This Vegan House

Long time no blog. I'm full of good excuses though! Kevin and I are back from our our road trip, which was awesome. We kept it simple: just a little drive down south with some stops along the way. Our time was mostly spent enjoying the gorgeous spring weather. On the south-bound journey we stayed at a truly unique and inspiring eco-village called The Hostel in the Forest. It's about a hundred miles south of Savannah. These kids got it goin' on: tree houses for sleeping, geodesic domes, composting toilets, cob ovens, a huge organic garden, fire circles, and lots of good vegan cooking. Check out their website (and their Flikr page to learn more.) 

From Georgia, we drove south into my old stomping grounds: Gainesville. Oh, 352, how I'd missed you! I hadn't paid a visit in a couple years, and a lot has changed. The best new development is a strong vegan culture. It's like restaurants are competing for the vegan market. A couple local tempeh makers (Jose and Artie) have worked hard to promote tempeh, and you can now find tons of vegan options and lots of tempeh on almost any menu in Gville. I can't tell you how well we ate while we were there. 

Satchels - great pizza, Teese available, killer salad, locally brewed beer

8th Ave Bike and Coffee House - vegan mini chocolate cakes!!

These are a few of my favorite things.

Favorite Gainesville places to eat vegan, old and new:

• Satchels, duh.
• Boca Fiesta - the tempeh burrito is awesome. Get it with vegan queso and a margarita!
• Chopstix - best vegan pad thai, and they know what it means to not put fish sauce in your vegetarian food.
• El Indio - good, cheap Mexican. Great quac.
• Reggae Shack Cafe - Jamaican. Tofu. Seitan. Vegan plates/utensils separate from omni.
• The Jones - vegan breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Homebrewed kombucha.

Our days mostly consisted of making cappuccinos in my brother's espresso machine with the amazine, frothable So Delicious coconut milk, rallying the troops on bikes, and riding around town to eat, drink, and be merry. I'd do it again sometime.

Now that we're back, Kitchen Kevin has been striking again. I've been slammed at work; delivered nine babies in the last 10 days or so. So Kev's been helping me out by doing a lot of the cooking. This is a pizza we made last night, inspired by Hawaiian pizza. We marinated some crumbled tempeh in tamari and liquid smoke to give it that salty-sweet, ham-reminiscent flavor, then broiled it with red onions in my awesome new Chambers broiler. It's like you've summoned the fire of hell to cook your dinner.

WW crust, roasted red peppers, tempeh, red onions, garlic, green and black olives, pineapple. Yum.

And these tofu "fish sticks," with Veganaise tartar sauce: