Thai Marinated Mushroom Lettuce Wraps

This was a spur of the moment weekday dinner recipe. I really enjoyed these. The lettuce balances the oil from the marinade well so it brings the dish some lightness.

Thai Marinated Mushroom Lettuce Wraps

Instagram Photo (User: veganmiss)

* Prep Time: 30 minutes to 1 hour 
* Cook Time: 10-15 minutes 
* Ingredients:

• 1 cup button mushrooms, sliced*
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 tbsp fresh ginger, minced
• 1 dried lemongrass stalk, cut into pieces*
• 2 dried kaffir lime leaves*
• 1/2 tsp garlic chili sauce
• 1/2 tbsp peanut oil
• 1/2 tbsp sesame oil
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1/4 tsp chili oil
• 1 tbsp sugar*
• 1/2 tsp dark soy sauce*
• 1/2 tsp dried Thai basil*
• black pepper, to taste
• 1 cup carrots, diced
• 1/2 medium white onion, sliced
• bib lettuce leaves
• green onions, sliced, to top (optional)
  

* Recipe:

1. In a bowl, combine everything but the lettuce, carrots, and onion. Let marinate for at least half an hour up to 1 hour.
2. In a frying pan, spoon out some of the marinade liquid and fry the carrots over medium heat until tender. Add the mushroom marinated mixture and cook down until almost all liquid is gone.
3. Pour the frying pan contents into a bowl with the onions and mix well. 
4. Take a piece of bib lettuce and spoon 1 tbsp of the mushroom mixture into the center. Top with green onions if desired.

* Note: I used button mushrooms, but feel free to use shiitake or whatever else you may like. Lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, and Thai basil are typical ingredients in Thai cooking. You can find them in the Asian sections of some grocery stores and certainly at Asian food markets. Make sure your sugar is vegan. Dark soy sauce can be found at Asian grocery stores. If you can't find it, you could probably skip that step but it's nice in marinade recipes like this one.

Mango & Lychee Tofu Stir-Fry

Down in Springfield, IL, I like to get the mango dish at Osaka. See my review of the restaurant here. I get a lot of Thai here in the city, but I never see a mango entree like I do down in Springfield which is disappointing! I tried to recreate it, but alas Osaka's is better, I think. Here is the recipe anyways (I added lychee too)!

Mango & Lychee Tofu Stir-Fry

* Prep Time: 15 minutes
* Cook Time: 30 minutes
* Ingredients:

• 1/2 package (12 oz.) firm tofu, triangular cut
• sesame oil, for cooking, to taste
• 1/2 medium yellow onion, sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tbsp ginger, minced
• 1/3 cup shiitake mushrooms, sliced
• 1 medium carrot, sliced
• 1/3 cup red and yellow bell peppers, sliced
• 1/4 cup baby corn
• 1/3 cup cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
• 1/2 can (14 oz.) mango pieces
• 4 lychee (from can), sliced*
• 1 tbsp rice vinegar
• 3 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tbsp brown sugar*
• 1 tbsp vegetarian fish sauce*
• 1 tsp lime juice
• 1 tsp lychee juice (from can)
• 1 tsp mango juice (from can)
• 1 tsp red pepper flakes
• salt, to taste
• fresh parsley, to top
• green onion, sliced, to top

* Recipe:

1. Before starting the recipe, prepare all the vegetables so they are ready to go in the wok when needed.
2. In a wok, fry the tofu on both sides until golden in some sesame oil. Set aside.
3. Add more oil and fry the onions until translucent. Add the rest of the veggies in order of what takes longest to cook (i.e. carrots first) and salt and cook until tender. Toss in the tofu.
4. In a bowl, mix the liquid ingredients for the sauce. Add to the vegetables and cook until reduced in half.
5. Top with parsley and sliced green onion and serve with rice.

* Note: Lychee is an Asian fruit that can normally be found canned and in the Asian aisle of the grocery. You could choose to make this with just mango if you want. Make sure your sugar is vegan. Vegetarian fish sauce is something you can find at an Asian grocery store, usually. It may be called vegetarian oyster sauce as well. You could make it yourself too.

Vegan Chicago: Restaurant Review of Urban Vegan Chicago

Before I being my review of Urban Vegan Chicago, I'd like to let you all know that they have a benefit going on throughout the entire month of December. If you order take-out or dine-in and mention Mercy For Animals, 20% of the proceeds go to MFA. This is a great opportunity for vegans (and non-vegans a like) to try out this newer restaurant in Chicago! It also helps with MFA's life-saving work in farm animal protection. Plus, it is nom.

I've heard many great things about this Thai vegan restaurant since it opened. I've been to and seen a few mock meat Asian restaurants before like ChuChai in Montreal (which I blogged about here), Golden Lotus in Oakland (there are a number of Asian restaurants in the Bay Area that specialize in faux meats), and Red Bamboo in NYC. Based off my previous dining experiences, I figured the place would be either fancier (like ChuChai and Red Bamboo) or sort of just a hole in the wall. It's the latter. That doesn't mean it is bad, it just means it is a small establishment and more reasonably priced! I would recommend making reservations because from how I counted, there are only 8 tables in the whole restaurant. It is also BYOB.

As far as having an Asian restaurant with an extensive mock meat menu, I'm glad Chicago now has one! It is definitely an interesting dining experience. If I wanted to get a veggie cashew stir-fry, I would just go to any Thai restaurant and tell them to hold the fish/oyster sauce and add in some tofu. I think the primary reason to go to Urban Vegan (or any of the other places I mentioned, really) is to eat the faux meat with vegan pride. It just isn't worth it to go for Buddha's Delight (other than to support a vegan restaurant). That being said, I'm curious as to what vegan meat company they use. There is always the ever popular May Wah based out of NYC. I'm pretty sure this is what Red Bamboo uses. The "fish" in the Tom Yum I had at Urban Vegan tasted a lot like the fillets they sell on May Wah. If anyone knows where Urban Vegan gets their mock meat, I'd love to know. I'm curious!

Grilled Veggie Dumplings

This isn't the best starting line for a review, but the food was cold which was really disheartening. I was looking forward to this dining adventure. I will go again to see if I receive a better experience as when I went, it was on a Sunday night and every table in the restaurant was taken. I'm assuming this had something to do with it.


The menu is very extensive. They have all the usual Thai foods gone vegan as well as veggie sushi, wrap, burgers, and smoothies. There is also a lunch and dinner combination menu. They include steamed brown rice, a spring roll, salad, and a choice of an entree with either tofu, soy chicken, seitan, pepper steak, or soy fish ($9.95/lunch and $11.95/dinner). Addition of bacon, shrimp, or chicken nuggets is extra ($11.95/lunch and $13.95/dinner). For those of you with gluten allergies, there is a wheat-free menu available.

Seafood Tom Yum Soup

For starters, my friend and I had the grilled veggie dumplings, the house salad, and seafood tom yum soup. The portions are big! The dumplings were about what we expected - your everyday vegan frozen dumpling that was grilled. I think next time, I'd like to try the crispy chicken or chicken satay instead. They sound interesting! The house salad was filled with lots of veggies and I went with peanut sauce for the dressing. There is also tahini and Italian dressing. I've never had a Larb salad before since they aren't vegan, but that's the next salad I'm going to try here. The tom yum soup with seafood was interesting, to say the least. I've had vegan fish fillets before and vegan shrimp... but never the fish in a broth. Personally, the best preparation I've ever seen of vegan fish was in a light sauce and the fillet slightly seared. The seaweed wrapped around it to be the "skin" gives it that fishy taste quality. Vegan shrimp, for me, isn't really worth it. It's chewy and doesn't add much to the mix.

Garlic Pepper Steak

Our dinner entree's were the garlic pepper entree with pepper steak and the pad won zen with soy chicken. The pepper steak was pretty good and it came with rice, though I would have appreciated a few more veggies tossed in there. I liked the pad won zen very much (it has more veggies), but it was cold which kind of ruined the appeal (was looking forward to hot noodles!). Next time, I think I'd like to try the P.E.T. (pumpkin, eggplant, tofu) and the wonton noodle soup (I've missed wonton soup since being vegan - it was my staple at Chinese restaurants since I was a wee one). 

Pad Won Zen (w/ Soy Chicken)

Overall, I think Urban Vegan is a nice change from the normal Thai vegan dining experience (no fish sauce! no oyster sauce! no egg! tofu!). I'm definitely going to come back and try it again. It seems to be doing great thus far and the Chicago vegan community loves it.

If you want to pick up mock meat in Chicago and make your own food, there are a couple of grocery stores in the city. I personally like the Uptown neighborhood stores to get this stuff. Broadway Supermarket is my favorite. If you go to the very back corner near the produce, you'll find all the veggie meats in the freezer. Golden Pacific Market has faux meats too. Lastly, Tai Nam Food Market seems to carry a lot of products as well, though I've never been (and now I must!).

Urban Vegan Chicago's Facebook Page here. 

Vegan Springfield, IL: Part Two

Vegetable Delight Hibachi

Part Two begins with Japanese hibachi. It has been years since I've had hibachi. Kiku is nice because it is rather quiet and one can ask for special needs diet stuff without feeling like a burden. They are really nice about not using butter or fish sauce (their teriyaki sauce has animal product in it). When you get there, just say you are vegetarian and would like oil to be used on the vegetables instead of butter. Ask for only soy sauce and ginger sauce. Their miso soup is vegan, but I am not sure about the hibachi soup. I usually get the hibachi soup traded for miso when I get the vegetable delight hibachi. The salad that comes with it is also vegan. Also, ask for no shrimp appetizer. I'm pretty silly, so I'm a huge fan of all the hibachi cooking tricks. I particularly love the flaming volcano made out of onion! :D

Tom Yum Veggie Soup

Spring Rolls

Other items at Kiku are a variety of vegetable sushi including inari, avocado, and asparagus. They also have edamame and seaweed salad.

Screamer Tofu

Vegetarian Buffet

The best place for Thai food in Springfield, in my opinion, is Thailand Cuisine. Mona, one of the owners, is the sweetest lady you will ever meet. Their food is traditional Thai and holds true to it. A lot of places have a mix of Chinese and Japanese, but not Thailand Cuisine. It is never busy and the service is the best. I really recommend it. They have a cheap lunch buffet that has many vegetarian options. Mona will go out of her way to let you know what has animal products in it too. The tom yum veggie soup is also vegan if you ask for no fish sauce. It is rare that I find a Thai place with soup that doesn't have animal product.

Fresh Carrot Juice

Vegetarian Buffet

Lastly, Holy Land Diner has the best vegetarian buffet on Saturday nights. It changes from week to week, but generally, they always have Mediterranean salads, olives, lentil soup, homemade hummus, homemade falafel, and a variety of entrees. The entrees are always some kind of grain (usually brown rice) and several vegetable dishes or veggies with pasta. They never use salt in their dishes either. The owners, Afaf and Jamal, are really sweet too. I leave MFA literature with them including Vegetarian Starter Kits and Vegetarian Eating brochures.

Vegan Chicago: Restaurants & Chef Showdown!

As many of you may know, I am a Chicago Outreach Coordinator with Mercy For Animals. One of the many campaigns of MFA is our Vegetarian Dining Campaign. MFA works with restaurants to add vegan options to their menu and provides them with the support, PR, and connections to get soy cheese, faux meat, etc.


Recently, some great work was done by MFA in Chicago with the Vegetarian Dining Campaign. El Nuevo Mexicano has added vegan quesadillas, flautas, chile rellanos, enchiladas, fajitas, and more. There is even non-dairy, cruelty-free dessert! Daiya and local master seitan makers, Upton's Naturals, provide the vegan cheese and faux meat. A friend of mine and I went there for lunch to check out the new menu and were floored! We had never had flautas or chimichangas before, but I bet these were better than any filled with meat and dairy cheese. If you are in the neighborhood, come out and support the new vegan menu at El Nuevo Mexicano. Click here for the full new vegan menu. For more information, check out MFA's blog post here.

Grilled Cheeze Sandwich with Daiya from LooseLeaf Lounge

Tomorrow, MFA is having a launch party for a new vegan menu at another Chicago restaurant, LooseLeaf Lounge. They have already had a great vegan sandwich up on their menu, but it has been expanded to include a grilled cheeze sandwich, a seitan sandwich, a chorizo seitan wrap, a vegetable sandwich, and vegan cookies. Again, the cheese is provided by Daiya and the seitan by Upton's Naturals. If you are free tomorrow and in Chicago, check out the event! Click here for the Facebook event page for more information. This new menu is permanent, by the way!

I'd been aware of vegan pizza with vegan cheese from several different places here in Chicago including Ian's Pizza (also has Upton's Naturals seitan), Mista (not at their downtown location, though), Karyn's Cooked (to be expected, they're a vegan restaurant), Moonshine, and Pick Me Up Cafe (they have a very extensive vegan-friendly menu). Pie Hole Pizza Joint also carries pizza with Daiya which I just found out about. Thought I would share the news up on here since I'm updating about vegan restaurants! Here is a list of places that carries vegan pizza in Chicago. 

Pad Thai with soy chiken from Urban Vegan Chicago

Two new restaurants that have opened in Chicago in the past few months include Urban Vegan Chicago and Earth's Healing Cafe. Urban Vegan is a Thai vegan restaurant. Though I haven't been there yet, I can't wait to try it out. I've heard really good things from people who have gone. Their menu uses a variety of faux meats including soy chiken and vegan seafood. Earth's Healing Cafe is a raw organic cafe that boasts smoothies, juices, several entrees (pasta, wrap, pâté), and desserts (cheezecake, fruit pie, apple pie). If you are looking for a healthy, light meal, this is the new place to be! Also coming to town in July are three new locations of Native Foods, based primarily in California.  As a California native, I've heard fantastic things about this vegan chain for years now. I haven't tried it out myself, but I've had friends who have (and even were nice enough to bring me a reusable bag all the way to Chicago) and they all love it dearly. Native Foods makes their own vegan cheese which I hear is to die for (also, very impressive!). I'm looking forward to not one, but all three new Native Foods here in Chicago! I'm not sure of where all the new locations are to be, but for sure one will be in Wicker Park.

Lastly to report about here in Chicago is the very anticipated Chicago Vegan Chef Showdown sponsored by Upton's Naturals with the help of the Funky Buddha Lounge. All proceeds from the event will go to benefit Mercy For Animals. Twenty chefs will battle it out with yummy vegan food that includes Upton's Naturals seitan and the team or person whose food was bought the most wins the showdown. Guess what? Vegan Miss is participating! So, come out and show your support for Vegan Miss, MFA, and Upton's Naturals! We'll be serving a VM specialty that we're super excited to share (how often does the blogger get to cook the recipes she writes for her readers, huh?!). The more people come and show support by buying VM's delicious food ($1 per sample), the more money goes to MFA and their life-saving work. Win for everyone! Excited!

Vegan Montreal

This weekend, I went to Montreal for a few days. Montreal is lovely; a bit of old Europe in North America. They have a several vegan restaurants and vegan/vegetarian-friendly restaurants. I only got the chance to go to one of them because the others were lunch spots or closed. I tried going to Bonnys Vegetarian and Organic Cuisine, but the owner was sick so it was closed. The other restaurants I heard were good but did not try Aux Vivres, Le Commensal, and Lola Rosa Cafe. We plan on going back to Montreal since it is only a 2 hour plane ride from Chicago, so I'm excited to try these restaurants.


We went to a great Lebanese restaurant on Rue Sherbrooke, but I didn't write down the name of it. Located across the street from the hotel, it was a tasty jaunt over. We had fattoush, tabbouleh, homemade hummus and baba ghanoush, and a chickpea soup type dish with olive oil, onion, radish, tomato, and spices - all with pita.

For the two nights I was there, I went to ChuChai, a Thai vegetarian restaurant. This restaurant is a bit pricey, but worth it! They have a whole line of mock meats including shrimp, fish, beef, chicken, and duck. They also have only vegetable dishes and vegetable dishes with tofu. The menu is truly extensive. Since it is Thai, most of the dishes are influenced by the cuisine. For example, they have several varieties of Tom Yum soup with various types of meat and/or coconut milk, several types of dumplings and spring rolls, and each section of mock meat has their own specialty entrees.


Above is a picture of the peanut sauce chicken with crispy spinach.

 Vegan wonton soup.

Tom Yum soup with vegan shrimp.

Crispy, deep-fried seaweed with tangy sauce.

Vegan duck with spinach in a soy sauce dressing.

My favorite dishes were the wonton soup and the vegan duck. The duck surprisingly tasted a lot like real duck... which was odd, but interesting. Other dishes we tried were bok choy with shiitake mushrooms, Chinese chicken salad, pan fried dumplings, and lychee for dessert. Overall, I am excited to go back to Montreal and try new restaurants!

Vegan Connecticut & Vegan Boston

I feel like I've cooked a lot in the past two weeks, but I do not have enough photographic evidence to back this statement. I have, in fact, but not all vegan and forgot to take the pictures, of course. The pops won't eat solely vegan (though, my mother will) so, I get to experiment with other cooking ingredients. I never get to try what I eat, but I hear it's tasty and get the critiques, haha.

I'm fairly certain I have made potatoes and cabbage (see recipe in previous entry) 4 times this month, though. That's a whole lot of cabbage, eek. Onward.

So, two weekends ago, I went to see the boyfriend in CT. I thus tried out an organic cafe called Mangetout in downtown New London, CT. It was quite tasty. The owner was sweet. We traded vegan cupcake secrets and I recommended some vegan cookbooks to her. They open for breakfast, brunch, and lunch, no dinner. They have at least one vegan menu item each day (their menus change daily) and several vegan dessert options, again all organic.

I had the edamame hummus wrap with a soy latte. I also took a chocolate nut fudge bar to go so I could split it with the boy. He really liked it which was funny because earlier I had given him and his roommate a chocolate Earth ball (it's tiny) and he was complaining that vegan chocolate is gross. Touche!

Lunch!

After my lunch, I meandered around downtown New London and came across two things I was hoping I would eventually run into. First, Fiddleheads, a co-op in New London. It is quite new in its location and is sort of empty for the space, but I was told another row was being added later that week. They had quite a few vegan products that are hard to come by unless you go to a health food store or order online.

They also had local vendors inside selling their own produce or wares. Included were hand knitted items and home made jams. One woman has her own farm and was selling her own vegetables, herbs, and fruits. I bought a bag of homemade dried apple pieces. They dry out the slices on a pole which they rotate over heat for 24 hours. It was possibly the best dried fruit I have ever had. Oh my goodness, it was so sweet!


Check out the woman's farm at her website: Purity Farm


She was showing me pictures of her grandchildren at the farm, too cute.


After my exciting vegan finds, I needed coffee. A city girl can only go so long without another latte in tote. Therefore, I went to Bean & Leaf (a world without Starbucks within literal reach is bizarre, refreshing, and shows that I a) live in a metropolis & b) traveling is good).


Support local things, people!


I went to Boston for the day. Many of you know how I like to find all possible things vegan in new big cities (or any city, probably). And I did! I was surprised Boston did not have more vegetarian or vegan places upon doing my research before I left, I must say. Usually larger cities thrive on it. I managed to find two places, though one was closed (probably because it is in the Financial District and this was a Saturday). It is called Milk Street Cafe. The place I went to for lunch was in Chinatown, My Thai Vegan Cafe. It was awesome! I highly recommend this place for some Asian vegan fusion food. One of the things I miss since I had gone vegetarian/vegan was won ton soup. I'm too lazy to make it myself (though I've had wonton wrappers in my freezer now for 3/4th of a year in prepartion to make said soup) and I've never come across a vegan one yet. Low and behold, my dream came true and the added bonus? It was super tasty! I had a Thai Basil Salad to finish. Mmm!

Possibly one of the best things I have ever put in my mouth!

Mmm, doesn't this look good?!


I'm starting to think I should have my own Rachael Ray - esque Food Network show where I go around the country/world finding vegan restaurants and showcasing them. Hardy Har. Recipes in the next entry, this has gone on too long for one!