Monday, March 29, 2010

Vegan in Maui - Pa'ia

Do you like Whole Foods? If you like the selection, but you think the atmosphere is too capitalistic and the man is bringing you down, then you'll love Mana Foods. Walking in from the blinding sun will have your tiny pupils working overtime to dilate enough for you to see in the dimly-lit store. Soon you'll see the organic and local foods stacked beyond reach up to the ceiling. Make your way through the labyrinth of aisles into the natural vitamin and body care section and you'll be equally overwhelmed... in a good way of course. This was a perfect place to pick up picnic supplies for the Road to Hana. See www.manafoodsmaui.com for more information.

After surviving the Road to Hana we stopped in at Fresh Mint, a vegetarian Vietnamese restaurant also in Pa'ia. We walked in and were greeted by one of the Vietnamese owners. I always assume it'll be authentic when the person taking our orders speaks just enough English to get the job done. We ordered Pad Thai and a vegetable soup of some sort. The meal was amazing and cost less than $20 total. Actually, every meal so far has been less than $20. I think this has something to do with the five meals a day rather than the normal three. The less we eat at each meal, the more food we can try.


Also... vegan wedding cake. Half chocolate and half vanilla. Cake testing is fun. BTW this is the after shot of the cake. It looked a little nicer than this before we started.

http://www.pacificwhale.org/

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Vegan in Maui - Kihei

Maui is vegan paradise. We’re currently scouting the island for possible wedding locations, and have run across some wonderful food along the way! Our first day in Kihei (Southern Maui) was very promising. We discovered a fabulous Shave Ice and Coffee stop that has tropical smoothies with add-ons such as spirulina,”fat buster” (whatever that is!), multi-vitamins, flax, and anti-oxidants – just to name a few. We’ve been going there daily for our morning fruit intake.

Thanks to Happy Cow.net we paid a visit to Joy’s Place, which has a great variety of non-veg, veg, vegan and raw items. We had a delicious wrap with avocado, sprouts and hummus, as well as some raw cheesecake which was to die for.

In addition to these two great locations, there is a central natural health food store (Hawaiian Moons), a great Indian food place (Maui Masala) as well as a Thai place on South Kihei road, I think it was called Maui Thai. Hawaiian Moons has a great salad bar with all kinds of options. Here are a couple extra snapshots from our wanderings.




Sunday, March 14, 2010

It's Not Delivery...It's Wheat Free Vegan Pizza!


Saturday... check! Movie night... check! Wheat-free vegan pizza delivery... not so much. Maybe it’s not delivery, maybe it’s not Delissio - but it was just as delicious and just as quick. We were able to find a suitable vegan pizza crust from Planet Organic Market, which simplified the process.

The toppings were easy, including sliced tomatoes, chopped red pepper, sliced swiss chard and chopped pineapple. You can change the toppings according to your own preferences. We used pre-made pizza sauce, and drizzled home-made nutritional yeast sauce over the toppings (1/2 cup nutritional yeast, tbsp flour, 2 tbsp oil, ¾ cup water, 1 tbsp Dijon mustard. Bring to a
boil while stirring to thicken). Pop that beauty in the oven and cook according to frozen crust instructions. The result: a fast, low maintenance (but delicious) meal for the weekend, resulting in extra time for other activities (such as skiing, yes!!).

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Fig & Walnut Muffins

After finishing the Esquimalt 5k on the weekend, we had a craving for some healthy muffins. Here is A's home made recipe.

1 1/4 cups spelt flour
1 1/4 cups oat bran
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp cardamom
1/2 tsp ginger
dash of salt
1 cup chopped figs
1/3 cup - half maple syrup and half
black strap molasses
1/3 cup applesauce
1/3 cup milk with 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup oil 1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup walnuts

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Prep 12 muffin cups with light coating of oil.
Whisk together flour, baking powder & soda, salt, and spices. Add the figs. Pour in maple syrup, molasses, apple sauce, milk and cider, oil and vanilla. Mix together until flour is absorbed. Fold in nuts. Pour into muffin cups and bake 25 minutes.

We like the versatility of this recipe - you can replace the figs with cranberries or bananas and the walnuts with something like chocolate chips. That's all folks, off to watch the Daily Show with Jon Stewart!

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