November 13, 2017

Random food I loved but never managed to blog about



I'm going to start with a gargantuan salad, because I just had it yesterday, and haven't yet forgotten anything about it. It was as big as it looks. We had gone out to lunch with a bunch of vegan friends, and I wasn't feeling very hungry, so I ordered a salad. We were lunching at Next Level Burger, a very casual,  all-vegan, organic burger joint inside of Whole Foods. I guess I thought since the emphasis was on burgers, the salad wouldn't be a BIG deal. I must not have been paying attention. I ate about 1/4 of it, and we had most of the rest with dinner. I also ordered a delicious child-size vanilla shake. Everyone in our group  seemed pleased with their burger choices, and I have to give a special shout-out to the wonderful, very knowledgeable, staff. As for gluten-free choices, in case you were wondering, almost everything on the menu is gluten-free and you can request a gluten free bun. Plenty of choices for everyone. Even the shakes can be made with either soy or coconut soft serve.



Here is a nacho bowl with homemade cheese sauce. Sometimes I'm just too lazy to look up a recipe (like, for cheese sauce) so I just throw things into the blender that I think will taste good, and it usually works. It worked this time, topped with green onions, and served over kidney beans, tomatoes and chips.



I love tahini sauce — I've been making versions of tahini sauce for more than 30 years. Sometimes I add lemon juice, sometimes miso, sometimes umeboshi paste, etc. Lately my husband has started making it — a lot. Here's a plate of noodles with air-fried tofu, roasted cauliflower, red peppers and tahini sauce. Tahini sauce. Did I mention the tahini sauce? Just kidding, Ken. You are getting seriously good at making tahini sauce.



We do love our noodle bowls around here, and I have to say having the air fryer has upped the stakes on the deliciousness of the tofu. It looks like the bowl contains tofu, shiitake mushrooms, cucumbers, scallions, carrots, peanuts and romaine — a Vietnamese bun salad — probably a version of this one.



The last one is a puzzle. It's a scallion pancake, obviously, and I vaguely remember trying to make a gluten-free version of this beloved favorite. I learned to make scallion pancakes long ago in a cooking class taught by a Chinese chef, and the pancakes were perfection. I sort of remember craving scallion pancakes, and trying to recreate them with gluten-free flour. I looked through the note pad where I scribble my recipe experiments, and I found one for scallion pancakes but there's no mention of whether it worked or not. Was it gummy? floury? weird? I don't remember. It looks good, though, doesn't it? If you feel like making traditional scallion pancakes, you can find the recipe here.


10 comments:

  1. 100% YES to the giant salad and milkshake combo! That's pretty much my favorite meal ever, since I can consider it a fair balance between healthy and indulgent- And delicious all over. I'm hungry just thinking about it now.

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    1. Balance — yes, that's exactly what I was thinking. Order a small salad and balance it with a shake. I would have needed a lot bigger shake to balance the monster salad I ended up with! As it turned out, I finished the shake and ate about 1/4 of the salad. And it wasn't a smoothie, it was a SHAKE!

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  2. WOW! So many great dishes and pics of tasty vegan food! YUM!

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    1. Thank you. Too bad we have to cook the food, and can't just eat the pics!

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  3. Yum! So many tasty eats! I am all about tahini sauce too. I love that it doesn't require cleaning a blender afterwards. Plus, it can be used as a salad dressing or a sauce for bowls.

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    1. Yes, the wonders of tahini sauce — so simple yet so special. Everything tastes better with tahini sauce. I especially like it on brussels sprouts. Would you believe my husband makes it in the food processor? The whole secret to making it with just a bowl and fork is to add tiny amounts of liquid at a time and mix it thoroughly before adding more. I just can't convince him! :D

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  4. that nacho bowl is calling to me - cheezy sauce is my idea of comfort food heaven. Your noodle bowl looks great too - all those colours are so appealing. You need to remake the scallion pancakes and tell us how it turned out!

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    1. You know, the nachos and the noodle bowl are what I keep looking at, too. I might have to get the blender going and grab some chips. I would like to revisit the pancakes, too, but I'm so lazy. Sigh.

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  5. That's a huge salad with lots of goodies, looks like a great place. Wish my local Whole Foods had a burger joint like that inside. The scallion pancakes looks really good too. I'm thinking it probably worked. If I made something that came out bad, I wouldn't bother to take a photo of it as it's bad. No?

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    1. It's pretty amazing to see how busy the place is, and the customers are not all vegans! At lunch time during the week, it's packed with local high school kids. A staff person told us about 1 out of every 20 people changes their mind about ordering when they realize everything is vegan, but the people we saw munching their food seemed pretty happy. As for the scallion pancakes, maybe I took the photo because they looked good, and I wanted to inspire myself to try again.

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