Heiwa Shokudo

For the last day of Vegan Mofo, I want to share pictures from a fantastic local Japanese restaurant, Heiwa Shokudo.

My boyfriend and I have been there before, albeit a very long time ago. When we decided to eat out Friday night, he suggested sushi, and I instantly wanted some.

Heiwa is a pretty small restaurant with less than 10 tables, and is located at the edge of downtown Asheville. It’s laid-back but classy at the same time. The staff is super friendly and service is really quick.

To start off the meal, we ordered warm sake (the first of 3!).

We both love sake, so much so that along with the 3 glasses we ordered at Heiwa, we proceeded to pick some up on the way home also. It was so warming on such a cold, rainy night.

As an appetizer we ordered the vegetable gyoza. I loved their emerald green color, and of course they were delicious.

For my entrée I had a spicy tempeh roll and a pickled vegetable roll. The pickled vegetable roll was pretty good, nothing too exciting. The spicy tempeh roll, however, is probably the best sushi I’ve ever had. It’s spicy, but not so much that it makes you sweat, and very savory, and it’s wrapped in avocado. Plus, it is served beautifully, garnished with thinly sliced scallions and sesame seeds (the top roll in the picture below). I mentioned to the waitress after dinner that it was delicious, and she said that she and another waitress had thought it up to get her friend’s tempeh on the menu. I’m glad they created it – I’ll definitely be back to order it again.

I really like that they offer all their rolls with white or brown rice. I chose brown rice for these rolls because I’m always happy to add a little more nutritional value to my meal.

So, what’s the best sushi you’ve ever had?

Cooking from Vegan Diner, Part 3

The weather has turned cold enough that I now want my meals to warm me up as well as satisfy my palate. Wednesday I made this pot of veggies and dumplings from Vegan Diner, and it did both those things.

I was nervous while cooking this, to be honest. Despite growing up in the south and enjoying most traditional southern foods, I don’t think I’d ever had dumplings before. So when I spooned wet batter onto the simmering soup, I just knew that the whole thing was going to be disgusting. Who wants soggy biscuits? Gross.

Thankfully though, I was wrong. It was delicious, and the batter turned into… well, soggy biscuits. But not in a bad way, if you can believe that.

I did the variation provided in the cookbook and added the smoky seitan, and I can’t imagine this dish without it. It was the main thing I enjoyed about the soup, and it added so much flavor and made it more filling. Definitely add seitan if you make this.

 

These are the garlic-roasted brussels sprouts from Vegan Diner. It’s a very simple side dish, and a delicious one.

One last thing – the veggies and dumplings do not reheat/store very nicely. If you do make this, be sure to finish it off right then or no later than the next day. I took some to lunch the day after making this, and reheated it gently (microwaved celery is vile), and it was ok, but definitely worst than fresh. I tried to eat some today (day 3) but it was almost inedible. It had turned into a soggy mess.

Cooking from Vegan Diner, Part 2

Every day, I’m loving Julie Hasson’s Vegan Diner more and more. For dinner Monday night I made the quinoa burgers and old-fashioned hamburger buns.

The hamburger buns were much easier than I thought they’d be, and easy enough that in the future I won’t have to search out vegan buns in the grocery store – I’ll just make them. Next time I think I’m going to throw in some whole wheat flour.

The chickpea burgers were slightly reminiscent of falafel (probably the chickpeas and chickpea flour), but that’s never a bad thing. They were thick and hearty and almost too big to put in your mouth. I topped them with Smoky Mountain Cheeze (see yesterday’s post), ketchup, mustard, greens, and pickle relish. Very tasty.

Cooking from Vegan Diner, Part 1

I’ve been cooking exclusively from Julie Hasson‘s Vegan Diner so far this week. And I’ve got to say that I’m impressed. Obviously I was excited when I won this cookbook, although at the same time I was worried I was going to end up with two very similar cookbooks. Tamasin Noyes’American Vegan Kitchen has been one of my favorite cookbooks for months now, and I didn’t see how much more I could do with two vegan diner-style cookbooks.

I shouldn’t have worried though. Both cookbooks are unique in their own ways, and I’m very happy to have Vegan Diner in my arsenal now. With only a few exceptions, the ingredients in the recipes call for basic pantry ingredients, and are easy to prepare. The recipes I’ve made so far were very well explained, and were hassle-free.

Above is the Great Smoky Mountain Cheeze, which is made of tofu, nooch, and agar. The smokiness comes from the smoked paprika, which is probably my new favorite pantry item (I bought some for the first time yesterday – I love it!). Even though I was initially wary of agar having never used it before, it was simple and the cheeze turned out delicious. Even David enjoyed it with me last night. Don’t expect it to last long though – I finished the stuff off within 12 hours. It’s addicting.

For lunch today, I used the last little bit of cheeze to make the Grilled Cheezy Sandwiches from the book. Although it isn’t stretchy like grilled Daiya might be, it is still gooey enough to satisfy you if you’re craving some comfort food.

To go with my lunch, I had a Highlands Coffee Porter. Highlands is my favorite locally brewed beer, and until today I absolutely hated porters and stouts. (I still hate stouts. Gross.) This beer changed my mind about porters… those that are infused with coffee anyway. Upon opening the bottle, I was greeted with the strong smell of a great dark roast. The whole time I drank it I felt as though I were having a treat. If you live somewhere where you don’t have access to Highlands brews, I feel so terrible for you. It’s great stuff.

Any recommendations for other great recipes from this book?

Salads & Scrambles

Man, I’ve been slacking on the MOFO thing this past weekend. I worked all weekend, plus I didn’t feel very well, so I was never really in the mood to blog. But something exciting did happen! I got my copy of Julie Hasson’s Vegan Diner in the mail that I had won off the Cadry’s Kitchen blog. It’s a beautiful cookbook, and all the recipes look delicious (see below!). I also bought Carribean Vegan from Amazon and an waiting for that book to arrive.

One day this weekend I found myself really craving a nice, big salad. This is what I threw together:

Mixed greens, quinoa cooked with turmeric, zucchini, noochy tofu “croutons”, red onion, and red sauerkraut with a maple mustard balsamic dressing (not pictured). It was very filling. Tofu croutons are easy; it’s just baked tofu that’s been marinating in nooch and extra virgin olive oil and baked for 20+ minutes. I love quinoa in a salad because it is such a filling and healthy component.

For lunch today, I immediately decided to make something out of Vegan Diner. I settled on the smoky potato scramble from the breakfast section.

Unfortunately, I started cooking first and checked my pantry second. Turns out I was completely out of paprika, and that’s what was supposed to add the smoky quality to this scramble. No worries though. I added hickory smoked sea salt and there was that same hint of smokiness. I also love potatoes and tofu together in the same dish – it’s something I’ve done a few times and it’s a nice way to make a tofu scramble heartier. I’ve also baked tofu and potatoes together as a side with a marinade, and it comes out nicely.

On an unrelated note, here’s a nice picture I took earlier.

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There is a fascinating article at the New York Times website about the Nautilus and how the jewelry and accessory trade may be making these creatures go extinct.

I’m wondering: what are your favorite quick salad dressings? For the first picture above, I mixed olive oil with stone-ground mustard, balsamic vinegar, and a drop of maple syrup.

What was I thinking?

Sometimes recipes unexpectedly flop. Maybe it’s a bad or inaccurate recipe, maybe you messed up… it happens. But I’m learning that sometimes, when something doesn’t taste good, it’s because I went against my common sense when selecting the recipe in the first place.

Last night for dinner I made two recipes from the very first cookbook I ever bought, Vegan Planet. The first sounded pretty exciting – cumin-spiced wagon wheels with jalapeno pesto. The second recipe was the savory spinach bread pudding.

The wagon wheels with jalapeno pesto wasn’t terrible by any means. It just wasn’t very exciting. I think I just expected more bang to the finished dish than I got. It was an unusual recipe that I’d been wanting to try, and I’m happy I finally made it, but doubt I’d make it again.

The bread pudding however… what was I thinking? Everyone knows what they like and don’t like to eat. One things I don’t like is an overwhelming taste of soy. And yet I completely ignored the fact that this recipe contains 3 cups of soy milk and 1 pound of silken tofu. I should have known I wouldn’t have liked the finished product. But I made it anyway. My boyfriend also thought it was awful.

I don’t mean for this post to be bashing Robin Robertson’s Vegan Planet. There are plenty of delicious recipes in that book! I just think I need to imagine the finished product more than just flipping through the pages and picking a random recipe.

Have any of you ever prepared a recipe and then realized that you don’t like the ingredients in it?

 

Holy Moly! Vegan Stromboli!

Vegan Breakfast Stromboli

Stromboli is super rad. At least I think so. A wonderful, creamy filling encased by delicious bake dough? Yes, please!

The components:

Step 1: The dough.
Since I made pizza dough last night, I used store-bought yeasted thin crust dough. You can use your favorite recipe.

Step 2: The sauce and cheese.
The sauce was an organic brand I found at Whole Foods a few days ago, although I can’t remember the specific brand. The cheese was mozzarella Daiya. Use liberally.

Step 3: The tofu scramble.
Since the scramble is going to be rolled up with a bunch of other stuff, it doesn’t need to be fancy. I sautéed half a pound of crumbled tofu with a little oil, salt, turmeric, oregano, onion powder, and garlic powder for a about 10 minutes, or until it was pretty dry.  Throw this on top of the sauce and cheese.d

Step 4: The potatoes.
For the sake of quickness, I used store-bought shredded hash browns for this. Lightly brown them in oil over medium-high heat, and place in thin layer over the tofu scramble.

Step 5: The maple-sausage TVP.
I always have TVP on hand, so I rehydrated a quarter cup, and then sautéed it with soy sauce, maple syrup, dried sage, and fennel seeds until browned. Place on top of other ingredients.

Step 6: Roll and bake.
Roll up the dough, stick in a preheated oven, and cook until crust is cooked. Devour.

Be sure to go crazy with the Daiya! The gooey-ness really increases how delicious this is. I loved the TVP sausage a lot – when I first thought up this meal, I knew immediately I wanted to somehow incorporate maple syrup. After all, when I think breakfast, I usually think maple syrup. There was a perfect, subtle hint of maple in the finished Stromboli.

 Leftovers are fantastic. If you cut a big hunk off the bottom (with the end intact) you’ll have a hand-held sandwich to eat as you go!

 

 

Vegan Reuben Pizza

Though the title should be enough to make your mouth water, take a look at this picture of my lunch. Behold! The vegan Reuben Pizza!

This is hands-down the best pizza I have ever had. I’m actually still eating it as I write this because I couldn’t wait to blog about it.

The greatness starts with the crust. Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian has an incredible pizza crust recipe that comes out perfect every time. It’s a yeasted dough, it rises almost two inches at the corner.

Next came a layer of organic pizza sauce, Mozzerella Daiya, then sliced red onions, red sauerkraut, and marinated tempeh (using the mariande from Vegan with a Vengence tempeh reuben recipe). And finally, it’s topped with a liberal drizzle of vegan Thousand Island dressing.

Oh my gosh, it was so good! The flavors complemented one another so nicely.

When I was growing up I loved Reuben sandwiches on rye bread. It was one of my favorite lunches. It probably had a lot to do with how much I’ve always loved sauerkraut. So when I realized I could make a pizza with Reuben components as the toppings, I almost lost my mind with the awesomeness I was perceiving.

Please make this. Now. And as a bonus, you can make one of my favorite snacks from my fat kid days -

Leftover tempeh, pizza sauce, and Daiya appetizers. This also works incredibly well with (vegan) pepperoni!

Plans

Today is my last official day of work until Thursday (I say official because I’m on-call tomorrow night. If someone calls in sick, I have to go.). Since I’ve only had one day off in a span of 11 days, I haven’t cooked anything exciting. So, here are my plans for my three days off. Obviously, I won’t be able to make everything if I get called in, but here’s to hoping that doesn’t happen.

- Reuben pizza
- Chili Mac
- Savory spinach bread pudding (from Vegan Planet)
- Cumin-spiced wagon wheels with jalapeno pesto (from Vegan Planet)
- Risotto with Gardein beef strips
- Grilled peanut butter and banana sandwich
- Breakfast stromboli

So that’s what I want to accomplish before I have to work again on Thursday. I also want to finally get a library card and make a trip to the DMV. I promise my posts will get more exciting when I have more awesome things to talk about.

I also want to say that I really appreciate all the comments and love I’ve been getting recently. I put a lot of effort into Ahimsa, and it makes me incredibly happy to see it becoming successful. Thank you!

So, in closing, I’d like to ask all my (new! and old!) readers what they’d like to see more of in my blog. I’m always open to ideas.

 

Chipotle Mujadara, & Fall Colors

When I want something filling, cheap, and that travels well to work, I make Mujadara. Mujadara is a Middle Eastern dish consisting of lentils, a grain, and roasted or caramelized onions.

I almost always use the recipe in Veganomicon because of it’s simplicity, and because I think the spices are spot-on. This time, however, I twisted things up a bit by adding chopped chipotle and adobo sauce to the caramelized onions. It added a great kick to the dish, and made it a little more exciting.

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Over the last week or so here in Asheville, the leaves have quickly turned from green to red, yellow, and orange. It’s quite beautiful. I wanted to share a few pictures with you.

My front yard

From the Blue Ridge Parkway

Another from the Parkway

I love fall.

 

Super Creamy Marinara Sauce

Spaghetti with marinara sauce has been one of my favorite meals since I was a kid. I remember eating it growing up two or three times a week – I was unrelenting in requesting it for dinner.  When I got to college and was living in a kitchen-less dorm room, I figured out how to make it in a microwave. Nowadays, I don’t eat it quite as often, but I do almost always have a box of noodles and a jar of sauce in the pantry just in case the craving hits me again.

Now I’ve figured out how to make basic jarred marinara sauce taste even better. And it’s incredibly easy! I hope you can tell from the above picture how creamy this pasta sauce was.

My secret ingredient for super creamy marinara sauce is…

Vegan cream cheese!

All you have to do is mix about 1/4 of a cup of cream cheese into the marinara sauce over medium heat on the stove. Stir it until it blends in and gets creamy.

I’ve ate this twice this last week. It’s really good.

The “meatballs” are the sweet potato kale balls from Cupcake Punk. I’m sure they would have been delicious if I hadn’t forgotten they were in the oven and burnt the crap out of them.

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There’s a giveaway over at Vegan Noms for the book Becoming Vegan. The contest ends October 19th. Head over there for a chance to win!

I’m totally in love with the website Random MOFO. This site randomly sends you to a different MOFO-participating blog, which is great when you don’t have time to read all the blogs through a reader.

Kathmandu

David and I had dinner with Pamela and Scott (of Wingbean) last Friday night at Kathmandu, a Himalayan restaurant in downtown Asheville, N.C. I’d been wanting to try this place out since it opened (last year, I think), but just never got around to it.

Even though it was really pricey and not a place I would go to often for that reason ($60 for two people), it was certainly delicious. The atmosphere was so warm, and as soon as we walked through the door you were hit with the scent of spices from an Indian kitchen. The walls are painted red and adorned with artifacts (real or fake, I’m not sure) from the Himalayan region.

The staff was very helpful, and incredibly knowledgable about the ingredients in all of the dishes. Our waitress (and the couple of other staff members who assisted us during our meal – customer service at this place is incredible!) knew exactly what we needed when we specified that we wanted vegan meals. Also, according to their website, they grind all their own spices and use local ingredients, which is super rad.

We ended up sharing two appetizers, were both deep-fried goodness. For some reason I can’t remember exactly what we got, but I’m pretty sure it was a plate of samosas and another of vegetable pakora.

I decided on the Vege chau chau, a Tibetan noodle dish with garlic, ginger, and vegetables. I also had a few Lhasa beers, which comes with a feeling of having made a small contribution to a good cause – 10% of the profits go to a Tibetan organization.

The dinner was delicious, the staff were incredibly friendly and knowledgable, the atmosphere was cozy. This would be a fabulous place for a date. Or for a double date with awesome people. Like Pamela…

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Gena at Choosing Raw has a really interesting post on the connection between veganism and getting animal-derived vaccinations.

Vegan bacon chocolate?

Don’t forget to like Ahimsa on Facebook.

Wingbean

For folks living in Asheville, NC, an exciting new food option has been created. Wingbean, a vegan food delivery company, will deliver delicious vegan meals to your door.

For $70, you can order “3 entrees, 4 side dishes, a large soup, and a small dessert” (from their website), which will certainly help busy people eat healthy, organic food without the stress of cooking it yourself. Meals are delivered on Mondays right to your door.

Chick Pea of the Sea

There’s a different menu for every new week, so you’ll never have to face eating the same thing over and over.  There are also gluten-free options available. The dishes are beautiful, and I’m sure all of them are incredibly delicious. I’ve had plenty of food prepared by Pamela, and I’ve never been disappointed.

Portobello Steak with Tapenade and Roasted Red Pepper "Cream" Sauce

This would be a fantastic option for people who are too busy too cook, for people who just hate to cook or don’t know how, or people who don’t have access to a kitchen (like students), but who still want to be able to enjoy home-cooked food. Wingbean’s owners, Scott and Pamela, are both gracious, friendly people, so customer service is always going to be great.

Mini BBQ Tofu

To read more about Wingbean, and their services (and to place an order, which you should), take a look at their website and Facebook page, the links to which are below. Their menu for next week looks delicious.

Wingbean
Facebook 
This week’s menu 

(And thanks for Pamela for permission to share some pictures here!!)

 

 

I’ve been working so much I haven’t had much of a chance to cook anything exciting lately. I’m really looking forward to having Thursday off so I can cook all day long. Until then though, here are some of my very favorite recipes from other bloggers.

Smokey Miso Tofu from VeganYumYum
Earl Grey Oatmeal from Bonzai Aphrodite
Polenta and Tofu Skillet from Fatfree Vegan
Beet Pepperoni from Diet, Dessert, & Dogs
Brussels Sprouts with Lemon-Mustard Sauce from Fatfree Vegan

My First Attempt at Pretzels

I’ve been wanting to try my hand at home-made pretzels for awhile, and late last week I gave it a shot. I used the recipe for roasted garlic pretzels from American Vegan Kitchen.

They tasted pretty good, but I’m definitely not good at the whole pretzel thing yet. I think the dough may have been too dry, and then shaping was a bit of a disaster. The dough was difficult to work with, and wasn’t very stretchy. I couldn’t even manage to roll them out into lengthy strips, so the pretzels were all fairly small. I’m sure I’ll be trying again soon.

Here are a few pictures of the process.

Pre-boil

Boiling

Ready to eat

Playing with pretzel shapes

Have any of you tried your hands at pretzels? If so, have you got any tips for me on how to improve my next batch?