Man, this was just like, the weekend-o-good-food!

I am absolutely perplexed by the fact that so many Seattle-area vegans don't like this!! This is a slice of the the garlic sauce pizza from Pizza Pi, the only (as far as I know) vegan pizzeria in the United States! It has this amazing, gooey, garlic sauce and is topped with mushrooms, olives, spinach, and veggie sausage so real that it makes you feel like you're cheating. We also got a box of breadsticks with "cheese" on top and marinara sauce for dipping, and cinnamon sticks with vegan frosting. Pizza Pi is pretty far away so it's an occasional treat, but oh man. I seriously want to cry everytime I bite into one of their lighter than air breadsticks, and I am psyched beyond psyched that it will be closer once I move to Seattle in the fall!

As I mentioned earlier, I'm working at a new vegetarian Indian restaurant that I used to love eating at, but they recently changed their menu from North Indian cuisine to South Indian cuisine. I'd never tried south Indian food before so I was a bit apprehensive, but it is goooood. I like it miles better than the north! The big pancake looking thing is a dosa, which is basically like a big, peppery pancake filled with vegetables cooked in Indian spices and served with some kind of savory chutney. It's incredibly rich so I could only finish about 1/3 of it, but with a glass of ice cold mango juice, this really hit the spot!

We went a bit crazy with Indian food that night, so we also got this other Indian bread which was full of peas and tomatoes (the name escapes me, although I do remember that it started with a 'u'.) It looks kind of like pizza, doesn't it? It was greasier than the dosa, but it was really, really good. I brought it to school for lunch the next day (I wanted to bring the dosa but we forgot to put it in the refrigerator! I was heartbroken, haha)

And then all of this pictured above is all the cool and unique things I purchased this week! We went to Sidecar Pigs for Peace, an all vegan grocery store in Seattle, and also to Oujimaya, which is a local Asian grocery store.

First, there is strawberry flavored ricemellow cream (which I think used to be not-vegan, but it is vegan now!) To the right in the white box is some raspberry "jello" made with agar agar that you just add water to. Behind are two more jello-y desserts: in the brown box is a coffee flavored agar agar dessert, and the white box is just agar agar powder with sugar added, both from Oujimaya. The most exciting part? The boxes were about $1.75!! Agar agar usually runs for around $6.00 per 4 oz. or so in these parts, so I was completely psyched about how cheap this was. I'm thinking that I can use the plain powder in some of my dessert recipes that call for flakes, and just omit the sugar from the recipe.

To the right of the agar-dessert boxes are two really adorable rice bowls from Oujimaya; one has monkeys on it and the other one has giraffes. Since monkeys are Tommy's favorite animal and giraffes are mine AND we eat a lot of rice, I figured these were worth it.

They're a little hard to see, but aren't they adorable?

Of course, the bowls in the first picture are sitting atop the brand new bento boxes that I also bought this weekend so I could start bringing lunches to school. You can really clearly see the red one, but the black one kind of fades into the stove (the red one is for Tommy, the black one is for me.) In front of the bento boxes is a stick of... vegan jerky? I couldn't believe it! I'm so used to my eyes glazing over anything that size and shape, but then I realized I was in a vegan grocery store! I haven't had a chance to try it, but it looks good! Next to the jerky is some dried dragon fruit, which tastes like nuts - crazy! I like it a lot better than the fresh stuff though (plus, it's way cheaper - fresh dragon fruit is like $10.00 a pound!)

The big pink package to the right is freeze dried rambutan. This stuff is a trip - has anyone tried it? It falls into the fifth flavor (Americans tend to eat only four), and is characterized by what the Japanese call Umami. It starts off sweet and ends kind of bitter, and it almost tastes deep fried, which is so weird because its just freeze dried! I think I like it, but it will take some getting used to.

The last two jars are probably the most boring of the lot, but I'm still excited about them nonetheless since I've been trying to do more macrobiotic recently. The first is raspberry spreadable fruit sweetened with brown rice syrup, and the second is chocolate flavored brown rice syrup (they had maple flavored brown rice syrup too, but then I thought, "Hey, if I want something maple flavored and syrupy, then it probably makes sense to just have some maple syrup." )

Anyway, tolo is coming up soon and I bought this slinky black dress (for $15.00 at Buffalo Exchange, I might add) and I want to make sure it looks good, so I'm eating a bit lighter for awhile. That doesn't mean I'm going to be sacrificing any flavor though! Here's this weeks menu:

Spaghetti with vegan meatballs (last night's dinner - nice and lazy, didn't want to miss any of Heroes!)
Baked tofu with "tartar" sauce and fit fries (yam fries with no oil, essentially)
International quinoa salad with loads of veggies
Macrobiotic squash soup and curried tempeh sushi rolls (from the Fat Free Vegan Kitchen blog.)
Have a good week!