25 Jan

Getting My Grub On With The Hot Knives Fellas At Sage Bistro

Posted by idreamofgreenie in Get In Mah Belly. Tagged: , , , , , .

There are few things I enjoy more than delicious vegan food with great company, both of which I was blessed to have at my first Grubwithus dinner last week!

I was virtually unfamiliar with Grubwithus, until my fellow foodie friend, Kim invited me to what sounded like a perfect evening: a dinner at Sage Vegan Bistro where I have enjoyed a stellar brunch, but had yet to dine for dinner.

For those of you who are also unfamiliar with Grubwithus, it’s a super cool concept that has currently rolled out in about 10 cities nationwide. Once you register (there’s no cost to join),  you are given the opportunity to “buy” a seat at delicious dinners that are held all over the city. The price includes a multi-course meal that’s served family style, and all tax and gratuity (with drinks usually a la carte).

I was instantly sold upon reading the tentative menu (which is posted on the Grubwithus site) but was even more excited when I found out the dinner hosts would be none other than the Hot Knives fellas. If you do not own their cookbook, Salad Daze or have yet to cruise onto their blog, you best crawl out from under your rock now.

I know you’re really reading this for the food porn but before I give you the goods, I would just like to say that I really enjoyed the people I dined with. A couple new friends even wrote super nice comments about me on my Grubwithus page.

Disclaimer: yes this meal was about 9 courses, but because it was shared family style, we got the perfect (smaller tasting serving) of each dish.

Without further ado, here was the spread (in chronological order):

Samosa spring rolls. These pillows were bursting with aromatic spices, potatoes and peas and I loved the dipping sauces (though was too busy stuffing my face to ask what they were).

Spinach and artichoke dip, served in a bread bowl and topped with cheez. It needs to be said that this dip was so delectable in a lick your fingers clean, serve to your friends who would never believe it’s vegan kinda way. The only qualm my tablemates and I had was that we would have liked a different accompaniment than the tortilla chips, ideally something pillowy like warm pita or bready yet crispy like a flat bread.

Avocado bruschetta. Simple, spot on flavors. You can’t go wrong with bread, avocado, tomato and fresh basil.

Jalapeno and cheez wontons served with horseradish sauce. I loved the crispy exterior but would have liked an additional ingredient inside for both an extra punch of flavor and texture (maybe caramelized onions?)

Quinoa with pesto and seasonal veggies. This is the kind of dish that a picture will never do justice. In fact, I asked my new friends if they would revoke said friendship if I walked around slathered in this pesto…my dining companions agreed that this pesto is the stuff dreams are made of! They also served an (unpictured) dish that was the same, but with pasta instead of quinoa.

Now this dish I am not sure what it was officially called but it was a ravioli of sorts with a delectable filling, topping and served with some of the most flavorful kale I have ever eaten. Another one of my favorite dishes.

Kale close up

Fried macaroni and cheez balls with horseradish. Now this is one of those cases where looks can be deceiving. While the cakes had a perfectly crispy exterior, the innards were a bit cold, plus there was a slight buffalo wing like flavor that I couldn’t quite get on board with. I would have just loved the mac and cheez in its normal form

Braised portabella “steak” with seasonal vegetables and some of the most delicious mashed potatoes I’ve ever eaten.

Last but certainly not least…a gluten free waffle topped with 3 flavors of KindKreme (including chocolate mocha and oatmeal cookie), salted caramel and fresh fruit. Admittedly, by the time we finally decided to pass this sundae to the other side of the table, Hot Knives’ Evan commented “man you guys really demolished that sundae.” It really looked like battle remains after we sunk our raging sweet teeth into it. There was also another sundae with more innovative flavors: carrot ginger, coconut and seaweed KindKreme, though I’m going to go on the record to say that the below dessert is one of the top 10 desserts I have ever eaten, vegan or otherwise.

I may or may not have unbuttoned my pants after this dinner but it was well worth it!

Have you gone to a Grubwithus dinner or been to a yummy dinner party lately?

23 Jan

Thrive Foods Direct: An Early Review on New Vegan Meal Delivery Service Shipping Nationwide!

Posted by idreamofgreenie in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

A couple weeks back, I enjoyed a lovely and delicious evening at Cru, courtesy of the OpenSky team.  I had the pleasure of meeting Brendan Brazier who is not only a very accomplished vegan athlete but the brainchild behind the Vega line of protein powders, bars, electrolyte hydrators, etc (which I have been enjoying for years) and a respected author and speaker among other things (I’m not entirely convinced that he doesn’t have a clone…busy guy!)

As if that wasn’t enough to keep him busy, Brendan has most recently partnered with Fresh N Lean to launch Thrive Foods Direct, an organic, whole foods vegan meal delivery service that ships nationwide.

I was lucky enough to get to try out some of the Thrive Foods Direct meals and am excited to share my thoughts with you.

Having read and enjoyed Brendan’s book, Thrive Foods, which is extremely informative about the importance of adopting a nutrient dense, plant based diet and features an amazing recipe section (and is also endorsed by the likes of Hugh Jackman and Moby), I had a feeling I was going to like these meals.

Plus, I really liked the philosophy behind Thrive Foods Direct: not only is the produce ordered directly from local farms but the meals also emphasize “high net gain, alkaline-forming, plant-based, whole food. And always made entirely from fresh, certified organic ingredients. The menu changes frequently – variety is emphasized – for both enjoyment and optimally nutritional benefit. “

Enough background: now onto the food. I was given the below meals to try, all of which were gluten-free and incredibly easy to prepare (just 2 to 3 minutes in the microwave). So that this review wasn’t just based on a single palate, I also enlisted a couple taste testers.

  • brown rice risotto with cilantro pesto
  • traditional lasagna
  • spinach and lentil soup
  • quinoa pasta with marinara sauce
  • hearty vegetable stew

The verdict? I loved how much flavor was gleaned from these meals that featured a short list of fresh and unprocessed ingredients (all meals featured less than 10 ingredients).

The favorites were:

Lasagna. This dish was brimming with flavor and lots of fresh veggies including spinach, kabocha squash, tomatoes, celery and onions. Also, I would never have known the dish was gluten free…the brown rice pasta was a perfect stand in! I ate 2/3 of this for lunch and was full for hours (a rarity for me!) I topped it with some fresh basil which really took it over the edge. I also found that I wasn’t missing the “cheez” at all and it was refreshing to enjoy a delicious dish made out of fresh, unprocessed ingredients.

Quinoa pasta with marinara sauce. This dish was felt to be delicious, difficult to believe it was gluten-free because the texture was en pointe. The tomato sauce was refreshing and you can really taste the freshness of the minimal ingredients.

Hearty vegetable stew. This dish was like a hearty chili, chock full of beans and lots of veggies. It didn’t come pre-seasoned which I appreciate because I’d rather have carte blanche to add my own sumpin’ sumpin’.

Click here for more information on the meals, pricing (which I find to be pretty reasonable and includes shipping) and how to order.

Have you ever tried a meal delivery service?

What kinds of vegan dishes would you like to see in a meal delivery service?

15 Jan

Highlights in Food over the Past Week

Posted by idreamofgreenie in Get In Mah Belly. Tagged: , , , , , .

So admittedly I haven’t had much time to be creative in the kitchen in 2012. However, I have enjoyed some nice eats from good vegan friendly spots in LA.

Native Foods Cafe: I had the Yo Amiga taco salad with added avocado and addicting chipotle dressing. My mom opted for the Oklahoma bacon “cheeseburger”.  FYI, those fried things on top of the burger are battered pickle chips, which are totally not my jam but I hear from others that they are fantastic!

Hugo’s in West Hollywood (also with locations in Studio City and Agoura Hills).  I love this spot because they have a very expansive menu and pretty much everything can be made vegan so I recently dined there with a group and everybody was happy. Split the vegan nachos, an insane polenta appetizer with grilled vegetables and this “I can’t believe it’s vegan” creamy sauce, oyster mushroom tacos and 2 delicious birthday desserts my friends surprised me with: chocolate brownie torte and pumpkin pie…surprisingly, I slightly preferred the latter.  Am I losing my chocoholic tendencies?

What have been some of your food highlights of 2012…either  cooked by you or someone else?

8 Jan

Delicious Food With A Fun CRU

Posted by idreamofgreenie in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , .

Fact: I tend to be a creature of habit and frequent the same restaurants I love.

However, I’m pleased to announce that on Thursday night, I had the pleasure of dining at a new spot for me, that will definitely be included in my restaurant rotation: CRU. Great ambiance and yummy, high raw menu.

I was lucky to attend a media dinner put on by the lovely team from OpenSky, a website I love because it exposes me to all sorts of new products and tips from their cool group of curators.

I was in great company, which included OpenSky curator Brendan Brazier, Lynn (love her blog and we’ve been trying to meet up for ages) Leslie (your friendly Veggie Dream Girl) and my pals at VitalJuice (great site for health tips).

As always happens when you get a crew of foodies together, lots of sharing of food and conversations about our favorite meals and restaurants ensued. It was also cool to talk to Brendan about his favorite restaurants around the country, since we both have a similar approach to eating and travel a lot, and I am really excited that he has launched a new vegan meal delivery service that ships nationwide.

Speaking of food, we noshed on the following delicious eats, with all photos courtesy of Lynn at The Actor’s Diet.

Mezze platter

Bruschetta

Raw nachos (one of my favorite bites of the night)

Raw pizza (absolutely loved the “cheez” and sauce on this)

Cooked mac n cheez (this is a recipe I’d love to have)

Banana creme pie…I normally prefer chocolate desserts but couldn’t get enough of this!

Lynn and I in the flesh-finally!

If the food, company and conversation weren’t good enough, the OpenSky team sent us home with a bag of goodies including Brendan’s Vega products and latest book, Thrive Foods and the Biggest Loser cookbook, written by OpenSky curator Devin Alexander.

All in all a great evening!

What is a recent food experience you’ve had when the cuisine and company were especially enjoyable?

Any favorite new raw or vegan restaurants in your neck of the woods?

7 Jan

Quin-whaaa?

Posted by idreamofgreenie in Get In Mah Belly. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

Happy new year! I have lots to blog about including a fun giveaway and my recap of a wonderful dinner I attended with the Open Sky team and vegan curator Brendan Brazier, the mastermind behind the Vega products and a new vegan meal delivery service that ships nationwide.

However, in the meantime, this very easy and yummy recipe will have to suffice.

I have a confession: I just cooked quinoa for the first time today. I’ve been a fan of the gluten-free complete protein for quite some time but decided that there were other ways to get my fix than spending ludicrous amounts of $ at Cafe Gratitude (which let’s be real, now means going there once a week instead of several times a week).

Luckily my partner in crime Arielle told me she had a foolproof delicious quinoa recipe and since we have the exact same palate, I knew this recipe would be bomb dot com.

I just made the following modifications to her recipe:

  • Since I was cashing in my Q card, I thought it was only appropriate to use Red Incan quinoa.
  • I did not have any vegetable broth on hand, so I used water for the liquid
  • Since I am lazy did not have an onion on hand, I replaced the onion and garlic with several herb marinated roasted garlic cloves I got from the Whole Foods antipasto bar.
  • I topped it with fresh basil leaves and a sprinking of pink Himalayan sea salt.

Let me assure you, I will be busting out this recipe again…and again…and again…

Photo courtesy of Your Vegan Girlfriend

Now that I know I can cook quinoa, what are your favorite ways to make/eat it?

25 Dec

What I’ve Been Up To

Posted by idreamofgreenie in Uncategorized.

Happy Christ-ma-Kwanzaakuh! Hope you are having great holidays. Besides working a ton, I’ve been up to some fun over the last week.

  • Super fun night out at a new-ish restaurant called M Street Kitchen with close friend Arielle... while the food was overall good, I could care to do without the ghost pepper which started an inferno in my mouth…check out her recap of the whole incident here!
  • Creating a recipe for vegan nutella icing that is INSANE… would you still be my friend if I walked around slathered in the stuff? Actually you’d probably love me more because you could get a handful of icing every time you walked past me.

  • Super fun night out at Mohawk Bend to fete the birth of another close blogger friend, The Jolly Fox! I co-consumed a plate of vegan poutine, aka herbed fries topped with vegan cheese and gravy that had me licking the plate clean…and they even offer vegan pizookies: yes that’s an individual cookie, fresh from the oven with decadent ice kreme. #partyinmymouth
  • Other delicious meals at Veggie Grill and Real Food Daily.
  • Some really exciting Hanukkah/early birthday presents including a Tofu X-Press and a gorgeous Big Buddha bag (I will totally be bringing it on my trip to Utah in a few weeks).
  • Braving the crowds at Canter’s to have a “Jewish family on Christmas” lunch…clearly we weren’t the only family in LA who decided to lunch at the deli.

19 Dec

Vegan Chocolate Mint Oreo Cupcakes FTW

Posted by idreamofgreenie in Get In Mah Belly. Tagged: , , , , , .

I know, I know, it’s been a minute since my last post. But in my humble opinion this post is definitely worth the wait!

With my birthday coming up in a couple weeks -31st on the 31st-I guess it’s a golden birthday of sorts… I decided it was necessary to gift myself with the KitchenAid, I’ve been wanting for awhile.

I knew I wanted to break it in by baking something decadent and finally decided upon MINT OREO cupcakes. I’m a pretty tough critic on my baking but let’s just say that within minutes after tasting the final product, I began recruiting friends to take these goodies off my hands (it’s a tough job, but somebody’s gotta do it). When I brought enough cupcakes for 3 friends last night and one of them ate 2 before the third friend could have his, I knew I’d be baking these again and that they were worthy of posting on here.

For these pillows of goodness, I of course turned to Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World, aka my Bible for all things cupcake related. I decided to healthify their basic chocolate cupcake since I knew I was going BIG on the frosting. And while they had a cookies n creme alternative, inspired by my recent addiction to dark chocolate mint espresso beans (it’s been a really crazy few weeks of work), I decided to jazz it up by using Trader Joes’ mint oreos (accidentally vegan-score!).

Here is the recipe… you want in on this!

I’m not going to print the recipe for the frosting, because I basically followed VCTOTW’s buttercreme recipe to the letter (my favorite frosting!), save for adding a half cup of the mint oreo crumbs to the batter.

Mint Chocolate Oreo Cupcakes

Makes 12

1 cup non-dairy milk (I used vanilla unsweetened almond milk)

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar *if you don’t have that on hand you can use white vinegar*

½ cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

½ teaspoon chocolate extract or more vanilla extract

½ cup all purpose flour

½ cup whole wheat pastry flour

1/3 cup cocoa powder, Dutch processed or regular

¾ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

1 cup coarsely chopped mint oreos (about 10 cookies) **Note, I used the Trader Joe’s brand but if you can’t find them, you can use regular Oreos or Newman’s O’s and add about 2 teaspoons of peppermint extract to the batter or just make plain cookies and crème cupcakes.

1)      Preheat oven to 350 and line muffin pan with paper or foil liners.

2)      Whisk together the soy milk and vinegar in a large bowl, and set aside for a few minutes to curdle. Add the sugar, applesauce, and vanilla extract and other extract (if using), to the soymilk mixture and beat till foamy. In a separate bowl, sift together the flours, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Slowly fold in the coarsely chopped cookies. Add in 2 batches to wet ingredients and beat till no large lumps remain (a few tiny lumps are okay).

3)      Pour into liners, filling three-quarters of the way. Bake 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

What holiday treats have you been baking?

What should I make in my KitchenAid next?

22 Nov

Maximizing Fall Flavors

Posted by idreamofgreenie in Get In Mah Belly.

Happy ThanksLIVING week! What do you have planned? I’m thrilled to announce that I do not have to cook but will be enjoying plenty of fabulous vegan dishes (more on that after Thanksgiving).

In the meantime, here are some of the more delicious looking fall recipes I’ve seen floating on the blogosphere:

Chef Chloe’s Roasted Apple, Butternut Squash and caramelized onion pizza

Gena from Choosing Raw’s raw pumpkin pie

The Jolly Fox’s Turkey Style Seitan with Roasted Heirloom Potatoes in Tempeh Bacon Creme

Kathy at Lunch Box Bunch’s Cranberry Balsamic Brussels Sprouts

21 Nov

Vegan Entertaining In Columbus, OH

Posted by idreamofgreenie in Get In Mah Belly. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

 

This delicious spread of vegan eats comes courtesy of my friend Ruth who I had the pleasure of meeting on my recent India trip.

She hosted a small group and cooked up such delicacies as an array of dips: roasted red pepper, chipotle and walnut with mini toast points (pictured below), tapenade with garlic and thyme.

Gorgeous root veggies (carrots, purple fingerlings, parsnips, beets, red onions) roasted with a maple dijon glaze, one of my favorite flavor combos.

And since we have a separate stomach for dessert (you didn’t know this?), a bountiful dessert spread which featured vegan chocolate cake, black bean brownies (I’m assuming from the Happy Herbivore recipe, but not positive), thumbprint cookies, snickerdoodles and chocolate peanut butter pillows. Man do I wish I had teleporting abilities because if so, I would be on Ruth’s doorstep to scavenge the leftovers.

 

Ruth asked for my recommendations on what to serve for the drinks and I shared with her my foolproof crowd-pleasing punch recipe (see below). She was even smart enough to elevate my normal use of pomegranate juice ice cubes to an even better idea: making a pomegranate ice ring using a bundt pan.

Bess’ Sneaks Up On You Berry Punch

Marinate a bag of frozen thawed mixed berries with 1/4 cup of sugar for a couple hours, then add a bottle of chilled sweet white wine, about 40 ounces fruit flavored seltzer and right before serving, top off with half to a full bottle of champagne. You can also make ice cubes out of pomegranate juice.

I’m thinking it might be fun to start a vegan entertaining feature on the blog so if anybody else hosts or attends a vegan party with droolworthy eats: feel free to email a brief lowdown/pictures to idreamofgreenieblog at gmail dot.com

17 Nov

Updated Muzak Page

Posted by idreamofgreenie in Uncategorized.

It’s been a really long time since I’ve  updated my music to break a sweat to page (as in I didn’t even know what Spotify was).  But today, I have some new tracks added (with free download links when applicable). Get into it!

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