Vegan Beezie's Foodcart!

What the feezie?! Vegan Beezie's getting her euntrapaneur on with a food cart?! Yup yup:) Finally took the leap and made it happen.  After years of fantasizing about my own guerrilla food venture I finally did it, and guess what?  I did it all on the back of my bike! see...

Pretty cool, I know!  And guess what is even cooler?  The venture was a success even with a few setbacks:)  Let me take you through the story of what became my first official day of glory.

So it all began a couple of weeks ago when I finally decided on a product, vegan taquitos. I then started shopping around for items needed for my cart (bike trailer, tables, serving supplies etc...)  Besides the serving supplies my whole cart set up is made up of upcycled items, even the elegent cardboard menu sign.  Then after obsessing over possible spots for my first set-up I decided on a location on Stanford campus near the sarorities.   A risky move? yes, but where the freak else am I going to to set up a guerrilla vegan food cart operation in San Mateo County?  If you gots any ideas i'm all ears.

So I set a date that I would make myself get out there and I did just that.  I spent about 4 hours preparing about 60 taquitos and loading my trailer then I hit the streets.  Just so happened I picked the coldest night of the year!  Ughhhh, what can you do? As my friend Elyse puts it "You got what you got".  So I blasted my Reggae and hit the road.  It took about an hour to get there and guess what?! I went on finals week aka "dead week" where free food is provided in dorms round the clock.  Ughhhh!  I almost turned my sad ass around to mope my way home but I sucked it up and set up my cart in the midst of stanford ghost town.  Then guess what happened? I had customers within seconds:)  The stanford students were warm and welcoming and I can't wait to go back and feed them.  I packed up around 11:30 with 1 taquito left and biked my freezing buns home.  Next time I think I might make some home made chili and jalapeno cornbread... yum!

A special thanks to Arne for the awesome photos.  I met Arne on campus and was nice enough to give me a photo shoot and email me the pics.

What's in the future for Vegan Beezie you ask.  Well... I will be back at Stanford when Spring Semester begins with my bike cart.  I also have plans to sell tamales at the bars in downtown Palo Alto and do special orders for them as well as cupcakes.  I will try to do most of this on the back of my bike but we'll see as things blossom what my humble bike trailer can handle.

Stalk me on my twitter at #beezieskitchen.

Cardamom Sprouted Wheat Pancakes with Sauted Maple Apples

Bomb, healthy, weekend breakfast, enough said.

Cardamom Sprouted Wheat Pancakes

• 1 1/4 Sprouted Wheat flour
  2 tablespoons sugar
  2 teaspoons baking powder
  1/2 teaspoon salt 
  1/2 teaspoon cardomon
  1 tablespoon oil                 1 1/2 cups water

Sauted  Maple Apples

2 cups thinly sliced apples
1 tablespoon vegan butter
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
salt

A sprinkling of nuts is optional, I used pecans (yum:)

1.  To begin get all ingredients for the apples ready so when your pancakes are cooking you can just throw everything on and everything will be ready at once.  Once you are prepped, start the pancakes by mixing all of the dry ingredients.  Then add the oil and water to the dry mixture and mix just until blended, don't over mix!  Cook the pancakes on a non-stick griddle on medium-high heat.  Pour about 1/4 cup of mixture on the pan per pancake, cook on one side until bubbles start to form on the top and then flip.

2.  While the pancakes are cooking start the apples.  Begin by heating a medium sauce pan.  Add butter and apples and saute for 3-5 minutes just until apples begin to soften.  Add the remaing ingredients to the apples and cook another 5 minutes just until apples are softened.

3.  Finish cooking all pancakes.  You can pile pancakes in an oven at 225 degrees to keep warm while other pancakes are cooking if you would like.  When all pancakes are done place 2-3 on a plate and top with the apple mixture and nuts.  In my opinion this recipe does not need any added butter or syrup since it is in the apples but it is up to you.  Yum yum!

Roasted Chickpea and Wild Rice Salad with Tahini Dressing

Alright my fancy foodie followers, this ones for you.  It''s a suped up fancy pants salad.  This might actually be the only salad you ever see on my blog because not only do I hate making salads I actually suck at it.  Yup, I, Vegan Beezie, suck at making salads.  I have a really bad habit of throwing everything and the kitchen sink in and it just ends up being weird.  I also think it is just a lot of effing chopping and when you go to eat it it's a lot of effing chewing.  And I don't know about you foolios but I gots a heavy duty appetite.  I'm no fresh juice for breakfast, fruit for lunch, lettuce for dinner kind of vegan.  This recipe is a great recipe to make for non-vegans, it's hip, kind of fancy, healthy and filling.  Here you go...




Chickpea Croutons
1 can rinsed chickpeas
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon braggs
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

Dressing

1/4 cup tahini

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4-1/2 cup water

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

juice of 1 lemon

1 clove garlic

1 inch peice of ginger peeled and minced

splash of braggs

pepper

Salad
2 cups cooked wild rice at room temperature
spinach
tomatoes
cucumber

1.  To start this recipe make sure that your rice is cooking and going to be cooled before you decide to plate.  Wild rice takes about 45 minutes to cook fully.  Next start the chickpea croutons by pre-heating the oven to 350 degrees.  Mix ingredients on a baking sheet and bake for 30-40 minutes.  Yes, you can mix the ingredients directly on the baking sheet, why dirty another dish? The chickpeas should be crunchy but still a little soft on the inside.

2.  While the chickpeas are baking you can make the dressing.  This dressing is bomb and hellsa easy.  Just throw everything into the blender and blend.  Salt and pepper to your liking (I used braggs for the salt in mine).  Taste and make sure the dressing suites your liking.  Start with 1/4 cup water and add more until the dressing is your desired consistency.

3. Once chickpeas are done, rice is cooked and cooled and dressing is prepared you are ready for assemlbling! I put a layer of spinach, topped with wild rice, then chickpeas, tomatoes and cucumbers and drizzled the dressing on top for what is pictured.  I also just mixed the leftovers all together for later and it still looked beautiful:) Enjoy!