Birthday Treats for a Birthday Girl

Birthdays are a wonderful reason to celebrate with delicious food...especially if you are a foodie, like me! My 22nd bday was a few days ago, so here's a few treats with which I was blessed on my special day!!

Even though it was my birthday, I did do a little cooking. One, because I love to cook, and two, because I really wanted biscuits and gravy on my special morning for breakfast...and there was no one else around who could make them like I like them! Anyway, I made up some whole wheat biscuits and herbed tofu sausage gravy (still working on this recipe! I'll put it up after it's perfected.) for my mother and myself. It was a great morning!

For my birthday lunch, my mom took me to one of our favorite restaurants in Kansas City, and the world, Eden Alley! I had my favorite menu item: the Sweet Potato Burrito! It is a big flour tortilla stuffed with roasted rosemary sweet potatoes, homemade hummus, and brown rice, topped with fruit salsa and served on a bed of organic baby greens. This is such a refreshing meal on a warm summer day!

My mom had the Falafel Platter, which is their homemade baked falafel patties with brown rice, homemade hummus, and warm local pita bread! She loved this dish, and I loved the bite I snuck from her plate!For dessert, we split a piece of their Carrot Cake with Cinnamon Icing and Candied Walnuts...I love carrot cake so much!! This was delish!We also split some of their homemade vegan ice cream! You can't have your birthday cake without ice cream! We got the Coconut-Chocolate Chip Ice Cream and it was mind-blowing! I love the creaminess of the ice cream interspersed with crunchy bits of frozen chocolate chips!!
For my birthday dinner, my dad and his family took me to Waldo Pizza in Kansas City. I adore this place! They are one of the few pizza joints that carry vegan mozzarella and they have tons of veggie toppings! They even have a special vegan menu. So sweet.

For my pie, I got vegan mozzarella, artichoke hearts, kalamata olives, and roasted red peppers. This was amaaaazing! Sweet and salty and savory and wonderful.
Aaaaaand they even had vegan cupcakes! My dad and I both got the Cappuccino Cupcakes. I have to say that this was one of the BEST cupcakes I've ever eaten....and that's been a lot of cupcakes! He thought it was amazing, too! It was just sooooo moist and rich yet light and had the most intense cappuccino flavor! I want one now just thinking about it!

While I was visiting my family in KC for my birthday, I also had to hit up the all-vegan restaurant, Cafe Seed! This place has food that would make anyone want to go vegan!

My mom and I each had our respective favorites: I had the Chik'n Sandwich on a Biscuit (which IS what I will eat in Heaven everyday.), served with an awesome side salad... And my mom got the Veggie Burger on a sprouted wheat bun, served with awesome homemade thick-cut fries. This burger has caramelized onions on it, folks! These people are NOT playing around!!

And, since it was my special week, my mom even surprised me with some sorbet! This is the Pomegranate-Blood Orange Sorbet made my Archer Farms, one of the Target gourmet store brands. OMG this sorbet tastes like a push-pop from my childhood!!! And it is beautiful! Tastes really good topped with some frozen berries, too! Aaaaah, summer is here!!

(No Animals) Sufferin' Succotash!

Yeah, cheezy title. sorry. This post is aptly named because I discovered a new vegan-friendly restaurant in Kansas City today: Succotash! This was the first Saturday of the season that I went to the farmer's market in downtown KC, which was exciting in itself, but while I was there, I of course had to eat lunch! So when I saw Succotash, it was obvious what my job was. I had heard it was great before AND my mom had a gift certificate AND I was at the City Market, where it is located....how could I not eat there?? The restaurant is in a warehouse-type space and it is decorated really cool, lots of bright colors, paintings, retro lamps, etc.....Also, they have great food! The Pitch voted them best breakfast in Kansas City! I wouldn't say this applied to vegans, as there weren't really many vegan breakfast items, but the lunch food was wonderful! About 90% of the people who worked there were really nice and helpful, but I guess you always remember the 10% that wasn't. Anyway, one of the girls who worked there was vegan, and she pointed out some options on the menu and substitutions and whatnot.

I had the Veggie Wrap: spinach tortilla stuffed with lemony lima bean hummus (subbed for the eggs and cheese. yuck.) , succotash, sun-dried tomatoes, and spinach, served with a HUGE side of home fries! This was amazing! The succotash was really crisp and flavorful, with tons of dill in it, and the lima bean hummus was amazingly creamy and fresh-tasting. I am in love!My mom had the Veggie Quesadilla: spinach tortilla with grilled succotash, tomatoes, spring greens, sun-dried tomatoes, and lemony lima bean hummus (subbed for cheese again), served with also a HUGE side of home fries. She really, really liked this, too! It was a lot like the wrap I had, since we made so many substitutions to make the items vegan, but we both loved what we had! And it was really reasonably priced! Yesssssss!While we were at the farmer's market, we picked up some Sweet Potato Pasta from Pappardelle's, a local pasta maker/vendor. They had a wide selection of pastas to choose from, but many of them had eggs in them. Luckily, they were really helpful in picking out which did not contain eggs, and I knew which one I had to have when my eyes landed on the words "sweet potato" and "pasta" since I am a carb lover and proud of it! Now I just need to figure out a meal special enough to use this in!We also stopped by a local natural foods store, Green Acres Market, to pick up a few groceries. While shopping, we discovered they had a new vegan item in their bakery: Vegan Chocolate Chip Raspberry Bars! I was pumped, because I love the raspberry chocolate chip blondies from VWAV, and these were inexpensive and already made for me! Lazy points! These were really good...not even close to as good as Isa's, duh....but quite tasty for a natural food store's bakery section! The crust was nice and dense and there was just the perfect amounts of both raspberry and chocolate. Very nice. In unrelated news, we had Waldo Pizza for dinner last night! Waldo is a KC local pizza place that has Follow Your Heart Vegan Mozzerella as a topping option, toooooons of veggie topping choices, and several vegan crust and sauce choices! They even sometimes have vegan cookies and brownies, but only if you go on the right day. Figures. We had the standard Veggie Pizza with Vegan Mozzerella...I added some Italian-Baked Tofu I made once we got it home, you know, for a litte more protein. It was so freakin' delicious!! The traditional crust is just the right thickness and it is soft and flavorful and crisp on the edges and perfect! It is nice to know you can always get a good vegan pizza in Kansas City!

Also eaten this week was my Green Tea-Almond Noodles! It's a recipe I have been working on and thinking about (you know how it is....) for a while now, and I think it is pretty much "there." This Asian-style dish is basically udon noodles, toasted almonds, veggies, and the Green Tea Almond Sauce (below), and it makes for a pretty quick and filling meal on a busy weeknight! This was a perfect pre-LOST treat!

Green Tea-Almond Sauce (makes approx. 2 1/2 cups)

2 cups water plus 2 bags green tea

1/4 cup cold water whisked with 2 Tbs cornstarch

1/4 cup soy sauce

1/2 tsp ginger powder

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp black pepper

1/4 tsp crushed red pepper (optional for extra heat)

1/4 tsp almond extract

1 Tbs maple syrup or agave nectar

2 Tbs Dijon or spicy mustard

Bring water to a boil and add tea bags. Remove from heat and let steep for 5 minutes. Remove tea bags return to medium heat. Add the cornstarch slurry and the rest of the ingredients and whisk constantly for about 5 minutes, until the sauce has thickened to a honey-like consistency. Toss with noodles, veggies, and almonds, and then serve hot or cold!

p.s. Is everybody ready to make Easter dinner tomorrow? What are you fixing?