Vegan Ethiopian Food - Papa Tofu Loves Ethiopian Food and NY Meet-up at Lalibela Mt. Kisco

My recent vegan Ethiopian craving came about when I got Kittee's zine Papa Tofu Loves Ethiopian Food at Herbivore when I was in Portland.  I met Kittee in real life at the Vida Vegan Con and she is even cooler in person than in the blog-o-sphere!

I made the injera fake-outs which turned out pretty OK despite me having really no idea what I was doing.  Work has been pretty crazy so instead of making the other awesome recipes in the book, I made an ethiopian fake-out salad with Trader Joe's salsa, avocado, and some berbere seasoning I bought at a spice shop in Grand Central Market.

All this fake-out'in was good, but I needed the real thing.  A quick magical google search for Ethiopian found Lalibela in Mt. Kisco, so I figured why not set-up a meet up? 

We had our meet-up tonight which turned out to be really fun and delicious.

The communal dining experience can be a little weird among relative strangers, but everyone was game and even the initial non-sharers decided to join in the fun.  The dishes are lentils, spicy lentils, split peas, string beans, cabbage, and collard greens.  We also enjoyed some Ethiopian beer and coffee.

Duo of Cold Summer Soups - Avocado cream soup and Gazpacho

Cool off from the sticky summer heat with a duo of cold soups.  The Avocado Cream Soup came from the Practically Raw cookbook and the Gazpacho is the traditional Moosewood version I've been making for many years now.  You can start with cold ingredients and it's ready right away or let it chill in the fridge for a few hours.  

I tried some fancy food styling and that's supposed to look like a yin yang sign.  Whatever, it was delicious!  I don't think the V8 juice I used counts as raw, but everything else is raw and mostly came from the CSA this morning.

I'm digging the Practically Raw book by Amber Shea Crawley.  I had made a few things using the oven, but now that I finally broke down and got a n Excalibur Dehydrator, I'm sure I'll make even more.  

Vegan Bacon Bits - Steel cut oats experiment

Let's face it.  Fresh ripe summer tomatoes need bacon.  It doesn't need to be pig based bacon, but a salty smoky accompaniment is required for summer eatin'.

Steel cut oats bacon - Take 1

1 TBS Liquid Smoke

1 TBS Soy Sauce

1 tsp salt

1 tsp onion powder

1 tsp hot paprika

1/2 cup hot water

1/2 cup steel cut oats

Mix together liquid smoke, soy sauce, salt, onion powder, paprika, and water then add the oats.  I used a pint sized wide mouth mason jar with a lid.  Shake it around a bit and let soak until the liquid is absorbed (I left it overnight.)  Stir or shake occasionally to evenly distribute the marinade.  I made this last weekend before my new Excalibur dehydrator arrived (more on that later,) so I dried the mixture in the oven.  Turned it on to around 200 degrees for an hour, then turned it off and let them sit.  They weren't quite crunchy, so I did the same again - 200 degrees for an hour then turn off.

Not a bad experiment and I used them in chopped salad all week for smoky bacony flavor, but they were still on the chewy side and not quite perfect bacon bits just for snacking.  Also quite tasty on a fBALT sandwich (fake bacon avocado lettuce tomato.)

I'm clearly on a mission to make anything taste like bacon, so I'll work on it
and keep you posted.