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.

Tempeh Chorizo and Potato Taquitos

So I have been MIA, fucking sue me.  I have been busy and since I am single these days I have been eating a lot things like sandwiches and hummus for dinner (yup, straight hummus for dinner...boring!).  But as of today I am committing to one post a week so let's see if I can keep to my word.

I wasn't going to blog this but since they were super fricken ridiculously bomb I had to do it.  The idea for this recipe started with my desire to make the tempeh chorizo recipe from The Sexy Vegans new cookbook which is awesome if you don't already have it you should!  So when me and my vegan occupy cooking buddies decided to get together and cook I threw out the idea of doing something with the tempeh recipe.  I can't remember how the rest of the genius of the recipe came to be but it doesn't matter because these shits are so tasty.  It is a bit of a production so if possible it is best to make with a group.  We ate them with cashew sour cream, salsa and avocado.  Each of us ate 3.5 taquitos and felt awesomely sick (just an FYI).  And without further ado here is some deep fried goodness for your fat asses...

Chorizo Tempeh

1 8 oz packet of Tempeh
4 cloves grated garlic
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon coriander
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
2 teaspoons dried oregano
2 tablespoons chili powder
pinch of cinnamon
salt and pepper
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 tablespoon sherry vinegar
1 cup of vegetable broth

In a large bowl, combine the tempeh and seasoning.  Mash the tempeh up with a fork.  Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat and add tempeh mixture.  Cook until it gets a bit browned 5-7 minutes. Add the vinegar and cook for 1 minute then add the veggie stock.  Cover and simmer for 4-5 minutes or until liquid is almost absorbed.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Recipe courtesy of The Sexy Vegan Cookbook

Potato Filling

2 potatoes peeled and boiled
1 tablespoon cumin
2 cloves minced garlic
salt and pepper to taste

1.  Mash all the ingredients together add salt and pepper to taste.

Taquitos

20 corn tortillas
1 recipe chorizo tempeh
1 recipe potato filling
oil for frying
toothpicks
potato and chorizo filling

1.  Add oil to large skillet till there is about a half inch of oil in the pan and heat to medium high heat.  Heat tortillas in microwave for 30 seconds so they are pliable.  Start an assembly line adding about a tablespoon of potato mixture and tablespoon of tempeh to the tortilla, roll up into a taquito and place a toothpick in the to hold them shut.

2.  Once the taquitos are rolled start frying (I fucking love frying food!!!).  The oil should be pretty hot, so I would say that the taquitos need about 45 seconds to a minute on each side or cook until lightly browned on both sides.  Place fried taquitos on a plate covered with paper towels to soak all the nasty grease up and repeat until all taquitos are fried.  Serve with accompaniments of your liking and enjoy!

Thanks for the awesome time making taquitos Emilie and James!  Until next feast:)