Kale, Hillside Quickie's Café, Seattle

Just got back from a quick four day visit to Seattle to see the house we will be living in next year. (Our kids had seen it but not us.) The whole way there and back the airline upgraded us to first class, and if I could always travel like this, I'd travel a lot more! There's a normal amount of space, so I didn't feel like I was pinned inside a high school locker, and they kept bringing things to eat and drink. It was great. But here's the catch to the "things to eat" part. We were flying on Northwest-Delta and were told we couldn't request special food on a domestic flight. So, we were offered a grilled chicken sandwich (an ENORMOUS grilled chicken sandwich) or a salad covered in ham and cheese. We got the fruit and the bread sticks that came with the salad — mealy apple wedges, good red grapes and a pineapple slice. We know enough to carry food, so on the way there we got Spa Salads from The French Meadow Bakery in the Minnesota airport, and on the way home we got sushi in Seattle's airport.

It was probably a good thing that we ate lightly on the way home anyway, because we ran into some turbulence that reminded me of the Back to the Future ride at Universal Studios, but without the fun part. For about an hour I had to close my eyes and sleep (after checking to be sure I had a barf-bag available). When I reopened my eyes, there was a horrible crash, and a spear of intense light shot in front of me, as the plane got hit by lightening. Exciting.

Are you wondering about the food in Seattle? The first evening, after traveling all day, we went to a potluck barbecue with our kids. There was plenty of good stuff for the vegan minority including bean salad, kale-wild rice salad and vegan brats. My daughter-in-law made the kale salad and it was really good. The next day after visiting the farmers market in Capitol Hill we had a late lunch at Hillside Quickie's Café in Capitol Hill, with our other son and his gf. They were serving Sunday brunch, all day. The table was sticky and the prices seemed high but they really give you a lot to eat. I knew I couldn't eat a whole meal, so my husband and I shared a plate, and it was plenty for two.


We had a plate containing Cajun mac and cheese, biscuits with berries, grits and gravy, chicken-fried steak and seitan. At least that's what I think we had! I've never had mac and cheese that tasted this good. It was spicy and fabulous — and I don't even like mac and cheese. This is something I'll try to recreate and post a recipe when I get it right. The biscuits were fluffy, the grits creamy — everything tasted great.


Our son and his gf had some kind of chipotlé yam-stuffed tortillas and fried okra. I think we liked our food more than they liked theirs but it was all pretty good.


The person at the table next to ours had a stack of waffles and seitan that looked so amazing, she let me take a picture. The person at the table next to her had a startlingly high stack of fluffy-looking pancakes and I took a picture of that, too, though without his permission and after he knocked the stack over. (You can see it at the top of the post. The orange drink is a mimosa ordered by the person at the table next to us.)


That afternoon and evening we attended another potluck barbecue at our son and daughter-in-law's house. As you can imagine, I wasn't too hungry, but still managed to eat some grilled potato, grilled tofu, grilled veggies and more kale salad. The recipe for the salad will be coming as soon as I have a chance to make it myself.


Monday afternoon I found myself alone with a sleeping baby and craving some simple, green food for lunch. I went into the garden and picked some tender, young Red Russian kale, swiss chard and lettuce. I cut them into small pieces, tossed them with a little olive oil and vinegar and topped them off with some leftover grilled veggies. This made a perfect, simple salad lunch.


On our last morning in Seattle, our d-i-l made us a yummy banana bread for breakfast.


The little munchkin of the house (my granddaughter) is an enthusiastic eater, and although she'd already had breakfast, she saw us eating, took a box of cereal from a cupboard she can reach and had a little snack.


http://cookeasyvegan.blogspot.com/2009/06/kale-hillside-quickies-cafe-seattle.html

Seattle diary: delicious home cooked Indian dinner, Carmelita and contra dancing

After college our middle son spent a year doing internships in D.C. At the end of the year he decided to come home for a few months, save some money and figure out what to do next. Since he wasn't paying rent, he decided his contribution to the household would be to cook dinner. This was fantastic. Every night we'd come home to a delectable meal. Aaron is an exceptional cook — the kind who grinds his own spices in a mortar and pestle so they'll be fresh and exactly as he wants them to be. The day he announced he was leaving town, my husband and I looked at each other in panic and whimpered, "but what will we eat?" It wasn't that we didn't want him to move on with his life, or that we weren't capable of cooking, but we'd become accustomed to really good food magically appearing every night, and were panicked at the thought of this luxury coming to an end.

Recently, on our visit to Seattle, we had the pleasure of dining on Aaron's elegant cooking again, as he whipped up a simple but wonderful Indian-inspired meal of cauliflower-rice pilaf and kidney bean stew. These dishes were served with tamarind chutney and coriander chutney, both made by Aaron. Aaron found the pilaf recipe in the Seattle Times and it's a great recipe, easily veganized by using Earth Balance instead of butter. It's from "Vij's: Elegant and Inspired Indian Cuisine" by Vikram Vij and Meeru Dhalwala. Vij's is a restaurant in Vancouver. It's not a vegetarian restaurant, nor is the book vegetarian. Aaron says the kidney bean stew is very similar to Madhur Jaffrey's Punjabi kidney bean stew in "World Vegetarian."


Cauliflower pilaf


Tamarind chutney and cilantro chutney


Kidney bean stew



The Seattle trip was winding down. Our oldest son left after our dinner on Thursday evening for a teacher conference in Vancouver, and the rest of his family plus our middle son and his gf, Erica, were heading to Vancouver after work on Friday. So, after a Friday morning of childcare for Miss 1-year old, we were left behind in Seattle. We decided to splurge on a special vegan dinner at Carmelita, a charming and well-regarded upscale but light-hearted vegetarian restaurant with vegan options. Our waitress was just about the most cheerful person I've encountered in a long time.

We started with an antipasti plate containing muhumara (roasted red pepper dip), marinated olives, roasted garlic, chickpea salad, grilled flatbread, rosemary-white bean spread and spiced marcona almonds. It was huge, and we ate about half, leaving the rest for the airplane trip home the next day. The dips and spreads were so great — and the roasted garlic was an entire enormous head.

For our entrées I chose the artisanal polenta cake, apple/sweet potato hash, foraged mushroom sauce, fried parsnip, and my husband selected the farro tagine, spicy walnut pesto, braised squash and Swiss chard, pomegranate molasses. We were both more than pleased with our choices, though I thought the fried parsnip threads were a bit too fried.

I wish I could have taken photos of the gorgeous food but it was so dark in the room, I knew they wouldn't turn out with my little point and shoot. Just go there and see for yourself!

After dinner we went contra dancing at the Phinney Ridge Community Center where we had a chance to work off some of the calories we'd just consumed. Or, I should say, I worked off some of the calories. My husband botched his knee a few days before on a steepish walk at Carkeek Park, and he sat out most of the dances.

note: I learned something about carrying food in a cardboard container. Call me naive, but I popped the cardboard container from the restaurant into a plastic bag and took it to the airport. By the time I took it out for lunch, it had become a soggy, weeping mess. It was only quick action that prevented me from also becoming a soggy, weeping mess in the confines of my airplane seat! The food was still fantastic, but next time I'll repack it into something a bit more rigid, like plastic.

Seattle diary: amazing home-cooked Thai food

Thai fried noodles (guey toew pad thai)

All three of our sons are great cooks and we're always excited when we have a chance to sample their cooking. When the oldest decided to cook a Thai dinner during our Seattle visit, we couldn't wait to see what he would prepare. We weren't disappointed. He made Chinese broccoli, spicy long beans, pad thai, and potato curry. Our middle son helped out by grilling tofu and the rest of the leftover potatoes. I have the recipes for this unusual version of pad thai, the potato curry and the long beans. They are from the cookbook, "Gourmet Thai in Minutes," by Vatcharin Bhumichitr. (It's not a vegetarian cookbook but many of the recipes can be easily modified. The author also has a vegetarian cookbook called Thai Vegetarian Cooking that sounds really good.) The pad thai is lighter and fresher tasting than the more familiar version. Just ask and I'll send the recipes to to you. The recipes are very simple and fast but involve some ingredients available from Asian grocery stores, like kaffir lime leaves and long beans. I think you could substitute regular string beans for the long beans but I'm not sure about the kaffir lime leaves. I think it would be worth it to find this stuff because the recipes are great!


Spicy quick-fried long beans (pat prik king)


Potato curry (gaeng kari)


grilled tofu


Chinese broccoli


grilled potato slices

The night after our Thai extravaganza, we opted for something simple — a miso-based soup and a veggie stir fry. In addition to greens and mushrooms, the soup contains yuba. Yuba is made by skimming off the surface skin that forms on simmering soymilk and drying it. You can buy it in packages as sheets, or rolled into sticks. It requires soaking and then cooking but is very easy to prepare. We usually use the sticks (bean-curd sticks) and cook it in soup. It has a very chewy and satisfying texture and absorbs flavors well.


Miso soup with bean-curd sticks


stir-fried veggies

Be sure to visit CCK (also known as CCV) to win a case of Jocalat bars from Larabar. You have until March 19 to enter. Who wouldn't want a case of Jocalat bars?

Seattle diary: houses and eating at Chiang's Gourmet

Scallion pancakes at Chiang's Gourmet.

We recently spent nine days in Seattle visiting family and eating a lot. And because we are considering moving there, we went to a bunch of open houses to get a sense of what the housing market was like. Expensive. Whew. The cost of living is considerably higher than where we presently live. We currently live pretty cheaply in a paid-off house that we purchased for a low price many years ago. We can get rid of everything we own, downsize, and live a more austere life, but there are certain things I need — like a decent working kitchen with room to store my kitchen equipment. Not one of the houses we looked at had that.

In one house, just after I asked the realtor why none of the stove burners would light, my husband asked why there were space heaters in every room — and why was she wearing a coat? She giggled. In another, the kitchen was too small for a table and there was no dining room. “Well,” said the realtor, “you could put a narrow table along that (living room) wall. Or you could take away the TV and put a small round table in that (living room) corner. Right. My favorite house of all was listed as a (quaint, I believe) three bedroom with a studio in the yard. Oh yes, the studio was fabulous — the studio of my dreams. I’m serious. The studio was amazing, but the house had issues. We saw one bedroom, living room, dining room and “kitchen." It was the size of a toy kitchen with minimal counter and cupboard space. There was no dishwasher and no place to put one, and the refrigerator was a compact under-the-counter model. You really couldn’t put a real refrigerator anywhere, which explains the tiny one. To be fair, there was an extra, tiny refrigerator and a little freezer outside. On the porch. Outside. We went outside and discovered a charming patio and steps leading to the basement. In the basement was a bedroom and a sitting room, along with a washer and dryer and workshop space. It was clearly a basement, but I was imagining how the bedroom could be a guest room and the other room an office. (I was obsessed with the studio and not in my right mind.) But when we looked for a way to go upstairs, we realized that you had to go outside to get to the main house! I had visions of a guest down there in the celler, in winter, waking in the night and discovering the only way to the bathroom was to go outside and up to the house. (Locked, of course.) Any Seattle readers out there who have insights about housing? Houses? Rentals? Condos? Neighborhoods?

You can really work up an appetite running around looking at houses all day, so we all had dinner at Chiang's Gourmet restaurant. They have a separate vegan menu with very interesting choices. (I've blogged about Chiang's in the past.) On this trip we had eight people, so there were lots of dishes to try. Here are some of them:

Pea vines.

Homemade noodles with broccoli and brown sauce.

Homemade noodles with tofu, greens, and peanuts.

Barbecued taro ribs — a vegan house specialty.

The "ribs" are made completely of taro so you can eat the whole thing. Now, I'm not suggesting that Chiang's is a healthy place to eat, but it sure is a tasty one. Everything looks and tastes great, and you will get a big dose of veggies.

Neat loaf with mashed potatoes and gravy. (may contain eggs.)

Another restaurant I had been wanting to try in Seattle is Silence-Heart-Nest — kind of a New Age diner run by followers of Sri Chinmoy. It is vegetarian with vegan options. I love places like this. We went there for lunch with our son Aaron and his gf Erica, and it was really good. I had a very creative and tasty version of beans and rice, my husband had a cup of soup and Aaron and Erica had a neatloaf sandwich and neatloaf with mashed potatoes and gravy.

Beans an rice.

Seattle food diary - party time

Miss 1-year-old bypasses the cute gift outfit and goes for the tag.

I've just returned from nine days in Seattle (that's why no posts) partying, playing, hiking, shopping and of course, eating, with family. We had a fabulous time, and consumed mounds of wonderful food that we didn't have to cook ourselves! Our kids are amazing cooks, and between their hospitality and Seattle's vegan offerings, we ate too well. Over the next few posts I'll describe what we ate and offer recipes when available.

We went to Seattle to celebrate our granddaughter's first birthday, and the event included an open house party with lots of kids, grown-ups and food. Here's some of the party fare:


Spinach dip made with Trader Joe's vegan mayo


Pasta salad made by Uncle Aaron


No-bake oatmeal chocolate treats made by Grammy Judy


Cake from PCC Coop

The cupcakes sank dramatically, so an emergency run was made to the PCC food coop to purchase two vegan cakes, banana and chocolate, which got decorated with raisins. The cupcakes were then rescued by filling in the craters with mounds of frosting! They looked perfectly normal...


Chocolate cupcakes from "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World"


Antipasto


Red bean salad


Sweet Oliver keeps an eye on things. Wait, is that frosting on his nose?


Miss 1-year-old thinks food is good but cards are better.