Long beans | Eggy tofu on toast | Orange-mango smoothie

Madison has a fantastic, award-winning farmers market that covers both sides of the four long stretches of sidewalk that circumnavigates the State Capitol grounds. When our kids were young, it was a Saturday morning ritual for our family to trek to the market by 8:30 a.m. to avoid the huge crowds of the later morning, and buy veggies. We always ran into people we knew, and the excursion was as much a social as a shopping venture. After the market we'd head to the Civic Center for a free Kids in the Crossroads theater performance.

The market has only increased in popularity over the years, and now it seems even 7 a.m. is too late to avoid the masses. So we now shop at one of the many smaller markets that have sprung up all over the city. The west-side market we frequent is in a parking lot, but what it lacks in scenic charm is made up for with convenience and great vendors, many of whom sell organic produce. We were at the market on Saturday when I saw something I'd not seen before at the market.

Madison is home to a large population of Hmong families, and many of these transplanted citizens have continued their family heritage of farming, selling their wares at local markets. In addition to typical veggies familiar to Mid-Westerners, they often sell more unusual Asian vegetables, and as we walked along the row of market stalls, I excitedly rushed up to one that had bunches of long beans. The smiling vendor asked if I'd ever had them, and I said yes, but I'd never seen them at the market before. He laughed, and said that's because most people wouldn't know what they were! I bought a big bunch for dinner. As we walked the rest of the market I found Yellow Finn potatoes, and Anaheim peppers that drew me in with their fragrance. I started cooking a dish in my head, and really looking forward to dinner. My resulting long bean dish is not authentic Asian fair, but a yummy concoction of what I felt like eating, with Asian influences. You could make this with regular green beans if you're not lucky enough to find long beans at your local Asian market. When cooked, long beans are a little chewier and firmer than green beans, but still tender.

Long beans with tofu, potatoes and peppers

• 1/2 of a 14 oz. pkg. extra-firm tofu, sliced into small slabs
• 2 med. yellow potatoes, 3/4-inch cubes
• 1/2 cup low-sodium veg. broth or water
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• oil (1 tablespoon or less)
• 1 bunch long beans, ends removed, chopped into 2-inch lengths
• 1 green Anaheim pepper, chopped
• 2-3 Roma tomatoes, chopped
• 1 to 3 teaspoons Sambal Oelek, or red curry paste
• 1 to 3 teaspoons low-sodium soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon natural sugar
• juice of 1/2 lime
• crushed roasted peanuts

1. Place the potatoes and stock in a large wok. Lay the tofu on top of the potatoes. Cover, and cook until the potatoes are tender but still firm. Remove to a plate, scraping out all the stuck on bits with a spatula. (The stock will have evaporated.)
2. In a small amount of oil, cook the garlic in the wok. When it starts to turn golden, add the beans and pepper, and stir-fry a few minutes until the beans are crisp-tender.
3. Add the potatoes and tofu, tomatoes, sambal, soy sauce and sugar, and stir-fry a minute or two until the tomatoes are hot. Check seasonings.
4. Mix in the lime juice and place in a serving bowl. Sprinkle with peanuts.
5. If desired, pass small bowls of chopped cilantro, chopped parsley and extra peanuts at the table.

lunch, the next day with additional tomatoes and hot sauce

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The green Owl revisited

Angel food cake: photo by Betsy Haynes

In the short time we've been visiting Madison, we've been to The Green Owl four times! Yes, we like it there, but it's also the only vegetarian/vegan restaurant in town, and everyone wants to go there with us, because, you know, we're vegan. Every time we go we try something different, and this was the case last week when we went for our third visit.

Macro plate: photo by Betsy Haynes

I was feeling kind of overfed, from all the eating out we've been doing, and wanted a simple meal, so I chose the Basics Plate, a macrobiotic supper of kidney beans, brown rice, and steamed kale topped with lemon-miso-tahini sauce. It was just what I wanted and I really enjoyed it.

Lava cake: photo by Betsy Haynes

But then I was tempted by dessert. My friend Betsy ordered the vegan angel food cake with raspberry sauce, and I got chocolate lava cake. The vegan angel food cake falls into the "how did they DO that?" category for its uncanny resemblance to regular angel food cake. My dessert was yummy but not so startling as the cake. I would love to have the recipe for the angel food cake, just so I could see what was in it! READ ON.

GUESS WHAT: Sadly, the angel food cake eaten by my vegetarian (but not vegan) friend wasn't vegan after all. Well that explains why it was so real, and also lets me off the hook trying to reproduce it. I received a very apologetic note from Jenny Capellaro, the Green Owl's owner, who was very upset that we had somehow gotten the impression that the cake was vegan. She really intends that people avoiding all animal products can feel safe eating in her restaurant.

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What else are we eating?
I was tempted to make vegan fried eggs, à la Zoa, for dinner, but realized that with the limited "vacation pantry" we're working with, that wasn't possible. I don't have vegan mayo or Earth Balance, nor do I have a food processor. So I opted for just the "white" of the egg, made from plain sauteed tofu finished with Indian black salt (kala namak). I placed it over avocado on lightly-toasted sourdough bread. It tasted so much like egg, with the richness of the avocado subbing for the yolk, it was kind of freaky. With the addition of steamed broccoli from the farmers market, and a cucumber and tomato salad, it made a satisfying light supper for a hot evening.

Thanks to our recent tenant, our garden is bursting with tomatoes, and there's parsley and basil growing in pots on the deck. My husband jokes that everything we make has to have tomatoes, so I made a salad with sweet English cukes from the farmers market and tons of yellow and red cherry tomatoes from the garden, plus parsley and basil. The veggies are so fresh and flavorful they need only the tiniest bit of simple dressing.

Seattle vs. Madison | The Green Owl | Saigon salad

Fresh and sweet from the farmers market

Seattle.................vs................Madison
too much rain..............................too much snow
too little heat................................right amount of heat
too little sun.................................lots of sun
long growing season....................short growing season
family members...........................no family members
very few friends :(........................lots of friends
no mosquitoes..............................mosquitoes
no fireflies.....................................many fireflies
large city (too large!)....................medium-sized city (just right)
heavy traffic..................................light traffic
hard to navigate............................easy to navigate
mountains.....................................small hills
many veg restaurants....................one veg restaurant (many ethnic restaurants)
high cost of living..........................moderate cost of living
high-rent house.............................paid off house
damp cold......................................dry cold
cars stop for pedestrians...............cars try to run over pedestrians
adorable granddaughter................no granddaughter
farmers markets............................easily accessible farmers markets

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The Green Owl Cafe: vegetarian and vegan cuisine

In my previous post I reviewed our lunch at The Green Owl, and this post will be about the dinner we recently shared there with friends. Entrees come with a choice of a small salad or cup of soup; my dining companions chose salads, and I chose soup. The salads were pretty standard mixed greens and I didn't photograph them. My soup of the day was a very thin, extremely salty version of split pea. It was tasty but so salty that I actually didn't finish it. I'm used to restaurant food being salty, but the soup surprised me with the intensity of the salt flavor — almost as if someone had spilled too much salt into the pot. I think diners at restaurants should give feedback on the food but I'm always too self-conscious to do so, myself. Do you tell the waitstaff when something is too salty or otherwise not up to par?

Mary had the vegan schnitzel ($13) with porcini mushroom sauce, broccoli and oven-roasted potatoes, and she said she really enjoyed her dinner.

Ken had the stuffed red pepper ($12). It was stuffed with quinoa, lentils and slivered almonds, covered with a Moroccan tomato sauce, and accompanied by steamed broccoli. The pepper filling was sweet rather than savory and tasted of cinnamon. Although it looks large in the photo, the serving was modest but filling. Ken liked it a lot and said he'd order it again.

My vegetarian jambalaya ($12), described on the menu as "a smoky mixture of rice, red beans, vegetables and marinated baked tempeh," came with steamed kale and roasted red pepper cornbread. The jambalaya was very flavorful though I wouldn't have described it as "smoky." The wonderful kale was perfectly cooked to a melt-in-your-mouth tenderness, and tasted very fresh. I'm a kale fanatic, and this made me very happy. The real surprise was the cornbread, with its almost creamy texture and full-corn flavor. It was the one food that didn't seem to over-rely on salt for its flavor. I was too full to finish the jambalaya though I did enjoy all of the kale and cornbread.

Allen chose the special of the day, and the only non-vegan meal at our table, the "fish" fry. It came with coleslaw and oven-fried potatoes. He said he enjoyed it, but after dinner we talked about our meals, and salt kept coming up. Both Allen and Mary (not vegetarians, by the way) have cut way back on salt, and both found the food a little salty. Allen commented that the potatoes were particularly salty. We were all feeling somewhat thirsty as we left the restaurant. Extra salt is something one can add at the table so it seems unnecessary to present over-salted food. (Not everyone is sensitive to salt, and of course I understand that restaurants usually cater to the majority, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.)

Overall, dining at the Green Owl is a very pleasant experience, with attentive waitstaff and comfortable surroundings. As a vegan, it's great to be able to order food without having to ask a dozen questions and wonder if my dinner is really vegan or not. I'd love to see the restaurant depend less on salt, more on plants, for flavor. I hope Madison vegetarians will come out to support the restaurant and help it to be a success. I'll certainly eat there again soon!
note: As I mentioned in my lunch review, a gluten-free menu is available upon request.

addendum: I received a very nice note from Jennie Capellaro, owner of The Green Owl, explaining and apologizing for the extremely salty pea soup. She said, "Andrea, I like your blog a lot and wanted to apologize for the split pea soup. It was too salty. The kitchen staff who prepared it had followed my recipe but used table salt instead of kosher salt and that resulted in a soup that was, as you tasted, too SALTY. I was glad to read that you still feel fairly positive about us after that experience. I've made it clear in all the recipes which salt to use and re-emphasized the rule to staff that everyone needs to be tasting things and not simply blindly following recipes. So, hopefully you won't encounter something like that again and, to repeat, I'm really sorry you had that experience. Please try us again and don't be shy about letting your server know if there are any issues. We are very nice about stuff like that. Take care."

I want to emphasize again that although I complained a little about some of the food, I would definitely eat there again, and encourage anyone living in or traveling to Madison, to give The Green Owl a try.

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Taste of India

We had dinner at Taste of India with our neighbors Marsha and David. I had the same thing I always have at Indian restaurants, aloo gobi. I'm not kidding about always having the same thing. I've tried other dishes but have settled on this one as my favorite, and it's what I always order. My husband usually orders vegetable biryani and we share, but he must have been feeling adventurous because he chose vegetable mango. I didn't get a photo but he said it was very tasty. (Very tasty is the limit of his verbal enthusiasm, and indicates he liked the dish a lot. If he only liked it a little he would have said it was good.)

Here's Marsha looking pretty happy after her meal. She also had vegetable mango.
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Saigon salad à la Zoa

So, with all this eating out, do we ever cook? The answer is yes, but not much. We did make a terrific summer dish called Saigon salad that I found on The Airy Way. Zoa said this salad was so yummy she could eat it every night, and she's right about it being that good. We had it two nights in a row, and I believe I'll be having it for lunch. (Alas, no lunch dates arranged for today.) We made ours with stir-fried marinated tofu, and the addition of shredded raw zucchini and leftover corn cut from the cob. Actually, my husband assembled the salad, and he's not really into presentation — go look at Zoa's blog here and here for her versions.
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First corn of the season

Our first corn of the summer, bought at the farmers market and cooked shortly after purchase, was the best of the best — tender, and so sweet it tasted like someone had added sugar to it. We enjoyed it lightly steamed, straight up. It needed nothing added to enhance the flavor.

Funning ourselves ragged | The Green Owl | ice cream sundaes with balsamic pineapple topping

The weather has been hot and humid and most folks are complaining. Two years ago I would probably have been complaining, too, but after a long winter, spring and early summer in the heat-and-sun deprived Pacific Northwest, I feel the heat seeping into my core and warming my bones. It feels restorative and comforting, and I'm drinking it in. Can't say how I'll feel about it next week but at this moment, it's a pleasure.

We arrived in Madison from Seattle last Friday night after four days on the road, and have been dividing our time between doing necessary upkeep on our house (servicing the furnace, cleaning the chimney, plunging the bathtub drain, blah, blah, blah) and and socializing. I mean SOCIALIZING. We've been going day and night. Wednesday, for example, began for me with an energetic early morning walk with a friend, continued with an afternoon of errands, an early evening visit with another friend, and an night of folk dancing and catching up with more old friends. I didn't get to bed until midnight, then was up for another early morning walk the next day. I'm too old for this. :) Fortunately, the walk was canceled because of a dramatic rain storm, and I had a chance to sort cupboards until our lunch dates arrived. (short restaurant review follows.)

Yes, I ate the whole thing for lunch today.

I'm sure the pace will slow down but right now it's pretty hectic, and I haven't been doing much cooking, existing in between restaurant dates on coconut milk yogurt and fruit for breakfast and salad and hummus for lunch (as in above photo). We've had a couple of simple stir-fries for supper and now we're about to enter a new round of restaurant dining for the next few days.

We had lunch yesterday at The Green Owl, Madison's newest and only vegetarian restaurant. Most of the menu items are vegan and some of the vegetarian items can be made vegan. They also have a gluten-free menu available. I'd heard that the restaurant specialized in making familiar regular food vegan rather than creatively using vegetables and fruits to create signature dishes, and this may be true, but I totally enjoyed my lunch.

I had a Crabby Cake Po'Boy, ($9) which consisted of two crabby cakes on a roll with lettuce, tomato and chipotle rémoulade. It came with a side of yummy kale chips. (I could have chosen oven-roasted red potatoes or a salad but I always choose kale.) I've never had actual crab cakes so these didn't serve as a substitution for me, and I didn't compare them to the real thing. I would have preferred them less salty and in a whole grain bun, but they were delicious. Totally yummy and I'd order this sandwich again. I couldn't really taste the chipotle, though.

My husband had the Middle-Eastern Platter, consisting of hummus, tabooli, muhammara and baba ganoush served with toasted pita, olives and pickled vegetables. ($8.50) He said it was delicious, but a little too rich for him, and it upset his stomach. (It was a large quantity of food and maybe he over-consumed?)

Our two dining companions both ordered the TLT, ($9), with avocado, smoky baked tempeh, lettuce and tomato served on Madison Sourdough wheat bread with a vegan aioli. Both seemed to really enjoy their meal.

We ordered one dessert to share — a slice of cheesecake with a praline topping and vegan whipped cream. It was very creamy but I have a super sensitive tofu detector, and it tasted a little like tofu to me. Everyone else thought it was delicious. We're going back to The Green Owl for dinner tonight with friends, so I'll get to try a completely different menu item.

Last night we had dinner at the home of friends, and we brought the dessert. We're not stocking many ingredients in our pantry since we're here for such a short time, so it was a simple concoction. But, hey, summer is all about simple — and easy cooking is my specialty, right? We brought the ingredients for ice cream sundaes topped with balsamic pineapple sauce. The sauce was nothing fancy but it added a nice touch to the other flavors. We purchased my favorite flavor of So Delicious soy ice cream, mocha fudge, plus organic blueberries and strawberries. The pineapple was from a can our previous renters had left in the pantry. It was pineapple rings, which I cut into smallish pieces after I drained the juice.

Quick ice cream sundaes with balsamic pineapple sauce

• vegan ice cream of choice (So Delicious mocha fudge is pretty great.)
  
• fresh blueberries
• fresh strawberries, sliced
• vegan bittersweet chocolate chips
• 1 can (8 oz.) pineapple rings in 100% pineapple juice (pineapple cut into small pieces)
• 3 tablespoons evaporated cane juice or rice syrup
• 2 level teaspoons arrowroot (or cornstarch)
• 1/2 to 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

1. Mix together the blueberries and strawberries.
2. Drain the pineapple juice into a small pot.
3. Dissolve the arrowroot in 1 tablespoon of water in a small dish. (always add the water to the arrowroot or it will lump.)
4. Add the sugar and dissolved arrowroot to the pineapple juice, and stir over low heat to dissolve sugar. When the sugar is dissolved, turn up the heat and bubble gently for a minute or two until the juice thickens and clarifies. Add the cut-up pineapple pieces and turn off the heat.
5. Add 1/2 teaspoon balsamic vinegar and taste. Add the other 1/2 teaspoon if needed. Chill if desired. (I chilled mine but I'd like to try it warm.)
   
6. Scoop ice cream into four bowls. Spoon berries over ice cream. Add some chocolate chips. Top with pineapple sauce.

note: If you use arrowroot and make this sauce ahead, don't try reheating it because arrowroot sauce will become thin if reheated. This quality makes arrowroot a good choice as a thickener for vegan cheese sauces that you want to become melt-y on a pizza or in mac and cheese.