Strawberry Season: Come and Gone.

Strawberry picking season has long since come and gone; it was sadly cut short by heavy rain back in July. Note to self for next year: pick more berries next time, because they're gone before you know it.

What did you do with strawberries this year? Our favourites were:

1. Freezing them for the winter.

2. Vegan strawberry shortcake from Angelica Home Kitchen.


3. Vegan strawberry parfait with the most amazing nut cream sauce ever (also from the Angelica Home Kitchen).


4. Vegan strawberry ice cream from the Veganomicon.


5. Insane Smoothie Bonus: a smoothie from strawberries, avocado, bananas, soy milk, soy yoghurt and honey.

Thankfully blueberry season lasts a lot longer.

The "Pulled Tempeh" Sandwich: An Idea Perhaps Better Left Untested

BBQ "pulled tempeh" sandwich: so meaty, they fool even the most dedicated carnivore. We used the barbecue marinade from the Angelica Home Kitchen book to make a sort of sloppy joe. The results were pretty decent, if a bit ugly. "Cutlets" of tempeh baked in this marinade are far better.

Barbecue Sauce
Adapted from Leslie McEachern, The Angelica Home Kitchen (2003)

• 2 cu. sun-dried tomatoes, rehydrated in hot water for several minutes
• 1 dried hot red chili, rehydrated together with the tomatoes above
• 1/2 cu. cider vinegar
• 1/2 cu. tamari
• 1/3 cu. maple syrup
• 1/2 cu. olive oil
• 3 cloves garlic

Purée all of the ingredients and pour the resulting mixture over strips of tempeh before baking in an oven for about 40 minutes. You've reached the right consistency when the marinade has cooked down to a gooey mess.

Restaurant Review: Red's Eats

We interrupt this healthy blog for a bit of tacky…


Red's Eats
U.S. Route 1, Wiscasset, Maine

Either by dint of an effective guerilla marketing campaign or by its own merits, Red's Eats is widely believed to offer the best lobster roll in Maine. If you're from the area, chances are you've never actually eaten there, because (1) you're from Maine and why the hell would you wait in the gruelling two hour long line to obtain a mere lobster roll, and (2) being from Maine, you know there is little atual scope for culinary expression where the lobster roll is concerned. I mean how great can it really be? I set out to find out. I'm your lobster roll mythbuster.

First off, prepare yourself for the gruelling Olympic level endurance feat of waiting in the line that perpetually surrounds the place: stretch out, hydrate yourself and, above all, bring protective ear wear to guard against the sonic onslaught of the passing semi-trucks. The line will appear to move at a snail's pace. In fact, it is moving slower. I suggest eating a complete meal before you go. If you are completely stuffed when you arrive, you will probably be ready to eat again by the time you order. If you are hungy when you queue up, you'll most likely resort to cannibalism.


If you come unprepared, the establishment may, in a show of mercy, hydrate you. There is, I should note, a serious opportunity waiting to be exploited here for a concession stand or busker or a sun-shade salesman.


Bring someone you love. Here we find Serge and Lynda comforting each other as we near the home stretch.

Before ordering, take a moment to pay homage to Red himself—he passed away only a few months ago as I write this.


So, is it the best lobster roll in the Pine Tree State? To be fair I have not visited every lobster shack from York to Lubec, but I've certainly visted a fair few over the years, and all I can say is this: Red, may he rest in peace, clearly ascribed to the school of size matters. What separates Red's roll from your average lobster shack fare is that it's bloody enormous. If you're a tourist trying fill your lobster quota during a week's stay in Maine, then, I guess, sure it's the "best." But if you're just looking for lunch, then I'd say it's just an expensive pile of lobster with a roll adjacent to it. In my view, the best lobster rolls have lobster cut into bits that actually fit in your mouth, are dressed in mayonnaise, and are served someplace quaintly picturesque. If the place smells like bait fish, there are lobster boats tied up within a stone's throw of your table, and the smell of grease permeates the air, you're probably in the right place. If there's no bathroom and you had to take dirt road to get there, you're most definitely in the right place.

A parting note: fried zuchinni for the win!

Wild Rice Salad

I like Peter Berley's [yeah, he let his site implode] cookbooks. Not everyone does. Hell, I even like his books notwithstanding the fact that unlike any other microcelebrity I've contacted on the web, he's never responded to any of my email. A note on that last link: Now I'm not a vegan, even though I eat that way much of the time, but even I was a bit put off by Berley's remarks on how vegetarianism is "adolescent." The irony of his comment isn't so much that he's built his entire reputation (as far as I can tell) on vegetarian cooking, it's that Flexitarian Table is by far his weakest work. The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen is quite good though, even if he seemingly takes every opportunity to resort to dairy.

Wild Rice Salad
Adapted from Peter Berley, The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen (2000)

• 1 Cu. wild rice
• 1/2 tsp. kosher salt
• 1 handful of sun-dried tomatoes
• 2/3 Cu. sliced, blanched almonds
• 1 carrot, sliced
• 1 red onion, sliced
• 1 cu. red, yellow, orange sweet peppers, cut in a largish dice
• 1/2 Cu. dried currants

Simmer the wild rice in two quarts of water until tender (about 40 minutes) then drain and cool in cold water and drain again thoroughly. Boil the tomatoes in water for a few minutes, then remove from the heat and let soak for about twenty minutes. When the tomatoes are done soaking, drain, dry and chop them. Roast the almonds in a cast iron skillet. Steam the carrots and onions for a few minutes, then cool in the cold water. Assemble all of the prepared ingredients above in a bowl and dress with a vinaigrette of sherry wine vinegar, lemon juice, olive oil, chopped dill, salt and pepper.

Swiss Chard With Chickpeas and Tomatoes

Summer is in full swing and CSA is coming through with the good stuff now.

If you can get past the hungry goats that is.

As the veggies come in, we find ourselves turning more and more to Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian to make sense of things like Kohlrabi. We made her recipe for swiss chard stewed with tomatoes and chickpeas, which was simply the best chard dish we've had in a long time.

Moroccan Night (First Attempt) and a Book Review: Couscous and Other Good Food From Morocco

We recently had Moroccan night straight out of Paula Wolfert's Couscous and Other Good Food From Morocco. The book is a classic and deservedly so. It's the most interesting cook book I've read in a long time. Not only are the introductory sections filled with food history and footnotes to obscure old (really old) food and travel books, but she keeps the book interesting throughout recipe descriptions and chapter introductions. It's a bit less versatile than I would like, with only a few vegetarian recipes—a handful of salads and some breads and pastries. And it's not easy to get a sense for how to make vegetarian versions of some of the couscous dishes either, even though she suggests that such dishes are commonplace in Morocco.

A Prerequisite: Preserved Lemons

Paula writes:

There is, and I cannot emphasize this enough, no substitue for preserved lemons in Moroccan food. ... To not use preserved lemons is to completely miss the point, and also to miss a whole dimension of culinary experience.

Not wanting to miss out on "a whole dimension of culinary experience," I dutifully preserved a batch of lemons. The basic recipe is readily available, but it takes a month or more for the lemons to cure, so you have to plan well ahead. On the other hand, I see preserved lemons in Whole Foods now, so that may be an option. Also, I used myers lemons, which seemed at the time to be an appropriate choice, but I wouldn't use them again. While the lemon flavour was certainly strong, it had a certain tinge to it I didn't care for and that wasn't present in any other preserved lemons I've ever tasted.

The lemons were needed for her excellent Chicken with Lemons and Olives Emshmel. We also made an orange and black olive salad and a salad of roasted peppers and tomatoes.

Tomato and Green Pepper Salad, Fez Style
Adapted from Paula Wolfert, Couscous and Other Good Food From Morocco (1973)

• 3 green peppers
• 4 tomatoes
• 2 cloves of garlic, crushed with some 1/2 tsp. of salt
• 1/4 tsp of sweet paprika
• 1/2 freshly ground cumin
• 2 Tbs. olive oil
• juice of half a lemon
• 1/4 preserved lemon, rinsed, flesh removed, peel cut into a dice.

Grill the peppers over a flame until blackened, then remove their skins, stems and seeds. Cut the peppers into smallish chunks. Plunge the tomatoes into boiling water for a few minutes to remove their skins. Slice the tomatoes open and remove most of the seeds before also cutting into smallish chunks. Mix the tomatoes and peppers with the remaining ingredients other than the lemons, which are sprinkled on top. This was excellent.

Grilled Tempeh Fajitas With Apple Salsa

Robin Robertson's Vegan Planet continues to provide great recipes a year or more after we bought it. This was a successful vegan "fajita" dish with grilled jerk(ish) tempeh and peppers, and a salsa made from green apples, jalapeños, scallions, lime juice and mint leaves. The salsa really worked well with the spicy tempeh. I would add papaya to it next time and maybe use a hotter green chili.

Ramps: Trendy Springtime Eating

Spaghetti with Ramps and Breadcrumbs

Three weeks back when ramps were the all consuming ingredient of the food blogosphere we made this recipe of Mario Batali's (available on, alas, MarthaStewart.com). Totally recommended, but sadly you have to hold that thought until next spring.

Restaurant Review: Little Lad's Bakery & Cafe

[Edit: Were you instead looking for a recipe for Little Lad's herbal popcorn?]

Little Lad's Bakery & Cafe, 482 Congress Street, Portland ME.

Ok, so when I said that the Green Elephant might be Portland's only fully vegetarian restaurant, I completely forgot about Little Lad's. Little Lad's is a family run, completely affordable, totally vegetarian, quirky restaurant and pusher of the infamously addictive Little Lad's Popcorn. The place is part buffet, part short order restaurant, part ice cream stand, part grocery store, part snack emporium. I often see the wait staff from the Green Elephant eating there. Best part: when I walk in, I am invariably greeted by a "Hello brother!" It sort of makes my day.


The food is of the old school vegetarian style—mostly one pot dishes. But that's what this place is all about: super affordable, completely accessible, healthy, simple. Filling a plate from the buffet will cost you less than $5.00. The dishes may not all be whole foods, but they mostly are. The only drawback to the place is that you have to prepare to be indoctrinated by the VCR in the corner, which plays speeches by, oddly enough, vegetarian Christians, and documentaries about religion and nutrition. But somehow, it's not too in your face. The family running the place is so sincerely nice, that's it's really hard to be bothered by anything while you're there.

There are other Little Lad's too: one in New York City and one in Corinth, Maine, of all places. And another about to open (I think) in Boston.

Restaurant Review: Green Elephant

Green Elephant, 608 Congress Street, Portland, ME

The Green Elephant is one of the few, if not the only, fully vegetarian restaurants in Portland. We finally had a chance to eat there last month and it was fantastic. While there are a few vegetarian "friendly" spots in town—and I appreciate them—almost none of them deliver on the promise of high quality vegetarian meals. The Green Elephant does. Sure, it's not quite the vegan haute cuisine you can find in New York City, but it is upscale and, in the case of every dish we tried, exceptionally well done. Perhaps because it draws people who are genuinely interested in what the place is serving, the wait staff are sincere and friendly. And it's not even particularly expensive.

Green Leaves [collards] Wrapped in Mango and Herbs [mint, purple basil, cilantro] with Tamarind Dipping Sauce. Nice to see a raw dish on the menu. That trend hasn't really reached Maine yet apparently.

A Malaysian curry with brown rice. I can't remember now all the wonderful things that went into this. It was the best tasting, even if not the best looking, dish of the night and composed entirely of whole foods. I am envious of how good their brown rice is.

I think this was the "Siamese Dream Curry Noodle," which was a bit lacking compared to the others things, but still quite good.

The menu does run afoul of one pet peeve of mine. I hate it when a vegan menu tries to sound appealing to meat eaters, as though vegan food were merely a substitute for carnivorous dishes and couldn't otherwise stand on its own. Veggie Citrus "Spare Ribs," Soy "Ham," Veggie "Tuna" Salad. Oh come on. But that's a minor point compared to how good the food is and what a relief it is to have someplace to go out to eat in town now.