Fair Weather Vegan

Yat's To Reopen in Full-Service Location

You may recall that last year I took Elisa on a birthday trip to Yat's, the New Orleans kitchen inside a dive bar.  Well, dive bar no more, as Yat's has found a restaurant-sized home in Bayview.  Hopefully it will become like Sylvia's, a destination restaurant in a neighborhood that needs one.  (h/t Eater SF)

Today! Cupcakes in Justin Herman Plaza!

There's already ice skating there, so it's the perfect experience!  The Sprinkles truck will be parked from 11-1, and apparently last time there was some sort of run-in with the Kara's people, so be ready to benefit from a cupcake turf war. 

Seitan Portobello Stroganoff Is A Hit

Another quality recipe from Post Punk Kitchen.  I successfully opened a bottle of wine for the first time in my life in order to make it, and this is one to serve to your most recalcitrant meat-loving friends.  I will, however, quibble with the ingredient proportions.  There's way too much seitan.  I used Westsoy brand, because hell if I'm going to make my own. I included slightly less of it and fewer mushrooms than called for in the recipe, and the dish was extremely seitan-intensive.  The mock meat should be the accent, as is recommended today with real meat.  The mushrooms should be the stars.  Modifications follow, including the correct spelling of a certain ingredient.   The instructions are a mix of the original's and mine. 

Ingredients

• At least one pound egg noodles.  This makes a ton of sauce.  Original recipe calls for fettucine.  Who eats stroganoff with anything but egg noodles?  It's wrong, I tell you.
• 1.5-2 cups seitan, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 2 tablespoons +1 teaspoon olive oil
• 1 cup shallots, thinly sliced
• 1 large onion, roughly diced (for those who don't like big pieces of onion)
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 cups cremini mushrooms, thinly sliced
• 2 portobello caps, thinly sliced
• 1 cup red wine.  Original recipe says Burgundy; I used Cabernet Sauvignon.  My sommelier suggests Pinot Noir.  
• 2 cups cold water
• 2 tablespoons thickener (corn starch, arrowroot, potato starch)
• 2 tablespoons fresh thyme, chopped 
• 1 tablespoon hungarian paprika
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast flakes (optional. It's all very well in its place, but I remain unconvinced its place is in a stroganoff.  Added mostly for texture, I believe.)
• 2 teaspoons dijon mustard (extremely optional)
• 1/2 cup original flavored soy milk or other milk substitute, or milk
• 2 cups peas

Directions
1. Dissolve the thickener in the 2 cups of water, set aside.
2. Heat olive oil in skillet over med-high heat in a large pan, which you're going to need to hold all the mushrooms. Add the shallots and onions, saute for 5 minutes. Add garlic, mushrooms and thyme. Saute for 15 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, heat a cast iron skillet or other pan (I just used a frying pan) with 1 teaspoon olive oil.  Add the seitan and saute over medium heat about 25 minutes, until it is dark brown and crispy on the outside. For store-bought seitan, somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes should be about right.
4. Add wine and paprika to sauce. Turn heat up high to reduce the liquid, about 10 minutes. Don't be like me and add the full cup of wine if you don't have the requisite quota of mushrooms.  Temper accordingly, or you will get an intoxicating sauce ;) 
5. Lower heat to med-high, add water and thickener, stir well and let sauce thicken for about 5 minutes. You can add nutritional yeast here if desired. Add milk and mustard and bring heat down to low. If using soymilk apparently you need to be very careful not to let it boil because it can make the sauce bitter. I substituted slightly less rice milk because it's thinner and it was fine.  Add seitan and peas, cook for 10 more minutes.
6. Divide noodles into bowls and mix with the stroganoff. It is best to mix immediately so that the pasta doesn't stick. I added low fat sour cream, mostly to cut the taste of of the extra wine, but I agree that it's not really necessary.  This is a rich, hearty, extremely filling meal. 

Twist on Tradition- Cheese Latkes

If for some reason you are tired of the fried potato variety, check out this amazingly delicious alternative from a friend's family recipe.  It definitely won our latke cook-off.  Serve with a dusting of powdered sugar. 

Grandmom's Cheese Latkes

 2 cups cottage cheese

4 eggs-seperated

1 cup flour

4 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup sour cream

 

Beat egg whites until stiff and put aside

Beat egg yolks, salt and sugar together

Stir in cottage cheese and flour to egg yolk mixture

Add sour cream

Fold in egg whites

Fry in peanut oil  (we used canola yesterday).

These latkas are difficult to flip, so best to use a large metal spatula if possible.

While You Wait: Vegans, Avert Your Eyes

I am going to cook the seitan stroganoff today for sure and let you know how it is, but meanwhile here is the most un-vegan food item ever.  I give you: the burger with two grilled cheese sandwiches as its bun.  How awesome does that look?  Totally had to have been invented in the South, and it was.  Thanks, Virginia (where it has Thousand Island dressing on it)!  h/t Robyn Lee's Twitter feed. 

In 'n Out Expands Into Utah

First it was Northern California, now this?  Pretty soon the menu will expand and they'll become Jack-in-the-Box.  I have to say, I ate my first actual In 'n Out burger during my anything goes hiatus last summer (which is over and I will write about soon), but I was not blown away.  Their grilled cheese, however, remains the best thing a vegetarian can get at a fast food restaurant. 

Why Is My Food Cold, Zante?

You are seven minutes from my house.  Five, the way most delivery people drive.  Why has your customer service gotten so terrible?  And why is it not that great food, either?  In short, new management is not doing so well. 

I have done almost nothing interesting viz. food in the past few weeks but hope to change that soon.  The plan is to make PPK's seitan stroganoff.  I have the seitan, now let's get cracking on the stroganoff. 

Method Thinks Sexual Harassment Will Sell Green Cleaning Products

You know, my nose has started to hurt when I use conventional cleaners, but one thing that isn't analagous to is sexual assault.  I'm not going to link to a vid, because I don't want them to get the hits, but the latest ad from Method, a popular brand of non-toxic cleaning products, features a woman being harassed in the creepiest possible way in the shower by male chemicals.  It sounds ridiculous when I write it, but they knew exactly what they were doing to invoke an actual threatening situation, implicitly linking using non-green cleaners and rape.  The company has done nothing but push back at the customers who are writing in with outrage.  They are allegedly incredulous that anyone could read the ad that way, especially since the situation is portrayed as bad!  That's problem one, of course, because there's nothing alike about the negative scenarios they run together.  Even worse, in the real world nothing is bad enough not to earn the approbation of our rape culture, and there have been many comments on the vid that laud and imitate the 'funny' male-identified harassers.  What on earth was this company thinking?  Yet another in the long line of allegedly environmental pitches that uses misogyny as its selling point.  I'm a Seventh Generation buyer anyhow, but now I will go out of my way to encourage friends and neighbors to avoid Method. 

Gnocchi Recipe, Tweaked

So I tried it again, using half-and-half plus some feta cheese and remembering to drain the spinach more thoroughly, and the whole experience was better.  Crumbled cheese like chevre was not recommended in the original recipe because it doesn't melt very well, but in the end small pieces of cheese that blend with the flavors more, in my mind, are preferable to a cheese that is creamy but doesn't taste very good (looking at you, Trader Joe's goat brie).  Still, this number didn't blow me away even with the changes.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I had originally planned on taking the chickpea flour masala brussel sprouts to my festive gathering, but instead am going with Isa's vegan take on the Midwestern green-bean casserole.  I had quite the amusing interchange with an Australian friend last week, in which she advocated moving Thanksgiving to the spring because then we could eat spring foods, strawberries instead of cranberries, etc.  The two Americans vigorously protested that we like the traditional foods and it wouldn't be the same.  Adding an extra poignancy, most of the foods served on Thanksgiving are native to North America.  I hope wherever you are, you are celebrating with good food, family, and friends, and have something in your heart to be thankful for.