We have been cooking from our cookbook rotation program! By we, I mean I, and it's been pretty heavy-handed on the Chloe's Vegan Italian Kitchen. This is Tomato Bread Soup! It's pretty great. And easy! Speaking of Chloe, we have gone to her restaurant about 6 times already since it opened this summer and it is so amazingly delicious. I haven't taken a picture of my food from her restaurant probably because it's a complete madhouse in there and you basically have to pounce on a seat the second someone even motions to get up. Like, put your butt in the chair maybe even before the person has vacated the chair. It's that serious. I've yet to see it not busy, which I assume happens never. Again, another reason to skip it -- but I can't. The food is too good.






We've been to Blossom on Carmine a couple times this fall, both wonderful successes. I finally tried the Salmon Tofu that they are so famous for. It was amazing and maybe a little salmon-like, but mostly tofu-like. That's okay. I'm vegan, so... I wish they would take it easy on the horseradish creme with dill they put on the top. You can just see a tiny sliver of pink underneath it! Overall it tasted great and I would order it again! It's also all about the gnocchi for appetizers!!


We saw Jim Shaw's Entertaining Doubts show at Mass MoCA last month, and knew we wanted to see his show in NYC, The End Is Here, at the New Museum. We went on the weekend of my birthday to check it out! I really like the show in Mass better. The NYC show was more... well, trippy shit. I think his other show certainly had elements of that too, but the overall quality of the work at Mass MoCA was just a lot more appealing. The show at the New Museum has mostly a large collection of his early comics, drawing, and collections of objects or found works. There was at least one room that had 4 or 5 large paintings that were really great, exhibiting his skill while still supporting his satirical style. The rest, well, I wouldn't go back twice.


On the top floor of the New Museum, theres a sky-lounge where you can step out and see the view of the city. It was a little cloudy, but still very impressive! On my actual birthday we went to Paulie Gee's for vegan pizza in Greenpoint, which was delicious, but it's far too dark in there to take any pictures! I noticed a lot of people using the light of their phones to read the menu. However- they make a great effort to include vegans, and not a shabby effort either! They are constantly adding new vegan pizzas to their menu, and their vegan pizza is not just your average daiya cheese. They make their own vegan sausage, vegan cashew ricotta, season with nooch(!) and cary vegan ice cream for dessert. It's pretty expensive for a personal-sized pizza, (18$!!) but honestly, I really appreciate the effort to have such proper vegan options at a pizza place, when they could easily just say, "the tomato pie is vegan" and call it a day. I'm looking at you, Roberta's.

 My husband looking super cute as he always does, at the top of the New Museum in the LES.


While we were food shopping at one point last week, Alex picked up a prickly pear and asked me what it was. I identified it, mostly because I'm a Chopped ninja, but also because ever since my parents visited Texas they have been huge fans of the prickly pear, mostly in margarita form. We bought three and took them home to make a smoothie with them. The seeds dont really grind up well, even after several minutes on high in a Vitamix. If you have a juicer, I think juicing them is the way to go. Otherwise, next time I will think about trying to remove the seeds before blending. They are okay to just drink, but don't try to chew them... They are harder than raspberry seeds. The juice provides this gorgeous hot pink color maybe not otherwise found in nature, and a very delicious sweet taste!

I made my second pizza from Chloe's Vegan Italian Kitchen, the White Wild Mushroom Pizza. This is definitely my spirit pizza. I've discussed at length over many blog posts before, that as a child, I loved mushrooms so much that when my family ordered a party-sized combination pizza I would take all the mushrooms off and put them on my piece. Alex, once a mushroom-hater, really enjoyed this pizza! I was definitely impressed by that, though he said it could be improved by red sauce, to which I disagreed. The Mozzarella Sauce is for real tho.


Alex has been asking me to make gnocchi for him nonstop since we ate gnocchi at Blossom, so I made the Garlic Herb Gnocchi from Chloe's Vegan Italian Kitchen with a vegetable and white bean mix on the side. I say "on the side" because it takes up the whole other side of the plate besides the gnocchi. The gnocchi tasted great, but I think they needed a sauce. I doubled the recipe since she only called for one potato (?).
More weekend adventures and vegan cookbook reviews are to follow!
<3
KZ

I'm certainly no saint, and am only beginning to shift away from junkier, more convenient foods, and foods I'm used to eating. I'm about to share a bunch of photos of not kale so stay with me.


Someday when I have a place where "counterspace" exists, I'll buy a juicer and juice everything that comes in my path.


I got the Pizza Crepe, with marinara, cashew cheese, basil and pepper flakes and it was so amazing.
I ate the whole thing and then eagerly eyed Alex's for bites.



After crepes, we went for coffee, and then watched the Women's World Cup at Banter. Then we moseyed around Manhattan in the rain poking in some record stores while we waited for our reservation at Blossom on Carmine. When we go for fancydinners, we do it right. We each get a special cocktail, we share an appetizer, we each get an entree and we always get dessert. Alex's cocktail choice was the Jaguar Ride, with jalapeño tequila, sriracha bitters, lemon and lime juice, orange liquer and salt rim. It was super spicy and savory. I somehow failed to photograph mine, but I got the Dale Hollow, with angel's envy whiskey, and ginger syrup with mint over ice.



I ordered the pasta, which was orecchiette with ground seitan chorizo, cashew alfredo, sautéed broccolini, artichoke hearts and soy parmesan. Alex was a big fan of this dish too! I think he ate at least half of it! I was super full, otherwise I would have been on defense and eating it all myself.


He got the seitan scallopini, with lemon wine caper sauce and truffled mashed potatoes. Some sautéed kale made an appearance on this plate as well. I am not a giant seitan-lover so I took a bite or two but the truffled mash was the main event on this plate for me.



Overall, we would definitely go back to Blossom on Carmine. We liked it much better than Candle 79, where both of us were pretty disappointed with not only the food, but the service as well. Candle does make a better brownie, however. Still, I don't think we'll go back there. Blossom was better for food for sure.

More from Thug Kitchen, I made Posole Rojo, a spicy soup thickened with chilies and tempeh. I topped it with lots of cabbage and avocado, and unfortunately all you can see are the toppings from this picture that I took, but just use your imagination or something.



Every since that loser sommelier told me that time that I could never understand the finer things in life because I'm vegan, I've been wanting to host a vegan wine and cheese party. Even though all I know about wine is that is comes in red and in white, I'm like really good at drinking it. However, I did not know too much about vegan cheese. From the consensus of the internet, the best vegan cheese to buy is Mikoyo's Kitchen. Despite the company taking 5 days to ship an order I placed, and Fedex not following instructions and doing what they do, I managed to climb to the ends of the Earth to claim what was truly mine -- the best vegan fancycheese on the market. That evening I hosted a vegan wine and cheese party, and by that I mean I brought my fancy vegan cheese over to my aunt's cottage and shared it with everyone. I was the only vegan at this party but the vegan cheese went over super well, especially amongst certified vegan-haters, and cheese-haters alike. Even alex, who only likes the cheese that comes on pizza, seemed to enjoy the cheese!


Of course I served it with classy stone fruits! We also served them with triscuit crackers because we are fancy. The flavors I ordered were Double Cream Chive, which was a creamy (obviously) spreadable cheese that reminded me of boursin cheese. It was overwhelmingly the most popular. The second kind was Sundried Tomato Garlic, also a double cream variation, also spreadable, but more sundried tomato and garlicky, as one might expect. I loved this one as well. The third kind was Mt. Vesuvius Black Ash, which was a much harder cheese, with a smoky and sharp taste. It was nice that all three weren't the same texture and sharpness. I am more a fan of the creamy variety but I would still choose to order a cheese like this next time for variety of the fancycheeses.


This is my plate with some of each kind. Oh don't worry I had much much more than this.

My aunt and uncle got a new puppy while we were visiting. His name is Redford, and he is adorable. When I came to visit he was fast asleep. My uncle tried really hard to wake him up but his machinery was switched off. Nothing could wake him up! We let him sleep because he looked super cute. When he woke up he played tug of war with my mom for an hour and nipped everyone and everything in sight.

I've been going nuts on Salad Samurai still. I've been trying to make more of the Summer Chapter salads because I spent a lot of time this winter making the winter ones, but it's nice to make salads filled with summery produce. This is the BKT bowl, the B being Tempeh bacon, the K standing for Kale, rather than your ordinary L(lettuce), and tomatoes were traditional and unadulterated here. There was avocado and red onion as well all tossed in a mustardy-citrus vinaigrette. It was so good I am going to make it again tonight!


Another salad I've been making over and over is the Orange Poppyseed Tofu Salad with Strawberries, which also has blueberries, orange segments, and Sriracha and Smoke Pecans. The pecans are like crack. I learned from times prior to make a double batch. The pecans take only 15 minutes and the tofu about 30. In the 15 minutes while the tofu finishes and the pecans are out of the oven, I eat them all. Fast. There are like 5 pecans left to put in the salad. I learned, and made a double batch this time! This salad is unbelievable dope and it makes me enjoy summer just a little more.