasn't vegan, as it included Parmesan cheese. To substitute, I used an equal amount of nutritional yeast. That was the only modification we had to do. YES! EASY PEASY!

Something that struck us as odd was having to cook the kale for 5 minutes, as well as toasting the pecans. I would have thought it would have been better just raw. I supposed you can do it that way, but we wanted to stay as true to the recipe as we could (minus the vegan changes). So, next time, we're going to try it raw just to see if there's a difference.

We blended all of the ingredients with a little bit of the cooked kale water in the Vitamix. Boy, did it whip up super-creamy like smooth peanut butter! I had never seen pesto like that. So either we ran the Vitamix a little too long, or using the kale and water made some difference. We did add a little sea salt and black pepper to it, and felt it needed 1-2 extra cloves of garlic. Nevertheless, the pesto was delicious.

The recipe yields about 8 large servings. We used the equivalent of 2 servings for our dinner. 2 servings are in the refrigerator for pizza this week. The rest we froze. The 2 servings for the pasta was a lot. Good thing, I asked Artie to cook some Gardein Chick'n Scallopini, which turned out to go nicely with our pasta. We added some Zima tomatoes to the dish which kicked up the nutty-kale flavor even more, and slightly made up for the lack of garlic.

So kudos and thanks to Vegetarian Times for a great recipe!

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Earth Balance Brings the Cheese Puffy Goodness

Here's something that you may not know about the Macaroon clan (well, mother and daughter). They have an obsession with cheese puffs. Those crunchy little snacks with burst of cheddar-like flavor make them go ga-ga. While Momma Mac has so many options available to her and enjoys them greatly, Macaroon has only been able to partake of Pirate's Tings Original Crunchy Sticks, which are good in their own right. However, it's the cheese puffs that have been missing!! Well, no longer does she have to wait for them to be veganized

Last week, on its Made Just Right website, Earth Balance announced its new snacks category for 4 new products:

Vegan Buttery Flavor Popcorn
Vegan Aged White Cheddar Cheese Flavor Popcorn
Vegan Aged White Cheddar Cheese Flavor Puffs
P.B Popps

We've hit the vegan snack motherload, friends!

On our next trip to Whole Foods, we immediately went to the snack aisle, but no Earth Balance snacks in sight. We asked one of the staff members if they knew when it would be available. He said that since it was a new product, and they already did their monthly changeover, the store wouldn't probably stock until the end of January or early February. Dejected as we were, we knew we'd just have to wait.

Then, yesterday, while doing some grocery shopping, Macaroon eeked in delight seeing the Vegan Aged White Cheddar Puffs! There are about 3 bags left, and Mac was nice enough to only take 1. Why deprive fellow vegans in the Bronx/Westchester area of what was sure to be a delicious treat.

Mac even held off from tasting last night too. Well, held off for a day. With our roasted veggie pizzas and salads, she decided that the puffs would be a nice side for tonight's dinner. Oh man! Not only were the puffs cheesy in taste but they were the perfect-size of puff! Big, curly, filling yet delightfully airy. Now, Mac could have eaten the entire bag herself but kept some restraint...enough to pack some for tomorrow's lunch.

And now she's counting the hours...until lunchtime...and another countdown to try the rest of new snack line.

THANKS EARTH BALANCE!

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A Caravan of Dreams...and Birthday Wishes...for a NYC Girl!

Yesterday was my birthday, and what a great birthday it was. It all started with this little image on my phone. I can only image all of these graphically tempting treats as being vegan:

After a lovely morning of serenades, well-wishes, kisses from Mozzer, Figure-8 dances from Connie, other gifts and movie watching, Artichoke had planned a lovely, relaxing midday adventure with a surprise lunch. All I knew was that we'd be going to Manhattan to a place where I've never eaten. I tried to guess, but there were so many places that I've been wanting to check out because they had been deemed delicious by word of mouth. So, guessing attempts were futile.

We ended up on East 6th Street and Avenue A. Then, Carlo said we had to walk up the block. I almost missed it thinking we were going somewhere else when he stopped. "Look! It's right here!" A big smile fell upon my face when I looked and saw this:

CARAVAN OF DREAMS! I had mentioned going to this vegan gem about twice a month, yet never could find the time for the trip! Oh, this would be a great day, for sure.

Green and red for the exterior made the place look inviting. Upon entering, the feel was definitely homey yet intimate. Dark, yet warmly inviting. The place appears small, but it's roomy. Strange, I know, but in a good way.

It was busy, buzzing, but not crazy, with filled seats and lively conversation. We were seated at a table for two, and brought a glass bottle of water for the table. Looking around at the bar and open kitchen, it was nice, especially since I love open kitchens in a restaurant. You get a window of what's going on "behind the scenes." There's also a stage, for which we learned there are often musicians performing. So, we'll have to go back when there's live music.

The menu is HUGE! For some, that can sometimes be intimidating. Either nothing could be interesting, or I would want to try one of everything. For Caravan, it was the latter. All vegan with many gluten-free, macro and raw options. Something for everyone is always good. They even serve brunch daily from 11pm to 5pm with lovely sounding tofu scrambles, french toast and sampling plates.

Since it was my birthday, we went right for big plates for lunch. We shared a lovely dish of seitan nachos with black beans, guacamole and salsa. Artichoke ordered paella with flavorful saffron rice, tofu, chorizo and artichoke hearts (but, of course). It was perfectly seasoned and balanced. He was really impressed with the chorizo and wanted to know if it was homemade. He learned that it wasn't, but it didn't matter to him. He loved it. 

I had the seitan quesadilla which was chock full of juicy seitan, veggies and vegan cheesiness with a lovely hot sauce and a side of sliced avocado, mango and greens. OMG! Artie said he had plate envy again, but his dish was amazing too. I kept picking off of his place in between bites of my quesadilla. He ate about a 1/3 of my dish too. Isn't sharing great?

Seitan nachos: I could eat this all day

Paella (top) and Seitan Quesadilla (bottom): Good for sharing...and caring...during your meal

The only downside was that the food was so filling that I felt almost drunk by how good it was. There was no more room at the inn (my belly) for dessert.

For drinks on a windy Sunday birthday, Artie had his usual iced coffee. However, something about this one impressed him, as he didn't have to add any sweetener to it. It was perfect as it was served! I went for a big, lovely, cream cup of steamy hot chocolate which went down smooth and yummy. That made up for not having dessert! Then again, it was dessert enough for me.

Iced coffee & hot chocolate: YUM!

We had a lovely time! Good food and great company make a birthday lunch "sweet!" 

Caravan of Dreams

405 East 6th Street  

New York, NY 10009

(212) 254-1613

http://www.caravanofdreams.net

By the way, walking back down to Avenue A, I took a couple of photos of some cool arty finds found along the way:

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New Beginnings in Vegan Sushi?

I know it's a little late, but HAPPY NEW YEAR! 

The media is full of "New Year. New You" blitzes they call newsworthy. Not to mention, all of the diet and dating ads (they go hand-in-hand, right?), telling folks that NOW is the time to make a change for the "better?" So, we decided to take a different approach. Why not just be our current self and let the days take us where they may. If changes come, they come. 

And being our current selves, we decided we wanted to try something new.  That would be...making sushi...no classes necessary. Artichoke had been "scared" (for lack of a better term) of sushi. The guy was born a with a fish and seafood allergy. When I told him that there was such as thing as vegan sushi, he was really hesitant. It took a trip to Las Vegas and a lovely dinner at Sensi at Bellagio to change his mind. 

So, for 2+ months, Artichoke has been wanting to make sushi at home. For some reason, I pushed it off. Then, magically, we came upon a sushi dining set that Momma Mac had and never going to use. That acquisition led to a lovely outing to H-Mart in Hartsdale to get some sushi rice and other goodies, like rice wine vinegar, wasabi and pickled ginger.

It was time for the fun to begin. I did some quick research on making sushi rice without a rice cooker (Thanks Alton Brown!) I also read a couple of articles on how to make a sushi roll and found one that made it look pretty darn easy. Then, I gathered up the ingredients for 2 different kinds of rolls. The first would be one with black sesame seeds, beets, mango and green pepper. The other would have tofu, carrot and green pepper. 

Making the actual sushi was pretty easy-peasy. However, sushi rice can be a BITCH! I found I had to keep wetting my hands to work with it, but Artie said I got through it like champ. I also learned that you didn't need a lot of the filling to make the roll. A few slices of this and a few of that and you're done. 

Rolling up the sushi worried me. I tried to keep the roll as tight as possible without stuff coming out from both sides, hoping not to make a mess. Also, when I sliced the rolls, I got a bit nervous. Some didn't cut so pretty, but I don't think I did badly for a first-timer.

Then, came the tasting! Artie and I saddled up to the dining table with a little sushi plates and chopsticks in tow. Artie, the sushi novice, was pleasantly surprised by how everything tasted. He was really worried about there being some fishiness, despite the dish being vegan. Tamari, pickled ginger and a heap of wasabi cleared that up for him nicely. Oddly enough, he could still taste the beets and carrots their respective rolls.

So, now Artie is super eager to try more kinds of sushi. In fact, I think we're making sushi again tomorrow night. I think Artie wants to try to make the rolls this time. It should be fun. I'm looking forward to it.

Can you guess what's for lunch tomorrow?!?!?!

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