raspberry swirl

a cat-shaped hole where my heart used to be.

2011-10-24T10:31:00.000-04:00

"No amount of time can erase the memory of a good cat, and no amount of masking tape can ever totally remove his fur from your couch." - Leo Dworken

Back in August we took our sixteen year old cat Moe (Cosmo) to the vet for a checkup, and to have some tests run to determine why he couldn't seem to keep weight on. We found out the old man had a cancerous tumor in his abdomen. After a few ultrasounds, they told us it was spreading pretty fast. Because of this and Moe's advanced age, we opted to keep him comfortable at home with pain meds, and have the excess fluid drained from his abdomen (also for comfort). Our house became a cat hospice. Keeping an eye on him, trying to decide when being uncomfortable changed to genuine suffering was surprisingly difficult. We watched our buddy decline to the point where he couldn't walk well enough to use the litter box. On his last day, we held a bowl of water to his face so he could drink.

In 1995, I was 20 years old. I wanted to adopt a kitten of my own, because I loved animals (especially cats) and my family wasn't much into companion animals when I was a kid. I went to adopt a kitten from a no-kill rescue, and they turned me down because I lived in an apartment. Which is a bullshit reason for not allowing a well-meaning person to rescue an animal from a shelter, but okay. So I answered an ad for "free kittens" in the newspaper (yes, newspaper. This was 1995.) and picked up a tiny little six week old black cat that I named Cosmo. It was a really hot August day, and the air conditioner in my car didn't work very well. I remember holding a curled-up Moe to the air vent in one hand while I drove with the other. He was adorable and I loved him.

From then on, Moe and I were a team. He was the only close family I really had. The following spring I got up the nerve to kick out my abusive, drug addict boyfriend. I gave him a week to get himself and his crap out of my apartment, and asked him to feed Moe while I was gone. (In hindsight, I now know this wasn't the safest option for Moe, since people abusers can also be animal abusers. But the guy actually loved cats, and did not hurt Moe. If you or someone you love ends up in this situation, please contact Ahimsa House for advice on how to safely house your companion animal while reaching safety.) When I came back to my apartment a week later, the place was virtually empty except for Moe, his litter box, and his food and water bowl. He rubbed on my leg and looked at me as if to say, "Now what?". For the next five years, Moe and I lived in various apartments with various roommates, several of whom also had cats. Moe wasn't very fond of other cats, but he still kept his sweet, gentle (and timid) demeanor through it all. I worked a whole hell of a lot in those years. Two and three jobs at a time. Even when I was barely home except to sleep, he was just happy to sleep on my leg and get a head scratch or two.

When I met Ken in 2001, Moe took to him right away. That's how I knew Ken was a keeper! When Ken and I moved into our home the following year, Moe was in heaven. He had tons of space to play and hide and had us all to himself.

With a wide open space, Moe became much more outgoing with visitors. He loved all the new windows and bright sun rays to sleep in. Even when we introduced him to a new baby kitty Miles, Moe took it all in stride.

When Miles was a kitten, Moe was pretty annoyed with him most of the time. But they grew to tolerate each other. On occasion, we would even find them hanging out together! Never sleeping in a cuddly ball together like I had hoped, but hey. That's okay. Moe was happy.

In 2005, Ken and I started a business together. We always joked about how Moe needed a job, so we named our store after him. He never worked there as we had hoped, but he still became the acting CEO. Or CEMoe?

Moe put up with a lot. From us photoshopping hats on him all the time,

...to taunting him with cupcakes and fruit he couldn't eat.

And he did love his corn.

Moe even forgave us for having a kid. In fact, I'm pretty sure he liked Luka more than he liked Miles.

Moe was spoiled, loved, adored, cherished. Any and all good adjectives you can think of to describe my pure and utter infatuation with this feline. Cosmo made me a calmer, more patient person. He was my friend through good times and bad. Sixteen years wasn't long enough for the world to have him.

camera phone pics of a fantastic birthday cake.

2011-10-14T13:12:00.001-04:00

I know, I know. Sorry. And for you childless folks who probably think I haven't been posting because I have a baby now, well that's a good bit of it (dang kid just keeps wanting to eat and wear fresh diapers). But I also have lots of projects going on! I'm working on a little vegan zine that will be southern-themed, and I'm also helping put together a big veg fest in Atlanta. Good stuff! I've been happily reading the Vegan MoFo blogs this month, and a little relieved to not be participating this year.

I could kick myself for not getting a good picture of Ken's birthday cake from last month. It turned out pretty cool. I wanted to take all of his favorite desserts and make them into a cake. Here's my profesh work-up:

For the top chocolate chip cookie layer, I used the chocolate chip cookie bar recipe from How It All Vegan. I figured a bar would be sturdier than one of my favorite cookie recipes. This layer came out perfect. The middle layer is store bought vanilla soy ice cream, which I melted down to soft serve texture an smoothed into a parchment lined cake pan. I could have cut and smoothed this layer to be uniform, but I kind of like the drapey appearance it took on from the folded parchment.

The bottom layer is brownie. All of the brownie recipes I have make a softer, fudgey brownie, and there ain't nothing wrong with that. However. A soft brownie wouldn't be able to hold the weight of another layer on top of it, so I went with the boxed brownie mix from Cherrybrook Kitchen. It produces a more cake-like brownie, and it was perfect for this situation. In between each layer was a smear of vegan cream cheese frosting, and I also piped some of that good stuff on the top.

Overall I am really happy with how this came out! My only complaint is the texture of the cookie and brownie when having to keep the ice cream cold in the freezer. In order to keep the ice cream for melting the whole thing needed to stay cold, which made for a slightly tough cookie and brownie. But Ken loved it, so that's all that matters to me.

drowning in sweets, please send salad.

2011-06-23T21:29:00.000-04:00

A few things I've been up to lately:

Donuts from Vegan Diner

Almond Raspberry Swirl Cheesecake

more later, when I have time to type!

all excited about Vegan Diner.

2011-05-28T16:37:00.000-04:00

I am loving Vegan Diner by Julie Hasson. Everything I've made from this cookbook has been extra special. Sadly, I haven't been on top of taking food photos lately (bad blogger!) with the exception of this Banana Pudding Pie.

A super simple pie to make, and even better topped with some Healthy Top whipped cream!

Also great from Vegan Diner: Smokey Soy Curls, Veggies & Dumplings, Lemon Cheesecake, and Jambalaya. I am going to attempt to make the Diner Donuts for a brunch potluck tomorrow, though I don't have a deep fryer. I'm going to use a stock pot instead. If you don't hear from me soon, call the fire department.

caaaake.

2011-04-28T18:36:00.000-04:00

Cake is good. I recently picked up a copy of Have Your Cake and Vegan Too, and the first recipe I have tried so far is the Snickerdoodle Cake. Not chocolate, I know. I must have a fever. But I do love cinnamon too, and this cake came out very nice. Vanilla buttercream for the frosting, and topped with cinnamon and "sugar in the raw". I added a layer of Biscoff spread between the layers, and decorated with Biscoff cookies. Ain't nothing wrong with that.

Have Your Cake and Vegan Too looks like it's going to be a fun,fatty time. There's even a chapter on crock pot cakes!

baking, breathing.

2011-04-17T15:32:00.000-04:00

I signed up to participate in the Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale again this year, despite the fact that I have no time for baking lately with all the baby-wearing and bottle washing. Oh,and laundry. So much laundry! But that's all for the baby blog. Here are the goods I baked for the sale, which in total raised over $1500 for Japan relief efforts!

Little mixed berry cobblers, with heart biscuit topping

Cinnamon rolls stuffed with Dandies vegan marshmallows and chocolate chips

I baked way less than I wanted to, but at least I was able to do something. The thought of a vegan bake sale happening in my city without being able to participate makes me a sad girl. There were many great bakers pitching in this year, it was amazing.

I will get back to the good stuff soon. Once my meals go back to normal, rather than just eating peanut butter with a spoon for lunch. I do plan on baking a cake for Easter,though. Something lovely from Kris' new book Have Your Cake and Vegan Too!

baby baking.

2011-03-05T17:19:00.000-05:00

Sorry I've been away for a while. The tail end of my pregnancy got kind of crazy, and our little vegan baby decided to arrive a full month early with a host of health issues. He's getting much better though, and you can read up on Luka's situation at my baby blog here. I figured I better get some baking in now before our sprout comes home.

To celebrate Luka's birthday and because I wanted to do something nice for my kick-ass husband, I made Ken a Dad is Great Chocolate Cake from the Nom Nom Nom blog. The cake turned out delish, and I liked the tofu chocolate cream in place of the usual sugary frosting. This is a loaf cake, and my loaf pan gave the edges of the cake more of a crust than I like on a cake. But overall, it was still wonderful. I mean- chocolate cake with cream and crushed cookies on it. How could that be bad?

Since our baby has been in the hospital's special care nursery since his birth two weeks ago, I have to pump milk every two-three hours and bring it to the hospital for him. So far it's been a challenge getting my milk supply going full speed, so my lactation consultant suggested oatmeal cookies. A cookie prescription? Heck yes.

I did a search for lactation cookies, and several variations of the same essential recipe popped up. Oatmeal, brewer's yeast and flax all help with milk production. I veganized this recipe, made a few minor changes to it and made bars rather than cookies. These are mighty good! In place of eggs I used more flax seeds, and in place of all water I used some brewed mother's milk tea. I used nutritional yeast instead of brewer's yeast, as they both have the B vitamins. And of course I added chocolate as an extra incentive to eat them. As if a cup of Earth Balance and two cups of sugar wasn't incentive enough.

I'll get around to cooking real food again eventually. As soon as this c section incision heals!

new year means no more baking for a while.

2011-01-06T13:51:00.000-05:00

I promised myself I would stop with all the dessert baking for a while after the holidays are over. Six days into the new year, and I'm going strong. Ha. Here is the last batch of cookies from 2010.

These are Cookie Cookies, another recipe from The Complete Guide to Vegan Food Substitutions. They are basically chocolate chip cookies with chunks of sandwich cookies inside. I used double chocolate Jo Jo's, which explains the yummy mess of chocolate swirls. These were good cookies (I mean, how could they be bad), though a little bit cakey for my taste. I think they really need that heavier cake texture in order to hold up under the weight of big sandwich cookie chunks, so it works out. I brought these for family on New Year's Day and my brother in-law exclaimed, "A cookie made out of cookies?!"

For my regular, non sweets meals I've been struggling to find a balance between a nice variety of veggies and meeting my doubled protein demands while pregnant. It's too easy to just fall back on a double stack of soy chick patties on a toasted bagel for breakfast (32 grams of protein, yo!) but then I'm stuffed until lunch with no produce in sight. So I've been doing more salads for lunch at work. I still have to throw some kind of protein into the mix in order to meet my 70 grams daily, so I will use quinoa, tofu, walnuts, beans, etc to top salads. my favorite lunch salad so far has been this one I tossed together with whatever we had on hand. It's spinach, blueberries, tomatoes, a quinoa and brown rice mix, and lemon vinaigrette.

I love the chewy quinoa on salads. Must do more of that.

all I want for christmas is a kick ass cookbook. and perhaps some cannoli.

2010-12-28T15:28:00.001-05:00

I may have mentioned a time or two how I don't exactly draw a paycheck for my job. We basically run our vegan business as a labor of love that happens to just barely pay the bills. So I like to say that I get paid completely in cookbooks. Though cookbooks and candy bars is probably more accurate. Good thing I absolutely love cookbooks and candy bars! My christmas present to myself this year was the latest title from the dynamic vegan duo Celine Steen and Joni Marie Newman called The Complete Guide to Vegan Food Substitutions. Boy howdy, do I love this little book. It's chock full of handy information and tips for veganizing just about any food you could imagine. Celine's lovely food photography fills the pages too, which makes me want to make everything I see.

I've had a chance to make a few things so far, with Baked Macadamia Nut Brie being the first. Such a rich, luscious (and easy) cheese to make! we tried it first with berry preserves, then later had it stuffed into crescent rolls. I've never had animal-derived brie before, so this was exciting for me.

The next recipe we tried was the Spicy Red Buffalo Macaroni Salad, which was super mega awesome x 3000. We first ate this salad hot, but found we liked it even better the next few days cold from the fridge. This is a deli-type of macaroni salad with spinach, onion, roasted red peppers, and a creamy, spicy buffalo sauce. So good! We will repeat this again and again.

For christmas eve, we made the Linguine with Green Beans & Spinach Walnut Pesto. This was very tasty, and filled my "I need to eat more walnuts" quota I've been trying to meet. Ken loves this pasta more than he loves me, I think.

We stuffed ourselves on christmas day with lots of good food that Ken's mom made, including Tofurky, Celebration Roast, kale, and more. We brought a few things to share, including a batch of Scalloped Potatoes from the cookbook Go Dairy Free. While not a completely vegan cookbook, it still has many really great vegan recipes, and others that are easily made vegan. I really love these potatoes, and was really bummed that we accidentally left our leftovers at Ken's parent's house.

For dessert, we brought a trifle made out of a delicious marble bundt cake I baked and couldn't get out of the damn pan without crumbling. So it's a layer of marble bundt chunks, a layer of berry compote, a layer of vegan whipped cream, then repeat. We also left this at the in-laws by mistake. Sad face.

Our friends Laura and Kevin surprised us with a gift of vegan cannoli from a new place in Atlanta that isn't vegan, but happens to make vegan cannoli and a few other vegan things. Go figure! Such a sweet gesture, as Ken really misses cannoli from his childhood.

I hope everyone had a fantastic holiday! Happy New Year, and all of that.

oh, oven woes.

2010-12-19T19:23:00.000-05:00

As of now, our oven is working just fine. But the night before Thanksgiving, the bastard decided to ruin two layers of cake, two dozen cookies, then shoot fire at me before dying. I was knee deep in Thanksgiving baking! So much wasted flour! It turns out the heating element in the oven had cracked, which caused it to arc (hence the shooting of fire). We put in an online order for a new heating element, but Thanksgiving consisted of me taking my acorn squash & kale pot pie fixin's to Ken's parent's house and assembling and baking it there. At least that part worked out, even though dessert was ruined.

This was filled with a savory squash puree, kale, onions, green beans, and yum. The pie crust made it even better!

We managed to get the heating element fixed within a week, so we didn't have to go too long without. A few days after we replaced that part, we had the bright idea to change out the burned out light bulb in the oven. It's just a light bulb, so no big deal, right? Well! Ken unscrews the old light bulb, and we hear a *pop* noise. The entire range shorts out! No power at all. Ken heads down to the basement, assuming the circuit breaker had tripped. But instead of it just tripping, the circuit breaker had blown out completely. Luckily, after a $20 trip to Home Depot, we had a new breaker that Ken successfully installed. And it worked! The range was back to normal, and with a new bulb. We were so worried that we were going to have to shell out for a new range. Not the right time for that at all. Everything's been great with the oven since then... but now somehow we have two more blown circuit breakers that need replacing, one for each bathroom. Ah, one thing at a time.

Once the oven was back up to speed, it was time to bake for a holiday cookie swap! After much debate, I finally decided on what kind of cookies to bring.

The always perfect Chewy Chocolate Raspberry Cookies from Veganomicon:

Lemon Cornmeal Cookies from The Vegan Cookie Connoisseur:

Shortbread (both naked and chocolate drizzled) from 100 Best Vegan Baking Recipes:

And some weird looking oatmeal, walnut chocolate chip cookies that I just threw together. They look like I did, for sure.

Hooray for finally getting some holiday baking done! I have some brand new cookbooks in my possession, so I anticipate more cooking and baking coming up this week.

Vegan MoFo Day 24: chocolate chip cookie obsession.

2010-11-24T13:55:00.000-05:00

Without a doubt, my favorite flavor of any kind of dessert is chocolate chip. You can add chocolate chips to pretty much anything and make it 1,000 times better. Think about it: pancakes, cinnamon rolls, cookies, cake, popcorn, granola bars, brownies, cobbler, pie... If there were such a thing as chocolate chip toothpaste, I would buy that shit in a heartbeat. Over the past few years I have made it my personal mission to find what I consider to be the perfect vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe. There have been some good ones, and even some great ones. But only recently have I decided what recipe I've tried that makes the perfect chocolate chip cookie. Vegan, nice and brown with only a slight firmness at the edges, soft in the middle with lots of gooey chocolate chips. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you the perfect chocolate chip cookies!

This looks like a cheesy mid-90's Glamor Shot, doesn't it? They need a boa wrapped around their cleavage, I think.

The recipe is from Kris Holechek's 100 Best Vegan Baking Recipes, and they are wonderful. My cookies above contain some walnut pieces, but they are really just accessories for an already lovely stack of sweets. Half brown sugar, half white sugar, too much Earth Balance and lots of delicious. I love you, cookies.

Vegan MoFo Day 19: birthday noms.

2010-11-19T15:06:00.000-05:00

There is one good thing about having a birthday- my loved ones want to take me out for food! I love you, food. And you too, loved ones.

Last Saturday I turned 36 (bleh), and my sweet Ken took me out for dinner at Cafe Sunflower. Sunflower is our usual go-to for special occasions, mostly because the food doesn't come in a paper wrapper, and there's vegan cake. We started off the night with an appetizer of walnut pesto pizza with capers, caramelized onions and artichoke hearts. I could have eaten a pile of this, it was so good. Very oily and briny, which to me is never a bad thing.

For my entree, I chose the ravioli. Each ravioli pillow was stuffed with either butternut squash or tofu ricotta, and everything was topped with a pile of spinach, green beans, mushrooms and tomatoes. I liked this dish very much! (crappy camera phone picture, sorry)

Of course we finished everything off with a piece of vegan chocolate raspberry mousse cake. I had to take a bite before I even took the picture. Can't help myself.

My birthday eve was a grand ol' gut-buster, but it didn't stop there. On Sunday, my best buddy Christy took me out for lunch and cake at World Peace Cafe. I liked my grilled veggie sammich a lot, once I finally received it. Long story, but the service was amazingly bad that day. Christy wrote an honest review of the experience on Yelp, if you care to read more. I didn't take any food photos because we were so weirded out by having to wait almost an hour for a sandwich, but in the end I did like my food a lot, especially the piece of triple layer chocolate almond cake!

On Wednesday, another good friend of mine, Malia, took me out for a belated birthday feast at Queen of Sheba. I love Ethiopian food, though I admit I need to branch out and try different Ethiopian restaurants as Queen of Sheba is the only one I've ever been to. I'm not always sure what I'm eating exactly, only that it's vegan and delish. Here's my pile of yellow lentil stuff, red lentil stuff, lettuce stuff, cabbage and carrot stuff and collard green stuff.

All of the staff there is so incredibly friendly. The waitress overheard us mention that we sat at the same table for my birthday last year, so she was kind enough to bring out a complimentary piece of beautiful (and decidedly not vegan) cake with a lit candle. I thanked her, blew out my candle, and made sure Malia knew she had to eat the cake to make it look like I did. Ha. It was very kind of them to offer the cake, despite the fact that I'm vegan and the cake was not. Malia liked it, so that's good.

Thank you to Ken and all my sweet friends for making sure I stay fat and happy for another year!

Vegan MoFo Day 17: Vic's deli slices

2010-11-17T15:37:00.000-05:00

Y'all know Vic, right? Over at The Life? He recently posted a recipe for seitan deli slices that piqued my interest, as I've been meaning to try a steamed seitan for a while now. Vic's recipe was really easy to make, and the combo of steaming and baking managed to cook the huge seitan log all the way through, with no doughy softness in the middle. The flavor is nice, if a bit basic. It's going to be fun to play with different flavor combinations, maybe one with lots of tomato, basil and garlic for an Italian loaf? This is about as economical as you can get too. The recipe makes an enormous loaf of protein, maybe two pounds worth if I had to guess. I bet the ingredients cost me around $4.00. I have no doubt that the seitan loaf freezes well, so this is on my list of foods to make and freeze before the baby comes in March.

Go check out Vic's deli slices. Dude's had a vegan cookbook in the works since before every vegan and their mother put one out!

My seitan slices. Sorry about the craptastic picture, cooking at midnight makes for bad lighting.

Vegan MoFo Day 13: shepherd's pie.

2010-11-13T15:20:00.002-05:00

Since I made this pie a while back, I've seen approximately 5 million MoFo posts about shepherd's pie. Guess I'm not very original! This pie is mighty tasty though, and is a breeze to throw together. Especially when it's the end of the shopping week, and all we have left in the way of produce is frozen veggies. I use Match Vegan Beef for this recipe, but lentils or TVP would be acceptable stand-ins.

Vegan Shepherd's Pie

1 lb Match Vegan Beef, thawed
1 6 oz can tomato paste
1 small onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
splash of oil
1 cup frozen mixed veggies, such as corn, green beans, peas, edamame, whatever you like.
1 large Russet potato, pre-baked and mashed

Heat oven to 375F and lightly oil a casserole dish. In a large skillet, heat oil over medium. Throw in the diced onion and garlic, cook until onions are translucent.
Crumble in the Match Vegan Beef, and cook until browned. Add tomato paste, and cook until heated through. Add frozen veggies, and stir well. Add salt and pepper to taste, if you like.
Spread mixture into casserole dish, and top with big spoonfuls of mashed potato. Carefully spread mashed potato around to cover top of casserole. (I actually put a thin layer of shredded vegan cheese in between the beef mixture and the mashed potato, and it was freakin' awesome. No very shepherd's pie like, though.)
Bake for about 25 minutes, until top is lightly browned. Enjoy the leftovers on this for days after.

Vegan MoFo Day 11: tempeh bowl

2010-11-11T10:40:00.000-05:00

This is the kind of dinner I make when I start feeling guilty about eating sandwiches for every meal three days in a row. I marinade cubes of tempeh in soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, and rice wine vinegar. Toss them into a pan with a bit of hot oil until they are browned, then add some bite sized pieces of kale until just wilty. Serve with quinoa and roasted sweet potatoes and onions.

What's you favorite go-to healthy meal?

Vegan MoFo Day 10: the vegan potluck.

2010-11-10T12:55:00.000-05:00

You know what's always a fun time for vegans? Getting together to talk about food, then eating food! Few things are more satisfying to me than a vegan potluck. A whole bunch of great food that you know you can eat, and you only have to dirty one dish of your own. We meet up with a group of vegans around our city each month for either a potluck or a restaurant meal. The potlucks are my personal favorite. This past weekend we had a Thanksgiving themed potluck, and I was stuffed and happy when I left. I made a batch of Joni Marie Newman's Mac & Cheeze, which added much to the carb-fest.

My potluck plate with a slice of cashew loaf, Celebration Roast, garlic & olive oil mashed potatoes, maple roasted brussels sprouts, mac & cheeze, lentil potato stew, and spinach & raspberry salad with basil dill dressing.

I went back for a helping of fruit ambrosia later. Vegans are awesome, aren't we?

Vegan MoFo Day 8: support your local vegan bakery.

2010-11-08T16:16:00.001-05:00

Some good friends of ours, Laura and Kevin, have been working their butts off trying to get their fabulous, 100% vegan bakery open for business in the ATL. Though not officially open for business full time, Dough Bakery has been having some fun "Stealth Sundays" where they serve up some awesome food for donations. The first event they had involved Vegan Blizzards made with vegan soft serve, the next event was vegan waffles. Then came my favorite Stealth Sunday so far, vegan sandwiches. These guys hand made their own vegan deli meat, and served grilled sammichs on fresh made breads. So awesome! Last weekends event was pretty great too, where they served vegan breakfast biscuits with tofu "egg", vegan sausage, and vegan cheese along with a good variety of fresh baked goods. Vegans in Atlanta are gonna be super spoiled when Dough opens their doors!

If you happen to live in Atlanta or plan on visiting on a weekend sometime soon, be sure to follow Dough Bakery on Twitter to find out about the super secret Stealth Sunday events!

Vegan MoFo Day 5: Mexicasserole.

2010-11-05T14:10:00.000-04:00

I know this casserole smacks of Semi-Homemade and is as much authentically Mexican as I am, but hey. It tastes really good!

First, I cut some flour tortillas into thick strips, and place them in a casserole dish in a single layer. A bunch of fresh spinach goes on top of that, then some globs of Nacho Mom's Queso or other cheezy-type of sauce.

Then spoon a layer of whatever kind of filling you want. In this case, I did black beans and diced tomatoes simmered with some quinoa, chili powder, and hot sauce. Top with more strips of tortilla.

Add more cheezy sauce, more bean filling, then top with Cheddar Daiya. Cover with foil and bake on 450F for about 20 minutes.

Top with avocado or soy sour cream, and enjoy!

Vegan Mofo Day 4: tuno tempeh sammich.

2010-11-04T15:37:00.001-04:00

Are you familiar with Alicia Simpson's first cookbook, Quick & Easy Vegan Comfort Foods? There are some fun recipes in there! I haven't opened my copy in a while, so I decided to try something new last night. The Tuno Tempeh Sandwiches. Not to be confused with that discontinued crap-in-a-can Tuno, This recipe is a very tasty tempeh based sandwich filling. I liked this recipe a lot, and Ken went totally nuts for it. I made some small changes to the recipe to suit our personal tastes, using chopped dill pickle in place of the sweet relish, and omitting the kelp powder. With lovely Alicia's permission, here is the recipe:

Tuno Tempeh Sandwiches

One 8-ounce package tempeh, any variety
2 cups vegetable stock
¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons vegan mayonnaise
¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon sweet relish
¼ cup chopped red onion
½ teaspoon kelp powder
½ teaspoon stone-ground mustard
¼ cup diced celery
8 slices whole grain or sprouted bread

Simmer the tempeh in stock for 25 minutes. Discard any excess stock and set the tempeh aside to cool.
Grate the cooled tempeh into a medium bowl. Add the mayonnaise, relish, onion, kelp powder, mustard, and celery and stir to combine. Spoon onto the bread and close the sandwiches.

I do like how her recipe instructs the user to "close the sandwiches". See? That's how easy she makes vegan cooking! Haha. Seriously, do try this recipe. Especially if you are one of the many vegans who claim to hate tempeh. I just don't understand hating tempeh, it tastes so different depending on what you use it for. Try it!

Vegan MoFo Day 3: harvest pasta.

2010-11-03T17:23:00.001-04:00

I'm a sucker for pasta with creamy sauces, especially when the weather turns cool. This recipe from VegNews caught my eye because the sauce is pureed sweet potato! I made some minor adjustments to the recipe, like leaving out the butternut squash. I love squash, but I was working with what I had on hand. I also subbed the soymilk with Mimic Creme for extra richness. What a tasty pasta sauce! Next time I will try it with some greens mixed in, like spinach or kale.

Vegan MoFo Day 2: hospital cafeteria.

2010-11-03T09:15:00.003-04:00

Yesterday afternoon was totally dumb. I tripped up the loft stairs while at work, and fell down. Though I felt fine afterward, my OB doc stresses to always call the nurse if you fall of get in a fender bender. So I made a call to the advice nurse, explaining that I felt okay, no I didn't land on my belly, etc. This lead to a six hour visit to the hospital woman's center, hooked up to a monitor and waiting on bloodwork to make sure my placenta didn't tear. Everything's fine, by the way. Just a waste of an afternoon/evening where I could have been finishing up at work and making a proper MoFo post. Don't you want to know what I ate for dinner at the hospital?

Ken mentioned going to try and find something for us to eat. The nurse informed us of a McDonald's on the second floor, which we nodded at but of course weren't even considering. When Ken said he would check out the cafeteria, she mentioned the McDonald's again. Then a third time a minute after that! Come on lady, we don't give a shit about the McDonald's. Plus, a McDonald's IN A HOSPITAL? Double gross.
Ken disappeared for a while, then came back with a lemonade, Odwalla bar, and a bag of Sun Chips. he said they had a grim looking salad bar, and some suspect pita and hummus with no ingredient labels. A sad state for a place of supposed wellness, am I right?

Have you ever been stuck in a hospital with no vegan food in sight? What was your fix?

Vegan Mofo Day 1: vegan po' boy sammich

2010-11-01T18:22:00.000-04:00

I first went vegetarian when I was 17, and vegan about ten years later. Since I haven't eaten any animal flesh in my adult life, there are a lot of popular foods I have never tried. The po' boy sandwich is one of those foods. I have no idea how close to authentic my version is, but I imagine it's pretty far from. But hey- fried stuff on a bun. You can never go wrong with that!

I used these faux shrimp and also a few of these faux chicken nuggets. I lightly battered them in some flour spiked with Old Bay seasoning, salt and paprika. I fried those suckers and served them on a warm French roll with Vegenaise, lettuce and tomato. This tasted really good, but I bet it would have been better with a thicker batter on the shrimp. I purposely avoided that because deep fried things do not go well with my current pregnant state. Heartburn city, I'm telling you.

almost time for Vegan MoFo 4!

2010-10-21T18:30:00.000-04:00

November is The Vegan Month of Food, yo. I will be participating as much as I possibly can. I'm especially looking forward to having my blog reader get bloated with so much exciting content that I won't be able to peel myself away from the computer. Yay!

it's kinda sorta chili weather.

2010-10-05T15:33:00.000-04:00

There's a certain something in the air, can you smell it? No, not the chili farts, it's autumn finally coming around after the most brutal summer ever! So it's still in the mid 70's during the day. It doesn't stop me from wanting a good bowl of chili.

I guess this chili is of the "cheater" variety, as it's not a slow cooked, takes all day to make from scratch recipe. Also it heavily involves a can opener. But it still tastes mighty good, especially with a biscuit or two.

Cheater Chili

Makes a metric ton

2 lbs Match Vegan Beef, thawed
3 Tbsp oil
1 large onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 can pinto beans, drained
1 can kidney beans, drained
1 can white beans, drained
1 15 oz can diced tomatoes with green chilies
1 8 oz can tomato sauce
1 cup corn kernels
up to 2 cups vegetable broth
4 Tbsp chili powder
1 Tbsp red pepper flakes
2 Tbsp cumin
2 Tbsp Siracha or other hot sauce

In a large heavy bottom pot, heat oil over medium heat. Add onion and garlic, and cook for a minute or two until fragrant. Crumble in the Match Vegan Beef, and cook until lightly browned. Add in all of your beans, tomatoes, and tomato sauce. Stir well. Do you like your chili a bit thinner? Add vegetable broth until the consistency is to your liking, up to two cups. Add the corn kernels.

Cover and cook for about ten minutes, until heated through. Add all of the spices, stir well, and cover. Turn down heat to low and allow to simmer for about an hour.

This stuff freezes well, in case you aren't feeding an army.

six years! high five!

2010-10-02T14:05:00.000-04:00

Happy Anniversary, my love!

how I get my protein.

2010-09-27T18:10:00.000-04:00

Protein has never been on my mind as much as it is now. It's always been so easy to eat enough protein through my usual varied vegan diet. Then I went and got knocked up, which made my protein needs double. My daily protein goal is now around 75 grams. That doesn't seem like such a big deal, except I pretty much just crave comforting, carby breads all the time. Here are a few ways I've been eating extra protein.

Peanut Butter. I spread it on bagels (those are about 9 grams by themselves!), eat it with fruit, or just grab a spoon and shove some in my maw when I'm in a hurry. I love peanut butter on pears and apples.

Sunday breakfast, when we actually have time to cook a meal. Tofu scramble is my go-to, but this weekend I tried the frittata recipe from Vegan Brunch using spinach, garlic, and Daiya mozzarella. It was very yummy, but really just a baked tofu scramble.

As you see, the frittata didn't exactly stay together when cut. But it was very tasty anyway. Especially with grits and some fresh whole wheat bread baked by Laura.

Edamame is a good high-protein food to have around. I'll make a batch of this cold salad on a Sunday, and we can eat it all week. Ken loves this stuff even more than I do. The recipe originated from the corn-edamame salad in Veganomicon, but I've bastardized it so much that I can't even remember what the original recipe called for exactly. This is just edamame, black beans, corn, and a soy sesame dressing.

Good stuff, all of it. But I really just want to eat tomato sammichs or my mother-in-law's awesome tomato basil bruschetta all day long. So tell me- where do you get your (extra) protein?

1,001 ways to make soup.

2010-09-03T15:23:00.001-04:00

Soup is a great way to make use of various wilty produce in the crisper, and almost empty bags of grains in the pantry. This soup has no name, but maybe it should be called "a mish-mash of whatever" soup. Rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?

Here's what I do to make a mish-mash of whatever soup and manage to keep it somewhat healthy. Start with eight cups of veggie broth, stock, or water with vegan bouillon. Then add the following:

Pick one handful from the grain category (any grain you like will do):
pearl barley
pasta noodles
quinoa
rice
couscous
wheat berries
bulgar

Pick at least one from the protein category:
lentils
black beans
pinto beans
white beans
Soy Curls
chickpeas
seitan chunks
TVP
tofu cubes

Pick several from the produce category:
turnip greens
kale
collard greens
spinach
broccoli
corn
green beans
peas
carrots
tomatoes- canned, fresh or sundried
potatoes
sweet potatoes

And pick plenty from the extra flavor category:
onions
garlic
salt
pepper
siracha sauce or other hot sauce
liquid smoke
soy sauce
rice wine vinegar
coconut milk

Heat everything up in a soup pot for 45 minutes to 1 hour, depending on the type of grain. Season to taste and eat every day for the rest of the week until you're sick of it.

Here's my last batch of soup. Collard greens, turnip greens, chickpeas, Soy Curls, corn, pasta, tomatoes, in a base of veggie broth seasoned with soy sauce, siracha, and black pepper. Blurry soup. I really should use a tripod after 8pm.

Not soup related. Cookies! Specifically, the Peanut Better Cookies from Vive le Vegan stuffed with some of that cream filling from the oatmeal cream pies a few weeks ago. These were great. The cookies are nice and soft (and refreshingly free of any margarine), and the cream was no-too-sweet. Love!

press it.

2010-09-01T15:24:00.000-04:00

We make a lot of tofu-based dishes in our house. Like many vegans, we love it as a versatile and cost-effective protein source, and it's easy to incorporate into dishes. I have been dying to try a tofu press I've seen advertised called TofuXpress. This gadget squeezes the water out of your tofu without having to waste paper towels, and without having to balance your entire cookbook collection on top of your tofu. Honestly, I hate draining tofu so much, that I often just end up giving it a quick squeeze over the sink, which sometimes leaves me with watery meals with less-than-optimal texture, depending on what I'm making. Well, I finally got my hands on one of these fancy tofu presses!

It's so easy to use! Just remove the top, stick your tofu in there, then click the top back in place. Set the whole thing in the fridge for about an hour, then drain the liquid out.

That's it! No mess, no wet towels. It's pretty dang convenient. You can also marinade in the Tofuxpress, as it comes with a marinading lid.

I'm really not one for excessive kitchen gadgets, but since I received my Tofuxpress about three weeks ago, I've used it probably seven times. That's more than I use my food processor! And my crispy fried tofu has never been crispier.

I would have gotten one of these goodies a long time ago had I known it was going to work so awesome. The one thing that held me back is the hefty $40 price tag. But considering how often I use it now, I feel it's well worth it. How about you? We are considering selling the Tofuxpress in our store and I want to know. Would you be willing to pay $40 for this product?

a tasty, tasty recipe fail.

2010-08-26T14:23:00.000-04:00

Have y'all seen the awesome blog Meet The Shannons? They are veganizing the entire Betty Crocker Cookbook, which seems like a crazy task. But they're doing it, and doing it well. Recently they posted a hilarious recipe for a Vegan Fried Egg, and I was intrigued. I never really liked eggs before I went vegan, but I do love tofu and cheesy sauce. Plus, it's so cute how the little lump "yolk" happens! I wanted to try this recipe so much, that I bought an otherwise pointless gadget for $6.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Flavor Injector!

Sadly, I think this stupid cheapo flavor injector made the recipe fail for me. I drained the tofu really well in my tofu press, and carefully inserted the plastic needle into the side of each tofu round. I tried to gently move the tofu around to create a pocket in there, then I delicately pressed the cheesy sauce into the tofu.

...and then the tofu leaked out of the top of the tofu through a little crack. Both times. But hey, they still look like fried eggs, and there's sure to still be some filling inside the tofu. So I proceeded to fry them up.

I hoped the cheesy sauce would fry on one side, leaving the yellow "yolk" patch, but instead the sauce just kind of disappeared into the oil. Bah.

I slapped one tofu slab onto a toasted english muffin, hoping for a little cheesy sauce inside.

I cut the sammich open and.... no cheesy sauce. Not one drop. It had all leaked out. Double bah. Luckily, I still had some left to spoon onto the sammich.

It still tasted awesome, despite the lack of cheesy pocket. My guess is this has something to do with the flavor injector's flimsy plastic needle. The injector The Shannons linked looks like a fancy one with a metal needle. I may try it again sometime anyway.

weirdo burritos.

2010-08-24T15:19:00.001-04:00

Do you ever have plans for a meal that ends up morphing into some weird version of your original idea due to ingredient availability? That's kinda what happened with these burritos I made last night. They turned out mega tasty, though!

Soyrizo Burritos with Collard Greens and Potatoes

1 pack store-bought vegan Soyrizo (Trader Joe's has a good one)
2 cups fresh collard greens, torn into bite sized pieces
1 large russet potato, peeled and diced small
1 Tbsp oil
1/2 cup water or veggie broth
4 medium tortillas

In a large skillet, heat about 1 Tbsp oil. Add the diced potato, stir and cover for 5 minutes. Add collard greens and 1/2 cup water or broth. Cover and let steam, stirring occasionally. Once the collards are a bit tender, squeeze the Soyrizo into the skillet, and stir everything together. Cover and let cook until warm, for another 5-7 minutes.
Serve in warm tortillas.

add it up.

2010-08-23T14:43:00.000-04:00

I don't usually make a habit of counting calories, grams of protein, calcium, iron, etc. In the past, I've kept track of my daily food intake using Fitday just to make sure I was meeting my dietary needs.
The main things I learned when logging food (besides that I occasionally eat too much) was that as long as I kept my diet varied and included fruit, veggies, beans, nuts and grains, then I more than met my nutritional goals. So my mantra has simply been, "Eat! Enjoy!". Now, without driving myself too crazy, I've found myself in need of keeping track a little better. Recently my dietary needs have changed, because I'm growing a little vegan kid in my belly. (Don't worry, I don't plan on turning this into a pregnancy blog. You are welcome to keep track of things at my other blog here, if interested.)

So, my new nutritional needs mainly consist of doubling my protein intake, and making sure I'm getting enough calcium. Eating enough protein has never been a problem before, and I refuse to become a vegan stereotype while pregnant! Getting more protein than usual just takes a little more planning on my part.

Main meals have been fairly well balanced, it's the snacks in between that I'm working on to make sure they fill me up with what I need, not just fill me up. Here are some of my higher-protein snack options so far. I would love to hear suggestions for more protein rich snacks!

Peanut butter on toast
Hummus on wheat crackers
Bagels (they average about 7g protein!)
Walnuts, cashews, almonds
Primal Strips
Tofurky sammich (yes, as a snack. I'm hungry all the time!)
Soy yogurt
Sunflower seeds
Smoothie with rice protein
Tofu "egg" salad
Tempeh "chicken" salad

As far as the calcium-rich foods, I'm incorporating as much for these foods as possible:

Kale
Chard
Collard greens
Enriched vegan milks
Bok Choy
Broccoli
Almonds
Soy yogurt

When I told the midwife that I don't eat dairy, I was expecting a lecture. But she didn't give two shits about it. She just told me to eat plenty of greens and maybe take the occasional Tums. I like her.

I'm good on meal planning, but I need quality snack advice, folks! I would lovefor you to weigh in on this, if you can.

Thanks!

summer comfort.

2010-08-18T15:15:00.000-04:00

I've been craving foods that are rich and creamy, but it has been so hot this summer that I can't really see myself packing away thick sauces or fatty creams. We love to have vegan Alfredo sauce on our pasta, but my favorite recipe for Alfredo calls for an entire tub of Tofutti Cream Cheese. As awesome as it is, I just can't handle that heaviness when it's in the 90's outside! So I made a lighter, and dare I say, healthier version of a cream sauce for pasta. Now don't be fooled- this ain't no Alfredo. But it is light, tasty, and it won't make you feel like barfing if you decide to go for a walk after dinner.

These aren't the most appetizing pictures, but I promise the pasta dish tastes great.

Cannellini Bean Sauce for Pasta

1 15 oz. can Cannellini beans, rinsed
1 cup vegetable or "no-chicken" broth
1 Tbsp olive oil
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 Tbsp Vegenaise

In a food processor, blend all ingredients together until relatively smooth. If sauce is too thick for your liking, add a bit more broth or water to reach desired consistency. That's it! I added this to a skillet of escarole and red bell pepper that had been sauteing in oil with a few basil leaves. Use any veggies you like, and serve over pasta. The broth I use use is pretty salty, but if yours isn't, you may want to add some salt.
Makes for 2-4 generous servings with 1/2 pound of pasta, or 4-6 light servings with one pound of pasta.

Oh! You know what I tried from Veganomicon that was fantastic? Midsummer Corn Chowder.

This chowder is made with sweet summer corn, carrots, potatoes, basil, and tomatoes. It was rich and creamy, but without the addition of any cream-like ingredients. I loved it, and I'm sorry the whole pot is already gone!

Okay, despite the heat I have done a little bit of baking. I had to. I ran across this recipe for Smores Bars using Ricemellow Creme, and I had an open tub of Ricemellow I "needed" to use. This recipe was pretty good, but the crust could use some serious tweaking. I think a sweeter, blondie type of crust with some crumbled graham crackers in it would be great. This crust was just meh. But I really liked how the Ricemellow Creme got all gooey and caramelized. Yum!

damn you, Little Debbie.

2010-08-10T16:32:00.000-04:00

I've had some serious cravings for an oatmeal cream pie Ala Little Debbie lately. I haven't had a Little Debbie anything in about ten or eleven years, so I have no idea why this desire crept up on me like it did. When in Washington DC recently, I had a chance to try a Cowvin Cookie at Sticky Fingers. And while very yummy, it wasn't exactly what I was looking for to match that individually wrapped, mass produced crap snack from Little Debbie. When I begged the internets for a recipe, a Twitter friend pointed me to this one at sugar-skull.com.

This recipe is really great. My cookies didn't come out perfect, as they were way too soft and fell apart easily. But I know that was from a combination of the 80+ degree heat in my kitchen causing the Earth Balance to soften too much while creaming with the sugar, along with me pulling them from the oven a little too soon. I was so worried about ending up with a crunchy cookie, which simply would not do. So next time, my cookies are going to get about 14-16 minutes in the oven. The cream filling was absolutely spot on to a Little Debbie! I was a little surprised, as the amount of powdered sugar with the shortening had me worried about ending up with more of a hard, super-sweet frosting. But instead the cream filling was soft, lightly sweet, and wonderful!

Next, I really want to try a vegan Swiss Cake Roll. Anyone know of a good cake recipe that is pliable enough to roll without cracking?

non-cooking food.

2010-08-07T13:15:00.000-04:00

Sadly, there hasn't been a whole lot of fun, fancy eating in our house lately. With the recent loss in our family, along with this ridiculous summer heat, I haven't been incredibly inspired to turn the oven on. But we still gotta eat. The show must go on! Here's a salad so simple it's really a non-cooking, "non-recipe" recipe.

Summer Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette

1/2 lb. fresh green beans, ends snapped
1 cup fresh or frozen corn kernels
1 cup grape tomatoes, halved
1 handful of toasted pecan pieces
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
sea salt
black pepper

Boil a pot of water on the stovetop. Add the green beans and corn kernels to the boiling water and count to ten for a flash-boil. After a ten count, drain veggies in a colander. Place veggies in a large bowl, and add the tomatoes and pecan pieces. Toss and refrigerate. Once the salad is chilled, whisk together the rest of the ingredients for the vinaigrette. Use sea salt and pepper to taste. Drizzle vinaigrette over salad and serve immediately.

Dad.

2010-07-13T13:07:00.001-04:00

I'm sorry that we don't get to talk anymore, but I am glad you are no longer suffering. I love you, and I miss you already. xo

baked ziti, cobbler, and my boy Moe.

2010-07-06T16:34:00.005-04:00

Baked Ziti...

Vegan Baked Ziti

1 lb. dry pasta
6 quarts of water
2 links of Field Roast Italian Sausage, sliced
1 14 oz tub of firm tofu, well drained
4 Tbsp Vegenaise
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tsp lemon juice
1/2 Tsp sea salt
1 10 oz. tube of Mozzarella Teese, with 1” slice grated, the rest thinly sliced or chunked
6 large leaves of fresh basil, chiffonade cut
1 Tsp dried oregano

Preheat oven to 400F.

In a large pot, boil water. Once boiling, add dry pasta and cook to al dente.

While pasta is cooking, prepare the tofu ricotta. In a large bowl, crumble the drained tofu with your fingers. Add the Vegenaise, garlic, lemon juice, salt, 1” slice of grated Teese, basil and oregano. Mix well with a fork until all ingredients are blended. Set ricotta aside.

Drain pasta well, then add pasta back to the large pot. Pour in the entire jar of pasta sauce and mix to incorporate. Then add in the tofu ricotta and mix well again.

Pour pasta mixture into a 3 quart casserole dish, then top with slices of Field Roast Sausage. Place the rest of the Mozzarella Teese around the top in slices or small chunks. Loosely cover with foil, then bake for about 20-25 minutes until Teese is gooey and melty.

Strawberry Chocolate Chip Cobbler...

And my boy Moe. He's funny.

way to fatten up that salad, fatty.

2010-07-03T14:51:00.004-04:00

First, china cow is excited:

My hands have been pretty full with dad-related stuff lately, so I don't have very much food stuff to share. We've been doing plenty of salads, which make a nice, quick meal when it's too hot to cook. Here's a kitchen sink style salad, which has pretty much everything on it you could imagine. Grilled tofu, cashews, kalamata olives, carrots, avocado, tomato, and I think there may be some romaine lettuce under there somewhere.

Then we top them with the most wonderful substance in the world- vegan ranch dressing. We make a semi-homemade kind, using Vegenaise and Saucy Ranch Seasoning.

Here's what you do:

1 cup Vegenaise
1 Tbsp canola or other oil
1 Tbsp water
1 Tbsp vinegar or lemon juice
2 Tbsp Saucy Ranch Seasoning

Whip all ingredients together in a bowl, using a little water to thin as necessary. Serve cold.

I'm really loving the fresh tomatoes available in the summer. Sliced tomatoes are one of my all around favorite foods! A great summer breakfast is yellow Teese grits with a whole wheat biscuit and a couple of mato slices. Comforting goodness.

What are some of your favorite summer meals?

happy father's day

2010-06-20T08:02:00.003-04:00

A few months ago, my father was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. After several rounds of unsuccessful treatment, he is now on hospice. Since March, I have watched a strong, sharp man change into a frail, confused, helpless man. It's the most difficult thing I have ever dealt with, and that's saying a lot. A terminally ill loved one is a situation I would not wish on anyone. I am in the process of finding a facility where my dad can receive the 24 hour care he desperately needs. I haven't always gotten along with my dad, but none of that matters anymore. Now he's not someone to argue or disagree with, he's someone to help while remembering the times he has helped me.

I love you dad. Happy father's day, for the last time.

alimento delicioso del vegano!

2010-06-12T16:28:00.002-04:00

So does everyone have a copy of Terry Hope Romero's new cookbookViva Vegan! yet? Well, you totally should. It's filled with classic Latin dishes made vegan. I've made a couple of meals for us from Viva! recently.

Creamy Potato Peanut Stew with Soy Curls and chickpeas. I know it's 150 degrees outside and not exactly stew weather, but serving it with a cold glass of Brown Sugar Limeaid helped with the heat. That, and eating it inside our nice, climate controlled house. (bleh... move along, summer)

A more season-appropriate dish from Viva! is this cold Quinoa Salad with kalamata olives, red onions, spinach, corn, tomatoes, lime juice, and some seasoning. The lime juice makes the flavors extra sparkly.

Potato Pancakes with Peanut Sauce and a side of kale. Dios mio.

Despite out love for Latin food, our fall-back is almost always Italian inspired. Here are a few shots of a recent calzone, made with a whole wheat crust. I used a basic pizza crust recipe, this time from the Bob's Red Mill Baking Book I borrowed from the library. The 'zone is stuffed with tomato sauce, Daiya vegan cheese, kalamata olives, onions, and vegan Smart Bacon. So good.

And huge.

You know what's good to have after consuming a five pound calzone? A couple of vegan maple cream cheese cinnamon rolls!

a gaggle of baked goods along with a couple of cats.

2010-05-22T13:46:00.004-04:00

Have you tried the bagel recipe from Vegan Brunch yet? What the heck are you waiting for!? Turns out, homemade bagels are shockingly easy to make. I recently baked a batch of bagels, and used some extra dough for sweet bagel twists. These are just bagels of a different shape, sprinkled liberally with brown sugar and cinnamon. Slathered with Earth Balance, they were fantastic.

I have a back log of cupcake pictures to share, too. The most recent were for my dad's 75th birthday a few weeks ago. His favorite flavors are coconut and pineapple, so I did a coconut cupcake with crushed pineapple cream cheese frosting. my usual Tofutti cream cheese frosting turned pretty drippy when I added the crushed pineapple, and I was out of powdered sugar to work it into a firmer texture. But dad didn't mind, they still tasted great.

For Easter last month (I'm so behind, I know...) I made lemon vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting, and chocolate mint cupcakes with mint frosting. I like the look of the lemon vanilla ones, topped with vegan gummie bun-buns.

We put together another successful vegan bake sale earlier this month, too! We had such fun last year participating in the Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale, that we decided to do it again. Despite three of the volunteer bakers backing out at the last minute (not you, Steph!), we ended up with a great selection of goodies to sell to benefit Ahimsa House. Since we had less treats than we expected to, we ran out of treats only two hours into the event. But that's way better than being left with too much at the end of the day. $514 was raised for Ahimsa House, woo!

The BBQ Jackfruit & Collard Hand Pies made by Laura of Dough Bakery were the stars of the show! her Banana Cream Pies were amazing, too.

I made Daiya Cheddar Scones, Raspberry Chocolate Chip Blondies (from VWaV), Chocolate Strawberry Sammich Cookies, and Marshmallow Cereal Bars. Good stuff, all around.

Gluten-free goodies were popular, too!

In non-baking news- Miles is goofy, as usual. I'm having to place cat litter boxes in various spots around the house to help deal with territory issues between Moe & Miles. Miles hung out in the empty pans for a while when I brought them in.

Here's old man Moe, just being himself. Grumpy, and covered in floor lint.

foods that hug.

2010-03-19T14:16:00.008-04:00

There's been a lot of stressful things going on in my life lately that have made me crave carbs and hugs. So into the kitchen I went, to create foods that would hug me from the inside.

Cheddar Daiya Scones

Tofu Omelette with asparagus, recipe from Vegan Brunch

Biscuits with Chorizo Gravy

Vegan Chorizo Sausage Gravy
Serves about 4

1 cup Chorizo Flavored TVP Chunks
2 cups water
1 cup plain soy milk
4 Tbsp canola oil
1/4 cup flour

Place TVP in a microwave safe bowl and cover with water. Microwave on high for five minutes. Meanwhile, heat canola oil in a large skillet over medium heat.

Sprinkle the flour over the oil, and mix together to make a roux. Add the soy milk to the roux, and whisk until smooth. By now your TVP should be finished in the microwave. Stir the TVP into the skillet mixture, reserving the liquid from the TVP. Slowly add the liquid from the TVP into your gravy, until it is thick to your liking. You an always add more soy milk or water if the gravy is too thick. Lower the heat to low, and simmer for a few minutes, to allow the flavors to mingle. Serve hot over biscuits.

fertility diet.

2010-02-10T16:52:00.004-05:00

So yeah, Ken and I have been trying to make a baby for quite some time now. I'm doing my best to make my uterus a friendly place that a baby might want to visit for about nine months, but there are still a few things I could do that would help make it happen. For one, I need to clean up my diet. Sure I'm vegan, but I eat sweets like the plane's going down. Every day. And when you eat too many sweets, there's not as much room for more important things like vegetables. So my first step- eat more vegetables. Simple enough, right? Hopefully this could lead to my second step- lose weight. I'm about 50 lbs. overweight, which isn't the best for optimum ovulation. being 35 years old isn't the best for optimum ovulation either, so my third step- get younger.
Wait... what?

Here are some of our most recent veggie-filled meals.

Chard and chickpea soup. Also known as "toss whatever crap you have on hand into the crock pot until it's hot".

Brown rice pasta topped with escarole, tomatoes, white beans and garlic. Bonus, a few simple "pork" basil meatballs made with Match Vegan Pork.

Vegetable casserole, another thrown-together yet delicious meal. Sweet potatoes, zucchini, tomatoes, basil and onions topped with bread crumbs and a sprinkle of Daiya.

Some grilled pineapple salsa, which we used to top tasty soy curl tacos. Taco recipe and salsa recipe both from Vegan Brunch.

Not very vegetabl-y, but very wonderful tomato rosemary scones I made for a vegan potluck last weekend. Another fine recipe from Vegan Brunch. (crappy camera phone alert)

So what do you do when you want something sweet, but just can't have it? Any advice for getting off the white stuff?

AtlantaVegan Bake Sale for Haiti

2010-02-01T15:59:00.003-05:00

The bake sale went wonderfully, ya'll! Kristin did a fantastic job organizing the sale, and we raised $1365 for Doctors without Borders. Woo!

There were some damn tasty baked goods at the sale, along with the always lovely pottery from Jeanette at Vegan Dish, and yummy scented soy candles from International Mustache Exchange. Some of the bakers involved were Laura, Becky, Alicia, Alison B., and many others. Several companies generously donated baked goodies too, including Dulce Vegan and Cecilia's Bakeshop.

For the sale, I made another round of those fun lemon love cups from Sweet Utopia, this time with a coconut oil frosting.

A variation on the praline pecan bars, also from Sweet Utopia. Let's call them "praline bundles", since some of them lost their heart shape.

A few mini loaves of cherry chocolate chip almond bread, a variation from Don't Eat Off the Sidewalk.

And chocolate dipped popcorn balls, made with Dandies.

Thanks to all the ATL vegans who made it out for the bake sale!

eating, baking, making.

2010-01-26T15:49:00.003-05:00

Check out this cute suitcase bed I made for the kitties. I got the idea from Thee Andersons post here. I will get around to putting legs on it eventually. Moe could give a shit about it, but Miles took to it right away.

Checking it out:

Knocked over the toy mouse, then promptly went to sleep:

Our eating habits have been a bit hurried lately, but I did manage to whip up some Avocado Potato Salad from Vegan Brunch. We had it alongside Ken's favorite Tempeh Wings from Don't Eat Off the Sidewalk. Our own little winter BBQ.

Hey, you know what's awesome? Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie! Or, Chocolate Chip Freaking Cookie Pie, as it should probably be called. This simple recipe can be found in 500 Vegan Recipes, which has yet to disappoint.

First bake the crust, which is really just a big cookie:

Then fill with a sweet, fluffy, pudding-like filling:

Let set in the fridge until cool, then cut off a slice.

That's the type of dessert one might call "dangerous". My pancreas might call it that. My mouth calls it delicious.

I need to get myself in gear for this weekend's Vegan Bake Sale for Haiti! Myself and some other great folks will be there selling amazing baked treats for Doctors Without Borders/MSF USA. Please come out if you are around Atlanta this weekend!

Atlanta vegan bake sale for Haiti

2010-01-22T16:38:00.002-05:00

Hey Atlanta people! Do you like vegan baked goods for a good cause? Then come on out next weekend!

is it 2010 yet??

2009-12-19T17:05:00.003-05:00

Whew. What a busy time. I can't wait until this year is over and we can all start fresh! The holiday season has us working long hours and eating on the run, so I don't have much to post food-wise. But here are a few of my favorite things from the past month or so.

Tiny plastic donuts, a birthday gift from Laura:

Raspberry-topped Lemon Love Cups, a recipe from Sweet Utopia. Get this book, you won't be disappointed:

Another goody from Sweet Utopia, Midnight Chocolate Cake. Strawberries aren't in season, and my frosting was sweating. But in my defense, I was crazy sick and had a fever while making it:

Citrus Glitters, the first cookies I've made from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. I'm so behind! These were great, by the way:

An impromptu berry cobbler we made one night. We added chocolate chips to the biscuit topping. Mmm.

New zombie shirt! Threadless had a sale.

New tattoo! I decided on a deer tattoo while on a road trip with Ken. We were driving to upstate New York to exhibit at a vegetarian festival, and along the way we saw several deer hanging out near the highway. It reminded me of how hunters try to justify killing these beautiful animals because they seem to think it's their duty to control the deer population in order to avoid situations like deer running out into the road and causing damage to cars, or eating plants in people's yards. The idea that humans have the right to kill another species simply because they are inconvenient to our sprawling urban and suburban living is just sad to me.

Danielle at Only You Tattoo created my beautiful little fawn with all vegan inks. I just love it.

That's it for me this year. See you on the flip side.

new cookbooks galore!

2009-11-29T13:33:00.004-05:00

I've said it before, and I'll say it again- sometimes it's nice to get paid completely in cookbooks! The holidays are usually a big time for new titles to release, and this year has been especially good for vegans who love a good cookbook. Here's one of the titles I've picked up so far this month:

500 Vegan Recipes by Celine Steen and Joni Marie Newman

I'm already a fan of recipes from these ladies. Celine with her recipe-filled blog Have Cake Will Travel, and Joni from Just The Food and the author of one of my favorite comfort food cookbooks, Cozy Inside. I've barely scratched the surface of this huge recipe collection. 500 Recipes is no joke, especially for only $19.95. I was disappointed to see that none of Celine's gorgeous food photography made it into the book, though I have a feeling this was to help keep the cover price reasonable. I hope the publisher goes for color images with these gal's next title, at least.

But the recipes are what's important, you know. And there are a shit-ton of them in 500 Vegan Recipes. From sweet to savory, easy to more complex, everything you could possibly want is included within. They even have a whole chapter on my favorite food category, Faux Meats! You thought I was gonna say Desserts, didn't you? Well, there's plenty of that, too. I had a chance to try the Laurel and Hardy Peanut Fauxsage recipe, and it was super easy to make. It's basically baked seitan, rolled into a sausage shape. So tasty and economical.

Also from the Faux Meat chapter I had a chance to make the Black Bean Grillers. These are truly phenomenal burgers. Ken really went crazy for them, too. Unfortunately, we devoured them before I could get a photo. But I'm sure you can imagine what a great vegan burger looks like. Again, another easy and economical recipe. Store bought veggie burgers can cost as much as $6.99 per box of four! And they are never as good as homemade.

We also tried the Cauliflower Pasta Crisp from 500 Vegan Recipes. The sauce was nice and creamy thanks to blended cauliflower, and kind of reminded me of hummus with the addition of tahini, olive oil, cumin and paprika. Much different from the typical Italian style pasta dishes. Plus, it was topped with a ton of bread crumbs. Can't go wrong there. This was hard to take a good picture of, but trust me, it was delish.

I'm looking forward to cooking more from 500 Vegan Recipes soon. I have my eye on some other yummy-sounding recipes like Crispy Coconut Tempeh Nuggets, Enchilada Casserole, Pumpkin Spinach Ravioli, Savory Tomato Olive Muffins, Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie, Peanut Butter Blondies, and more.

Later next week, I'll bore you with my take on two new dessert cookbooks, one you have heard of, and another you might not know about. See you then?

how many times can one person eat in a day?

2009-11-20T18:24:00.006-05:00

Ken and I took a whirlwind, 1.5 day trip to New York City last weekend to attend a lovely vegan wedding. Matt and Danielle got hitched on Friday the 13th, and their wedding was a blast!

We ate lots of yummy food at the wedding...

mushroom soup

mushroom & eggplant lasagna

pastry cup with fruit and whipped cream

wedding cake and groom's cake, courtesy of Vegan Treats

The groom's cake was my favorite treat of the evening, with it's vegan cream cheese frosting and red velvet innards. So tasty.

Food related things got really crazy for us on Saturday though, our only full day in NYC. We started off the morning with brunch at Counter along with a group of friends. Though we had been to Counter once a few years ago and really liked it, our experience this time was kind of meh. We were with a big group, but my food came out almost an hour later than everyone else's food. And all I ordered was a tofu scramble with toast! I did not complain about the wait, but the restaurant comp'd my meal anyway. I thought that was a nice gesture, considering the circumstances. Here's Ken's plate of multi grain pancakes with a pile of boring fruit compote that tasted like it had been sitting in a lemon juice bath for too long:

After leaving Counter, we walked around the city for an hour or so before making our way over to Lula's Sweet Apothecary, and all vegan ice cream parlor. This was all I wanted for my birthday, a visit to Lula's. But what to get? A malt, a vegan egg cream, a sundae, a cone? Cake batter soft serve or rocky road? So many choices! I finally decided on a hot fudge sundae, made with rocky road and vanilla, topped with peanuts, whipped cream and hot fudge. Heavenly. Simply heavenly. And how cute is that spoon? It looks like a little shovel, which is kinda fitting.

Lula's has a really nice ambiance. The Lula's folks have managed to create a really cozy atmosphere with nice, old timey touches in spite of their tiny little spot. It was hard for me to take photos in there as it was pretty crowded, but here's a couple.

After our awesome trip to Lula's, we enjoyed the city with friends for a few more hours, then just happened by Babycakes. I swear, I wasn't even looking for Babycakes. Vegan baked goods just find me. So here we are, stuffed from eating a big-ass sundae, yet I find myself stepping into another tiny yet adorable vegan sweets shop, money in fist.

I walked out with two little sweets for Ken and I to enjoy for breakfast on Sunday before our plane trip back home. Here's a pancake flavored bundt cake and a banana caramel bundle. Both of these treats were melt-in-mouth awesome. I have heard mixed reviews about Babycakes, so I was really happy to have chosen the right stuff on my visit. A couple of perfect little bites:

After hitting a bookstore and just wandering around pretending to not be tourists, we met up with more friends at a pizza place called Pala. We weren't even close to being hungry, yet we soon found ourselves sharing some vegan pizza topped with Daiya Vegan Cheese. How can we turn down Daiya pizza? We can't! Plus, we were planning on heading out to an event called Veggie Conquest, which we knew had a dessert challenge. So we didn't know if we would have a chance to eat non-dessert food for the rest of the night. Boy, was I wrong. But more on that later. Here's our candlelit, vegan pizza from Pala, topped with Daiya Italian, Field Roast sausage, asparagus, and some other stuff I don't remember:

After eating more than we had planned, we then took a taxi to another eating extravaganza, Veggie Conquest! We were really excited to find out that the monthly Veggie Conquest event was taking place the same weekend we were in NYC. If you haven't heard of Veggie Conquest, it's a vegan food cooking challenge, with a hint of Iron Chef to it. Here's the description from the Veggie Conquest website:

Veggie Conquest is a monthly amateur vegan cooking competition. Before the event, chefs prepare a dish at home based on a secret ingredient revealed a week in advance. At the event, judges and tasters choose the top dish, prizes are awarded, and everyone chows down and has a great time!

We found out that the secret ingredient was cranberries, and the dishes were supposed to be dessert. And the contestants really went all out, too. All of the dishes were amazing.

Ken, Kevin and Laura waiting for the food to start flowing:

Our note card and number, in preparation for the taster's choice award:

The judges table, with pastry chef and cookbook author Fran Costigan, vegan baker and creator of veganbaking.net Mattie Hagedorn, and cookbook author Sharon Valecik.

Here's Jessica, who is the creator of the amazing Veggie Conquest, with Joshua Katcher, aka The Discerning Brute, who was the emcee for the evening.

I'm sorry I didn't get any pictures of the wonderful food at Veggie Conquest! Everything was going so fast and fun, that I forgot the official blogger's motto: "pictures or it didn't happen."

You know what else happened? After the fun dessert challenge at Veggie Conquest, they served a full meal of savory food. Jeezus. Everything was so good, and I couldn't believe I was still eating after the gustatory day we already participated in.

The good thing is, we didn't die of overindulgence. I guess my usual heavy training regime of cookie eating really served me well in this case. This was truly the fastest 1.5 days of my life. And a memorable birthday, too! I turned 35, by the way. Yay.

I feel a detox coming on soon.

seeking simplicity.

2009-11-06T16:47:00.006-05:00

The past few months have been quite a challenge for delicate little me. Lots of work, travel, and personal stuff has kept me in the habit of unhealthy food choices, not enough sleep, and lots of nail biting. But I am destined to get back on track, and I'm going to get back to the gym as soon as this lingering cold is gone!

Breakfast doesn't get much simpler than the image above. Store bought soy yogurt topped with some freeze dried pomegranate seeds is sweet, a little sour, and full of probiotics and antioxidants. I need to get with the program and try my hand at making homemade soy yogurt sometime. It is pretty funny that, in order to make your own yogurt, you have to buy some store bought yogurt. We recently saw David Cross live, and he called making yogurt with yogurt cheating. Heh.

So, what are your favorite ways to satisfy a craving simply and healthfully?

Okay, different subject entirely. In fact, Vegan Treats is the opposite of simple and healthy. Other adjectives come to mind, like decadent and crazy. Ken and I were working at the Boston Vegetarian Festival last weekend, and we were surrounded by vegan sweets of all kinds. Pennsylvania-based Vegan Treats is a luxury we rarely get to indulge in, so it almost made me pass out when I walked up on this:

An army of vegan sweets! Donuts! Fancy little cakes! Jeezus, I can hardly stand it. We tried not to go crazy, but we did get some things. Like a Boston Cream donut for Ken:

And a miniature cheesecake, topped with brownie chunks:

A mini Peanut Butter Bomb:

And a lil' Tiramisu:

Whew. Those folks sure know how to rock a vegan's world.

Most of what we did in Boston was work-related. He's a couple of nerds in matching shirts:

But we did manage to get out on our first night in Boston to try the newly remodeled, renamed, and all-around new 100% vegan pizza place called Peace O' Pie. We arrived just in time to this tiny little gem in Allston, as the place was filled elbow to elbow about 20 minutes later. We stared off our meal with the house salad, which was a fresh mix of greens topped with walnuts and cranberries. A balsamic dressing served on the side rounded it all out.

Then came the pie. We chose a pizza called The MD, which was an array of herb-roasted onions, zucchini, and vegan apple sage sausage. We upgraded to Daiya vegan cheese from the default Vegan Gourmet. This pizza was warm, gooey, and oh-so-good!

Our only complaint about the pizza at Peace O' Pie, and this is really just a preference and not a real complaint, is Ken and I both would have preferred a thicker crust. The crust wasn't thin enough to be called thin crust, but not thick enough to really remind us of restaurant-style pizza. But the crust was a great texture and tasted fabulous, so it's still well worth the cost of dinner. Peace O' Pie also had fresh, house-made baked goods available. We purchased several peanut butter topped sweet rolls for breakfast the next day, and they really hit the spot. No pictures of those though, sorry!

Here's the crust up close and personal:

After the fest on Saturday night, we headed out to dinner with friends at Vej Naturals. This place comes highly recommended by our friends who live in Boston, and we were happy to try it for ourselves. The menu was short and sweet, and apparently the selections change frequently. Ken ordered the pot pie with puff pastry crust, which we found to be simple and comforting, without too much fuss:

I decided on the Seitan Daube, a tasty herb-infused seitan in wine sauce, served over mashed potatoes. This dish hit the spot, though the flavors were a bit mild for my taste. However, I was coming down with a cold, so my taste could have been dulled from that, too. I would order this again, for sure:

The staff at Vej Naturals were super friendly and warm, and the company was good. I have to say though, this restaurant is tiny. Not cozy in a nice way, but tiny in an uncomfortable way. Far, far too small for more than two people. Especially if you like privacy when you dine. BUT. According to a sign on their door, Vej Natuarls is moving to a new location soon, so I'm sure that will clear up this one issue. Do check them out if you ever make it to Boston!

Our trip to Boston was short, busy, and full of good times. But now I am ready to chill out for a week or so, before our whirlwind trip to New York City next weekend. We are going to NYC for a friend's wedding, but it's also my birthday weekend! Woo, vegan ice cream parlors, Veggie Conquest, and more! Will somebody get me off this ride? I'm feeling kinda woozy.

a little bit of Daiya love.

2009-10-29T21:34:00.002-04:00

Tonight was quesadilla night. Just a quick and easy meal we threw together with some tortillas, fresh spinach, and vegan cheese. No big deal, right?

Well, my friends, check this shit out:

Daiya vegan cheese is the only vegan cheese that performs this way. And it tastes like pure love. The Daiya Italian Style is pretty good too, but I'm currently in deep with the Cheddar Style. If you haven't had a chance to try it, I strongly suggest it!

Ken and I are heading to Boston this weekend for the Boston Vegetarian Fest, so I'll be sure to come back with lots of food pr0n. Enjoy your weekend!

a big pile of rice and Loving Hut.

2009-10-27T16:37:00.004-04:00

Whoa, I sure did suck at VeganMofo this year, didn't I? I had every intention of posting regularly, I really did. Sadly, this month I had some personal issues that kept me away from the computer most days. But I'm back, baby!

I recently picked up a "new to me" cookbook that my friend Michelle recommended. The recipes in The Complete Vegan Cookbook focus more on lighter, healthier fare, which I can use a lot more of in my life. The first recipe I made was for a Rice Bake with Black Beans, Corn and Tomatoes. I used brown rice for added nutrition. This recipe made a ton of food for way cheap. And the leftovers seem to taste better and better every day, too. Especially when we melt a little of the Cheddar Daiya on top. Oh my. On night one we had it on top a bed of spinach, with a dollop of Tofutti Sour Cream.

No, generally I don't need a cookbook to tell me how to make beans and rice. This was a little different as the rice was baked in the oven, rather than on the stove or in the rice cooker. I think that helped the flavors really soak together. Good stuff, for sure.

A few weeks ago we checked out a new vegan restaurant near us. Loving Hut is a national chain that just recently appeared in metro Atlanta. It's such a pretty place, it really is. And they put a lot of effort into making their food and drinks pretty. Sadly, most of the food we tried was lacking in flavor. It wasn't awful, just kind of bland overall. But we will definitely give it another shot and order something different next time. We started with basil rolls, which were probably my favorite part of the meal.

I ordered the Au Lac Crepe with vegan ham, tofu, and bean sprouts.

Ken stared at his bland pile of lo mein noodles most of the evening, wishing for an extra splash of soy sauce or two.

For dessert, Ken ordered a root beer float that he actually loved. I forgot to take a picture of it because I was too busy running my mouth with friends. But I didn't forget dessert. I ordered Sun & Moon, which was two cookies with a couple scoops of soy ice cream. This was pretty tasty, and made me feel a little better about my poor choice of entree.

The people at Loving Hut are so amazingly friendly, and it's such a clean, peaceful space, that I do want to try it again sometime.

More soon, I promise!

VeganMofo: cookies for the soul

2009-10-11T21:38:00.004-04:00

I never kick a cookie out of bed, as long as it's vegan. But there's something extra special about a chocolate chip cookie. I think chocolate chip cookies are like a warm, soft hug. They have the power to soothe, to heal, to... promote tooth decay. Dang, I love a good chocolate chip cookie.

I pretty much try every vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe I come across. My usual go-to recipe is from Dreena Burton's Vive le Vegan. This recipe is fast, and produces a soft, not-too-sweet cookie without the use of margarine. Overall, a solid cookie recipe.

But tonight, I may have found my new favorite in this category. The recipe is the Chocolate Chip Pecan Cookies from 100 Best Vegan Baking Recipes. Taste-wise, these cookies are the shizz. Appearance-wise, they are super adorable. I mean, just look at them!

My only complaint I have about this recipe is that I hate using a whole cup of Earth Balance margarine in one batch of cookies. Believe it or not, and despite how my ass looks in these jeans, I do try to watch how much saturated fat I consume. But, hey. They're cookies, after all. And darn good cookies, if I do say so myself.

Do you have a favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe you care to share with me?

VeganMofo: french toast all over the place

2009-10-10T17:10:00.003-04:00

I never really ate french toast before going vegan. I suspect the reason was because of the egg coating that the bread was dipped in. I never could stomach the strong sulfur scent that eggs gave out. Pretty urpy, if you ask me. However, I can totally get behind fried bread covered in maple syrup which makes vegan french toast right up my alley!

Ken is the french toast maker in our household, and his recipe of choice is the Fronch Toast from Vegan with a Vengeance. Here is some Fronch Toast Ken made us using baguette bread:

Probably the best vegan french toast I ever had (short of my sweet husband's french toast, of course) was from Pick Me Up Cafe in Chicago this past Summer. The bread was so huge!

I baked up a batch of French Toast Muffins recently, too. The recipe is from 100 Best Vegan Baking Recipes. I think the recipe is great, but I healthified these a little too much with whole wheat pastry flour. I will definitely use more all purpose flour next time for a lighter, fluffier muffin.

A few weeks ago, Ken and I went on a road trip to upstate New York. Our main reason for traveling was to attend and exhibit at the Capitol Region Vegetarian Expo, but we also made a point to make a side trip to Woodstock to visit Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary. Before we went to the sanctuary, we stopped at a nearby vegan cafe called Garden Cafe. This place was cute, cute, cute. Of course Ken ordered the vegan french toast:

The Garden Cafe French Toast was good, and did the job. Nice reasonable portion, with some warm apple compote on the side.

That's all the french toast I have for you, so I will leave you with some of my favorite pictures from our visit to Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary. What a beautiful place for these animals to have a safe home!

VeganMofo: the mighty tofu scramble

2009-10-06T20:09:00.004-04:00

Oh, how we love to eat tofu scramble in our household. "Breakfast for Dinner" happens with Ken and I at least once per week. Not to mention Sunday brunch! Tofu scramble is really one of the easiest things in the world to make, and it's incredibly versatile. You can throw whatever veggies in there you want, or enjoy it plain. You could go with some fancy specialty scramble, like Southwestern scramble or Asian scramble, or keep it simple with whatever fixings you have on hand that day. Everyone who enjoys the 'foo scrambled seems to have their preferences on how to prepare it, and that includes me. But I will still eat a scramble at a restaurant prepared any-which-way, even if it's not exactly how I would prepare it at home. I only have one rule that must not be broken in order to properly enjoy a tofu scramble:

The tofu needs to be crumbled, not cubed in order to be called a scramble. I'm not saying cubed tofu isn't tasty, but it ain't a scramble unless it's crumbled. If the 'foo is cubed, then you're crossing over into stir fry territory!

But hey, to each their own. In case you are wondering, here is my favorite way to scramble up some tofu.

Basic Tofu Scramble

1 block extra firm tofu (not silken) drained well
2 cups of your favorite green, like spinach or chard
1/2 cup any melty vegan cheese, grated. I like Daiya Cheddar or Teese Mozzarella.
2 Tbsp plain soymilk
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp nutritional yeast flakes
2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp onion powder
Some oil for the skillet

Coat the bottom of a large skillet with oil and preheat to medium high on stove. While the pan is heating, crumble the tofu into a medium size bowl. with a fork, mix in the soymilk and soy sauce. Once the liquids are incorporated, add the spices and mix well. Try not to break up your tofu crumbles too much, or the scramble will be mushy.

Add the tofu to the heated skillet and gently press down with a spatula. Top the tofu with the grated vegan cheese, then cover the grated cheese with the 2 cups of greens. The greens will wilt down as steam rises through the tofu. When the tofu appears golden brown on one side, gently flip the tofu and scramble up the toppings. Continue to cook until tofu is browned the way you like it.

Ken likes to eat his scramble with ketchup, but I'm more of a purist. And we both love a piece of toast or a bagel half to help scoop the good stuff up to our mouths.

So now tell me: how do you like your tofu scramble?

VeganMofo: grow your own

2009-10-03T14:08:00.004-04:00

I've always heard folks say that there's nothing more rewarding than eating food straight from your own garden. And talk about eating local! How about walking outside to pick your salad? So Ken and I decided to try this whole vegetable gardening thing out with some fall plants. We purchased some little plants at the beginning of August, and most of the plants have really taken off. It's exciting!

The romaine lettuce is looking tastier each day:

One rainbow chard plant is towering over it's little sibling:

The kale is doing good, though still suffering from a few worm bites:

Collard Greens!

This is the sad part. Our little spinach plant is pitiful. I don't think the little guy is gonna make it:

It's pretty fun to see such pretty, healthy food growing on our back porch. Well, except for the spinach. That's kinda sad. I hope we can keep the rest of them alive and well so we can put them in our stomachs soon!

VeganMofo: Stomach vs. Heart

2009-09-29T20:02:00.004-04:00

"That's what you get when you confuse your stomach with your heart"
- Stomach vs. Heart, Barenaked Ladies

My strong love for food began long before I went vegan. In fact, some of my most comforting memories as a child revolved around food in some way or another. From my mom "curing" our sad times by buying us many a McDonald's hot fudge sundae, to my dad offering up our choice of geedunks (military talk for sweets) every time we joined him on a trip to the gas station, my childhood was filled with a steady stream of food equals love. I was pretty much born to be a sugar baby, my genetic code stamped by a long family line of diabetics, depressives, and addicts.

Unfortunately, the fact that I sought comfort in food as a kid and still do today as an adult, probably isn't the healthiest thing to confess here on my food blog. But I'm gonna do it anyway, because I know I'm not the only one. The way I see it, there are worse vices to indulge in than delicious vegan food. I don't drink, smoke, or take drugs, but man, can I tuck into a batch of warm vegan chocolate chip cookies. Besides, I went vegan for ethical reasons, and the animals don't care how much sugar I eat.

I do have a goal to be healthier this year, since the best way to promote veganism is to be a healthy, vibrant vegan myself. That's why I will be scouring the VeganMofo blogs this month, looking for some healthy inspiration. Bring on the kale, people! I'm ready!

Braised romaine with kidney beans over quinoa. See? I do eat healthy sometimes.

VeganMofo III starts Thursday!

2009-09-29T19:50:00.003-04:00

What the heck is a VeganMofo? Why, it's The Vegan Month of Food, of course! Click here for all the details and to see the huge list of participants. Starting Thursday and throughout October, I will blog almost every day about the vegan food in my life. But VeganMofo isn't just about posting vegan food pictures for folks to drool over, so I will also do my best to write about vegan food, and how it plays a part in my daily life. Oooh, exciting.

summertime rolls.

2009-08-20T15:16:00.002-04:00

It's still hotter than Hades in Atlanta, but that hasn't stopped me from dreaming about the cooler times ahead. In fact, we just recently ordered some fall/winter vegetable plants! The idea of growing some of our own food is a really exciting one, for sure. We have zero experience with gardening, and our front and back yard shows it. So we decided to start things off by growing veggies in planters on our back porch. That's a lot less scary than dealing with our monster yard and all the trouble that goes with it. Lookit! Cute little vegetables!

We ordered kale, rainbow chard, spinach, collard greens, and romaine lettuce from Tasteful garden. The plants arrived looking very healthy. Now let's hope we don't kill them with our lack of skillz. They've been planted for a little over a week now, and are doing pretty well so far.

Baby romaine:

Baby collards:

This summer has been so dang hot, the kitties are being even lazier than usual. Lots of laying around and being cute.

Miles is not a gentleman:

Moe is always a gentleman:

Together, but separate. Sadly, these two really can't stand each other.

You know what's nice in the summer? Friends who happen to own vegan soft serve machines! And friends who know how to make homemade, vegan waffle bowls to eat said vegan soft serve from.

It's a rough life, but I manage.

And talk about rough! Have you guys heard of the latest in vegan cheese, Daiya? Well, of course you have. We have been trying to bring it into our store for the past few months, which has proven to be almost as frustrating as buying a house. But, if the planets align correctly, we shall soon be offering Daiya cheese. Finally. And lucky us, we were sent SAMPLES! Believe the hype, ya'll, Daiya is the stuff that cheese dreams are made of. We have been putting it on everything from lasagne and grilled sammiches, to burritos and tofu scrambles. And of course, pizza.

Here's a regular pizza (spinach, black olives, onions) with Italian Style Daiya:

And here's a cheeseburger pizza with Cheddar Style Daiya:

In case you're wondering, this cheeseburger pizza consisted of Match Vegan Ground Beef, Smart Bacon, pickles, onions, ketchup, and mustard. And of course the Daiya Cheddar. Oh my, Daiya is sooooo good. It melts perfectly, and even stretches! And soy free? How perfect can this food be? The only minor complaint I have about Daiya is that the two flavors kinda taste the same to me. But both taste great, so whatever!

I tried getting a picture of the cheese stretching, but the stretch broke as soon as the photo was taken. All, well. It still looks delicious, doesn't it?

We also topped some rustic Italian bread with Italian Style Daiya and sundried tomato & olive bruschetta. Yum, yum.

I know that Daiya is not yet widely available, so I apologize for rubbing in how awesome it is. But it is my full time job to bring vegan goodies to you, so watch our website for Daiya in the near future!

hominy... get it on the plate, girl.

2009-07-30T14:06:00.003-04:00

Hominy and grits aren't exactly the same thing, but close enough. Maybe I just wanted an excuse to quote a Tori Amos song in my title, okay?

These pretty little grits cakes are topped with some slow cooked kale.

And were served along side some seitan-based Spicy Buffalo Bites.

All three of these recipes are from Alicia Simpson's upcoming cookbook, Quick and Easy Vegan Comfort Food. Alicia understands that Southern foods equal comfort to many folks, and especially to me! QEVCF offers much more than just Southern selections, too. Quick and Easy Comfort Food has a release date of September, so you still have some time to recover from that early summer wave of vegan cookbooks. Keep your eyes peeled for this one!

Los Angeles- the long, long blog post.

2009-07-23T17:16:00.009-04:00

Hey ya'll! We just got home from another trip, this time to the Animal Rights National Conference in Los Angeles. I'm sorry to say that we didn't go to attend the workshops and talks this time, but to exhibit. We still had a great time though, even if a big chunk of our time was spent in a weirdly-lit hotel ballroom. We met many of our customers in person, which is always nice. And we got to hang out with some friends, which made the trip even more fun. But you just want to know about the food, don't you?

On the night we arrived, we were starving from our long day of travel. Unfortunately, the hotel we stayed in was right next to the airport, which isn't really close to anything. Letting our stomachs rule the day, we got a taxi to take us to the Native Foods in Westwood, in the middle of rush hour traffic. That shit cost $30 one way. The food at Native Foods was basic, good, vegan fare. Nothing earth shattering, but I would still love to have a place like this in Atlanta that served great vegan sandwiches and veggie bowls. I had a "save the chicken" wrap with fries and edamame, and Ken had a veggie bowl with kale as the main focus, I think. It had some of the mock chicken in it, as well.

I did enjoy Native Foods, and I would definitely try them again if I should every be back that way. I have to say though, when we were there, the place was so dirty. The dining area was up in a small loft, which had mabe six tables. The tables were all crummy and dirty, needing some serious attention from a wet cloth. The floor was sticky, too. We were so travel weary that we didn't really care at the time. And the bathroom. Oh, lordy the bathroom! It was the worst. I mean, unflushed toilet, used, open-faced maxi pad, paper towels waded up on the floor, sink covered in water... whoever was in there before me must have bathed a dog in the sink just after tossing her nasty pad around. It was awful. But, I'm sure it can't be like that all the time. We must have just caught them after a busy lunch rush or something. For the record, I left the bathroom in better condition that I found it, by wiping the sink, flushing the toilet (twice, even), and using a wad of paper towels to toss the pad in the trash can. Blech.

Don't you want to hear more about food after that lovliness?!

By the next night, we had learned about Veggie Grill. This place is amazing. Veggie Grill is a fast food type of establishment, only vegan. And the service was really friendly and quick, too. We loved Vegie Grill so much that we ate there two days in a row! If Veggie Grill were in Atlanta, I would eat there all the dang time. I had the Sante Fe Crispy "Chicken" with sweet potato fries, and Ken had the Chipotle BBQ with steamed kale. Everything was A+.

The fries came with this amazing vegan chipotle (?) ranch dippig sauce. I'm pretty sure that I don't need regular access to that sauce, for the sake of my waist. That shit was gooood.

Veggie Grill was located in a strip mall that was across the street from a Whole Foods. We decided to waste some time there, and randomly stumbled upon VEGAN COOKIE DOUGH GELATO being served at the gelato bar. What, what?!

With our bellies full of vegan fast food and gelato, we thought it might be a good idea to walk back to the hotel. After all, the hotel was only three miles away and the taxi to get us there cost $20 this time. So off we went.
... two and a half hours and maybe five miles later, we found ourselves being blown up against a chain length fence, with airplanes landing just over our heads. Let's just say the area around our hotel and the airport isn't exactly pedestrian friendly. There was a bus, but we didn't know which one to take, and we didn't have cash on us anyway. I got a sunburned forehead from that one. Good times.

On our fourth night in LA, we headed out to the valley (I think it's the valley...) with a group of friends to a fancy place called Madeleine Bistro. Madeleine Bistro is a pretty nondescript looking place, with decor that was so bland I couldn't even tell you what it looked like. But the food! The food wasn't food, it was cuisine. Everything we tried was so delicious and creative. Ken and I shared several small plates:

Yellow corn grits, ragout of wild mushrooms and haricots verts

Lemon-rosemary seitan, grilled asparagus crepe

The bigger macque (two no beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese…)

Chocolate soufflé, vanilla ice crème

Cannolis, Italian strawberry salad

Yes, I ordered grits and a vegan big mac at a fancy restaurant. You can take the girl out'the trailer park, but you can't take the trailer park out'the girl, I suppoose. But they were fancy grits!

New friends and old friends. That's Ken over there in the Cosmo's tee, then Chad (from Food Fight), Jackie (from Alternative Outfitters), Sara, Elsbeth, Josh (from Herbivore), Ashley, Will (Green is the New Red), Dave?, and me. It was a great night after working the exhibit table all day.

Chad's shirt says, "Never Trust an Ex-Vegan". True, true.

Jackie and Josh. This was my first time meeting Jackie, and she is such a sweetheart! Okay, Josh is a sweetheart, too.

Although Los Angeles had plenty of good vegan food to offer, we really were there to work. We set up a Cosmo's table in the exhibit room, where we spent three days talking with nice people, meeting some of our customers in person, and selling the good stuff.

Our table:

We were set up right next to the Earthlings table, which was a sad reminder of why we were all there to begin with. it was a bit hard to hear the audio from this film running next to us all day, and to see people stop and watch the footage, then break down and cry. It's probably the most violent movie of all time, and it's all real footage of how humans routinely treat animals.

Colleen Patrick-Goudreau stopped by our table, so I had to play the fan girl and ask her to pose with her new book, The Vegan Table. She was very nice, as I expected. And her husband laughed at my use of the term "fan girl". Hey, I'm obessed with vegan cookbooks. What can I say?

This is Danielle. She works at Follow Your Heart, also known as The Magical Place Where Vegenaise is Born.

We also met Diana and Eric, creators of Happycow.net. Such nice people, this family! We love Happy Cow. Their site is essential when traveling. They also had their adorable little baby girl with them, whose name, I'm sorry to say, I do not remember.

We met a lot of other amazing activists, including several of the folks from Sea Shepherd. I wasn't gutsy enough to get them to pose for photos, though. I hate to bother people with cameras.

Except Josh. I don't mind bothering him with photos. Here he is with Erik Marcus.

On our last night in town, we were invited to a get together. Some friends were house sitting and dog sitting a tremendous home in the area. Actually, I have no idea where it was. I wasn't driving, and I wasn't really paying attention to how we got there. But I'm glad we went, because we had a wonderful time hanging out with people, swimming in a heated salt water pool (!), and grilling out vegan food.

Ken helping man the grill.

The next morning we packed up and flew home, weary but happy.

Biscoff Cookies! The only tolarable thing about flying. I can get these at a store near our house, but I only really want them on planes. I still think that Biscoff cookies crumbled into cinnamon ice cream would rule, though.

Thanks for reading, if you made it this long! I have some good cooking planned over the next few days. Getting back into the swing of things.

baking my troubles away.

2009-07-12T11:00:00.007-04:00

No other activity calms me down more than the act of baking. It's not just because I get to enjoy something tasty at the end, either. Luckily, I have spent a lot of time building up my pantry so that I can usually have all ingredients to make something, no matter what day it is. This is a good thing lately, as stress has been trying to get the best of me "in this economy". Ugh, I hate when people say that, now here I am saying it. But when your bills are being paid (or not) by retail, that's the way it goes sometimes. You'll never take away my baked goods, stupid economy!! **shakes fist at economy**

Hey, look how cute this is!

That's a Cinnamon Roll Biscuit. I love cinnamon rolls, but I don't make them very often because they're so time consuming with all the rising and what-not. I was recently sent a review copy of Go Dairy Free, and was immediately drawn to this recipe. The dough is of the basic biscuit variety, and you just roll it the same way you would for cinnamon rolls. I plopped them into muffin tins for baking, and they came out great. So quick and easy!

Isn't that little display stand the cutest? You can find one for yourself at Vegan Dish.

This afternoon, we are heading over to my in-law's house for my mother in-law's birthday. I made these big cookies to take along with us.

I adapted the Peanut Better Cookies from Vive le Vegan using sunflower seed butter and chocolate chips instead. I also doubled the recipe and scooped the dough with an ice cream scoop to make 'em huge. I like these a lot. They're soft, chewy, and not too sweet. If you haven't tried sunflower seed butter before, I can't recommend it enough. It's perfect with strawberry preserves for a sammich.

And just as proof that we do actually eat food that's not flour-based, here's some Creamy Potato Asparagus Soup from VWAV.

Hot soup in the summer is only weird if you don't have air conditioning, I think.

Happy Sunday, ya'll.

Portland envy.

2009-07-04T16:41:00.010-04:00

Did I mention that Ken and I recently visited Portland, OR? Well, we did! Last weekend was the Let Live Conference, which is a fantastic animal rights event that does a great job providing information for activists at all levels. Inclusion played a big part during Let Live, with heavy-hitting speakers such as Kim McCoy (Sea Shepherd), Will Potter (Green is the New Red), Nathan Runkle (Mercy For Animals), Gene Baur (Farm Sanctuary) and many others making themselves available for conversation with attendees. The final talk of the conference even covered the topic "Moving Beyond Our Differences", where the discussion focused on different factions within the animal advocacy movement, and how we can all work together to meet a shared goal, even while taking different approaches to our activism. We learned a lot, met some cool and inspiring people, and basked in the glow of the most vegan-friendly city in America.

Kim McCoy opened the conference with some great words about community in the movement. And hey! Here's the video!

Kim McCoy opens the 2009 Let Live Conference from Let Live Foundation on Vimeo.

You can see more videos from the Let Live Conference here.

There was even a karaoke night on Friday, with vegan soft serve. Vegan soft serve! Karaoke is so silly that you pretty much have to enjoy it. Ken and I sang a duet of Jackson (Johnny Cash & June Carter). Luckily, there are no photos or video to prove it. None that I know of, anyway. I did manage to get some hilarious photos of our friend Josh singing karaoke. He sang Gay Bar, which always reminds me of this.

Here's one of Gene Bauer and Jasmin Singer doing a karaoke rendition of What's Going On.

Chad from Food Fight! and Isa from... oh come on. You know who Isa is. Singing Add it Up from Violent Femmes.

Speaking of Isa, while we have some of the same friends, I had not met her before last weekend. I kept seeing her around the conference, and I finally decided to spaz out and introduce myself to her while we both happened to be in a stairwell. I actually stopped on the stairs and introduced myself while she was walking up the stairs. Yes, I'm a total fucking spaz. Why didn't I just follow her to the bathroom and introduce myself while she was mid-pee? It might have been less awkward than the encounter we had. Geez.

Anyway.

Most of our short visit was spent at the conference, but we did manage to get out a few times and enjoy the pretty, climate-controlled vegan bubble that is Portland. And I'm sorry to say that I hardly took any pictures, either. By the looks of my photos, you would think that we only went to Sweetpea Bakery. Well...

All vegan, every single treat in the damn case.

The first night we arrived, Sweetpea was where we shoveled dinner into our mouths. We had deli-sliced seitan sammiches, and a Raspberry Almond Linzer Bar:

Then we went there again the next morning for Biscuits & Gravy, washed down with some yeasted donuts.

The rest of the stores in the vegan mini-mall weren't open that early, so we headed out to the conference for the day. Lunch was catered at the conference by Los Gorditos II, an all vegan Mexican joint. I have not photos to prove it, but trust me, it happened.

On Saturday night we made our way to a place called Chaos Cafe for dinner with friends. This was a vegetarian place with a ton of vegan options. I opted for a version of my favorite food in the whole world, the sammich. This sammich was filled with avocado, tofu, lettuce, tomato, and a zesty tahini sauce. It was pretty much perfect.

Ken ordered some kind of tempeh and kale over quinoa with other stuff I can't remember, and it was delicious as well.

We were beat-down tired from our East Coast to West Coast travel, so we just hung out on Saturday night with our friends and gracious hosts, Josh, Michelle, and Ruby. Here's Michelle and Ruby making some foodstuffs:

Breakfast on Sunday was courtesy of Sip. Sip had a table set up at the conference where they were whipping up fresh smoothies, parfaits and milkshakes. I loved my soy yogurt, fruit and granola parfait. I had a taste of Ken's tropical smoothie, and it was awesome, too.

After the conference was over, we had a chance to hit up the vegan mini mall. The world's first vegan mini mall consists of four all-vegan businesses- Sweetpea Bakery, Herbivore, Food Fight! and Scapegoat Tattoo. It's really exciting to see these businesses coming together to serve the vegan community. Warms the heart, it does. We happily spent our vegan cash in every business except Scapegoat, since neither of us are in the market for more tattoo work at the moment. But maybe on our next trip to Portland, who knows?

Herbivore's window, with a hilarious new tote design:

Our trip was way too short, so we will definitely have to go back soon. If only to try the food cart that sells fried vegan pies. We went for the pies, but the cart was closed on Sundays. Damnit.

vegan bake sale!

2009-07-02T16:59:00.004-04:00

Whew! I need to catch my breath. Since I'm a delicate flower, stressful things like travel and other solid obligations tend to leave me shuddering in the fetal position. But I've also had some fun times!

First up is the vegan bake sale we put together as a part of the Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale. By "we", I mean Laura and I, along with Kevin, Lisa, Steph, Britney, Ashley, and the folks from Dulce Vegan. What a fine spread we had!

I made some sweet potato cinnamon rolls, which were a modified version of the Pumpkin Cinnamon Roll recipe from Don't Eat Off the Sidewalk #2.

I also made some huge sandwich cookies. I started with the Chewy Chocolate Raspberry Cookie recipe from Veganomicon, and made them as big as a baby's head. Then I filled them with some raspberry buttercream of my own creation. I was really happy with how well these turned out, and I was thrilled that they sold quickly.

In front of the sammich cookies you can see the crispy rice pops. I just made some cocoa crispy rice treats using Dandies Marshmallows and Koala Crisp Cereal. Then I formed them into a ball around some lollipop sticks, and dipped the ends into some melted white chocolate. This is SO not baking. But hey, they were easy and cute.

Everyone else made even better goodies, and people bought them like crazy. In fact, we raised a whopping $700 for CatSnip!

Aloha Bars by Lisa:

Jamaican Callalo Pies by Laura:

Scones and cookies by Dulce Vegan:

Mini Bundts and Whoopie Pies by Laura:

Cookies and Cream Cupcakes by Britney:

Magical Coconut Bars by Ashley:

Cupcakes by Lisa:

Me and my buddy Kevin. Kevin made some homemade vegan hot dogs and hot dog buns, but I didn't get to photograph them before they were all sold out. They were the hit of the sale!

A lot of people came out for the sale, even though it was blazing hot outside! Thank goodness Laura borrowed a tent from work, or we would all be dead from sun stroke.

It was a really fun time, and I'm looking forward to doing it all again next year. But hopefully in the spring, when it's not 95 degrees out!

brownies and garage sale mojo.

2009-06-16T14:27:00.002-04:00

Ever since summer began this year, the suburbs around here have been swollen with garage sales. I am totally down with OPC (other people's crap). Every weekend these sales beckon me, with my little handful of quarters. That's how I avoid spending too much money, you know. I only bring to a garage sale what I can scrounge up in coins.

This weekend I went to a charity rummage sale for Mostly Mutts, a local animal rescue. It's there I found an adorable cast iron muffin pan that was still sealed in it's original packaging. Not bad for only one buck!
After cleaning and seasoning the pan, I promptly baked a batch of fudge brownies using a recipe from The Vegan Scoop. This recipe came out great! The brownies were perfectly fudgy, not cakey. Here they are in my new little cast iron pan:

And here are the brownies resting on another garage sale find. Have you ever seen such a cute cutting board?

Becky referred to my recent finds as garage sale mojo. I like that.

oh so busy.

2009-06-13T17:12:00.003-04:00

Sorry, sorry. I've got a lot going on this month, so I haven't really been putting a much effort into cooking. And I don't expect my time to open up this month either, as I'm putting together a Vegan Bake Sale, then traveling to Portland, OR for the Let Live Conference!

But here's what I've been up to in the kitchen lately:

A couple more tester recipes from the upcoming Vegan Latina. Potato Pancakes with Peanut Sauce

And some arepas stuffed with a tempeh and avocado filling:

Here's a little hand pie I made using a basic biscuit recipe. The filling is some kind of weird but tasty concoction I made using Soy Curls, nutritional yeast sauce, and spinach. I like savory breakfasts, and these were great for a few mornings' worth of meals.

We finally had a chance to try the new Dandies vegan marshmallows. After eating a few straight from the bag, I proceeded to make cereal treats using a vegan HFS version of Cocoa Puffs. Pretty tasty!

Now, this lovely little Pyrex teacup is filled with vegan vanilla ice cream. We bought a copy of The Vegan Scoop, and we are thrilled with the ice cream recipes so far. This soy-based vanilla was smooth, creamy, and pretty much perfect. We also tried the Rocky Road ice cream, and it was crazy good.

That's a homemade ladyfinger sticking out of the ice cream, too. The last chapter of The Vegan Scoop is filled with some amazing sounding baked goods. I'm sorry to say that the recipe for Ladyfingers didn't work out for me at all. In fact, they sucked something awful. I was expecting a light, spongy little cake, but instead got a hard, crusty, dense little cake. Not sure what happened there, but my perfect ladyfinger recipe search continues. But don't take this as a bad review for the book, because it really is an ice cream book and the ice cream recipes really deliver! I'm excited to try more frozen treats from this title very soon.

Alright. I will leave you with a pitiful picture of little Miles. Sleeping is the only time he's being good.

Atlanta Vegan Bake Sale!

2009-06-04T12:10:00.003-04:00

This is for the local folks- Please come visit us during the Atlanta Vegan Bake Sale on June 21st! We will be stuffing every maw in L5P with vegan baked goodness. And if you feel like posting some flyers, please feel free! Flyer1 Flyer2 Flyer3

bunnies! and some food, too.

2009-05-23T15:14:00.004-04:00

Our neighborhood seems to attract bunnies in the spring, and this year we think we have a warren* in our backyard! Ken took some photos of this cute bun bun.

Eee! I want to love him and squeeze him and call him George! But I doubt the bunny would be cool with that.

Anyway, I made more food this week. Gotta eat, right?

Probably the healthiest dinner we had this week was Moroccan Stew from The Vegan Table. This was a nice way to have sweet potatoes with a bit of sweet spice. I served it over quinoa for some extra protein. The recipe is formally called Saffron Spiked Moroccan Stew, but I skipped the saffron. I just couldn't justify buying saffron threads for this one dish when I probably wouldn't use them again anytime soon. But hey, it was still a great stew!

I haven't made anything from Yellow Rose Recipes in a while, so I whipped up the fast and easy recipe for Sloppy Joannas. Like all of the recipes I've made from YRR, these are just mighty fine. Nothing fancy, just easy and tasty. I was kinda sad to hear that YRR author Joanna Vaught will no longer be writing cookbooks, but I totally understand why. So I'll just have to enjoy her upcoming zine, and keep cookin' from YRR.

Another cookbook that's been out a while that I love everything I make from is Cozy Inside. I purchased the pdf download for a measly eight bucks, and I get plenty of kitchen mileage out of it. I found probably the most fattening dish I've ever eaten in this cookbook though, the recipe for Pasta Alfredo. THIS IS AWESOME. I don't even care that the sauce contains an entire tub of Tofutti cream cheese, because it is damned fabulous! Pictures do not do this sauce justice, believe me.

I'm sort of glad that the leftovers for this are all gone now, because that was a whole lot of fat and calories. But so worth it, ya'll.

Something else nice that happened this week was May 19th. Ken and I met on May 19th, 2001. Yeah, we celebrate lots of anniversaries because we are dorks. So we went out to dinner to celebrate eight years of knowing each other. <3

The vegan Classic Chocolate Cake is always the best part about eating at Cafe Sunflower. Coincidentally, we had this same cake made as our wedding cake in 2004! You can see Ken's piece of strawberry cake in the background, also a delicious cake selection.

I love you, sweets!

*Thank you, Watership Down for that vocabulary word for today.

alright, so maybe vegetables aren't your thing?

2009-05-19T15:16:00.004-04:00

But I bet you like waffles! Peanut Butter Waffles from Vegan Brunch:

After this picture was taken, we smeared them with mixed berry jelly. Geez, so good. These were the fastest cooking waffles ever, too. For some reason they took half the time to cook that a regular waffle does. That's because they're super waffles.

Now, for some vegetables. Ha! See how I tricked you with waffles before?

This is a recipe from a cookbook called Vegan Italiano- Braised Romaine with Kidney Beans, which we had over some protein-packed quinoa. I've always wanted to try cooking romaine somehow, and this worked well. The romaine turned slightly sweet when braised. Ken and I both really liked this dish.

Hey, I baked some cookies last night, too. These are the White Diamond Cookies from La Dolce Vegan. The centers of these cookies turned out really gooey, which Ken loved. They are a peanut butter and cocoa cookie with white chocolate chips. Tasty!

As you can probably tell, I'm definitely enjoying our new camera, as well as our new schedule that allows me more kitchen time!

project vegetable is in effect.

2009-05-15T16:48:00.003-04:00

I'm not a total junk food vegan. I mean, I do eat more vegetables than the typical SAD follower. But I do love to eat bread and sweets, that's for sure. Not to mention that I work all day surrounded by vegan sweets! In fact, I have gained nearly fifty pounds over the past four years. Because of this, I'm really trying to fill up on more vegetables as well as exercise a bit more. I get bored with salads all the time, but luckily I have a whole mess of cookbooks to fill me with vegetable inspiration.

I finally cracked open Vegan Soul Kitchen this week. VSK is filled with so many healthy options, it was hard to choose what to make first. We started with a modified version of Wilted Swiss Chard and Spinach with Lemon-Tahini Dressing. I say "modified" because I forgot to buy more tahini, so I subbed sunflower seed butter in it's place. I'm sure the sunflower seed butter brought in a completely different flavor than tahini would have, but we still enjoyed this simple way to eat greens. Scrumptious. We served it over quinoa along side a salad.

Another easy VSK dish we made this week is Crisp Green Beans with Roasted Shallots and Walnuts. This was quick, easy, and had tons of flavor thanks to the roasted shallots and tangy dijon vinaigrette.

Moe wanted in on the action. Get out of there! Bad kitty!

Of course we didn't eat just green beans for dinner. I made a batch of Orange Sesame Tofu from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan to go along with it.

The tofu dish was good, with a nice bright orange flavor. The sauce was way too watery, though. I'll definitely need to thicken that sauce more next time.

eating my way through a slew of new cookbooks

2009-05-13T14:45:00.005-04:00

Before a few days ago, if someone would have suggested I make my own bagels, the concept would have confused me. That's like me trying to wittle a toothbrush out of a pine tree or something. Why bother, when vegan bagels are cheap and plentiful? Well, I'm here to tell you why. Because homemade bagels taste better than any other bread product in the whole world, that's why. I know this now. I've grown a lot since Monday.

The recipe for these lovely bagels can be found in the new Vegan Brunch by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. Don't let the idea of bagel-making scare you, either. They were insanely easy to make. I've been excited about this book since I first heard about it, because I'm all about some breakfast foods. As expected, the book looks awesome, so I'm sure I'll be cooking from it plenty.

Another new title I picked up this week is The Vegan Table by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau. This book is set up nicely, with seasonal menu ideas for entertaining. While we rarely entertain anyone besides our cats (and they would probably say we're not entertaining at all), I'm sure we will still get a chance to enjoy some recipes from TVT. Last night, we tried the Caramelized Tempeh Shwarmas.

Open shwarma on lavash bread:

A look at the caramelized tempeh:

All wrapped up. I need a lesson on lavash folding:

Overall, Ken and I were just lukewarm on these. I really like tempeh in general, so that wasn't the issue. I think the problem for me was the ingredient amounts were a bit off. The recipe was supposed to make four servings, but 8 oz of tempeh divided four ways would have been pretty scant. So rather than having one shwarma each then saving one each for lunch the next day, we ended up splitting up the tempeh between the two of us. Also, the sauce was delicious but the amount was so tiny, we barely had enough for the two shwarmas. We really wanted more sauce. The cucumber/tomato/onion/parsley combo made way too much, enough to stuff 6-8 shwarmas. I don't know if I'll bother with these again, but if I do, I will definitely triple the sauce amounts, half the veggie amounts and double the tempeh amounts. I know that this could totally be personal preference, so you should consider that, too.

Hey, have I mentioned that I'm one of the lucky testers of Terry Hope Romero's upcoming cookbook Vegan Latina? Of course I have. It's exciting! Here's a look at a yummy Cuban Style Black Bean Soup from Vegan Latina:

a belly full of Chicago.

2009-05-07T16:49:00.004-04:00

Ken and I headed to Chicago with our friends Jill & Tony this past weekend, and it was a nice break from our usual routine. Ken and Tony had tickets to see a huge, two day show, which left Jill and I free to roam about the city. While we had great fun and noshed on lots of vegan foods, I'm sorry to say that I didn't get pictures of everything we ate. What kind of food blogger am I?! Geez! Also, we were kind of limited to a few restaurant choices that were near the venue. Luckily, there was plenty of vegan food on North Clark Street. Let's take a little food tour, shall we?

Vegan French Toast at Pick Me Up Cafe. Holy shit. Would you just look at that plate of bread? It's an entire loaf's worth of fried, sweetened, vegan goodness. Ken got this for breakfast one morning, but of course we shared.

That same morning, I had Tofu Benedict. This was a great dish, smothered with various veggies and some kind of tasty cheezy sauce.

We went to Pick Me Up Cafe a total of three times in two days, partially because it was awesome and mostly because it was on the same street as the venue. Jill and I went back on Saturday afternoon for salads and Teese Fries.

Speaking of Teese Fries, let me just mention how well Chicago Soy Dairy has to saturated that city with their vegan cheese and ice cream. Seriously, everywhere we turned it was milkshakes, pizza, hot dog toppings, etc. And most of these restaurants are not exclusively vegetarian, but they have more vegan options thanks to the CSD guys. It's really amazing and wonderful! Atlanta needs to get on the ball with more vegan options, for real.

Er, where was I? Saturday. We also took a trip on the El to a suburb (I think it's a suburb..) of Chicago to visit an all vegan store called Ethical Planet.

Ethical Planet is a really cute general store tucked into an equally cute part of town called Evanston. The owner, Fran, was super nice and down to earth. We picked up a few chocolate treats, and Jill bought a veg-themed children's book. I have promised myself to support vegan businesses when I travel (and any other time) as much as I possibly can, because it directly helps the vegan community. Since I'm a vegan business owner myself, I know that this is extremely important. If you're vegan, please do me a solid and support your local vegan businesses! Thanks!

Okay, more food. When Chicago comes up in conversation, one restaurant that almost every vegan mentions is Chicago Diner.

Full disclosure here: at this part of the evening, my stomach was kind of wrecked from walking 100 miles and eating Teese Fries, so I didn't eat much at Chicago Diner. Keep this in mind as you read my thoughts on this vegetarian joint.
First I'll mention the good stuff: the service we received at Chicago Diner was stellar, which was especially impressive considering how freakin' packed the place was when we were there. We arrived close to closing time, and everyone was super nice and attentive. They even gave us little cups filled with cake samples when we sat down. The cake sample was mighty delicious, too. All I ordered was a smoothie, which was perfectly fine. Ken ordered a vegan chicken parm dish, which looked really uninspired. He said it was "just okay", but he ate it anyway since has was starving from hanging out at his testosterone fest all afternoon. Tony liked his dinner pretty well, which was a sandwich of some sort. But really, I think the reason why people love Chicago Diner so much is because of the milkshakes. And for good reason! Of course they use Chicago Soy Dairy Temptation ice cream as a base, then you pick your flavor.
Ken and I shared the best strawberry shake I've ever put in my mouth:

It was a real thing of beauty. J & T got some crazy awesome peanut butter chocolate shake, which we had a sip of. It was... Hm. There are no words. Just damn good, I guess.

Okay! Sunday! After another breakfast at Pick Me Up and walking back to the venue with the boys, Jill and I headed to a baseball game at Wrigley Field.

If you know me in real life, then you know this is weird. I don't know anything about any sport, especially baseball. But I'm always up for a new experience, especially when it involves mass hysteria. Mass hysteria is the best way I can explain all the blue and red clothing, yelling, and public drunkenness that was found on N. Clark Street. Complete strangers kept wanting to high five us just for walking by! Chicago sure loves baseball. And since Jill loves baseball too, she treated me to a game. It was pretty cool. She explained baseball stuff to me, and I saw a grand slam. Woo? Woo!

Sunday night (and also on Friday night) we ate at a place called Handlebar. I had a very decent vegan buffalo chicken wrap there, but I took no photos because it was too dark for photos. We ended up at Handlebar twice because it was open later than the other places we knew about. They had several decent vegan options, too. It saved us twice when most other veg restaurants had stopped serving for the night.

Monday was departure day, but we managed to work in some touristy stuff on the way to the airport. We stopped by Grant Park and Millennium Park for some photo ops.

Our last stop before the airport was a restaurant called Earwax. Delicious name, eh? I don't know if any restaurant should be named after body secretions. But. I did really like this place, despite the damn disgusting name. Earwax's decor was awfully cool- it had a Coney Island freak show flair to it.

I had some chamomile tea, and a huge sandwich with avocado, cucumbers, sunflower sprouts and some kind of vegan tomato-mayo spread. It was a very fine sammich.

Ken's plate of food looked really nasty to me, but actually tasted great. He got a vegan sloppy joe with fries.

...and then we flew home, yadda yadda. After all the excessive eating over the weekend, I feel like I need to eat detox food for a whole month. Salads, salads, salads.

Here's one last Chicago photo of Ken and I. He's so cute :)

Garlic & Mozzarella Quick Bread

2009-04-26T17:36:00.004-04:00

I really like making quick breads because... well, because they're quick. I love to eat my carbs in the form of bread, but I rarely have time to deal with the rising and kneading that goes along with yeast breads. After my recent love affair with one of the dessert breads from Don't eat Off the Sidewalk #2, I decided to make a savory version of the loaf-style quick bread. It turned out mighty good, too. I do believe I'll make this one again. my version is a garlic bread with shredded mozzarella Teese and fresh basil. I topped it with a few Roma tomato slices, but I may go further next time and add some chopped sun dried tomatoes right into the bread.

This recipe turns out two loaves (we ate one, and sent one to my dad), and the recipe here is adapted from the Cranberry Chocolate Almond Bread recipe from Don't Eat off the Sidewalk #2.

Garlic & Mozzarella Quick Bread

Dry Ingredients:
1 1/3 cup all purpose flour
1 1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 Tbsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

Wet Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup plain soy milk
2/3 cup canola oil
1/4 cup + 2 Tbsp non dairy yogurt (I used plain coconut milk yogurt)
4-5 cloves worth of minced garlic

1/2 cup shredded vegan mozzarella (I used Teese)
8-10 fresh basil leaves, cleaned and chopped into small pieces

Preheat oven to 350F. Spray two loaf pans with canola oil spray.

In a large bowl, combine the wet ingredients including the minced garlic. In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients. Sift or stir until well mixed. Combine the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients using a spoon or whisk. Mix until incorporated, but be careful not to overmix.

Fold in the shredded mozzarella and chopped basil. Pour batter into each loaf pan, filing each pan equally. Top the loaves with some sliced tomatoes for decoration, if you would like. I recommend using a less juicy type of tomato, like Roma.

Bake in the oven for 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. let cool before slicing.

Atlanta Vegan Bake Sale!

2009-04-22T12:43:00.002-04:00

Atlanta is participating in the Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale! If you are in metro Atlanta, please bookmark our blog here for updates on the sale. If you are in another city, how about putting one of these together yourself? Yay! Baked goods!

holiday baking.

2009-04-13T16:24:00.003-04:00

Ken and I both did a little bit of baking yesterday! We wanted to take something nice with us to Ken's folk's house. Ken whipped up a batch of Dreena Burton's Peanut Better Cookies, from Vive Le Vegan. He subbed the maple syrup with a maple & agave blend that we found at Trader Joe's. They were still nice and sweet, and slightly chewy. Don't you just love his fork marks?

I've been meaning to try the Raspberry Chocolate Chip Blondie Bars from Vegan with a Vengeance, and I finally did! These were really pretty, and of course they tasted great, too. In place of the called-for raspberries, I used a blend of raspberries, cherries and blueberries.

The couple who bakes together, stays together ya'll.

more pizza.

2009-04-11T17:54:00.003-04:00

We usually make pizza at home once a week. Pizza is one of those foods that I could probably eat every day, given the chance. Here's one of my favorite topping combinations. Fresh spinach, onions, tomatoes, seasoned Soy Curls, and mozzarella Teese:

Man, I love pizza. And our new camera.

Ouch, and yum.

2009-04-06T17:32:00.003-04:00

Even though I'm feeling much better, I still have a slight cough. And while this slight cough is way better than the hacking, nasty cough of a few weeks ago, I have managed to pull all kinds of muscles in my rib area from coughing. Man, it hurts! I sneezed earlier, and it felt like I was in a collision or something. I can barely lift my arms up, which is no good for many reasons. So I ask you, dear readers: Has this happened to you before? What should I do for the soreness, besides whine and complain? The W&C method doesn't seem to be working for me.

Okay, food! I took advantage of some spare time (!) yesterday, and whipped up a few things. Like this yummy Cherry Chocolate Almond bread.

The recipe for this bread is from Don't Eat Off the Sidewalk #2, with only a minor adjustment. The recipe called for dried cranberries, and I subbed dried cherries. This bread is epic. In fact, it stirs so many emotions that it should be called PMS bread. So there you go. Also, it's pretty!

I also made another tester recipe from the upcoming Vegan Latina, Sweet Basil & Corn Pot Pie (Pastel de Choclo). I can't think of a better way to kill 2 hours then to make this lovely dish.

After all that cooking yesterday, I think I might just have a sandwich for dinner tonight. After I call the waaambulance* about my sore ribs.

*Thanks, Christy. This made me laugh. But the laughing hurt my ribs, so...

feeling better, eating too much. as usual.

2009-03-25T18:40:00.003-04:00

I'm back, baby! I'm still coughing like a coal miner with black lung, but other than that, I've been feeling good and cooking plenty. This entry is going to be a recap of some of our recent eats.

First, my favorite falafel in the world, from Alibaba's in L5P. A big thanks to Kevin and Laura for getting me hooked on this place. If I were buried under a pile of Alibaba's tabouli, I could eat my way out without so much as a burp. This fueled my to-do list today:

The vegan samosas looked nice, but they were kind of "eh". I'll probably just stick the basics next time.

Now, you will notice that the foods I've been most excited about this past week have been of the higher-fat, lower health variety. I'm sorry about that, but really I have just been wanting some comfort food. You can relate, can't you?

With that, I give you Vegan Country Fried Steak!

Holy Moly. This is the first time I've veganized country fried steak, and it was all I hoped for and more. Oh, so much more. I will provide you with a recipe soon, if anyone is interested. We had the steak topped with cream gravy made from the "drippings" (mmm, drippings), and a side of smokey collard greens. That biscuit (recipe) is from Yellow Rose Recipes.

What to do with leftover biscuits the next morning? Heat 'em up and shove some Smart Bacon and Mozzarella Teese slices in the middle!

That Teese was warm, I just didn't melt it to the oozing point. So good.

Something exciting that I've been doing lately is some recipe testing for Terry Hope Romero's upcoming cookbook, Vegan Latina. I'm only one of a big handful of testers that are working on getting Terry's recipes tested, and I am thrilled to be a part of it. And getting a sneak preview of the awesome recipes has been pretty cool, too! I've made quite a few of the recipes, but unfortunately the bulk of them were made before we got the camera that actually works. But I finally have proof I made something! Look!

These are Llapingachos (Potato Pancakes) with Peanut Sauce. And here I thought I had fried a potato in every way possible. The peanut sauce is crazy too, with tomato and a light spice. I want to eat these every single day. We had these along side some tempeh triangles that I just threw together to have some extra protein. Oof.

With all this fried stuff, I feel the presence of the great goddess Paula.

Bye, ya'll.

March: in like a lion and out like sinusitis.

2009-03-21T13:53:00.002-04:00

Lordy. I can't even begin to describe how overwhelmed I'm feeling right now. I've missed an unheard of four days from work this week, because I came down with Black Death , and I'm still fighting it. Well, it's more like "a really bad cold that turned into a sinus infection", but since I don't get sick very often, I tend to exaggerate a bit when I do. The timing is very bad, as we are in the process of moving the store to a new location by end of next week. I'm so behind on everything! Aaahh!

All the sickness has me behind on my eating, and certainly my cooking. I'll have you know that I haven't had any type of sweet- not a cookie, piece of candy, brownie, cake, or the like for days now. DAYS! What will become of me?!

I'm excited that when I am back to cooking and baking the good stuff, that the photos on here will be better, or at least in focus. We finally got a new camera! Yay! It's a Nikon D40, and I am thrilled. I haven't been able to give it a really proper test run yet, but I will. For now, I will leave you with a picture of my pretty Berry Bowl from Jeanette at Vessels & Wares. As you can see, it works great for grapes, too.

Alright, gotta go blow my nose (again) and stress about all the stuff I gotta do.

full of excuses and flour.

2009-03-03T17:23:00.006-05:00

I am full of excuses. For one thing, our fridge has been broken for almost a week now. Some food was lost, but some we were able to salvage and stuff into a little fridge we have in the basement (luckily!). A repair person is expected to arrive tomorrow morning, and hopefully fix that problem. Needless to say, we haven't been cooking very much. But we did scrape up a nice meal on Sunday night, on the one and only snowy day Georgia will probably see this year.

Mmm, seitan and dumplings.

I took the base of this dish from volume 2 of Don't Eat Off the Sidewalk, the Vegetable Stew with Herbed Dumplings recipe. This zine is no longer in print, but Herbivore still has some copies. Anyway, we didn't feel like braving the grocery store, since Georgians freak-the-fuck-out and buy tons of food when it snows. So I made a variation of this stew with seitan, potatoes, corn, and onions. It was good, but the dumplings made this really supreme. I mean, big globs of cooked bread floating around in stew? How could that be bad? If I had planned ahead for this dish, it certainly would have included some greens. But still, a nice, warm bowl of stuff for a cold night.

I've been trying not to bake very often either, as I am attempting to bring my weight down a bit. But I baked last night, after a long hiatus.

These are the Brownie Cookies from Cozy Inside, sandwiched with a vegan buttercream style filling. Ken and I liked these a lot, but I would probably add just a bit more cocoa to the cookies next time.

Okay! Now, I'm going to share with you some recent thrift finds that made me feel all happy inside.

China Cow!

Desserts Men Like, 1956

There are some grody recipes in that one. Despite the cheesecake and excited men on the cover.

This one has some better looking recipes in it, although too many of them call for ingredients such as "whole sponge cake" and "lady fingers". I didn't realize semi-homemade was so popular in 1941!

almond fried "chicken" for v day.

2009-02-15T15:50:00.002-05:00

Nothing is more romantic than fried food. Nothing!

And hey, don't you just love out of focus food pictures?

Ken and I don't usually go out for Valentine's Day. Not because we're not sappy in love, but because we both have some mild anti-social tendencies that make crowded restaurants a less than pleasurable experience. We'll go out for dinner on Monday, when everything is back to normal. So we made fried "chicken", mashed potatoes and gravy last night! But before I launch into how awesome the breading on this vegan chicken is, I have to tell you about the collard greens that we did not eat.

I'm no stranger to cooking greens, so I was especially weirded out by this experience. We had a nice, big bundle of collards from our weekly CSA, and they looked like they were in great shape. They appeared fresh and green, with few bug spots. I cleaned them well, then chopped them and tossed them in with some veggie broth and a bit of oil to cook down. After about ten minutes, the most foul smell came wafting through the kitchen. It was coming from the greens pot! The smell was seriously rancid, like we were boiling sweaty socks. We had to get rid of that crap immediately. The broth I used was some concentrated stock from Trader Joe's that I have used many times. They come in individual 1 cup packs, so it was unopened before I used it.

....so I ask you folks. WTF happened?! Why did my seemingly beautiful collards turn nasty? has anyone had this happened before?

Luckily, the "chicken" was so good, that it almost made up for the lack of greens. I cannot recommend this breading enough. I used it on the May Wah Wings, but it would be just as awesome on tofu, tempeh, asparagus, cauliflower, or anything else you can think of to bread and fry. If you don't want the extra fat of frying, try it baked.

Best Almond Breading Ever

1 cup unsalted, roasted almonds, ground in a food processor
1/4 cup flour (I used WW Pastry)
1 Tbsp smoked paprika
1 tsp salt
1 tsp garlic powder
3/4 cup unsweetened soy milk
2 Tbsp brown mustard

You will need two bowls, one for the wet ingredients and one for the dry. In the dry bowl, use a fork to mix together the ground almonds, flour, paprika, salt, and garlic powder. In the wet bowl, whisk together the soy milk and mustard.
If frying: make sure your oil and skillet are nice and hot. Take one piece of food that you are breading, and quickly dip it in the wet ingredients. Then dip it in the dry ingredients, coating completely. Transfer immediately to the hot skillet. Repeat with each piece.
If baking: lightly spray a baking sheet with spray oil. Take one piece of food that you are breading, and quickly dip it in the wet ingredients. Then dip it in the dry ingredients, coating completely. Transfer immediately to the baking sheet. Repeat with each piece. Lightly spray the top of the food with the spray, then bake at 400f for about fifteen minutes until browned on the bottom. Flip pieces, then bake until the other side is browned.

Try it, you'll like it!

kittee's cheeze grits.

2009-01-29T15:03:00.004-05:00

Today's breakfast was my favorite recipe from Papa Tofu. Cheeze Grits! I made this batch with Mozzarella Teese and topped them with some french fried onions and a few sun dried tomatoes. Yummm.

breakfasting.

2009-01-28T20:12:00.003-05:00

While Ken and I lead fairly hectic lives, the one thing that is nice is our days start a bit later. We don't open the store until noon, so we almost always have time for a nice breakfast before we run off to do chores or meet appointments before work. Sometimes breakfast consists of a bagel with a side of tofu scramble, other times it's cereal and fruit. And every now and then, we cook up a monster breakfast!

Ken has been looking through my cookbook collection recently, because he wants to start cooking more. Cool! So a few mornings ago, I was treated to Fronch Toast from Vegan with a Vengeance. He even used a sourdough baguette for it. Fancy!

We had the Fronch Toast with maple syrup and some yummy wild blueberry sauce from Trader Joe's.

Speaking of bottled sauces from Trader Joe's, we also found some Black Pepper Thai sauce that is perfect for adding some flavor to an otherwise typical stir fry:

This was a quick dinner of stir fry broccoli & cashews with black pepper sauce, some May Wah "chicken" legs also coated in the sauce, brown rice, and boiled edamame. All prepared in about 25 minutes. I like cooking from scratch as much as the next vegan blogger, but eating dinner at 10:30 can be a real hassle sometimes. Quick, easy meals help us on many occasion!

cozy inside and out.

2009-01-16T18:57:00.004-05:00

So I finally dipped into my copy of Cozy Inside, and it did not disappoint. I actually made Joni's recipe for a Fluffy Omelet first, but forgot to photograph it. D'oh! It's probably for the best anyway, because I can't flip vegan omelets for crap, so they always tear and look bad. But it tasted oh-so-good. I'm sure we will be making those again real soon.

Last night, I made the tasty and fart-tastic Spicy 3 Bean TVP Chili & Sweet Skillet Cornbread. It really hit the spot on a freezing winter night, and made a huge amount for leftovers. We will be eating this chili for a long, long time.

I loved both parts of this meal, but the cornbread really blew my skirt up! It was moist yet firm, not too sweet (despite the name), and perfect slathered in Earth Balance. Plus, I love anything that requires baking in an iron skillet.

Something else I'm excited about is the upcoming berry season. My friend Jeanette of Vegan Dish made me this gorgeous berry bowl! The fuzzy pictures I took do not do this bowl justice.

Jeanette makes some wonderful things, so do check out both of her stores, Vegan Dish and Vessels & Wares. I am really looking forward to displaying my new berry bowl, along with my recently framed kitchen prints just as soon as I paint our goofy, outdated kitchen.

Behold, the goofy:

As much as I wish we could afford to renovate our kitchen with new cabinets and counter tops, we simply cannot. The best I can do is manage to paint the walls one color, and throw some fresh paint on the cabinets. I'll probably replace the cabinet pulls too, if we can scrape up the money. But want to see the weirdest part of our kitchen? Here's the ceiling:

We can't figure out why the kitchen ceiling has this cut out. Is is functional? A design element? Who knows? I do have a new, nicer ceiling fan waiting to be put up after I paint and get rid of the fug wallpaper border. But I have been trying to figure out the best thing to do to the space where the wallpaper currently lives. Here are my thoughts so far:

-tile
-decoupage vintage postcards and/or recipe cards
-get a slew of old forks and spoons from the thrift store and glue them up there in a pattern of some sort
-paint a solid color

What are your thoughts on my ceiling hole? Huh?

non-edibles.

2009-01-11T15:55:00.005-05:00

Sorry, sorry. I have all kinds of excuses for not blogging, so pick any of the following that you like the best:

- the overcast weather every single fucking day is bumming me out
- no time to cook any food fancy enough to take a picture of
- my new year's resolution of cutting back on sugar is bumming me out
- I'm just bummed out

But, hey! I am excited about a cookbook I just purchased. I know it's been out a while, but I finally bought the downloadable copy of Joni Marie's Cozy Inside. It looks really great. Does anyone have some recommendations for their favorite recipes from this?

Also, I want to share with you my christmas present. I had our friend Tony custom create some zombie-themed shoes for me. Aren't they rad?

If you are want some unique, all-vegan kicks, then you can get in touch with Tony via his Etsy shop here. See some of his other designs there, too!

post christmas laziness

2008-12-26T15:02:00.002-05:00

I trust everyone has been enjoying their holidays! Today has been filled with glorious lounging around, with some minor cooking thrown in for good measure. I had intended to make a vegetable pot pie to bring to family for Christmas day, but I wound up in bed all day with a migraine instead. Fun times! Today has been much better. In fact, it feels like my head was chopped off, and I sprouted a new, pain-free one. What relief. And how 'bout that imagery, huh?

So I made this pot pie today:

I didn't follow a recipe for this, except for the top crust. The crust is the basic pie crust from The Joy of Vegan Baking. The filling includes all local veggies from our last Vegetable Husband shipment, sweet potatoes, parsnips, and collard greens.

Yum! This made a great lunch!

the husband.

2008-12-20T19:10:00.004-05:00

Vegetable Husband, that is. This week's shipment was a doozie:

Huge chinese cabbage, bok choy, onions, butternut squash, cilantro, carrots, mixed greens & collards. The cabbage and bok choy were promptly thrown into a stir fry, along with a couple of the cute little carrots. The cats were OBSESSED with the leafy carrot tops on these, too. Moe was putting his face right in, purring at them and chewing away. Miles was trying to rip them from the counter top.

Bratty Miles, playing with the carrot:

Moe, all mad at me after I cut their tops off:

Silly kitties.

Vegan Chicken Parm Sammie

2008-12-17T19:41:00.004-05:00

We have been too busy with work to even breathe, but damn if I didn't make time to create a fatty amazing dinner last night!
Here we have a Vegan Chicken Parmesan Sandwich. It's stuffed with Mozzarella Teese and topped with pizza sauce & Parma, in case you were wondering:

Here's the deal. I saw that Laura stuffed some Match Meat, so I had to copy her (again). She's fun to copy. And we are huge fans of the Match Meat vegan products already, so this just had to happen. Here's the recipe, which I cannot recommend enough.

Vegan Chicken Parm
serves 4 little mouths or 2 big mouths

1 lb. Match Ground "Chicken", thawed
1/2 cup grated Mozzarella Teese
2 Tbsp Chik-Style Seasoning, or other vegan "chicken style" seasoning
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp black pepper
1 cup unsweetened soy milk
2 cups panko breadcrumbs
2 Tbsp brown mustard
oil for frying

Firstly, heat up your skillet over medium heat.
Clean an area on your counter to spread out the Match Meat. A large, flat surface is best. Roll out the Match "chicken" into a large rectangle about 1/4" thick. Sprinkle about half of the seasonings over the Match Meat evenly, patting it in here and there. Flip your rectangle, and season up the other side.

Sprinkle the grated Teese over one side of the rectangle. Fold over your rectangle, sandwiching the Teese in the middle. Press the ends of the rectangle shut, and evenly cut into four equal-ish squares. Set aside.

In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the soy milk with the mustard. In a second bowl, pour in the breadcrumbs. Dip each square into the soy milk mixture, then into the breadcrumbs, coating evenly. Toss into the hot skillet, and continue with the rest of your pieces. Brown evenly on each side, then serve on a bun with pizza sauce of your choice. This is great without a bun, too.

Pizza Fusion in ATL

2008-12-14T09:34:00.003-05:00

Ken and I go anywhere there's good vegan pizza to be had. We heard that a new pizza chain called Pizza Fusion recently opened up in Atlanta, so we headed out to Buckhead to try it.

The first thing we noticed was the restaurant space. It is big, dimly lit, clean and comfortable. The place is huge, and the tables are spaced well enough apart that you wouldn't be all up in your neighbors business should the place get crowded. Our server explained that the entire space was built in an eco-friendly manner, from the type of flooring and paint, to the tables and recycled plastic chairs. Pretty cool! The servers all wore shirts that read "My Carbon Footprint is Smaller than Yours", which struck us as funny and kind of smug. Especially since Pizza Fusion serves up plenty of "happy meat". They best stay out of the business of our carbon footprint.

But anyway. On to the food. The food Pizza Fusion serves is 75% organic, which is great (and rare) for a pizza joint. We knew from looking at the PF website that their dough and sauce is vegan, and that they offer a vegan soy cheese. We placed an order for a pizza with soy cheese and a variety of toppings. Individual toppings here are $2 each, so that really added up. But we knew going in that Pizza Fusion was a bit more expensive than the average pizza place, which is completely understandable considering the cost of organic food. The only price I really couldn't wrap my head around was the $2 it cost to add roasted garlic to our pie. The garlic really should have been slathered on there for that price, which it wasn't.

But the pizza overall! It was really, really delicious. We completely devoured it.

The pizza had a thin, slightly chewy crust that was to die for. The soy cheese melted great in the pizza oven, and the caramelized onions we ordered as a topping added to the yum factor tremendously. I have no complaints about this pizza at all. It was smaller than we thought it was going to be, but after we had eaten it all, we decided that it was probably the right size for us not to have overindulged like we would have on a typical pizza.

And they offer a vegan, gluten free chocolate brownie for dessert. Can't say no to that, eh?

Actually, we probably will say no to the brownie next time. It tasted pretty old, like perhaps it had been frozen for a while, then heated up in the oven. The edges were crunchy and stale, while the middle was mushy. Ah, well. Maybe they will consider offering vegan baked goods made locally sometime in the future, to avoid the staleness.

But the organic, vegan pizza and the comfortable atmosphere will definitely bring us back to Pizza Fusion. Check it out sometime!

boring ol' vegetables, that's all.

2008-12-10T19:45:00.003-05:00

Hey buddies. Long time no see, eh? Sorry about that. We have been very busy at work with the holiday season and all, that cooking has become very uncreative. Our evenings after work the past few weeks have pretty much consisted of us rolling into the driveway around 9:00pm, feeding the yelling kitties, then boiling some water and shoving food into our maws as quickly as possible before going to sleep.

I am so glad we signed up for the CSA Vegetable Husband this winter! It really has saved us from eating like complete crap during the cold weather. Especially because it's delivered right to us each week. Over the past four weeks, we have had a good variety of local veggies and even a few fruits. Such as:

broccoli greens
collard greens
sweet potatoes
apples
butternut squash
persimmons
green onions
brussel sprout greens
kale
rainbow chard
sage
butter crunch lettuce
mixed baby lettuce
...and more! VH has really made life much easier. All we have to do is a quick stir fry and serve over rice, or puree a squash soup, or wash a fast salad and we are fed and finished. Or something easy and amazingly tasty like this:

That's pasta in a creamy garlic sauce, with Soy Curls and broccoli greens. The mozzarella rolls are an idea I got from Laura. It's an herbed pizza dough, with garlic and Teese rolled up and baked. Have mercy!

I hope to cook some more goodies soon. In the mean time, I will leave you with Miles being cute.

how I spent my thanksgiving afternoon.

2008-11-27T22:33:00.004-05:00

Making pumpkin cinnamon rolls from Don't Eat Off The Sidewalk #2. This is the chocolate variation, with the inclusion of chocolate chips and topped with chocolate glaze. They look much prettier without the glaze (above), but here are the finals:

As expected, Thanksgiving was a fatty, starch-filled success. My mother in law made the usual fantastic vegan dishes for us, including Tofurky, mashed potatoes, stuffing, roasted root vegetables, asparagus, and gravy. Sorry to rub it in for all you poor veg souls who had to sit in front of a big dead bird while picking at some questionable side dish. I remember those days, and they sucked. We're lucky and we know it!

Speaking of lucky, check out this week's delivery from Vegetable Husband:

So many apples this time! I'm about 90% sure a pie will be made soon. If not, then some apple fritters. We have already started in on the shitload of greens that arrived. This week's haul even includes broccoli greens, which I have never eaten before. It looks slightly kale-like, so that's what I thought it was at first. So exciting!

it's thanksgiving, yo.

2008-11-26T15:51:00.005-05:00

I'm not usually a fan of biblical references, but the food in this comic particularly amuses me. Toast, popcorn, and ice cream? Awesome.

Food posts soon, I promise!

berfday loot.

2008-11-14T13:35:00.005-05:00

Well, not really loot. But I did just buy myself a couple of cool prints for our kitchen! These are from Caged Tomato on Etsy.

I think I'm going to repaint our kitchen a light tea-stain color so these prints will go better. Yay! Happy birthday to me!

local vegan food

2008-11-13T18:56:00.003-05:00

Honestly, I haven't been all that great about eating local. I tend to shop more at the regular health food store, and less at the farmer's markets. I admit, it's just due to my laziness. But I recently heard about a new service in Atlanta Called Vegetable Husband that delivers fresh local veggies to your door. The owner is a dedicated woman named Margie, who picks up her customer's produce direct from Georgia farms each Wednesday. We signed up for a one week trial to check out the goods, and this is what we got yesterday:

- Broccoli
- Turnips
- Baby Collards
- Apples
- Sweet Potatoes
- Mixed Salad Greens
- Sweet Peppers
- Kohlrabi
- Cilantro
- Jalapenos (tossed in for free, apparently)

We are really happy with this week's haul. So happy that we signed up for four more weeks. Hopefully this will keep us from making the same old thing each week, and we get the added benefit of eating food that hasn't been picked too early, transported across the country, and been touched by a hundred people. Yay!

Not only is the quality of the food great, Margie delivered it right to the store last night. Which is great, since we don't live within Atlanta city limits. I can't wait to see what comes next!

Here is dinner last night using many of the goodies from Vegetable Husband:

Garlicky baby collards, seitan with sweet peppers, mashed sweet potatoes (oh my!), and (not pictured) mixed salad greens topped with apple slices and flax oil dressing.

Now can someone give me an idea on what the heck to do with that Kohlrabi?

my, that is fancy!

2008-11-10T18:46:00.001-05:00

handsome.

2008-11-09T14:49:00.000-05:00

I really, really love my husband.

revisiting sunflower

2008-11-09T09:11:00.003-05:00

While Ken and I don't eat out all that often, we do have our favorite places to go. Unlike most vegetarians and vegans in Atlanta, Cafe Sunflower is not one of them. Sure, it's usually nice, and the desserts are awesome. But when we do go, we tend to feel like we spent too much money for a merely adequate meal. Well, I am happy to report that we recently had the best Cafe Sunflower meal ever! Ken was the recipient of a Cafe Sunflower gift certificate for his birthday a few months ago, so we gave Sunflower another shot.

Smooth, creamy butternut squash soup as a starter:

Vegan lemon chicken served with almond rice topped with some sort of chili sauce, garlicky mixed greens and assorted veggies:

The lemon sauce was so subtle, not a hint of artificial Lemon Pledge flavor that I have had with other lemon "chicken" experiences. The veggies were perfect, and the rice was full of flavor.

Ken had tiramisu for dessert, which he didn't really care for. But our meal was so good that it really didn't matter. I had the chocolate raspberry mousse cake as usual, which is consistently good.

I'm so glad we tried Cafe Sunflower again!

our trip to Baaston.

2008-11-07T15:35:00.005-05:00

So we had ourselves a little trip last weekend. Ken and I decided to exhibit at the Boston Vegetarian Food Fest for the first time. Let me start be giving major props to the Boston Vegetarian Society for putting this event on so smoothly. What a crowd! I'm amazed at the HUGE amount of people that turned out for this thing.

(crowd pic stolen from Laura)

We traveled up with some friends who were also exhibiting, Kevin and Laura. Once we hit Boston on Friday, we caught up with our friend Josh who also flew in to exhibit at the fest. Everybody was starving, so we hit up a vegan pizza joint called TJ Scallywaggle's. Prior to our trip, I had at least three people tell me that TJ's is the best place to eat vegan in Boston. To that I say pish posh. That's fancy talk for "I disagree". But despite my below average calzone and the cramped, dirty space, I would still much rather give my food money to a vegan retail establishment that's trying to do good and that lots of people have had positive experiences with, than to some meat-serving restaurant that will use my money to purchase more...well, meat. So there's that. Plus, I was so hungry that I devoured every last bite.

TJ's calzone:

After working our asses off at the fest on Saturday, we were ready for a really good meal. We headed out with a group of folks to My Thai Cafe. I ended up having the best pad thai dish in my life so far! I really wish I lived closer to My Thai Cafe so I could have this dish on a regular basis. So amazing!

Pad Thai with vegan shrimp and a side of peanut sauce:

Laura with an enormous platter of food:

Kevin, caught in the headlights:

Josh giving either a "toodle- oo" or a "howdy":

Some new friends, some old friends:

A couple of cute Canadians, Jae & Sarah:

A luscious lemon poppyseed cake:

It was nice to have some fun with friends in between all of the travel and the working. I'm already looking forward to next year!

hail to the chief!

2008-11-05T12:30:00.002-05:00

the end of mofo.

2008-10-30T16:38:00.003-04:00

Thirteen. That's how many VeganMoFo posts I managed this month. That's much lamer than I had imagined it back on October 1st, so sorry about that.
Here's The Moe & Miles Jamboree, playing out MoFo.

Now we are getting ready to head out to the Boston Veg Fest this weekend. Should be a fun time!

VeganMofo: the mighty potluck

2008-10-26T23:40:00.006-04:00

I never really liked potlucks before I went vegan. Jello salad and deviled eggs? No thanks. But vegan potlucks rock the house.

Ashley put on another fine vegan potluck today, and it went a little something like this:

pizza swirls

mini pot pies and a big pot pie

macaroni salad

spice cake

cutest sugar cookies ever

Pumpkin chocolate chip cupcakes

spiderweb cupcakes

"Hi! I'm Kevin, and I have to be in every picture!" :)

Kevin & Laura

24 & Jeanette

Laurie, cupcake goddess

Alicia & Drew

Brittany & Emily

There were a lot of other great dishes, I just forgot to take pictures of them all! Good times, good times.