A Midweek Quickie

Welcome to Wednesday!! I'm more pumped than usual for it to be the weekend because my best friend is having a baby today. Right now, actually.

Anyway, its going to be a busy day for me. I have a "webinar" for my online classes this morning, and we have a jam-packed day at work. Plus, we are bringing home a kitten tonight! We've introduced kittens before, but this is my first time doing it just JUST my baby (Zoe - see sidebar!) and a new kitten. If anyone has advice on introducing kittens, I'm open to whatever I can get!

The point is, most days, I am too busy to cook when I get home. Leftover of my Spinach and Artichoke Stuffed Portobellos was perfect last night when I got home. So today is just a little catch up of things that don't necessarily require their own special post.

First, we went to California Pizza Kitchen this past weekend. Vegan? Uh, no not really. But really, plenty of vegan options. They also changed their menu recently, all their soups are vegetarian, and they have a bunch of new salads on the menu that only need a minor adjustment to become not only vegan, but very delicious.

I had the Miso Salad. I honestly don't think I have ever enjoyed a salad quite this much. With edamame, avocado, daikon, little rice straws, and a wonderful miso dressing, this was so yummy.

I'm still thinking about it, it was that good. Its given me a new love for salads. I ordered it, of course, without the seafood, but also without the wontons strips, just because I don't like big crunchy bits on my salads (I don't like croutons either).

Second, anyone else digging the Clif seasonal flavors? I bought each of the three that were at my store.

This one, the Iced Gingerbread, was alright. Nothing spectacular. And I actually didn't like the Iced Pumpkin Pie at all. However, the Cranberry Orange Nut is completely amazing. By far my favorite Clif bar, ever.

I also had what can only be described as a kitchen fail this weekend ::hangs head in shame::. I tried making the Iraqi Beet Stew with Meatballs I saw posted here. It did not work. I should have just quit when I saw that my store only had teeny little beets.

The meatballs themselves were okay, and I have been eating the leftovers for lunch (hate to waste that seitan), and the beets are yummy, but the 'stew' part, the sauce, didn't work out and the rice, while pretty, was way too heavily spiced for me.

I've been mixing the rice with half plain brown rice to cut back on the spiciness. A disappointment.

Well, that's it for me today!! It'll be another day full of leftovers for me. Time for me to check into my webinar before getting ready for work.

Vegan Brunch: Philly

Most things are fairly easy to replace in a vegan form. Now that Vegan Brunch has taken the world by storm, its even easy to replicate a lot of your favorite breakfast dishes, like the formerly elusive omelet. However, one of our favorite pastimes has always been going out for breakfast. With most diner offerings no longer being options, and our not wanting to pay $8 for a bowl of oatmeal, what is a vegan couple to do?

Well, after a quick search for vegan breakfast venues in Philadelphia, we just ate at home. Kind of a no-brainer. But then, when I was least expecting it, a place serving vegan brunch came onto my radar. Excuse me? I thought I had thoroughly researched this?!? A quick Google search told me that I was horrifyingly wrong, and hence, we had to go. ASAP.

Enter Mi Lah Vegetarian Restaurant, which is vegan, and on Saturdays and Sundays they serve up a fantastic vegan brunch.

We started out with a cup of coffee, with a sweet little plate of seasonal fruit. I love that its apple season, by the way. The decor in this place is perfectly sweet and modern, I really loved it.

It was very hard to make a decision because so many things looked so good. Okay, everything looked so good. The menu on their website it outdated, it used to be a Prix Fixe, but now they have a larger variety of entrees, and also encourage making yourself a meal out of their side dishes. (If you're curious about the price, now that it is not prix fixe, it was actually cheaper for us.)

I settled on the dish I had heard raves about, the omelet. Not really an omelet fan in my pre-vegan days, this was completely perfect.

My three fillings were red pepper, vegan sausage, and cheddar cheese. I was hesitant about the cheese, because as I've said here and again, I hate almost all vegan cheese (yes, even Teese, yes, even Daiya), but this was good. Altogether the omelet was amazing, crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, and plenty of filling. On the side were some red bliss and sweet potato home fries. All incredibly yummy.

Nick had the Yard Beer battered seitan with Belgian waffles. They ended up being chocolate waffles! He seemed fairly pleased with his, although he said he wanted an omelet next time.

As I mentioned, they have a wide variety of sides, not least of which is French Toast. Nick had to try the French Toast, so we split it, and...it was divine. On good crusty bread, it was wonderfully sweet with just a splash of their organic maple syrup.

All in all, I can't wait to go back. I'm not kidding, I wanted to go back for dinner (we didn't). There are quite a few vegan restaurants in Philly, and many of them are Chinese. New Harmony and Singapore are two we've tried and are both very good. But sometimes you want brunch, and sometimes, you don't want Chinese food! So I'm happy that when this place is done with their delicious vegan brunch, they break out a very local, seasonal, menu. Think: brussels sprout and butternut squash gratin. Granted, they have this at Horizons, but this is less expensive.

The moral of this story is, be sure to go here. Don't even think twice, if you're in the Philly area, or within driving distance, you must go. Oh, and you don't even have to get up that early because, in true brunch fashion, they serve until 3. You will be happy, I promise!

On the Road Again ted

We just can't seem to stay home on the weekends. We're always somewhere, and the past two weekends in a row have brought us down to the area where we went to college, and where my husband grew up.

A few weekends ago (has it really been that long?), we hit up the first annual DC VegFest.

Lots of vegan vendors, and lots of vegan food. We both, obviously, had to have dessert. Our own desserts. I had already been to Vegan Treats and Sticky Fingers, so we hit up Emily's Desserts. Nick had the chocolate cheesecake, which was to die for.

I was boring, and had my default dessert, carrot cake. If ever there is carrot cake available, that is what I will be having! And this was one of the most adorable carrot cakes ever.

After all that sweet, I needed some more substantial food. Nick had a falafel which was gone way before there was an inkling of picture time. I had a house made mini veggie burger from Sunflower Vegetarian Restaurant.

Does anyone else not like sandwiches? I didn't eat the bun, just the burger, and the little cup of chili. It was pretty good, although I wasn't a fan of the service...the person taking orders was a little intense.

When we head down to either the DC or Baltimore area, we stay with my in-laws. My sister in law is gluten-free, so even though she is away at college now, my mother in law is constantly searching for places that she can go to when she is home. In doing this she found Great Sage, which is all vegetarian, almost all vegan, often gluten free restaurant in Clarksville, MD. We went there one weekend with my in-laws, and I forgot my camera. But we liked it so much that we went back by ourselves the next weekend.

This didn't quite capture it, but the atmosphere is really nice. Very calm, and that art on the back wall is actually a water feature. I think I stared at it for 75% of the time we were there the first visit.

We were really hungry, so Nick dug into the bread right away.

He was nice enough to let me snap a quick pic of his vegetable terrine before he dug into that.

I had the special which was grilled polenta with white truffle, on roasted garlic puree, topped with vegan parmesan (Daiya - not a fan, I took it off), and garlic sauteed spinach, garnished with roasted pearl onions. This was totally as good as it sounds, even though the picture is kind of dark.

If you ever find yourself in Clarksville, or are driving from Baltimore to DC, or are just going south on 95 and want to stop for some really good veg food, you should most definitely go there.

We also visited St. Michaels on Maryland's Eastern Shore. While there was no fun food, I did see flowers that looked just like the head flower from Alice in Wonderland.

Is anyone else really looking forward to the new version of this coming out? Looks trippy. Alice in Wonderland was always one of my favorite movies. Its one of the few movies I actually own.

We walked by the water too, and saw some jellyfish. I watched them for far longer than was probably considered normal, but I think they are so cool. Plus, I've never seen them in the "wild" before, just in aquariums.

I have the hardest time going away on the weekends because I miss Zoe! She is a really good girl while we're gone, but I like to think that she really misses me. So when we came home, we cuddled a little.

So that is where I have been, and what I have been doing. Now that school is in full swing, I don't know how often I will be able to post, but we are canceling our cable tomorrow, so hopefully I will have more time to dedicate to blogging instead of feeling like I have to catch up on television!

But I wouldn't expect to hear from me this weekend. Now we're heading up north to my family!

Animals, Avocado, and Angelica's

I spent this past weekend at my parents' house. Yes, again. I know, I can't get away from it. I guess it is mostly because Nick isn't home, but he should be back sometime next week. Anyway, my brother and his wife were visiting and even though the rain ruined our hiking plans, we still went out and did something I had been wanting to do for awhile.

Sunday we visited Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary. Long story short, it was amazing. The tour was great, the animals were happy, and surprisingly...

the skies were blue! We met all the animals on the farm (except the cows, they were on the other side of the field being anti-social).

All of the animals were amazing, really. I don't understand how someone could go to a place like this, look in an animal's eyes, and not see their food differently. I was the most surprised by the turkeys! Those strange looking heads of theirs are actually incredibly soft, and they love to be pet. They're so sweet. Everyone we met was really great, from the goats and pigs to the ducks and chickens.

After the sanctuary we went back to town and I had had lunch at the Garden Cafe, a vegan restaurant. I had an excellent Mexican corn souffle.

The next day I went into the city with my mom and brother. We went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Annex, but had to grab something quick to eat first. This was nothing special but these avocado spring rolls totally hit the spot.

The fruit is a mango nectarine, which I thought sounded so cool! It ended up just tasting like a really juicy and delicious nectarine, but I'm not complaining. The Rock and Roll Annex was fantastic. The regular museum was really very cool, but the special John Lennon exhibit made it even better. I've never been to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Ohio, but the way it works here is really cool. You get your own headphones that are attached to this transmitter, and the music changes depending on where you're standing. Really cool.

We also went to Strands, the home of 18 miles of books. It was cool, they had a lot of old books, but I was tired and hungry, so I visited the travel book section and found a place to eat. Now, whenever I go to the city, I have big plans for places to eat, and it almost never works out. This time, when I had no plans, we ended up being just a few blocks from Angelica's Kitchen. The atmosphere was great, casual but intimate enough. It actually reminded me of a place we had breakfast when we were in Kauai, just in the way like you truly felt as though you were in someone's kitchen. I guess that's why it's called Angelica's Kitchen, huh?

My mom and brother both made their own combo bowls. My brother featured tempeh, which I thought was some of the best I've had. My mom's had soba noodles with a yummy sesame soba sauce. I had the three-bean chili, mainly because it came with cornbread, which I had been craving for awhile!

I also had this coconut carob orange cookie, which was good, although I think there was almost too much coconut in it. My brother had a peach cinnamon muffin, which tasted amazing, plus there were huge slices of peaches in it. It was a tad on the dry side though. When I go back there (and I will go back there), I will get dessert again, but I would definitely be going there for the food first. FYI, if you go, they are cash only.

I know I promised that my next post would be a giveaway, but I didn't want to put this one off, since it actually happened this weekend. Tomorrow is giveaway day, and I'm really excited about it!

Where in the world...

Where in the world have I been? I actually have a good answer. Last week my family decided to invite me on vacation with them. Since they called on Tuesday night and were leaving early Thursday morning, this didn't leave me a lot of time for anything, let alone blogging. Such is life though, right? We spent a few days in Bar Harbor, Maine, then a few in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and now we're back in Portland, Maine, and should be heading home today. But we're finally in a hotel with free internet that works, and its early and I can't sleep so...hello!

While we were in Bar Harbor, we went whale watching:

We had breakfast at this little place called the 2 Cats Cafe almost every day:

We went for a bike ride/hiked/drove around Acadia National Park:

Even found a little place called CJ's that served some really good vegan ice cream!:

All in all, Bar Harbor ended up being a very veg friendly town. I don't really have any pictures from Halifax, but we did a lot of historical stuff (visited the Citadel, the Maritime museum, saw Harry Potter...what, you don't consider that historical?), and it was also extremely veg friendly. We didn't actually go anywhere that was solely a vegetarian establishment, but most of the places we went to had really good veg options, or were more than willing to make substitutions or some odd sounding concoction for me (one night I just felt like steamed veggies in marinara sauce..."No, no pasta thank you. Yes, I'm sure.")

Just in case you ever find yourself in Bar Harbor, here is my list of places to visit: A&B Naturals, CJ's Big Dipper (the soy ice cream is in the gelato case), Gringo's Mexican Cafe, Siam Orchid Thai, 2 Cats Cafe.

As for Halifax, we weren't there as long, but we had great success at Mexicali Rosa's, Hamachi House (the location on Barrington), Ray's Lebanese Cuisine, and Sugah!. As far as food options go, I wish we could have stayed in Halifax longer, they had a huge variety of different ethnicities that I don't normally see.

It has been kind of a crazy summer, but in a good way! I'll be back home on Monday and will get all caught up on everyone's blogs, I hope you all are enjoying your summers too!!