Sushi and Spring Rolls

Recently, Jackson and Olivia's school hosted their first annual Move-a-Thon. This fundraiser was done as an alternative to selling gift wrap, magazine subscriptions, and other ecologically-unfriendly items. Instead, the kids spent the afternoon getting some fresh air and exercise while raising pledges. Have I mentioned I love my kids' school? We are so lucky to be among like-minded families who are interested in promoting fitness, outdoor play, and being green.

I love this pic. Jackson looks like a freaking gazelle or something.

I made a healthy dinner to refuel. From the Veganomicon, Butternut Squash Spring Rolls.

Also from V'con, Spicy Tempeh Rolls. Jackson and Olivia were sooooo excited to have sushi at home! I must make this more often.

Ghost Mall

Today we ventured to Highland Mall so Tony could shop for sneakers. Highland Mall is an Austin oddity and undeniably sad. Just six or seven years ago, we shopped there regularly. But then the recession happened and most of the stores went out. However, the mall remains open for a small handful of shops...mostly sneaker stores, with the occasional Hot Topic or cell phone dealer. 

The food court is still semi-operational, making me wonder...who eats there?

The only way I can describe how it feels wandering around this half-abandoned mall is this...imagine you survived a zombie apocalypse by holing up inside the mall. And now it's one year later.

Defunct Auntie Anne's.

In the midst of desolation, a Clash reference. 

Desperate for signs of human life, we headed to Masala Wok (not in the mall) for lunch. We've eaten there before but I forgot to review it. I like all their vegetarian options and how quickly they bring your food. We started with spring rolls.

I had the spicy basil veggies and tofu over brown rice. Plenty of leftovers to take home!

Some Meals I Didn't Cook

Still having computer issues -- I can only get online occasionally, for a few minutes, before it crashes again. Most of the time, it won't boot up at all. Dell is sending a guy out sometime this week to install another new hard drive. This will be the third hard drive. Even though we have a warranty (we just bought the computer in January) they won't replace the computer or give us a refund until we go through all their tech support steps. And of course they won't tell us how many steps there are left to go. Sigh.

Anyway, at least I was able to load some pics off my camera today (saved them all externally, of course!) and I realized, wow, I've been eating out a lot lately! So this post will be all about restaurant meals.

Whenever my parents visit from Michigan, as they did last month, they always want to get some Texas barbecue.  Most BBQ joints in Austin are vegan wastelands, as you might imagine.  But there is one place, Artz Ribs, that offers a few veggie options. Actually, now that I think about it, Ruby's also has a vegetarian menu.  But, Artz happens to be my parents' favorite, so that's where we went.

I ordered the grilled veggie plate. The grilled pieces of potato, squash, carrot, pepper and onion were quite tasty when I doused them in Artz BBQ sauce. They also offer a veggie burger, but I'm not sure if it's vegan.

Artz usually has some kind of live music in the evenings. I was hoping for an old-timey Texas swing band, like we saw last time, but this group was more folksy. Jackson was into it.

Up next, Guero's. This was a date night for Tony and me. I used to think Guero's was kind of gross, but then I heard that they developed a complete vegan menu, so I'd been wanting to check it out.

They must have the hottest salsas in town. I seriously can't handle them. But, as you can see from the multiple salsa bowls littering our table, Tony was not even close to being intimidated by their heat, and I am clearly just a big wuss. I did enjoy the pico de gallo, however...

...especially with a couple of these to wash it down.

Many Austinites love their margaritas, but I'm a mojito girl all the way. Love that mint.

I ordered the veggie enchiladas. One was filled with spinach and mushrooms, the other with grilled veggies. The roja sauce was delicious.

I wasn't sure what to do with the side of potatoes that came with my enchiladas, so I ordered a cup of vegan queso to dip them in. Yum! I think it's awesome that a restaurant like Guero's, which is super busy all the time and obviously doesn't need to cater to vegans, serves a vegan queso.

Next time Tony is asking for Mexican, I'll be glad to return to Guero's and sample more of their vegan offerings (chorizo!)

Lastly, we took the kids to Titaya's one recent afternoon for their first-ever Thai food experience.

When exposing my kids to a new cuisine, covering it in peanut butter is a sure-fire method to insure they will at least try it. So for starters, we ordered the spring rolls with peanut sauce...

...and the tofu satay skewers with peanut sauce.

Olivia liked tearing the spring rolls apart and slurping down the slippery vermicelli noodles. Jackson devoured the tofu, carefully dipping each piece of "tofu steak," as he called it, in the nutty sauce.

Next, we ordered a plate of pad thai for them to share.  Our waitress said that Titaya's doesn't use fish sauce in any of their dishes marked as vegetarian. By omitting the egg that is typically mixed into the pad thai, we got a completely vegan dish.

We were surprised by how much they ate! Olivia finds all noodles fun right now, and Jackson liked the sweet/sour flavor.

I ordered my favorite curry -- the sweet, mild, peanutty massaman curry. You don't have to look too hard to see where my kids get their peanut butter obsession from. The curry came in a generous bowl with plenty of nice chunks of chewy tofu.

The next day, I wanted to serve leftover pad thai and curry for lunch, but we needed something to go along with it, so I made my own spring rolls.

I soaked some tofu slabs in the Asian marinade from Veganomicon, then grilled them on my grill pan. I've really fallen in love with that grill pan. Look at those cool grill marks!

I rolled up the tofu along with vermicelli noodles, shredded carrot and cucumber, and mint leaves. 

The kids enjoyed my homemade version just as much as Titaya's -- with plenty of peanut sauce for dipping, of course! To make the sauce, I combined peanut butter, rice wine vinegar, and soy sauce.

I could post some more restaurant visits, but I won't press my luck -- I'll go ahead and hit "publish" now!

Have a good week!

Sesame Seitan Spring Rolls

Another Asian-inspired dinner tonight...keeping it light and healthy after days of Thanksgiving feasting. There's a time and a place for pumpkin pie for breakfast -- but that time was last week, not this week! So tonight we had Sesame Seitan Spring Rolls with Ginger-Soy Dipping Sauce, from 1000 Vegan Recipes.

The sesame seitan was so tasty all by itself. The thin strips of seitan are marinated in hoisin sauce and then rolled in sesame seeds before being sauteed. The seitan is sweet and smoky, and the seeds give it a nice little crunch.

The seitan tasted awesome bundled up in spring roll wrappers with baby spinach and grated carrot, and dipped in the citrusy, gingery sauce. If you haven't made spring rolls, give it a try, it's easy! My directions are here.

Happy December! Do you have snow yet where you live? We got some flurries the other day but only for a little while.  Winter will be here soon enough, though!

Spring Rolls and Carving Pumpkins

Hi all, I hope you had a fun and spooky Halloween! And if you're a new reader who has happened upon my little blog thanks to Vegan MoFo, welcome! Since my blog is a youngin' and this is my first year participating, I don't have much of a theme, other than my everyday theme of showing you the vegan food I cook for myself, my husband Tony, and our two little ones, Jackson and Olivia. I hope you'll enjoy what I've got to say and I look forward to checking out your blogs, too, if I'm not already following them!

Now for the food...on Devil's Night, the night before Halloween, we wanted a quick dinner so we would have enough time to carve pumpkins before the kids got tired. Since I had some leftover peanut baked tofu and peanut sauce, I decided to make tofu veggie spring rolls.

I use these rice paper wrappers that you can buy at Asian markets or sometimes at the supermarket.



I thought the veggies and tofu looked pretty, all chopped up and ready to roll.



To make a spring roll, fill a pie plate with cold water. Take one wrapper and soak it in the water for about a minute. You want it to be flexible but not soggy. Remove the wrapper from the water and lay it out on a clean, flat surface. Lay down a few pieces of tofu, then a little bit of each kind of veggie. Fold the ends in, then roll up. The wetness of the wrapper helps it stick together and stay rolled. Then move on to soaking the next wrapper and rolling it.



We had fun carving our pumpkins. Jackson did NOT want to reach inside the pumpkin and pull out the guts, he insisted it was "yucky yucky!"



Olivia was more interested in how the pumpkin tasted than how it looked.



Tony's pumpkin had a little too much to drink.



And I was going for a scary dragon but I think I ended up with a laughing dragon!