Vegan MoFo Day 9 - Smorgasburg!

I'd been hearing great things about Smorgasburg, a foodie festival that takes place in Willamsburg, Brooklyn every Saturday, for awhile. It's run by the same people who host Brooklyn Flea on Sundays, but Smorgasburg is all about the edibles. Johnny and I decided to check it out, but the subway to Williamsburg wasn't running at the time. So we took a trip on the new East River Ferry. It was so much fun! It stops in Manhattan on 34th Street - very close to our apartment - and another stop is exactly at the Smorgasburg site in Willamsburg. Perfect! It was lots of fun to be out in the fresh air, enjoying the sun for one last time before the colder temps make outdoorsy activity less probable. 

The ferry with a view of Manhattan - how pretty!

Smorgasburg has lots of vendors selling food that's ready to eat and there are also vendors selling groceries to take home. On this particular day, there was also a record festival going on, which is perfect since we're trying to add to our record collection!

We did a quick cruise around all the tents before deciding what to eat - no easy feat since it was pretty crowded and we were starving. Barry's Tempeh stand caught my eye right away and it's where I ended up purchasing my first course - a BBQ tempeh sandwich. The tempeh is made right in Brooklyn from local grains, beans and seasonings. It was really good! The sandwich was kept simple, with the tempeh cubed and smothered in a tangy, smoky BBQ sauce, and a sesame hamburger bun. The sauce had caramelized a bit and was sticky, crunchy and sweet. Yummmmm. I think I might re-create this and add some vegan cole slaw on top. 

Next up, I headed for the Kombucha Brooklyn stand where they had fresh Kombucha on tap! I've only had bottled Kombucha before, so I was excited to try it this way. I went for the Mellow Yellow mild Kombucha. It was pretty good, but a bit strong for my taste. Something in it - ginger perhaps? - made it a bit spicy. Still overall it was a refreshing beverage for a hot day. But it looked like a cup of pee, so I didn't bother taking a picture. 

Finally, I made my way to Rob & Anna's, a stand selling frozen, blended banana soft serve. (Rob & Anna's = raw bananas... get it?) I was so happy to see that one of their toppings was VEGAN CHOCOLATE SAUCE! The sweet, clean banana flavor and the light chocolate sauce were the perfect combo. I am definitely gonna try to make my own banana soft serve at home - just blend frozen bananas in a food processor till smooth... I can handle that!

Johnny spent the day eating some very non-vegan items (ahem), but for dessert he checked out People's Pops. They have a big slab of ice and shave the ice right in front of your eyes! They had a bunch of crazy syrups to add in, like red pepper and cantaloupe chai. Johnny went for the Concord grape and absolutely devoured the icy concoction. 

After we were stuffed, we wandered around the grocery stalls and picked up some goodies. I bought a pound of Red Merlot beans from Brooklyn Bean. They had an amazing assortment of dried beans, many of which were local, and they were all $4/pound - not bad by Smorgasburg standards! I also got some insanely delicious whole grain mustard from Tin Mustard that is not too spicy, not too sweet, and the whole mustard seeds burst in your mouth. Delicious! Finally, we got a bag of Better Than Brittle, a vegan peanut brittle that is "West African Style". The peanuts are ground before the brittle is made and they use much less sugar that other brittles - and no corn syrup. The result is so peanutty and crunchy, a perfect snack! 

We picked out a few records and then made our way home on the ferry with our haul. Quite the productive and scrumptious Saturday! I highly recommend the East River Ferry and Smorgasburg for a quintessential New York day!

Vegan MoFo Day 6 - Vegan Package Swap!

Aside from this being the first year I am participating in Vegan MoFo, it's also the first year I participated in the Vegan Care Package Swap! It is hosted by Lindsay over at Cook, Vegan, Lover and to participate I just submitted my name to her back in September and was paired up with someone to swap care packages with. I was paired up with Michelle from lovinlivinvegan and can I say it has just been a joy getting to know Michelle over the past few weeks! Michelle lives in Tennessee and I live in New York, so it's been awesome to compare and contrast what it's like to be a vegan in such different geographic locations. I told her early on that it was so exciting to chat with her over e-mail because I don't even know any vegans in "real life"! She's such a sweetie and I'm sure our friendship will continue even after the care package swap concludes!

I received Michelle's package on Tuesday and it was such a lovely feeling to open up a big box of amazing vegan goodies that were all hand-picked just for me! Here's what I got: a spice mix for roasted veggies and fries; dried mango chips; Yogi Calming tea; granola bites; some crackers from a country store; Vitamin C lollipops; coconut flour; all-purpose sauce; a cute little chick scrubber; and (not pictured) a bag of Sea Salt PopCorners popcorn chips and some Nana's chocolate cookie bars! That's a lot of stuff!

So far, I have already inhaled the entire bag of PopCorners (those things are good!) and last night I cracked open the mango chips, only to find they had disappeared a few minutes later. Who knew dried mango slices could be so darn tasty? I also sampled the Nana's cookie bars - which are vegan AND gluten-free - and they're quite delicious. And the Vitamin C lollipops are so genius - Johnny is battling a cold right now that I don't want to catch and there's no yummier way to boost my Vitamin C intake than by sucking on a lolli. I can't wait to try all the other items, I'm especially excited to try to Coconut Flour and will be hunting for just the right recipe to use it in. 

Thanks so much to Lindsay for hosting and organizing the swap, it's such a great way to get to know a fellow vegan! And thanks to Michelle for being so rad and for sending me such a thoughtful care package! (Michelle will hopefully be receiving her package on Friday, so be sure to check out her blog for her upcoming post! Plus her blog is just really cool to read anyway)

Vegan MoFo Day 5 - Call Snookie, I'm Officially a Juicehead

Has everyone gotten tired of hearing about juice/ juicing/ juice fasts/ juice feasts/ juicy-juicy-juice-juice? I know, this is hardly a new topic to be introducing to the blog-o-sphere, but c'mon! We all have our own relationships with juice, our own stories to tell. Surely a blogger cannot be denied her right to discuss her juice tale at length. So relax, take a deep breath, and float with me down this celery-scented river...

Johnny has been begging me to purchase a juicer for years now. He saw a Jack LaLane infomercial at 3:00am five years ago and I guess it stuck with him. He's a bit susceptible to infomercials - he's also begged me to order the Bullet blender, a steam cleaner, velvet hangers, and a lot of other crap over the years - but while those items came and went, the desire for a juicer stayed with him. I was hesitant to cave to his request as I've heard so many people admit, "I bought a juicer, used it twice, then threw it out of my car window while driving down I-10". Our kitchen certainly isn't big enough to house any unnecessary appliances. Would we really drink juice all that much? What if the juice tasted gross?

Then I received the book "Crazy, Sexy Diet" by Kris Carr for my birthday this year. Many peeps are already familiar with her, but in case you're not: Kris Carr was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer in her early 30s and given months to live. She took a radical approach to her health and as a result, she is now 40-years-old and is cancer-free! Her road to recovery included a lot of juice, raw fruits and veggies, and whole grains. She completely cut out animal products, processed and refined foods, sugar, and alcohol. She credits this diet with saving her life. Pretty cool, huh?

A few weeks ago, something snapped and I finally decided to order a juicer from Amazon. It arrived one Tuesday and sat there in its box, just waiting for me to love it. It sat there and sat there for 4 days. I wasn't sure where to begin and I felt a little anxious about it.

For inspiration, I decided to watch the documentary, "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead" on Netflix. It follows a guy named Joe from Australia who is 100 pounds overweight and who struggles with health issues, including a rare auto-immune disorder that causes him to have a painful rash over most of his body. He is taking lots of steroids and other medications and his diet consists of mostly fast food and little or no fruits and veggies. One day, he decides he's had enough and he embarks on a 60-day trip around America during which he will consume nothing but fresh vegetable and fruit juice. 60 DAYS!

The results are staggering. Joe is able to wean himself of all medication, including steroids. His rash and other medical issues completely clear up. He loses all 100 pounds and becomes more energized and active than he's been in decades. He's the picture of health and he attributes it all to juicing. And mid-way through the movie, he's contacted by Phil, a truck-driver he met in Winslow, AZ (of all places) and Phil needs Joe's help. Phil is tipping the scales at 400+ pounds, he suffers from as many health conditions as Joe did, and he's severely depressed about where his life is headed. With Joe's help, Phil drops 200 pounds and becomes a health-nut! I literally broke down in tears as Phil, who previously could barely walk, is shown jogging down the road like a seasoned marathon runner. Powerful stuff, y'all!

That was the inspiration I needed. It was all I could do not to pause the movie and go make my juice right away, but the movie was too interesting to stop! As the credits rolled, I unearthed my Breville Juice Fountain from all its packaging. I rinsed it all in hot, soapy water and familiarized myself with the Users' Manual. Then I plugged it in and got to work. My first batch of juice consisted of: 1/2 package organic baby carrots; 4 stalks celery; 1 pint raspberries; 2 green apples; and 1 small bunch of kale. The juice was a strange greenish-brown color and smelled not unlike freshly cut grass. Johnny emerged from the bedroom, all sleepy-eyed and curious, like a tot on Christmas morn'. I handed him a glass of the stuff and we both took a sip. "Not bad!" he said as his eyes brightened. I concurred.

Peany Lyman, decidedly not wheezing the juice. 

I'm not gonna lie, juice might be a little hard to take if you're not already a lover of fresh fruits and veggies. But if you've ever craved a salad or wanted an apple instead of a piece of candy, I think you'd dig this stuff! My first batch was a bit heavy on the celery (Johnny said my breath still smelled like celery later that night, teehee!), but it's been so much trying out combinations of fruit and veggies to see what I come up with. I've loved adding fresh ginger to give the juice a zip, concord grapes for sweetness, and parsley and spinach for nutrition. It's a great way to use up produce at the end of the week that might otherwise go bad, or to buy up produce that's on sale at the store. I can see how people get hooked on juice, just the thought of it is making me salivate as if I were dreaming about a pile of french fries!  

Now let's get something straight here: I'm am, always have been, and always will be staunchly against extreme food fasts. I've witnessed one too many girls in my life hallucinating and on the verge of passing out because they've consumed nothing but water with lemon juice and cayenne pepper in it for 2 weeks straight. Their goal is usually to fit into a cute dress for their high school reunion, then as soon as the fast ends they go back to eating normal food and gain back every ounce of weight they lost. To me that seems a bit counter-productive and I've never wanted any part of that. 

However, as Joe consumed his juice for 60 days in "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead", he made me see that "fasts" don't always have to be dangerous experiments you read about in Cosmo. He was monitored by doctors every step of the way, he still consumed a good amount of calories, and his main goal was never to lose weight simply to make the guy who dumped him senior year feel like crap. His goal was to be healthy and that's always an objective I can stand behind.

I don't think I'm quite ready to take the plunge and do an all out juice fast quite yet. For now, I think I'll be happy occasionally drinking a big glass of green juice in lieu of breakfast or lunch. Cheers!

Vegan MoFo Day 3 - "Papa Tofu Loves Ethiopian Food" Review

Hello my friends! For Day 3 of Vegan MoFo I wanted to bring your attention to an awesome new cooking zine I got my hands on recently. It's called "Papa Tofu Loves Ethiopian Food" and it's written by Miss Kittee Berns. Anyone who is a vegan and is also gluten-free has GOT to know about her. Kittee is an absolute rockstar when it comes to cooking and baking without animal products or gluten. In fact, she even coined the term "xgfx" as the shorthand for "vegan and gluten-free". Pretty ingenious, huh?

Kittee writes a blog called The Cakemaker to the Stars, is also a founder and contributor to the site xgfx.org, and she is one of the organizers of Vegan MoFo. In her spare time, she self-publishes a series of cooking zines that are quite legendary in the vegan-verse. Her latest, "Papa Tofu Loves Ethiopian Food" focuses on... Ethiopian food! It's a topic which has never been fully covered in any vegan cookbook before, and as I read through the zine I came to realize what a fascinating cuisine it truly is.  

Personally, I've been a fan of Ethiopian food since I first set foot in Zemam's, a wonderful little restaurant back in Tucson. It feels more like you're eating in someone's home than in a restaurant. For those not familiar with Ethiopian food, you order several dishes to try (either on your own or as a group) and the food is served in heaps on top of a big piece of airy flatbread called injera. You get extra injera on the side and you scoop up and eat the food with it. No flatware! Eating with your hands may seem strange, but as they say at Zemam's, the majority of the world's inhabitants eat with their hands and it's quite fun! Most Ethiopian food is highly spiced (but not necessarily spicy) and the flavors are unlike any other cuisine I've tried. It's the perfect food for vegans and vegetarians because they offer a lot of lentil and vegetable based dishes. Yum!

Anyway, back to Papa Tofu! Kittee really did her research on this one. She starts off by giving a very helpful intro to the spices and ingredients you'll need to make the recipes. Two of the most important items are berbere, a spice blend, and niter kibbeh, a spiced butter or margarine that is used in place of cooking oil. I was able to find berbere at Kalustyan's, my neighborhood ethnic foods market, but the niter kibbeh has to be prepared at home. 

The meal I made thanks to Kittee!

There are so many amazing dishes to choose from in this zine, it's hard to narrow it down! I decided to cook the Lentils in Spicy Gravy and Collard Greens. I actually planned on making the Black Eyed Pea Sausages, but I was out of black eyed peas. Those are definitely on my radar for next time!

All in all, I found the recipes really easy to follow and spot-on with the measurements. Anytime I was confused by a word or term, I referred back to the intro. As everything cooked, the scents kept luring Johnny into the kitchen to check out the action and say, "It smells so good in here!" The lentils had so many flavors and the fresh tomatoes were a perfect ingredient. The overall dish turned out a little spicier than I anticipated, but neither of us mind a little heat. And the collards, cooked with a touch of cinnamon, were so delicious. Since I didn't get to cook the Black Eyed Pea Sausages, I served the lentils over some brown Basmati rice and the flavors went together quite well. And, since I cooked this on a weeknight and was short on time, I didn't get to tackle her recipe for homemade injera (she calls 'em Injera Fakeouts since they are GF). I bought some frozen Chaptis (Indian flatbread) and grilled them up and they were delicious. It was a cross-cultural dinner for sure, but everything worked together nicely. "Eaters Without Borders" I like to call us.

And can I just take a minute to say how cool it is that zines still exist? Zine culture was so big in the 90s (as everyone knows, my favorite decade) and the thought that you can still have a great idea, cut and paste it into a booklet, photocopy it and distribute it to the masses warms my little heart. Kittee does such a good job adhering to the feeling of those old zines while making it look polished and modern. Well done!

I can't wait to make more of the recipes from "Papa Tofu Loves Ethiopian Food" as the weather cools. I highly recommend picking up a copy of your own! You can purchase it on Kittee's web site here.

Vegan MoFo Day 2: Nutella Stuffed French Toast!

Okay, so I'm a day late and a dollar short to this whole MoFo thing. It technically started yesterday, but my awesome friends John and Katie got married and the whole day just kinda got away from me (in the best way possible). Luckily for Day Two I have something fan-freaking-tastic to post about! 

During October, Sundays here on The Odd Couple Eats will be dedicated to brunch recipes. I wanted to come out of the gate with a bang and I whipped up a doozy today! Did you know Nutella isn't vegan? It contains milk ingredients which is a HUGE BUMMER. I got to reading on the internets and found out that it's not too hard to make your own vegan hazelnut-chocolate spread (a.k.a. Nutella), so I knew it would be a great project to tackle during MoFo. 

I bought some raw hazelnuts and got to work roasting them. After they were browned, I took them out of the oven and let them cool. I could hear the skins crackling as they cooled, which meant that the meat was pulling away from the skin (dirty). I then placed the nuts in a kitchen towel and rubbed them together (ahhh!) and the skins came off pretty well. Here's what it looked like:

Pretty! And roasted hazelnuts smell amazing. I proceeded to make the Nutella and got it to chilling while I prepped the French Toast ingredients. 

I used Isa Chandra Moskowitz's "Fronch Toast" recipe from her book "Vegan with a Vengeance." It really gets the job done like no other vegan French Toast recipe I've tried. However, it does call for chickpea flour which I was unable to find at the grocery store. I had some dried chickpeas, so I decided to see if I could make then into flour and lo and behold, it worked! I processed them in my food processor for about 37 years and then passed it through a sifter to get out any chunks. Be warned, the sound of chickpeas whirring around in the food processor makes the worst, loudest sound you'll ever hear! Something akin to the Dementors from Harry Potter crossed with a subway with screechy brakes. Johnny managed to sleep through the whole thing, but I was yearning for ear plugs. If you can find chickpea flour at the store, by all means snatch it up!

I assembled two slices of bread with Nutella in between, dipped them in the Fronch Toast batter, and fried in a thin layer of Canola Oil in a skillet for about 7 minutes on each side. I then sprinkled with powdered sugar and served with organic maple syrup, tempeh bacon, and baby concord grapes. What a delicious way to start a Sunday!

Johnny was super impressed with everything and says he has "no critiques whatsoever" for this dish. Good, because anyone who doesn't enjoy this recipe is quite simply out of their mind!

Nutella Stuffed French Toast

Serves 2

Vegan Nutella

1 1/4 cups raw hazelnuts

3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

2 tbsp powdered sugar

1/4 cup Canola oil

French Toast

1 loaf French bread (I used a small organic whole wheat loaf)

1/2 cup soy creamer

1/2 cup soy milk

2 tbsp corn starch

1/4 cup chickpea flour

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spread the hazelnuts in a single layer on a cookie sheet and roast for 20-25 minutes, stirring once to ensure even browning. Remove from oven and allow to cool for several minutes, then pour into a clean kitchen towel. Gather the towel into a bundle and rub together until most of the hazelnut skin has come off. Transfer the skinned hazelnuts to a food processor. Blend for about 5 minutes or until the hazelnuts have become like a butter. Be sure to scrape down the sides and pulse so as not to overload your food processor. Add in the cocoa, powdered sugar, and drizzle in the oil as you continue blending until you have a spreadable consistency. The Nutella will become thicker as it cools. Transfer to an airtight container or jar and place in the refrigerator. 


Slice your loaf of bread into 1/2" pieces. In a large, shallow dish whisk together the soy creamer, soy milk, corn starch and chickpea flour until well combined. Begin heating a large skillet over medium heat coated with a thin layer of Canola oil. Take a slice of bread and spread about a tablespoon of Nutella on it, then cover with another piece of bread. Dip both sides into the batter then place in the heated skillet. Allow to cook for 7 minutes, then flip and cook for another 7 minutes, or until deeply browned. Continue until you have used all your bread. 


Top with a sprinkle of powdered sugar and serve with maple syrup. 


And now for a few gratuitous pictures of the gorgeous wedding. Congrats John & Katie! <3