Exodus From Port Aransas (RESTAURANT REVIEW - Vegeria, San Antonio, TX)

When April left Port Aransas, she had hoped to eat at Yin Yang Fandango & Tango Tea Room in Corpus Christi, but since Monday was a holiday, they apparently decided not to open.





April and her friends decided to stop at Vegeria on the way back to Austin instead.

Vegeria
8407 Broadway, San Antonio, TX 78209
Facebook page





The last couple of times April visited Vegeria, they had a full menu which featured all sorts of yummy dishes, including a burrito stuffed with two tamales that she thought would be delicious. On this trip, they were instead offering a buffet of salads, soups, and pasta -



April decided to try a little of everything. The Not-So-Chicken Salad and Sweet Potato Salad were favorites, but it was all delicious. The biscuits were extra-tasty.



Vegeria was having a "buy two, get one free" dessert special, and since April wanted the Chocolate Peanut Butter Quinoa Cup, Hedgie fancied the Black Pepper & Sea Salt Chocolate Pie, and Buttercup had her eye on the Payday Bar, April decided to get all three.





The Peanut Butter Cup was ooey-gooey and very rich, with just a bit of crunch. The pie was rich enough to require sharing between April and her fiance, Tim (the hedgehogs had tiny nibbles). The Payday bar was also yummy, though April never had an actual Payday bar in her pre-vegan days, so can't speak to the accuracy of the taste.

On the way out, Hedgie pointed out some Doctor Who art on the wall. Yay, geeky vegans!



Here's some pictures from previous Vegeria visits -
















The bookstore next door to Vegeria. They have some fun stuff!

RESTAURANT REVIEW - Tarka Indian Kitchen / Daily Juice / Sweet Ritual

Tarka Indian Kitchen
Tarka South Austin
5207 Brodie Lane
Austin, TX 78745
(512) 892-2008
Tarka Round Rock
201 University Blvd
Round Rock, TX 78665
(512) 246-1922
Tarka North Austin
2525 W. Anderson Lane
Austin, TX 78757
(512) 323-0955
Sunday-Thursday: 11 am to 9 pm
Friday & Saturday: 11 am to 10 pm

Daily Juice
4500 Duval St
Austin, TX 78751
(512) 380-9046
Open seven days a week. (Hours change seasonally.)

Sweet Ritual
4500 Duval Street
Austin TX, 78751
Monday-Friday: Noon – 10 pm
Saturday & Sunday: 10am – 10pm


Yesterday, I spend a relaxing day out with a friend, walking around central Austin, eating yummy food, and seeing another friend's play. We started out by having lunch at Tarka Indian Kitchen in Round Rock.



Tarka marks all of their vegan items with a "V", but a lot of the dishes are served with yogurt chutney, so make sure to specify that you don't want it. I decided to get the vegetable coconut curry (mild) and some roti (the naan isn't vegan).



The curry was super creamy, smooth, and absolutely delicious. At some point in the future when my gall bladder is behaving better, I'm going to try this again with a medium spice level.

After leaving Tarka, we drove down to the park behind (in front of?) Spider House, and spent some time walking around, enjoying the gorgeous weather. I needed something from Wheatsville, so I got to give my friend the grand tour (he'd never been, and was very impressed!) We then drove over to Daily Juice / Sweet Ritual for some dinner and yummy desert.



We started with a raw enchilada from Daily Juice. My omnivorous friend and I both liked it, and he was impressed that raw kale could taste that good. We could have got one enchilada for each of us, but we decided to split one to keep room for...



...desert. After much deliberation, we decided on a turtle sundae with added Oreo pieces in a handmade waffle cone dipped in chocolate and crushed Chick-O-Stick. So far, I've absolutely loved everything I've ever eaten at Sweet Ritual, and this sundae was no exception. I can't wait until I get a chance to go back and try a sundae with cookie dough (and perhaps a brownie as well - I don't think I get to eat anything else that week.)

I'm actually kind of surprised that I haven't already done a review of Sweet Ritual, so I'm going to post the past pictures I've taken here. If you're on a diet, you might not want to look...









Here's three more from Tarka -

Vegan Halloween Recipes

Since it's nearly Halloween, I'm going to be doing some round-up posts over the next 3 days, counting down to the big day itself!

Today, let's talk recipes. Are you going to be hosting an amazingly spooky party for a bunch of friends? Perhaps you're going to someone else's party and you want to make sure there's something you can eat. Maybe you're boycotting the whole holiday and staying inside with the porch light off all night, but you'd still like something spooky to eat. *grin* Try some (or all!) of the following -

Bat Chips from Family Fun (serve with "Monster Brains", i.e. guacamole)

Vegan Caramel Apples from 365halloween.com

Spicy Bruised Bugs from 365halloween.com

Slime Smoothie by dannibazaar (from VegWeb)

Witches Brew Smoothie by LisaViger (from VegWeb)

Nasty Gnats by Blahniks (from VegWeb)

Vegan Devil's Food Cupcakes from Meet The Shannons

Vegan Lemon Flavored Candy Corn by DJ Karma at VegSpinz (with no artificial coloring! Yay!)

Asparagus Skeletons with Roasted Garlic Tofutti Cream Cheese in a Puff Pastry Coffin and Deep Fried Wonton Ghosts with an Asian Tempeh Filling by DJ Karma at VegSpinz

Blue Cupcakes with Purple Frosting by Hannah Kaminsky at bittersweetblog (also no artificial coloring! Double yay!)

Raw Vegan Halloween Cut-Out Cookies by Golubka

Creepy Radish Eyeballs by salad savior (from Food.com)

Various recipes from Witch Hazel of morbidoutlook.com

That's it for recipes. Tune in tomorrow for a vegan candy round-up!

A Mini-Rant

I try to be positive about things, but I'm going to have to go on a mini-rant for a minute. I love chocolate. (Big surprise, I know.) I love marzipan. I also love hazelnuts. I find it just plain wrong that Ritter Sport makes a vegan dark chocolate bar and a vegan dark chocolate bar with marzipan, but their dark chocolate bar with whole hazelnuts is *not* vegan. I can't figure this out - they have a milk chocolate bar with whole hazelnuts; why can't the dark chocolate bar be vegan? Why do they need butter in this bar when it obviously isn't needed in the other two dark chocolate bars? Why??? *shakes hands at the sky in frustration*


Eh. Perhaps I'll just stick it to Ritter Sport and get some Sjaak's Chocolate Mini-Bites instead, which are both fair-trade and organic, and come in caramel. Did I mention I love caramel?

Vegan Caramel Apple Pie Pictures!

...and the award for longest procrastination goes to - The Traveling Austin Vegan! *cheer*

Seriously, though, I finally uploaded pictures of all of my vegan caramel apple pie attempts to my Flickr photostream, and posted the most recent ones on my original blog entry.

Enjoy!

(Man...now I want pie...)

RECIPE - April's Caramel Apple Pie

April's Caramel Apple Pie
(With acknowledgment to "Katia and Granny's Perfect Apple Pie", "Brandi's Famous Caramel Apple Pie!", and all of the VegWeb recipes for vegan pie crusts.)

Ingredients for pie crust
* 2 3/4 cups whole grain pastry flour
* 3/4 cup Earth Balance or oil (or a combination of the two?) (one small stick of Earth Balance plus 4 tablespoons)
* 1 teaspoon sucanat
* 1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg
* 1/2 teaspoon powdered ginger
* 1 teaspoon cinnamon
* 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 8-9 tablespoons cold soy milk

Ingredients for pie filling
* 3-4 apples, unpeeled and cored, then sliced or chopped
* 2 Tablespoons Earth Balance
* 1/4 cup brown sugar
* 1 teaspoon cinnamon
* 1 teaspoon cardamom

Ingredients for caramel sauce
* 1 cup of brown sugar
* 1/2 cup Earth Balance
* 1/3 cup MimiCreme
* 2 1/2 - 3 tablespoons flour


***Directions

Heat oven to 400 degrees F.


***Preparing Pie Crusts

In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, and salt. Combine Earth Balance/oil and soy milk with flour (food processor, hand mixer, or fork) until crumbly. Add vanilla extract. Divide dough in half. Place one half in between two sheets of waxed paper or aluminum foil and roll with a rolling pin until it fits the pie pan.

Bake bottom pie crust halfway (10 minutes or so). While it is baking, roll out the other half of the dough and slice into strips for a lattice top. Set aside.


*** Preparing the Filling

Chop or slice the apples. Saute the apples in Earth Balance for about 5 minutes. Add the brown sugar, cinnamon, and cardamom. Cook for a few more minutes. Remove from heat and set aside.


***Preparing Caramel Sauce

Put Earth Balance into a saucepan on medium high heat until melted, add sugar and flour, stir to mix, and bring to a boil. Wisk constantly to incorporate. Once the Earth Balance has melted and mixture is smooth, take the pan off the heat. Slowly add the MimiCreme to the pan and continue to whisk to incorporate. Whisk until caramel sauce is smooth. Let cool in the pan for a few minutes.


***Putting It All Together

Remove pie crust from oven. Fill with apple mixture and pour caramel sauce over the top.

Make a lattice from the top crust strips on pie.

Bake for 15 minutes uncovered, then cover with foil and continue to cook at 350 degrees F for another 35-45 minutes.

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Here's the bottom crust rolled out -


Here's the caramel and apple mixture poured into the crust -


Here's the lattice-work top crust in place, before the pie went into the oven -


Here's the finished pie (the caramel exploded just a bit!) -


If you have leftover filling and crust (or perhaps an extra apple), you can make the leftovers into a pielette (or just halve or third the recipe and use a smaller dish for baking) -