Brilliant Corners, London: Wonderful Japanese Food, Weird Name, Atrocious Service

June 21, 2015

New Orleans Inspirations: The Fried Bread Pudding Po’ Boy

September 6, 2014

Welcome, my little bunnies, to my post about – without a doubt – the most gluttonous, glutenous thing I will make and eat probably EVER.

We are going to have to listen to this while we work, because it’s the only sound I can think of that properly captures both how ridiculous this is and how my friend and I felt when we didn’t have to eat any more of it.

If you read my New Orleans general food guide, you know that during our epic eating week I came across this hilarious, unbelievable, obviously non-vegan gem of a food item that apparently people actually eat:

A fried bread pudding po’boy. That means people have eaten a pile of bread pudding used as sandwich filling on a French baguette. And what’s fried? Is it the bread pudding hunk that is fried into a patty then placed on the bread? Is the pudding placed on the bread as is, and then the whole baguette is fried? ARE BOTH THE PUDDING AND THE SANDWICH FRIED? Yes. Yes, is being my answer. Easy question. Let’s make this!

FRIED BREAD PUDDING PO’ BOY

PART 1 – THE BREAD PUDDING

First, we make the bread pudding. This turned out to be a delicious recipe and you should definitely make it, even if you don’t have the strength to move on to part 2. I used Ezekiel’s Cinnamon Raisin bread, which was invented for the sole purpose of using in bread pudding, but you can use any bread really. I’d add a teaspoon of cinnamon if you use regular bread, because who doesn’t want cinnamon bread pudding?

Ingredients:

About 12 slices sandwich bread, preferably cinnamon raisin
1/4 C white sugar
1/4 C brown sugar
3-4T liquid sweetener (maple syrup, agave, bee-free honey, brown rice syrup)
2 C almond milk vanilla
½ t vanilla
1/3 C chickpea flour
pinch salt

Directions:

Most bread pudding recipes will tell you to start with stale bread, but I don’t like having stale bread around because it gets moldy, or at least I fear that it will. I freeze my bread and then put it in the oven to get warm. If you are like me, put your 12 frozen slices in the oven at 200F for 10-15 minutes, until toasty. (This also helps the bread keep its shape and bite instead of getting too…well…puddingy.
Turn up the oven to 350F when you remove the bread slices.
Break the bread into bite size pieces and put into a large mixing bowl.
Mix in the sugars and salt.
In a separate bowl, mix the chickpea flour and the almond milk until well mixed. Add the vanilla and maple syrup to this separate mixture.
Pour the vanillad mapled chickpead milk into the bread bowl and mix everything really well.
Pour it all into a pie dish and bake for 30 minutes. Then, cover the dish with aluminum foil (to prevent excessive browning) and then cook for about another 20 minutes.
Eat some because it’s yummy, but not too much because we are going to destroy some in Part 3, infra.

I believe this is what’s called raw food?

LEANING TOWER OF BREADDDD

This is what’s left of the 6 pound bag of besan I bought on Amazon

Sugared

Not raw food

PART 2: THE VANILLA SAUCE
I don’t see how the restaurant’s prize-winning po’ boy would have won anything without a really good sauce.

Ingredients:

½ c cashews, soaked if you planned in advance, boiled if you didn’t, used as is if you have a high-powered blender
¾ c vanilla almond milk
½ T vanilla extract
3T maple syrup
2T agave

Directions:

Mix everything in a blender until super smooth

“Hey there pudding I’m coming for you! Yayyyy!”

Part 3: THE FRYING AND THE ASSEMBLING

Ingredients:

1 batch of Bread Pudding
1 batch of Vanilla Sauce
1 French Baguette, sliced down the middle (you need about a 5-inch baguette)
1 teaspoon Earth Balance or your favorite vegan butter. (Serious side note, the only reason I did New Orleans week first during this VeganMOFO was so that I would still be in America when I needed to make this po’ boy. Otherwise, I would not have had access to the glorious Earth Balance because the company doesn’t have a presence in London yet. I don’t know what I’m gonna do.)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon sugar (mix 1/4t cinnamon and sugar if you don’t have a fancy cinnamon sugar grinder but if you don’t you should get one)
2 T canola oil

Directions:

Take about 1 cup of the bread pudding and squish into a ball, then flatten into a patty.
Pour 1 T of the oil into a frying pan over medium heat and let it get hot.
Fry the pudding patty in the oil for 3 minutes each side, making sure it doesn’t burn…or let it burn. Let it all burn.
Next, butter your baguette with the Earth Balance and sprinkle the cinnamon sugar over the bread. I know.
Put the fried pudding patty inside the baguette.
Pour about 3-4 T of the vanilla sauce over the patty and over the inside of the bread.
Pour the other 1T of canola oil into the frying pan.
Fry the entire po’ boy in the oil for 2-3 minutes each side.
Pour another tablespoon of vanilla sauce over the fried monstrosity.
Then, dip your po’ boy in the remaining sauce (it’s au jus!) and EAT IT.
Repeat?

so many hand pictures

OBVIOUSLY, if you own a personal deep fryer, drop that entire sandwich into that bad boy. Oh man, I DARE ANY OF YOU TO DO THAT. Please tell me about it if you do and we’ll post pictures.

Oh yes add peanut butter to it, by all means

There you have it, America.

Brighton VegFest, Yummy Food, & Thoughts On People

March 31, 2015

This past weekend was the Brighton edition of VegFest UK, and while the food and vendors were nearly identical to the London VegFest, it wasn’t nearly as fun! So sad! Was it because of the crowds? The lack of free samples? The liiiines? The difficult-to-navigate venue? The absence of Vegan in Brighton? Let’s talk about it while I share random pictures! Shall we do it with our preferred method of ranking?

THE GOOD

First of all, I need to give a huge thank you to Stephen at Friends Gazette for having a VegFest ticket giveaway and to the powers that be for ensuring that I won! If you don’t get the Gazette, you should sign up for its free articles about moral veganism and other good things. I’m pretty sure free tickets were the only thing bringing me down to Brighton on a Saturday, when the trains are notoriously 40 minutes slower than usual and it was freezing rain and the venue was on the water so the rain was like sideways and the wind was so strong and man alive it was just really cold and gross out there. But I was excited to see what magic awaited me inside.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much magic. My favorite part was my early food buying — the early part is key (more on that below). How thrilled was I, coming in from the awful weather, to be immediately greeted upstairs by a fresh juice bar! Damage Limitation (what a name, amiright? Luckily I peaced out before any talk of what the pureed produce would do for my toxins or whatever) had set up a large area for juices and smoothies and it was wonderful. For only $3.50 (listen, I don’t have the pound sign on my computer and I don’t feel like copying and pasting one from the internet or dealing with like writing my own code or some bullshit that people go to years of schooling to learn how to do so just assume I am saying pound, ya dig?), you could choose from two juices or two smoothies. The menu is limited, yes (just like the Damage!), but it made for a much faster-moving line because they could make so many orders at once. I got a ‘The Alkaliser’ smoothie, which included cucumber, zucchini, pear, spinach, ginger, and lemon. It was a splendid combination although I would have liked it to have been blended with ice, and blended a little more successfully (I don’t think they were using Vitamixen).

Next to the juicy peeps was my favorite food maker of the event, Cashew Catering. Considering that their showing at the Moshimo sushi night event was actually one of the few edible things that night, it’s no surprise that I loved their selection of canapes at VegFest. For $6, you could pick 5 different little handheld yummy bits, including a butternut & pea samosa (wrapped in flaky phyllo, so good), red onion bhaji, cashew cheese stuffed peppers, seitan on a stick, pesto-stuffed mushrooms, black bean empanadas, and edamame and mushroom gyoza. Everything I had was really delicious! I especially liked the gyoza, though I wish everything had been warmer (although I understand how much more difficult that would have been for such a large display).

Oh Cashew Catering, you saved the dayyyy with your short lines and quick service and good food!

But I wasn’t done! No sir I was just getting started. I began the day so ravenous because of how long it took to get there and so I was a bottomless pit that couldn’t be filled. But we had to try. Next up, I beheld the most beautiful sight mine eyes have seen in like days:

STEAMED BUNS! Some rando Chinese stall had STEAMS BUNS! They were GOOD too, filled with meaty somethings! I did the dumbest thing ever when I saw them early in the day and I bought and immediately devoured one. I bought ONE. I went back just one or two hours later and the people in front of me got the last ones. It was probably the dumbest thing I’ve done, not buying more when I had the chance. If I had a time machine, I would go back in time and buy all of them. Or, no, if I had to time machine I would use it as payment to give to someone who can make vegan steamed buns and I’d hire them for life as my personal bun maker because I’m sure most people would be willing to swap devoted services for such a find. I mean but then they couldn’t be allowed to use the time machine because what if I wanted a steamed bun one afternoon and I was like ‘hey amigo where are you I want a steamed bun?’ and like I found a post-it on the fridge saying ‘hey I went to 1768 be back later!’ and like what do I do then.

More things that we ate! I had Loving Hut’s soy meat skewers (a whole stick for $1! Can’t beat that even if its sauce will convert you into a follower of Supreme Master or whatever their shtick is), which were really yummy and made me want to go to the/a London Loving Hut even though that seems weird because I’m not traveling and I have other options…but I do like the LH sooo I guess I should. And then my friend and I shared a ‘palito’. I don’t know what this is, but it was something fried-looking on a skewer and it was $2.50 and seemed worth trying. It was pretty good, could have used a dipping sauce, but it was all worth it because while we waited to order, we asked the guy in front of us (who had just been given his palito plate) what exactly it was that we were all buying, and his eyes got really big and he laughed and stage whispered “I HAVE NO IDEA!!!!!” It was pretty hilarious. It was like fry dough filled with meat and veggies?

As for the main room stall vendors, my favorites were repeats from London VegFest, including moo free chocolate, with their decent sale prices and giant and generous samples; Landgarten, one of the actually new-to-me vendors there, with delicious chocolate-covered small things; Cocoa Feliz fancy chocolate makers just for their gorgeous beyond belief display; Great Food with their generous falafel and hummus samples (see it’s not just chocolate!); and whoever makes the $150 personal massager. Seriously, I want that massager so badly. It’s amazing. They used it on my shoulders and back again and I felt like I could actually stand up to my full heighth potential and not mimic Quasimodo like I usually seem to do because ow.

Also, this is hilarious. It’s a ginormous bag of like hemp shavings for building a house or shed. I don’t know.

One more great thing!!! On our train back to London, this old man walked by us up the aisle to exit at an earlier stop, aaaand he farted the entire way. LOUDLY. Like one unbelievable continuous sound for about 10-15 feet. We were CRYING, yet no one else seemed to notice or mind! I guess that it’s common for Brits to pretend not to notice such things but we aren’t British so we lost our minds. The luckiest thing was that this was the one time I wasn’t on the aisle so he pretty much farted in my friend’s face. And lots of other faces. Oh man old people just don’t care. I love it.

THE BAD

Most of my ‘bad’ choices aren’t so much commentary on the vendors or companies but on the context of the situation and just lemony snickety events. First up is Titbits Catering. (I mean, first of all, your name is funny. I get that here it’s not very funny, but it’s funny to me because Murka.) The problem? Their stuff looked great, but by the time I was hungry again, they were sold out! NB, it was like 3pm. That’s pretty early for an event going until 7pm, sooo next time know to stock more? At this time, it seemed like most vendors were running out, actually! And if they still had food, the lines were prohibitively long.

Next: Ananda, oh how I adore your Waggon Wheels, and I thank you for all of your amazing marshmallowy products. But where was your giant Waggon Wheel giveaway this time around?! Why couldn’t I enter to win a 4 foot diameter marshmallow cookie sandwich or however big that miracle was at London Fest? Was it, heaven forbid, actually there and the awful crowds just kept me from seeing it? What a shanda that would have been. But not surprising, because the crowds really were insane and kept us from getting close to or even seeing lots of vendors. We had a very important message for Ms. Cupcake, but it took us a good 40 minutes to find her, even though we were in the correct room. What a mess.

Also, sorry, but if one were to spend $10 on round ups, I would expect a better free gift than a stupid mug. Like another round up.

Another possibly new vendor was cho!, a bottled gazpacho purveyor. This product was not my favorite, as cold garlicky soup can’t really improve upon bottling. I wish them the best though. My issue was that I walked up to the stall once when it was actually empty, no crowd crowding me, which was a minor miracle on this day, and the vendor didn’t even notice me. She wasn’t unpacking boxes or busily settling things up or anything. She just kind of looked through me. For a moment I thought I had become actually invisible and was like whoaaa what should I really do with this superpower besides wait for vomity garlic juice, but then my friend said hey what’s up so I stopped wondering. So I don’t know what was going on here but like that’s enough of that miss.

I do like that they use the Spanish style punctuation and that there is a butt in the picture.

THE UGLY

So what was the worst part about Brighton VegFest? It wasn’t that the Big Fat Vegan Bakery sold out so early or that the Beezlebub Doner Kebab stall had up to an hour wait the entire day. It wasn’t even that Teese and Sheese and Frys and other famous food companies were nowhere to be found. No, it was the attendees. I’m sure we’re all lovely people, us UK vegans, but en masse we are f-ed the f up. I witnessed some of the most atrocious behavior I’ve seen in social situations in a long time. Perhaps now that I have experience on the other side of the stall I am more attuned to how rude customers in crowded settings can be, but I was shocked at what I witnessed. People literally shoving others aside so they could attack free samples, others just ignoring the fact that people were in their way and charging through, one man — no joke, we watched this one happen for 5 minutes — eating an entire table’s cheese display while 15 people waited behind him to actually buy the product (he did not). It was rough, guys. All crowds are terrible, it’s true. I just keep having hope that yayvegans! will be better at fighting the mob mentality that turns people into monsters (not animals, we love animals. animals are better than people) but sadly it’s not true. We’re just human I guesssss. But given my time so far behind the stall, here are some tips I have for you for the next vegfest or fest or crowded event you go to:

1) Say hi to the vendor. Acknowledge that they exist.
2) If you eat free samples, thank the vendor. Or at least acknowledge that they exist (see #1). (Seriously, I saw maybe 2 out of 200 people make eye contact with the person giving them the free food. Others just pretend they don’t exist.)
3) Look around you to see if there’s anyone who might be waiting to get to where you want to go. If there is, don’t just cut in front of them.
4) In general, just don’t be a dick. Don’t push. Or shove. This is not Times Square. Unless you’re in Times Square, and then all bets are off because you gotta get to that show before curtain. (Remember to turn off your phone.)