Build a Better Bagel

If everything goes according to plan, this entry will post itself on Thursday. Happy Thanksgiving to the people who celebrate it! I'm not cooking Thanksgiving dinner this year and I have my blog posts set up in advance, so my Thanksgiving writeup will happen one day next week, probably to close out MoFo.

If I had a nickle for every time someone getting ready to visit or move to New York asked me where to get the best bagel, I'd have...at least a dollar. I spent most of my life confused by the idea of the "best" bagel because I grew up in Brooklyn, where (as far as I knew) all bagels were pretty much the same. And by "pretty much the same", I mean "the best thing in the world". In fact, I didn't even know bad bagels existed until I was in my 20s and working in midtown Manhattan. So instead of tips for finding the best bagel, here are a few ways to avoid shitty bagels:

• Don't buy them from street trucks.
• Don't buy them from (inter)national chains. This includes Starbucks, Tim Horton's and Dunkin Donuts. They may taste fine, but they're still not the same as a "real" New York bagel.
• Actually, to simplify, don't buy them any place that doesn't have the word "bagel" in the name. Or at least in big letters on a sign in the window. Or, failing that, carry at least eight different kinds and clearly does the bulk of its business in bagels.
•  Don't buy them if you're really far from NYC. Make your own, instead. It's not nearly as difficult as you'd think.

 This bagel breaks the first part of the third rule, since it's from Milk 'N Honey:

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So Much Food

I think I should point out that the meals you're seeing here aren't all that indicative of what I usually get for lunch. I almost never get dessert and I often get soup or a sandwich, but rarely both. I want to present a good sampling of what these places have to offer, though, so I'm splurging a bit (and sometimes finishing lunch for dinner).

Today's Midtown Manhattan lunch came from FreeFoods NYC.

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Welcome Back!

We meet again, MoFos. We're back with a new week and a new theme: Sea Life. Five days, five dishes, five sea plants for us to get to know a little better.

Today's plant: Hijiki
Used in: Hijiki Chickpea Salad Sandwich from Vegan with a Vengeance

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Open Letter to Bruce Banner

Dear Bruce:

May I call you Bruce? No? OK, then. Please calm down, sir.

Dear Mr. Banner:

It was recently brought to my attention (by my little brother) that you've gone vegan. Congratulations on making the compassionate choice! I'm sure you'll find the vegan lifestyle to be satisfying and fulfilling for both your ethics and your taste buds. However, he also pointed out the following incident, which occurred while you were living under the name Bixby:

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The Meal So Nice...

... I ate it twice!

OK, that's not really such a big deal. I eat a lot of the same thing over and over again because most recipes serve at least four and I usually cook for one, but I liked the rhyme. Recently, dinner was chickpea cutlets with mashed potatoes, gravy and steamed broccoli. The next day, I rolled it all up and took it for lunch as a wrap. It tasted far better than it looked!

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Greetings and Salutations!

Welcome to week one of VeganMoFo! As promised, this week is Chickpea Week on this here blog, where we will explore a legume so versatile it's popularly known by at least three different names. They're such great multitaskers, I think calling garbanzo beans tiny little delicious miracles is only a very slight exaggeration. Let's start with what I think is the ceci bean's most popular use (if not, it's definitely in the top three): hummus! When I'm not just eating it on everything I can fit in my mouth, my favorite hummus use is in a wrap.

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This is a Post...

...In which I prattle about my Caribbean vacation and what I ate there.
Let's get the obvious out of the way: Barbados is beautiful.

Moving on!

Their system of agriculture is VERY different from that of the US. I had a whole list of fruits I wanted to try, but only got to some because my host's friends and family didn't have any at the time. And we couldn't just go to the store and buy some. According to my friend, if you want breadfruit, soursopp, etc. you don't go to the store. You go to your neighbor, who cuts some off the tree for you. One person seemed offended we went to the coconut guy (below) instead of getting our coconut water from him.

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Looking Forward to Leftovers

One thing the veg-friendly of NYC look forward to this time of year is the Thanksgiving Leftovers Sandwich from 'SNice (which now has two locations). This year, I was inspired to make my own.

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A Moveable Feast

I have a confession to make: Sometimes, when I'm going someplace, I look more forward to packing something to eat than to what I'll be doing. This is especially true of going to work. And so, here's a post dedicated to the food I've been packing myself for the last few days.

Behold! Today's lunch!

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Month of 1000 Birthdays

Well, just five, really. But they were all mine! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

Ahem.

Sorry.

Aaaaanyway...Sunday, May 10, was my birthday, but I've been fortunate enough to have it acknowledged five times this month. All with awesome edibles.

The first time was my office birthday party on the seventh. Since I like baking and finding vegan cake in midtown Manhattan is kind of a pain in the ass, I make my own birthday cake every year and my boss reimburses me $20 for it. This year, I made a giant chocolate mint cupcake (please note the phone in the background for scale):



I tripled the Chocolate Mint Cupcake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, and covered it with mint icing, Quick Melty Ganache and chocolate mint lentils. It was dangerously good. The mint makes the cake seem lighter than regular chocolate cake, and this cake pan kind of keeps you from going overboard with the icing, so if you're not careful, you can just keep eating this cake until suddenly your platter is empty and you've gained twenty pounds. Twenty tasty, tasty pounds. If you haven't tried this recipe yet (and like mint), please do. But proceed with caution.

The absolute best part of making the chocolate mint cake is...well...did you ever buy the mint Girl Scout cookies? Do you remember the aroma that would waft out and hit you in the face when you opened the box? Well, when you're making this cake, your ENTIRE KITCHEN SMELLS LIKE MINT GIRL SCOUT COOKIE WAFTINGS! It's an amazing thing. If you have a really tiny apartment, you can probably hotbox yourself in minty goodness. Awesome.

In case you're wondering, I made it using this cake pan, which was a gift from the same awesome people who gave me the boat cake pan. I guess they kind of know me pretty well. If you want to see how the cake assembly works, just browse backward from here.

Then, the Tofu Takedown was on my actual birthday. Obviously, I celebrated with lots of cannoli. Then we moved the party to Curly's Lunch, followed by Lula's Sweet Apothecary, where I got carrot cake ice cream (in a sugar cone!!) which tasted like the creamiest pumpkin pie ever. It was difficult to keep my pants on (especially since I was wearing a dress).

May 16 was mostly a celebration for other people, but I received my share of birthday wishes and brought the Raspberry Chocolate Chip Blondie Bars from Vegan With a Vengeance. They're definitely one of my favorite things and only take about an hour to make, which is pretty awesome. I didn't take any pictures this time, but they looked just like the ones I made for Election Day.

My family and I celebrated my birthday, Mother's Day and my mother's birthday (the 8th) on the 17th because I was busy taking down tofu on the 10th. I tried to make a cake out of the Brooklyn vs. Boston Cream Pie recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, but kind of failed:



Pastry creme is just not what to use when trying to stick layers together. I should have known that from my last pastry creme debacle, but no one ever said I was a fast learner. I spent a good part of my afternoon cleaning ganache and pastry creme off the door of my refrigerator. I will not tell you whether or not I licked the fridge.

Lastly, my friends and I celebrated my birthday on the 24th in Philadelphia. Thanks to an awesome friend who did all sorts of veganny research, we ate at Basic Four Vegetarian Snack Bar and New Harmony Vegetarian Restaurant. At Basic Four, I had the best freaking tofu scramble I've ever eaten that I didn't make myself. Their potatoes are really good too. Most importantly, there was vegan Philly cheesesteak. I don't have words for how good this was, so just eat it with your eyes:



Please note that the picture does not do it justice.

New Harmony was a vegan Chinese buffet of awesomeness. Even the tea, orange slices and pineapple chunks were better than most. I gave faux shrimp another try (the first time I tried it, it tasted like fish - BLECH!) and even liked that.

Another friend brought Mexican Hot Chocolate cupcakes from VCTOTW. They're always wonderful and were a great pick-me-up between finding twenty (yes, TWENTY) geocaches and visiting The Mutter Museum, which is more than slightly awesome.

If you're reading this, good job with the vegan food, Philadelphia! I want to walk in your subway tunnels and eat many of your sandwiches!

Dont Fear the Seitan

So I was all psyched up to make Julie Hasson's famous sausages this weekend when my friend said she'd gotten BBQ seitan at a restaurant. Follower that I am, I wanted BBQ seitan too, so I made the BBQ Seitan and Crispy Coleslaw Sandwich from Veganomicon. Isa and Terry say the sandwich is based on one they had at 'Snice and few things can recommend a recipe to me more strongly than a comparison to 'Snice, so I was sold. I made Simple Seitan, Backyard BBQ Sauce and Home-Style Potato Rolls (all from VCON), put it all together with some coleslaw (included in sandwich recipe) and a bit of Vegannaise and died and went to heaven.

I know a lot of people are wary of making seitan. After The Lambs' Brains Debacle of '08, I understand why (thanks to Trina for that visual). But this was my second time making the Simple Seitan, and it's wonderful yet again. Clearly, it wasn't beginner's luck. This is just a fool proof way to make seitan. And to prove seitan making isn't scary or difficult (just time consuming), I'm going to take you through it with pictures (I think I did this last time, too, but I definitely took more pictures this time). In case you're not interested in all that, here's what my mouth is going to see as soon as this is posted:



The beginning of making seitan isn't much different from baking. Mix your dry ingredients (in this case, vital wheat gluten and nutritional yeast):



Mix your wet ingredients (oil, garlic, soy sauce and some other stuff):



Combine your wet and dry. Mix it up, knead it for a while and cut it in thirds:



Throw it in a pot with some broth, bring it to a boil, simmer for a while, drain:



Tada! Your seitan is done and ready to be used in the recipe of your choice. It was my choice to slice it up:



And grill it in a grill pan brushed with peanut oil:



I think grill marks are sexy:



I tossed the grilled seitan in the Backyard BBQ Sauce and re-grilled:



Hot grill lines:



Don't forget to make your coleslaw:



Then, slice a roll in half, give it a little shmear of Vegannaise, a drizzle of BBQ sauce if you have bigger balls than me (the Backyard BBQ Sauce is too spicy for me plain, but it's perfect in the sandwich), pile on your coleslaw, top that with seitan, squish down the top bun and have the best lunch ever. It's one of the many recipes I've found in Veganomicon that leave me thinking "I can't believe this came out of my kitchen!"