Marmite, slaw and 🍕 dosas
Hello again! What have you been cooking and eating this week?
Let’s start with the articles
Downtown mainstay Yueh Tung told the CBC that business has dropped more than 30 per cent in recent weeks, adding they know of other restaurants “getting calls, they’re getting people threatening them, telling them to go back home where they came from.”
Now has done a round-up of the city’s favourite Chinese restaurants, and I’ve added Buddhist Vegetarian Kitchen in Scarborough to my to-visit list, as well as The Daily Dumpling Wonton Co. at College and Ossington, which I coincidentally walked past the other day.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BwHnKguBEqa/
I’ve been reading so much about climate change and just sitting with what it means to eat animals and animal products—the environmental cost of it, more than anything. It all came to a head when I read Jonathan’s book; he just laid out the facts so clearly. And I just sighed to myself, like, Oh, God, I’ve really got to do this. Am I going to be a person who acts, or am I going to be a person who doesn’t act?
I am a big fan of Samin Nosrat (have you watched Salt Fat Acid Heat on Netflix? She is so joyful, not to mention quite fluent in Italian) and I enjoyed this interview with her in the New Yorker in which she describes her attempts to eat vegan more often. (Side note: I have added epazote to my shopping list.)
A new use for Marmite
I am a Marmite-lover thanks to my Kiwi heritage (toasted Vogel’s with butter and Marmite, please and thank you), but I don’t think I’d ever cooked with it before. Apparently the salty spread is having “a massive foodie moment” and I should be expanding my repertoire. (Though tbh I’m skeptical about the Marmite and peanut butter smoothie bowls the UK site has in its collection of recipes.)
So I made these Brussels sprouts with Marmite butter, but oven-roasted instead of two steps on the stove. Hello, my new favourite way to make Brussels sprouts. (The proportions in the recipe are good for Marmite newbies but if you love the stuff like I do, you might want to increase the proportion vs the butter.)
An easy vegan pasta dish (with no tomatoes)
Daniela sent me this Bon Appétit recipe the other day right when I was looking for an excuse to go for a walk, so I went out and picked up some ingredients and made it for dinner.
It’s called Pantry Pasta with Vegan Cream Sauce, and by “cream” they mean white beans mixed with pasta cooking water and a. lot. of. oil. I made a tweaked version with significantly reduced quantities of oil and nuts (and also with pecans since I can’t do walnuts) (and, with my preferred whole wheat pasta) and it was really good. We had fried mushrooms on the side, which made for a very brown meal.
My slaw plan kind of backfired
I had a big hunk of daikon in the fridge, so I found this recipe for Spicy-Sweet Asian Slaw with Pickled Daikon and made it and I quite enjoyed it. But now I have 3/4 of a red cabbage and 3/4 of a napa cabbage in the fridge. I’m thinking of this caramelized cabbage, but also, please send help in the form of your favourite slaw recipes. (I’d love one with a peanut sauce.)
Are dosas the perfect food? Discuss
I took a knitting class on Roncesvalles last week, which was the perfect reason to go to South Indian Dosa Mahal for dinner. I do not regret my choice of the Mysore Pizza Masala Dosa, and now I want to go back and try everything else on the menu.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B6RMh-6Amw6/
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