We Ride Bikes

This is really cute.

I go through all the trouble of making biscuits from scratch, only to have them stuffed in the dishwasher. 

She's one of my favorite people. 

79º and Sunny

Today Laura, Amelia and I took the bikes out like we always do.  Rain or shine, we ride bikes.  If it rains, we get wet.  If it's cold, we wear coats.  We ride bikes. 

Of course, the weather was incredible today so everyone and their dog were out riding their bikes too.  I realized today, that maybe everyone doesn't need to ride a bike.  People riding without shirts, helmets hanging from the handlebars, walking their bikes with headphones, going the wrong way, riding too fast, riding too slow.   I realize not everyone is a day in and day out cyclist like the rest of us.  Hey, you drive a car. Glad to see you out of it, one less car etc etc etc.  But people act like they once they're on a bike, they still have the "I own the road and will be damned if I'm gonna move over/slow down/give the right of way to you" mentality they have in their SUVs. 

All I'm asking for is a little courtesy.  

The three of us went to our favorite vegan bakery, Sweetpea Baking Company (yes, they do weddings),and had a couple of cookies.  The tattooed young hipsters that work in these places enjoy keeping you on your toes musically speaking.  We went from some obscure grindcore punk to some 2+ year old mainstream dance tracks which now constitutes as ironic, I guess.  At this point, Amelia did what she always does when she hears a beat. 

That is trouble, I tell ya, trouble.  Right here in River City. 

Food Blogging

Okay, so if I'm gonna blog about food, then I'm gonna blog about food.  There used to be a Troy Aikmen commercial for GMC (which, my ex-wife's advertising agency did) where he said, "Three steps back, throw.  Three steps back, throw.  I do one thing; I do it well."  And then they tied it into GMC making trucks and doing it well.  

Anyway, I cook well.  I bake adequately.  I fix bikes pretty well.  I ride a bike. . . well, that's it.  I ride a bike.  

These are the breakfast burritos that I make pretty frequently.  They're delicious.  If we had a microwave, I would pre-make and reheat them, daily.  As it is, I make them probably once a week.  The hyperlink in the ingredients link to my preferred choice, just in case someone is new to vegan cooking.  

Breakfast Burritos Almost Just Like Mom Made

1   12 or 16 oz block of extra firm tofu, drained, pressed and crumbled (Nigari Extra Firm or Firm Tofu)

1/2 medium sized yellow onion, diced

2 garlic cloves, minced or pressed

1/2 bell pepper, diced

2-3 medium sized potatoes 

olive oil

vegetable oil

turmeric 

salt

pepper 

spices to taste

tortillas 

mushrooms, quartered or sliced (optional)

jalapeno, sliced (optional)

  red, yellow peppers, diced (optional) 

  fake sausage/Soyrizo, crumbled (optional) (Field Roast Sausage Mexican Chipotle)

  salsa (optional) 

Directions: 

First things first.  When I went vegan, I loved recipes.  It took me about a year or so before I realized that lots of recipes are designed for you to use as a baseline or guide.  So feel free to use this recipe as it's written here, but it's meant for you to customize, and make your own.  I make these burritos so often, and I can almost guarantee that I've not made it the same way twice.  I don't like exact measurements, so apologies for the lack thereof. 

There are two ways of doing the potatoes.  They are both good, but one seems to require more oil than the other.  Method 2 is how my mom does hers, so I like doing it when I can, but have never quite replicated hers.  

Method 1
 - Preheat oven to 375º Fahrenheit.
 - Chop your potatoes to bite sized or smaller pieces.  
 - Place potatoes in a pan
 - Toss in olive oil, salt and pepper to taste. Stir around a bit to minimize sticking in pan.  Place in oven for about 20 minutes or until tender. 

Method 2 
 - Chop potatoes to bite sized or smaller pieces 
 - Put enough vegetable oil in a pan to cover the bottom.  
 - Heat over medium to high heat, cover and stir occasionally until tender.  
 - Season with salt and pepper to taste.  

Method 2 usually comes out with much softer potatoes.  The frying and steaming is a great combo for potatoes in breakfast burritos.  

Tofu Scramble 
 - Place 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a non-stick or cast iron skillet.  (Laura thinks the teflon will kill us one day, who knows maybe it will.  It makes better scramble I think.)
 - Put in minced or pressed garlic and heat on medium heat.  
 - Put in diced onion, bell peppers, mushrooms, jalapenos, whatever veggies you like.  
 - When the onions are clear put in the tofu.
 - Stir occasionally, and put in just enough turmeric to get a pale yellow color.  (It gives the meal some authenticity, and adds a nice subtle flavor.) 
 - Let the scramble sit in the same position to get a nice brown color on the bottom, then stir.  Do this periodically. 
 - Season with salt, pepper, Spike, crushed red pepper, Italian spices, or others of your favorites. Get creative. 
 - If you're using a sausage product, feel free to crumble it and toss it in here. Most of them are pre-cooked and just need to be heated up. 
 - When these are getting close to done, check on your potatoes (either method) and if they're getting close just toss them in this pan.  

Burritos
 - Ideally, take a clean and seasoned cast iron skillet and place empty over medium heat. 
(I've also heated tortillas directly on the electric burner, but I understand that might not be for everyone.  These are my preferred methods, but in lieu of that, heat tortillas as the package recommends, assuming you've not made your own.)
 - Place a cold flour tortilla in, flipping occasionally until soft and warm.  Flour tortillas should be pliable and not crispy.  
 - Place tortilla on a plate, put a couple of spoonfuls of Tofu Scramble and potatoes and wrap.  

Enjoy. 

These would be really good if you pre-made them and reheated for breakfast or lunch on the go.  We made some for a road trip and just wrapped them each in a paper towel and tossed in a ziploc baggie and they were great several hours later.  

Pizza

I realized the other day that I'm probably one of the few people who blogs with "Vegan" in the title that doesn't post food pr0n. Weird.

This is a pizza I made a couple of weeks ago completely from scratch. I realize the picture isn't great, but Porter in the background staring at Laura while she took it is pretty common in vegan households I would guess. 

The recipe for the crust came from VegWeb's Pizza Dough section, but I can never remember which one I use, so I pick a different one each time I think. Honestly, I could be picking the same one every time and not know it. They're all flour, yeast, warm water, mix, knead, rise, roll out, toppings, bake. 

The pesto is pretty straightforward, and absolutely delicious. 

1 cup fresh basil, washed 

3-4 cloves of garlic 

1 tsp sea salt 

3 TBSP pine nuts 

3/4 cup or so of nutritional yeast 

1 cup olive oil, or as much to get a good consistency 

Put everything in a food processor or blender and pulse until smooth-ish. 

The only hard part is finding organic pine nuts. If you can find them, they're expensive as all get out, so I usually go with conventional. Also, taste it after you've blended it, I think it needs more salt, but I tend to like salt. Also, I topped this pizza with yellow pepper, yellow onion, mushrooms, and zucchini. Oh and I don't think you can tell in this picture but there's dried basil in the crust. Just put that in with your dry ingredients before you mix with the wet. 

I'm realizing I cook a lot, and am probably going to start throwing some pics of that up on the blog. What can I say, I'm in the midst of a crisis of confidence and need something to serve as redemption. 

Oregon's Proposed Idaho Stop Law

Bicycles, Rolling Stops, and the Idaho Stop from Spencer Boomhower on Vimeo.

Sunny Sunday

Originally uploaded by stupidrobots

Wow, the weather was wonderful this weekend.

She's incredibly cute here. She's gonna be big soon. . .