Ypsilanti Vegan Potluck

2010-08-22T13:06:00.001-07:00

who want's to take over this blog in ypsilanti?

2010-08-10T11:54:00.001-07:00

It's official - the last Ypsilanti Adam's house Vegan Potluck was Sunday, August 8th, 2010.

We dined amongst the empty walls and furniture-less floors.

We said goodbye.

It was a good run.

And now we've moved on to new places.

Vegan Soy-Free "Cinnabons"

2010-03-10T20:15:00.000-08:00

Makes 12-16 (only 8 pictures as the other 8 were nommified straight away)

Time (Not Including Time for Dough To Rise): About an Hour
Total Time: about 2 hours.

Ingredients:

For The Rolls

2 1/2 teaspoons of active dry yeast
1/2 Cup of unbleached sugar
1 Cup of Ricemilk, warmed (This is important)
2 Tablespoons of ground flaxseeds whisked together with 6 Tablespoons of hot water
(You could use 2 'eggs' worth of egg re-placer but flaxseed is much much much better)
1/3 Cup of Vegan Earth Balance Soy-Free margarine, melted
4½ Cups of unbleached flour
1 teaspoon of salt

1 Cup of brown sugar
2 1/2 Tablespoons of ground cinnamon
1/3 Cup Vegan Earth Balance Soy-Free margarine, liquefied for brushing on dough

The Fro-Fro-Frosting

Originally this recipe called for 3oz (3/8ish of a container) of Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese but in an attempt to make this Vegan AND soy free....
At the end you'll find a soy-free substitute of a cream cheese spread.

Ingredients :

3/8ths of a cup of Soy-free Vegan Cream Cheese
1/4 Cups Earth Balance soy-free margarine, softened/liquidized
1 1/2 Cups powdered sugar

Instructions:

Mix the yeast, sugar, and milk in a mixing bowl and let stand until it get a bit bubbly.

Add flaxseed, melted margarine, flour, and salt. Mix well and knead for 5-10 minutes. The dough should be firm and smooth. Set the dough aside in a covered bowl and let rise and double in size.

After the dough has doubled, turn it out onto a floured work surface, cover, and let rest for 10 more minutes.

While waiting for the dough to double, combine the brown sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl.

Roll the dough into a 16x21 inch rectangle.
Spread dough with margarine and sprinkle evenly with sugar/cinnamon mixture.
Roll up dough and cut into 12-16 sections with a sharp knife.

Place rolls into a lightly greased muffin baking pan. (A cookie sheet also works fine.)
Cover and let rise until nearly doubled, about 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Bake rolls in preheated oven until golden brown, for about 10-15 minutes.

While rolls are baking, beat together vegan cream cheese, margarine, powdered sugar, vanilla, and salt. Spread frosting on warm rolls before serving.

As a finishing touch, crush some almonds and sprinkle on top!

and the following recipe isn't mine nor have I tried it but it should work as a Vegan-Soy-Free Cream Cheese!

Vegan Soy-Free Cream Cheese:
Makes One Cup

1 Cup of plain rice or almond milk
1/4 Cup of raw cashew pieces
4 tsp. fresh lemon juice
2 Tablespoon. cornstarch (or wheatstarch or 3 T. white rice flour)
2 Tablespoon. oil
1/4 tsp. salt

1 Tablespoon of Maple Syrup

Using a blender or food processor, blend the rice milk and cashews until smooth.

Add the remaining ingredients and continue to blend.

Pour blended mixture into a small saucepan and stir constantly over medium-high heat until it thickens and begins to boils. Lower the heat and cook 1 minute while constantly stirring.

Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. Finally, whisk with beater until it's smooth. Cover and refrigerate. Before using, you'll want to mix it again with a whisk. If you find that it's too thick, it may be thinned with a little rice or almond milk.

2010-03-10T20:14:00.000-08:00

First Kayaking Trip Of the Year

2010-03-09T21:52:00.000-08:00

Lets get out on the Huron River!

It Was Beautiful!

45 Degrees.

Around 3pm.

It makes me look forward to having our annual vegan river potlucks in the near future.

Until then....

2010-02-28T20:20:00.000-08:00

From Corey to those who asked:

1 2/3 Cup AP flour
1/2 Cup chick pea flour
2/3 Cup water like liquid
1 Tbsp olive (or other) oil
1 Tbsp salt
Up to 1 Tbsp spices (I used about a tsp each of black pepper and granulated garlic)

Stir all ingredients together in a bowl until it becomes a ragged mass; then turn out onto the counter and knead untill all dry ingredients are incorporated, then knead for a further 3-5 minutes. (Dough should be smooth.) Set dough aside for 10 minutes. Divide dough ball into eigths, and set about rolling out to cut noodles. I use a pasta machine, and run each piece through on the largest setting 3-5 times, folding in half each time; then reducing the thickness twice. At that point I run it through the fetticuini cutter, or you could roll the sheets up and cut noodles by hand.

Boil in a large pot with at least 2 Tbsp of salt. My pasta from my roller takes about 5 minutes. Your's could be different, start checking at 3 minutes.

This has nothing to do with this blog.

2010-02-12T06:09:00.000-08:00

How cool is this:

2009-12-16T10:57:00.000-08:00

Thank you for your e-mail. We appreciate your inquiry.

At Red Robin, you may customize any menu item, or create your own entrée with available food ingredients, to meet your dietary needs. For instance, any of our available salads can be made vegan by removing meat, cheese, and egg (where applicable).

While our Garden & Boca Burgers are not vegan, other choices include Red's Rice Bowl, minus the fried linguini and chicken. Vegan ingredients to chose from and customize your own order include: black beans, rice, a side salad, steamed veggies, melon wedges, celery sticks, Steak Fries, if fried in a designated fryer (please inquire with the manager), and a wide variety of fresh produce items.

We do plan on introducing a vegan Boca burger at our Corporate Owned restaurants in 2010.

Thank you for choosing Red Robin!

Red Robin Guest Relations

First Snow - with Summer food

2009-12-08T22:15:00.001-08:00

Tonight was a lovely small group. I made a RAW Vegan Avocado Soup. It's a delicious little number I made from scratch with a tomato base, 5 cloves of garlic, 2 zucchinis, 3 avocado, a jalapeno , corn, and a bit of onion etcs. It's easy to make, tastes amazing, and did I mention that it's delicious?

Brian made a spelt grain bread from scratch and we also had Vegan gingerbread, a lovely salad, and a few other surprises.

The highlight of the evening was throwing myself down the hill that the house sits on in the snow. Of course, the snow saucer did help the throwing process to be a bit more fun than what would have been a cold snowy ouch.

A Vegan Potluck Halloween in Ypsilanti

2009-10-28T21:28:00.000-07:00

Merv Pumpkin Head

"Ready For My Close Up...."

THE CARVE:

THE COSTUMES:

THE PUMPKINS:

Charles' Pumpkin

Constantina's Pumpkin

Missy's Pumpkin

George's Pumpkin (Mine)

Jacob's Pumpkin

Brian's Pumpkin

Laura's Pumpkin

There were dresses to be worn.

...and the Green man decided to join us.

2009-10-17T19:11:00.000-07:00

Potluck on the river, again? It was fun. I'm blogging late. This is short. So deal!

Now Appearing at Ypsilanti's Corner Brewery!

2009-08-20T17:28:00.000-07:00

Introducing George's Vegan Hoagie! (A.K.A. In private circles...The Mind Tapped).

So it has been brought to my attention that I have a sandwich named after me at the Corner Brewery. It's currently on the Specials menu through August 31st but will soon become a permanent menu item!

It's called George's Vegan Hoagie. It's on vegan sub style bread with tempeh, mustard, tomato, onion, and sauerkraut. It's a bit bland the way it is, but will soon be altered to include black olives and banana peppers.

It was created after attending VegAnnArbor regular get together at the Corner Brewery on Mondays. Not only is their beer Vegan, but my friend Heather is the kitchen manager and has been working on a expanded kick-ass menu. There are plenty of vegge options, but weren't really anything that was vegan in the form of sandwich. Solution? I put together a sandwich made-to-order. Upon sitting down we worked out something that tastes pretty decent and after a taste test I was told it would be added to the menu. What's cool is that it was named after me too! So folks, here's to my 15 seconds of fame.

It's quite nummy as illustrated below:

The Return of Old friends and the Debut of the Ypsilanti Mug.

2009-08-19T07:48:00.000-07:00

We had a fantastic turn out last night - a nice tidy group of eight. A delicious Ratatouille, sweet corn on the cob, lemon drop soup, two loaves of vegan soy free homemade bread, a pasta dish, strawberries, chocolate truffles, freshly squeezed to drink lime-aid!

Ypsilanti's "The Rocket" (Michigan Avenue and Huron) just unveiled their new piece of Ypsilanti citch: The Ypsilanti Mug! I picked one up yesterday before it hit the shelves on my way to potluck. I'm the first and proud owner (I'm not affiliated with the Rocket, I just think they're rad).

In Other News: The Alternative Baking Company (ABC) emailed me back the other day to say that their Vegan Orange Muffin cookie is now a permanent flavor in their arsenal of sweets! This is very exciting. I spoke with Zach at Ypsilanti's Ugly Mug and he'll be adding them to his next order. By the way, the folks at ABC are extremely nice! They're a friendly bunch that wrote back very promptly to my email and from what I hear are wonderful to do business with if you're a small company. Rumor has it, College Inn Pizza (Huron and Washington) will be looking into carrying ABC cookies! That will make three places for everyone to pick up these amazing treats (Cafe Luwak, The Ugly Mug, and College Inn Pizza). If you didn't already know, College Inn offers vegan options (Vegan Cheese and Vegan Peperoni) at their wonderful and affordable pizza joint! They're friendly to boot!

Back to Potluck Madness: Old friends that have long sinced moved from Ypsilanti are back from the far away lands of Traverse City Michigan and married to boot! Congratulations to Marie and Michael! They're a very cute pair that celebrated their love with a Pirate themed wedding!
Potluck Activities:

We watched the frightning and suggestive 1953 classic The 5,000 fingers of Dr. T. You can add this to the ever growing list of "things you'd never watch unless you come to potluck."

There were two very heated rounds of the fantastic game Set.

The evening wrapped up with a quiet night out on the front porch as we all said our fairwells.

Upcoming Potluck Field trips!

August 22nd - River Potluck (Gallup Park, In the River, Ann Arbor, MI)
Time: 1pm-4pm
Location: Gallup Park Huron River
What to bring:

1. A water friendly container with your potluck contribution inside
2. Something to eat on and eat with (Bowls are always the best option)
3. A craft to float in (Or you can rent one at the canoe livery if we don't have enough space for everyone)
4. A friend or companion or both

This potluck will be an alcohol free event.

It's been a while since we've braved the waters, brought the floating potluck table out of storage, and set float for a floating potluck! Get there on time to gaurentee yourself a seat in our fleet of boats. Between Brian and George we have eight seats. Paul has yet to confirm his fleet, but will have (roughly) another eight seats as well.

At 5pm in Ypsilanti Riverside Park, the Ypsilanti Heritage festival will be racing hundreds of Devil Ducks down the Huron River! I plan to be there after potluck - it's a fun site to see and this year instead of the traditional rubber ducks, The Rocket is supplying Devil Ducks!

A small group - This week.

2009-08-08T19:56:00.000-07:00

A few rounds of YDKJ and a bit of time later....

Small Group this past Tuesday, but good times.

2009-07-31T00:56:00.000-07:00

Blue Berries make everything taste better!

We had a bit of a Tetris battle going on that evening and a fire outside in the yard.

The food was simple & delicious. On the menu:

Blue Berries
Ginger Cookies
Coconut Covered Dates
Watermelon
Stuffed Peppers
Asparagus/avocado/carrot Sushi
Mexican Coke

New Home for Old Friends

2009-07-28T08:37:00.000-07:00

In celebration of nearly two years of "Vegan" Potluck I decided that it deserves a blog. The google group is a fine place to keep in touch with everyone and send out notices, though this will be a fun place to document what we've done and post up pictures when we river potluck or other such non-sense.

Did you know that today's potluck is marks the last day of the 20th month we've been holding potluck?

For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about (because you arrived here through some "crazy random happenstance" - thank you Dr. Horrible), We're a small group of folks that get together three times a month and share Vegan/Vegetarian dishes.

But it's more than that....

We share movies together, we play board games and cards together, we dance out on the grass, we walk across broken glass barefoot under careful instruction, we watch fire eaters, we watch violins being juggled as if they were juggling clubs, we play music together, we sing rounds together, we canoe and kayak together, we explore together. All of this three times a month.

Interestingly, most of the people who show up aren't Vegan at all but cook vegan and sometimes (though much more rarely) just vegetarian and come to have a good time.

Put simply its good food, friends and strangers who become friends and friends who become strange.

What will this space be used for? Pictures, Recipes, Tales that are true, and perhaps a few that are not.

See you at the next one.

-The Vegan Potluck