Restaurant Review: Evergreen House (SLC)

We ate lunch today at Evergreen House in Salt Lake City. It is a vegan Chinese restaurant. I'd heard a lot of good things about it and was missing the great Grasshopper in Boston (and My Thai too!). So, we drove down to SLC for a ski swap at REI and then lunch. Oh man. It was bad. Really really bad. I can't believe anyone likes that place. I feel really awful saying anything bad about a vegan restaurant because I really want to support vegan businesses, but wow, so bad.

Mike got a sweet and sour "chicken" and I got a black pepper "beef" dish. In the sweet and sour dish, the sauce tasted like ketchup, the "chicken" was fried on the outside but gummy on the inside. Mike described his "chicken" as "It tasted like a frozen package and um... yucky". I just asked Mike if gummy was an accurate description of the "chicken" and he told me "I don't know, I was too distracted by the horrible taste". My "Beef" had the texture of undercooked seitan (doughy) and tasted a little like five spice powder and a lot like cinnamon. The spring rolls we good ;).

Here are some pics of lunch:

Sweet and Sour "Chicken" - You think there is enough sauce on there?

Hot Pepper "Beef"

Sorry Evergreen House, but you are no Grasshopper... sigh.

Annie's Woodstock "Copycat"

For about a year now, Mike and I have been addicted to Annie's Woodstock dressing.



Seriously, we have stopped buying any other dressing. We don't even consider it. With the economy not being so great now, I've been inspired by Thrifty Living's blog to do more stuff myself. I searched and found a recipe from Musings from the Shire's blog that mimics Annie's Woodstock dressing and made it a couple of nights ago. It is so good. Mike thinks it might actually be better than the original. We are going to keep making it instead of buying it. 5 minutes and a blender and I've probably saved a few bucks. Here is a pic of how it turned out:



I think next time I will make a few tiny adjustments to the recipe despite Mike telling me to leave it exactly as is. I'm going to substitute flax seed oil for the canola oil to make it healthier and I am going to cut back on the vinegar a touch. I also think I will use sundried tomatoes in oil rather than the dried ones.

I love love love this recipe!

Silk Pumpkin Soy Milk

For the last MoFo post, I merely have a product review. Silk has a pumpkin soy milk that is in the refridgerated section of the grocery store that is crack. It is so good. It smells much spicier than it tastes. It is smooth, sweet, and lightly pumpkin flavored. So, quick, off to the stores with ye to get some before this seasonal soymilk is gone. Oddly, I could find no mention of this product on the Silk website so I have no picture or link to point you to.

In other news, I made the pumpkin black bean casserole again last night and it was not nearly as spicy as last time (thankfully) so I must have really screwed up the spice measurements last time. I got another boatload of pumpkin from the CSA this week so were are again immersed in pumpkin dishes. I put 7 cups of baked and pureed pumpkin into the freezer last night and have 2 more small sugar pumpkins on the counter. I'll gladly trade a pumpkin for an acorn squash right about now.

Svedish "Meeetballs"

Last night we made Cozy Inside's Swedish "Meatballs".  They were pretty good (and scary real looking, huh).  

I noticed the comments on the recipe indicated that people had troubles with the balls sticking together so after I hydrated the TVP, I added about another 1/4 to 1/3 cup stock.  I had no problems with them sticking together.  

While this recipe was ok, I think it needs some tweaks.  Most importantly, I would double the sauce (or half the "meatballs" and pasta).   It is definitely worth making if you are craving that sort of thing.  I think next time I might try a different meatball recipe because I am not a huge fan of TVP (but, these were good too).  Has anyone out there tried LightLife ground for something like this?

Tiny Little Pies

We accidentally got a double CSA share this week (long story) and that meant that we had 2x as many apples and pears. I decided to chop the apples and saute them in EB and sugar as a filling. I used that filling to make Apple/Pear turnovers with Puff Pastry (no pic) and tiny apple pies. Some of the pies have a top crust and some have a streusel topping. I then put all of them in the freezer. Some nice cold winter day there will be pie.

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Hearty Autumn Muffins (with Pumpkin, apples, and bran)

I was worried that I would not be able to hit the required 20 posts this month, but can you believe it? This is number 23!

These muffins are Vegan Dad's recipe. They are very hearty and filling - but oh so soft. I like them a lot and love the bits of slightly crunchy apples in them, but I was a little disappointed that i could not taste the pumpkin in them. The bran kind of overwhelms the pumpkin. Even so, they were very good, so don't let that stop you from trying his recipe! They were so good that I am probably going to make them again this weekend.



I made a couple of small changes. Vegan Dad's recipe called for 3/4 cup wheat bran and 1/4 cup oat bran. I didn't have either, but I did have some Bob's Red Mill High Fiber Cereal which is mostly wheat bran and oat bran, so I used 1 cup of that (I wonder if that's what made them so tender?). I then had to add a couple more tablespoons of soy milk.