Vegan Me(lanie)

     For some reason, a lot of people have this intense vengeance against cabbage. Why, I don’t really know, but I think it is partially the fault of brussel sprouts. There is this outlandish misconception that b.sprouts don’t taste good, and cabbage often gets lumped in taking the fall. I could probably write a sonnet or something about my love for brussel sprouts that went unrequited until my sophomore year of college. As a child I ate broccoli and carrots. Damn I really am prone to sidenotes…

     Anyway, yesterday when I was making Ukrainian stuffed cabbage, I got a few glares/general sassiness at the smell from the haters. They really don’t know what they’re missing.

        Cabbage ^                                                  Shotglass^

     I needed a reference point to show that my cabbage was seriously large. I live in a college house and shotglasses are plentiful. Now looking at this picture, my arty-nature with photography is not doing my cabbage head justice. Way to go self.

     When I was growing up, I spent a lot of time at Baba’s house. The woman smoked like a chimney, drank martinis everyday, and was Ukrainian to the core. She cooked a lot of different soups, but making the traditional food was never her thing. She died when I was 16, and though she never really taught me to cook, I really want to spend time perfecting Uki recipes to pass down the strongest connection to culture that I have.

     My Auntie Jean was the oldest, and their mother passed on the recipes to her. Lucky for me she’s still kickin’ and passing on her cabbage-y wisdom. This recipe makes almost 40 rolls (I had one big ass cabbage). Here’s the recipe folks:

Ingredients:

Sauce:

-1 medium onion/leek

-2 garlic cloves

-4 cans diced tomatoes

-1 can tomato paste

-1 T oregano, basil

-4 cans water

-Oil

Filling

-2 large onions/leeks (I used one Spanish onion, one red onion and 2 leeks for the whole recipe)
-4 garlic cloves

-1 tube veggie crumbles (or equivalent parts extra lentils/rice)

-1.5 c cooked rice

-2 c. cooked lentils

-2 tomato (diced)

-salt and pepper

-1/3 c. oil

-2 T Earth Balance

-1 big ol’ cabbage head

The day before (or the hour before if you’re a procrastinator like me!):

1) Make the rice and lentils according to package directions. Feel free to season both with your choice of spices!

Preheat oven to 350.

Make the sauce:

1) Chop all of the onions/garlic you need for the sauce/filling. Reserve 2/3 of each for the filling.

2) Take 1/3 of the onions and saute in oil.

3) Add 1/3 of the garlic.

2) Add the rest of the ingredients and allow sauce to simmer while you make everything else

Make that filling:

1) Saute reserved onions in 1/3 cup of oil (Jean says you need that fat in there since we aren’t using meat).

2) (Skip this step if you’re only using lentils and rice) Add in the veggie crumbles and break up into smaller pieces.

3) Chop tomatoes and throw those in too.

4) Add cooked lentils and rice and mix to combine.

5) Season with salt and pepper to taste!

Prep the cabbage:

1) Remove as much of core of the cabbage without cutting it in half as possible.

2) Add the head to a large pot of boiling water. The water should be around 2/3 the way up the side of the cabbage.

3) (This is the annoying part) Check the cabbage every few minutes and remove the outer leaves as they par-boil. The longer you boil them, the easier it is to roll up the rolls.

Stuff those puppies:

1) Lay a cabbage leaf flat.

2) Remove the rib in the middle of the leaf-you want to leaf to be as pliable as possible. (Also don’t you dare throw those ribs out. You bet I’m going to post Mom’s cabbage soup recipe later this week to use up all the bits of cabbage that aren’t nice enough for stuffed cabbage. Cabbage soup is more low-maintenance than that!)

3) Place the filling(between 1/4 c. to 1/2 c. depending on the size/number of leaves) toward one end of the leaf (Now I am really regretting not taking pics of this process…). Fold the end over the filling. Fold in the side of the leaf (burrito style). Channel your inner Chipotle worker and roll that bad boy up.

4) Congrats, you only have 39 more to go.

     The recipe is long. Apparently the Uki ladies had a lot of free time on their hands. It’s therapeutic though, and really cheap for lots of food. 

     Sometimes (all the time) I wish I had a sarcasm and/or deadpan font. Another sidenote, what else is new.

     Looking out my window at the one inch of snow covering my car at 5:25 a.m. Friday morning, I was pissed off. I thought it was a pretty safe bet that if I decided to do a vegan experiment in early March I would avoid snow. Who was I kidding-this is Michigan after all. Thus I crafted my non-leather boots out of some environment-killing plastic bags from Meijer!

Classy right?

     I’m pretty sure I picked this trick up from my Father about a decade ago. The bags were completely unnecessary (since there was only one inch of snow), but part of me felt really badass for venturing in fresh snow without boots.

     Friday night I was really pumped for dinner in the dining hall. Since I have moved out of the dorms, eating in the cafeteria has become really cool. Eating in the DH is like getting a pass into some really exclusive club that I used to be a member of. Now when I go there, people obviously know I’m a foreigner, evident by my bulging backpack and far-too-eager grin. 

     When I lived in the dorm, I complained about the eating situation every chance I got. Cooking in the caf meant bringing my own pita for my veggie burrito, steaming veggies in the microwave, and attempting to fit an enormous salad in a teensy bowl. My real stick to them was to take food out of the DH and back into my room. I would bring down tupperware and baggies and take with me whatever I didn’t finish on my plate. I sure showed them! Take that Dining-I was environmentally friendly and not wasteful! What are you going to do about it?!

     After a semester of hording leftovers, I got caught red-handed. I may have been stealing some brown sugar for cookies, but the principle was the same. The cafeteria guy took my baggie from me, and said he had to dispose of it. In a moment of quick genius and fury, I sassed him that I wanted my bag back. He proceeded to dump the baggie out in front of me onto a plate, calling my bluff. After that I had to get even more secretive with my obsession over not wasting food.

     Now that I am liberated from dorm life, I relish the dining hall. It is basically calling for me to bring tupperware and stock up. Just my luck I bet some head of dining is going to read this and throw me into some kind of dining lock-up or something.

     Anyway, when my girl Kirsten invited me into West Quad for dinner, I decided I would do a dining competition for best vegan dorm food. The competition is definitely biased, and I could probably tell you now that the winner will be East Quad (the dorm that focuses on locally produced and vegetarian/vegan food). However, sometimes you need to give the underdog a shot.

     West Quad was a little sparse, not gonna lie. I loaded up on veggies at the salad bar, broccoli, and honeydew. They had some falafel that was palatable and beans that were just okay. The broccoli tasted pureed because of the texture. It was not. The highlight was the thrill of checking left, checking right, and then jacking some honeydew for later.

The spread

     One thing that I think it super cool about U of M’s dorms is that they make it very clear what vegans can and cannot eat. They have a little logo on the nutrition information that signifies vegan goods.

     Tomorrow I will post meat-free stuffed cabbage! Also an update on dining as a vegan in Ann Arbor.

     Well it’s about time that I post something that I have cooked! I am a big fan of cornbread and chili, though both have been a work in progress for me. Along with being frugal as hell, I am also a perfectionist.

     My cornbread has been okay. Others have liked it…but for me it was always too dry or not flavorful enough. Same goes for the chili. The last time I made it one of my roommates said, “I love those crunchy carrots!” The carrots are not supposed to be crunchy.

     Thus, today I decided to embark on Chili round 2 (or maybe 3?). I got everything together a few hours ago and I have the premonition that my house is now wafting with a fantastic aroma.

For the record:  Crock pot:1   Candles: 0.    Just sayin’.

     The cornbread recipe that I’m digging on comes from Pattie, a woman whose cornbread I met at a party a few weeks ago. I didn’t meet her, but the cornbread and I locked eyes across the room and I was smitten. It was moist, crunchy on top but soft in the middle, and extremely corn-tastic. I may have creepily stalked her out via email, but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do when times get desperate.

     Pattie hooked me up with her recipe (that I veganized), though I found out that she ground the cornmeal she used right before baking, on her 40-year old grinder, from corn she dried all winter. C’mon, I can’t compete with that!

     Alas, the recipe still came out really tasty. Next time I’m going to get some freshly ground cornmeal from the Farmers Market. Probably Jennings Bros. because they have given me more free samples than I can even remember (and we know that I can’t say no to a free sample). That and their cornmeal and flours are super fresh.

     Update: Pattie’s cornbread was gone in 20 minutes. It’s that good.

     In true perfectionist style, I wanted to try the cornbread recipe I was thinking about making last week. It’s in a cookbook from The Chicago Diner, this hole-in the wall that is serving up vegan and vegetarian grub in Chicago. When I was recently near there visiting my cousin Abbie and her hubby Eric, I planned my only day in the city around this place. Their seitan is unrivaled, and their biscuits and gravy could turn a team meat player into a switch hitter. Damn I get sidetracked easily!

     Anyway, I made their cornbread as a post-game snack. It has a nice texture, but is a little lacking in the flavor department. It doesn’t stand a chance against Pattie’s.

Cornbread!

Here’s my adaptation of Pattie’s recipe:

1 1/2 c. corn meal
1/4 c. unbleached white flour
1/4 c. pastry flour
1/4 c. sugar 
4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
3 tsp Ener-G Egg Replacement
1/4 c. water
1/4 c. oil
1 c. soymilk

Preheat oven to 425.
1) Stir all dry ingredients in a bowl.
2) Mix Ener-G and water in a separate bowl.
3) Add oil to the Ener-G.
4) Add milk to other wet ingredients.
5) Add wet ingredients to dry and mix until combined.
6) Bake in a 9x9 dish.


Bean Chili

     The chili was not up to my standards, though it was a great improvement 
on round one (you better believe there were no crunchy carrots). I'm looking 
for some background flavor that will make my chili special. No way will I post 
some run-of-the-mill chili.   

   Check out this awesome press release from vegan experts Phillis Engelbert and Joel Panozzo of The Lunch Room!

The Lunch Room will open a food cart in April in Mark’s Cart’s courtyard. The Lunch Room’s Kickstarter financing campaign, launched today, is drawing wide support.

     Today, The Lunch Room —the vegan foods brainchild of Phillis Engelbert and Joel Panozzo — launched a Kickstarter campaign to finance a food cart. Kickstarter.com is a website that facilitates the raising of start-up funds for creative projects. Entrepreneurs communicate their ideas through videos and offer rewards for donations. The Lunch Room hopes to raise $8,000 in a 30-day period. As of 3:00 pm, just eight hours after the launch of the campaign, $1,222 had been raised.

     The Lunch Room was founded by next-door-neighbors and vegan foodies Engelbert and Panozzo in the summer of 2010. The pair began by cooking elaborate vegan meals for large groups of friends. In October the effort entered its “pop-up restaurant” phase. An underground undertaking, The Lunch Room operated on a reservations-only basis and served food at several different locations in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. It advertised its first event to an email list of 85 friends; as the word spread, that list grew to its current size of 375. The Lunch Room had held eleven dining events as of early March—including brunches, lunches, dinners—and had served over 450 meals. Reservations lists were capped at 35 to 50 people and sold out every time—sometimes within a day or two of being announced.

     In early February, Engelbert and Panozzo learned of the initiative by Downtown Home & Garden owner Mark Hodesh to create a street food courtyard on W. Washington St., just west of Ashley, in downtown Ann Arbor. The Lunch Room applied for a coveted cart space and was accepted. The Lunch Room is now preparing for a spring and summer of selling food from a concessions cart. It will serve fresh, healthy, delicious, and economical breakfasts, lunches, dinners, sides, and baked goods.

     I admit that whenever I see a dish that has tofu in it I groan. Yes, I know that it is a main vegetable protein for vegetarians and vegans, but for the most part (not including all the times I have had Phillis’ tofu dishes), I haven’t met a remarkable tofu meal.

     Today I ate my words…but more importantly, I ate the Tofu Sandwich from  Jolly Pumpkin . It rocked my tofu-hating world, and if you haven’t already tried this baby, you need to go outside in this crappy Ann Arbor weather and get one…but I’m getting ahead of myself.

     Let me rewind a few months to the first time that I met Maggie Long, the chef and co-owner of Jolly Pumpkin restaurant in Ann Arbor. It was at Selma Café (which will get its own special post on Friday), and Maggie was the guest chef. We bonded. I told her the story of my life and promised I would go to her restaurant REALLY soon.

     And boy did I get some sass from her (when she cheffed at Selma again last Friday) after I told her that I had yet to stick to my word. She quickly got over it when she needed me to pick up the slack for her co-chef, Jackie Victor, a co-owner of Avalon International Breads in Detroit. She’s a socializing queen, so I did some plating while she schmoozed the crowd. Jackie and I are hopefully going to do some cool internship stuff this fall!

     In the meantime, Maggie and I discussed my pending vegan project. Initially, I thought that I would go around to a bunch of Ann Arbor restaurants and see if I could get vegan food, and if so, describe what it was like. But I wanted it for free. Sometimes I think I lived another life in the Great Depression. I’m frugal. Sue me.   

     After deciding that my original plan had some rather large holes in its foundation, Maggie and I decided that a blog was a better choice. And thus Vegan Me(lanie) was born. Since she helped me out, I PROMISED Maggie that I would come to Jolly Pumpkin this week.

     Over 24 hours later and I am still thinking about that tofu sandwich. With marinated and grilled slices of tofu, housemade spicy kimchee, and a cilantro-green onion relish, I would eat the filling by itself. Then she goes and bookends all of it with some Avalon bread. Talk about some payback. It also comes with a salad or fries, and zucchini spears that are a much sexier (and tastier might I add) version of the pickle. The meal was capped off with a vegan dessert-some chocolate vegan cake pared with chocolate soy ice cream. It was rich, dark, and smooth (insert un-witty joke about men I like here). The crazy thing? I took half of the cake home and had no sugar craving to eat it last night. Looks like the sugar detox is working!

     Update: That chocolate cake was even better during round two (today). It tasted a lot like a classy Ding-Dong mated with Bumpy Cake. If you’re not from Michigan, this is another reason (besides the sandwich) to get here ASAP. But you better tell me before you come, or else I won’t have time to transform my butter-laden bumpy cake recipe into a sans-butter recipe.

Without further ado…

Tofu sandwich with zucchini spears and side salad

Vegan Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Coconut Ice Cream

      “My name is Melanie and I’m a workaholic.”

     Just kidding. But for real, I work three jobs and go to school. Lucky for me, one of my jobs is as a cook at The Harvest Kitchen. The HK is a prepared-food Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program:

      CSA: A system in which consumers receive food directly from the farmers who produce it sharing in part of the farmers’ risk.

     The Harvest Kitchen allows those people who want to support local farmers (but are too busy to cook up all of the produce), still eat delicious local food! Mary Wessel Walker started up the Kitchen (then called the Community Farm Kitchen for the farm where we got our produce) in 2007 with just a few vegetarian shares. Three years, one new co-owner (Michelle Hartmann), one chef (Veronica Vincent), and a brand new kitchen (we’re moving to Ypsilanti from Ann Arbor) later, we are more successful than ever! Twice per week, we take local vegetables (for the veggie and vegan shares) and meat (for the omnivore shares), and create some flavor-packed, healthy dishes.

     During the school semester, I cook on vegetarian Tuesdays only. Today brought a slightly new spin, since there were some dishes (with dairy) that I couldn’t taste test.

     I found this new allegiance to the vegan shares (we have 4 vegan shares and 25 vegetarian shares) and let me tell you, the vegan squash bread pudding we made was pretty kick-ass. It’s got this sweetness from the maple syrup but then this great savory kick from the onions and garlic. We started with the base recipe from Oops, It’s Vegan! Blog and made it a little more savory with some sauteed onions and garlic. Enjoy!

                                                 Vegan Bread Pudding

Ingredients (rough estimates :-) )
1.5 loaves bread
3-4 cups soymilk
1 cup sweet potato chunks (use ready to eat from freezer or freshly roasted)
2-3 cup pureed cooked summer squash

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
2/3 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup flour

1.5 tsp salt

1.5 cup diced onion

2 cloves garlic

Oil

Preheat oven to 375.

1) Saute onions and garlic with oil.

2) Combine sweet potato, squash, spices, sauteed mixture, and maple syrup and begin to cook on stove.

3) Add flour.

4) Add soymilk and cook until mixture has thickened.

5) Mix bread with cooked mixture and cook until set, about 30-40 minutes.

     Today we also made succotash, broccoli salad, lemon rice soup and a breakfast casserole dish!

Greek Lemon Rice Soup

                                                               Succotash!

     In other news, I should be getting a camera this weekend (Costco sale on a Nikon!), since I broke my last camera in Brazil this summer. This means better lookin’ pictures for the blog, and a renewed obsession with taking photographs for me!

   This morning (or I guess 12:45 is more afternoon) I went to the “best little vegan brunch in town,” The Lunch Room. It is a monthly meal put on by Phillis Engelbert and Joel Panozzo. They ask for a 15$ donation for fresh vegan food served on trays that beg a flashback to elementary school hot lunches. However, this was no pizza boat or tator tots.

   These two really know the way to a girl’s heart (and stomach). I walked in to be greeted by a few bottles of bubbly and a punch bowl of juice. As a college student, pre-gaming things with booze is all too familiar. However, shitty keg beer before a football game is  hardly comparable to classy mimosas before delicious vegan fare.

   The room was small and packed with long tables. Walking in I felt like everyone was staring at me. Surprisingly nervous, I sat at a table alone. I was not about to be the new girl in the card-carrying vegan club, and so (maybe with a little push from my mostly champagne mimosa) I sat at the cool kids table. I met a few new friends, and found myself recognizing familiar faces all around.

  Now to the food…

                                                The Brunch Menu

                                                Our meal!

                                         Frittata front and center

   We had a “frittata” of cauliflower and spinach that was curry-riffic. My new pal Tara said she could easily forget eggs if she could make it. Phillis has this amazing knack for making tofu tasty, whether it is making a fake frittata or vegan cream cheeze. Another highlight of the meal was the breakfast cookies. Joel said that they have 1/4 cup of sugar in the entire batch. As someone slowly reducing their sugar intake, they were my perfect little Nicotine patch. The chefs will be selling them at their food cart that will be opening in April at Downtown Home & Garden!

Struggle of the day: Resisting the guff paczkis and tagalongs in the kitchen all day. Damn you girl scout cookies.

At the end of this quest I will re-check in on these thoughts:

1) I am most definitely addicted to sugar (and yes, I do indeed know that most sugar IS vegan). The goal is that with an overhaul of my diet, sweet reduction will happen by proxy.

2) I often am really tired even when I sleep a lot. Related to my diet?

3) I don’t cook nearly enough during the week. Okay in comparison to most college students I cook a lot …but we’re focusing on my opinions here.

4) While I’ve eaten out vegetarian often, I think that it will be difficult to do so as a vegan (excluding at exisiting veggie/vegan restaurants).

5) Most people I know would scoff at vegan baked goods and food.

6) I find myself binge eating random foods just because they are there.

7) Avoiding leather boots during winter in Michigan will prove difficult.