Yummy Vegan Seattle Weekend Eats!

You've already heard me whining about missing out on Vida Vegan Con this year.  Thanks to Twitter I've been able to follow the action and it's making me look forward to 2013 even more.  You can bet your britches I'll be buying my ticket the day they go on sale.

I just happened to plan an out of town get-away for the same weekend.  Mr. CatMan and I drove up to Seattle for PAX, but the highlight ended up being all of our little vegan food excursions across the city.  Here's the rundown:

Day One:
Pho Cyclo - Hot, flavorful, and fragrant, this is my favorite pho in Seattle.  Fresh brocolli and cauliflower florets swim between rice noodles, straw mushrooms and tofu strips in a light and savory anise-veggie broth.  I use a heavy dose of hot chili paste in mine, along with some hoisin and fresh basil.  This is the ultimate welcome-back-to-Seattle lunch.

Healeo - Green juice! With ginger.  Healeo is just down the street from my old apartment so I was spoiled by convenient fresh juice when I lived here.  This place rules.  Totally healthy with vegan, raw, and gluten free options.  Sweet wheatgrass shots? Yes please! Gluten free pizza? Gimme some!

Honey Hole - We stopped in for a late dinner and found ourselves in sandwich heaven.  There's only one vegan sandwich on the menu, the BLT, but I keep coming back for it over and over again.  It's that good.  The fries are the perfect combo of crispy on the outside with a soft, piping hot center.  And the atmosphere is dark and relaxed with super friendly service. 

Day Two:
Healeo -  Starting day two with a buzz!  We were supercharged after downing wheatgrass shots and smoothies packed with greens and superfoods.   Makes mornings happy.

Porchlight - Let's start with me admitting that I'm a coffee snob.  Seattle is known for coffee and Porchlight is THE BEST.  Seriously, Zack, the owner, knows his stuff.  I always get an Americano and I make happy noises after each sip.  Every shot is rich and smooth.  No bitterness found here.  And he carries (vegan) Mighty-O Donuts, sells records, and shows good local art.  Stop by and you'll forget all those other coffee shops even exist. I was excited to add a Porchlight coffee mug to my collection!

Madison Market - Oh, how I adore Madison Market, my neighborhood co-op when I lived in Seattle.  I had to take Mr. CatMan on a tour and he agreed that this is a fabulous place to shop.  I could go on and on... but the highlight for me is the raw vegan section.  After wandering through the aisles we bought some raw snacks to keep our bellies purring between meals.

We had another delish Honey Hole BLT for dinner, then stopped by the uber-hip Unicorn to meet up with friends.  Despite Unicorn's menu being mostly meat-n-cheese laden "circus food" our friend got a vegan burger that looked yummy in the most greasy bar-food sort of way.  Perfect for filling the belly when drinking boozy summer libations.

Day Three:
Mighty O:  Grasshopper, French Toast, Raspberry, & Coffee vegan donuts.  There's not much more to say.  Started today with a sugar high.

Back to Madison Market to buy more of these: 

Sage Cafe: Where we had to die for vegan crepes.  We tried the quinoa stuffed crepe with jalapeno aioli and the sauteed mushroom & chard crepe.  Both were plate-licking good.  At the end of the meal our plates were bare and we were tempted to eat a bite that had landed on the table.  We managed to refrain, but it was hard to leave that bite behind. 

Flying Apron:  One last stop before leaving town.  I couldn't drive away with a Peanut Butter Joy, Banana Chocolate Chip Square, and Pumpkin Ginger Square.  Everything at Flying Apron is vegan and gluten free and will blow your mind.  Mr. CatMan fed me bites of the Peanut Butter Joy as I drove South on I-5 towards Portland.  That's love. 

I enjoyed every delectable bite of tasty vegan food that made it into my mouth over the weekend.  Thank you Seattle for a delicious visit!

Veggies From Grandma's Garden, Comfort Food, and Cats

Hello!  We're finally settled into our new home.  I love it here.  Especially the kitchen! It's big enough for two people to cook simultaneously.  Awesomeness.  Here's a peak at some comfort foods we've been cookin' up:

My grandma gave me a box of produce from her garden last week.  There were green tomatoes.  I had to fry them.  I sort of followed the recipe from Vegan Yum Yum, using bread crumbs instead of corn meal.  They weren't bad for my first attempt.  The sides are steamed kale with lemon & sea salt and oven roasted rosemary potatoes, also from grandma's garden.  Food grown with love.  The best.

Oh boy.  This pizza was a little out of hand.  We put tahini-kale salad on it.  Yep.  And balsamic marinated portabellas.  On a rosemary crust.  The flavor combo was delicious. 

And for some balance:  Giant super dark green smoothies with lots of spirulina. Every single morning.  The perfect way to start the day. 

The cats are enjoying the new home too.  Kupo & Poopers had fun exploring their corner of the living room aka the kitty lounge.

And Miss Pixi is happy to have her very own room where she can relax away from the humans and younger cats, who can be too loud and annoying at times.  We haven't told her that she'll have to share this space when visitors are in town.

This is going to be a super fun weekend for a lot of vegan bloggers here in Portland.  I didn't get my tickets in time to attend Vida Vegan Con. *sniff*  But will be getting my tickets for next year's event as soon as they go on sale.  I'm going out of town for some fun visiting vegan stuff in another city.  I'll be following VVC on twitter :)

Happy Friday!!!

Moving Again! And Vacations!

Even though I've only been living in Portland for 10 months I feel more at home here than I have pretty much anywhere else I've called home for the past, oh, 15 years.  I guess growing up in Oregon has made moving to Portland feel like coming home.  It's nice.  Being closer to my family and joining forces with another awesome human and 2 more cats has made it even better.  We finally found a home big enough for the 5 of us and our expansive collection of kitchen gadgets in our most favorite neighborhood, and have started relocating.  Yay!

This is our new kitchen.  It's not fancy, but it's functional and has lots of space!  Plenty of room for an island and all of our toys.   It happens that we also planned 2 vacations in August.  Yeah.  How's that for a busy month?  It's all fun and exciting and makes me really happy, but we are going to be super duper busy.  So, I might not be posting as much the next few weeks, but I'll keep you updated on how the move is going.  Also, I'll twitter more often than I'm posting here, so you can catch up with me there if you want.  I'll be tweeting about my vacations too! 

Hope your summer's been fun so far.  I'll be back with recipes once my new kitchen is all set up.