Disney World, Parte Dos

And the Disney adventures continue! As much as I'd like to tell you every detail about my trip, I'm mostly sticking to the eating part - my mission is to show you that eating vegan is totally possible at Disney World.

Day Two

Our first part in terms of the parks was Disney's Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM). Every morning I cooked oatmeal or hot quinoa cereal for myself back at the room in our resort, which had a kitchen, so the first meal we had in the park was lunch. We stopped at Backlot Express, a quick, fast-food type restaurant. I had a gander at the ingredients list for the Grilled Vegetable Sandwich before ordering it, sans cheese.





The sandwich came on a black olive ciabatta roll with mushrooms, red peppers, zucchini, tomato, watercress, and sundried tomato pesto. A cold black bean salad was served on the side. I was glad to have the protein from the black bean salad, because too many people and too many restaurants think vegetarian means replacing meat with lots of vegetables and vegetables only, but the bean salad didn't actually taste too great. I liked the ciabatta bread, though!

I had a yummy vegan Apple Cinnamon Pretzel for a snack from Min & Bill's Dockside Diner at the park, as well. (My guide suggested that it was vegan, and Min & Bill's also has an ingredient listing for their food. While looking at their ingredient book, I also saw that this pretzel was nearly 500 calories... Yikes! I shared this whopper with each and every member of my family, hehe.) This thing tasted like apple pie stuffed inside a pretzel - it was pretty good!



Dinner was at Brown Derby, a pretty upscale sit-down restaurant inside Disney's Hollywood Studios. Believe it or not, nothing had to be custom-made for me because a vegan entree was already on the menu!: a Noodle Bowl with Wok-Fried Coconut Tofu, complete with sugar snap peas, edamame, mushrooms, bok choy, and red curry. P.F. Chang's was the old recipient of Ruby's Red Vegan's Favorite Tofu Award, but Brown Derby is the new winner. The tofu was breaded with coconut flakes; it was perfect - not too oily - and the bowl was garnished with a stalk of bok choy sticking a foot out from the plate! Everything was served over a giant bed of really thin and delicious noodles, and there was a short layer of soupy curry liquid in the bottom. This meal was so utterly fabulous, it only took a little bit of food to feel completely satiated (as in, my palate was satisfied).



The dessert menu also featured something vegan: Mixed Berries with Mango Ice. The mango ice part seemed questionable to me at first, but the waitress assured me the chef said I could have it. The mango ice turned out to be amazing - so much better than sherbet or sorbet. The meal in its entirety was high-class and thoroughly enjoyable.

Day Three

My third day in Florida was spent at Disney's Animal Kingdom, a sort-of African-themed theme park complete with animals and rides and a really cool giant tree. Lunch was at Restaurantosaurus, a euphemism for McDonald's. But my handy-dandy vegan guide hinted that this particular McDonald's carried vegan Boca burgers, and a peek at the location's ingredient list confirmed this. So, here, I enjoyed a Vegetarian Burger with Apple Slices.



They microwaved the burger instead of grilling it, so I didn't have to fear that meat grease was smeared over my burger. I'd watch out for the fries here, because I believe all McD's fries have beef-derived "goodies" inside - ick! I love the taste of the vegan Boca burgers, so this lunch was simple and made me happy. There was even a topping bar so I could dress my burger to my fancy. My only gripe was that this lunch left me incredibly hungry for the rest of the day - I would have fared better with two Boca patties on my bun.

My family and I stayed at Disney's Old Key West resort, and we ate a sit-down meal at the resort's cafe, Olivia's. The chef came out to ask me what I'd like, but I had not a clue as to what to request so I asked him what he could make. He suggested risotto, which I quickly agreed to, and my dad spoke up, "Doesn't risotto have cheese?" And I said, "Dad, you can make risotto without cheese!" I looked at the menu to get an idea of which vegetables the kitchen already had on hand, and mentioned a few of my favorite vegetables as well. A little while later, the chef hand-delivered the customized dish and explained each item on the plate: marinated Portobello mushrooms, asparagus, maple sweet potatoes, baby carrots dusted with brown sugar, and a risotto in the middle with soy cheese - the soy cheese was a surprise the chef hadn't let me in on!



I was impressed not only that the kitchen had soy cheese on hand and that the "cheese" didn't taste like stinky feet, but I was also floored by the individual tastes of each different item on the plate - this man knew how to cook! He did fabulously on the vegetables, and it really is a privilege to have your meal handmade by the chef. Nothing was too oily or too salty, or overcooked or undercooked. Everything had flavor. My favorites on the plate were the marinated mushrooms and the maple-licious sweet potatoes. I also liked the risotto a lot - I'm no longer a risotto virgin! Overall, I was also impressed that this guy prepared five different items for my plate. He swung by the table while we were chowing down and asked if I was going to go hungry that night. That was a definite NO! I told him how well everything was cooked and I hope I expressed how much I appreciated the meal. For dessert I had mixed berries. I'm sure getting my share of fruit on this trip!



My favorites on the trip so far? The Wolfgang Puck Express Mediterranean Vegetable Wrap, the Chocolate Tofutti "ice cream" with berries from Spoodle's, the Wok-Fried Coconut Tofu from Brown Derby, and my mixed vegetables and risotto plate at Olivia's. Mmm... I'll be back soon with day four! Get excited!!

Disney World, Part I

Hey everyone! I'm back from Disney World after a nine day trip... While I was there, I had a mission: to get fabulous vegan meals. With my guide in hand, I figured little could go wrong. Now I'm here to share the good, the bad, and the ugly. Let's get started:



Looks delicious, right? But what you don't see is the big, big problem that almost occurred. My mother, father, sister and I had our first meal at Wolfgang Puck Express, a counter service cafe in Downtown Disney Marketplace. We paid for the Disney Dining meal plan for 10 days, which entitled us to ten table service meals and ten counter service meals, each including a non-alcoholic beverage, an entree, and a dessert - and on the dining plan, we were also eligible for ten snacks each which would be designated by an icon at select dining locations and snack stands throughout Disney world and the resorts.

Disney is a very accomodating place food-wise for people with food allergies, vegetarians/vegans, and people with other health-related dietary restrictions. So I expected to be dealing with a pro when I asked the cashier at Wolfgang Puck what my options were as a vegan. I ended up choosing the butternut squash soup and a Granny Smith apple for dessert. When the soup was delivered, it was gorgeous with a red pepper and chive garnish. To be safe, I asked the food runner if the soup contained any dairy products. Thank goodness for precaution, because otherwise I would have taken a bite of soup with heavy cream! Yuck and sooo not vegan! The runner took the soup back uneaten and the chef came out to ask what I would like instead. We talked and decided that he would make me a wrap in a tortilla (because he was smart and knew that vegans don't eat honey, and all the breads at Wolfgang contain honey). What I was delivered was the most delicious roasted vegetable wrap I have ever tasted. The Mediterranean Vegetable Wrap was a blend of sun-dried tomatoes and sauteed eggplant, bell peppers, mushrooms, and zucchini. I hate oily vegetables, but whatever the chef did to them was absolutely wonderful. It tasted like some sort of thick-ish glaze with a vegetable oil base, and it was divine, divine, divine. I was so glad the chef was familiar with the needs of a vegan and that he could think on his feet and create a delicious meal and make me feel special. I made sure to find him after the meal and thank him, too, because I really appreciated it.

For dinner, we had reservations for our first table service meal at Spoodles, a Mediterranean-inspired restaurant situated on a white-picket pier right along Disney's Boardwalk Resort. Prior arrangement had notified the restaurant of my vegan status and the waitress sent the chef out straight away to talk to me about my options. Instead of creating a new dish, together we selected combining the Hummus appetizer (with animal-free lavash instead of the whey-containing pita bread) and the White Bean Moussaka entree into my meal. The moussaka (white bean puree, eggplant, spicy chunky tomatoes, olive oil) was originally a vegetarian entree and the chef agreed to eliminate the cheese for me.



The lavash turned out to be the perfect complement to the hummus and was doughy and wondrous. The hummus was a very good one - I even got my processed-lunch-meat-eating, doughnut-and-steak-loving mother to try hummus for the first time and it passed the taste test. She loved it! I've never had moussaka before, but it was assembled like lasagna - with a layer of eggplant instead of lasagna noodles. I dug in after inspecting my meal for cheese and was pleased to find that the white bean puree was a pretty "creamy" element itself in the moussaka. I loved the eggplant layers and was astounded that I had gotten such a protein-packed meal between the hummus and moussaka - and having beans other than soybeans was a nice break too!



I will say that the moussaka seemed like it was missing something, probably because it was "veganized" from the cheesy version instead of being created as a vegan meal in its own right. Of course, I was also curious to see if the waitress would offer me dessert. You should have seen how excited I was when she informed me they had Tofutti and Rice Dream "ice creams"! Can you believe that - from a non-veg restaurant?! I couldn't. I was ecstatic when I first tucked into my dish of Chocolate Tofutti, and the kitchen also surprised me with a bowl of strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries. The dessert made my night, and I'd never had chocolate Tofutti before and decided it was so creamy and delicious that it's now my new favorite non-dairy ice cream.



So basically I felt like a queen that day. I had two chefs cater to my needs, which is such a change from my college city and my hometown. If you say "vegan" in a restaurant, they say, "Huh?"

I'll be back with more fun later! I hope you enjoyed my first day of dining at the Disney resort, and there is definitely more to come.

WDW, Here This Vegan Comes!

I've been cooking up a lot of stuff recently. Ooh do I have so many peectures!



Gar, the Chocolate Chipper Cookies from The Chicago Diner Cookbook are not the least bit impressive. Then again, they're the first cookies I've ever made with soy margarine (in the form of Earth Balance). Maybe I just need to brush up on my cookies skills, but seriously, 90% of the cookies I make don't get messed up. These tasted like dry hard rocks, even though there was a ton of EB in them and were so not worth it. I even planned my dinner around them and everything, teehee!



Oh goodness, I cooked up the yummiest sammie this weekend! It's a falafel mix from a box, Butternut Squash Hummus (I used a Pumpkin Hummus recipe from havecakewilltravel.com), and spinach leaves on a toasted whole grain baguette from Whole Foods. WOW is all I can say for this guy!



One of my favorite restaurants is P.F. Chang's China Bistro. "My" menu item is the Vegetarian Lettuce Wraps - they give you a heaping plate of tofu and cool lettuce cups to wrap it in! It's the best tofu I've ever had. Okay, quick survey: where have you had the best tofu ever or what is the best tofu recipe ever?



I promise I eat other meals than breakfast! See, look:



It may be simple. But nutrition and the qualification of "yummy enough" are sometimes all this vegan requires. The spaghettini is topped with a butternut-tomato sauce made from canned butternut squash from Whole Foods and some organic tomato sauce.

Perfect for a tea party of unsuspecting dormmates...



These lovelies are Chocolate Chip Scones from Vegan with a Vengeance. I am also proud to say our tea party sported soymilk next to the icky cow juice at the tea-making station. No pictures of that, sorry. (I have a little phobia of pulling out my camera to take food pictures in public, but sometimes I force myself to do it!) I sprang the vegan factor on my hungry fellow partiers after all my scones were gone. Hehe. They didn't react badly either - they said, "Wow! They were really good!" and were nice little complimenters like that. :)



Annnnd I made my own pudding. Pudding is so kickin' and awesome when it's warm. It's Chocolate-Peppermint Pudding from the Fat Free Vegan blog, but I ignored Susan's peppermint flavoring instructions and used a drop of peppermint extract and a half teaspoon of vanilla instead. Peeerfect minty flavor right there!

If you refer to the title of my post, you may or may not know what "WDW" stands for. Listen to this: Walt. Disney. World. Yesss! I'm going to Disney World for my spring break - yeehaw! I leave tomorrow and am so excited for the adventure I have ahead of me. I'm fully armed with vegan dining information and am going to be fed very, very well this week. I am beyond excited and will document my dining adventures to the fullest of my ability while I'm there. I'm going to try to create a little vegan dining guidebook of my own when I come back - I'll dedicate a post to that! For now, I must pack and study up for my last midterm, so bye bye! I'll be back before you know it, but I'll taking an internet hiatus while I'm in sunny Florida, chillin' with Mickey and Minnie and all the homegirls and Disney Princesses.

Just Breakfast

Can you imagine my excitement when I saw this lovely container at my local Whole Foods? I've been wanting to try So Delicious's new soy yogurt forever! I believe "Cinnamon Bun" also wins the most-exotic-soy-yogurt-flavor-ever award. There are coffee and cheesecake and you-name-it dairy yogurts in widespread existence, so it's about time the vegans got something a little more exciting in the yogurt department.



I used my beloved yogurt to make a parfait for breakfast. I was inspired by a Coldstone concoction I used to like before I was vegan, but having soy yogurt is much healthier than having Coldstone ice cream, do you not agree? I've got some vegan cereal from Trader Joe's in there, some banana slices, and almond butter. Cinnamon is one of my favorite flavors to have with bananas and nut butter, so there you go. This was an awesome breakfast, and it was much faster than my normal ones.




Dreena Burton is a genius! Here are my Almond Butter Banana Turnovers, adapted from her Peanut Banana Tortilla Turnovers recipe in Eat, Drink & Be Vegan. These were divine. Just divine. I also had these for breakfast, but you could easily have them for lunch or dinner (then you wouldn't necessarily need the sprinkle of powdered sugar I added for a special breakfast touch). The almond butter and banana melt together so well through the tortilla in the skillet to make a super gooey, super nutritious treat! The tortillas are whole wheat, too!




This is as close as you get to eating brownies for breakfast without feeling guilty. The Chocolate Chip Brownie Waffles from Veganomicon are so rich and delicious that they don't need any topping. I just have them plain, without maple syrup or anything. I did feel the need to add a lovely blood orange to my breakfast, though, because even after adding some whole wheat pastry flour to these babies, I'm not sure how long chocolate breakfasts keep me full.




I saved the best for last! Here be some Banana Chocolate Chip Waffles, based on the Banana-Nut Waffle recipe from Veganomicon. I drizzled some almond butter on top to make them almost-Elvis waffles. As you may already know, bananas/peanut butter/chocolate is a food combination famously known as "The Elvis." Don't ask me why - maybe Elvis just liked it a lot or he actually invented it. But it's better with almond butter! This is my favorite waffle so far, except whenever I make banana waffles, I have to spend a full five minutes picking them out of my waffle iron. Those 'naners just don't want to unglue themselves from the metal plates. This waffle was actually in two pieces when I took it out of the iron - the top and bottom were completely separated! Thankfully the two halves were in good enough shape to take a picture. Mmm, I was in heaven this morning when I had these!

Here and There

I just realized how long it's been since I last posted... Yikes!



I made the yummiest African Spinach Stew last night! I first had this dish in a local vegetarian restaurant (somehow, it's called a vegetarian restaurant but serves salmon - explain that one to me) and it was served with tortilla-like wedges. So I tried to imitate that with some whole wheat tortillas, crisped up in the toaster. The stew is traditionally made with peanut butter (here's the recipe), but I wanted to use almond butter just because I can.



My only complaint was that I didn't use enough spinach. The four cups I put in for my single-serving shrunk down way more than I thought they would, but at least that made everything extra almond buttery. Everyone should make this, it's so easy and delicious!

Also on my plate is some Pan-Fried Tempt-eh! from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan. Be prepared to see a few more tempeh meals coming up. I think tempeh is my favorite food, even more so than oatmeal and Brussels sprouts, so it's insane that it has been so long since I last purchased tempeh. The last time I had it was before I even started this blog.


Vegan Noodle had a contest on her blog a while back, in which you were supposed to guess the number of chocolate lentils (a vegan treat comparable to M&M's) she had pictured in a jar. I won for guessing the farthest off from the real number! I am awesome like that. I was so, so, so excited when I got the prize package in the mail, which included these babies:



Of course I wanted to devour them as soon as I ripped open my package outside the mail room, but I restrained myself and saved them for a special occasion. I put them in my purse and was able to resist for two whole hours, until I was settled down with a soy hot chocolate and with my camera, ready to document their gorgeousness. They were so good, and can you believe they were the first vegan truffles I've ever had?! Thank you so much, Vegan Noodle!




Microwave popcorn with Veganomicon's Cheezy Sauce! I loved this sauce on the Mac Daddy, so I thought it would be great on popcorn, too. I was impatient and didn't let the sauce cool long enough, so it mushed the popcorn a little. But still! That was a fun snack. The brand of popcorn I used was Bearitos No Salt No Oil. It was expensive, but it's vegan and a girl needs popcorn every once in a while.


I got the idea for Sweet Potato Crispy Corn Tacos from an old post on my friend Chocolate Covered Vegan's blog. They were meant to be burritos, but I had gone to the shady grocery store that day for a quick shop and there were no vegan, non-hydrogenated tortillas there, so tacos it was. Katie and I both agreed that this is a great meal, not only because it's fast and easy, but because the sweet from the sweet potatoes goes so well with the salty from the refried beans. The corn tacos add a great dimension to the flavor as well. And the best part is, I cooked my sweet potato in the microwave, so this meal was unbelievably fast.






Guess what? Oatmeal Pudding works with quinoa too!



I must say, though, that oatmeal is far superior. Quinoa just doesn't have enough bulk to be in the same class as oatmeal pudding. But it still makes for a good, nutritious breakfast. And between the two grains, quinoa is much prettier. It looks like there are golden, gleaming baby pearls poking out of my breakfast. This Quinoa Breakfast Pudding has figs, bananas, blackstrap molasses, cinnamon, vanilla, sea salt, and a big drizzle (one tablespoon) of macadamia butter. It might taste better if it was whizzed in the blender before adding the macadamia, and then it would have a smoother texture like oatmeal pudding.

Have a great week! I'll be back soon - my mini fridge is full to bursting with brand new groceries, waiting to be created into yummy things and posted about on the blog.