Super Awesome Vegan Birthday! (Pt. 2)

Sunday morning, the morning of my birth, we went to Flore Vegan for their brunch. Mikey has been dying to try their chicken and waffles. I just love brunch. So we went. I should also add whoever does the tweets at Flore is super awesome and wished me a happy birthday in the morning because I had mentioned going there on my birthday. I asked my server and he says he thinks it's the owner, Miranda. So Thanks, Miranda!

We had a fairly short wait for a Sunday. Both of use ordered the kale, celery, lemon and banana (I think) juices. They were pretty good. Very frothy.

I ordered the Southwest Scramble after a lot of indecision. I wanted to try just about everything on that menu. More excuses to go back for brunch, right? Actually I have another one, but I'll get to that. Anyway, here it is:

Tofu, mixed with black beans, corn, onions, and tomato, with chili sauce mixed in. It also came with a side of homestyle potatoes and a tortilla. I also added tempeh bacon to my order.
The scramble was good, if fairly basic. The potatoes were good. I mixed them in with the scramble, which made it even tastier. The tempeh bacon was also pretty good, with a nice smoky bacon-y flavor. I didn't touch the tortilla. For some reason, I don't care for the tortillas at Flore. It sucks because they have awesome taco filling, I just don't like the wrapper they come in.
Me, about to dig in


Now the piece de resistance:


I've never had chicken and waffles. I grew up disliking meat, and so there are a lot of dishes I never try to veganize because I never ate them as a kid. Mikey, however, loved him some chicken. He has been on the hunt for an acceptable substitute. This, people, is it. These chicken and waffles, to quote the kids I teach, is bomb. The waffle (I sampled everything) was no ordinary waffle, but a banana and cinnamon waffle. It was freaking delicious. Cooked just right, nice and light. The potatoes and mushroom gravy were savory. The mushroom gravy had a creaminess to it I've never gotten in a mushroom gravy before. And then chicken! I think it was made out of seitan, but I'm not sure. Mikey thinks all mock meats are tofu, so he swears that's what it was, but I'm pretty sure it was seitan. It had a nice chicken-y flavor but not so much so you'd get grossed out by the authenticness of it (that's why I can't eat un-chicken nuggets).
It was so good. He wouldn't stop talking about it all day. I have to figure out how to make it or we will go broke on brunches at Flore Vegan.

I also received a birthday cupcake for free!



Hee hee. The last picture is my new Facebook Picture.
It was a great start to my morning.
It was followed by a pedicure from my mom (using vegan nail polish!) and a trip to Disneyland, followed by a surprise dinner party at Tortilla Jo's. No vegan cake there, but I had a tostada salad with black beans. Everything vegetarian can be made vegan (all three items, ha ha) and it was pretty good. Lots of veggies involved.
It was a super awesome vegan birthday :)

Super Awesome Vegan Birthday!

Okay, I haven't updated in a few days because things have been crazy! Saturday I worked, did Relay for Life Azusa, and celebrated my birthday with my family. Sunday, my actual birthday, I had brunch at Flore Vegan, got a pedicure, went to Disneyland, and had a surprise dinner party at Downtown Disney!

There were a number of veganish things I wanted to discuss, so I'll start with my birthday dinner on Saturday. My mom, who is awesome, made soyrizo and potato enchiladas. The recipe is super easy!

1 package of soyrizo
1 package of Daiya cheddar or other soy cheese
10 tortillas
4-5 baking potatoes
1 can of red enchilada sauce
1 brown onion, chopped

My mom usually bakes the potatoes in the microwave for about seven minutes. While she's doing this, she heats up the soyrizo with the onion. When the potatoes are done, she roughly cubes them and throws them in the pan with the soyrizo. After about 3-4 minutes of cooking it, she warms the tortillas (this can be done on a comal or in the microwave) and fills the tortillas with two or so heaping spoonfulls of the potato/soyrizo mix and puts them in a glass baking dish. When they are all filled, she pours enchilada sauce over them and adds the cheese on top, enough to cover each enchilada. She bakes them for 10 to 15 minutes on 375 and then deliciousness ensues!

I was so excited about eating them, I forgot to take a picture until I was already eating them. So here you go :)



As you can see, we also had tacos, beans and homestyle chips.

My mom also took her first foray into baking to make me a vegan German chocolate cake using the chocolate cake recipe from How It All Vegan!



As you can see, I am eager to eat said cake. It was very choclatey and thick. Delicious. It went really well with So Delicious vanilla ice cream!

I had a great pre-birthday dinner, thanks to my awesome mom. I am going to do the Flore review in my next post.