Zines, Greens and sausage made with beans!

Today I had the free time to go to both the farmer's market and the Baltimore book festival which, depending on how you look at it, is conveniently located within walking distance of our apartment. This meant I was able to pick up lovely farm fresh vegetables AND independently published vegan zines. This also meant dinner was fabulous... but more on that later.

The two zines I picked up at the radical books tent* were:



Hot Damn and Hell Yeah is supposed to be two cookbooks in one. With my southern heritage, I couldn't pass this one up. It has recipes for tons of sauces, breads and deep fried everything. This flavor palate is one I recognize but get excited about anyway. Highlights include a vegan Worchestershire sauce, country fried tofu, biscuits and apple enchiladas.









In search of lost taste is a collection of recipes loosely tied together through a Sci-fi adventure (of sorts) that always seems to come back to cooking. The recipes look great. There are things like spicy cold tomatoes in a sake venaigrette, vegan fish recipes and then fun drinks and desserts too. I am very excited about the way Joshua Ploeg plays with flavors throughout this little zine.





If you want to purchase these zines (or others like them) check out: microcosm publishing. Right now they are having a $20 special entitled "go vegan" which includes these two titles plus several more!

* Before we move on, a note on those radicals selling books... they also were the only tent with good coffee, soy milk and vegan treats (you guys should know by now that I have a regrettable sweet tooth....)!

Now on to dinner....


At the farmer's market I got all sorts of good stuff, including awesome red chard and my favorite squash: spaghetti squash! For those of you who haven't had the good fortune to ever eat spaghetti squash, you are truly missing out. It looks like a normal squash until you cook it, then it's flesh shreds into tiny angel hair size shreds of squash-just like pasta. It's unbelievably easy too. Spaghetti squash is good with sauces, obviously. But when it is this fresh, we like it simply steamed with a very little earth balance, salt and pepper. Delish!

The Chard I served sauteed with lots of garlic, red pepper flakes and a splash of wine.

To go with all of the vegetable love, we had vegan chorizo sausages from Isa's new cookbook that I recently purchased. They were easy and quick to put together. They were also soy free. I love soy, but I eat so much of it that I sometimes imagine I am nearing some unknown limit... who knows what might happen then!

Here is what the sausages looked like right out of the steam basket:





I liked them, but didn't think they tasted like chorizo... My husband said they tasted like lemony, chewy bread. Hmm... Now it's been awhile since I had a real sausage, so I'm not sure how valid my opinion is. Still, I thought they were pretty tasty. They were savory and toothsome with hints of tomato, heat and yes... lemon.

Perhaps these need to go into the same file as vegan lasagna.. something I love that my DH won't touch.

As I make other recipes from Vegan Brunch, I will try to post some pictures as this looks like a very promising cookbook!