Happy Fourth!

Here's hoping all my American friends had a great weekend celebrating our country's freedom!

My friend Anthony organizes the Seattle Area Vegans Meetup group, and I've been meaning to attend one of his events for, oh, several YEARS now... Somehow Seattle can be so close, yet so far away; and intimidating too - I'm not the world's most social butterfly (amazing, but true, I know...).

At any rate, I'd been whining that my kids might be abandoning me for the Holiday weekend, (only two of 'em did) and Anthony reminded me of the group's 4th of July Potluck/BBQ. A perfect way to spend the afternoon.

The Potluck was a lot of fun of course. I discovered I did know several other people there, including Bethany of the awesome blog, and Doh, the manager of Sidecar, my favorite vegan grocery store (OK, the ONLY vegan grocery store I know of, but still my favorite!).
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Several super-cute vegan bebbehs too. I just want to carry them around and smooch their little cheeks. OK, I did that...


The weather was BEAUTIFUL, and the food? It was amazing! Potluck plates are never that photogenic but I tired to give you an idea...
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Loads of grilled awesomeness, dogs, burgers, asparagus, pineapple, peppers, tofu; some lovely and patriotic star-shaped cookies; a lentil salad; oh goodness, much, MUCH other yumminess I can't even remember!

Naturally I couldn't decide what to bring, and overachiever that I am about these things, decided to "narrow it down" to only three salads. My Classic Macaroni Salad, Pesto Pasta Salad, and Spicy Ginger-Peanut Noodles. The containers were literally almost licked clean, apparently someone liked them! Inevitably, when asked for the recipes, I discovered I didn't have them all on my blog.

So....... I'm posting my Ginger Peanut Noodles in hopes of appeasing people. I get asked for this recipe a lot, and I hesitate to share it ONLY because the ingredient list seems seems horribly long.


(I know I usually look at long recipes like this and say... "Meh, I don't THINK so!".) But this is different. I promise you don't "have" to use every ingredient, I just happen to like LOTS of different veggies here.

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Spicy Ginger-Peanut Noodles

DRESSING

Blend the following in a food processor until smooth:

• 1/2 cup peanut butter (any kind works here)
• 3 tablespoons peanut oil
• 1/2 tsp toasted sesame oil
• Juice from 3 limes
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 2 Tbsp. honey or agave (not to worry, I used agave for the potluck)
• 1/4 cup Thai Sweet Chilli Sauce
• 2 medium garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
• One 3+-inch piece fresh ginger or more to taste (I used a LOT more, but taste as you go, younger, fresher ginger will be much hotter)
• 1/2 jalapeno, seeded (or to taste)
• 1/3 cup lightly packed fresh cilantro leaves
• 5 or 6 fresh mint leaves
• 5 or 6 fresh Thai (or regular) basil leaves

Blend like crazy. It will be thick and greenish brown and entirely unpleasant looking, but it will taste AWESOME! If it's too thick to blend, add more peanut oil but not much! It will "thin out" when mixed with the salad.

Taste and adjust to your liking: hot, sweet, sour, salty. I admit I "play" with this basic dressing, usually adding more of something. It's pretty intense, rest assured, the noodles and veggies dilute it a good deal.

SALAD:

• 1 16-oz. package ANY type noodle you like: spaghetti, udon, cellophane, ramen, soba... anything works.

Prepare noodles as directed (soak, or cook or whatever they require) and rinse in cold water to chill.
Add any or all of the following veggies as you prefer:

• shredded cabbage
• julienned strips of carrot
• julienned strips of red pepper
• cucumber strips
• scallions
• pea pods
• radishes
• baby corns
• bean sprouts
• lightly blanched broccoli flowers
• seriously - ANYTHING you like!!

Add dressing to your preference, (I tend to like a lot). Mix well, and chill.
Garnish with chopped peanuts (these really do "make" the salad)..


And <<-- here's the Thai Sweet-Hot Chilli Sauce I use.
Just in case you aren't familiar with it.
DEEELISH stuff, and most large supermarkets carry a version of it.

A Week's Vacation! Why Can't I Find Time To Blog!

First week off school (YAY!), my kids are camping with their Dad, and it's quiet around here - my "vacation" week before summer job starts at the library. You'd think I'd have long, lazy afternoons to eat bon-bons, cook and putter and ... BLOG!

But no.

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Not blogging anyway.

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I spent the whole week busy being just a little lazy and doing random things with friends and family, a little gardening, and cooking beautiful stuffs to my heart's content.

In addition, my nine-year-old 'Sprout's' baseball team made it to play-offs too, which was an awesome surprise, but threw everyone's schedule off a bit. I "borrowed" her from camping with Dad (fortunately they were only about 45 min. away) several evenings during the week to play with her team. (Apparently she isn't thrilled with having her picture taken!).

All of which left me no time to blog - I took pictures though!! I'll have to catch you up, bit by bit.

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OK, so, first of all; Sunday, my friend Shaun and I journeyed to Seattle's Sidecar Vegan Grocery where the Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale was being held. Did anyone hold this event in their town too?

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What a great idea, and such yummy goodies! (Like doughnuts from the famous "Mighty-O Doughnuts") Everything (except the doughnuts) was donated by local vegans, all of whom appear to be mighty talented in the baking department.

Proceeds from this particular sale went to the Pigs Peace Sanctuary. Other sales, held simultaneously, supported other causes, and they all helped the world discover how YUMMY Vegan baking can be!

Best of all - I'm so excited - I got to meet a fellow Blogger! Bethany of the fabulous "Spotted Devil Cat and His Vegan Assistant" blog.

She was a great help in problem-solving some upcoming cake-baking technicalities I'm anticipating (You don't see me blogging much about my cakes and baked goods here, do you? No, there's a reason for that, but I digress...)

Here are some lovely bake sale pictures Bethany took - so many wonderful goodies! Especially the cupcakes, *gasp* chocolate! You gotta check out her blog too; yummy food, and cute kitties and dogs, oh my!

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Shaun and I came away from the Bake Sale with all sorts of yuminess, most didn't make it NEAR a camera... but these chocolate-cookies-filled-with-peanut-butter were just too amazing not to photograph (and I know they had a much better title than that!).

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We stopped by Whole Foods on the way home. They're about an hour-and a half from my house, so it's only something I do about once a year.

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I get so overwhelmed when I'm there, so much fun stuff, I can never decide what to buy.

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I left the store with some specialty mushrooms and beautiful, local, crazy-delicious raspberries.

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I know, exciting stuff.

More catch-up, post-week-off blogging tomorrow!

Vegan Weekend in Seattle

Sometimes we don't appreciate what's in our own backyard (or neighborhood, or city) until we see it through someone else's eyes...

This weekend, my good friend Shaun came for a visit. Being that he's one of the few vegans I know in real life, it's always fun to cook meals and/or go out to dinner with him. Being that he's from Albuquerque, the vegan choices in town are vastly different than what he has available.

So of course, we checked out some of his favorite destinations here in Seattle - great ALL VEGAN spots that I sometimes take for granted. I know I've mentioned them before, but couldn't help posting some of the yumminess we enjoyed...

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Breakfast one morning at the ever fun and funky Squid & Ink.

We had a Monte Cristo Sandwich, Cajun sweet potato fries and their famous Poutine. (Which is a huge favorite in Canada but not so well-known around these parts... basically cheese curds and gravy over fries. Only vegan. And SOOOO yum. )

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Personally, I'd go just for their gravy. Cover anything in gravy and I'll eat it.

Just doing my part to dispel the "Skinny-Sickly-Anemic-Vegan" stereotype, one gravy-covered meal at a time...

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We also went shopping for vegan groceries (and for curiosity's sake) at SideCar for Pigs Peace. Not that we specifically needed any groceries. But they're an all-vegan grocery store that supports a Pig Sanctuary and we found all kinds of fun stuff that you may see in featured in future blogs. Cheezely Cheese, Bacon Salt (which totally tastes like bacon but is vegetarian!), and on and on... if you're ever in Seattle, check them out.

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I'm so getting one of their cloth shopping bags next time I'm there. I just never remember to go unless I have out-of-town guests! Besides, they're right across from Pizza Pi, which sells vegan pizza, if you're craving that sort of thing. (which we weren't)

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After groceries, we hit Mighty-O Vegan Donuts. Another MUST TRY if you're on Shaun's tour of the town.

Applaud our self control. We resisted buying out the entire store. In fact we limited ourselves to six.

Some of which went back on the plane to Albuquerque today...

Shaun's like a kid in a candy store when we go to Mighty-O. See how delighted he is with his choices?

Last but not least, supper at Teapot Vegetarian House. Check out the "Bobo Platter Sampler" (and this is just the half we hadn't eaten!!!) the thing is huge; filled with spring rolls, fried seaweed wraps, satay (toasting over the little fire - woo - cool!!) , tofu fritters and realistic rose "chicken" drumettes complete with a bit of sugar-cane as the "bone". Insane. Delicious.

The boy would totally fly here from Ab'q. just for those mock-chicken drumettes. Yes. They are that good.

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After dinner, our dessert was almost too pretty to eat. Beautifully presented Mango "cheese"cake with mango-berry sauce. I seriously considered licking the plate clean.
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This concludes our Vegan Tour of Seattle for today. Yes, I could go to these places on my own, but it's always nice to share them with friends. If you're ever in town, let me know!

And stay tuned. A little excitement coming up in a few days.