Vegan Pittsburgh

I've been meaning to blog about my visit to Pittsburgh for two weeks now. Apologies to my three followers that this is so late.

Who knew that Pittsburgh was such a great place for vegan eating! First on my list, the Double Wide Grill. My friend Peggy says its a "bra" place. I'm still not quite sure what bra means, but I think its some Pittsburgh version of bro. All I know is if I passed the Double Wide Grill on the street I would not have stopped because usually a place advertising ribs is not the best bet on finding vegan food. Not so at the Double Wide. The restaurant has an entire vegan/vegetarian menu offering salads, burgers, nachos, tacos etc. But the Seitan "wings" are definitely something to sing about. Crusted in cornmeal, fried to perfection and drenched in barbecue sauce, these "wings" are finger-lick'n-good and no chickens had to die to enjoy them. Yum-O!

Next up the Oh Yeah! Ice Cream and Coffee Co., home to numerous varieties of soy ice cream and vegan, gluten-free waffles. Its great to walk into an ice cream shop an have so many non-dairy choices. They sell Temptation Soy ice cream. I had the mint chocolate chip. I must say, that I still think that Double Rainbow's soy ice cream is the best non-dairy ice cream out there, but considering its so hard to find, Temptation is a close second best.

For a late night snack we stopped into Kelly's Bar & Lounge. Like Doublewide, you would never think this place was vegan friendly, but for a dive bar there is a wide selection. The menu includes deep fried "buffalo" tofu which is very spicy, but quite yummy.

Lastly, we stopped in to Quiet Storm for breakfast the next morning. Quiet Storm is a great place to get vegan comfort food. Their brunch boasts grits, hangover hash, and stuffed French toast! I had the "Athena" bagel delux with hummus, which was great. I'm sure the grits and french toast were scrumptious, but I had a food hangover from all of the ice cream and fried seitan. Quiet Storm also serves lunch and dinner.

Vegan intermarriage

Is it possible to cook healthy, low-fat, vegan dinners that satisfy my skinny, omnivorous husband? Well I'm about to find out. I've decided to become vegan. I've thought about becoming vegan for years. I've been off land animals for almost seven years, and stopped eating fish three years ago. The truth is once you open your eyes and your mind to the atrocities involved every time you take a bite of flesh, its hard to ever eat animals again. Whats amazing to me is how long I've been able to accept this truth while numbing myself to the reality of what animals go through every time I eat an egg, have a bowl of ice cream, or a slice of cheese pizza.

Simply, all roads lead to the slaughter house. For instance, even my meat-loving husband becomes a tad squeamish when it comes to veal. He still eats veal occasionally, but he at least acknowledges that torturing a baby cow is involved. Yet the veal industry would not be possible if it were not for the dairy industry. To produce milk cows are constantly impregnated. But when they give birth, the only profitable option for a male calf is to become veal. When the adult cow can no longer keep up this brutal cycle of impregnation and lactation, she too loses her profitability and is sent to slaughter.

I love animals. But I love my husband more. I love dinner time with my husband. Its become our little ritual. For some reason dinner is not dinner if we're not sitting down together. The food may be there, but I'm just not as satisfied. I don't want to be one of those couples who has two separate meals. So if I'm going to become vegan, I'm going to have to learn to cook dinners that satisfy both of us. Tonight's menu is tamale casserole. I'll let you know how it goes.

Vegan Lasagna

So it turns out Robert wanted lasagna instead of tamale casserole. I just assumed he would want tamale casserole because it resembles a dish we've have before and he already knows he likes. But he chose vegan lasagna so vegan lasagna it was.

I used the recipe for spinach lasagna from Veganomicon, minus the spinach because I didn't have any. I could have substituted kale, but Robert HATES kale.



The first step was to make the tofu "ricotta" which involved smashing up tofu with olive oil, nutritional yeast, salt, lemon juice and garlic.














After that the assembly process is much like regular lasagna. Sauce, noodles, "cheese," repeat.














I put some Follow Your Heart vegan cheese on top and finished it off under the broiler so it got nice and melty. Robert gave it the thumbs up, so it now officially on the menu. I think next time I'm going to let the "ricotta" drain in cheese cloth before using it so it gets a little thicker. Other than that, it was very satisfying.













Blueberry pie for dessert.