Cali, Colombia is a huge city. Way bigger than we anticipated. Therefore, our time there was extremely limited. We were eager to move on to the next small town on our journey - Popayan. Before we left Cali, we visited a lovely Hare Krishna restaurant called Salud Vibrante.

Hostels are a great place to discover good restaurants. Sometimes we stumble into cool vegetarian/vegan recommendations. We found a humble flyer for Hari Om vegetarian restaurant tucked away on a busy notice board filled with hordes of other pamphlets. It was a good fifteen minute walk, but totally worth it. It is run by Hare Krishna followers with a bit of an ital vibe thrown in and is open until 9 PM in the night. Not open on Sundays I think. 

Taganga is a sleepy little fishing village that probably became popular with foreign backpackers in a very short period of time. Before the facilities could be developed or before roads could be laid out properly. Thus, on the road along the beach, you'll find a huge number of seafood restaurants, but finding decent vegetarian/vegan food in Taganga is incredibly hard.

Sol De India is a lovely vegetarian restaurant run by Hare Krishna followers in the heart of the city. They are centrally located in the San Diego district (in fact, two blocks from another vegetarian restaurant). They have a set lunch and an a la carte dinner which includes items such as masala dosa (!!!). I didnt get to try the dosa, sadly. The set lunch can cost 8000 COL or 10000 COL depending on the number of dishes you can eat. They have a very cool A/C room and a lovely courtyard. The food was simple and very tasty.

I love cooking in hostels. Shopping for produce in a foreign country and using those ingredients to whip up a meal is an aspect of travel I enjoy quite a lot. South America is no exception, I came mentally prepared to cook a lot in hostels.

Rice is plentiful in South America, so when we stayed in a well stocked hostel, we made good use of the kitchen and whipped up a veg pulao. I was really happy to spot these tiny sachets of spices in the market and we got some cumin (comino) to use in our pulao. It was a bit bland, but we got by with what we have.

I cook with whatever is available. In this case, I was glad to find some oil to cook with. Since we are backpacking, we are hesistant to buy anything that'll require us to transport it.

We bought onions, tomatoes, peas, cauliflower, beans, rice and cumin powder from the store. We soaked the rice while cutting all the vegetables.

 

Being vegetarian in Bogota is pretty straightforward, as Happycow has 36 listings for Bogota. However, as a vegan, I had a few accidents where I ended up with a bit of cream or cheese on my plate as I didnt make myself very clear in Spanish or forgot something from the list of things I cannot eat. But on the whole, since we didnt stay very long in Bogota, we got to check out only two restaurants there, both of which very good.

Boulevard Sesamo

Av. Jiminez 4-64 (at Carrera 3, in downtown near Museo Del Oro, Cudinamarca)

They are only open for lunch and have plenty of set lunch options. I tried the vegano burger and Swami tried the set lunch plate with rice and veggies and proteins and it comes with a free salad bar and a cup of juice with water. I think you can only use the salad bar once (not unlimited, but maybe I understood it wrong). They have a little store where they sell essentials like seitan, veggie burgers, soy milk etc.

A very hearty bowl of soup for Swami's ejecutivo (executive) lunch

My vegan burger. Even though it said "hamburgesa vegano", it came with what looked like cheese. Luckily, Swami ate the cheese.

Swami's executive lunch plate, which looked and tasted a lot better than mine. Very balanced.

The restaurant which we randomly spotted while walking down the road:

This seemed customary, providing a banana with some jelly like thing:

 

El Loto Azul

Carrera 5A N. 14-02 (at near La Candelaria historic district, Cudinamarca)

El Loto Azul is an establishment run by Hare Krishna devotees, so eggs are out of the menu. Be a little careful about the milk though, as its ever present as in most Indian dishes. But the service is really friendly and the food is excellent. They also have a tiny store selling veggie essentials.

A fresh salad from the salad bar with a mint-cilantro dressing:

Vegetable soup with maize flour:

Set lunch plate with garbanzo beans, greens, rice and bread:

Another type of plate with coconut rice, avocado and friend plantain

Fresh soy milk!

We both loved this soup, it was really hearty and filled with vegetables and tasty to boot.

El Loto Azul from outside:

 

My husband and I recently arrived in the city of Bogota, Colombia for our four month South American journey. We have always wanted to travel for an extended period of time and we finally got the opportunity to do so. So we quit our jobs and are backpacking around South America until April. Our tentative itinerary is to travel south from Colombia on towards Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Bolivia and head back to the States from there.

I am taking lots of food photos and will be sharing them here.

How is being vegan in South America so far?

Its not bad, but I've made mistakes. My spanish comprises of a few words and while I seemed to manage pretty well with it in Mexico, its harder in Colombia. Maybe because the accent is different and the pace much faster? Or is it because I am initimidated by new surroundings and forget to say key things? I dont know.

But there have been meals where I got a salad dressing that didnt look vegan or I got a dish with a layer of cheese on it. To turn it away or let it go waste goes against my principles of wasting food or respecting the pain and sacrifice that has gone into that dish. So I am trying and improving day by day.

However, we've managed to find vegetarian restaurants in unexpected quarters, while walking down the street and have had great fun exploring the grocery stores and cooking in hostels.

Stay tuned for upcoming posts.

Today is the last day of vegan mofo. Unfortunately, I have been unable to blog every weekday as I had originally planned. Ah well, life just happened. However, I have been checking out vegan mofo entries from the blogosphere and having fun looking at all the food that’s being cooked.

For Deepavali this time, I wanted to branch out to Indian sweets, a domain which is held by copious amounts of ghee and milk. I found a vegan friendly recipe for the 7-cup-sweet, popularly known as the 7-cup-cake (though there is nothing cakey about it). This is a sweet my mom used to make when I was younger and I wanted to see if I could veganize it. Indian sweets are just not my forte, as my hand can rarely seem to part with the amount of fat it requires. The end result usually leaves a lot to be desired. So this time, I sucked it up, used the requisite amount of fat (I used Earth Balance vegan butter) and gave it some elbow grease. While my version looks nothing like the original version I was inspired from, I think I can explain what happened. J

 

Ingredients for veganized 7 cup cake (makes about 15 squares):

I used a 1/3 measuring cup as 1 measure:

• 1 measure dessicated coconut (the finely shredded almost powdery variety)
• 1 measure chickpea flour (Besan)
• 1 measure non dairy milk (I used Trader Joe’s drinkable coconut milk)
• 3 measures (I used dark brown sugar, hence the brown color)
• 1 measure melted earth balance

Directions

• I followed the directions listed in the link above.

Tip:

You’ll be tempted to take it out as soon as it reduces and thickens. But it’ll only result in a gooey mass (which is also delicious). Be persistent as timing is key, the mixture will reduce considerably and when you stir the contents with a spatula, the contents should completely clear the pan, and you should be able to see the pan underneath. That turned out to be the best time to take your skillet off the stove. If its too gooey, put it back on medium heat and let it thicken some more.

The best thing about mofo, even if I dont get to post regularly, is that I buy vegetables that I normally dont buy. Butternut squash is one of them. After trying it, I ask myself why I dont buy it more often. Butternut squash is sort of sweet, so I wanted to try it with a variety of other flavors - tangy and spicy. So I decided to cook it into a black-pepper-tamarind base, but ended up using far less liquid than I originally intended. So what started as a kozhambu, ended up resembling a stir fry. But no regrets as I took it to a friends place for a potluck dinner and we nearly wiped it out.

Ingredients

• Tamarind paste - 2t
• Butternut squash - 1 medium (yields about 3 cups chopped)
• Coconut, fresh or frozen, grated - 3T
• Peppercorns - 1t
• Cumin seeds - 1T
• Chana dal - 1T
• Salt - to taste
• Cilantro - to garnish
• Cornstarch mixed with water to thicken (optional)

Directions

• Peel and chop butternut squash into 1 inch cubes or smaller.
• In a saucepan, place chopped squash and pour just enough water to cover. Add tamarind paste and bring to a boil.
• In the meanwhile, dry roast the cumin, chana dal and peppercorns. Add more pepper if you like black pepper. Add more chana dal if you dont like it spicy.
• Grind the roasted stuff in a coffee grinder.
• Add the salt, ground spice mix and coconut to the now boiling mixture.
• Reduce heat to medium-low and let simmer for 10 minutes. The mixture will thicken, stir well to coat the squash with the sauce.
• Garnish with cilantro.
• Enjoy with rice or bread.