The asian market was completely amazing. I found almost everything I needed there. I left with a very long receipt with many many bottles of soy sauces, vinegars, bags of spices, varieties of asian greens, and noodles of many sorts. I probably had close to 30 items... maybe more. The most expensive item I bought (organic green jasmine tea-- best thing ever) cost only $3.50! A ballin' haul, if I've ever carried one. A word on ingredient scavenger hunting: It is the most exciting thing for me. When I have written down something I need for a recipe to snag if I ever came across it, and search high and low for it, but then finally spy it, I pounce. It reminds me of a young monk in training, sitting in the lotus position, waiting until the time is right to catch a fly in his hand (he of course, lets the fly go, to give a happy vegan ending to my story). It's a strange way to get high on life, I know, but nothing quite excites me as much as when I know my pantry is incomplete and I have finally found the missing piece to complete it. Weird? Some of you must understand me.


They look cute too.




Not the best shot of my Pad Kee Mao.



Here's a portion of my successful haul from the Indian market. My favorite part of these trips are getting home and laying out all your new finds and admiring them in a nice and large accomplished pile. Once I am back to health, I will surely hit up the closest middle eastern market and make beautiful beautiful things happen with my amazing finds. P.S. Get Vegan Eats World if you haven't already!

 This was fun to make, though I wish I had a chance to make the seitan the day before, since it takes a while to cool after baking. Then you can get started cooking it-- if you can stop from popping pieces into your mouth. Seitan makes it pretty impossible for you to miss meat. Also, mushrooms are an amazing thing. I have been in love with mushrooms since childhood. I have a memory of getting a party size pizza and taking all the mushrooms off the pizza and piling them on my piece.  Anyhow, this recipe is made to rival the traditional Belgian stew, Carbonade Flamande. Ever heard of it? Me neither.



It was really easy to make. A good thing to make on a night you don't need to do anything special (except eat this). It has plenty of downtime, to relax, flip through your new beautiful hardcover cookbook, see all the pretty pictures, bookmark what you want to make.. Oh, and I made some oven fries to dip! No picture of the fries, but you can picture oven fries no prob, right?
Pick up Terry's new book, Vegan Eats World, and make something awesome, like this!

Here I am kickin' it old school, as I have been for the last 25 years.

Vegan Eats World drops to the rest of the world on October 30th, but is available for pre-order on amazon. This is a great book to add to your collection, plus it's got a super cute cover.

 Strawberry Rhubarb Muffins. Back to my roots, and the very dawn of my baking days. My mom used to make strawberry muffins in the summer after picking enough strawberries to fill the fridge, freezer, and stock-pile freezer in case of nuclear warfare. I once made these muffins for my co-workers back home, and they went crazy for them! I was then inundated with requests for more. My recipe, just like all good recipes, has been updated, given the switch-up, and been re-run the vegan remix on. The addition of rhubarb to this muffin is no mistake. Soy yogurt brings it in for the home run.

Have I mentioned that I am testing recipes for Terry Hope Romero's new international-themed cookbook? Well I sure am. I've tested 20 recipes so far and feel like I've both run a marathon, or cookathon rather, and took a jet to vietnam. I plan to make at least 10 more of her recipes, because then I get a free book. Score.
 Ban Xeo
This is a rice flour crepe with spices and spinach, mushroom and tofu filling.  Apparently it is rather popular in Vietnam. I've never had real Vietnamese food, because I was assured that everything has fish sauce in it. Who knew?

 This is the mock fish sauce I was just telling you about. It's working title is Mock Nuoc Cham sauce. It called for a whole red chile, but I still can't taste the heat. Yup, too punk for red chiles.. I need like three.



Pickles!!
Come on, you've really ever met a person who didn't like pickles? I don't believe you. This was my first pickle-making experience and my life is now re-purposed. I told her that she should write a cookbook about pickles. Maybe how to make fancy pickles out of weird things, and all different ideas on what to put pickles on. There could be a relish-chapter? These pictured are daikon radish and carrot pickled with star anise and green chiles, though the chiles don't really retain their heat after soaking. I left the seeds in hoping they would. Made a killer bahn mi breakfast scramble that I forgot to take a picture of before devouring.

Naan
Everyone's favorite Indian flatbread. Unless you're favorite Indian flatbread is paratha. Or Roti. Anyways, it's my favorite, so that's why I made it. It was so late on a weeknight, and I was sooo full from dinner, but still I decided to make this, and couldn't stop ripping pieces off and eating them. It was so good, I would make this again for sure, next time I get a stew goin'. P.S this naan looks a lot like New Jersey (Naan Jersey?).


This is a Two-In-One recipe picture, of Jollof Tomato Rice, which is of West African origin, and I hadn't heard of it before I made it. It's baked rice with tomato paste and other things. It tastes awesome. Needed more heat, so I dumped a bunch of hot sauce in. It is pictured with the Seitan Corriander Cutlets, which also had great flavor. I ought to make more seitan. Viva Vegan has a bunch of good seitan recipes I need to try. I will try this recipe again as well.

Basic baked tofu
Teriyaki-tasting, chewy, appropriate for mostly all things. I used it in the Ban Xeo crepes today. I often put it in salads, burritos, stir-fries, soups, chilies, sandwiches, on top of pasta dishes, on rice, my boyfriend's head...

Terry's book seems like it's going to be great. I realized that it's so important to make comfort food accessible for vegans, otherwise, people aren't going to stick with the diet. It's always hardest when you're hungry and you're around family and food you grew up eating. I can't tell you how many times I've had people say to me, "I was so inspired by what you do and the food you make, so I started eating vegan, but then I visited my family from Texas, or my uncle paul from Sweden and my Aunt Lucia from   Hamburg or my Grandpa from Kalamazoo and they made me all this great meaty food, so I stopped." And I'm like... "Oh. Cool Story Bro." Just kidding, but that's just it. People don't want to miss out on great food. And that's why I think it's so great that Terry has made it her mission to veganize cultural favorites from around the world. That way when I show up at Wigelia with a pan of vegan pierogi and a bottle of Visnowka, I can have my cake and eat it too. And I can share it with my family and we can all continue a great tradition together. So I think it's a great idea for a cookbook. Get it, Girl!