Check out my farmer’s market, yo

By Monica on July 11th, 2008

So while Raleigh certainly isn’t vegan paradise, I wanted to elicit sympathy show folks why I found the NC State Farmer’s Market so exciting. Behold, this is my farmer’s market, all 5 booths of it:

The photo is from my car as I drive past because I have not bothered going so far this year. (Please ignore the dilapidated orange ghetto trains in the background, my town thinks those are “antiques”.) From my car window each week I can spot lettuce, spinach, cabbage, and more lettuce. Illinois won’t have much else for another month or two. There are 5 booths so far; there will be about 10 when sweet corn season hits. The nice older lady in the middle there sells beer mustard, and the booth on the far right is non-vegan baked goods, so technically there are 3 booths of produce. I hope this explains my fascination with REAL farmer’s markets now!

Moo-ving on, here are some smoothies made from aging berries I would not allow to go to waste. Really though, this is just an excuse to show off my new glasses. The animals all have butts on the other side, heh.

In actual food this week, I made a double batch of Jessy’s Mom’s Magnificent Tuna-Free Tuna Casserole. Rule of thumb in my house is to double any casserole recipe to save more for later. That would have worked well if we didn’t eat the entire damn thing over the course of the week. A word of advice if you double this recipe - immediately freeze half of it because self control is powerless here.

And to round things off nicely - Apricot Cranberry Nut Pie from The Garden of Vegan. It’s so pretty one can almost overlook the pre-made crust, I hope.

But wait, there’s more!  Despite being labeled a weirdo for making soup in July, we made a batch of V’con Roasted Garlic Tomato Soup with Beans and Rice.  July or not, it was delicious…

…especially when paired with Bryanna’s Focaccia Bread - a tomato basil variety, of course.  Both the soup and the focaccia recipes make enough to feed an army, so I have all these delightful leftovers to look forward to this weekend, yay!

Raleigh!

By Monica on July 4th, 2008

So I spent the better part of last week in Raleigh, NC.  While certainly not the vegan mecca of PDX, there were way more food choices than I’m used to in Illinois.  Go North Carolina!

Up first was a stop at Mellow Mushroom for some Spring Water Dough Pretzels with marinara:

And an amazing pizza aptly called the “Mega Veggie”, loaded with sun dried tomatoes, mushrooms, spinach, onions, green peppers, black olives, tomatoes, banana peppers, broccoli, artichoke hearts, and tofu.  The tofu is really not radioactive, the sun was just that bright!  Mellow Mushroom was a really fun place, good food, very veg-friendly with knowledgeable staff, and  we got to sit outside enjoying the gorgeous NC weather.  I’d go back in a heartbeat.

The next day it was off to the State Farmer’s Market in Raleigh, an amazing 225,000 square feet of gorgeous local produce and plants.  Peaches and melons were in season, tomatoes (which won’t be in IL for another 2 months!), squashes, peppers - it was amazing!

There are even a ton of fresh beans, which I would have loved to take home with me, but I didn’t think they’d fare so well in the cargo hold of the airplane!

As if that weren’t enough, there were pineapple trees for sale!  I’m a pineapple fanatic, so the prospect of being able to grow these suckers was enough for me to move to NC right then and there!

Our next stop was Spotted Dog in Carrboro.  Admittedly, we ended up there only because the THREE other restaurants on our list were all closed for various, strange reasons.  Apparently divine intervention wanted us to have these faux wings:

and this imitation chicken BBQ sammich with beer battered french fries.  Both were pretty good, even though I thought the wingz were a bit overpriced at ~$8 for the portion you see above.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised that Raleigh, technically being a part of “the south”, was as veg-friendly as it was.  I didn’t find bacon in every single vegetable dish like I have in Florida and Georgia, and most places had vegetarian sections of the menu.  Again, go North Carolina!

But lastly, I’m going to leave you with a recipe for Rhubarb Ice Cream, about the only thing I’ve managed to cook since coming home.  It doesn’t look very appetizing, I’ll admit.  What it does, however, is taste like a rhubarb pie in ice cream form.  And if that isn’t the best thing EVER, I don’t know what is.

Rhubarb Ice Cream (inspired by AllRecipes)
3 cups sliced rhubarb
2 cups sugar*
1t lemon juice
1 cup coconut milk

Place rhubarb, sugar, and lemon juice in a small saucepan.  Bring to a slow boil and cook until rhubarb is tender, about 5 minutes.
Remove from heat and (carefully!) transfer contents to a food processor or blender.  Process just until rhubarb is in pea sized chunks, or your desired chunkiness.
Whisk in coconut milk.
Process per the instructions on your ice cream machine, and then freeze overnight to let harden a little more.
*This is very, very sweet.  Use less sugar if you’re concerned with diabetes or you know, tooth rot!