Bay Area Vegetarians

Cafe, as well as vegan bakery

Sugar Plum Vegan Cafe opened in downtown Sacramento.  They offer breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as a vegan bakery for direct ordering and wholesale.

Ultimate Guide:  Sugar Plum Vegan Cafe – read it, rate it, review it!

(Photo:  Sugar Plum Vegan Cafe)

Class participant made vegan cupcakes for a bakesale

We will once again be offering the popular Secrets of Vegan Baking Classes with Bay Area Vegetarians!  In 2007, many of you will remember the Secrets of Vegan Baking classes held at Sur La Table in SF’s Union Square.   This class is now being held at Whole Foods in San Mateo.

Upcoming Secrets of Vegan Baking Classes include:

03/27 Secrets of Vegan Baking: The Chocolate Trio – San Mateo
04/24 Secrets of Vegan Baking: Berry Sweets – San Mateo

The instructor has also created the Secrets of Vegan Baking website with Video Demonstration, Free Sample Recipes, and Baking Tips.

We will be giving a free presentation during our 2/28 Vegan Food Party, and we’ll be giving away one of her vegan cookie mixes!

Class at Sur La Table in SF

Thank you to our volunteer instructor for once again offering these classes, and to Whole Foods for underwriting this class with space and ingredients.  The San Mateo Whole Foods is also offering a vegan raw foods class on 3/9 with Patti Searle ($35 , more info )

Amba, a new vegetarian restaurant featuring Mediterranean fare, is open in Oakland at 6464 Moraga Avenue in Montclair Village.  For more information (hours, website, etc), please visit the Ultimate Guide link below.  Thanks to Amba for letting us know of their new vegetarian eatery.

Ultimate Guide – Amba: read it, rate it, review it

According to the Ultimate Guide, this is Oakland’s 6th vegetarian restaurant, joining the ranks of  Encuentro, Golden Lotus, Pizza Plaza, Souley Vegan, and The Breakroom Cafe.  If you know of other vegetarian and vegan restaurants that should be included in the Guide, please submit the listing for review and inclusion.

Oakland vegetarian restaurant list (6 entries)
East Bay vegetarian restaurant list (25 entries)
San Francisco Bay Area vegan restaurant list (39 entries)

We need a math whiz to provide advice for the Ultimate Guide.  The Ultimate Guide (UG) is a database of San Francisco Bay Area restaurants providing vegan and vegetarian food in the SF Bay Area, as well as businesses owned by vegetarians.

The goal of UG is to promote eating veg by making it as simple as possible to find restaurants serving veg food.  To support the best restaurants based on your reviews, it creates the Top Ten list of veg restaurants.  This is currently a straight average (total number of points divided by number of reviews).

For example:
Millennium has 34 reviews and a rating (average) of 4.34
Udupi Palace has 9 reviews and a rating (average) of 4.33

We need a math whiz to help us create a formula that also reflects the number of reviews the restaurant has, as well, in the final rating.

And if you’ve got a website or blog or email signature, please link back to The Ultimate Guide – help us promote veg eating!

Garden Fresh, a popular vegan Chinese restaurant in Mountain View, will be opening a new location later this year in Palo Alto, conveniently a short walk from the Caltrain station.  For many, Garden Fresh is synonymous with scrummy scallion pancakes.

Thanks to Doug for the heads-up!

Well, Contra Costa County is about to get its first veg restaurant — and a raw one, at that!  Planet Raw is currently in Santa Monica, started by Juliano, who had “Raw” in San Francisco many years ago.

For this East Bay location, the website says their “opening soon”, in the autumn.   The location is across from Diablo Valley College, and adjacent to the California Health Club.

Thanks to Winnie for the heads-up!

iPod Bay Area Vegetarian Guide

An updated version of our handy Ultimate Guide is now available for your iPod.

It’s easily installed by downloading a file and moving it content to the ‘Notes’ directory of your iPod. The Guide does not programmatically alter your iPod in any way: it’s simply a collection of documents organized for easy browsing.

Please spread the word to all your friends!

The Pride parade is today, Sunday, 28th, starting at 10 am.  It will be broadcast on KRON 4, Comcast Digital Channel 99, Clear Channel Radio on  SFPrideLive.com Live & Uncensored from 10:00 a.m, KOFY TV 20/Cable 13, starting at 8:00 p.m and  Comcast Channel 1 On Demand/Local Events starting June 29th at 7:00 p.m. until July 31st

Look for the rainbow contingent – that’ll be us!!

Bay Area Vegetarians is a local group that gives free vegetarian info, support and recipes from Sacramento to Santa Rosa to Santa Cruz! We have volunteers wearing lettuce bikinis to show off their healthy veggie bodies. We have nurses handing out “prescriptions” to Go Veg to avoid heart disease and obesity. We have animals to represent all the animals who don’t want to end up in a slaughterhouse.

One member, Alex Bury, wearing nothing but cabbage and lettuce leaves, used to be a professional chef. She cooked and ate meat every day. But now she’s a proud member of Bay Area Vegetarians and PETA, and only cooks vegan food! Parade marcher Jeff Hoffman did the same thing—he graduated from the California Culinary Academy, but now specializes in scrumptious veg food. His cupcakes are famous. Jeff’s vegetarian husband, Drew, is training for a marathon and having fun in a lettuce bikini today! Speaking of running, vegan Michelle just ran her first ultra marathon—12 hours—a month ago to raise funds for animals. She sure did recover quickly! Their professional coach and personal trainer, Darren Middlesworth, is vegan and representing his field in a some fine lettuce shorts. Member Kathy Buckley comes all the way from Iowa and Markush Madurai came from Calgary to march with the veggies in Pride!

Bay Area Vegetarians has had a booth here for years, but this is the first time we’ve been in the parade. It’s something we’ve wanted to do for many years. Today we are marching with members of many local groups, including East Bay Animal Advocates, PCRM, PETA, the LGBT community and local animal rescue specialists.

We’re proud to live in the Bay Area, where Pride is celebrated in such a big way. We’re proud vegetarians. Today we march to share our compassion and love for all: Love and Let Live.

If you want more of the free recipeswe’ll be handing out, just call 1-888-VEG-FOOD or visit GOVEG.com. Eating meat hurts animals, and veg foods are a yummy way to be compassionate and healthy! Happy Pride from Bay Area Vegetarians!

Roasted Potato Salad

In support of the big veg outreach effort happening at SF Pride this year, Drew and Jeff hosted a Pride Veg Outreach Party at their home last month.

Chef Jeff made some fabulous food, including bruchettas, roasted potato salad, pasta with pesto and sun-dried tomatoes, quinoa artichoke salad, Moroccan couscous salad, cupcakes, cookies, and dips.

After eating, we all wanted his secret recipes.  He modestly said there wasn’t any secret at all, that he just found them on the web. Ah, but that is the secret, isn’t it — finding a good recipe out of the gazillions that exist.

Drew and Chef Jeff

Chef Jeff was gracious enough to share a couple of these recipes with us.  He also added that the roasted potato salad is just mixed potatoes roasted with onions and bell peppers with fresh herbs.

We hope you enjoy these dishes as much as we did, and thanks again to Drew and Jeff and their co-hosts, canines Reggie, Mindy, and Theo, for hosting the fabulous party for Pride outreach volunteers.

Even if you missed the party, there’s still time to get involved with veg outreach at Pride.  Remember, love and let live.

Quinoa Artichoke Salad

Quinoa Artichoke Salad

This recipe is very flexible and forgiving; feel free to add other ingredients you like or leave things out that you don’t care for.

1 cup quinoa
½ cup red quinoa
2 Tbsp. tahini
2 Tbsp. almond butter
2 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar
2 Tbsp. white balsamic vinegar
4 large artichoke hearts in oil (chopped into small pieces)
1 small red onion
4 green onions, chopped finely
1 red bell pepper, seeded and cut into ¼” pieces
½ cup pitted kalmata or other olives, chopped finely
1 Fuji  apple (seeded and core removed, and cut into ¼” chunks)
2 Roma tomatoes (seeded and cut into ¼” pieces)
handful of chopped cashew nuts
Salt and pepper to taste

Cook both types of quinoa in approx. 2 cups water.  Allow to cool slightly.  Mix tahini, almond butter, and balsamic vinegars.  Dilute with a bit of warm water if very thick.  Stir this mixture into the warm quinoa.  Add artichoke hearts, onion, green onion, red bell pepper, olives, apple and tomato.  Check seasoning and add salt and pepper as needed.  Sprinkle cashews over salad when ready to serve.

Adapted from recipe “Quinoa Artichoke “Special Mix” from vegweb.com.

Moroccan Couscous Salad

Moroccan Cous Cous Salad

3 cups cooked Couscous.
I medium yellow or white onion, chopped finely
4 Tbsp. olive oil
½ tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. ground coriander
Pinch of saffron (optional)
¾ cup white wine
¾ cup dried currants
4 chopped green onions
½ cup toasted blanched almond pieces

To make couscous: Bring 1 2/3 cup water to boil in wide pan with ½ tsp. salt.  Add 1 1/3 cup dry couscous. Immediately turn off heat.  Allow to sit for 5 minutes.  Fluff with fork.

Heat olive oil in sauté pan over medium high heat.  Add onion and cook approximately 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Lower heat to medium if onions start to scorch.  Add cinnamon and coriander; stir approximately one additional minute.  Add white wine and saffron; cook over medium high heat until wine is reduced by half.  Add currants and cook an additional minute.  Add this mixture to the warm couscous.  Add green onions and almonds.  Serve at room temperature.

Chick Pea’s: The Falafel Place opened on May 14th in Berkeley. Their specialty is, of course, falafels, and they have a condiment bar with 12 different choices.

Ultimate Guide – Read it, Rate It, Review It: Chick Pea’s