Saturday. Sunday.

Saturday started with a burger from Umami:

I got the only veggie option, the Earth Burger (“mushroom and edamame patty, white soy aioli, truffle ricotta, cipollini onions, lettuce, slow-roasted tomato”). Frankly, I was unimpressed. It was decent, but I was expecting so much more because of the hype. Mr. X said his burger was really good, though, so maybe it was just the vegetarian option that was lackluster.

Anyway, we were then off to the beach:

Unlike the previous Saturday, it was cool and cloudy, so the crowds were much thinner. It was perfect weather for lying down and reading, but we still got plenty of swimming in, too.

Saturday night was the gourmet meal I posted about yesterday. Sunday morning was my CSA pick-up, which you saw the day before that. The market is right by Trader Joe’s, so I park in their garage, do my pick-up, and then get the rest of the groceries (followed by Ralph’s, when needed). My favorite thing about the underground parking is this genius contraption:

Yeah, a special escalator just for your cart. It’s freakin’ awesome.

I came home and made brunch, my other favorite weekly tradition. For Mr. X, it was an omelet stuffed with roasted zucchini, cremini mushrooms, smoked Gouda, and fresh basil:

Mine was the same ingredients, but I had a scramble instead:

We both had home fries on the side. To make them, you just saute onions. Add garlic and peppers. Saute some more. Add chopped potatoes. Saute even more. Season with salt and pepper. Easy.

The rest of the day was spent in a haze of cleaning (me) and watching football (X). Dinner took about 12 seconds to prepare. His:

Two slices of homemade sourdough bread with Dijon, jalapeno-jack cheese, and avocado, with Snapea Crisps on the side. Hers:

Almost the same, except I had barbecued tofu instead of cheese.

And then I passed out. The end.

Mendocino and Babycakes

I have been obsessed with Mendocino Farms lately, and I must blame Lynn for it. And thank her heartily.

Here’s the menu. So far, I have tried the: Tempeh Bacon Melt (excellent), Vegan Spicy Soyrizo & Black Bean Wrap (very good), Traditional Vegan Club (my fave, below)

Vegan Picnic Sandwich (my second fave), and the Caprese (with veggies added, below).

There are only two meat-free options left that I haven’t tried, and the only one that doesn’t appeal to me is the Drunk’n Goat on Highway 128. I’m not really into chutneys on a sandwich, but I’m sure my perfectionist nature will win out eventually. I recommend anything from Mendocino that involves their tempeh bacon. I’m borderline obsessed with it. It is smoky and delicious without trying to hard to taste like dead pig.

I really need to do a full Mendocino review, but I will have to wait until I manage to photograph their delicious side dishes. Somehow they almost always disappear before I remember to whip out my picture-taking device . . .

Also on the menu this weekend were some vegan treats from Babycakes.

That’s a maple doughnut and a Wonder Bun (gluten-free and like a denser cinnamon roll). Both were incredible! We polished them off for breakfast Saturday morning.

All hail the “Eat Me” plate.

What is your favorite breakfast pastry? I’m a cinnamon fiend, so a big, doughy roll is my fave.

Lunches (and more) of late

Hello again! I am blogging today from my new iPhone because I can. Yahoo! So let’s talk random eats of late, shall we?

Last week, I attended a training in Pasadena where they served us lunch and snacks. That’s my kind of place. Breakfast:

Multiply the black coffee by two. This bar was borderline wretched, I hate to say. I mean, I ate it, but I only barely choked it down.

Lunch, luckily, was a lot better:

Salad with some kind of feta-based dressing and apples, dried cranberries, avocado, and other surprises; a veggie sandwich with sun-dried tomato spread and the usual suspects; and fresh fruit. I was very impressed by the options. I could have skipped the salad and had a vegan feast.

Later (as in 10 minutes), I enjoyed this slice of banana (?) bread with more coffee:

Pretty tasty, though I’m not 100% that it was banana. The spices dominated any fruit flavors.

Last week, I also had the world’s most random lunch:

Chips, salsa, and leftover curried orzo salad from Mendocino Farms (more on that tomorrow). Tt was surprisingly good but, yeah, weird.

Another lunch from last week, thanks to my favorite natural foods store:

Oh Rainbow, how right you usually are and how very, very wrong you were that day. The accoutrements flanking the burrito were delicious. I’m a little obsessed with both this Pop Chips flavor and the Hansen’s root beer. The burrito, however . . .

Was putrid. The tortilla was weirdly sticky, and everything inside tasted off…or just plain awful, really. Blech. How do you screw up black beans, Cheddar, cabbage, and carrot? I have no idea, but this thing was inedible. A coworker asked me if I was eating apple pie because it smelled so strange. I wish that I had been.

Have you eaten anything recently that didn’t taste as good as you hoped?

Duchess of Sandwich

I’ve been having food cravings lately. Namely, I want sandwiches pretty much constantly. I honestly find this a little sad. Sandwiches are awesome and all, but there’s a whole world of other kinds of food out there that just don’t particularly appeal to me at the moment. It’s a phase that’ll pass, but in the meantime, I’ve been giving in a lot recently.

Last week, I made a really awesome wrap:

And clearly, I almost ate it entirely before I remembered to snap a pic.

It was a tofu-cilantro spread with broiled zucchini. So good! The tofu recipe was from Student’s Go Vegan Cookbook, but I don’t have a blender yet (tear), so it was modified from a dip to a chunky filling. Essentially you just mash 1/3 of a block of silken tofu with a bunch of cilantro, garlic, lime juice, optional olive oil, salt and pepper. I bet it’s yummy pureed, but I thought it was great this way, too, and I’m not normally a silken tofu enthusiast. The zucchini was very simple: cut into thin spears, toss with a little olive oil and salt and pepper, and broil on a cookie sheet until it browns. I flipped halfway through, and it took about 10 minutes. Delicious!

Yesterday, I bought a sammie from The Curious Palate. I’d show it to you, but my memory card is suddenly not working and I’m too angry to troubleshoot. Here’s someone else’s photo, though:

(from Kristie Manning.)

It was the Florentine minus olives: “goat cheese, baby artichokes, roasted tomatoes, spinach, avocado & Moroccan olives on 5-grain w/ balsamic vinaigrette.” It’s a truly delicious sandwich.

It comes with a quinoa salad that I never eat because it contains either olives or raisins and a housemade pickle. I ate half of it, despite my general pickle dislike, but it was too salty. I also enjoyed OJ that was freshly squeezed and delicious. I haven’t been getting enough fruit in my diet lately.

Today’s lunch is a little sad: Peanut butter on bread. Yep. It’s tasty but not exactly mind-blowing. However, two lunches out during the week is definitely a spending limit for me, so expect something similar tomorrow. On the side I had a “salad” of organic romaine (that I washed in the bathroom sink) and miso dressing (that I stole from a co-worker — sorry!). No pic because my phone’s acting cray cray. Also, it was the lamest lunch ever. I ate each piece of bread separately to slow down my normal eating speed.

Tonight, though, I’m making homemade pizza! Vegan for me; vegetarian for him. I can’t wait!

Are you in a food rut? What’s your poison?

On cupcakes and amazing soup

Today my taller half and I ventured to Oklahoma City to attend The Girlie Show, a super kick-butt craft show full of talented ladies held every November. It’s a great opportunity to get started on holiday shopping, and it’s also a wonderful way to blow some of your holiday-shopping money on yourself.

Anyway, I don’t go to OKC terribly often because: 1. it’s an hour and a half away, 2. the toll costs $8 round trip, and 3. Tulsa is generally more awesome. Sorry friends, but it’s true. However, I do make it to Das Kapital several times a year, and it’s always a great opportunity to try out some tasty food. Today did not disappoint.

My first food encounter was the fine folks of culinary stop was a booth giving out free coffee samples from Elemental Coffee Roasters at The Girlie Show. I tried the Groove blend, which was light but still strong. I had about a shot-glass’s worth and was still bouncing off the walls. I should really never drink coffee twice in one day. All in all, it was a tasty brew, but I would have to try more blends before giving a real review. Also, I have no photos. No pictures, no write-up, I say.

Afterward, we ventured over to Saturn Grill in suburb Nichols Hills (which I didn’t realize until today even existed). Check out their interesting menu here. My cheese-loving half went with the Rustin Roman Pie:

It featured red sauce, roma tomato, red onion, fresh basil, mozzarella, goat cheese, and Kalamata olives. He was quite happy and ate every bite. I had a small nibble and gave it a thumbs up.

I veganized the Grilled Veggie Sandwich (held the mayo) and tried the daily soup, Pumpkin Ancho:

Oh my word. The sandwich was good — the veggies (zucchini, bell pepper, onion, portobello mushroom, plus spinach and tomato) were well grilled and full of flavor:

but the soup was one of the best soups I’ve ever had in my life. It had so much savory body and delectable spicy notes. It’s normally topped with sour cream and pecans, but I had them hold the dairy. I can’t imagine it would be better with it. I need to recreate the soup.

On the side were a trio of housemade pickles that I could sorta tolerate. That says a lot coming from me, an avowed pickle-hater. As I told the woman who worked there, they actually taste like a vegetable. My taller half loved the two pieces I didn’t touch.

Over all, I give it *** on the veggie-options scale and ***** on the tastiness scale. That soup inched it up an extra star. (See this post for more info on the scales.)

Saturn Grill has two locations, one at 6432 S. Avondale Dr. in Nichols Hills and another at 4401 W. Memorial in OKC.

———–

After lunch, we jetted a mere 0.7 miles up the road for cupcakes from Green Goodies by Tiffany — vegan cupcakes, in fact. A representative was there offering free samples at The Girlie Show, but none of the ones on offer were dairy-free. She told me, however, that vegan ones are available in the store every day, so I knew I wanted to drop by before we made the trek home.

It has an adorable exterior:

And an even cuter interior, but I didn’t take a photo. Silly Brigid. They offer a variety of flavors in organic, vegan/allergy-free, or diabetic-friendly and gluten-free. They do special orders, too. Pretty great, eh? Well, the proof is in the pudding cupcake.

Above is my taller half’s Salted Caramel (a vanilla cupcake with a caramel interior topped with buttercream frosting a caramel drizzle), and below is my vegan Green Hostess (a chocolate cupcake filled with vanilla buttercream and topped with chocolate ganache and a recognizable swirl). Here is what my love said about his:

The salted caramel cupcake rattled the walls and set fire to the floor!

I had a nibble and my goodness, it was incredible. Mine, however, was…also incredible! It tasted very much like a Hostess cupcake except instead of chemicals and beef fat, it was full of real-food flavor and a delicious dark-chocolate wallop. It was incredibly fluffy and moist, and the ganache was thick and chocolatey. The gal working today told me it’s their most popular flavor period. Check out the interior:

They can do any flavor in any of the preferred options (vegan, wheat-free, etc.) with advance notice. They also do cupcake towers for weddings and the like. If you’re in Oklahoma City, don’t miss out!

Over all, I give it ***** on the veggie-options scale and ***** on the tastiness scale. This is serious cupcake bidness. These are by far the best cupcakes — let alone vegan ones — I’ve had at a specialty shop.

Green Goodies by Tiffany is located at 7606 N. Western Ave. in Nichols Hills.