The Boundary

I was so happy to hear that my town has a new veg-friendly restaurant. Of course, it’s only natural: the chef at the Boundary was formerly the chef for the much lauded vegetarian eatery, Meze 119. So naturally, there would be vegan offerings in store! 

My veg friends had all made a trip to the Boundary before I did, and came away raving about the vegan BBQ sliders. When I finally made my round, I had to try them. It was So. Much. Food. I had to take half of it home! I’d also tried a plate of crispy flash-fried spinach, but again, that was enough for two people. Yikes. But everything was yummy, and the have lovely craft beers which they allow you to sample before committing. 

There are other vegan options on the menu, but the tempeh sliders really stole the show! 

 

Something’s fishy

…or is it? One of the last things I gave up before going vegetarian was seafood. Ever since I was a kid, seafood was always preferable to me over beef, chicken,or pork. Really, there was no kind of seafood I didn’t really like – I even dabbled a few times in raw oysters! But now, I think, eww.

Yet it isn’t really me ‘missing’ seafood so much that prompted me to bread tofu in seafood breading. After a quick (nostalgic?) perusal in  the ‘breadings section’ of the supermarket recently, I pondered the possibility of dredging tofu and frying it up as if it were fish. Couldn’t be half bad, could it?

Lo, the experiment turned out okay. I drained firm tofu and pressed it to get most of the moisture out. Then I prepared a plate for the seafood breading. Now, here is where some vegan recipes say to add powdered kelp or kombu to the mix to give it that fishy taste, but I skipped that step. It wasn’t so much the fishy flavor I needed as much as the illusion that I was consuming seafood.

I wanted a fish stick effect – so I sliced the firm tofu into ‘fingers’ (as they call ‘em in the UK). Rolled and rolled them in the coating, then pan-fried them in vegetable oil. After draining them on a paper towel, but while still hot, I dipped the fingers in both ketchup and malt vinegar (but not at the same time!). And you know what? It was pretty good. Not so much like fried seafood that you would be fooled, but decent enough to give hardcore tofu haters a run for their money.

Would I make it again? Yes, and I think next time I’ll try a breading with Old Bay Seasoning in it just to give it a little oomph.

More WPB fun

Fries went with that.

If you saw my previous post (below), you read a small detail of my recent day-trip adventures to West Palm Beach. I found a few more pics from that trip that I wanted to share: a shot of my repast at darbster, the tempeh “BLT;”  a convincing advert for Mercy For Animals that was posted

Word.

on the door of a car in the restaurant parking lot; and the yummy Thai green curry (with tofu) that I gobbled the next day after we frantically sought out some kind of decent vegan food before our drive back home across the state. Err, okay, that’s all I’ve got for now.

On to the next food adventure!

Check out the cute heart-shaped sticky rice! Aww!

Steak-out

Who says vegans can’t have decent steak sandwiches? Ok, granted, this veers a

Get out the napkins.

bit from the traditional “Philly” style – but I can’t be more pleased. Get good rolls from a reliable bakery. Saute gardein steak chunks, garlic and mushrooms in a little olive oil, add a 1/4 to 1/2 cup of pizza sauce, and load that roll up! Top with yummy cheddar vegan cheese (like daiya), or a sprinkling of nooch. It looks like a sloppy mess here, but then again, steak sandwiches have never been known for their delicateness.

A veggie road trip

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of taking a road trip with my friend M to West Palm Beach (the ‘other’ coast, in Florida parlance). The main purpose of the trip was to get a look at the local premier of the new film Peaceable Kingdom. The movie was shown in a WPB vegan eatery called darbster (yes, lower case D). darbster is a small yet hip little place, serving up some classic-type meals, all veganized.

Even though it began to pour (and I mean pour, South Florida-style), we were able to move inside from the patio and grab brunch right before they stopped

The menu at darbster reflects its South Florida heritage.

serving it. Unfortunately, as we had got there late, a lot of brunch items were sold out (no French toast? Waaah!) so I settled for a tempeh BLT. Even though they have a static menu, they also appear to have daily specials that aren’t on the regular menu.

After brunch, they passed around popcorn and flourless cookies for the movie. Peaceable Kingdom is not an easy movie to watch, despite its important message. I’m not sure how anyone, after viewing it, could come away a non-vegetarian. It does an excellent job of exposing the cruelty that goes hand in hand with farming livestock.

darbster also has an outdoor seating area in a lush tropical setting. I’ll bet it makes a nice, romantic, dinner-date kind of

The tropical setting outside darbster.

atmosphere in the evenings.

It was nice to be able to get away from the West Coast of Florida, head for the East Coast with a fun friend, find good vegan food in a cute restaurant, and meet like-minded people (as well as dip my toes in the Atlantic Ocean!).

Small, but cute.

Thai on the fly

I’ve been meaning to make the Spicy Thai Soup from my Vegetarian Times cookbook for some time; and it was this weekend that I discovered I had all the ingredients on hand. Yay!

 

Coming home from a hard day at work, I whipped up this tasty soup in no time. I was really hungry, so I tossed some shelled edamame with chopped garlic, sea salt, sesame oil and red pepper flakes as my side dish (heated briefly). Oh my, pure heaven. Edamame is up there on my list of my food addictions and I think preparing it this way is my new favorite.

I didn’t have kaffir lime leaves on hand but the book did say I could sub lime zest, which I did. The soup turned out spicy, salty, zesty, and so clean-tasting!

I’ll bet this would be a great meal if you were feeling under the weather. Lots of healthiness, here.

Cookbookery Cookery

I have loads of vegan/vegetarian cookbooks in my collection. Some get a healthy workout; others, not so much. One of my favorite go-to cookbooks is Bryant Terry’s Vegan Soul Kitchen. I’ve made more than half a dozen of his recipes from the book. Seems to me the reason being, is that Terry keeps the ingredients simple – and they are almost usually what I already have on hand. The book goes heavy on protein sources, like tempeh, tofu, seitan, and beans.

The bean and veggie mixture, pre-BBQ sauce. Aren’t the colors pretty?

I’m big on beans, because they’re not only a good source of said protein, but they are cheap, filling, and stretch a meal nicely. Today I whipped up Terry’s BBQ Baked Black-Eye Peas.

I’d previously made a batch of smoky BBQ sauce from the cookbook, so that saved me a step. (By the way, french fries taste awesome dipped in that BBQ sauce. Especially waffle fries, for some reason.) A home made batch will stretch a long way. And yes, I keep mine bottled in the fridge in an old, clean 7Up bottle capped with a wine cork. Way to recycle!

Bryant Terry’s BBQ sauce. Chipotle pepper in adobo sauce, garlic, cayenne, agave nectar, and loads of other good stuff.

The beans are cooking now in my casserole pot and the house smells great. I bet this dish will go well with some crusty French bread. Simple. I love simple.