Thursday, May 17, 2012

Traveling while Vegan: NC to NY Updates!

Today's blog post is mainly going to be a photo blog, because I have been doing so much traveling and taking so many wonderful pictures of so many wonderful meals! 

Travel update: Today is Thursday May 17, 2012. It is 8:48pm. I am sitting in my best friend Josie's apartment in Astoria, NY. I took a train from 2:30am to about 1:45pm on Wednesday May 16, 2012 from Salisbury, NC to Penn Station, NYC. I went straight from Penn to Irondale theatre in Brooklyn, hung out at the theatre, ate dinner, saw the show, came to Astoria. This morning we went wedding dress shopping in Manhattan for Josie's sister Lizzie. (She said YES to the Dress!) Then we had a fabulous lunch. Then I came back to Josie's apartment to relax and blog and such while Josie works her show again tonight.

But now back to NC for pictures......

My first meal at home in NC... yum....


Delicious salad Mommom made: Lettuce, Walnuts, Strawberries, and a Raspberry Vinaigrette.



Dinner at the Salty Caper in downtown Salisbury, NC with my Salisbury School of Ballet girls! The Salty Caper's dough IS vegan! So I got the veggie pizza, no cheese of course, with tons of veggies and topped with a comedic load of spinach. The Salty Caper is a pretty great restaurant and I actually ended up going twice during my visit, the second time I just got a salad. 



My plate at my Mom's backyard graduation cookout party! Vegetarian baked beans, which Mommom got especially for me, and for her baked beans she adds cinnamon and mustard (I think that's what she said. Yum!), fruit salad, potatoes, and a whole wheat pita with lettuce, tomato, onion, and ketchup (totally In-N-Out style). And wine of course.



My brother and I enjoy hanging out in kitchens together. So this one night in Salisbury I decided I wanted to make chocolate chip cookies. Ingredients:


We had Bakers Unsweetened baking chocolate, which is vegan, but the problem was unsweetened chocolate tastes horrible. So I made a double broiler - one larger pot of boiling water with a smaller pot with the chocolate in it so the chocolate melts but doesn't burn. I looked it up online and it basically said for semi-sweet chocolate do one tablespoon of sugar for however many unsweetened chocolate squares you have. So I did four chocolate squares and 4 tablespoons of sugar. Let the chocolate mostly melt all the way before adding the sugar so the sugar doesn't carmelize.


Once the chocolate was mixed with the sugar I spread it thin on a plate, and cut the slit down the middle to make it easier to break apart later. I put it in the freezer for maybe 10 minutes, checking for when it was hardened.


Meanwhile I mixed my wet and dry ingredients. I just google searched for an easy vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe. The recipe called for "cinnamon to taste" and I ended up putting in a lot of cinnamon and you could definitely taste it prominently in the cookies, so be wary of that if you don't love cinnamon.


So once the chocolate came out of the freezer hardened, James and I had fun mashing it up into chunks.


Dough. Yum.


Going into the oven. They didn't flatten out as much as regular chocolate chip cookies usually do, so for the second batch I pre-flattened them a little more.



(Soy)Milk and cookies. Something I do not indulge in often enough in this crazy vegan life. But that is what HOME is for :)


Ta-Da! They were a smash hit! Best when enjoyed hot and melty!



Moving on from the cookies...
My meal at Mykonos Greek Grill in Salisbury. Falafel, greek salad, fries, hummus, pita, and a Greek beer. So much foooooooood.



This was my meal at the new Cuban restaurant in Salisbury called Mambo grill. Black beans, rice, plantains, aaaaaaaaand.... I cannot remember what the other item was! A delicious vegetable in olive oil and garlic! Not potatoes though......



On the Amtrak train to New York they had a VEGAN burger. Yes, the menu didn't say Veggie burger but it actually said VEGAN burger. I was excited to try it because James and Meredith had been saying Amtrak has the best burgers. This actually was the best veggie burger I have ever had.


Delicious Amtrak Vegan burger, and only $5, better than I was expecting train food to cost!



My first meal in New York, at an adorable French restaurant in Brooklyn, right before going to see the show Josie's theatre company, Irondale, is doing. Falafel and pita and hummus and cous cous. Thank you Josie's mom and dad! It was delicious... and more wine. My trip seems to be consisting of much wine.



And tonight, my first meal that I made in Josie's apartment, after picking up some groceries down the street from her place at a store called Trade Fair. or Fair Trade. or Trade Fare. I don't remember. Rice and black beans and tacos and lime....


aka cute little mini tacos because I used tortilla chips. It was a great dinner.


My food home for the next week, Josie's kitchen. 



Well those are all the food updates for now! More to come as I spend a week in New York! 

Happy Eating!
-Gina

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