Falling Water, Ohiopyle and Basil Eggplant

Today we took a road trip to see Falling Water, Frank Lloyd Wright's architectural wonder. It was a beautiful day for travelling, and Falling Water, which was originally built as a summer home for the Kaufmanns, was amazing. There were a few strict rules in the visitor's guide about not posting pictures of Falling Water on websites without permission, so sadly I can't share any of the great pictures we took.

 For lunch, we stopped in Ohiopyle to eat at the Firefly Grill. I'd like to say that we just happened to stumble upon this great little place, but I found the menu on the website. When you're a vegan, you have to do a bit of planning beforehand. The Firefly Grill has so many vegetarian/easily veganized choices, it was almost overwhelming. But it's the season to start grilling hamburgers and hot dogs, so I ordered a veggie burger with french fries.

I always feel kind of weird about taking pictures of my food in restaurants. I know I have to get over this! So, no picture of the veggie burger, but it was thick and substantial (very hamburger-ish) and delicious. The fries were great too. J had a grilled cheese sandwich, which he said was also very good.

An extra bonus was the restaurant is next-door neighbor to the Methodist Church, so I got to look at the pretty stained glass windows while eating my lunch.

Ohiopyle looked like a great little town. There was rafting and bicycling activities going on everywhere, and little cafes and hippie-ish stands. We stopped in at a store that sold local food stuffs, mostly condiments. Luckily there were samples. I tried a little of these and just had to buy them. The ingredients for the apple butter was especially impressive: cider, apples, and spices. That's it! Amazing. And I can't wait to use the habanero pepper mustard on pretty much everything.

Tonight I made the Basil Eggplant from The Vegan Table. I improvised a bit by adding asparagus and broccoli florets, and then doubling the sauce ingredients to make up for the extra vegetables. This is what happens when you buy too much produce and don't feel like cooking a bunch of side dishes. I also decided not to seed the red chili peppers, because I like my food really spicy.

Also, sorry for the blurry picture. I took twenty of them, and this was the most focused of the bunch. My camera doesn't like to work at night!

This was great! Next time I'll follow the recipe so I can try it with just eggplant, and double everything to make sure there are lots of leftovers.