Our Nation's Capital!

Until last weekend, I had never been to Washington, DC!  I don't know how I managed this, considering that I've lived four hours away for seven years, love to travel, and am an American history nerd.  We finally decided to make it happen this Memorial Day.

We drove into town Saturday and arrived around lunchtime.  Naturally, it was a thousand degrees, but I worked hard to maintain a positive attitude.  Our hotel was just a few blocks from the White House, so that was our first stop.  Sadly, we did not see President Obama.

We did see some baby ducks, though!  I have been complaining a lot this year about not seeing any baby ducks at the lake near our house.

We walked down to the mall and saw the World War II memorial (I only cried a little bit once, upon spying an old veteran in a wheelchair), the Lincoln Memorial, and Vietnam Memorial.  

There were tons of people everywhere, which is to be expected, I guess.

At this point Ben thought I was going to sweat to death so we went to the National American History Museum.  We saw the fancy Smithsonian building on the way, which Ben hates because it "looks like dead flesh" but I thought it was nice.

We had dinner reservations at The Bombay Club, an Indian place.  Thirty minutes before we needed to leave the hotel, I checked Yelp and discovered attire was "dressy" to the point where the waiters wore tuxedos.  So we chickened out and went to the sushi place on the corner instead.  As it turns out, the sushi place (Zentan) was insanely good.  I discovered after we got home that it's a Susur Lee restaurant, which is exciting!  I've never eaten at a celebrity chef's restaurant that I can recall.  Anyway, we got the two vegetarian sushi rolls on the menu, some shiitake and spinach dumplings, and honey glazed tofu.  All of it was fantastic.

The next day, Sunday, was even hotter.  Hooray!  We went for breakfast crepes at this place near our hotel and they were sooo goooood.  Mine was nutella, banana, and strawberry.

Then we walked straight to the Capitol so we could see that side of the mall before it got too hot.  We saw the FBI Building on the way.  I did not see Seeley Booth.

 The Capitol visitor's center is closed on Sunday and there was nobody around - it was really peaceful and quiet.

From the steps of the Supreme Court building:

As you can see, by this time I was already a sweaty mess.  We moved to indoor activities.

We spent a lot of time Sunday in art museums - the National Galleries and the Hirschhorn - which was awesome because apparently families visiting DC with children do not go to art museums.  They were pretty empty compared to the other attractions.

Ben made a phone call from the National Gallery.

Just kidding, he didn't.  We just thought it was funny that they had a pay phone.  Who uses a pay phone???

We got a delicious lunch in the cafe of the National Gallery - greek feast!

Then we went to the Air & Space Museum.  Here is Ben with a rocket engine.

The Hirshhorn Museum (modern and contemporary art) was probably our favorite thing.  Ben took a zillion pictures of the exterior.

To the point where I was getting kind of irritated.

The best exhibit was Suprasensorial, with lots of color and light-based exhibits you could walk through.

Ben's a coolguy.

For contrast to the art museum picture above, here's what the Museum of Natural Science looked like.  We were there for about eight minutes.  Too crowded!

We met our college friend Toby at Ezme for dinner and got the vegetarian tasting menu - it was delicious!  I'm terrible and forgot to take pictures.

The next morning we went to Sticky Fingers bakery on the way out of town.  We got and enjoyed the cupcakes for which they're famous, but were both underwhelmed by our breakfasts (biscuits & gravy, grits, tofu scramble).  I don't know why vegan restaurants use so much Daiya (commercial fake cheese) in their food; real food from simple ingredients is so much better!  And their gravy was nothing compared to the Vegan Diner-based version I make at home.  Anyway, I do like supporting vegan restaurants so I'm glad we gave it a try.  If you go to DC, pick up some cupcakes there!

Although there were a few things I wanted to see that we didn't get around to (Holocaust Museum, National Archives, etc.), it was a great trip to our nation's capital.  Next time I will go in the winter, though.

Spinach-Avocado Salad with Tempeh Asado

As I was driving home from work yesterday, I was thinking about this dinner, which was on the schedule, and thinking, "maybe I should just make something else."  It didn't seem like it would be filling enough and was maybe also a bit boring.  I should really know better than not to trust Viva Vegan!

This salad has few ingredients - just spinach, red onion, avocado, and tomato.  The tempeh asado is briefly marinated in a latin-ish sauce for about ten minutes and then fried.  But the dressing was the star, and it was super simple, too - just Veganaise, dried chiles that have been toasted and soaked in water for a bit, lime juice, and ketchup. 

Overall it was just fantastic, and easily kept me full until bedtime.  Now that our summer is here, I'm sure I will be making more entree salads for dinner.  Yay!

Spaghetti with Tempeh Cutlets with Creamy Tomato Sauce

This recipe is from American Vegan Kitchen.  I marinated the tempeh overnight in red wine vinegar and spices and it was so good - it soaked up every bit of the marinade.  The tomato sauce was a little spicy, and made creamy by the addition of soy milk and a little flour for thickening.  I don't know why I've never thought to do that before.

I also used the first of our backyard summer basil to garnish!

Pad Thai Salad with Red Thai Tofu

This salad is soooo gooood.  Lettuce, carrots, bean sprouts, peanuts (or in this case cashews, because I used up all the peanuts in the dressing) and I added some sliced red bell pepper.  The dressing is slightly spicy peanut-lime.  The tofu is coated in a mixture of Thai red chili paste, agave, and soy sauce. Perfection.  All recipes from Appetite for Reduction.

Using Up Greens + Strawberry Pie

Somehow, I ended up with a bunch of collards and three bags of kale in my refrigerator all at one time.  Even though these items are basically free in North Carolina, I still feel bad wasting food and have gone on a quest to use it all up.  

The collards were oldest, so I cooked them up on Saturday night using Viva Vegan's Brazilian Braised Kale recipe.  I often am in a hurry cooking collards and don't give them enough time to cook down - kale is much faster - but Saturday I was patient and let them go for a long time to get tender and they were perfect.  I made my old standby garlic yellow rice to serve as the base of the bowl, and then threw together some black beans, loosely based upon Viva Vegan's Venezuelan Black Beans recipe, using things from the freezer.  Man!  This turned out to be a great dinner.  The beans are sweet, not spicy, so the flavor of the rice and collards wasn't overpowered.

And then for dinner we had strawberry pie.  I just barely got in under the wire for farmer's market strawberry season this year.  This recipe comes from Ben's mom and is already vegan (assuming you use shortening rather than butter for the crust).  As you can see, I am still not very good at making pretty crusts but with time and lots of pie-making, hopefully I will get there.

Today is Monday and that pie is already gone.  I only had two pieces!  Ben is a good dessert eater.

Seitan Stroganoff

I'm a big fan of the stroganoff recipe in Vegan With a Vengeance, but I'm trying to branch out and keep trying new things so I went with American Vegan Kitchen's Beer-Simmered Seitan Stroganoff for last night's dinner.  It was really easy to throw together and tasted great, but it didn't really scream stroganoff to me - the sauce was really tomatoey and flavored mostly with smoked paprika. 

I served it over buttered (Earth Balance-d) parsley noodles and it made for a really good, hearty dinner.

Stovetop Mac & Cheeze with Chorizo

Ben is out of town this weekend, and that means I get to eat nutritional yeast-based "cheese" sauce.  This is a basic stovetop mac and fake cheese recipe from American Vegan Kitchen, to which I added some mozzarella  style Daiya and Trader Joe's soy chorizo. 

Can you tell it was awesome?  Look at it!  It looks so cheesy!  I was going to add some peas but I didn't have any, so too bad for me.  I'll just take some extra vitamins.

Plate of Mexican-y Goodness

Normally I sit down with my cookbooks on Friday or Saturday and choose recipes and make a grocery list for the week.  We've had a crazy few weeks, though, and didn't get back in town this week until late Sunday night, so on Monday I went to the grocery store and bought a bunch of random vegetables with the intention of using them up with whatever staples we have around the house.  It's working pretty well!  Tuesday night we had quinoa, steamed broccoli, and tempeh all mixed up with peanut-lime dressing (from Appetite for Reduction) on top.

Last night I made the chipotle potato & seitan taco filling from Viva Vegan, but instead of eating it in tacos I served it over a big pile of lettuce and yellow rice with cherry tomatoes and avocado.  It was reeeeeeally good.  The discovery of how much I like to eat big mixed up piles of things is maybe my favorite unexpected side benefit of learning to cook vegan food.

I had leftovers for lunch today and even without the avocado (which naturally we polished off between the two of us last night), it was still delicious.