DDOW: Scarlet Barley; Black Bean Veg Salad

Another treat from Delivered Dish of the Week! This week is Scarlet Barley as well as a Black Bean Veg Salad.

From the site:

Scarlet Barley. Vegan, soy-free, no added sugars; contains gluten. A brilliantly hued beets & barley dish from Moskowitz’ Appetite for Reduction vegan cookbook. Factoid: beets have 6 times the iron of carrots. Women, eat your beets!

Black Bean Veg Salad. Vegan, gluten-free, soy-free, no added sugars. Spiked with citrus & crunchy veg to complement the earthy barley dish.

Verdict: Both are delicious! My only regret is that I didn't order more than a pint. I mixed both together and added a kale/spinach mix to make a super-healthy and tasty salad!

Foxy Falafel - Restaurant

After finally making it over to the Foxy Falafel food truck, I knew I had to try out their brick-and-mortar restaurant soon.

I was able to pop in for happy hour with a friend, which features an incredibly exciting $0.25 falafel ball special. That's right, all the falafel balls you could want at a mere twenty-five cents a piece. The happy hour also includes a dollar off most sides and drinks.



We ordered two of each type of falafel (curry, regular, and beet) two sauces (spicy Harissa and green tahini) and a pickle plate.



I ordered the hard lemonade habanero Bellini, while my friend had a mimosa. Yum! I really want to go back and try some of the other dishes, like Harissa potatoes.

Baked Tofu with Cilantro Ginger Sauce & Apple Mint Beets - Vegan MoFo 2013

Alas, this was not made by me, but it is from a local co-op's deli. The sauce on the tofu was thick and almost pesto-like in consistency. The beets were great, with hints of fresh mint and tart apple cider vinegar throughout the dish.

Delivered Dish of the Week - Vegan Mofo 2013

Over the summer my office started to get delivered lunches from One Dish At A Time, chef Tracy Yue's Delivered Dish of the Week service. She produces a menu about 4-6 weeks ahead of time of. Two choices each week to get in either quart or pint deli container sizes. Always vegan options, most also gluten-free and/or paleo, among other things. I have really enjoyed getting these, and plan on getting them throughout September and will feature what I get throughout Vegan Mofo.

This week: a Quinoa Kale Salad in Horseradish Vinaigrette and a Roast Beet & Cabbage Salad with Tahini Dressing.

The verdict: great! Scratch that, the beet dish was FANTASTIC, the other dish was still great!
I ordered one quart of each which for me resulted in enough food for two lunches. The photo truly does not do it justice.

Curry Chickpea Stuffed Squash [Vegan Mofo]

Welcome to Day 5 of Vegan Month of Food!!!!

I made this two nights ago. I've always wanted to do a stuffed squash type of dish and now I have! The two types of squash I used: acorn and delicata. I must say that after this experience I am a huge fan of delicata squash. Light, very sweet, cooks up fast and gets nice and caramelized while roasting due to the high sugar content. I sliced both of the squash in half, scooped out the seeds, and lightly rubbed olive oil all over them. Then I placed insides facing-down on a pan (does that makes sense?)and roasted for 25-45 minutes around 350 degrees F. I flipped the delicata squash every 10-15 minutes, it was done way faster than the acorn squash.

The stuffing/filling: I sauteed some thinly sliced onions and added chickpeas & curry powder. Next was some cabbage, beet greens, then wild rice and brown rice and veggie broth. I added garlic near the end along with some fresh parsley. Then I scooped into the cooked squash halves.

While all of this was cooking, I also was roasting up some beets, both regular beets and beautiful Chiogga Beets. Sliced up and served on the side of the stuffed squash.

The squash, parsley, beets, beet greens, cabbage and onion were all from the CSA.

Birthday Explosion, Part 2 of 2: Food Trucks [Vegan MoFo]

[Give Beets a Chance: veggie dog from Magic Bus Cafe @ Food Truck Food Court.]

It's Vegan Mofo! AKA the Vegan Month of Food, an annual event of vegan food bloggers. I really wanted to sign up but failed to do so by the deadline. I am going to be participating anyway and hope to blog a lot this month. You can head on over to VeganMofo.com to find out more.

Today's post is the second part of my birthday explosion. I wanted more than anything to go to the various food trucks that have popped up all over Minneapolis/Saint Paul these past few years. On Wednesdays, there is a Food Truck Food Court in Saint Paul and I went there to check it all out.

We went first to the Magic Bus Cafe, a cool purple bus serving up veggie (and meat) dogs with various relishes and toppings. The one pictured at the top of this post is a dog with a beet and sauerkraut relish, the one below is a spicy dog with jalapeno relish. Sorry for the blurriness in these photos, it is incredibly difficult to take decent photos outside with my camera.



After chowing down on dogs, we hit up Gastrotruck and had two delicious black bean burger sliders.



Finally, we had to have dessert: cupcakes! These beauties were from Cupcake On The Go, the truck version of Cupcake. These were amazing and super-rich. Yummy! Fantastic birthday lunch.

Roasted Beets with Beet Greens

Simple, nutritious, and delicious!

I roasted the beets by wrapping them in foil and baking until soft. Wash beets gently so you don't break the skin -- this keeps nutrients inside and the juices which stain everything sealed inside. Slice up after they are roasted/cooked.

I chopped up the greens and sauteed with onions and garlic and served immediately. I added a splash of white vinegar to the greens as well as salt.

Fasika

This is one of my all time favorite comfort foods: the veggie sampler from Faiska, a local Ethiopian restaurant here in St. Paul. It's just really tasty and nutritious: lots of lentils, cabbage, veggies, greens, split peas, all cooked in different spices and served on top of Injera, a spongey pancake-like bread made from teff flour. The best part about Ethiopian food is that you eat with your hands, using the injera to scoop up the food.

I highly recommend clicking on the above photo to fo to the Flickr photo because I labeled everything. I'll try to describe it as best as possible.

In Center: Misir Key Wot (red lentils cooked in Berbere sauce) and from L to R: Atkilt (cabbage, potatoes and carrots); Gomen (cooked greens); horseradish? puree at the top; some unknown potatoe-y thing; kik alicha wot (split peas cooked in curry and other spices); beets; and a salad with oil/spices as dressing and peppers and tomatoes.