We left Portland on October 19th with an assortment of vegan, gluten-free meals for the long flight to London. Vegan meals had been ordered for me, but there isn’t an option available for vegan AND gluten-free, so we had to plan for Christie. I made up some crustless quiches, we had some roasted potatoes, rice, grilled nootchy tofu, corn cakes, nuts, cookies, and hummus.

During the flight I was served a dinner with rice, spinach, a veggie/bean patty, crackers, a roll with margarine, a salad with balsamic dressing and some fruit. I totally forgot to take photos of the Delta airplane food for vegans. It was reasonably tasty. Later as a snack I was brought an apple and a roll with some lettuce, cucumber & tomato slices on it… which was rather uninspired. Breakfast was some sort of roll, again uninspired, and a banana.

We arrived in London on Monday around noonish and were so grateful for the car Christie had arranged to drive us to the flat we’d rented near Walworth Street, with good access to several buses and a reasonable walk to the Elephant & Castle Underground station. Before we let ourselves collapse, we set out to check out some of the neighborhood markets. We discovered a G. Baldwin & Co. shop just a block from the flat where we were able to pick up the bare necessities to get us to the next day: baked beans, brown rice, soy milk, tea, sugar, cookies, CoYo Yoghurt, gluten-free muesli, a loaf of seedy, brown bread (for me) and Booja Booja ice cream.

First London meal was baked beans over brown rice with cookies (GF quinoa & fig for me) and we were so grateful. Soon after we went to bed.

First breakfast for Christie, muesli and yogurt, was a little disappointing. We’d only been able to find a gluten-free muesli made with qunioa flakes as opposed to oats. They were crunchy in an unsatisfying way, probably would be alright simmered on the stove but not great cold in yogurt. I however totally indulged in two generous slices of bread with Earth Balance and some of the jam thoughtfully provided by our Air BnB host.

Our ability to be hugely adventurous about dining on trips has been curtailed by the need for gluten-free options. This means a couple of times we had a meal at a Chipotle because we knew we could get something and didn’t have energy to hunt down a place (one was pretty good, one was way over salted and we both ended up with indigestion). On the plus side of this, we cooked a lot more. Simple things like beans with rice or pasta and veggies, which helps keep costs down (which we then spent on books and other cool things). That said, there were some great meals to be had. I tried making my pumpkin curry while we were there, but didn’t find the best coconut milk and it also turned out pretty damn spicy!

For two of the days of our visit Christie was having meetings, so I set off to explore. One day I’d walked for quite a while along the south bank of the Thames from the London Eye, then onto Vauxhall Park. After all that walking out in a chilly breeze I was hungry and on the hunt for food. I happened upon the cosy Windmill Pub.

I went in hoping for no more than some chips (I was so hungry and cold I was considering not even asking about the oil used to fry the potatoes) and tea. However, when I checked out the menu I discovered I could order a jacket potato with baked beans! They also were offering mulled, hot cider by the half pint. The potato came with a salad, a nice surprise, with some suspiciously creamy topping (I later discovered while perusing a grocery store several bottles of “Salad Cream”. I didn’t know it would come with it and tried to eat around it. After a long, chilly walk in the wind, this we such a welcome find! I was delighted to find the a jacket potato is just a roasted potato and the option of having it served filled with baked beans, no butter, is an awesome gluten-free vegan option!

The next day found me enjoying seeing artifacts I’d studied in college at the British Museum.

After wandering around admiring and photographing Greek marbles, Egyptian artifacts and mummies, and much more, all amidst many school groups, of varying ages, I was worn out. I decided the quietest place would be the restaurant at the top of the rotunda, where I again hoped for at least something simple like olives and a glass of wine. What I was delighted to find on the menu was a vegan, gluten-free salad made with saffron roasted cauliflower, slivered almonds, sultanas, thinly sliced green onions, and marinated cipollini onions. I had a small glass of wine and totally enjoyed this light, tasty lunch.

On the next day we set out to explore the Tate Modern, after which we were in need of lunch and were happy to find a Crussh nearby. They were out of the vegan noodle soup option, I was sorry to say, and they ended up having only one thing we could order, an aubergine ratatouille over brown rice, with the option of fresh herbs and seeds on top, with no cream drizzle. The fresh herbs turned out to be cilantro and the seeds sunflower, but it was surprisingly tasty despite my worry that the flavors would not compliment each other.

The two days were spent at Mozilla Festival 2014. A vegan lunch option was offered, which I had the first day. It was really a carb fest (filo dough based tart, quinoa/bulgar salad, orzo salad – all tasty, but all carby) that left me longing for something heartier. On Saturday we went to Wagamama for dinner, which is known to be very accommodating to special diets. There was a soup on the menu that was already vegan & gluten-free, which Christie had. I was in the mood for udon, but all the dishes on the menu involved meat, they offered to make a vegetarian dish with egg-containing soba noodles with the udon and the result was incredibly satisfying and delicious. We also had some edamame with a garlic chilie salt and I ordered dumplings, which were really just alright but it was nice to have dumplings.

Lunch options at MozFest were the same on Sunday, so at lunchtime I went back over to get take-away. Christie had the same coconut milk-based soup and I decided to try their warm tofu salad, which was topped with fresh red chilies, fried tofu, tempura eggplant, and cashews on a bed of romaine leaves (I wished they’d been chopped up a bit). The salad was very tasty.

On Monday our day included a walk along the north bank of the Thames. Our lunch was a picnic enjoyed on some stairs in the sun and wind. We picked up an assortment of food and a Little Wait Rose. We selected some roasted, marinated artichoke hearts, hummus, dolmas, crisps, sparkling water, and a wheat-berry & bean salad for me. I regret not getting a photo, we ate everything too quickly. I did snap a shot of an impulsively purchased cocktail in a can… it tasted about as good as you’d expect it to.

On Tuesday we packed up a picnic lunch of jacket potatoes, sautéed cabbage, hummus, and a can of baked beans and made our way by train out to see Bletchley Park and the National Museum of Computing (AMAZING). We had a break of CoYo yogurt with an oat-based, gluten-free meusli we’d found at Whole Foods and tea at mid-day followed by a “tea” of the potatoes, cabbage, hummus, and baked beans. We were grateful the catering staff at Bletchley didn’t mind our eating in their dining area. We’d likely would have been able to get the potato & beans option in the cafe found in Hut 4, but we’d missed their open time for serving hot food.

As the museum closed up a friendly volunteer suggested the Eight Belles Pub, which was a short walk from the park as a nice way to kill time until our train back to London. We were delighted to discover a tasty English cider, Thatcher’s, and were lucky enough to get the first batch of chips fried up in freshly changed oil. There is no picture of the chips, we ate them as quickly as we could given how hot they were!

We spent a damp day visiting VX near the King’s Cross tube station, I left them with stickers brought from Herbivore and Food Fight, and we picked up some badges, stickers and a patch. We also picked up something special, food related, but it is a gift so I’ll post about it after we’ve given it to the recipients.

From there we made our way to the markets in Camden Town (Locks and Stables  Markets). We were totally delighted to find Cookies & Scream, all vegan AND gluten-free, while exploring the endless maze of stalls that make up the markets. Christie had an espresso shake and I had a cup of tea. We also got an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie (Christie) and a sticky plum & almond cake (me) to go. We had these the following day and we each found our respective treat to be awesome!

We eventually had lunch at InSpiral Cafe which was disappointingly uninspired, but we were happy to be served warm (mostly…) vegan food with a gluten-free option. Christie ordered the full breakfast fry up, however, making it gluten-free meant no toast, no sausage, and no house-made baked beans. I’d ordered rye toast with baked beans; they were just okay, not bad just, again, uninspired.

On our last day I went on a tea procurement trip and in the afternoon we finally explored a nearby street market that happened every day. I was glad we finally made it, but a little sad too, since there were several stalls with great fresh produce for incredibly cheap. I ended up buying all of this for 1 pound, 20 pence ($.192 USD) and made us dinner as well as food to take on our long journey home.

On the flight home I was served a meal with a salad (no dressing), roll with margarine, crackers, herbed tofu on a bed of sun-dried potatoes with a wild-rice blend and mushy, minted peas. There was also another roll with lettuce, tomato & celery slices, which was made tastier with one of the avocados from the market the day before. I was also served a snack of grapes and a “Tangy Tomato and Chickpea” Posh Wrap from Monty’s Bakehouse, which was pretty darn tasty.

I’ve been experimenting with refrigerator lemon pickles for a couple of years now. Tonight I wanted to work with lemon and other Japanese flavors, but didn’t have any preserved lemons in the fridge. Rather than put off using up some fresh shiso I had on hand, I decided to experiment with using other methods to infuse lemon flavors, plus make a garnish of the fresh lemon as well.

First I sliced up a large lemon in very thin slices. You might want a mandoline to get very thin slices, but it can be done with a very sharp knife (I used my nakiri). I layered the slices onto a plate then layered thick slices of extra-firm, water-packed tofu I’d pressed for 40 minutes, on top of the lemons. I sprinkled on a little Alaea salt and black sesame seeds. I let this sit for 15 minutes.

I heated up a cast iron skillet on medium-low heat and added a few tablespoons of avocado oil and let it heat up. I put the tofu sesame-side down into the hot oil and then layered the sliced lemons over the top of the tofu. It seared in a covered pan for 12 minutes before removing the lemon slices (reserve), spraying the tofu with oil, and flipping the slices over. Lemon slices where placed back onto the tofu slices and pan covered to let tofu sear for another 12 minutes.

I removed the lemon slices and set aside. Into the pan I poured half of a mix of rice wine vinegar, tamari, red miso, and mirin over the tofu and let the liquid reduce in the pan. Once all liquid had reduced I removed tofu from the pan and added back in the lemon slices. These were spread out in the bottom of the pan to sear lightly for a couple of minutes before turning to sear on the other side. Once both sides had seared I added the rest of the sauce I’d mixed and let it reduce with the lemons.

The whole thing was presented with the hot lemon relish topping the seared sesame tofu and a chiffonade of fresh shiso.

There was also some summer squash chips made with thin slices of patty-pan squash tossed with dried cilantro, avocado oil, and Alaea salt. These roasted on a pan in the oven on convection setting, 235 degrees.

All this was accompanied with brown rice tossed with lemon zest and shiso.

We ate all of it. It was amazing. There will be recipes.

40 days without a post! Yikes! Let me remedy that by sharing my birthday dinner.

Really, it was the day after my birthday, because we were both too tired to make food after a picnic at the beach and a stop at a farmstand, two of my favorite things to do.

I love finding good farmstands. Usually they involve getting out of the city, although in Portland there’s a growing number of family farms setting up small stands in the city, the trip to them is usually lovely, and sometimes there’s great photography options too. Best of all, there’s the chance to possibly talk to the family and workers who actually grew the food I’m buying.

Last night, a slightly belated dinner, I made an all-grill dinner to celebrate the bounty of summer and farmstands. Mobile phone photos because we were too impatient to just eat all the yummy food! Although there isn’t an exact recipe, I’ve included notes on how each dish was made.

Here’s one of the dishes, Marinated Tofu, Cauliflower, and 3 kinds of Summer Squash (yellow & green zucchini and pale green patty-pan). Everything was chopped into largsih, but still bite-sized pieces and put into a bowl. 1/4 cup of olive oil was drizzled over along with 1/4 cup of balsamic vinegar, fine Alaea salt, freshly ground pepper, 4 mashed & torn up garlic cloves, and dried herbs were added. About 1/2 teaspoon of both dry basil and oregano were added along with a slightly smaller amount of dry rosemary that was lightly crushed and broken up into smaller bits. All of it was tossed together so everything was equally coated and let sit for 30 minutes.

Two kinds of roasted chilies; Sweet Banana Peppers (from the farmstand) and Padron Peppers. Christie had recently been introduced to Padron peppers roasted in some oil at a local Peruvian restaurant, Andina, during a team dinner. We found some at the market and tossed them, along with two kinds of chilies from the farmstand, in avocado oil before roasting on the grill. Once nicely grilled they went back into the bowl with the remaining oil and were lightly sprinkled with coarse sea salt.

Here’s everything going at once! I so love this new grill and this is a perfect example of why, look at all this smoky, grilled goodness!

Finally, here’s dinner all plated up. Note the pretty, orangeish pepper on the left. By time decided to cook these I’d rather forgot what kind of chilie it was. So this lovely photo is mere minutes away from my being reminded it was a Hungarian Wax Pepper after biting off about 1/3 of it at once. While a lovely, spicy taste at first, the heat rapidly progressed to burning in the ears, sinuses, and of course my tongue.

I eventually was able to cool things down enough to eat again after trying some Yumm Sauce on corn cakes. The remainder of these I plan to remove seeds, stem, and skin before blending into a paste I’ll divide up in 3s to add a little heat while cooking things like chili and dahl.

I love to grill. Becoming vegan actually made me love grilling things even more. I’ve grilled all kinds of veggies, fruit, pizza, and even have made tea & wood smoked noodles with Kefir lime leaves. Yes, noodles, on a grill.

What is shocking is that for the past several years I’ve been doing all this grilling on a piece of equipment never intended for the kind of heavy use I gave it. Don’t get me wrong, the Coleman Road Trip Grill LX is an awesome grill. Perfect for taking car-camping, tail-gating, and for picnics at the park. The last time I cleaned it a bit rusted right off, so it has kind of been time to move on.

An unexpected windfall last month made up my mind to upgrade the grill just as summer really gets going in Portland. Given the amount of the windfall I couldn’t go crazy and get The Grill (something in the Weber line), but I could get a good, sturdy, serious upgrade that would let me grill All The Food at once, rather in waves as I’d been doing on the Coleman.

I choose a Char-Broil Classic 4-Burner Gas Grill with Side Burner, which is a huge improvement, as you can see.

On Monday a good friend met up with me, we went and picked up the “kit” and a blessedly short while later we were grilling up goodness!

I’m inspired to invite more people over for summer entertaining and I’m already working on a new recipe for Zaatar Grilled Tofu Cutlets with Grilled Lemon!

The grill also has a side burner, which makes it even more flexible on those rare, hot summer days. Plus in the event of a major event with the Cascadia subduction zone, we’ve got a good-sized tank of propane and a way to cook! In the meantime, potstickers on a very hot day, no heating up the kitchen.

Last summer I finally got the hang of fresh fava beans and we were hooked. This year we haven’t had any yet, but last weekend I picked up a few pounds at the Gresham Farmers Market.

Summer Rolls - Shiso & Favas

The combination of shiso in our garden and fresh favas inspired me to answer Christie’s desire for sushi.

The favas are pretty slippery, which made putting the roll together a little tricky.  I was also rushing a bit with the rice, which meant it was a little thick. Next time I try these out I’ll do a much thinner layer of rice and perhaps a really thin maki roll.

These make me want to get some purple shiso growing. I think the contrast to the bright green favas would be striking.

Although there’s a bit of labor involved in the whole “peel, boil, blanch, peel” process, fresh favas are amazing. I made sure to set aside a few for each of us to enjoy.

Beautiful Favas!

I also made us a very quick salad with purple cabbage, aged brown rice vinegar, and shiso flowers.

And the feast was rounded out by grilled tofu, two ways, and grilled kale.

Grilled Goodness

Yes, you read that right, I grill our kale. It becomes a little crispy, little smoky, a little wilted, and entirely delicious! I’ve also found that a drizzle of tamari and wasabi over the grilled kale is fabulous indeed

Tofu 1 (on the right): “Mushroom Ultimate” seasoning. We bought this seasoning last time we drove down to California. We make a regular stop in Corning to visit the Olive Pit. I used the seasoning like a dry rub for the tofu, then grilled. Really delicious!

Tofu 2 (on the left): “The Old Favorite” being a mix of nutritional yeast, freshly ground black pepper, and granulated garlic. This is such a favorite mix I’m going to start keeping a blend of it in our spice cabinet.

While shopping at Uwajimaya recently Christie spotted a fresh lemon relish made with very thinly sliced lemon, sea salt, sugar and rice vinegar. Some was out to sample and it was delicious. Sweet, salty, sour, tangy. I had to get some.

The result was another Japanese-inspired feast! No recipes yet, this is nothing but Food P0rn, but I am working on a recipe for my own version of the fabulous, fresh lemon relish!

By the time I was done cooking, prepping and plating we were too hungry to take photos with the Nikon and the light tent, but I’ve decided that phone-taken photos with our kitchen’s lousy light are better than none at all.

Of course, there was a roll!

Shiso, Avocado, and Lemon Relish Roll

But the rice ball with avocado and the lemon relish was my favorite!

Don't you love the little rose of preserved lemon!

There also was miso-tangerine glazed, grilled tofu, snow peas and asparagus.

Thus Begins the 2012 Grilling Season!

Plus a simple carrot and daikon salad.

Hurrah for the Plum Blossom Food Cutter!

Last month I picked up a case of Soy Curls at Food Fight.Yes, that does mean 12 pounds of them. There’s a big plastic food storage bin down in our pantry filled to the brim with them.

That's right, TWELVE POUNDS!

I don’t make them a lot, but as far as foods that are more processed goes, these are pretty minimally processed. What’s more they’re tasty, versatile and pretty low calorie.

Our main market doesn’t carry them yet and we tend to nearly empty out the bulk bin at Food Fight when we’re there, so last month I decided to just order a case. They’ll keep well down in the cool pantry. I could also put some into the freezer.

Maybe I’m already starting to plan out how we’ll live out in the country on a handful of acres — bulk shopping!

*Just happened to spot that the Arbor Lodge New Seasons, “our” neighborhood market, has started stocking Soy Curls in the same area you find legumes.

Although rich dishes are enjoyable once in a while, our favorites tend toward simple soups, stews, stir-fries, and “monk bowls”.  We were inspired to make these simple bowl meals from a dish once available at Blossoming Lotus. Really it was a bowl of whole grains topped with steamed kale, legumes, and a tasty sauce. Truly simplicity and just what we want some meals.

Tonight, after all the Thanksgiving inspired dishes, we had a monk bowl variation for dinner. Brown rice topped with chickpeas and some broccoli crowns that had been chopped up and sauteed with a clove of elephant garlic.

I made a variation of my Ginger Miso Dressing as the sauce to top, with a few slight variations. I added more nutritional yeast, some garlic pepper, and about 2 tablespoons of some leftover toasted walnuts. I didn’t use any other oils or the Bragg’s, but I did have more white miso. The little bit of toasted walnuts gave the sauce a faintly pink hue and a rich flavor.

Delcious Monk Bowl

This came about as a good way to use up the surplus bread dressing and roasted squash we had left after a big Thanksgiving dinner at our house. This year I roasted the stuffed squash directly in the pan with extra dressing along side it. Although I covered it tightly in foil, the result was a bit dry. In the past I’ve made this with the intention of transporting to a potluck and therefore wrapped the stuffed squash in many layers of tinfoil. It really seems like this also helped to retain a lot of moisture as well as making it easy to travel with!

Squash & Dressing in Roasting Pan

I make a great Savory Kale Bread Pudding that’s a huge favorite of ours and it seemed like a a logical step to take with the leftover dressing. I also used some red curly kale we had in the house along with some of the leftover roast squash. It made for a very full pan, but I didn’t need to modify the recipe any further.

The result was incredibly tasty and we think we’ve found the new way to use up the leftover dressing in the future! It was so good with the little bits of chestnut and Field Roast sausage here and there. I roasted some red and yellow beets that we enjoyed with the bread pudding.

Hurrah for Leftovers

The flash photo doesn’t do justice to the loveliness of the bread pudding, but it gives some idea!

My job to prepare for Thanksgiving meals as a child involved stuffing sticks of celery with cheese spreads. I was partial to the port wine and smoked flavors. I had a couple of years where cheese was the last hold out to my becoming a vegan, but I’m generally good without it. As a vegan I honestly don’t miss cheese the way I thought I would.

A friend of mine, Dave (who has posted several recipes here), has for a few years now been making cheeze balls or dips to bring to parties. In honor of my Thanksgiving heritage of stuffing the celery sticks, I decided to give them a try myself this year. The results were pretty darn tasty and attractive!

The base for both flavors involved soaked cashews, silken tofu, blanched almonds, and a pile of nutritional yeast. I also used some white miso, fresh lemon juice, and mustard powder to provide some saltiness and the sharper bite. Everything was processed very thoroughly in the food processor to make a smooth paste. I did end up drizzling in a little bit of olive oil during the processing when things got a little too sticky.

The smoky cheese ball relied upon a generous amount of sweet smoked paprika and a little bit of Hawaiian sea salt. These things gave it a slightly salty, very smoky flavor and a rich orange hue.

Smoky Cheeze Ball

The herbed cheese ball had more white miso for the saltiness and some fresh parsley added in while processing. This gave the cheese a hue similar to hummus, but with a faintly green cast from the tiny speckles of parsley mixed in.

Herbed Cheeze Ball

Both cheese spreads were put into the fridge to chill. I even stashed them in the freezer for an hour before attempting to make balls. This way the paste would be extra cold while I tried to form into balls with my warm hands. This worked really well and I was able to make very even shapes. The smoky one was rolled into toasted walnuts and the herbed one was rolled through some toasted almonds.

They went great with crackers and looked nice in a serving dish from my childhood! The smoky one was a real hit and most of it was eaten. The herbed one was good, but I think I’d like to play around with the flavors even more.

Crackers & Cheeze!

I had leftover spread that I did put into some celery sticks making my trip down memory lane, Thanksgiving Edition, complete!

Celery Stuffed with Cheeze!