Athens of the South

I went on a business trip to Nashville last week, so I hopped onto the Happy Cow website and checked out where to eat while I was there.  I had a free night, and it looked like The Wild Cow needed to be on my agenda.  It did not disappoint!

The Far Eastland Bowl

Holy yum, Batman!  I had the Far Eastland Bowl, and it was delicious!  Brown rice, sauteed kale, grilled tofu, carrot-daikon slaw, peanut sauce and avocado. Awesomeness!  It was also really cool to eat at a restaurant that is totally vegan - we don't get that around my house!  On the other hand, I felt like a totally old fart eating dinner by myself there.  Not that anyone was rude to me - the staff were super friendly. I sat at the bar up front near the register and the kitchen, which was fun in itself -  it's just that everyone else in the place was twenty-something... and I'm 46.  I mean, I've got cool graying temples and four different pairs of glasses depending on what I'm trying to read and I looked like someone's mom who wandered in there by accident.  Oh well, it was fun!

I'm not really very adventurous when I travel by myself - I much prefer to have a companion when I'm banging around a new city.  So I was proud of myself for even going.  (But damn, I'm old.  I wish I had made it to Grins at Vanderbilt, but I think going to another college-age restaurant would have seriously demolished any ego I had left at that point...hahahaha!)

SO, to celebrate my middle-aged mom-ness and love of vegan food, I bring you some Halloween cookies I made with my kids:

I veganized my Mom's recipe for Vanilla Cookies, which I would share with you here, but I'm not satisfied with my veganizing on this recipe yet.  The original recipe calls for FOUR eggs, so I used Ener-G to replace them, and as Isa Chandra says, well, they had a taste.  I've never noticed Ener-G taste before, but I've never tried to replace four eggs worth of ingredient before either.  My family didn't notice; they gobbled them up!  But I need to work on this one before it's share-worthy.  The frosting is from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar, and the decor are just vegan chocolate chips and walnut pieces.  They were good, just not great.  I'll try to get these right by Christmas.

Happy Halloween, everyone!  I've got four more nights to squeeze in scary movies before my family tells me to knock it off!  How about you?