vegan

Foundation Grounds

by Stephanie on September 14, 2012

in American, Breakfast, Lunch

Whenever I go grocery shopping, I rarely buy bread. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I had a loaf of bread in my house! It’s been months.

Why, you ask? Well, it’s definitely not because I’m avoiding carbs. Me? On a diet? Hah – never! In fact, if I could only eat one thing for the rest of my life, chances are good that bread would be near the top of my list.

So why don’t I buy bread? Well…what do people usually make with bread? Sandwiches.

I’m terrible at making sandwiches.

I don’t know why I struggle with this; it can’t be that hard to slap a few ingredients between two slices of bread, can it? Can it?!

Yes. It is. Aside from peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (or biscoff and jelly…or cookie butter and jelly!), I’m useless when it comes to this. Believe it or not, there is definitely an art to making a sandwich. It’s all about getting the right proportion of ingredients and layering them in the perfect way to get a great meal. And I Just. Can’t. Do it.

So I leave it to the experts. Winking smile

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(source)

Welcome to Foundation Grounds!

This Maplewood coffee shop is known for much more than…well…coffee. It also has a great variety of pastries, smoothies, and sandwiches! Jackpot.

Foundation Grounds (or FoGro, as I like to call it) has a wide selection of sandwiches to choose from. I decided to go with The Lacy.

 

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This grilled sandwich consists of organic tomatoes, organic spinach, brie, basil pesto, olive oil, and parmesan cheese. Yum-O! It’s served with your choice of side. You can choose from fresh fruit, a side salad, chips, or soup. I went with fruit. Who doesn’t love apples?

This sandwich was heavenly! It was obvious that the ingredients were super fresh. The tomato was super flavorful and tasted like it had just been picked from the garden. The spinach was crisp and tasty. And the brie and parmesan cheese? Creamy and amazing! I fell in love. This, my friends, is a sandwich. How does FoGro manage to make something so simple taste so decadent? I will never figure this out.

Prices at FoGro are super reasonable; my meal was less than $10. And the service? Fantastic. The people who work at this neighborhood spot love their jobs, and you can tell. It’s impossible to leave here without a smile on your face.

I highly recommend Foundation Grounds. Two huge thumbs up!

Oh, one more thing! You’re probably wondering who won the $100 giveaway. Well…I picked a winner! You’ll have to pay me a visit on Facebook to find out who it was. Winking smile

See you next week!

{ 1 comment }

Local Harvest!

by Stephanie on April 16, 2011

in American, Dinner, Lunch, Vegetarian

Hello, friends! How have you been? I’ve been pretty busy with my new job, running half marathons, and training for my next race – just the usual!

Oh, and eating, of course. A girl’s gotta eat!

My latest adventure brought me to this lovely place:

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Local Harvest! Okay, so I really visited in March, while in the middle of the Vegan Challenge. But let’s just pretend for a minute that I’m not a procrastinator lazy chick busy girl for a moment, shall we?

Local Harvest is a cute little shop in the Tower Grove neighborhood of St. Louis. Like the name suggests, they use all local ingredients in their dishes. A lot of their items are organic, as well! And they have a really good selection of vegan items for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

I rolled with their green plate special: sesame tofu with brown rice, shitake mushrooms, and spinach.

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This was delicious! It was also extremely fresh and light. I loved everything about this dish; the firm, yet flavorful tofu, the light brown rice, the way the mushrooms just seemed to melt in my mouth.

I also ordered a side of vegan chili:

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I didn’t even miss the meat! This had yummy chickpeas in it, along with other spices that gave it that authentic chili flavor. It was a little spicy, too! I loved it.

My friend went with Molly’s Veggie Burger:

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It was a veggie and pinto bean burger served on fresh bread, with hummus, red onion, sprouts, and pickles. It came with a side of chips and balsamic potato salad. Completely vegan and not too bad! I wasn’t a fan of the sprouts on the burger, but it was good otherwise. And the balsamic potato salad was amazing! My friend really enjoyed everything.

Service at Local Harvest was pretty good. Our waitress was extremely knowledgeable about the menu, and offered suggestions.

One thing to note: the place is tiny (only about 6 or 7 tables total!), so try to come during off-peak hours so you can snag a seat without waiting! We came around 8pm on a Saturday night, and that seemed to be just right.

Unfortunately, Local Harvest didn’t have any vegan desserts (but plenty of non-vegan desserts!) for us to try. I have a feeling this was due to our late dinner, but it was still a bit disappointing.

Time for scores!

Food: 4 stars (out of five)

Ambiance: 3 stars (way too tiny for me!)

Service: 4 stars

Value: 3 stars (a little on the expensive side, but the quality is certainly there, so I understood why it was priced the way it was!)

I would definitely come back to Local Harvest. Now that I’m no longer vegan (thank goodness!) I can try everything on the menu. I can’t wait!

{ 5 comments }

3.14159265358979323846264338327950288…

by Stephanie on April 2, 2011

in American, Dinner, Lunch, Pizza

As I promised earlier on Twitter, I’m writing about none other than Pi! Also known as 3.14159265…oh, you get it.

I remember when I was in the 7th grade, we had a huge project in my Algebra class. It was a math scavenger hunt of sorts. There were 50 questions, and some of them involved things like figuring out the height of our flag pole in front of the school, measuring the circumference of the rotunda in our building, and finding the first 100 digits of Pi.

Nowadays, with the power of Google, a project like this would take less than an hour. But back in 1997? It took weeks! I ended up going to the library and looking up a book (using the dewey decimal system – now who remembers that?) where I found it there. Ah, those were the good old days…

Oh! Where was I? Right – Pi!

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A friend and I visited a few weeks ago, during my vegan challenge. I heard that Pi had some fantastic vegan pizza, and I had to give it a try! There are a few locations in St. Louis – University City, The Central West End, and Kirkwood. We visited the Kirkwood location.

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Oh, and it’s President Obama’s favorite pizza joint! That’s gotta count for something, right?

Anyway, we arrived around 8pm on a Saturday night. Ideal pizza eating time, if you ask me.

The place was packed, but we only had to wait about 10 minutes for a table. Not bad!

We were quickly seated, and I ordered one of these:

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A Bell’s Hopslam. Now I don’t know much about beer, but I do know what I like, and I loved this! It was smooth, kind of fruity, and really hoppy! I used to hate hoppy beers; now I kind of love them.

Since we were doing the vegan thing, we went with their thin crust (vegan) instead of deep dish (not vegan). We topped it with vegan Daiya mozzarella, green peppers, portabella mushrooms, and Match italian “sausage”! Match is a delicious meat substitute that looks (and tastes!) like the real thing.

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Yum. It certainly looked tasty!

Taste-wise, it was just okay. I’m not a fan of thin crust pizza (I prefer a chewier, thicker dough), so the crust didn’t impress me; it was very crispy and cracker-like. The toppings were fresh, and I thoroughly enjoyed Pi’s thick, sweet tomato sauce.

But the cheese? It tasted vegan, and not in a good way. The texture was just way off. It’s hard to describe; it was tacky and gummy, like glue. I don’t blame Pi for this at all – I blame the cheese. Nothing beats the real deal, unfortunately!

While the weird cheese didn’t deter me from digging in, it was enough to turn my friend off; he just couldn’t get past the texture, and I don’t blame him.

Luckily, Pi had something that we both loved: Vegan cookies!

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These babies were totally delicious and totally vegan. Yummy chocolate chip cookies with a creamy filling? Yes, please! Remember these?

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They tasted just like Little Debbie Oatmeal Crème Pies! But with chocolate chips. I wish we would have ordered another set of these – they were that good!

Time for scores!

Food: 3 stars (out of five)

Ambiance: 5 stars

Service: 5 stars

Value: 3 stars

Pi was a little on the expensive side, but the ingredients were fresh and tasty, so I can forgive that. I definitely want to give Pi another try now that the vegan challenge is over!

{ 6 comments }

Juice Me!

by Stephanie on March 25, 2011

in American, Dinner, Lunch, Vegetarian

Lame title, I know. By the time you’re reading this I’m crying like a baby celebrating because it’s my last day at my current job! I start a new position at a new company on April 4th. Celebration! Smile

Anyway…you’re here for the food, so it’s my job to deliver.

If you follow my column on Maplewood-Brentwood Patch (or if you follow me on Twitter!), you know that I’m doing a vegan challenge this month. Well, the month is almost to a close (thank GOD!). Oh, it was fun, but I sorely miss meat. Especially bacon.

During this month, I’ve tried to do most of the cooking myself (post coming soon!) instead of going out to eat.

But sometimes, you gotta throw the spatula down, grab the car keys, and head out to let someone else do the dirty work.

So I went to OR Juice and Smoothie.

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It’s a cute little place in Clayton (there’s also a Central West End location) nestled between a grocery store and a bikram yoga studio. Score.

The place itself is adorable. I wanted to take pictures, but then I saw this:

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Apparently, the owners are totally against cell phones — they feel the waves mess with the integrity of the food – so I was pretty sure they wouldn’t be happy with me snapping pictures all over the place. Hey, after getting yelled at once, I’m a lot more careful, okay? Smile

OR Juice and Smoothie has a ton of vegetarian and vegan selections, which made this girl happy.

I ordered the portabella wrap: sauteed portabella, onions, red bell peppers, yellow squash, fresh green leaf lettuce, brown rice, and house hummus.

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It was huge, and it was delicious. It was also messy, which explains why I didn’t get a better shot of the inside. Or I was so hungry that I didn’t want to bother with taking more than one shot. Pick the excuse that suits you best. Smile

I also ordered a yummy vegan smoothie:

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This flavor was Pure Tropical: strawberry, banana, and guava. It was delicious! Andy’s Sunny Monkey (in the background) was also tasty, and contained orange juice and banana. So refreshing!

My friend ordered this:

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The Vegan House Veggie Burger. I’m not exactly sure what was in it, but it was amazing. It was served with yummy gourmet chips. We both loved it.

Service at OR was interesting. The woman working the counter wasn’t the friendliest woman. She was very short with us when taking our orders. But you know what? I can overlook that, because the food was that good. And while it was pricey (I think the total for everything came to about $35?), the quality of the food was there. So I guess I’ll overlook that as well. Hey, it’s my blog – I’ll do what I want! Smile

Score time!

Food: 5 stars (out of five)

Ambiance: 3 stars

Service: 2 stars

Value: 2 stars

 

Even after this vegan month is over, I can see myself coming back to OR Juice and Smoothie again and again. Good, clean, healthy food. Who wouldn’t love that?

{ 4 comments }

Free Range Cookies!

by Stephanie on March 3, 2011

in American, Cookies, Dessert

Hello friends, and Happy March! Did February just zoom by for anyone else? While I’m a bit sad it’s over (after all, February is my birthday month!), I’m happy that spring starts this month. Bring on the warm weather!

Do you know what else starts this month? If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you already know. For everyone else, let me explain.

I’m kind of in love with a little talk show host named Oprah. You may have heard of her? Smile Last month, Oprah had a show on veganism; she and her staff of 378 went vegan for a week. The Oprah Vegan Challenge, if you will.

Anyway, the show piqued my interest. Don’t get me wrong, I love bacon. But I’m always up for a challenge, especially when it’s food related. I decided then and there that I would emulate Oprah’s Vegan Challenge, but instead of going vegan for just a week, I’d do it for the entire month of March.

We’ll see how it goes. I’m super excited; I think it will be a lot of fun! A lot of my diet is already vegan (or at least vegetarian), so this won’t be a huge jump. Oh, and Andy’s doing it, too. Smile

Want to read more about my vegan challenge? I’m documenting the entire event in my weekly column on Maplewood-Brentwood Patch. Check it out!

Okay, enough rambling. On to the food!

I went to a cute little bakery a few weeks ago. Free Range Cookies. It’s a gluten-free bakeshop in Ferguson, MO. It just so happens they have a lot of vegan goodies as well. Awesome!

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I love the neighborhood of Ferguson. It’s so walkable, with tons of neat little shops all around. I dig that sort of thing. And the shop itself is super cute! Lots of bright colors and tons of cookies, breads, and treats.

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When I walked in, Linda (the baker/owner) was busy at work preparing fresh goodies.

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She was nice enough to let me sample a few items. She let me sample some mint chocolate cookies, fresh out of the oven.

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This is what they looked like before they were dipped in chocolate. They were good. Perfectly crunchy and sweet.

And she gave me some Bacon Lip Balm! Oh yeah. Believe it.

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It’s vegan, yet it smells (and tastes) just like bacon! Amazing.

On to the cookies. All of them are gluten free, and many are vegan. I decided to try a few of the vegan varieties.

First up? Cranberry Oatmeal.

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These were delicious! Soft, chewy, and I loved the bits of cranberries in them. Bursting with flavor. And the cookies themselves? Huge!

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I also tried the Quinoa Cookies. These were my favorite, hands down.

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Again, huge cookies! And I loved how the tops looked like little crop circles. Alien cookies? Smile

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These were soft and nutty, with just the right amount of texture from the quinoa. And don’t let quinoa deter you from trying this masterpiece; you can’t taste it! Trust me on this one.

Finally, I tried the vegan mint chocolate cookies. The finished product was dipped in chocolate!

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These tasted just like Thin Mints (and Thin Mints aren’t vegan, by the way. Sadface!). I nearly cried tears of joy! These babies will change your life.

All in all, Free Range Cookies is amazing. These offerings don’t even scratch the surface; there are cinnamon rolls, cupcakes, bread, brownies, and much much more. I can’t wait to come back!

Score time!

Food: 5 stars (out of five)

Ambiance: 5 stars

Service: 5 stars

Value: 5 stars

The cookies are a bit on the expensive side, but they’re well worth the price for the quality. Until next time, amigos. Smile

So tell me: What’s your favorite kind of cookie?

{ 4 comments }

My Top 5 Restaurants of 2010!

December 30, 2010

2010 has been such a great year for me and my little blog! It’s hard to believe that I started this baby only 10 months ago! I’ve had so much fun writing, taking pictures of, and eating delicious food! With so many amazing restaurants, it’s hard to pick just 5 favorites. But I’m going to [...]

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How sweet it is…

August 29, 2010

Have you ever visited a place that makes you so excited that part of you wants to tell everyone about it, yet at the same time, you want it remain your own little secret? Well, that’s how I feel about Sweet Art. It’s a cute little bakeshop & art studio in the Shaw neighborhood of [...]

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