DDOW Black Lentil Salad

This week from Delivered Dish...

Lentil Salad!



From the website:

Black Beluga Lentil Salad in Sesame Ginger Dressing (V, GF, no added sugar; will contain a little soy) These beautiful organic lentils were another fun special-order from Purcell Mountain Farms (Idaho). I’m hoping they don’t lose their jet black color when cooked.

This was delicious! I really enjoyed the black lentils - the cabbage, celery, and cucumber gave a great texture and the light dressing gave a nice zing to the whole thing. I ate this both warm and cold over greens (spinach & kale). I also added a little chile pepper action because I love spice!

I also got a Thai Coconut vegetable soup, which I will review tomorrow.

DDOW - Romesco Rice & Garbanzo Veg Za'atar Salad - Vegan MoFo 2013

Another DDOW! This will be the last DDOW of Vegan Month of Food, but I intend to continue posting these beautiful and tasty dishes whenever I get them.

This week's featured dishes were great, as always. I mixed them together and really enjoyed it. I didn't have any greens, but it would be fantastic on top of kale or arugula or spinach. The bean salad had cucumbers, cabbage, and some fresh herbs. The rice was great too.

From the Website:

Garbanzo Bean & Veg Za’atar Salad (V, GF, soy-free, no added sugar) Za’atar, a spice mixture popular throughout the Middle East, comprises ground dried thyme, oregano, marjoram, toasted sesame seeds and salt, and also often ground sumac, which has a lemony tang. You might encounter it sprinkled on hummus at restaurants. Confession: I bought a large bag at Holy Land Deli on Central Ave, a local mecca of affordable spices. Run, don’t walk.

Rice Romesco (V, GF, soy-free, no added sugar; contains almonds) Romesco sauce is a classic Catalonian simmered sauce of mostly red bell peppers mixed with ground nuts. The carrier here is organic brown rice. You can eat this dish cold or hot. By this week, inexpensive pecks of peppers should be all over the Farmers Markets (a peck is approx 8 dry quarts, with 4 pecks to a bushel). Take advantage of the harvest bounty and make a couple quarts at home to slather on everything (can freeze).

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.

Foxy Falafel Food Truck - Stoplight Platter

Today I was able to be in Downtown Minneapolis around 11am, which is when most of the food trucks open for business. 
I was SUPER excited to come across Foxy Falafel, which I have been meaning to try for a long time.  (They just opened a brick & mortar restaurant last year, too!)

I tried the Stoplight Flafel Platter: 2 pieces of the curry, beet, and regular falafel (6 total); cabbage. cucumber, tomato, hummus, served with pita or corn chips.  I added some of Foxy's homemade pickles and some hot sauce.  It was delicious!

Vegetable soup for a snowy April night

That's right, it is April 22nd and it is snowing on MN.  Not a flurry, or a light dusting of snow, but several inches are falling outside.  I like winter, but enough is enough. 

So I channeled my never ending winter blues into some vegetable soup.  Pretty standard: onion, garlic, white beans, frozen mixed vegetables, one small can of tomatoes.  What makes this soup unique - Anaheim peppers diced up, as well as a lot of shredded cabbage.  I had a lot of bagged raw coleslaw mix, and needed to use it up.  Salt, pepper, cumin, paprika, veggie broth and water make the rest of the soup. 

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.

Lemon-Dill Dressing: on Pan-Fried Tofu and a CSA Salad [Vegan Mofo]

Happy Vegan MoFo Day 4!

So many great ideas on the giant 2012 blogroll of MoFo-ers! It's fantastic to read through what others are doing this fun-filled month.

So I made this dish a while back, when I was up to my ears in dill and did not know what to do with it all! After a Google search of something along the lines of "what do I do with all this dill!?" I came across a few interesting recipes and stumbled upon this Lemon-Dill Tofu from Oh She Glows.

I had everything except the tahini, but it still turned out great and was a fantastic addition to some pan-fried tofu triangles.



My sides for this meal include some homemade simple cabbage and carrot coleslaw with a light vinegar/oil dressing and some steamed broccoli with sesame seeds. The coleslaw and dill were from the CSA. The broccoli was frozen.

I loved the dill dressing! I used it on a salad made from greens, carrots and tomatoes from the csa and topped with some flax seeds. Delicious!

Hola Arepa: Food Trucks [Vegan Mofo]

More food truck coverage for Vegan Mofo!

Pictured above is an arepa, like a little patty of corn dough cooked on a griddle and split open and filled with various foods. This particular arepa is from Hola Arepa, a food truck in Minneapolis. This one is filled with black beans, tomato, pickled cabbage. I also got the side of chips as well as salsa and guacamole.

DELICIOUS. It was super tasty! I have been craving another one ever since. Hopefully I can get another before it gets too cold and they close for the season.

Veggie Wrap and trail mix - Bellagio Casino, Las Vegas, NV

I recently traveled to Las Vegas, NV, and enjoyed quite a few delicious meals. It takes a little more searching to find truly satisfying vegan food (something other than just french fries) but it exists.

Pictured above: a veggie wrap with no cheese filled with alfalfa sprouts, tomato, cucumber, lettuce, served with a little garnish salad of cabbage, sprouts and veggies as well as a pickle. It also came with a plate of french fries. This was off of the room service menu at the Bellagio.

Pictured below: tasty trail mix from the Bellagio gift shop, Tutto. Why take a picture of it? It was impressive for trail mix: pepitas, roasted soy nuts, roasted flax seeds, raisins, goji berries, sliced almonds.



We also ate at a fast food type of place in the Bellagio called "Snacks," where they had vegetarian lentil soup and fries. They also had a veggie sandwich but we didn't get it or inquire if it had cheese or other non-vegan items.

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.