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So you missed out on (or just plain lost) Janessa‘s contest. Don’t cry, my sweet, because unlike that time you—oh, you know what you did—here you get a second chance.

We at Vida Vegan want everyone to come to our conference so we make sure to give away some scholarship spots (deadline loooong past) and we each hold a contest. Last time mine was an edible self-portrait. This year I’m making it a little easier…or at least requiring fewer ingredients. It’s a little old fashioned, but I’m a sucker for haiku—and if that’s a little too uptight for you, I have an equal love of limericks.

The subject matter? Something vegan or VVC related. Write a haiku about the perfect tofu scramble or adopted shelter kitty. Or a limerick about being the only vegan in your town or the social anxiety of coming out from behind your keyboard to meet other vegan bloggers.

Do you have to be a vegan blogger to attend (or win)? Nope. We have other blog-curious or blogger-to-bes at VVC. Check out the agenda and decide if you can handle three days of hanging out with us. If so, get out your cruelty-free quill and get to writin’.

What exactly do you win? Full-access registration to this year’s Vida Vegan Con, being held at the Portland Art Museum May 24-26, 2013. This covers all classes, conference meals (breakfasts, lunches, snacks) and receptions, the SWAG Bag of Wonder, and a ticket to the Saturday night Galarama & Silent Auction for Chimpanzee Sanctuary NW. You do not win travel or lodging, outside meals, or additional merch. Still pretty good, though, right?

Submission: Email your 5-7-5 or potentially bawdy rhymes to me at VegtasticVoyage [at] gmail [dot] com by Thursday, February 28. I will decide all by myself which piece most delights me and will share the winning poem Friday, March 1. No transfers, no cash equivalent, blah, blah, legal blah.

Good luck to you and you and you.

no breakfast tacos

So…they were so sick of being asked for breakfast tacos that it was worth it to purchase and power this neon “No breakfast tacos” sign? Welcome to Austin.

And welcome to my Austin taco post. So many tacos that my rest-of-Austin post will have to wait. Not a taco fan, you say? Well, darlin’, you just haven’t explored “taco” to its fullest. That’s like saying you don’t like sandwiches.

I traveled to Austin with Jess and Janessa, to do some location scouting for Vida Vegan, and I promise you I shall return. Austin is much like Portland in that it’s a young, somewhat liberal bubble of a city. I didn’t really hear any Texas accents, save for at the airport. And I’m guessing it’s the easiest place to eat vegan in Texas. And eat we did.

vivo sign

Our first stop was Vivo, where we met up with a childhood friend of Janessa’s. Gold stars and check-plus for this one.

vivo puffy taco

Ladies and gentlemen, my first Austin taco. Also my first puffy taco. We all chose different fillings; I got one with guacamole filling and one with grilled tofu. The guac one was tough to eat taco-style so I ended up using a knife and fork…but it still tasted so good. The grilled tofu one stood as my favorite taco of the trip.

Oh, I’m sorry, through my rambling and raving I didn’t hear you ask what a puffy taco was! It’s the best thing ever. Super fresh corn tortillas are lightly fried in oil so they puff up. So it’s not a hard shell. There’s a delicacy to it. You might also note from the photo (shot in sadly low light), this is no Taco Bell taco. What we found throughout our trip was a simplicity in taco ingredients, fresh and light.

vivo cucumber margarita

Austin can also make a mean margarita. This is Jess’s cucumber margarita. Slightly sweeter than expected but still refreshing. And friggin’ huge. vivo prickly pear margarita

And the margarita ordered by everyone else at the table: prickly pear! How gorgeous is that? Tangy and smooth and also friggin’ huge. Maybe it was the fact that I’d been up since 4 am or maybe it was the warm, dry Texas air, but even eating as much as I did, this thing got to me.

vivo chips guac

Not that these chips and salsa and guacamole weren’t also stars, but something’s got to go last. We were also convinced these are the best chips ever chipped. If you like spicy, ask for a side of their chipotle sauce, which is just chipotles and oil.

gueros menu

Next stop, Guero’s! We found this place mostly by random searching and thanks to Quentin Tarantino. It wasn’t gold stars; as #jadedvegans we weren’t wowed by the food. But it was a comfortable patio, with friendly staff and…

gueros vegan menu

…a nice half-page vegan menu. The print at the top might be too small to read, but it says “Many items on our regular menu can be vegan…” Even if there were no separate vegan menu, just this phrase instills so much confidence in the servers and chefs. Thanks, Guero’s.

gueros salsa

The complimentary chips and salsa. Bagged chips (with their volume I guess they’d have to be or have a dedicated full-time chip fryer), but super appreciate the three salsas. I’m pretty sure we left three empty cups. If we’d read the menu a little more closely we’d have noticed our unlimited refills at the salsa bar.

gueros guac

And a Texas-size portion of guacamole, for cheap. This would also completely disappear. This is my kind of quacamole, so much better than the squishy stuff.

gueros margarita

Our Happy Hour $4 frozen margaritas. A tasty little bugger. Janessa said she dreamed about this margarita last night.

gueros michele

My plain-Jane vegetable tacos. Squash and zucchini and onion…which would then be topped with salsa and quacamole. The potatoes are pretty much just fried, not too seasoned. And I got black beans, which were served in a thin sauce. I confess, I did not finish my beans—otherwise, my plate was clean!

gueros jess

Jess’s soyrizo taco.

gueros janessa

And Janessa’s enchiladas, one with black bean and one with spinach & mushrrom.

vegan nom menu

We scheduled a meet-up at the Vegan Nom taco cart, to see friends old and new. (Hi Joanna Vaught, Blissful Chef, Lazy Smurf, and Red Hot Vegans!) It was super dark, so the photos were all crap. But the three of us each got a different taco (mine was the Jalisco, with fakey chicken, onions, peppers, lime, and cilantro—normally comes with vegan cheese but I declined), and they were without a doubt the spiciest tacos of the trip. The cart has a little fenced-off BYOB area with some tables and chairs, and is apparently in the cool part of town. Super close by was Sweet Ritual, an ice cream joint where we met up with team Food for Lovers and I enjoyed the hell out of a peanut butter smores sundae.

thunderbird tacodeli

And get this: One morning we stopped by Thunderbird for coffee, and they had Tacodeli breakfast tacos to go. We also got breakfast tacos at Wheatsville Co-op (more from them in the next post), but this is much more notable. Coffee shops get daily deliveries of muffins and bagels all the time. I guess in Austin, you don’t want to be that place without the breakfast tacos (or you have to buy yourself a neon sign).

Want more? Check out Part 2—the non-taco post—here.

Do forgive my Valentine’s post; it’s just so on theme I can’t resist. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the whole love thing, but most holidays tend to leave some folks feeling as though they are lacking in some sense, and that I don’t dig.

What I do dig is people coming together to do something good while having fun doing it. Teal Cat Project and Obsessive Confection Disorder recently joined forces to raise some cash for kitties while spreading the sweet, sweet love via chocolate and caramel and cookies.

teal cat ocd box

This campaign was so popular that by the time my box was delivered (thanks, Mom!), they’d already sold out. This is the case with most Teal Cat campaigns, not just the candy variety, so connect with them in every social media way possible. You want to be ready to pounce (cat reference, yes!) the moment they announce the next litter of upcycled teal kitties.

teal cat ocd candies

And lookee what was inside the box! A Mel’s Way bar (coconut milk caramel, Sweet & Sara marshmallow, and chocolate), Love Nips (coconut-lavender-vanilla cookies), Love Bomb Lollies (think really high-end vegan toffee made with whiskey, covered in chocolate), and Rose Petal Caramels (sweet and fruity caramel drizzled with chocolate). Dang, right? And everything was nut-free so I could share with Tom…not that he had much of a chance, because, man, I plowed through this trove.

teal cat ocd kittens

And when the candy was gone, my own little adoptees fought over the box. See? Something for everyone. Thanks, TCP and OCD…and again, Mom!

ob tide pool

I was on the beach. In the sun. The people there said brah and sweet and Thanks for the smile, man.

We stayed with a friend in Ocean Beach, where the airport is your 6:30 wake-up call. It’s the trade-off for letting non-gazillionaires live two blocks from the beach.

I saw waves and crabs and flowers and smiley-faced stairs.

ob stairs

balboa park

Just a bit away was Balboa Park. We didn’t spend a ton of time walking around, but we did check out the cactus garden.

Ten minutes by car—the proverbial crow made it there and back too many times to count (traffic!)—is Evolution, a vegan fast food joint. It’s an unassuming box of a place with a covered patio out back.

evolution burger chili cheese fries

Tom got a burger and chili-cheese fries. Tricks of perspective aside, those fries were huge. For the burgers, you’ve got two choices: Gardein or, for a buck more, a house-made patty. He got the Gardein. The cheese on the fries is Daiya. It’s all ridiculous and messy, but it’s fun. It’s fast food.

evolution chick fries

I got a chicken (Gardein) sandwich, with pesto and red onion instead of any mayo-y option. Because not only am I picky, but I am also a genius.

Also in this North Park area is Sipz Fuzion Cafe. Childish misspellings masquerading as cute or clever piss me off, so I wanted to boycott them. But this is also childish and I needed to eat. Surprise! The food was good. Doubt was cast on the vegan-ness of some of their fake meats, but I did not eat the fake meats in question, so I didn’t pursue the matter. Not pictured is the lackluster chocolate chip cookies I got to go. They lacked both luster and flavor.

sipz fries

We started with fries. With jalapeno. And garlic. And scallions. I want to eat this every day.

sipz sushi

I took a break between fried foods with a simple sushi roll of avocado and cucumber. There were flashier ones on the menu, but I was not in the mood for flash.

sipz shrimp

I also got the spicy tempura fakey shrimp. It wasn’t so spicy, so I dipped it in my wasabi & soy sauce. I was a girl scout—I know there’s always a workaround.

sipz toms

Tom went with the Garlic Divine, a bunch of vegetables and tofu in a peppery sauce. He expected it to be heavier on the garlic, but said it was still pretty good.

sipz noodles

These noodles are drunk.

This last food photo is from a Mexican joint we visited twice, Rancho’s. The same block had super accommodating Italian and Thai places too.

ranchos enchilada

It’s Tom’s mole enchiladas. They stayed crisp and light—not a gimme when dealing with enchiladas. This place had a ton of vegan options, but beware, some things that sound vegan are not (as the server will warn you). And in the evenings, the owner will serenade you.

Thank you, San Diego, for letting me let go for a moment.

ocean beach

neato salt glasses

salt glasses dark

Edible barware. Recyclable or biodegradable corn plastic can kiss my green ass. These babies slowly erode…in your mouth.

I found them while doing Christmas shopping online and picked them up for Tom. Not like we drink tequila all the time, but I thought they were cool. (And when he opened them he thought so too.) They’re Himalayan salt, and when you drink from them, it’s like every sip has a consistent little salt rim. I took a shot of water (Spring Break! Whoooooh!!!) and it was definitely salty.

While not really a tequila-shots girl, I would make tiny margaritas in these. They hold approximately 2 ounces (they’re all slightly different sizes), so it’s a few sips. You shouldn’t leave standing liquid in them or they’ll erode faster—and I imagine your drink will pick up more of a salty flavor the longer it sits.

So sort of novelty, but also sort of genius, right?

salt glasses lightAnd the photo up there is shot in low light with candles behind them. Here’s what they looked like during the day. Who drinks tequila during the day? Really? You might want to talk to someone about that. No judgement, just a suggestion. I’m more concerned than anything…

homemade vegan cheese crackers

I used to looove Cheez-Its and Cheese Nips. I never actually liked cheese, but I loved these salty, tangy crackers. Since going vegan, I’ve eaten quite a few of those Eco-Planet organic cheddar crackers, and they’re pretty good, in a healthy, not-as-greasy-or-salty sort of way.

I found this recipe for homemade Cheeze-Its, and it looked super easy to veganize. And so I did, sort of. I ended up basing it off a full bag of Daiya and changing the ratio on stuff. So here’s what I did (Remember, I am not a recipe developer. I am a careless cook who likes to share.):

8-ounce bag of Daiya cheddar shreds
rounded 1/3 cup original Earth Balance (tub, not whipped)
1 cup sifted flour
 ½ teaspoon salt

Since my kitchen is pretty cold (hello, Portland winter and cheap-ass “Who needs heat?” Michele) I figured it’d take a while for the Daiya and EB to come together, so I put them in a food processor until they started to mash up, so as to not overmix the flour and chance tough or gummy dough.

I added the flour and salt, then let it go until it all came together. It looked a little crumbly, but I dumped it on a board and it balled up, like so:

cheesy dough

Yes, shadows and bad lighting even during the day. Again, Portland winter, folks.

I rolled it out between two sheets of wax paper, like the original recipe said to, to about 1/8 inch. I think. I didn’t exactly measure it. Does anyone, really?

Then holes were poked…in a random yet interesting manner, using my favorite little gadget: the fork.

cheesy dough holes

I used another way-fancy tool to cut them into squares: the knife. If you don’t have one, I highly suggest you take the plunge and pick one (or a couple) up. You’d be amazed at what you can do with them.

After cutting, if they’ve softened up, stick your board in the fridge for just a couple of minutes to firm them up—it makes the transfer to the cookie sheet much easier. Depending on how salty you like your salty snacks, you could sprinkle them with a finishing salt, like my favorite, Marlborough flaky. You don’t want anything too heavy.

Into the oven they went. I did my first batch at 350° and they took forever (read: 15 minutes). The second batch went in at 370° and were done in about 10 minutes. Thinner ones will cook faster than fatter ones, but you could probably figure that one out yourself. Be patient—undercooked crackers will feel more like cookies, and that’s just weird.

I wanted an extra little tang to these…but I’m not sure how I would change the recipe. I’m still eating them selfish-shameless-toddler-style, but I think they could be better. I may try these using Teese or a sharper melty cheese. Anyway, not a total disaster. (Of course, if you look at the photos on the linked recipe, these look NOTHING like them, but whatever.)

tofu wrap assemble

We’ve all be there, stranded in a strange city, perhaps, or compromising so you can go out for a meal with omnivore friends or family.

Or maybe you just really like it. Truth is, the times I’ve found myself at P.F. Chang’s, the staff have been super helpful, pointing out vegan dishes or suggesting ways to veganize others. One screams-of-chain-restaurant-appetizer dish I actually wanted to recreate is the tofu lettuce wrap. It’s light, satisfying, and super easy to customize to fit any flavor preference.

I searched online for ideas, because frankly, the only time I had this was during my trip to Vegas this summer, for Birthnukah. It was, no kidding, 110° and we stumbled into one for lunch. Considering at the time the water was the best-tasting water I’d ever had…I wasn’t going to trust my memory completely for this dish. Anyway, the Internet has a bunch of recipes for vegan lettuce wraps, with all kinds of tofu, seitan, Gardein, and tempeh. I used the Trader Joe’s baked tofu and it worked a charm.

I’m no recipe developer, so here’s my version of a recipe. Add more of what you like and leave out what you don’t. It’s your food! Want to add bean sprouts? Sounds awesome.

1 pkg Trader Joe’s baked tofu, Teriyaki style, diced (no draining or pressing or marinating necessary!)
8-ounce can of water chestnuts, drained and diced
half onion, diced
3 decent cloves garlic, minced
nub of ginger (½-inch cube, sorta), grated or at least super minced
3-4 scallions, chopped
few tablespoons soy sauce or Bragg’s
teaspoon-ish chili paste
rice vermicelli (maifun), flash-fried—you will not need much of this…no, less than that.
lettuce for wrapping, washed and dried (I used iceberg today but would probably go with a green leaf or something else way easier to separate from the head.)

What to do with it all:

Throw into a medium-heat pan (with just a tablespoon or so of sesame oil) the tofu & all the vegetables, save the scallions. Hit it with the sauces and cook until the tofu firms up a bit and everything starts to brown, maybe even crisp up a bit.

At the end, toss in your scallions. Sesame seeds would be good, too.

To assemble, lay your lettuce leaf down, add a little scoop of tofu filling and some rice noodles (not too much or you’ll be a messy Bessy), roll up, and crunch away!

This made two very hungry people very full. It could easily have stretched to three. And if you’ve got a big enough pan, this would probably be great for larger batches…and I’d imagine it’d refrigerate/reheat pretty okay.

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