RESTAURANT REVIEW - Cafe Caliban (Inside Prospero's Uptown Books), Kansas City, MO

After visiting the flagship location of Prospero's Books on 39th St., April and the hedgehogs were excited to finally try the reportedly delicious food at Cafe Caliban inside Prospero's Uptown.

Cafe Caliban (inside Prospero's Uptown Books)
3600 Broadway #107, Kansas City, MO
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April and the hedgehogs hadn't managed to make it to Cafe Caliban yet on this visit to KCMO because Prospero's Uptown is only open until 5 pm, and Cafe Caliban is only open until 3 pm. They decided to visit today for lunch. However, when they got there, there was a sign that said "Emergency - be right back", and the door was locked.



April waited in her van for a little while, listening to the radio, and the hedgehogs played "who can spot the most number of blue cars" (Hedgie won, but Buttercup says he has an unfair height advantage). Just as they had decided (sadly) that it might be time to leave, a car drove up, and a gal got out, opened the door of the bookstore, and went in. April and the hedgehogs gave her a minute to get situated, then went in themselves.









April had heard that the vegan tacos were really good, but she couldn't pass up the jackfruit panini, since she's been on such a jackfruit kick lately. The gal working there made some quinoa salad to go with it, and gave April some "conspiracy-free" (filtered) water.



The panini was delicious; grilled perfectly and very flavorful, with mushrooms, onions, and peppers mixed in with the shredded jackfruit. The cool quinoa salad was a great accompaniment to the hot sandwich.

April hopes to get a chance to go back to Cafe Caliban once more before she leaves so she can try the tacos. She left this time with full hands as well as a full stomach -

The Hedgehogs Visit Prospero's Books, Kansas City, MO

Tonight's post isn't going to be about food; April and the hedgehogs had a very long, wet, muddy day at faire, and are officially too tired to make the non-egg salad from "Vegan A Go-Go" (which April had planned on doing for tomorrow's lunch). Instead, the hedgehogs are going to show you all about their visit to Prospero's Books on 39th St. in Kansas City, MO last week. They'll be visiting Prospero's Uptown (which has Cafe Caliban in it, which apparently has delicious vegan food) on Monday, but thought that they'd show you what another location of Prospero's looks like.

TV Tuesday / Dinner & a Movie - Spies & Pies (The Man With One Red Shoe & Waitress)

So, according to the official Vegan MoFo blogging prompts, Tuesdays are "TV Tuesday – Eat and Watch, cook a meal featured in your favourite movie or TV show." April had been doing "Dinner & a Movie" posts on Fridays last year for Vegan MoFo, but the hedgehogs said that she dropped the ball and will now be doing it on Tuesdays.



April and her fiance, Tim, have movie nights at their house every other week. They generally make simple food for general consumption, like spaghetti squash with marinara sauce or pan-fried polenta with pasta sauce (are you sensing a theme?), or perhaps something a bit more exciting, like Mexican Street Corn (which was absolutely delicious!). For the last movie night before April left for Kansas, everyone decided that they wanted to watch "The Man With One Red Shoe" and "Waitress".



The theme was Spies & Pies, and April spent the entire day making various pies for everyone. For dinner, she made the Veggie & Seitan Pot Pie from Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook. This was some seriously tasty pot pie, and (as always), it was fun making seitan by hand. (Hedgie thinks it looks like a giant brain after it has cooked!) Even the omnivores at movie night loved the taste and texture of the seitan.





For dessert, April made a Vegan Apple Pear Pie by replacing half of the apples with pears in the Cosmos Apple Pie recipe from Vegan Pie in the Sky: 75 Out-of-This-World Recipes for Pies, Tarts, Cobblers, and More. The Olive Oil Crust (made with coconut oil instead of olive) is April's very favorite go-to pie crust - it behaves perfectly!




Topped with coconut whipped cream!

Since April's friend Alloni is a huge red bean paste fan, April also made a Sweet Red Bean Paste Personal Pie by using the Olive (Coconut) Oil Pie Crust filled with sweet red bean paste from her local Asian grocery.







Since there was pie crust dough left over, and since April had a dumpling press that she'd never used, Sweet Red Bean Paste Mini Hand Pies seemed like a good idea. Apparently, she needs some work using the dumpling press - the dough tended to get stuck in the hinge edge, and made a bit of a mess. Hedgie seemed to think he could do much better, but when April told him to prove it, he mumbled something about needing to check on his stocks and wandered off.



Even though they weren't the prettiest things in the world, they certainly were delicious!

Mandelbrot Caulipots

Last week, I bought a bunch of organic collard greens from Sprouts to go with the Butler Soy Curls I'd got from Wheatsville's bulk section.  I finally ran out of greens today, so I went to Wheatsville to buy more.  While there, I picked up local organic spinach, kale, and carrots, and was fortunate enough to get a small head of Romanesco cauliflower from a local farm.  I have been calling it Mandelbrot cauliflower since it looks like a bunch of fractals. If there's anything more awesome than fractal cauliflower, it's miniature fractal cauliflower. (So cute!)



Since I figure I now have more veggies than Soy Curls, I picked up some locally-made tempeh.



I also bought a vegan chocolate heart-shaped cake, since I had been very tempted to get one for Mark last weekend, and they're on sale now for only $2 each. Score!



My roommate requested some popcorn tofu and cashew-tamari dressing, so we split that for dinner.  To go with it, I was going to make the Caulipots from Isa Chandra Moskowitz's cookbook "Appetite For Reduction", but didn't realize that the "cauliflower mashed potatoes" used both cauliflower *and* potatoes. (See, class, this is why we read the directions first!)  I had no potatoes, nor did I have any vegetable broth.  I ended up just boiling the cauliflower, mashing it with the potato masher, and adding a bit of salt, soy sauce, flax milk, coconut oil, and nutritional yeast. The finished product tasted more like cauliflower than potatoes, but the texture was good, and the overall flavor very satisfying.

RECIPE REVIEW - Waffles & Hash Browns from Vegan Brunch

I promised Vegan Brunch waffles for today's post, so that's what I'm going to do. However, today we find out exactly why I ought to post these things right after I make them instead of procrastinating and posting them months later.




These were either the Peanut Butter Waffles or the Old-Fashioned Chelsea Waffles, topped with (I think) Sweet Cashew Cream and fruit, with Individual Baked Hash Browns on the side. (If I hadn't procrastinated, I'd know. Well, I'll just have to make up for it by making some more waffles from Vegan Brunch in a few days and post about them. I know, the horror. *grin*)



The waffles were very good; I remember that much. I was in charge of making them, and Mark was in charge of making the hash browns. He said that they weren't the easiest things to make, and they came out tasting a bit oilier than we would have preferred, so we'll probably reduce the oil a bit next time.



My waffle maker is pretty good, but it's over 10 years old, and doesn't have any kind of indicator to let me know when the waffle is done. And before you mention it, no, just waiting for the steam to stop doesn't work either; half the time, that produces burnt waffles. I usually have to go on a combination of guesswork and luck. On the plus side, no matter how well done the waffle is, it almost never sticks to the iron.

Browsing Around Lawrence, KS

Yesterday, after Mark and I had finished with lunch at Esquina, we decided to make the most of our trip to Lawrence and browse around the rest of downtown. We started at the Dusty Bookshelf (708 Massachusetts St.), where Mark picked up a compilation of fantasy short stories and I got Steve Martin's autobiography. I greeted the shop cat, though she didn't really want to have much to do with me. We then strolled down the street to the Yarn Barn (903 Massachusetts St.), a favorite of mine, where I oohed and aahed over all of the looms, spinning equipment, yarn, and fiber. Unfortunately, we didn't have any spending money left at this point, but if I had, I would have bought some bamboo fiber to use with my drop spindle and some dye to make it pretty. Yarn Barn has a lot of 100% animal-free fiber and yarn, from bamboo and cotton to hemp and tencel. They even have fiber made from seaweed! After Yarn Barn, I went to Calamity Janes (927 Massachusets St.) (while Mark went back to the car to put more money into the parking meter), which had some lovely clothes with a romantic bohemian feel to them. After Mark got back, we went next door to Brits, which pulled us in with the full-sized dalek and cyberman cutouts in the front window.


Besides having several British television shows and films for sale on DVD, they also have a full rental section in the back, which has pretty much the entirety of Doctor Who (old and new) as well as Torchwood and Red Dwarf.


Brits also has a ton of food, including many vegan items. There's a whole set of shelves with nothing but jelly, jams, and preserves, made out of almost every fruit you can think of (and a few I wasn't familiar with at all!) Other vegan offerings include drinking chocolate,


Irish and Scottish oatmeal and yummy-looking granola,


scone mix (this one only; the other mixes all had dairy in them),


and even vegan haggis (yes, you heard right).


Brits
929 Massachusetts St.
Lawrence, KS 66044-2869
(785) 843-2288
Hours: Sun 12:00–5:00pm; Mon-Wed, Sat 10:00am–6:00pm; Thu 10:00am–8:00pm; Fri 10:00am–7:00pm

After we left Brits, we got back in the can and drove to The Merc, which is a grocery co-op like Wheatsville in Austin. We needed to pick up some marinara sauce for the orzo we were going to have for dinner, and we got a delicious chocolate chip peanut butter vegan cookie from the bakery case as well. (I did notice that, out of the three varieties of muffins in the case, only the vegan variety had sold out. Perhaps it's a sign that they should make more vegan muffins? Just a thought.) The Merc has a good selection of items, including a few that I haven't seen anywhere else, like loose leaf chocolate chai made with pu-erh tea. They also have a deli and a food bar, and a good-sized bulk section.

The Merc Community Mercantile
901 Iowa St.
Lawrence, KS
(785) 843-8544
Hours: 7am-10pm