Dutchified Banh Mi Chay

How does a gal in central PA make a Vietnamese sandwich? With cabbage of course! Not bok choy, not nappa cabbage but that regular ol’ stuff the locals make cole slaw out of. I even decided just to grab a bag of the pre-shredded stuff because it was more colorful with the red cabbage and carrot in it. Sure, it was dry but I had plans for it that would really brighten it up.

A block of extra firm tofu, whole wheat rolls and bag of almost fresh cabbage mix is what I started with in the morning. I had a few things to marinate by lunch time. Inspired by the Taco Slaw from Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowtiz, I started marinating the cabbage into an awesome filler for my…

Dutchified Bahn Mi Chay
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Spicy Cabbage
3 heaping Cups bagged shredded cabbage mix
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
2 pickled jalapenos in thin slices
1 tsp salt
fresh grated black pepper, to taste

Mix all the ingredients in a large glass or plastic bowl. Cover it loosely with plastic wrap and press the wrap down on top of the slaw. Weigh it down with something heavy, and allow it to press for at least an hour. Before using, squeeze out all of the extra moisture (discard that) and the Spicy Cabbage is ready to add to your sandwich.
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Marinated Tofu
1 pkg of extra firm tofu
1/2 Cup peanut oil
1 teaspoon sesame oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 Tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoons fresh ground black pepper
zest of 1 lemon

Drain Tofu and gently press dry with paper towels to remove excess moisture. Slice into about 1/4 ” slabs.

In a large plastic ziplock bag, combine oils, garlic, soy sauce, lemon zest, and pepper. Mix the marinade well, carefully add slabs of tofu. Lay tofu slices in gently so that they don’t break. Make sure all marinate coats each slab of tofu.

Let marinade for at least 1 hour, carefully turning the bag occasionally or until all tofu slabs soak up the marinade.

Heat up a cast iron skillet. No need to add oil, the tofu is well oiled. Fry slices of tofu until both sides are golden brown with a nice firm crust.

Allows slabs to cool on paper towels to absorb extra oil before making your sandwich.
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Assembling your Bahn Mi Chay
6″ Whole Wheat Rolls
1 Carrot in matchsticks (you may choose to pickle them too, I used a hot sauce and a vegan ponzu)
1 Cucumber in thin slabs
Veganaise
Spicy Cabbage (recipe above)
Marinated Tofu (recipe above)

Like a Hoagie, slice the rolls open and slather on some Veganaise before sliding in the cucumber, carrot and Marinated Tofu. Traditional Bahn Mi Chay called for hot pepper slices but they are already in your Spicy Cabbage. Stuff that sandwich to bursting with Spicy Cabbage and slice in half! We served it with a side of Kimchi, mixing ethnic cultures on our plate even more.

Jim reminded me that we had enjoyed a similar sandwich in November. We were with the Green Street Vegetarian group at Espresso Yourself where they kindly adapted a special of the day by using Tofurky. My idea of using cabbage, it turns out, wasn’t original at all. I had just been hungering for it so badly that I recreated it as best as I could! Jim said it was a good job and he liked the tofu, as did I, very much.

Espresso Yourself Sandwich Special with Tofurky

Pennsyltucky Veggie Awards 2011 – Best Menu

Aside from walking into an establishment that is 100% vegetarian or vegan, it’s the menu that you are going to use as the main tool to help you navigate your way around what you can and cannot eat.

A real thrill came earlier this year when Olde New York updated their menu. They kept many of their vegetarian options, added a very nice one and printed new little vegetarian indicators next to the safe choices. They not printed next to the fries, egg rolls nor potato filled pierogies because of kitchen’s shared frier. The pierogies are served with a sprinkling of bacon on top. Good job Olde New York for being runner up on Best Menu by recognizing what your vegetarian diners need to know at a glance.

This year, Pennsyltucky Veggie 2011 Best Menu goes to Espresso Yourself Cafe in Newport. Online and off, vegans and vegetarians can read through every item on their very own menu. It’s so much fun to look at it and think, “I’ll have one of everything!” That is pretty much what I was thinking as I held up the menu in the picture.

Owners Rick and Cheryl Miller have designed a separate menu that clearly shows exactly which items are vegan and which are vegetarian. There are a multitude of Specialty Sandwiches and Salads as well as a build your own sandwich section. From breads right down to the dressings, you will know which are vegan. Warm thanks and congratulations to Espresso Yourself Cafe, for winning Pennsyltucky Veggie 2011 Best Menu as well as Pennsyltucky Veggie 2011 Best Soup.

Have you found a Pennsyltucky restaurant whose menu is more occomodating than this one? If it’s in central PA (see map here) and is a regular vegetarian menu item, let me know and I will include it in the judging next year! Drop me, Pennsyltucky Veggie, a line or feel free to leave a comment!

Pennsyltucky Veggie Awards 2011 – Best Salad

Espresso Yourself House Salad with Vegan Creamy Jalaepno Dressing

Vegetarians and vegans eat a lot of salads whether they intend to or not. I think it’s almost safe to say that we eat more salads than we really want to because we are occasionally forced into salad as our only dining option in situations where the only diversity in choices are focused on omnivores. It has been a joke in our family because when my mother-in-law would be bragging about some new restaurant she really liked she would realize that she was talking to a family of vegetarians and would add, “They have salad.”

Roasted Beet Salad at Elk Creek Cafe

Salads have come a long way in the past 30 years. It’s not just the salad bars (which are not being judged for this award) that have added established choices of field greens over romaine or *shudder* iceberg lettuce. Most restaurants outside of diners know that they need to have a base of decent greens under the veggie toppings and a huge portion of dressing won’t dress up any sub-par salad. Arugula, kale or mixed herbs; content is vital.

Chefs have gotten a lot more creating with their toppings too. I think back on the days when I considered myself lucky to at least be served a couple of slices of pale refrigerated tomato and white onion rings topped on a huge bowl of crunchy white lettuce. Along with the change in greens are the quality of even off season ingredients. The Green Room Bistro & Café in Carlisle made good use of Golden Delicious Apple and Candied Walnuts on a salad I enjoyed there in the middle of winter.

The Green Room, Apple & Candied Walnut Salad

It was difficult to choose between so many salads with different and seasonal ingredients, Elk Creek Cafe + Aleworks in Millheim was a close second with it’s consistent Roasted Beet salad.

Props go to the Spats Cafe and Speakeasy in State College for their Creole Chopped Salad. The entrée sized salad is currently $8.00 but is huge, hearty and rib sticking. It can also be ordered demi de partie for a reduced size and price.

As I mention in my restaurant review of Spats (can be seen here) the Creole Chopped Salad always comes out super chilled with a wonderful range of textures, veggies and flavors. It does include a cheese, lettuce and a sweet creamy dressing. There is nothing else like it anywhere in the area and we both really enjoy it.

Creole Chopped Salad @ Spats

Although it is not vegan, it packs in so many different vegetables like broccoli, corn and tomatoes. I had to look hard to determine that there was actually some romaine lettuce in it. It comes ungarnished and really doesn’t photograph as well as some other salads but the flavors are grand and has been consistent over the past decade.

Congratulations to Spats Cafe and Speakeasy for their Creole Chopped Salad beating out so many other diverse salads in this region and being chosen to receive Pennsyltucky Veggie 2011 Best Salad.

Do know of a Pennsyltucky restaurant whose salad can beat this one in 2012? If it’s in central PA (see map here) and is a regular vegetarian menu item, let me know and I will include it in the judging next year! Drop me, Pennsyltucky Veggie, a line or feel free to leave a comment!

Pennsyltucky Veggie Awards 2011 – Best Soup

Pumpkin Chickpea Curry

The Pennsyltucky Veggie 2011- Best Soups award goes to Espresso Yourself Cafe in Newport. From Potato Rivel to Vegetarian Chili to good old Tomato Soup, they have always had a vegetarian soup on the menu and each is more delicious than the next.

The portions are huge, a “Cup” is what I consider a bowl and you can dive off a high dive and never touch bottom in the “Bowl” sized portion. Rock bottom prices of $3.25 Cup, $4.75 Bowl, $5.50 Pint, $10.00 Quart and are all made fresh in their wonderful kitchen. The flavors of each are so well thought out and you can tell they are fresh with the first spoonful. Our favorite is to pair a cup of their daily vegetarian soup with a half of one of their vegan sandwiches.

Local Heirloom Tomato Soup

All of the vegetarian soups in Pennsyltucky were judged on availability, flavor, texture, choice of ingredients, appropriate temperature, creativity, presentation and value for portion size. Other restaurants had some super soups but Espresso Yourself always had an outstanding vegetarian soup on its menu when we visited.

The Local Heirloom Tomato soup was vegan and so creamy good. It tasted like we had just taken a bite of an Amish grown tomato and warmed us the whole way to our toes on the rainy day we visited. We had just run a local 5k race in the cold rain and a hot bowl of any soup that day in April may have tasted like the best in the world but it wasn’t a fluke at all. We had enjoyed the Potato Rivel soup a few times over the past year; a creamy soup with hunks of soft potato, seasoned lighty with pepper and had rivels in it! If you aren’t from Pennsyltucky, you might never have had the little misshapen firm dumplings and they usually aren’t in anything vegetarian. That soup is a real treat and although it is not photographed, it is currently the soup to beat.

Vegetarian Chili

Each soup has always been garnished appropriately (flat leafed parsley for tomato soup, cilantro and corn chips for chili) and seasoned just right. The Pumpkin Chickpea Curry may have been a new and bold flavor for those who have never left Perry County but it was a relief and pleasure that they didn’t skimp on the spices in this mouth watering stew. Kudos goes to Espresso Yourself Cafe (restaurant review in full here) for being awarded Pennsyltucky Veggie 2011 Best Soup.Do you know of a Pennsyltucky restaurant’s soups that you think can beat the pants off of these in 2012? If it’s in central PA (see map here) and is a regular vegetarian menu item, let me know and I will include it in the judging next year! Drop me, Pennsyltucky Veggie, a line or feel free to leave a comment!

Breaking Fast, Vegan Style

November has been packed full for me, allowing little time to post the wonderful recipes I have tried, restaurants I have visited and many other good things related to being a vegetarian in Pennsyltucky. I have an nice backlog of photos, stories and even a plant-based milk taste test I have yet to post.

One thing taking up my time has been training for the local Nittany Valley Half-Marathon, now just 2 weeks away. With my plantar fasciitis still under control, I was able to trot out a very speedy 13 miles in Poe Valley last weekend (see video below). This allowed me to blow off a lot of the local stresses of the Penn State scandals and reward myself with some carbs at Elk Creek Cafe after a quick healing ice bath.

Since then, we have again been unsuccessful in trying to cook our own Crispy Potatoes at home. That was tolerable since we had enjoyed multiple servings of wonderful vegan food the day before while attending a fund raiser at the Pancake Barkfast and then visiting with many members of the Green Street Vegetarian Club at Broad Street Market and Espresso Yourself Cafe.

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The weekend before that, I didn’t get to photograph any of our trip to NYC to see Arron perform at New York City Center. His performance in Twyla Tharp’s In the Upper Room was well reviewed in the New York Times here (read the second to last sentence). We saw the closing night performance which was so amazing that we all went to celebrate with some tasty food across from the stage door at Topaz Thai. Lunch had been at Jekyll & Hyde Club prior to the ballet and I reviewed it in detail a few years ago here.

Here comes Thanksgiving week and another trip to NYC is planned! This road trip will include hearing vegan/ artist Dan Piraro speak at The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art. I know Jim is excited for this and then the highlight of getting to visit with Arron & Amy. Maybe even a trip to Terri is in store. Life is crazy busy and very good.

Espresso Yourself Cafe

Espresso Yourself Cafe is on the square in Newport, PA. This may seem like an out of the way place but look at it as a place to stop between here and there. As a vegan/vegetarian spot, is in an area you might not expect. If you don’t know the region and the nearby ISKCON Farming Community, Gita Nagari, you might feel like it is adrift apart from any other vegetarians for miles and miles.

Being the county seat you might think you will have to battle a lot of traffic in Newport but let it be known all Perry County didn’t have even one traffic light until 2010. Parking is on the street and we sometimes have to park about a block away but it’s a quaint town and worth the stroll.

In fair weather, the cafe has a couple of little tables outside and indoors there are plenty more. As you enter the old store front you can take your pick at any of the glass topped tables that you pass before one would get to the take-out counter. Take a moment before you sit to look over the chalkboard specials on the wall to the right of the cash register. One of the 2 soups is almost always vegetarian – I hope for the Potato Rivel!

They have a pretty steady business but the wait won’t be long until one of the friendly staff will to bring your menu. Be ready to ask for the Vegetarian/Vegan menu and the Wi-Fi password if you care for it.

I recommend the vegan Ms. Reuben with a vegan mozzarella melted over Tofurky deli slices and sauerkraut on sourdough rye with creamy Thousand Island dressing. Most of their vegan sandwiches use tofurky but they dress them up with so many different breads, sauces and veggies that each is worth trying.

The last time Jim and I visited Organic Heirloom Tomato Soup was the chalkboard special. It was a a generous cup of hot creamy tomato puré with just a hint of basil, very satisfying on the rainy day we were there.

We love the option of getting a 1/2 sandwich with a cup of soup or side salad and that is just what we did. Jim got our good ol’ standby, Ms. Reuben and because they were out of the Black Bean spread I got the Waldorf Sandwich.

Both sandwiches came out together, the Reuben was warm and melty and the Waldorf was chilled with crispy apples and sweet glazed walnuts. My side salad came with a creamy jalepeño dressing that we both loved dipping out tri-colored potato chips into. It was all wonderfully presented and every bite was full of local freshness and flavor!

There have been times in the past when we have had a bit of a wait for our food but we have learned to anticipate that. It is because each item is being prepared and timed to be presented with the entire table’s order. As always, our drinks came first and I loved sipping my vegan Irish Cream Soda (made with almond milk).

Summer Hours:
Sunday – Monday Closed
Tuesday – Wednesday 7am – 6pm
Thursday – Friday 7am – 8pm
Saturday 7am – 3pm

Espresso Yourself is a very welcoming small town cafe. The backroom can host meetings and parties and the regular dining area seats quite a few by itself. They, as many local cafes, rotate the artwork of local artists and have many fair trade coffees to choose from. The staff is friendly and clearly know the difference between vegetarian and vegan. Ever meal we have ever had there has been very good, the portions large and the price affordable. Hurray for great vegetarian friendly spots like this!

Winner Pennsyltucky Veggie Awards 2011 – Best Soup & Best Menu.