Tortellini Corn and Tomatoes Salad

August 13, 2018 by 4 Comments

Besides strawberries,which I’ve already written about a couple weeks ago with two new recipes, the other summer bounty I love so much is summer corn and tomatoes. This recipe for Tortellini Corn and Tomatoes Salad is my favorite go to during summer and fall to really showcase both these ingredients and letting them shine.
Tortellini Corn and Tomatoes Salad recipe, an easy summer recipe that takes advantage of the fresh taste of summer corn while its sweet and heirloom tomatoes at their juiciest and is perfect for a picnic, potluck, and can be served cold or room temperature
Fresh corn during the summer has a wonderful sweetness that you just can’t beat if you are able to get your ears quickly after they are picked. Cook them how you’d like – Grilled is my favorite but I also provide an optional cheat to add a little sear and smokiness if for convenience you steam or boil them instead, or you want to use niblets to save yourself cutting them from the cob.

As for tomatoes, the ones you get from the Farmers Market are the best – you can get all sorts of different heirloom varieties you may never see at your regular grocery store. This recipe leaves the tomatoes raw and asks for grape tomatoes but you can easily substitute larger tomatoes – I just like grape tomatoes more so they can burst in your mouth as fun texture.

Even better, this batches up really well making it perfect for picnics and potlucks with a larger group, and can be served cold or room temperatures.
Tortellini Corn and Tomatoes Salad recipe, an easy summer recipe that takes advantage of the fresh taste of summer corn while its sweet and heirloom tomatoes at their juiciest and is perfect for a picnic, potluck, and can be served cold or room temperature
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Impossible Burger Comes to Portland

December 4, 2017 by 16 Comments

I have heard so many good things about Impossible Burger, which is a genetically engineered burger patty that is completely vegan – basically “meat” from plants, and been curious for quite a while. With vegetarian F, I’ve tasted many a vegetarian burger, and it is usually a sad, mushy, dry, not much flavor state of affairs. Impossible Burger though, is different – it’s supported by multiple fine dining restaurants in food meccas like New York, Las Vegas, the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and even Texas at high caliber restaurants like Momofuku, Saxon + Parole, Umami Burger, and more. And now Impossible Burger has comes to Portland. Here’s a list of where and my thoughts on the Impossible Burger

Impossible Burger - meat from plants, a vegan plant based burger to replace meat Impossible Burger - meat from plants, a vegan plant based burger to replace meat

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Ecliptic Brewery’s Food

September 11, 2017 by 7 Comments

Ecliptic Brewery‘s is one of my top recommendations for where to have great beer and food in Portland along with my other top picks like La Moule, Higgins (which I’ve highlighted before in a blog post), Saraveza (which I’ve written about before), and Ex Novo. When founding Ecliptic, experienced brewer John Harris specifically wanted to make sure that the food he served wasn’t just around because it’s the law to have food available – he wanted to make sure it matched well with the beer to provide good complimentary and contrasting flavors. The menu of beer and food proves that with its variety of beer available and food available. Everything I’ve had at Ecliptic has always been good, which makes me confident in recommending Ecliptic Brewery’s Food and Beer as among my top 5 in Portland. In particular, they have the best selection of food options if you are vegetarian.
Ecliptic Brewery's vegetarian/vegan option to their burgers - this Farro Burger with a wheat-garlic patty, tahini, arugula, spicy pickled carrots
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Of Roots and Blooms Vegan Food

August 7, 2017 by 2 Comments

Of Roots and Blooms recently made an announcement that they are working on two cookbooks and unspecified future projects TBD so if you haven’t been before, it’s only a few weeks before they are changing their schedule. Up until end of September they will pop up every Wednesday at Bottles on Fremont, and up to end of August they will finish popping up Sundays at Culmination Brewing offering rotating vegan delights. After that, who knows what will happen: apparently not even owners Nick and Carina, who only share that they don’t have anything solid except knowing “this while operation is about to morph into a new incarnation and life phase”

So hurry in now to try some of the best vegan food I’ve ever had! Here’s a look at some example greatness Of Roots and Blooms vegan food I’ve been able to enjoy to entice you to try it, and that vegan food isn’t all raw or dry food – it can be luxuriously rich too in the right hands.

This grilled cheese with cashew fromage fort, cheddar, spinach, toasted levain and side of chips reminds me when I first fell in love with them as a Cheese Plate cart.
Of Roots and Blooms pops up every Wednesday at Bottles on Fremont and Sundays at Culmination Brewing offering rotating vegan delights. This grilled cheese with cashew fromage fort, cheddar, spinach, toasted levain and side of chips reminds me when I first fell in love with them as a Cheese Plate cart. Of Roots and Blooms pops up every Wednesday at Bottles on Fremont and Sundays at Culmination Brewing offering rotating vegan delights. This Of Roots and Blooms vegan food example is their grilled cheese with cashew fromage fort, cheddar, spinach, toasted levain and side of chips reminds me when I first fell in love with them as a Cheese Plate cart.

I’m also a fan of their Brussels Sprout Grilled Cheese with butternut squash butter, sage aioli, and melty cheddar
Of Roots and Blooms Brussels Sprout Grilled Cheese with butternut squash butter, sage aioli, and melty cheddar - completely vegan

And just as you would expect, this mac and cheese is so rich and creamy that you can barely tell it’s not real cheese but vegan cheese. This is their IPA Mac and Cheese, made with Culmination’s Phaedrus IPA and topped with rushed pretzels and chives.
Of Roots and Blooms pops up every Wednesday at Bottles on Fremont and Sundays at Culmination Brewing offering rotating vegan delights. This Of Roots and Blooms vegan food example is their IPA Mac and Cheese, made with Culmination's Phaedrus IPA and topped with rushed pretzels and chives Of Roots and Blooms pops up every Wednesday at Bottles on Fremont and Sundays at Culmination Brewing offering rotating vegan delights. This Of Roots and Blooms vegan food example is their IPA Mac and Cheese, made with Culmination's Phaedrus IPA and topped with rushed pretzels and chives

Here’s a closeup of their vegan Lobster Mac and Cheese with sharp cheese sauce with seaweed “lobster” stock, chopped vegan lobster meat, chives buttered Old Bay breadcrumbs baby spinach.
This Of Roots and Blooms vegan food example is their Lobster Mac and Cheese with sharp cheese sauce with seaweed

One of the things that really impresses me though beyond that is how incredible and inventive they are at creating vegan adoptions of East Coast seafood, like New England clam chowder, shrimp scampi, clammy linguine, meatball or cheesesteak sandwiches. This is their surprisingly evocative of the sea but vegan and so velvety Vegan Oyster Stew with cashew potato cream and oyster mushrooms, served with oyster crackers
Of Roots and Blooms pops up every Wednesday at Bottles on Fremont and Sundays at Culmination Brewing offering rotating vegan delights. This Of Roots and Blooms vegan food example is their Vegan Oyster Stew with cashew potato cream and oyster mushrooms, served with oyster crackers Of Roots and Blooms pops up every Wednesday at Bottles on Fremont and Sundays at Culmination Brewing offering rotating vegan delights. This Of Roots and Blooms vegan food example is their Vegan Oyster Stew with cashew potato cream and oyster mushrooms, served with oyster crackers

Or how about when they made Vegan Lobster Ravioli with vegan lobster meat, chives and almond ricotta stuffed into red bell pepper pasta with tomato saffron cream sauce with Calabrian chilies and almond ricotta topped with arugula and peas.
Of Roots and Blooms pops up every Wednesday at Bottles on Fremont and Sundays at Culmination Brewing offering rotating vegan delights. This Of Roots and Blooms vegan food example is their Vegan Lobster Ravioli with vegan lobster meat, chives and almond ricotta stuffed into red bell pepper pasta with tomato saffron cream sauce with Calabrian chilies and almond ricotta topped with arugula and peas Of Roots and Blooms pops up every Wednesday at Bottles on Fremont and Sundays at Culmination Brewing offering rotating vegan delights. This Of Roots and Blooms vegan food example is their Vegan Lobster Ravioli with vegan lobster meat, chives and almond ricotta stuffed into red bell pepper pasta with tomato saffron cream sauce with Calabrian chilies and almond ricotta topped with arugula and peas

Don’t miss out on desserts either – which can vary to mousse to cheesecake and more. This is the Vegan Strawberry Cheesecake with rhubarb sauce, and their vegan Pecan Bar.
Of Roots and Blooms pops up every Wednesday at Bottles on Fremont and Sundays at Culmination Brewing offering rotating vegan delights. This Of Roots and Blooms vegan food example is their Vegan Strawberry Cheesecake with rhubarb sauce Of Roots and Blooms pops up every Wednesday at Bottles on Fremont and Sundays at Culmination Brewing offering rotating vegan delights. This Of Roots and Blooms vegan food example is their Vegan Strawberry Cheesecake with rhubarb sauce Of Roots and Blooms pops up every Wednesday at Bottles on Fremont and Sundays at Culmination Brewing offering rotating vegan delights. This Of Roots and Blooms vegan food example is their Vegan Pecan Bar

You can follow OfRootsandBlooms on Instagram to see what will be their menu of the week – they change every week. As mentioned, they are at noon to 8 pm at Culmination Brewery (2117 NE Oregon) until end of August and Wednesday at 3-10 PM at Bottles (5015 NE Fremont) until end of September and after that it’s unclear.

Have you heard of Of Roots and Blooms vegan food before, what do you think of some of the dishes they offer, what would you try?

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Recipe for Lentils with Roasted Tomatoes and Horseradish

July 10, 2017 by 3 Comments

I’ve shared my thoughts on the Anna Jones cookbook A Modern Way To Cook previously, as well my favorite recipe from the book for homemade crackers. This cookbook brings together more then 150 vegetarian recipes in unique flavor combinations, and one that had caught my eye and that I was saving for summer tomato season was one for Lentils with Roasted Tomatoes and Horseradish.
Recipe for Lentils with Roasted Tomatoes and Horseradish Recipe for Lentils with Roasted Tomatoes and Horseradish

Lentils are super affordable and healthy, full of nutritional benefits such as high dietary fiber, lean protein, iron, folates, vitamin B6, manganese, thiamin, selenium ,and more. This makes them great for heart health, helps fight fatigue, can help with weight control since it helps you feel full, the fiber is good for digestion, and the selenium in lentils (not found in many foods) can improves immune response to infection by stimulating the production of disease-killing T-cells and helps detoxify some cancer-causing compounds in the body.
Recipe for Lentils - healthy for you and delicious

This dish is also, importantly, delicious. It is tasty with the creaminess but healthy comfort of the lentils, the cold contrasting shock of the horseradish sauce, the burst of the roasted grape tomatoes, and the crunchiness of the breadcrumbs. The only expensive ingredient is the horseradish sauce – the recipe calls for cottage cheese, but you can use silken tofu, vegan mayo, or vegan cream cheese too.
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