Tag Archives: vegan mofo 2016

Vegan Mofo 2016 Day 4: My Vegan Restaurant: Animo Haddonfield NJ and Philadelphia PA

November 4, 2016

Animo

210 Kings Highway East, Haddonfield, NJ 08033
1701 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103
website | facebook haddonfield | facebook philadelphia | instagram | twitter

I am actually a little surprised it took me so long to post this review. See I use to work at Animo I guess around 2 years ago. I worked there for quite sometime actually, and I really miss the food. Vegan MOFO has the prompt of “Where do you eat when you want someone else to cook for you?” and the answer is nowhere. I usually have enough leftovers in the fridge or freezer to hold us off. We tend to find take out too much of a burden to do. The closest we get is me making a pizza from store bought dough or possibly Chinese take out.

But then I thought about the days of when I worked at Animo. If I ended up closing I would take home some burritos for Jon and I to eat. When I first started to work there they had free food for employees, which meant I would have their fresh juices, smoothies, and salad whenever I wanted. It was pretty nice. I would even sometime suppliment some of the meals there. If I had some soy yogurt, I would toss in some fresh fruit.

So let’s start with the basics- there are two locations for Animo. They have their original location in Haddonfield, NJ, but they have expanded into Philadelphia. I would recommend checking out the Haddonfield location since the Philadelphia location is always packed and is usually visited by office workers grabbing their lunch. Both locations differ, as I think the Philadelphia location tends to have more on location baked goods and special events.

The stores are not exclusively vegan. Sorry. But it is very easily customizable. The staff is usually pretty knowledgeable about what vegan means and will help you make your meal vegan. They don’t do fake vegan cheese or sour cream, but the flavors are really intense and you don’t need it.

The basic vegan ordering low down- the smoothies have yogurt in them. Ask for no yogurt or to sub with soy milk. The protein shakes are actually vegan by nature! They will probably ask what type of milk you want, cows, soy, or unsweetened almond. If they don’t, they defaulted to the soy. The protein powder is soy based unless you specifically ask for whey. They have acai bowls and special banana ice cream, both have no dairy in them. For the breakfast foods, you have a choice between their oatmeal or a peanut butter banana burrito.

Now for the burritos. My favorite thing about Animo is that they have two burrito sizes! You can get the full size burrito, or the ‘petito.’ A petito is about half the size of a normal burrito. So if you think Chipotle’s burritos are two meals, you’ll enjoy the petito. You can get their classic “mission” burrito, without cheese, and you have the “protein” option of veggies for extra. They also have the Bank Street (with veggies), Kale and Quinoa, and the Hummus and Veggie burritos which are all vegan as well.

And what is that beauty you see up above? That would be The Border Salad. It is lettuce greens topped with guac, blue corn chips, and pico de gallo. Since I’ve worked there I have my own little preferences. I skip the cilantro-lime dressing and go straight for their homemade hot sauce. I also like to get their salsa added, and it is totally worth it to get the roasted veggies added. Only thing is that you need to ask for no-cheese to make it vegan.

Posted by Jennifer in Tour NJ, Tour Pennsylvania, Traveling, Vegan Mofo, Vegan Mofo 2016, Vegan Pitstop Tags: animo, burritos, Haddonfield, juice, my vegan restaurant, omni restaurant, Philadelphia, smoothies, Tour NJ, Tour PA, vegan, Vegan MOFO, vegan mofo 2016, vegan pitstops

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Vegan Mofo 2016 Day 3: Pumpkin Black Bean Burgers

November 3, 2016

Ever made a recipe and have it be so awful that you had to revisit it again? This happens to me often. A recipe is floating around with some great flavor back bones. You think they should have a perfect flavor combo but it just lacks basic cooking know how. This happened with some pumpkin black bean burgers. The recipe was made by a non-vegan, and clearly didn’t know how to bind together the burgers. In their defense, they were probably also trying to avoid grains.

So when Vegan MOFO did the prompt asking what my “easy cook” meal would be, the answer was frozen burgers. But I know it would of been pretty boring if I pulled out some existing burger from my freezer and slapped it on a bun. So it gave me the chance to make a much better tasting pumpkin black bean burger.

When given the chance I ALWAYS try and bake my burgers. Why? It makes freezing much easier. It also makes grilling much easier. I can just grab a few burgers from my freezer and hand them to a host of a BBQ. People will always ask how to “grill” it, and I just say load up on oil, and heat all the way through. You can also toss these guys back in the oven, or just flip them in a small skillet. Heck sometimes these burgers make their way crumbled on a salad or in a wrap (did you check out my WIAW yesterday?).

This recipe specifically makes A LOT. I mean 8 on the low end if you like big thick burgers, 12 if you like small burgers for those store bought bagged hamburger buns. I am a firm believer that if you are using a food processor, you might as fill that bad boy up since it takes up so much space on the drying rack.

Now that I have baby on the way, these burgers will get eaten for sure. There will be too many nights where I won’t want to or don’t have the time cook.

Curious about some nutritional information? Well I happened to plug the recipe in Cronometer and I am happy to report these burgers are pretty good for the body (and soul). Remember these numbers are for if you divide the recipe up into 11 patties, so if you get 8 patties the numbers per burger will be higher. I got 7 grams of protein in that small patty, 5 grams of fat (with 37% of your omega-3!), and 27 grams of carbs (with 8 grams of fiber.)

I just screencapped the nutritional values for people see. And if you are thinking that isn’t that many, it just gives you more reason to eat a second burger, or make a double stacked pattie! I mean we haven’t even added the nutritional values from the lettuce, tomato, onions, hummus, bun, or whatever your imagination can think of the dress up that burger.

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Posted by Jennifer in Recipe, Vegan Mofo, Vegan Mofo 2016 Tags: black beans, burgers, freezer, pumpkin, recipe, Vegan MOFO, vegan mofo 2016

8 comments

Vegan Mofo 2016 Day 2: What I Ate Wednesday #4

November 2, 2016

I know it is only the second day of Vegan MOFO and I am taking a break from the prompts. I like using this blog sometimes as a way to remember things, so keeping up with some of my pregnancy posts is important to me. Granted, this post IS about vegan food, so it is still in the same spirit. It just doesn’t have the theme of the go-to-impressment meal. I won’t lie- you will be getting a preview of future Vegan MOFO posts. XD But let’s move on-

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As always I start my morning with a shake. Yup, I’m boring. I usually am so busy doing remaining dishes from the night before, and prepping ~~my husband’s~~ our lunches that I really like having quick shakes that I don’t need to think about. So this shake is one I featured before in my first and second WIAW posts. They turned out looking more brown looking. I guess it large depends on how much greens I happen to add that day. XD The photo looks extra pretty today since I was taking a photo for a Vegan MOFO prompt.

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Before heading to work I had to stop by Wegman’s to buy some peanut butter since we ran out. How will my husband live without his PB&J sandwiches?! XD So I figured I would pick up an almond milk latte as well. I am always surprised how much a latte will fill up my belly until lunch time. I figured I would take a photo of my “drink station.” Keeping my work area clean is SUPER important. Like 99% of the stuff we get at the frame shop isn’t worth much. Many things are digital photos or a $40-100 print. But some things are one of a kind- like needlepoints, old family photos, kid art. And now we are getting increasingly more and more expensive art, ranging from $1,000-80,000! No joke, the other day we got a call because a customer thought we lost his $80,000 print we framed, and I went white. I had no idea that piece was so expensive. Turns out he forgot that he brought it an appraiser to make sure it was authentic. Side note guys- if you think you have $80,000 print, get it appraised BEFORE getting it framed. They are most likely going to have to open it back up and reseal it. I know how many of my readers are sitting on expensive art ^__~

wrap

Lunch rolled around 12:30, and I ate my cut apple and a wrap with crumbled pumpkin black bean burger, radish greens, carrot shavings, and some Just Ranch dressing. The wrap was okay, it was a little dry. I also ate a few handfuls of tortilla chips because my boss took them out while we were eating. How do people NOT eat chips when the bag is opened?

So I didn’t photograph the apple and chips (use your imagination guys). I also didn’t photograph the two rolls of smarties and one of the new Nut Filled Clif Bars. I actually had the Coconut Almond Butter, and it was pretty good. I am not sure how much of a fan I am of them. I think I will stick to the originals, but they are still worth the occasional splurge.

burger

Before work I took some photos of the Pumpkin Black Bean Burgers (will be posted tomorrow) so I figured I would wrap up one of them and eat it as a mid-day snack. It was actually a pretty nutritious snack- gots some extra beans, pumpkin, and radish greens! I added some roasted garlic hummus to the bun, but I wish I could of added more since it was a little dry… and cold.

dinner

Dinner is going to be featured in an upcoming Vegan MOFO, I wonder if anyone will be able to guess from the photo? It is kind-of a stretch for the prompt. XD I rarely make meals like this, but I know I should start getting use to it as I plan to have kids. It isn’t too hard to make three separate things, especially when you can just shove the tofu in the oven. I had a little brown rice, curried beets, and tandoori tofu from Vegan Eats World. I saw that My Cat Loves Daiya tried it out and it just looked so yummy I had to do the same.

Then I wrapped up the night with a Pumpkin Spice Macaccino Cupcake. Again, something I will post on the blog for Vegan MOFO. I didn’t take a photo since I ate one of the first batches where I mixed in chocolate chips and had a crumb topping. The topping- uh…. melted. So they looked pretty nasty before I took any photos. So I made a second batch without those add ins. Baking is never perfect the first time right?

So how did I do? Well, I ALWAYS point out, everyone is different, and needs different amount of calories. I am 8 1/2 months pregnant, so yeah, I’m eating a lot XD Just click the chart to enlarge it if you can’t read it. Out of all the days I think I hit the most of the nutritional goals. As always, the packaged goods aren’t very accurate, I mean the clif bar didn’t register most of the vitamins and minerals, which is a bummer since the regular clif bars usually show up.

I know it looks like I ate A LOT of sugar, but I have my specs registered for 50 grams of sugar, the suggested amount. About half of the sugar that is being registered are naturally occurring from the banana, apple, beets, and carrot that I ate. Yeah, not the greatest that I have doubled the amount from smarties, clif bar, latte, and a muffin/cupcake. And let’s not forget all those sneaky added in sugars in dressings and breads and such.

I can’t believe I am getting to the end. There might be ONE more of these What I Ate Wednesdays before the baby comes. And if I try hard, I might do a few more to show the food recommendations for breast feeding. The good news is that I can freak out a lot less about iron! YEY!

What are you guys eating today?

Posted by Jennifer in Pregnancy, Vegan Mofo, Vegan Mofo 2016 Tags: clif bars, pregnancy, Terry Hope Romero, third trimester, vegan eats world, Vegan MOFO, vegan mofo 2016, week 34, what I ate wednesday, wiaw

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Vegan Mofo 2016 Day 1: Buffalo Cauliflower Po’Boys

November 1, 2016

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I can hear my Aunt groaning all the way in Florida. “Oh honey, that’s no po’boy” in a heavy Southern accent is ringing in my ears. My Aunt Sheila is originally from Louisiana, and she is a recipe purist. I’ve been told that if I make a roux with oil instead of butter, you have a completely different recipe on your hand. But I am jumping ahead of myself. What does this recipe have to do with the first vegan mofo prompt?

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Well, we are suppose to be talking about our favorite foods. I was a little stumped. My answers are pretty easy: calzones and ice cream. But I’ve already given my recipe for a standard calzone (very ricotta-y just the way I like it), in fact it was the second post for Vegan Mofo last year. I couldn’t make a recipe for ice cream mostly because my freezer is PACKED. If there is leftovers it is getting frozen for post baby exhaustion.

So I asked Jon, what HIS favorite food was. His response was “a really good sandwich.” I got what he meant, there is something really nice about having a good loaf of bread, and the right fillings. He gets stuck with PB and J too often for his lunches for work, so I think when he gets something different, it makes him happy. At first I was going to do a buffalo tofu sandwich, since I love anything with buffalo sauce. But I think my lack of veggies in my diet made me go a little crazy with the craving, so I made a cauliflower buffalo wing po boy.

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So now, let’s go back to the beginning- what the heck is a po’boy? This is important because there has been too many times where I’ve eaten a sandwich named a po’boy but lacked many of the defining qualities of the sandwich. There is a fine line between a cupcake and a muffin and so is a sandwich and po’boy. A po’boy is a sandwich mostly associated with Louisiana, but is a local speciality in Texas, Alabama, and Mississippi. It most famously has lots of small fried shrimp as the main filling, but it can be crab, oysters, crawfish, sausage, and sometimes even roast beef or french fries. It needs to be served in a crispy piece of bread, and the food pieces can’t be too big.

I’ve been eating bastardized versions of po’boys almost anytime my Father had to cook dinner. All he had to do was take shrimp, bread, and fry. Then we would add the roll, mayo, and fixings. So in many ways, this sandwich is a variation. I am using cauliflower instead of shrimp. I am breading it and baking instead of frying. But I guess the biggest betrayal is that I am slapping on lots of buffalo wing sauce. Oh well.

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I’ve also come to realize I talk a lot about food history. ESPECIALLY during Vegan Mofo. In fact, my hopes that next year I will do a month devoted completely to American historical cakes. But since I’ve decided I am going to be so thorough, let’s talk about what makes buffalo wing sauce, buffalo wing sauce. I think I saw Jenny from Herbivore’s Heaven talking about subbing a hot sauce for something else in a blog post. I cringed a little, but then realized I didn’t know why. Heck, I think I have over 10 different spicy based condiments in my fridge. Each so similar but have their own unique qualities.

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If you live in the United States, you know that you are either getting Frank’s Red Hot Sauce, or some other name brand that has the word “buffalo” on the hot sauce label. Even though buffalo wings are covered in a sauce that is just hot sauce and butter, most shelf stable bottles of “buffalo” sauce does not have any butter in it. Good news for vegans. But what make “buffalo wing” sauce different from others is that it is a mix of cayenne peppers, vinegar, and garlic that have been aged.

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So what should you do if you aren’t in the United States and can’t find the proper sauce? Well, look at labels and see if you can find the word “cayenne pepper.” That really is the secret to the flavor. There are many varieties, but finding that wording will more likely ensure that it is the variety and flavor you are looking for. Also flip to the ingredients and try and keep it short and simple. You mainly want to see vinegar, pepper, and garlic in the ingredients. Or you can try out Domestic Fits’ recipe or Sunny Side Up’s recipe.

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Posted by Jennifer in Recipe, Vegan Mofo, Vegan Mofo 2016 Tags: buffalo hot sauce, cauliflower, po boy, ranch, recipe, sandwich, Vegan MOFO, vegan mofo 2016

12 comments

Sunday Reading 09-18-15 #74

September 18, 2016

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These past two weeks…. oh man have they’ve been something. My blog was being hosted by my lovely friend Jamie. Sadly she decided that she wouldn’t be able to keep her hosting services since of various things including money and poor hosting service. I stress the poor hosting service because it has been causing a headache for me. The company she used is slow to reply to help requests, goes down often (which I think more international readers have been at the end of that stick), and general crumminess. The server went down, no big deal, except I freaked out that it was 100% gone forever since Jamie mentioned getting rid of the hosting service (I know I was being irrational, but couldn’t shake that thought.) Then when I came back up, I backed my XML posts, and tried to connect to the FTP… and just couldn’t get it to connect. Turns out, my password was wrong, and the program I used wasn’t compatible. So my IP was blocked, and I couldn’t see anything from my computer. Worse it seemed all Mac FTPs were being blocked as well. So weird. So I had to ask so many favors from Jamie about backing up my files, sending them over, etc. And I felt bad because I had over 2 GB of images for the blog!

Good news? We are moved to our server, and has given my husband a boost in interest to help my blog out more. He is helping me compress my photo files, which means faster loading times for you guys. I am also hoping to improve my search engine crap and work on a new layout that won’t be too boring, but a little more mainstream. Bad news? If you go into our older posts you might find some broken images. I am slowly fixing that

But since it has been so long, I have a bunch of links to share. Some are quick reads, some are opinion pieces, and some are total fluff. Hope you guys enjoy them and I will have more new posts coming up soon next week.

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Laura Izumikawa on Instagram

Let’s start with the fluff! I am not going to be one of those people who will flood you with ooey-gooey Mom stuff, but I need to share this. Even if you don’t like kids, you’ll love these photos. Laura Izumikawa takes photos of her cute baby while she’s asleep. There are some athletes, cartoon characters, anime, nerdy stuff, and pop stars. If you haven’t already seen all the news articles featuring her photos, check out her instagram.

Black Health Matters

Nothing makes my blood boil more than hearing people make gross racist remarks like “oh black people don’t exercise” or “people on welfare just eat garbage.” What makes it worse is they never seem to care to make a change about that. So when I read about grassroots movements of trying to get free exercise and wellness programs for low income or people of color, I get really excited. If you want more inspirational reads you can check out this Mosaic Podcast episode about the diabetes epidemic in Harlem.

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The best 100 films of the 21st century, according to 177 film critics around the world

I don’t talk too much about it but I am a film nerd. I love movies, and I rarely get off my butt to watch them. Why? I am not interested in blockbusters… like at all. In fact my husband and I have lots of debates over stuff because I think his “greatest films” are kind-of just fluff. *cough* steven spielberg *cough* If you didn’t already picked up that I am pretentious art school ~~student~~ graduate, you now officially know. Anyways, even people who love blockbusters are getting sick of all these sequels and “reboots.” So if you are looking for something new but different, check out this list. I am wanting to watch the ones we haven’t seen before… which is a lot. I’ve only seen about a quarter of the list but here are the films I think everyone should check out (when you have night to really watch a movie) Note- these are my favorites from the list or ones I think that are a little less known, so you know keep that in mind.

Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson, 2012)
Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson, 2008)
The Pianist (Roman Polanski, 2002)
Her (Spike Jonze, 2013)
A Serious Man (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2009)
City of God (Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund, 2002)
Oldboy (Park Chan-wook, 2003)
WALL-E (Andrew Stanton, 2008)
The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2012)
The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014)
Synecdoche, New York (Charlie Kaufman, 2008)
Children of Men (Alfonso Cuarón, 2006)
Inside Llewyn Davis (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2013)
No Country for Old Men (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2007)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004)
Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki, 2001)
There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007)
In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, 2000)

1mofo16

Vegan Mofo 2016 Returns

Vegan Mofo will be returning this year! The announcement was made while I was blocked from my server and transferring files so at first I was overwhelmed with the thought of doing it again. I think I will be trying it out again this year with Alexa’s help. But truthfully we will see how often a post since it will be during the 9th month of pregnancy (yikes!) But I had so much fun doing it in 2015 and 2014 that I just had to.

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These Folks Went Vegetarian Back When It Was Way Uncool

This is a brief look at the first vegetarians restaurants in the world. It is interesting to see how vegetarianism have evolved over the years, and how Hitl has stayed the same. I would love to visit it sometimes, but I wonder if they have many vegan options (it seems to have a lot of eggs and dairy in the recipes). Still a fun slice of history.

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Exercising Regularly Saves You Money, Assuming You Don’t Have ClassPass

I’ve always been one to recommend people go out and get some exercise. I don’t think you need to go to a gym, but I know some people thrive with the direction (especially early on.) This study shows that maybe health insurance companies should cover gym classes. It does show to save some money. Even still, walking 30 minutes a day still does the body some good.

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Women Who Eat Full-Fat Yogurt Are Happier, So Don’t Believe the Smug Lady in Yoplait-Light Commercials

Okay, so I find the title of this article more interesting than anything else. A quick summary is that women who eat full fat yogurt have less depression than women who eat the light stuff. There isn’t any direct correlation with fat consumption and depression. It could be because there is more sugar added to the low-fat stuff or could be that women who are depressed are more concerned about weight gain. I take it as better body image equals better mind.

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Why Fidgeting Is Good Medicine

And if you made this far- congrats! This is a surprising article about fidgeting. We all know sitting down for long periods of time can be bad for our bodies. So scientists wanted to see if fidgeting would help counter the negative effects. And it kind-of does! Sure it better to not sit down for several hours, but it is a great way to counteract it if you have no choice.

Posted by Jennifer in Sunday Reads Tags: laura Izumikawa, new york times, npr, quartz, science of us, sunday reading, sunday reads, Vegan MOFO, vegan mofo 2016