Beer/Wine

Red Wine and Relaxation

April 16, 2010 by Lindsay Ingalls 2 Comments

Tonight is all about relaxing and enjoying a glass (or 2) of red wine and relaxing with my hubby and our fur baby. We decided to keep things simple and enjoyed a Masala Burger with babaganoush and sauteed mushrooms and onions and of course hot sauce. The weather here in VT has been pretty dreary today so it’s setting the mood for relaxation and currently catching up Top Chef Masters-my hubby is drooling over Gail Simmons right now; I think I need to get him a bib.

Hubby and I are resting up for our big Spring cleaning day tomorrow. So I’ll leave you with a photo of my yummy wine and messy burger.

Q: What are you plans for this evening?

It’s Spring! Beers, BBQing and Blueberry Pie

March 20, 2010 by Lindsay Ingalls Leave a Comment

Spring has finally sprung and that means BBQing, hiking, camping and lots of SUN! Last night was such a beautiful night we couldn’t pass up doing our 3.25 mile hike/walk at Hubbard Park. After that we came back for some BBQing and beers. I decided to prep our meal ahead of time so that when we got back from our hike/walk we could get right to grilling and I wouldn’t be in the kitchen getting things ready while Neil was out doing the manly grilling. We stood around and grilled up some yummy skewers of mushrooms and peppers, onion and sweet potato rounds and some Korean BBQ marinated tempeh. I love smelling like smoke after grilling on our charcoal grill….oh dreaming of camping.

We had a little Ezekiel Pita Bread on the side to catch all the yummy sauce drippings and a nice cold glass To Unibroue Trios Pistoles-SO GOOD! To end our yummy meal we shared a piece of Blueberry Crumble Pie

Blueberry Crumble Pie

You will need a whole wheat or spelt pie crust for this recipe.

Preheat oven to 350F

Filling:

3 cups frozen blueberries
1 T lemon juice
1 T arrowroot (you can also use cornstarch)
2 T palm sugar (you could also use sucant)
pinch of cinnamon

Place all ingredients in a medium pot over medium heat and cook until bubbly. The pour into a prepared whole wheat pie crust.

Topping:

1/4 cup almond meal (you could use flour)
1/4 cup rolled oats
2 T brown sugar
2 T vegan shortening

Using your fingers mix all of this together until it is crumbly. Then sprinkle over the blueberry filling. Place the pie in the oven and bake for 40 minutes or until golden brown and bubbly. Set to the side and let cool. While it is cooling make the Lemon Glaze.

Lemon Glaze:

2 Cups powdered Sugar
1 T lemon juice
1 t vanilla
2 T soy milk

Drizzle this on top of the cooled Blueberry Crumble Pie, save any remaining glaze to drizzle over slices when serving.

The Alchemist Pub and Brewery

November 10, 2009 by Lindsay Ingalls 3 Comments

Last night my husband, Neil, decided he would take us out for a date night at The Alchemist Pub and Brewery in Waterbury Vermont- “The Alchemist is a 7 barrel brew pub specializing in hand-crafted beer and casual pub fare. All of our ales flow directly from our basement brewery, which was designed and installed by our brewer and co-proprietor John Kimmich. We use only the finest imported malts and domestic hops available to bring you the tastiest and finest selection of beers in Vermont!” (from their website).

We settled on getting the oatmeal stout and the red….however we were brought a porter and a harvest. They quickly apologized about that mistake and gave us our correct beers on the house.

For dinner I ordered the Marinated Tempeh Sandwich without the walnut pesto and subsituted the maple balsamic dressing. Neil ordered the Blackened Tofu Burrito without the cheese and sour cream. We also ordered a side of fries with their house made mustard and ketchup.

Although our meals were really good we didn’t make it through the first bite of the burrito because they had forgotten to not put the cheese on. So we sent it back and it was quickly replaced with the correct vegan version. The tempeh sandwich was so good and the fries were amazing- nice and crispy fresh cut. The burrito was good we really liked the blackened tofu but it was missing something in it, maybe the salsa would have been better in than on the side.

Overall we just fell in love with the places great atmosphere, food and beer. We extremely impressed with the service as well and appreciated the 2 free beers and the free burrito (they covered that as well since they had made the mistake- we really didn’t expect that but it was a great treat).

Vegan Mofo #19: Vegan Wines

October 22, 2009 by Lindsay Ingalls 4 Comments

As a vegan you become accustomed to checking the labels of everything you eat, drink, and wear and are always asking if something is vegan before letting it touch your lips. However one of the most difficult things to determine whether or not it is vegan is wine. You might ask what makes it not vegan? Well, some wines are clarified after fermentation and some of the ingredients used include:

– edible gelatins (made from bones)
– isinglass (made from the swim bladders of fish)
– casein and potassium caseinate (milk proteins)
– animal albumin (egg albumin and dried blood powder)

As we all know wines don’t usually have an ingredients list on the bottle (or box) as other products so we can’t just go to the market and pick up a bottle without doing a little research. A great site to find out which wines are vegan is http://www.barnivore.com/ – here you can find a list of wines, beers and liquors and details as to if they are vegan friendly, mostly vegan friendly or not vegan friendly. If you click the name it brings you further so you can find out if ones is “mostly vegan friendly” which specific wines are.

Some of my favorite vegan wines are:

Bota Box wines- not only is it vegan but it is environmentally friendly with it’s recycled box UPDATE: as of January 2010 Bota Box is no longer vegan friendly for more info check out Barnivore

French Rabbit- another great variety of vegan wines that are also enclosed in environmentally friendly packaging

Fish Eye- great and cheap

Yellow Tail- ONLY reds are vegan- which is fine with me because I love red wine however my hubz and I usually go for one of the above brands if we are sharing as he is a white wine drinker.

Dining at The Black Door

October 16, 2009 by Lindsay Ingalls 1 Comment

Last night my husband took me to a new spot for dinner, The Black Door on Main St in Montpelier, VT. Now we had been here before for drinks but never have had a chance to do dinner. Neil called to make reservations and check on vegan options and the hostess let him know that the Eggplant Bucatini without the shaved cheese was vegan and the Cumin Spiced Tofu was vegan. After hearing this I went on to check their wine list to see which ones were vegan and to my luck a variety of their wines, both red and white, were vegan.

We showered and got dressed up (it’s pretty nice and a bit pricey) and headed on our way. We were sat at a nice table for two and had great service and great wine and beer. Our meals came and everything was delicious! The meals came (we got one of each to share) and they were great. The Eggplant Bucatini was very good however the shining plate was the Cumin Spiced Tofu which was just amazing- my husband said it was one of the best meals he’s had in a long time, even better than anything I’d made! (I had to agree).

Our only issue with our meal is that they were particularly small and we were very hungry after having had a small lunch and working out we were ready for something filling. We came to the conclusion that this was the type of place you do appetizer, entrée and dessert- not just an entrée as we had done (oh well it was our first time). Just when we thought we’d have to go home and have a snack our waitress comes back to let us know that there is one vegan dessert tonight, our ears perked up, it was apple cinnamon sorbet. We ordered a bowl to share and let me tell you this was one of the best vegan desserts I’ve had. It was like apple pie in sorbet form without the crust. Overall our dining experience was great- great food, good service, great atmosphere. We’d definitely go back and the best part is they have a seasonal menu so we will hopefully get to experience a new and amazing meal once again.

Naturally Lindsay