"Gardein" of Eden

           I've been hearing about Gardein products for awhile now. I'm sure you have too. They're all vegan (unlike Quorn or some Morningstar and Boca brands that contain egg) and made by the Garden Protein International Company based in Canada, eh.

The ingredients are a mixture of wheat gluten, soy and pea protein, and natural flavors.

There are a few different kinds on the market, including a "beef,"  "chicken" and "pork". I bought the BBQ Pulled Shreds and the Veggie Chick'n Bites in a Provencale Marinade.

            I have to admit, I was a little trepadacious when I bought them. I typically try to stick to a whole foods diet. I'd rather eat beans and veggies and bread and fruit then eat complicated replications of animal-based foods. That said, there is one huge benefit for this product. Many people transitioning to whole- or part-time vegetarianism need transition foods. It's a lot easier to cook up some Gimme Lean soy sausage for in the morning than to make a hippy-dippy lentil loaf. Vegetarian and Vegan diets take time, and ease of transition. Companies like Gardein do a huge deal of good in easing the casual meat eater into an animal-free diet. 

            Especially with the bloooming-in-popularity Meatless Mondays, having great tasting options for meat-free meals is pretty  neccessary. 

             So, how did they taste?

I tried the chick'n bites first. 

VEGGIE CHICK'N BITES

       I'm definitely a carbohydrate-lovin' girl, so naturally I had to try it first with some pasta.

         I simply cooked up some capativi noodles, steamed some broccoli, then sauteed them together with the chick'n bites.

          It was remarkably easy. I threw in a sprinkling of nutritional yeast (of course) and a few cranks of fresh-ground pepper. 

This is what it looked like: 

 

  

Close up:

            Yep. That's right. My lunch yesterday was DELICIOUS. The chick'n heated up in about 4 minutes. There's 2 servings per package, which was perfect. I ate my leftovers for dinner.

          I haven't eaten any part of chickens in over 20 years, so I don't remember what they taste like, but I don't think this was too similar. It just tasted like nice herbs and spices and had a good chewy texture. 

BBQ SHRED SANDWICH 

 

            Today I stopped by Whole Foods to pick up some buns for my BBQ pulled shreds experiment. I found a pack of four Delphina's panini rolls. Which, I just want to say right here, are amazing. I love them. I want to eat them all the time. Sooooo good. Delphina is a Portland-based bakery. I've never tried their baked goods before, but these rolls are seriously serious. Seriously super. Since I only needed one, I put the other 3 in the freezer to use later. I don't want these to get moldy!

 

         So simple to make. Can you read the writing? It says, "Heat and load up on a bun..." Easy-peasy. 

           I toasted my Delphina's bun while heating the bbq shreds up on the stove. After the bun was toasted, I spread some Earth Balance on one side (and nutritional yeast, of course) and some Wildwood Garlic Aioli on the other. I had to ask my roommate, "People eat mayo with pork sandwiches, right?" (He answered, "Some people eat mayo with everything." Ha!)

Threw some spinach on that bad boy, and watch out: 

         That first picture is a little blurry, sorry. I think my hand was shaking from hunger. 

            The texture was super similar to the chick'n bites. I'm not sure if they use the same ingredients and ratio for the protein part and just change the sauce, but that's what it seemed like to me.

       The bbq sauce was definitely of  the sweeter variety. I think I'm personally fond of more of a smokey or spicy taste, but the sweet flavor worked pretty well. 

This sandwich was super. Simply delicious. It was moist and toasty and filling and pretty much perfect.

          Both these Gardein products are super easy to make, taste amazing, and are enough to serve two. The only drawback is they are rather expensive--it's about $4 for one packet. That's too much for me to buy very often, but when I have an animal-eater friend come over for a meal, these will perfect meal-helpers. 

         Have you tried any Gardein products? Leave a comment and let me know what you think about them.

Vita Cafe Food Porn

The Vita Cafe has some kick-ass eats. Want some examples?

Mac and Cheese with tempeh:

 

Holy crap. Best vegan mac and cheese (other than *cough* my own) I've had. Big portion, excellently flavored "cheese", and big fat noodles. You can also get broccoli as an option, which I'd recommend.

What happens when the Aardvark Sauce lid isn't screwed on tightly:

Yikes! This looks like something The Spicy Vegan would like.

And I know the Vita has all this deep-fried, buffalo-style, gravy-intense wonders of vegan food, but their SUPERGRAIN SALAD is so freakin' good I have a hard time getting anything else.

Black and white quinoa, tempeh bacon crumbles, red peppers, currants, pumpkin seeds and guacamole with carrot ginger or lemon tahini dressing. (I always choose the lemon tahini.)

 

I know, right?! YUM!

This one was missing the tempeh bacon (I had one tiny little delicious morsel in the whole salad) but it's so good! In fact, I don't think the dressing is even necessary with the gaucamole, but hey, it adds a nice tang.

And their daily soups come with the most amazing sweet onion bread:

 

The only thing I keep forgetting is they don't have a Bur Mixer. A bur mixer is like a hand-held blender--restaurants commonly use them to puree their soups. I got the tortilla soup, which I expect to be smooth and creamy, but it just had big chunks of random veggies in a spicy tomato broth. I'll pass on the soup next time and just go for their bread.

The Higher Taste (or... the Daiya Cheese post!)

      Well, we've all heard the hype about daiya cheese, right? Soy-free. Plant based. Melts like dairy cheese. Shreds like dairy cheese. The only problem until recently was where to find it. Only available in bulk to certain companies when they first came out, now Daiya is seeping into everything. It's a good sort of insidious though, trust me.

        Though I was lucky enough to try it a few months ago with the Back to Eden boys on a BBQ chick'n, fresh pineapple, red onion, and balsamic roasted potato pizza (Yeah, you read that right. HOLY YUM.), I've been wanting to try it again.

       I really like The Higher Taste because they're a Portland-based vegetarian and vegan company that's been around for over 20 years. Every single sandwich or burrito I've had from them is delicious. They can be a little spendy, but they're made with whole foods and love. That's right. Love is the last ingredient on all their items. Adorable.

       Lucky for me, I just found out that The Higher Taste now includes daiya cheese in their Vegan Supreme burrito. A wrap with pinto beans, green chilies, rice, and melty cheese? Yes, please!

Look at the little sombrero! Cute.

And in case you can't see the beautiful fine print:

I microwaved it for 2 minutes, then threw it in the oven on broil for another minute or two.  

 

Easy-peasy.

Yum, right? And here's some close-ups, cuz I know you want them:

It's true: It melts! So how is it?

        Well, the burrito itself was delicious. The daiya cheese had the melty thing down for sure. Which is awesome. The taste--hmmm. I think it's about on par, maybe a little better, than Follow Your Heart cheese. But it does melt a little more, which means when it's available at more places, I'll definitely look to incorporate it in a few recipes.

       You can find The Higher Taste at Fred Meyer, New Seasons, and Whole Foods. Just in case you want to get a Daiya fix in.

Zucchini and Chick'n Pizza

I got some real gems on my grocery shopping trip yesterday. Look for reviews all week long.

Last night's dinner featured Lightlife Chick'n Strips and The Bread Stop Rosemary Pizza Dough.
I think I heard that Lightlife just got bought out by some big conglomoration--has anyone else heard anything? Regardless, their products sure taste good*.


Pizza is one of the easiest meals to make--you grab whatever ingredients you have on hand, throw it on some dough, and stick it in the oven for 20 or 30 minutes. My problem lies in the actual making of the dough. My dough always gets tacky and weird and chewy and stupid. I wasn't sure if I could justify spending $2.49 on a a lump of pizza dough, when I have flour, yeast, salt, and sugar at my house already, but I'm glad I did.
Once I get better at making crust, I may not have a need for pre-made refrigerated dough, but until I get there, I think I'm in love with this rosemary loveliness.

Janessa's Zucchini and Chick'n Pizza

1 ball Bread Stop Rosemary Pizza Dough

BASE
3 T olive oil
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
2 cups spinach

TOPPINGS
about 8 cremini mushrooms, sliced
1/2 summer zucchini, sliced
1/2 package Lightlife Chick'n Strips
lemon zest

Bake at 425 for 20-25 minutes. Slice. Have a mouth-gasm.

Notes:

* You don't have to cook the chick'n strips--they're pre-seasoned and cooked--you can just throw 'em on.

* My friend Ashley is the genius who told me that olive oil and yeast gives that nice cheesy-ish taste to homemade pizza.

* The lemon zest adds a really nice zing to the flavor.

* 4 servings with a small appetite, probably 2 for those of you with larger stomachs.

Here's the pizza, all ready to go into the oven:

Sorry! I don't have a post-oven pictures, but it looked pretty much like this, only cooked.


* I looked it up--Lightlife is now owned by ConAgra foods. A big fat BOO to that. ConAgra owns everything from Chef Boyardee to Jiffy Pop to Marie Callender to Slim Jim.

Vegan Prom

Portland Vegan Prom '09
Report Lounge
8/22/09




Without futher ado, the dance-off:

Vegan Supper Club--Mediterranean Style

Our 3rd month Vegan Supper Club was last Sunday. Everyone had fun.
I mean everyone; check out how happy Ollie is:


The spread included seitan gyros with green goddess dressing; eggplant and chickpea stew; a mix of Mediterranean olives including castelvetrano, my absolute all-time favorite; tabbouli; panzanella salad; penne pasta salad with mint and tofu ricotta; spinach salad; greek tofu salad, and an extremely local blueberry crisp. Oh, and 6 bottles of wine.

What?

Anywaaaaaaay, here's my plate:

You can't see everything I piled on there. You also can't see how many times I went back for seconds. And thirds. And... hell, let's just say when there's an abundance of vegan food sitting on the table in front of you, you might constantly have a full plate (and a full belly).


What I brought:

Penne Pasta Salad with fresh mint, local tomotoes and cucumbers (from Back to Eden's garden), kalamata olives, spicy red peppers, and a lemon-basil tofu ricotta.




Spinach Salad with orange and grapefruit segments, red onions, garden mint, greek olives, and a fresh citrus-shallot vinaigrette:



Food was divine, wine was flowing, friends were fabulous, conversation flowed, badmitton was played (shuttlecock!), and everything was just super.

Looking forward to next month!

Vegan Soft Serve

From Back to Eden Bakery in Portland



Teaser:

Field Trip!

My friend Eileen and I drove out east last Sunday. We wanted to do a bikeride on the old Columbia River Highway trail. Has anyone else been out there?

This is a few miles past Hood River.

We got out our bikes and realized that for our first trip, we were woefully under-prepared. No sunscreen, no sunglasses, no bike repair kit, and no idea where we were going. It was awesome.
Turns out this trail is completely car-free; only bikers, walkers, and roller-bladers were up there. So cool.

We went pretty much straight up hill. No joke. With my little handmade 2 speed roadster it was quite a challenge. A hot sweaty breathless challenge.


Can you see the cars down there in the bottom left? That's the elevation level of where we parked. Once up to the very top we reached for our water bottles.

We also had to take some pictures!

We didn't know, however, that we were at the very top, as we had no idea where we were or where we were headed. If we had to go up much more, I don't know if we woulda make it!


After our water break, we hit the Mosier Twin Tunnel.


It was so incredibly pretty to pass through. Man, what a view. There were little grates for us to look through down at all that clear water.

After we passed through the tunnel, we stopped at this cool waterfall:

The trail finally kinda leveled out, and the breeze with the occasional shady passageway made this part the most enjoyable.

Eileen and I ended up at this ranger station area. We stopped to use the bathroom and went inside the tourist area where there were maps and merchandise. The volunteer working in there answered our questions for us--we had come about 4.5 miles, and were about a mile from Hood River. Crazy!

We thanked him and asked if he'd take a picture for us:

Heading back took us about 15 minutes. If you compare that with the 1 1/2 hours it took us to get there, maybe you'll get an idea of how crazy uphill it was on the way there. Yeesh. We felt so good and so proud when we were cruising down the mountain.

We decided to keep biking into Mosier, a tiny tiny little town. This guy is also the town's Fire Chief.
He moved to Mosier from Portland a few years ago and loves it out here. I can see why. Surrounded by all this nature would be hard to want to leave.

We bought some apricots that were ripe and juicy and delicious.

Then he gave us each a yellow plum, which was even better! I didn't even take a picture. I just mowed it down.

There was this cute retro shop that had a whole bunch of old cars and sold ice cream.

It was so cute and old-fashioned! Then Eileen pointed out this decal in the window:

Ha!

It was time to move on. We threw our bikes into her truck (that's a lie, actually. It took us about 20 minutes and 3 tries to carefully fit the bikes in just so.) and headed into Hood River.

We each got an iced coffee and walked around to explore the town.


It's such a neat town! I can't believe it's only about an hour away and I've never been here before. Of course we HAD to go to Full Sail Brewery and try a beer.
It was so crowded, it took us almost an hour to get seated and order. I had their LTD (Limited Edition Series) and just some french fries with mustard for a snack. Their fries come with a choice of sauces, but neither one was vegan. :(

Then of course I had to try a Session from the source.

Look how cute! They give you a matching glass.
It was good, but not as good or flavorful as the LTD.

Did you know that Full Sail is owned by 47 different people?! It seems such a nice community-based business. It's right on the river, and you can overlook people sailing and doing water-based sports like kite sailing. So cool!

We headed back. I have to say, it's not a terrible view:


We had a blast and made plans to do lots more biking and some hiking and maybe camping really soon, before summer's over. So much to do, so little time!

Rob and I are thinking of heading back to Hood River for our year anniversary next month. Has anyone spent some time out there? Have a good hotel or B&B to stay at, or some good vegan food suggestions?

New Camera!

Check it:


Some snapshots from Bye Bye BridgePort party last night:

My beer card. No more free beers for me and my loved ones.


At the Aalto Lounge.