The Veg Blog

Since I’ve been a slack-arse blogger again and have fallen so far behind on cookbook reviews it’s embarrassing, I thought I’d toss something up here for you to read. A few things I’ve seen recently that I think you should see, as well:

1. Deb’s Lemonade

Don’t be scared by the picture of a yellow liquid in a jar sitting on a windowsill! This is just a simple recipe for not-to-sweet lemonade. I’ve been looking for a good sour lemonade recipe and this one just about fit the bill. I used freshly squeezed lemon juice and used just a touch less than a 1/4 cup, but I think I may want to go just a touch more than a 1/4 cup next time. It’s really nice to have a lemonade that’s not completely sweet.

2. Vegan Butter Recipes

Still trying to throw off the Earth Balance shackles? Give these recipes a shot. They look pretty good. (via Sheryl, I think)

3. King Oyster Mushrooms

Anyone know where I can find these penis mushrooms? I really want to make some Baked King Oyster Mushroom Calamari.

For the past few years, we’ve taken our daughter around the neighborhood to trick-or-treat for Halloween. Of course, the majority of what she gets isn’t vegan and she’s fine with our agreement of “we’ll swap out the non-vegan candy for vegan candy.” But I like the trend I’m seeing this year of vegan Halloween maps, allowing people to search for others in their area that are handing out vegan (and/or allergy-friendly) Halloween candy.

No Trick Treats! is taking the project on a national level with an easy-to-use (and add to) annotated Google Map. They also provide a few links to stores where you can order your candy if local stores are limiting you to a few crappy “accidentally vegan” options. Apparently, there will also soon be “printable maps for your neighborhood” available. Hopefully this site will stick around in coming years.

Compassion Over Killing is accepting additions to a DC-specific area map. VegDC‘s link points right to the aforementioned No Trick Treats!, so I’m not sure if there will ultimately be a separate DC map from COK or not.

Food Fight Grocery posted some info on a vegan Halloween map in late September. I’m not sure if that map has materialized just yet.

Feel free to add any other favorite Halloween resources. Only 11 days left!

In my ongoing attempt to review stuff that was sent to me a long time ago and should have been reviewed back then, I thought I’d write up a few notes on a couple of bars that were sent to me earlier in the year to try.

First up is the PranaBar, one of the many new raw energy bars on the market. All ingredients in PranaBars are raw except for the nuts and seeds, “which require slow cooking to denature enzyme inhibitors they contain.” The bars are vegan, GMO-free, soy-free, gluten-free, and contain no added sugar. The result? Probably the tastiest energy bar on the shelves. They sent along Mango Maca and Raspberry Pomegranate bars for me to try and they were both absolutely delicious. They didn’t taste “health foody,” which I think would make these a great choice for kids or people who generally shy away from anything that doesn’t contain HFCS. The bars are a bit pricey, retailing at about two bucks a pop, but hey… not everything should cost less than a dollar. (Note that this company does produce non-vegan bars under their “Boomi Bar” line that contain whey and honey. Stick with the Prana and Prana SuperCharger bars.)

Next up is the Bora Bora bar from Bora Bora Foods. Bora Bora is a small company focused on organic, gluten-free, non-GMO bars without preservatives, artificial sweeteners, etc. Not all bars are vegan (some have honey), but most are. These will appeal to the fans of straight-ahead fruit-and-nut bars. They’re simple, they’re tasty, and they’ll make you happy. Bora Bora sent along a couple of the vegan bars for me to try and they were quite good, with just enough of a twist on traditional nut bars to be interesting (like the Tropical Sesame Cranberry or Tiki Blueberry Flax bar). The Bora Bora bars were kind of hard to come by when they first sent the product along for review, but since then they’ve developed a pretty solid distribution and have gotten much easier to find. Good stuff.

Two events in the area I wanted to make sure everyone in the area knows about. First…

Vegan Bake Sale Benefit for Haiti (Falls Church)

After having to postpone two times because of, you know, blizzards and stuff, Gary his team will be offering up some great vegan goodies. Get there early! There’s a lot of buzz around this event, so I suspect the foodstuffs will disappear quickly. Benefits go to Food for Life Global.

(My wife and I made some mini-donuts. Try ‘em!)

The bake sale is being held outside of the Giant at 1230 W. Broad St. in Falls Church, VA tomorrow from 10:30am–2:30pm.

More info here.

and second…

DC Premiere of Peaceable Kingdom: The Journey Home (DC)

Though I won’t be at the showing, I cannot wait to catch the video release of this when it’s available. The original cut of this movie blew me away and I can only imagine what this refined and updated version will be like.

Catch the movie as part of the at the Environmental Film Festival. It shows tomorrow at 12:15pm at the Carnegie Institution, Elihu Root Auditorium (1530 P Street NW (Metro: Dupont Circle), Washington, DC) and is free. First come, first serve, so get there early!

More info here.

Thanksgiving can be a rough time, particularly for new vegans that still celebrate with meat-eating family. It’s not easy sometimes to handle the chides that come with eating differently from everyone else at the table. And, especially the first time, it can be hard to resist the comfort food we remember from our childhood. There’s been a lot written about how to do a vegan Thanksgiving, but hey, there can always be a little more, right?

So, here are some ways to help get you through the holiday season stuffed and happy.

Get to cooking!

Whether you’re spending a quiet Thanksgiving at home or braving an evening of stupid questions and taunts from 20 family members, there are some great resources online to help you get cooking and make sure that you not only have something to eat, but something to wow the rest of the family as well.

I got a peek at Nava Atlas’ significantly updated version of A Bountiful Vegan Thanksgiving e-book and it’s mighty impressive. It features 65 recipes in all, including Nava’s own as well as contributions from all your favorite veg cookbook authors and bloggers (among them: Isa Chandra Moskowitz, Dreena Burton, Jill Nussinow, and Bryanna Clark Grogan). The e-book sells for $8.95 and all profits go to “humanitarian charities concerned with hunger, microfinancing for women in developing countries, and the alleviation of human trafficking.”

Then, over at Vegan.com, there’s a guest post from Robin Robertson (author of many cookbooks, including the new and massive 1,000 Vegan Recipes). A full Thanksgiving menu is presented. The Triple Cranberry Relish and Ginger-Dusted Pumpkin Cheezecake sound mighty good. (Last year’s guest post is also still available.)

Go to a real Thanksgiving…

And by that, I mean a celebration that doesn’t involve killing turkeys. Why not hang out with some turkeys instead? Sanctuaries around the country have vegan Thanksgiving get-togethers. The one at Poplar Spring is my favorite event of the year — imagine a vegan potluck with 300 people bringing dishes. Hot damn.

Below is a sampling of sanctuaries and their Thanksgiving events.

• Colorado – Peaceful Prairie’s Living at Thanksgiving (sold out)
• Maryland – Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary’s Thanksgiving for the Turkeys (November 21)
• Maryland – Thanksgiving Vigil for Turkeys (November 20, leafleting event)
• Montana – New Dawn Montana monthly potluck (every second Saturday)
• New York/California – Thanksgiving Celebration FOR the Turkeys (November 21)
• New York – Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary ThanksLiving 2009 (passed – catch it next year!)
• New York – Safe Haven Farm Sanctuary’s Celebration for the Turkeys (November 22)
• New York City – Thanksgiving Celebration FOR the Turkeys (November 22)
• Oregon – Lighthouse Farm Sacntuary’s Gentle Thanksgiving (November 21)
• Utah – Ching Farm Vegan Thanksgiving Dinner (passed – catch it next year!)

Vegetarian and Vegan organizations also tend to do Thanksgiving meals on or around Thanksgiving, so check in with your local groups to see if there’s any thing to get involved in.

Read Things

This is a good time of year to dig into More than a Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality by UPC’s Karen Davis (here’s a Google Books version). The level of detail is impressive — you’ll learn something. Trust me.

Feel free to share your favorite vegan Thanksgiving events, recipes, or books.

Our daughter is 2 1/2 years old now. She’s never consumed any meat, dairy, or eggs. She’s being raised vegan and is being taught compassion for animals right from the start. Of course, if you listen to some people, we’re killing our child by denying her animal products.

I’m very thankful that from the very beginning, we haven’t faced any resistance from our families. No snide comments, no threats to call child services, no sneaking meat into her food during family gatherings. We’re very lucky in that sense. Our families understand that we’re doing what we think is best and that we’re not going to be stupid about it and feed her only soy milk and apple juice.

We’re first-time parents, so we didn’t exactly know what to expect going in. What if Rasine was a picky eater? What if she was constantly wanting what her friends at playgroup were eating? What if she “failed to thrive,” as they say? I thought I’d talk a little bit about how things are going so far since I really don’t talk about the parenting side of veganism very often here. (If you just want a cute photo and a funny audio clip, jump to the end.)

Food

My wife and I held our collective breath hoping that Rasine wouldn’t turn out to be a picky eater or stricken with a slew of food allergies. Thankfully, she didn’t and she wasn’t.

Some of Rasine’s favorite foods right now are lentils (which are a staple in her diet — she has them nearly every night mixed with nutritional yeast, DHA or olive oil, and ground flax), pears, tofu, quinoa, rice, steamed broccoli, grapes (as long as the skin is peeled), apples, hummus, grits, whole grain pancakes and waffles, banana muffins, tempeh chicken salad, smoothies… and the list goes on. Sure, there’s stuff she doesn’t like and there are some days where she’ll even deny her favorites, but that’s true of any kid. Her diet is primarily whole foods and she’s been exposed to a wider variety of grains and soy/rice/nut/seed milks than I was until my late 20s.

We also keep her involved in the making of food. She’s always playing in the kitchen when we’re making dinner and she loves helping out with stirring pancake batter, pressing the button on the food processor, or licking hummus right off of the spatula. We want her to be close to her food and to enjoy the process of making it, not just eating it.

Really, the food part of things has been the easiest. I’ve become a firm believer that if you feed kids healthy stuff from the start, that’s what they’ll develop the taste for. Rasine’s not really into fake chicken nuggets, hot dogs, or stuff like that (though Veg Booty and ice cream sandwiches are her vices).

The Social Side

Without a doubt, the most difficult part has been the social side of things. My wife is the one that deals with it most frequently, since she’s staying at home with Rasine right now and hauling her to playgroups, weekday birthday parties, and picnics with friends. It takes some extra prep work to be prepared for these situation. For instance, we make sure to always come with a cupcake when headed to a birthday party. And if we know her friends are going to be having cheese crackers, we’ll pick up some Eco-Planet vegan cheddar crackers. There are times when she wants something someone else has, but if we’re prepared, we can usually deal with it without too much trouble.

I think this will continue to be tricky as she gets older and starts school or going to friends’ houses and realizing that there is a difference between what she’s eating and what her friends are eating. Hopefully the “why” behind it all will be enough to help her work through it.

Health

One of my concerns before Rasine was born was finding a pediatrician that was vegan-friendly. I knew we weren’t going to get a vegan pediatrician, but if we could get one that was knowledgeable enough to know that vegan kids can be perfectly healthy, I’d be happy. Rasine’s first doctor had to have the term “vegan” defined for her, but she was hands-off enough and trusting enough of us to make the right decisions that she worked out well for us. Until she stopped taking our insurance.

Right before Rasine’s 2-year check-up, we had to scramble and find another doctor. We found one that seemed decent and OK with the fact Rasine was vegan. However, during the check-up, the doctor expressed some concern that Rasine was quite low on the growth chart and had fallen slightly off of her curve. She asked that we go see a nutritionist to have Rasine’s diet analyzed.

Damn.

This ended up being a major stress for me. Not because I thought Rasine was unhealthy, but because I was worried the doctor might. See, our daughter comes from small stock. I’m a touch under 5’6″ and was always very, very low on the growth scale growing up. My sister was, too, and her kids have all also been small, but healthy. My wife’s just under five feet tall. Neither of us had any expectations that Rasine would be a center in the WNBA.

Never mind that Rasine had never had an ear infection, had only had one high temperature, and was way, way healthier than many kids her age. The weight thing was becoming an issue.

We visited the nutritionist and, thankfully, things went wonderfully. She was very impressed at Rasine’s diet and had no concerns that our girl was thriving. It was suggested that we add some oils and more calorie-dense foods to Rasine’s current diet to help boot her caloric intake a bit. We did and six months later Rasine was back on the growth curve and our doctor was ecstatic. She’s still a small kid — one of my elementary school friend’s son weighed more at six months than Rasine does now, at 2 1/2 — but she’s healthy and active and well-proportioned.

Teaching Compassion

Rasine loves visiting the farm. When I go to volunteer, she says, “Daddy help bock bocks!” She’s not freaked out by bugs and enjoys helping usher them back outside. The other day, I even noticed that she was taking special care not to step on some Boxelder bugs that have started gathering outside our house.

She also loves our dog Amina. Rasine helps us feed her, loves taking her for walks, and says good night to her before bed. Sure, if she gets in Rasine’s space, Rasine will push Amina away, but we try to catch that as it happens and explain that Amina’s being nice and so she should be, too.

All kids naturally love animals, I think, but explicitly cultivating that love early on by exposing them to what many would consider “food animals,” by using positive language, and by helping them look at animals not as lower beings to be dominated but as peers worthy of equal treatment and consideration, that love won’t die once they get older and more hardened to the realities of the world.

I’d love to hear from some other parents here. Chime in with all your cute stories as well as any challenges you’re facing.

And now, the cute stuff…

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

(Translation of her definition of vegan: “No eat bock bocks (chickens), no eat piggies, no eat moos (cows).”)

I wanted to lead with a photo.  You don’t mind, right?

While this picture makes it look like I went out and bought a Snickers bar and an Almond Joy, let me assure, I have not fallen off the vegan wagon.  And let me also assure you: life is about get better for vegans who like a little junk food on occasion.

A couple of weeks ago, both Ken from Cosmos and Chad from Food Fight made cryptic comments on their respective twitter streams about vegan versions of popular candy bars that they had just tried and would soon be carrying.  I gently nudged Ken for some info, got it, and before long had two of my own candy bars to try out.

The company is Go Max Go and is run by two long-time vegans (11+ years) who had an unfulfilled hankering for the “chocolatey, nougaty, caramely, peanutty, almondy, coconutty crazy” candy bars of their pre-vegan days.  While their site obviously can’t mention which big name bars that theirs bear a resemblance to, the names and descriptions hint at it (the Jokerz is like a vegan Snickers, the Twilight bar mimics a Milky Way, the Buccaneer is similar to a Three Musketeers, and the Mahalo is reminiscent of an Almond Joy).  The bars have no animal ingredients (and, therefore, no cholesterol), hydrogenated oils, trans fats, or artificial ingredients.

The two bars above are the ones I was able to sample.  On the left is the Jokerz bar and on the right is the Mahalo.

When I was in college, I had a number of 8am computer science classes.  Not being a morning person, I rolled out of bed at 7:55 and walked to my class, not getting breakfast until afterwards.  I always had a Snickers bar with me because it kept me full (and was cheap and readily accessible).  I certainly haven’t had one in the last four-and-a-half years and I probably haven’t had one in nearly ten.

The Jokerz bar is a tad thinner than the traditional Snickers bar, but let me tell you: the taste is all there.  The peanuts, the caramel, and the nougat.  Oh, the nougat.  The chocolate is rice milk-based, but is much truer to the traditional milk chocolate taste and texture than other rice milk chocolate bars I’ve tried.  I detected no funny aftertaste at all (though my wife said she could taste a very, very slight hint of rice, she was still incredibly impressed by the bar).

The Mahalo bar is also very true to its Almond Joy inspiration.  It has just the right balance of coconut and almonds.  I’m pretty sure I moaned out loud when I took my first bite.

Both bars were thoroughly enjoyed by both my wife and my two-and-a-half year old daughter.  (Side note: it makes me so happy that there all of these great “vegan equivalents” popping up.  It’s going to make it a lot easier on her when she’s eating with friends.  She won’t feel like she’s missing out on anything because she’s vegan.)

While there have been some forays into vegan versions of classic candy bars in the past, most of them have been too “healthy” tasting (I love you, carob, but…) or come in tiny little packages that rival “Fun Size” bars.  The sample bars I got were full size candy bars and hopefully they’ll be available in that size when they hit the streets.  I also hope they’re available in boxes of 100 that I could have automatically delivered to my face each month, but that may be wishful thinking.

I really can’t speak highly enough about these candy bars.  If a good candy bar is  one of those things you’ve missed as a vegan or if a Milky Way is your last non-vegan vice, Go Max Go has you covered.  I can’t wait for these to become available later this year just so I can hear what you all have to say about them.

Links:

Go Max Go Foods

When I heard all of the initial buzz surrounding Chicago Soy Dairy’s new vegan cheese, I was excited to try it out.  They’d posted some intriguing video showing how it melted versus Follow Your Heart’s cheese and given the mediocre competition, I figured Teese to be the new frontrunner in vegan cheeses.

The folks at Chicago Soy Dairy were kind enough to send along a log of Teese for me to try out.  And so I did.

My wife and I tried Teese in a few different settings.  We had it on top of meatball subs, on a pizza, and plain, on crackers.  Teese tasted decent enough by itself on crackers.  It wasn’t a perfect replication of dairy cheese, but is probably the closest to mozzarella that I’ve tasted soy cheese get.  The real test, though was in the melting.

When vegans gather, it’s inevitable that they joke about Follow Your Heart’s not-really-bold claim on their packaging that “It melts!”  Teese is supposed to pick up where Follow Your Heart left off and melt more like dairy cheese.  From all accounts I’ve seen, it does indeed melt quite well in commercial settings on pizza.  In our kitchen, though, we had a little less luck.  In fact, it melted pretty much like Follow Your Heart.  Certain parts melted really well while others looked like they weren’t even in the oven.  I suspect that commercial kitchens have ovens that heat a little more evenly.

Melting issues aside (besides, others have had more luck), they did make darn good tasting meatball subs and I’ve tried lobbying local pizzerias (unsuccessfully, so far) to start offering Teese pizzas based on the success at home.  A Teese pizza might just be good enough to win over those straggling lacto-ovos.

Where Teese really wins, though, is price.  Sheese and Cheezly are still crazy expensive (and pretty awesome), costing over a dollar per ounce.  Teese, per ounce, is the same price as Follow Your Heart’s cheese, about 47 cents per.  (I won’t even bring up Veganrella, because I’m not entirely sure it’s actually meant to be eaten.)  Availability isn’t nearly as widespread as Follow Your Heart, but if it ever reaches the level of their Temptation Ice Cream, they’ll be in good shape.

We haven’t reached the promised land of perfect vegan cheese yet, but we’re edging ever closer thanks to products like Teese.

La Brea Bakery bread is pretty easy to find around these parts, which is a good thing because decent bread can still be hard to come by in the supermarket (HFCS, anyone?).  I was examining their ingredients recently and decided to drop them a line about their use of “sour cultures.” From initial research, I found that sour cultures are usually plant-derived in the US but can be derived from animal sources.  I also asked which of their breads were explicitly vegan.  Here is an excerpt from their initial response:

All of our products contain natural strains of yeast and beneficial bacteria. These are generally listed on our ingredient declaration as sour culture. A number of products use honey. This again will be stated on the label. We have a seasonal product called Chocolate Cherry Round which contains butter. Finally we have recently introduced some products containing cheese. Each of these ingredients will be clearly listed in the ingredient declaration on the bag if present in the product. There are no animal derivatives in the flour bleaching agents. We use unbleached wheat flour as our main bulk flour.

Our products are made on cross functional production lines so products suitable for Vegans are made on the same production lines as products containing some of the ingredients above. There is a detailed clean down of each line following a production run containing any of the above ingredients. We do have a number of Home-Bake products which are sold frozen by the retailer and can be baked off at home.

I was still unclear on the source of their “natural strains of yeast and beneficial
bacteria,” so I replied asking for clarification.  Less than 20 minutes later, I got this response:

With reference to your query regarding the origin of the yeast and bacterial strains used in our breads I would like to inform you that back in 1988 they were originally propagated from Organic grapes. The strains have been maintained using flour and water since then. I hope to have been of assistance.

Just thought I’d pass this on for others that may be searching for detailed info about the sources of (admittedly trace) ingredients of La Brea Bakery’s very tasty bread.

My daughter’s not even two yet, but she’s already developing her own recipes.  I thought I’d share her latest creation with you:

Seaweed-Banana Sandwich
Serves 1

Ingredients

• 1 strip of Nori paper
• 1 slice of banana

Directions

1. Wrap banana slice in Nori.
2. Eat.

I’ve gotta say, I’m kind of grossed out by her creation, but she seems to like it.  I suspect it’ll be the cornerstone of her first cookbook.

Watch out, Isa!

(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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Sometimes miso gets overlooked.  That’s sad.  Because miso rules the planet, and here’s why:

1. Forget chicken soup, miso rules when you’re feeling under the weather.  And it doesn’t require dead chickens.
2. Eating miso will ensure you survive the fallout from a nuclear attack.  You can share some with the cockroaches.  (Yeah, so maybe this is overstated a tad.)
3. Refrigerated miso has no expiration!

Here’s an introduction from NPR to the world’s greatest fermented soybean paste, our beloved miso.

Cookbooks that focus on baking take me a little longer to get to since I don’t bake as often as I cook, but that’s still no excuse after having had this one around so long waiting for a review.

Portland’s Kris Holechek, who you may know from Squirrel’s Vegan Kitchen, self-published this fun collection of breads, cookies, cakes, and other assorted goodies.  The first thing I noticed and loved about The Damn Tasty! Vegan Baking Guide was the "baking basics" section where she expounds on why she just uses the term "milk" throughout the book rather than "soy milk," "non-dairy milk," or some other similar term:

As I refined the content, I truly agonized over the way to write about milk.  I’ve seen books that assume soy milk for the milk and I’ve seen books where the word milk is in quotes, calling for "milk."  Now just think of coconut milk.  No one protests calling that milk.  Alternative milks date back hundreds and hundreds of years to different regions of the world, so they aren’t a new invention, they are just newly recognized by western society.  Because of my strong views on the linguistics of eating, I chose to simply write the word milk.  This is a vegan book, so clearly the use of cow’s or goat’s milk is unacceptable.  But people have preferences, allergies and limitations to what is available to them, so the milk you prefer, be it so, almond, rice, it’s up to you.  If there is one kind or another that I’ve found works best, it is noted in the recipe.

She also points out that something like Boston Cream Pie isn’t called Boston Cream Pie with Eggs and Cow’s Milk, so a vegan version isn’t any less "real."  "Let’s stop playing semantic games and not allow mainstream eating habits to make us feel like our vegan "food" is any less enticing than it is."  Well said!

Onto the food.

I still haven’t had a chance to try as many recipes here as I had hoped, but we’ve had good success with the ones we’ve made thus far.  The Raspberry-Lime Muffins are every bit as awesome as they sound and the Pumpkin-Cinnamon Zig-Zag Bread is excellent, even when made with whole wheat pastry flour.  The simple white icing recipe has become a go-to when making anything that needs a quick icing.  The recipe for garlic rolls has a great little side note about a very easy cheesy topping made with raw cashews and nutritional yeast that tastes absolutely perfect on popcorn (go just a smidge lighter on the salt, though).  Our recipe queue includes: Polski Apple Crisp, Blueberry Streusel Muffins, Basic Biscuits, and Danish.  I look forward to trying each of those in due time.

The only less-than-success I had was with the Baked Chocolate Glazed Donuts, which I made as donut holes instead (dropping the batter into a mini-muffin tin).  They tasted OK but were… weird.  The consistency was off and they didn’t come out in a very appealing way.  I suspect, though, that this may be due to baker error.  Baked goods can be hard to review for this reason — they’re generally not as forgiving of mistakes as recipes made on the stovetop.

There’s a lot to like in Damn Tasty.  There’s a good variety of recipes (they’re not all sweets) and the voice is conversational and a pleasure to read.  Though there’s no food photography, its absence didn’t bother me; the descriptive text was often enough.  If baking is your thing, you’ll certainly want to put Kris’ book on your wishlist.  Good stuff.

Man, this review’s overdue.

Back at the beginning of the year, I sat down with my wife (not vegan, but nearly so) and my sister-in-law (straight omni with a serious dairy addiction… I’m sure she’d love that classification) to try out a handful of flavors sent down by the kind folks up at Wheeler’s.

Buzz started forming about Wheeler’s from the moment they started handing out ice cream in 2007 at the Boston Vegetarian Food Festival.

Here’s a compiled summary of our comments on each flavor:

Pumpkin

This was my favorite of the bunch.  It’s a really unique idea for a flavor and tastes exactly what you’d imagine pumpkin pie in ice cream form would taste like.  It’s super creamy and intense.  Love it, love it.

My wife liked the richness and thought it was thick, much like pie.  Sis-in-law said the taste lingered a little too long afterwards, but still liked it because it wasn’t overly sweet.

Butter Pecan

Seriously: vegan butter pecan!  It’s been ages since I’ve had butter pecan ice cream, but this is exactly how I remember it.  Creamy, nutty… just great.  Sister-in-law tasted a sourness and indicated a preference for its dairy counterpart.

My wife said, "I could eat a whole tub of this."  I didn’t ask her to clarify if she meant an ice cream tub or a bathtub because I know my own preferences would have tended towards the latter.

Black Raspberry

Not normally my favorite flavor, but I enjoyed this.  My sister-in-law liked this one a lot, comparing it to a sorbet.  She said the sour taste she was getting with the other flavors was less out-of-place here.  My wife said she liked it a lot, but missed the bits of berry.  "Might have been good with bits of black cherry, too."

Pina Colada (with alcohol)

Good, but not my favorite.  Nice chunks of pineapple and coconut.  Not as smooth of a consistency as the other flavors.  Both of the other tasters liked it a lot, ranking it among their favorites.

Double Chocolate Chip

Uber-chocolatey.  Smooth and creamy with nice, small chunks of chocolate.  I thought there was a very slight aftertaste, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.  My wife loved this one, liking both the taste ("a chocolate lover’s dream") and crunch.  My sister-in-law said it was very rich and that it "tastes like [dairy] chocolate ice cream" even though she prefers a sweeter chocolate.

Overall impressions of Wheeler’s

We’re at an interesting point with regards to vegan ice cream in the US.  We’ve pretty much reached the peak with companies like So Delicious (their mint chocolate chip and pomegranate chip are awesome) and Temptation (everything is awesome), but Wheeler’s every bit as good.  So, it’s awesome.  And more awesomeness is a good thing.

Where I think Wheeler’s will really succeed is in their niche of custom specialty flavors. Check out some of the flavors they’ve perfected already.  I’m really curious to see where they take their business and what they do in terms of distribution.  Because, really, the world needs to taste their pumpkin ice cream.  And I want to be able to get some at a moment’s notice.

Like, now.  Now would be good.

You can visit Wheeler’s site at icecreamproject.com and keep an eye on their blog for frequent updates about tasting events around the country.

A former co-worker of mine recently started teaching a vegan cooking class in Fairfax, Virginia.  Finding vegan-only cooking classes outside of a major city can be kind of tough, so something like this is really welcome in this area.  She comes from a background of French cooking, so I’m willing to bet her classes are going to be quite good.

Here’s the info:

HI06026   Transitioning to a Vegetarian or Vegan Diet

Learn how to transition to a vegetarian diet (lacto/ovo) or an animal product free diet (vegan). Learn how to manage proper nutrition and to prepare dishes such as spinach lasagna, couscous salad, upside down apple tart, and various hot and cold soups for both types of diets. Class includes demonstration and participation. 5 sessions @ 3 hrs each.

Course #         HI06026       
Fees: Tuition ($179.00) + Materials ($50.00) = Total ($229.00)     

Fairfax HS, room B115, 09:00 AM, starting 05/10/08

Note that even though it says “vegetarian or vegan,” the class will focus exclusively on veganism and will not deal at all with dairy or eggs.

(Hmm — for some reason, daily links don’t seem to be showing up here. I’ll have to look into that.)

I was thinking today about how vegan marshmallows for the longest time were the “holy grail” of unavailable vegan goods. Then, Sweet & Sara came along.

So, with that problem solved, I think we need to move onto another question: why are there no vegan Sour Cream and Onion potato chips? They’ve always been one of my favorite junky snack foods and remain one of the only things from my dark omni past that I still have a hankering for. Would some kind vegan junk food purveyor please get to work on this? Or maybe Isa can make a homemade version?

Eat, Drink & Be Vegan
Dreena Burton
Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007
http://vivelevegan.blogspot.com/

What I like most about Dreena’s books, in addition to the great food photography, is that she doesn’t rehash the same familiar recipes you find in a lot of other cookbooks.  Plus, while her recipes sometimes call for ingredients you may not have used before, they remain simple to prepare and even unfamiliar ingredients can be found in your local grocery store or co-op.  As with Dreena’s previous books, Eat, Drink & Be Vegan is a wonderful collection of unique recipes that home cooks of all skill levels will enjoy.

We’ve had a lot of success with ED&BV around our house.  Dreena’s always been known for her inventive hummus and this time around, she devoted an entire chapter to the creamy, beany vegan staple.  I loved the Black Bean & Orange Hummus — the orange adds a whole new dimension and combined with the black beans (rather than chickpeas), this one is sure to turn some heads at potlucks.  The Roasted Red Pepper and Almond Hummus is a little more familiar but is the tastiest red pepper hummus I’ve had.  Fresh parsley used for garnish tops it off perfectly.  Other hummuses include a white bean hummus, a peanut-sesame hummus (!), and one geared specifically for kids.

From her soups and stews section, the Mellow Lentil "Sniffle" Soup has already become a go-to dish for us and my wife and I agree that the Sweet Potato Lentil Chili may be the best homemade chili we’ve ever had.

The main dishes we’ve enjoyed include the Lemony Cashew-Basil Pesto on Pasta (we substituted cilantro with good results since basil was far out of season), the slightly lemony Quinoa Chickpea Confetti Casserole (which went over well over the Christmas holiday and is simply delicious when drizzled with the Balsamic Maple Sauce), and Sweet & Sour Chipotle Tempeh with Sweet Potatoes.  The Cran-Apple Quinoa recipe was another dish shared over the holiday ("Quinoa?  Is that how you say it?  This is good!").

This may be a first, but I haven’t made any of the desserts.  I am looking forward to trying the Pumpkin Cheese Pie and the Lime Sucker Coconut Pie.

So far, there have only been a couple of recipes that haven’t gone well for us, which isn’t bad considering how many we’ve made.  The Goddess Garbanzos didn’t sit well with me, but I’m also not a big fan of Annie’s Goddess Dressing, which probably explains it.  The Cinnamon-Lime Quinoa with Apricots & Almonds was alright tasting, but consistency was a bit squishy for my liking.

Dreena Burton’s third book, Eat, Drink & Be Vegan, solidifies her as one of my favorite cookbook authors.  Her inventive recipes manage to balance innovation, accessibility, and health in a way few others can.  There’s no doubt you’ll want this one on your shelf if it’s not there already.

Everyday Dish (DVD)
featuring Dreena Burton, Bryanna Clarke Grogan, and Julie Hasson
YaYa Productions
http://www.everydaydish.tv/Shopping%20Cart/vegan_vegetarian_dvd.html

When you flip through the channels while Wife Swap is on commercial, you won’t have a tough time finding cooking shows.  Unfortunately, they usually feature Rachael Ray and her damn yummers EVOO (wow, two sentences in and I’m already insulting Rachael Ray).  In fact, when it comes to vegan cooking shows, you’ll come up empty (regional shows excepted, of course).  There have been a few decent vegetarian-themed cooking shows through the years (Regina’s Vegetarian Table and Delicious TV come to mind), but vegans often have to suffer through visits to cheese stores and recipes topped off with feta.

Everyday Dish features three vegan cookbook authors sharing a handful of their favorite recipes in a cooking show format.  First up is Bryanna Clarke Grogan, author of Nonna’s Italian Kitchen and many other classic vegan collections.  I’ve always been a fan of Bryanna’s very open sharing of her creations.  Some cookbook authors are notoriously stingy with their recipes, hunting down anyone that posts one online.  But if you search for vegan recipes online, it’s a sure bet that one of Bryanna’s will show up in the top 10.  She’s the master of the homemade mock meat and that shows with her selections for the DVD.  She serves up gravy, neatballs, chicken cutlets, and an ambitious pork tenderloin.

Dreena Burton, who you may remember from a few paragraphs ago, shows us how to make Chickpea Sensation Patties, assorted hummuses, Lemon Herb Tofu, Sundried Tomato Pesto, and Chocolate Mint Melties.  I’m pretty sure that in a future life, I want to be reincarnated as a Chocolate Mint Meltie.  Dreena has a great blog that gives some real insight into what it’s like trying to put together a cookbook while managing a family.  I’m pretty sure she only sleeps three hours a week.

Julie Hasson, who I had the pleasure of meeting last year at the DVD’s release party in Portland, serves up a simple and tasty-looking Deli Noodle Soup, Diner Loaf, Tacos and Salsa, Chocolate Cake, and Triple Chocolate Pudding (triple!).

All three of the chefs have personalities that lend themselves well to this type of endeavor.  Bryanna has a quiet, understated way of demonstration that makes even complex recipes seem accessible.  Dreena is the person you hope you’d bump into at the grocery store, because she’s so open and willing to share what she knows.  And Julie seems to have boundless energy and enthusiasm, but it’s genuine enthusiasm, not forced Rachael Ray enthusiasm.

In addition to the nearly two hours of cooking footage, the DVD also includes bonus recipes, printable recipes from the demos, and some other extras.

It may seem a little strange to buy a DVD of a cooking show in this age of "hey, it’s on YouTube" and with food blogs-a-plenty everywhere you look, but there is something nice about having a DVD you can lend to friends or show family, particularly those that enjoy watching cooking shows on TV.  And this is a good one to use – the production values are quite good.  About the only constructive criticism that I’d offer for a second edition would be to try and incorporate the use of an overhead camera to provide a bird’s eye view of the food and give some variety to the camera angles.

Be sure to check out all the videos at everydaydish.tv to get a good idea of what you’ll get on the DVD (and then some).  Julie also has a blog for the site with some great food photos and commentary.

Everyday Dish joins Post-Punk Kitchen and Regina’s Vegetarian Table as my one of my favorite veg cooking shows and is definitely worth checking out on DVD.  I hope there’s a second volume in our future.

Finding bread in a regular grocery store that doesn’t have honey or high fructose corn syrup in it can be a pain. Pretty much every vegan has wandered the bread aisle, frustrated at how difficult it is to find bread that doesn’t have a load of extra junk added to it. I’ve noticed a positive trend recently, though: it’s getting easier thanks to Ezekiel 4:9 bread.

For years, I’d seen Ezekiel bread in the freezer at the health food store, but never bothered to give it a second glance. Now, not only is the bread available in many regular old supermarkets, but so are english muffins, bagels, and even pasta and cereal. I finally gave it a shot recently and you know what? The stuff’s good.

What’s interesting is that the bread’s ingredients are based on a biblical verse:

Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof, [according] to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side, three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof.

Interestingly, when you combine these things, you get (according to Food for Life):

A complete protein is created that closely parallels the protein found in milk and eggs. In fact, the protein quality is so high, that it is 84.3% as efficient as the highest recognized source of protein, containing all 9 essential amino acids. There are 18 amino acids present in this unique bread – from all vegetable sources – naturally balanced in nature.

It doesn’t matter much to me where the idea came from, but I am glad that it’s getting so much easier to find a simple, healthy, vegan bread.

I’m also glad that Food for Life decided to bake bread following Ezekiel 4:9 and not one of the other nearby verses (and, in advance, I’m not making these up):

4:10 And thy meat which thou shalt eat [shall be] by weight, twenty shekels a day: from time to time shalt thou eat it.

…

4:12 And thou shalt eat it [as] barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight.

…

4:15 Then he said unto me, Lo, I have given thee cow’s dung for man’s dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith.

It should be noted that there are slightly more palatable translations, but still… that’s a lot of dung talk!

[Edited to correct spelling of "Ezekiel."]

I wrote a brief note to Back to Nature (now owned by Kraft) to ask them a simple question about the derivation of the “natural flavors” in their products:

Is your Cherry Vanilla granola vegan? Everything on there looks to be except for the always-questionable “natural flavors.” Are any of these natural flavors animal-derived (including dairy, eggs, or honey)?

Their response:

Hi Ryan,

Thank you for visiting http://www.backtonaturefoods.com.

At this time, we don’t claim any BACK TO NATURE Brand products as “vegan”.

However, in the future, as we re-evaluate the labeling of our products, we may choose to list a vegan status should any of our brands qualify to carry that label.

Thanks for your inquiry about our ingredient lines.

If you haven’t done so already, please add our site to your favorites and visit us again soon!

Kim McMiller
Associate Director, Consumer Relations

For some reason, I think if Back to Nature were still a small company, the response would have been a little bit more informative.

Can I take just a moment to tell you that I love Newman’s Own Organics’ Hermits? For a packaged soft cookie, they’re mighty, mighty good.

I got my copy of Dreena Burton’s new Eat, Drink & Be Vegan in the mail last week and let me tell you, folks: this thing is great. I love the cover design and I love the layout even more. And if you’re a fan of Dreena’s food, this one will knock yer organic hemp socks off.

I’ve only made one recipe so far, the unbelievably good Black Bean and Orange Hummus, part of an entire chapter on our favorite vegan beany concoction. You can bet I’m looking forward to trying out the Chocolate Pumpkin Pie, too.

What I love about Dreena’s books is that they use ingredients that aren’t hard to find, but that you may not be accustomed to. I’ve learned more about using various grains (What?! There’s more than unbleached white flour?!) from Dreena than I ever imagined. Her recipes are inspired and unique, yet not “out there.” Think of them as the types of dishes you’d make for a dinner party and someone invariably says, “Wow, this is different! I’ve got to get the recipe for this.”

A more formal and thorough review is on the way, once I can make some more food, but I wanted to let you all know about the book now since I have a really rude tendency to be late with my cookbook reviews.

We truly live in a great country, one where foot-long vegan hot dogs can be procured.

For comparison, the package next to my head:

(As far as I know, these aren’t available on the east coast yet, at least not in my area. I’m not going to tell you how I got these, either. So there.)

You may have noticed I’ve been a bit absent as of late. Yeah, um… sorry about that.

In addition to a heavy workload at my day job, a brief vacation (which will be the topic of an article or post somewhere along the way), and preparing for our daughter’s first birthday party, it’s been a hectic time around these parts. Thankfully, things are a little lighter now and I may finally start catching up on things.

So, the birthday party. I won’t go into too much detail about the party itself, but it was a houseful of adults and one-year-olds, culminating in that wonderful mayhem known as a toddler’s first birthday. My wife and I spent the day before prepping and I’m pretty sure that one of us was in the kitchen for most of the entire day. I was a bit curious as to what the reaction would be to the food since it was all vegan and none of the party’s attendees were vegan or even vegetarian (there were a few pescos, though). We didn’t label the food as vegan except for one reference to “v. cream cheese” and I’m happy to report that the response was simply awesome. Everyone loved the food, top to bottom. One friend whose known me long enough to expect vegan food when they come to our house commented that though he “won’t be giving up [his] omni ways, can definitely say that vegan desserts kick ass.” Nice!

For those of you that are interested, here’s a rundown of what we served (we made it all, except where noted):

Snacks/light fare:

• Tomato Potato Salad from the new Don’t Eat Off the Sidewalk zine
• Fresh peach, corn, and pineapple salsa
• Roasted red pepper hummus
• White bean hummus (from The Vegetarian Family Cookbook)
• Fresh spring rolls (aka garden rolls) with a peanut dipping sauce (from Xuan Saigon restaurant)
• Fried spring rolls (from Xuan Saigon restaurant)
• Lotus stuffed with seasoned rice (prepared by Huyen’s former co-worker Joyce)
• Cream cheese, cucumber, and tomato rolls with fresh basil
• Cold spaghetti salad

Dessert:

• Salt water taffy (picked up during our vacation at the Jersey shore)
• Mint Madness chocolate cake from Sinfully Vegan with mint buttercream frosting from Vegan Cupcakes… (adapted from the plain buttercream frosting recipe)
• Lychee cupcakes with coconut glaze from Vegan Cupcakes…
• Golden Vanilla cupcakes with buttercream frosting (I made them “extra golden” but went overboard and made them orange, so they became the “Abnormally orange vanilla cupcakes”)… these were made in regular size and mini size for the kids.

Not a bad lineup, if I do say so! I’ve also got to say that my wife did an amazing job prepping all that she did. I don’t quite know how she made the time to do so while also watching the kiddo.

(If you’re one of those “I want to see pictures!” people, keep an eye on my flickr stream. I’ll get around to posting pictures soon.)

From the WTF?!!! Files:

This week I picked up some O’Soy yogurt, as I occasionally do. But I was stunned when my wife pointed this out on the label:

It reads: “Contains milk (our active live cultures are milk-based).”

Perhaps it was naive of me to assume that soy yogurt would be, you know, non-dairy. But I guess you can’t trust a company who makes the bulk of their money from selling milk. Needless to say, there’s no way I’ll be buying any of their products going forward and they’ll definitely be receiving a call at 1-800-PRO-COWS (happy milk!) tomorrow. Might I encourage you to do the same to register your displeasure? And spread the word?

This is either a new thing or something they just decided to start divulging, as I definitely don’t recall seeing this on the label before.

I’m getting to the point where I feel like I can only trust vegan companies. Maybe Chicago Soy Dairy will start making yogurt?

Yesterday, Josh wrote to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Big Mac while recounting his own fast food experiences:

I used to have a job giving tours at the computer museum in Boston. There was a McDonalds downstairs right between us and where the Boston Tea Party ship (and annoying reenactments) were.

…

I used to eat at that McDonalds once a week or so. I was still a year away from going vegetarian at that point, but even then I knew McDonalds was a terrible place to get food. I’d be walking around monitoring one of the galleries or giving a tour thinking about where I was going to eat and invariably my brain would say “McDonalds!” Most days I’d give that cartoon bubble thought above my head the smackdown, but once a week or so I’d give in. I even felt sick before I got there and I knew I’d be dragging ass the rest of the day with all that grease and fat in my stomach. (I would add “death” to that list of things in my stomach, but at the time those thoughts were still in the murky unknown part of my brain trying to reach the surface.)

The one thing I always tell people after they find out that I’m vegan and say, “I could never do that!” is that I would regularly eat two (yes, two) Big Macs for dinner when I was in high school. Back then my metabolism was insane and I never topped 115 pounds.  I wasn’t exactly a football player.  I was barely a member of the bowling team.

As I was transitioning to vegetarianism, I had a set number of days a month where I’d have only meatless meals.  During those days, I always ended up going to Subway for lunch on my “vegetarian days.”  I honestly had no idea where else to go for a quick veggie meal in those days. 

After going veggie, I kept up with the occasional visit to Subway and even had a few BK Veggies when I was on the road during those first few years.

Today, though, I can honestly say I eat at a fast food restaurant maybe once a year.  And that would be a place like Subway during the most dire of situations (a 10pm, middle of nowhere, nothing else open, forgot to pack a Clif Bar, and have to to go the bathroom-type deal).  It’s kind of funny to look at the completely different mindsets of High School Ryan and Vegan Ryan even though I still feel like I’m pretty much the same person at my core.   I guess it’s like how your body regenerates all its cells every nine years — you’re technically a whole new person, yet you still feel like the same big collection of bio-junk you were back then.

Anyway, I’m glad to be done with fast food restaurants.  No more dealing with the funny smell that envelopes you after you’ve been in a Subway.  Or the employees not remembering to leave the mayo off of your BK Veggie (back when the burger itself was actually vegan, of course).  Or the sticky floors in McDonald’s bathrooms (actually, I still deal with that since that’s the sole reason I’ll go into a McDonald’s).

But there are so many people for whom fast food is still a way of life.  It seems so foreign to me now, but I remind myself that it’s just as foreign for others think about life without fast food.  It’s a tough gap to bridge without devoting some time and real effort, especially since there are no vegan fast food chains to help ease the transition.

Let’s hear from some long-time vegans: when was the last time you ate at a typical fast food joint?  Did you used to be a fast food junkie?

I really enjoy Paleo-Future, a blog that showcases “yesterday’s tomorrows,” visions from the past of the future (our present). One recent post highlighted a 1969 piece from the Jamaica Daily Gleaner envisioning what food would be like in the Year 2000:

Milk that never saw a cow, fruit that never grew on a tree or in the ground, and steak bearing no relation to a bullock — in other words, fabricated food. It sounds a little distasteful and perhaps unbelievable but, according to eminent scientists studying food science it is inevitable and will be soon on our tables.

Take the steak for instance. Soya beans can be woven to resemble a bullock’s muscle, the fat presents no problem nor do vitamins, colouring is simple and flavour can be injected to order. The stuff can be even made to suit the taste buds of an institutional canteen or those who like to see blood.

The development is not a new one – vegetarian Seventh Day Adventists have been eating this type of meat for the past forty years – but it is developing rapidly in recent years, and could hang a large question mark over the future of beef herds. Here in Jamaica it might solve the problem we have of having to import so much beef though I doubt if a patty would ever taste the same again.

This reminds me a bit of a discussion Gary told me he had with one of the “humane meat” presenters after the presentation at TAFA. Gary pressed the farmer, “Wouldn’t it be great if we lived in a world where we could have the taste and texture of meat without killing animals to do it?” That’s the vibe I get from this 1969 piece (aside from the last sentence and the “for those who like to see blood” part).

Of course, we do live in a world where you can get the taste and texture of most animal products without the suffering of animals. Buddhists have been mocking up meats for thousands of years, even earlier than the Seventh Day Adventists mentioned in the above article.

So, perhaps this the challenge we need to press meat-eaters with. Start by presenting how great a world it would be if we could have the things we like about meat (taste, texture, nutrition) without killing living beings. Few would be able to disagree with the concept. Why, then, aren’t more of us moving towards meat analogs? That’s a challenge that might really make people think.

Pass the wheat gluten-shaped bullock’s muscle, please.

There’s not a vegetarian restaurant to be found near where I live or work.  Our county, despite being the richest in the country and one of the fastest growing, doesn’t have a single vegetarian (let alone vegan) eatery.  Sadly, much of the eastern part of the county has been strip-malled to death so there are Ruby Fridaybee’s everywhere.  Thankfully, there is a pretty good variety of veggie-friendly Vietnamese, Thai, India, and Mexican restaurants.

One of my favorite of these restaurants is A Taste of Burma in Sterling, VA.  It’s the relatively new sister establishment of the excellent Myanmar Restaurant in Falls Church, where my wife and I ate at frequently when we lived in the area.  Burmese cuisine, I’ve found, is unlike any other single cuisine in that area of the world.  Sure, it’s got touches of southeast Asian style as well as obvious Indian influence, but there are some recipes that seem to be wholly Burmese.

One of these is my new favorite dish, their Fermented Tea Leaf Salad.  The menu describes it as “pickled tea leaf, cabbage, tomatoes, sesame, peanuts, broad beans, lime juice, garlic chips, and seasoning.”  While the idea of eating a tea leaf salad may sound a little strange, let me assure you that it’s delicious.  I honestly cannot even find the words in my vocabulary to describe what the taste is like.  I can’t compare it to anything I’ve eaten before.  But, wow, is it good.

The restaurant itself is fast becoming my favorite place in the area to eat because it’s usually relatively empty (hopefully not a bad sign for the business, as two consecutive Thai restaurants in the same location went ouf of business in less than two years).  Initially, the service was kind of slow, but recently has picked up quite nicely.  The owner, the brother of Myanmar’s owner, is very friendly and sometimes brings out new non-menu items for me try.  His sister is vegetarian, so I’ve been told to rest easy that the vegetarian dishes really are (ie. no fish sauce).

If anyone’s ever out my way during the workweek and wants to meet up for lunch, let me know.  It’s not hard to convince me to make a trip there.

Quick-Fix Vegetarian
by Robin Robertson
2007, Andrews McMeel Publishing

Even if you don’t know Robin Robertson by name, you probably know her cookbooks. She’s responsible for over a dozen cookbooks, including the omnivore favorite Vegetarian Meat & Potatoes, the clever Apocalypse Chow (recipes to make when the power goes out), and the enormous Vegan Planet. Robin’s recipes are accessible yet varied, a testament to her 25 years as a chef, caterer, cooking instructor, and food columnist. Quick-Fix Vegetarian: Healthy Home-Cooked meals in 30 Minutes or Less is Robin’s latest, offering up (as the title suggests), fast and easy meals for those in a rush. All recipes are vegan, even though the title avoids saying so outright.

The chapters are pretty much what you’d expect, covering everything from appetizers to sauces to sandwiches and desserts. There’s also a chapter on slow-cooking and “one-dish wonders.” There are 150 recipes in just under 200 pages, each recipe featuring a one paragraph introduction, something I really appreciate in cookbooks. I like context to a recipe before trying it.

We’ve made a number of the recipes over the last couple of months and they’ve all come out nicely. The Potato “Dosadillas” are an interesting dosa-quesadilla hybrid. We thought they needed a little more spice (which could be because we doubled the amount of peas), but they were surprisingly good and easy. The Curried Couscous and Vegetables is another simple dish that stretches a long way. A few minutes in the kitchen will serve you well for dinner and several lunches thereafter. The Couscous Shepherd’s Pie was also plentiful — the only change we’d make to this one is to steam the tempeh first if you use it instead of veggie crumbles or tofu.

Perhaps the best recipe we’ve made thus far is the Panko-Crusted Tofu Cutlets with Lemon-Caper Sauce. Panko is basically flaky Japanese breadcrumbs and it provides a great crust when fried up on the tofu. And the sour-salty combination of the sauce is wicked good. The only complaint here was that it took significantly longer than 30 minutes to make (we had a similar issue with the Stir-Fried Tofu and Vegetable Teriyaki). That said, it was well worth the effort.

Even if you have some of Robin’s other books, you’ll probably want to take a peek at this one. There are a number of other interesting recipes I’m looking forward to trying: PDQ Pot Pie (the pot pie from Vegetarian Meat & Potatoes is a holiday stand-by around here), Green Onion Hummus with Lime, and Linguine with Edamame Pesto are all on our to-make list.

The book is simply laid out and the recipes are easy to follow, with one per page. The only complaint I have is the same one I’ve had with a few other of Robin’s books: there are no pictures of any recipes. Sure, there are some food pictures, but they’re all stock photos, and that’s no fun. People are inspired by seeing food photos, which is why food blogs are so popular. It’s a shame that there aren’t even a few nice color panels in the middle of the book.

So, thumbs up for Quick-Fix Vegetarian. A few recipes took longer than the promised 30 minutes, but the results have all been quite good so far. I suspect a year from now, this will be a well-worn book on our kitchen shelf.

Hey y’all… I’ve been a bit quiet recently, so I wanted to do a quick update.

First of all, I’m really starting to dislike this temporary design for the site. Expect a new (hopefully more permanent) version of the site shortly.

Secondly, I love Portland. Right now, I have my slave out picking up some vegan waffle sandwiches with maple spread and garden sausage from a food cart. Even if I don’t live here, a piece of my intestinal tract always will.

Thirdly, yesterday I met Julie Hasson, one of the three chefs on the new Everyday Dish DVD. We just met over e-mail recently, but it was nice to catch up with her in person and eat some food she made. I also got to meet and chat with the legendary Chad and Emiko from Food Fight. They were very excited about doing laundry.

More soon, including lots of pictures and restaurant reports from this trip to Portland. My slave is back, so I’m going to go eat.

Just received this funny e-mail from my sister (who was a vegetarian from age 13-17 but still likes to playfully poke fun at my veganism from time to time):

SUBJECT: I never thought this day would come

O….M…G…

I have soy milk in my house.

And for once I wasn’t the one that brought it!

This weekend was like one food success after another.  Shall I share?

It started off on Thursday afternoon.  The workday was coming to a close and I was putzing around thinking about what I wanted to make for dinner that night.  Huyen had made great meals all week long, so I wanted to give her a break with some good comfort food.  Somehow, I came upon this recipe for Soul Veg’s Macaroni and Cheese.  In case you haven’t heard about this stuff, people reportedly drive for miles and miles to get them some.  I’d had it at Soul Veg in DC before and was duly impressed.  Thankfully, the recipe came out exactly as I remember it.  I mean, holy hell, it has a full cup of nutritional yeast and a full cup of canola oil, so it’s seriously rich.  Bake yourself a batch of that up and it’s a good 6-7 servings.

To go with the mac and cheese, I made up some cornbread, using Isa’s recipe.  I’ve never been a huge fan of cornbread, but I was fiending for some on Thursday.  Isa’s recipe is the best I’ve ever tried.  Just perfect.  Weekend visitors that tried it all went back for seconds.

For Easter dinner, we cooked up a ham.

Kidding, of course.

Easter dinner was a bit of a challenge because we had four family members in town visiting.  I wanted to make sure we made something filling and familiar but not too mock-meaty.  So, I made the vegetable pot pie recipe from Robin Robertson’s Vegetarian Meat & Potatoes cookbook, which I’d had good luck with once before.  In place of tofu, we whipped up a quick batch of seitan that was just enough to fill out the pot pie without being noticeable amongst the vegetables.  Everyone enjoyed it and by the end of the dinner and people getting their seconds and thirds, there wasn’t any left.

A few weeks ago, some friends visited and I made up the raw lasagna recipe from Raw Food, Real World.  I know, I know — risky move serving a raw recipe to non-vegans.  But they loved it!  When I was talking with one of them about how I felt it was risky serving up a raw dish like that, she said that now she felt she had to up the ante when we visited, so she’d be dumpster diving to make a freegan meal.  :)

Cooking vegan for guests can sometimes be a bit daunting, especially for new vegans who are a bit unsure of their cooking skills.  After all, we don’t want to serve up something that turn people off of vegan food forever.  It’s a lot of pressure!  Fortunately, with time, we accumulate enough of these “food successes” that we build confidence in the kitchen.  That’s when cooking gets really fun.

Now we all know about the farce that is non-dairy creamer, right?  For whatever reason, non-dairy creamer is allowed to contain, um, dairy.  Makes total sense.  Something silly about removing the fat and then, voila, it’s no longer dairy.  Uh-huh.

Well, The Consumerist has uncovered the ingredients that are part of Jamba Juice’s proprietary “non-dairy” formula:

Water, Grade A Nonfat Dried Milk, Grade A Whey, Grade A Whey Protein Concentrate, Splenda, Sodium Alginate, Maltodextrin, Pectin, Carrageenan, Sodium Citrate, Sodium Hexametaphosphate, Natural Flavor, Annatto.

Feel free to contact Jamba Juice and let them know that this ain’t cool.

Today is National Pig Day, which as you might imagine has nothing to do with celebrating pigs for, um, being pigs.  Instead, food blog Serious Eats celebrates with features on Chinese Pork Butt, regional barbecued pork, and “pig chefs.”

Perhaps the most repulsive article, though, is 30 Days of Pork, which discusses a vegetarian’s return to meat eating by eating pig every day for a month. 

From the article (emphasis mine):

Ms. Kelso (right), a 34-year-old executive producer for an interactive ad agency in San Francisco, became a vegetarian while living with a vegan boyfriend. “He was adamant that his cookware not come in contact with any meat products.” Because she cares about animals, their welfare, and their ethical treatment, she said, she found it relatively easy to give up meat. But, she says, “I love the taste, so I was one of those vegetarians who would always try all the fake meats.”

It was after reading Michael Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, however, that Ms Kelso was prompted to rethink her reasons for becoming a vegetarian—namely her interest in remaining true to personal ethics regarding the impact of food on the environment and society. The book, which came out earlier this year, follows four very different meals from source to table while assessing their ethical, economical, and social impact along the way.

“After reading it, I realized that I was in violation of those ethics even while being a vegetarian,” Ms. Kelso said. “Unless I drop out of society, live in the forest, and become a hunter-gatherer, I have an impact based on what I buy, no matter what it is.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about this whole “conscientious omnivore” thing (and, somewhat related, the welfare v.s. rights v.s. abolition argument — that, I’ll cover separately) and the more I see things like this, the more the idea of being promoting ”conscientious omnivorousness” bothers me.

Yes, it would be nice if people that ate meat started caring about how the animals were treating.  Yes, it would be nice if learning about slaughterhouses, dairy farms, and egg farms eventually led these people on a path to veganism.  And, yes, eating locally farmed meat may be marginally better than factory farmed meat (in the same way that punching someone in the face with your fist is better than punching them while wearing brass knuckles).

But, no, it’s not nice to keep seeing these articles about so-called ethical vegetarians that decide to go back to eating meat because now they can eat “happy meat” and have their conscience sated.  People like Kelso are drawing conclusions from books like The Omnivore’s Dilemma and The Way We Eat that allow them to return to meat consumption with a clear heart, convinced somehow that eating animals is more ethically correct than not eating animals.  That’s some seriously shaky ground.

The article ends thusly:

While she says that she may go back to being a vegetarian (or maybe not), Ms. Kelso is looking forward to the holidays at home, where, she says, her father is awaiting her visit. “He’s obsessed with cooking and is very excited about the next time I go out and visit him. He’s already planning all his special meat dishes.”

*sigh*  I’m sure the pigs are all just as excited.

Here’s some news I’ve been meaning to post about for the last couple of weeks.  In case you haven’t heard, the oft-talked about Temptation non-dairy dessert from Chicago Soy Dairy is now being distributed on the east coast.

As recently as September, the word I heard was “pretty much no chance” with regards to seeing it here in the DC area.  But apparently, the Connecticut wing of a major distributor in the east is carrying it.  My local health food store had chocolate chip cookie dough (verdict: MMMMMM!) and chocolate flavors and I was told that a large co-op in Maryland had most of the flavors available.

So, if your health food store or co-op doesn’t have it, place a special order.  As I’m sure you’ve heard, it’s well worth it.  The texture is very rich and creamy and Chicago Soy Dairy is the only company to use dedicated equipment throughout production.  That’s right: no “possible traces” of dairy!  Also cool: it’s not terribly expensive.  In fact, ’round these parts it’s a little cheaper than Soy Delicious.

Reading labels can be one of the most daunting tasks for new vegans.   If you’re lacto-ovo vegetarian, you need to watch out for obvious things like chicken broth, but it gets a little more complicated when you commit to avoiding all animal products.  However, I have a few tips that you can use to help decide whether or not a product is safe for you to eat.

1. Check the cholesterol.  Get yourself into this habit to make life a little easier on yourself.  If the product has any cholesterol, even 1mg, then the product is not vegan.  Since cholesterol is not found in any plant-based products, this means there is some sort of animal-derived ingredient.  However, if it has no cholesterol, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s vegan.  It’s the whole rectangle-is-not-a-square thing.
2. Check the allergy listings/bolded text. Most (all?) foods have at the end of their ingredient list, a list of common allergens in the food.  This includes milk, egg, soy, and wheat (those not allergic to soy or wheat obviously only need to look for milk and egg), however I’m not 100% sure that all companies list egg.  Some listings also boldface the common allergens in their ingredient list to make them stand out more.  If anything non-vegan is listed, go ahead and put it back on the shelf.  Again, though, just because it’s not listed doesn’t meant that it’s vegan.  This is separate from the “may contain traces of…” or “is processed on the same equipment as…” notices.  Some vegans may avoid these products to maintain personal purity, others may not since the traces left over from the manufacturing process don’t contribute to suffering or demand.
3. Look for “big ticket” animal-derived ingredients.  These are the most common ones: vitamin D3 is rarely vegan while D2 always is, casein (a milk protein) finds its way into stupid things like soy cheese, whey, honey, and anything with lactose (though most other lac- ingredients are fine).  Be wary of items with “natural flavors” but “artificial flavors” are fine (it helps to contact the manufacturer about their sourcing for natural flavors).  Feel free to list other common ones I’ve left out in the comments.
4. Look for the “little things”.  These are the ones that will trip even experienced vegans up sometimes or ones that require some questioning of yourself (ie. “Should I buy this bread that has possibly-animal-derived mono and diglycerides in the ’2% or less’ part of the ingredients list?”).

Another good rule of thumb is to look for products with the fewest ingredients.  Not only does it mean that it’s likely less heavily processed, but it also makes reading the label easier.

Like anything, with time, reading labels becomes second nature.  Sometimes so much so you have to remind yourself to periodically check stuff that was formerly “safe” but all of a sudden now has the mysterious addition of something like whey.

The main thing I want to stress to new vegans is: don’t beat yourself up over mistakes, even big ones.  Accept that at some point, you’re going to unknowingly ingest an animal product.  This doesn’t mean you should throw your hands up and say, “Then screw it!  I’m not bothering at all if I can’t be perfect!”  Instead, just use the mistakes you make as a chance to learn and remind yourself of exactly how non-vegan of a world we live in.  You’ll know for next time.

There are a lot of great companies out there, large and small, that are making products with sustainability and ethics in mind. A lot of them started small and got acquired by larger companies, which causes some justified concern about the integrity, ongoing direction, and ultimate intentions of the company going forward, but we’ll leave that aside for now.

My New Year’s wish is directed at those companies, big and small, that are “nearly vegan”… companies that have always made products without meat, that market themselves to vegetarians, and make it very clear which of their products are vegan. There are a lot of these types of companies, but for no reason other than their visibility, I’ll single out two: Amy’s Kitchen and Endangered Species Chocolate. Both companies are well aware of vegans and make it clear which of their products are vegan-safe, which is great. But here’s the question: why not go all the way?

While Amy’s doesn’t come right out and mention ethics or animal rights in their mission statement, but they hint at it. Endangered Species, though, uses animals as their primary focus. They donate a percentage of their profits to animal-related charities and they use only “ethically traded” cocoa. Shoot, their mission statement even starts off: “Here, our core value is Reverence for Life…”

Why, then, do both companies use dairy-based ingredients in their products? It’s been well-argued by Erik Marcus and others^* that dairy is an even worse ethical choice than beef, so it’s not ethically consistent for pro-animal companies to involve themselves in any sort of animal exploitation, let alone something as egregiously exploitative as dairy.

Amy’s: you already leave out eggs. Your recent deal with Follow Your Heart means you can ditch the dairy and non-vegan soy cheese. Your spinach and soy cheese pizza on rice crust is incredible. So, c’mon, just do it! And Endangered Species: everyone knows that milk chocolate is inferior to dark chocolate. Why not go all the way and offer strictly dark chocolate, sans dairy?

^* Beware the second-to-last paragraph in that linked article–it’s garbage.

Hi there! I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday season without too many “I could be a vegan… except for cheese”-type conversations.

For Christmas, the family converged on my parents house for three days filled with family visits, cooking, and other assorted holiday mayhem. The “food situation” wasn’t too bad… my mom’s nearly vegetarian and always makes sure there’s something vegan for me. She and my dad have even taken to preparing certain things vegan only rather than having two versions available (Christmas cookies, mashed potatoes, etc.), which is nice, because people simply don’t notice unless you tell them.

Other family continued to be a bit baffled by my veganism (c’mon, folks, I’ve been veggie for over six years now!), but at least it allowed for some decent conversation and education on the subject. One relative surprised me by trying a piece of my tofu cheesecake and enjoying it and I had to break down the “free range myth” for another. Another made me laugh a little bit when she told me, “Since you’re vegan, I made the fish with fake bacon bits instead of bacon,” to which I paused and replied, “Yes… but there’s still the fish…” She laughed and realized her mistake pretty quickly after that.

My sister gave Rasine the very cool Tofu Bear, a soft little teddy bear made out of “soy silk,” a “a cutting edge fiber made from the waste produced during the manufacture of tofu.” Replace “fiber” with “product” and “tofu” with “meat” and you’d be talking about leather! Does this mean that meat eaters that eschew tofu will have to say they don’t support soy silk because it “still supports The Industry”?

My cousin and I also chatted about Big Antifreeze and how they’re suckers for not using taste-aversive additives to deter dogs and cats from ingesting it (though, interestingly, the ASPCA is “neutral” on the subject).

Food I made for the holidays that turned out well: a yellow split-pea soup from a Polish cookbook, the very Toll House-ish cookies from Don’t Feed the Bears, Dreena’s Sublime Chocolate Bark, and chocolate chip tofu cheesecake from the Chicago Diner cookbook.

Any good hoilday stories to share as we kick off this new year?

Yesterday, I had a chance to sample Sheese, a vegan cheese imported from Scotland (there known as Scheese). For all vegans that have been waiting for a cheese product that you can actually eat plain… it’s here.

Now, I haven’t tried Cheezly yet (any UK folks that would be willing to ship me some and get reimbursed?), but Sheese is far and away the best soy cheese I’ve had yet. My wife tried it, too. Now, she’s content with the standard Veganrella/Vegan Gourmet/Uncheese Cookbook options but is also fiending for a vegan cheese that is truly like the real thing. When I handed her a piece of Sheese and she bit into it, her eyes opened wide and she said, “Wow. There’s no difference in taste or texture between this and real cheese.” Clearly, this stuff is amazing.

My local health food store is likely going to start carrying it soon. They couldn’t say how much it would cost just yet, though I know Food Fight had it for $9.75. That’s pretty damn expensive, but hopefully this new import deal Sheese has with Black Duck Imports will make it more affordable.

Available flavors: Blue, Cheddar & Chives (the one I tried), Cheshire, Edam, Gouda, Hickory Smoked Cheddar, Medium Cheddar, Mozzarella, and Strong Cheddar.

(Thanks to Steve at Healthy By Nature for letting me sample this good stuff.)

I always love trying out new vegan products and in some cases I consider it my duty. After all, how can I report about strawberry-flavored Ricemellow Creme if I don’t buy some and eat it with everything?

So, here’s my lastest rundown of vegan products I’m loving right now:

• Lamas Spa Sensation Hand Cream: When winter time rolls around, my hands are crazy dry. Everything I’ve tried helps a little, but my skin still cracks and my hands look like those of a 90-year-old man. This stuff, though, seems to do a better job than anything else I’ve tried. Plus, it smells excellent and isn’t oily.
• Cindy’s Kitchen Creamy Miso Dressing: I’ve been on a creamy dressing kick as of late, and this is definitely one of my new favorites. Even though it says “miso” in the name, it doesn’t really have any miso taste. It’s just a rich, delcious, creamy dressing that tastes great on salads, as a dip, or as a toothpaste. OK, maybe not that last one, but only because I haven’t tried it yet.
• Nasoya Tangy Blue Dressing: A vegan blue cheese? Believe that! Great stuff. (There’s also a dead simple recipe for a blue cheese dressing in the Michael Franti issue of Herbivore. It’s just as good and maybe a little better because you can make it as chunky as you’d like.)
• Peppermint Chocolate Vitasoy: Bloody hell this stuff is amazing. I concur with the folks over at the PPK forums, though… this stuff should be fortified, then I could feel better about drinking this stuff at every meal.

What’s tickling your fancy this holiday season?

This past weekend was Cupcake Weekend ’round our house, as I baked up two batches of goodies from Isa and Terry’s Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. I went with the Tiramsu Cupcakes and made the Green Tea Cupcakes with Green Tea Glaze for an office potluck. Both were simply excellent, and not terribly complicated. Mine definitely leaned towards hideous looking since I have zero cake decorating experience or equipment, but I was more concerned with taste for these first few recipes. The cakes were a nearly perfect texture and the frostings were equally as good. I’ve found that I really enjoy the process of making frosting, too. It’s like, you’ve got Earth Balance and confectioner’s sugar in a bowl and there you are beating it. It’s all lumps and you start thinking, “C’mon, there’s no way this is ever getting creamy” and then magically a minute or two in, it does.

Simple pleasures.

If you haven’t picked up the book, you really need to. Every single recipe in there made me say, “Wow, I’ve gotta try that.” I mean, seriously, lychee cupcakes? Oh hell yeah.

The other day I wrote about cupcakes that featured the Sunspire M&M-like candies on top. Girl least likely to killed my buzz and said (I’m paraphrasing how she should have said it), “Um, stupid, did you actually read the ingredients?” Turns out I just made this assumption that they were dairy-free because, jeez they’re like four times as expensive as M&Ms, plus Sunspire makes those great dairy-free chocolate chips. But, noooo — not only do they have stupid little non-vegan things like beeswax, they’re made with milk chocolate! If I had taken even a second to check the label, I would have seen the 10mg of cholesterol and it would have tipped me off.

So, boo to me for making stupid assumptions and then passing along incorrect information to you. And boo to Sunspire for not just making the darn things vegan to begin with! Who wants to pay so much money for what are essentially the same as M&Ms?

Just thought I’d post a picture of my birthday dinner from a few weeks ago, a vegan philly cheesteak (with thinly chopped Tofurkey steak slices, peppers, onions, and nature’s most unnautral product: faux Cheez Whiz from the Uncheese Cookbook) and a raspberry ginger ale:

And for dessert, my wife took my mom’s recipe for Black Magic Cake, veganized it, and turned it into cupcakes. And then we made the buttercream frosting from Isa’s awesome new cookbook, Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. To top it off, the Sunspire M&M-like thingies (ETA: OOPS! NOT VEGAN! Read this.):

Kashi’s always been a veg-friendly company (though they’re pretty annoying to vegans because they include honey in freakin’ everything), so I was a bit bummed when I got a coupon pack from them in the mail last week advertising their new line of frozen dinners. The six new entrees include:

• Chicken Pasta Pomodoro
• Black Bean Mango
• Southwest Style Chicken
• Lime Cilantro Shrimp
• Lemon Rosemary Chicken
• Sweet and Sour Chicken

I spy one item on there that vegetarians may potentially be able to eat. The move to frozen dinners is questionable enough for Kashi, who’s known for nutrition bars and cereal, but to thumb their nose at a group that’s probably a substantial part of their customer base is an even more surprising move.

I’m definitely disappointed. But perhaps this is just the latest sign that people are more than happy to continue eating their meat as long as it falls under either the “healthy” or oxymoronic “humanely slaughtered” labels. And there really aren’t many companies out there that will resist the temptation to cater to that segment of the buying public.

Veg Blog regular kitchenmage wrote an entry on her blog a few weeks back titled Some of my best friends are vegan… where she asks, “What’s with the faux meat? … [I]f you are a vegan for ethical reasons, I can’t see how you could eat faux steak. You’re not eating a cow because it’s ethically wrong so why are you pretending to eat a cow? What’s up with that?”

I know I’ve written about this before, but am too lazy to do a search and find it. So, I just thought I’d include my response here:

Sorry for the delay in replying to this post, but here goes…

The simple answer:

I gave up meat for ethical reasons. I didn’t give up meat because I disliked the taste. Thus, if I can have something that reminds me of the flavor and texture of meat that I enjoyed while also being cruelty-free, what’s the problem?

The expanded version:

I hear a lot from people saying, “Oh God, soy ____? That’s gross.” But, to me, eating something made of soy or wheat, whatever it is, is much less disturbing than something made of an animal that used to be alive.

That said, I can understand why some vegans won’t eat fake meat or are creeped out by it. For many, it reminds them too much of the real thing and the gag reflex may kick in. For me, though, knowing simply that it’s not meat is enough for me to enjoy it with a good conscience.

In addition, fake meats are an awesome transitional food for new vegetarians coming from a meat-heavy background that have no clue what they’re going to eat.

Does all that make sense?

Here’s a random question: why are there no vegan sour cream and onion potato chips?

When I made my pilgrimage to Food Fight a few weeks ago, I picked up a bunch of random products that I’m unable to get here in Virginia. By far, the best of the bunch was the bag of Naturebake Soft Batch Chocolate Chip Cookies. These are by far the best store-bought soft batch cookies ever in the history of mankind and dinosaurs. I don’t know how they do it, but man oh man are they good (and they ship well, so don’t hesitate to order some online). I can’t wait to get home tonight and make a chipwich with some Whole Soy Vanilla Frozen Soy Yogurt.

See also: Naturebake’s site.

This is a short article I wrote for my CSA‘s newsletter. I thought I’d include it here. The audience generally knows what a “vegan” is, but may not have had a whole lot of experience cooking for them. I wanted to come strictly from a food angle and only briefly mention the reasons people are vegan.

It’s summertime and you’ve got a group of people coming over for dinner. It’s stressful, but you’re feeling confident because you’ve got a bagful of CSA veggies and a pile of favorite recipes to serve up to your friends. There’s one problem though.

A vegan’s coming to dinner.

Let’s quickly define “vegan” in case you haven’t come across one of these crazy beasts before. Vegans are strict vegetarians that abstain from meat (which included poultry, fish, game, etc.), dairy, eggs, and honey and also do not wear leather, wool, silk or other animal-derived products. There are ethical, health, and environmental reasons people go vegan, but we won’t go into that here (if you’re interested in more detail, visit http://www.vegblog.org/resources/).

A slight panic sets in. If you can’t serve someone meat, that’s OK. You’ve dealt with vegetarians before. But now you can’t use butter, eggs, milk, cheese, or honey in your meal? This is going to be hard, isn’t it?

Thankfully, no. Here’s a quick guide for ways to deal with those pesky vegan dinner guests:

• Make all your sides vegan. This is easy if you’re a member of the CSA and have a large batch of fresh veggies and herbs. There are plenty of vegan recipes on the web site (vegetarian recipes are marked as such, but you’ll have to look more closely for explicitly vegan recipes) and most public libraries have a vast collection of vegan cookbooks that you can borrow. If you have enough tasty vegan sides, they can mix and match those to fill up their plate. But please don’t leave them with just salad and carrot sticks.
• Ask the vegan if they want to bring a dish. Many times, vegans will bring their own dishes to functions in order to not trouble the host while ensuring that they have something to eat. But if it’s a potluck, let the vegan know you’re looking forward to seeing what they bring and trying something new.
• Make all your food vegan. Believe me, it’s not as scary as it sounds and even the hardest of hardcore meat eaters will rarely turn their nose up at a free meal even if it doesn’t have meat in it. In a lot of cases, you can use familiar recipes just making certain substitutions:
• For meat, replace it with a soy or gluten-based analog. There are so many great faux chicken, beef, and pork subs out there and they’re easy to find. Just check the label to make sure that the manufacturer doesn’t use dairy (like whey) or eggs (Morningstar Farms is famous for doing this).
• For dairy, swap out milk with soy, rice, or almond milk. For cheese, look for a soy based cheese (read the label and watch out for casein, a milk-derived protein) or just leave the cheese out.
• Eggs can be a tad tricky. It’s easy if you’re baking (see http://www.theppk.com/veganbaking.html for great tips for getting rid of eggs in cookies, cakes, etc.) but it may be a bit tough if you’re making an egg-heavy quiche. If that’s the case, Google “vegan quiche.”
• Honey can be easily substituted for with agave nectar (a liquid sweetener derived from cactus that tastes very similar to honey and is very low on the glycemic index), brown rice syrup, or a dry sweetener.
• If trying to figure out exactly how to swap out ingredients in a recipe is a bit daunting, hit Google and search for a vegan version of your recipe. So, if you were going to make fettucine alfredo, search: “fettucine alfredo” vegan recipe

As you can see, cooking for vegans may be a different experience than you’re used to, but it’s by no means difficult. Vegan food is not (or, rather, does not have to be) boring. And when a vegan friend comes by and sees that you’ve prepared a great vegan meal that isn’t spaghetti with marinara sauce, a salad, or a stir fry, their mind will be blown and they’ll be ever so thankful they don’t have to subsist on the snack tray.

Ryan MacMichael is one of those “pesky vegans.” He’s the PVF webmaster but also runs vegblog.org and wrote the foreword for the amazing cookbook Vegan with a Vengeance.

Summer’s my least favorite season, but there is one thing about June that makes it all worthwhile: the start of CSA season. I’ve loved the CSA concept from the moment I heard about it and have enjoyed the fresh, organically grown local vegetables year after year.

One of the plentiful herbs we get during the summer is basil, but during the first few weeks of the CSA, basil’s not as copious, but scapes are. Scapes, or garlic curls, are “are the tender flower stalks that grow out of the middle of hardneck garlic, before the garlic below is full grown.” They have a nice, intense flavor, but can be a little tricky trying to figure out where to use them. Our favorite use is in a modified pesto that uses garlic curls instead of pesto. I’ve posted the recipe because it’s just that good… it’s a biting pesto that has a sharper flavor than you’d expect but is absolutely perfect spread on a piece of toasted crusty bread with a slice of fresh tomato on top. There really are few things finer in life.

This week, the basil started coming in, which means several months of more traditional pesto. Pesto on bread, pesto on pasta, pesto on veggies… maybe summer’s not such a bad time after all…

Last year, my wife and I ate at Pure Food and Wine, a raw food restaurant in New York run by Matthew Kenney and Sarma Melngailis (Kenney has since moved on and started a new restaurant). It was one of the most amazing dining experiences of our lives. We were blown away by the food, no other way to describe it.

Not to menion that Melngailis and Kenney are officially the two most beautiful people on the planet. I think they were made from some supermodel mold hidden deep in the forest, amongst the raw berries and mushrooms.

Raw Food, Real World, a raw food cookbook by Kenny and Melngailis, was released last year and is one I’ve been meaning to give more space to here. I reviewed it for Herbivore, but honestly, I haven’t had too much of a chance to make much from the book. However, tonight we made one of the dishes that we ate at the restaurant last year, a Zucchini and Tomato Lasagna with Basil-Pistachio Pesto, sun-dried tomato sauce, and pignoli ricotta. Here’s what I had to say about the dish in the restaurant:

I savored every bite of the lasagna dish. The thinly sliced zucchini was a nice replacement for the standard pasta slices. The tomatoes were wonderfully fresh and flavorful, even in spring, and the pignoli (pine nut) ricotta was creamy, only slightly nutty, and a perfect compliment to the sun-dried tomato sauce. Needless to say that the pesto (a food that’s traditionally served raw) was flawless, given a nice twist by the use of pistachios.

After soaking the pine nuts and sun dried tomatoes for a few hours, and doing some vegetable chopping/slicing, the dish actually was pretty easy to make. And even with ingredients not exactly at the peak of freshness, the end result was still amazing. The individual components were incredible and the blend of flavors when eaten together was both fresh tasting and filling. Sure, it’s a little expensive to make with two cups of pine nuts, a package of sun-dried tomatoes, and 1/2 cup of pistachios, but this is the perfect summertime dish to serve to guests, especially considering how much of it can be made ahead of time.

I look forward to making more from this book. The photography is gorgeous and makes me want to try it all. I’ve borrowed a dehydrater from my sister-in-law, so now all I need to do is pick up a few of the odd ingredients and learn how to hack apart a coconut. Then I’m good to go. I’d venture to say that Raw Food, Real World is the definitive gourmet raw food cookbook.

(Incidentally, the recipe for this dish is available in the middle of this interview with Sarma Melngailis.)

When it comes to vegan foods, the holy grail is an odd one. The thing that most vegans most want, aside from a vegan cheese that’s better than mediocre, is a gelatin-free marshmallow. It makes me think that most vegans subsisted on nothing but s’mores and fluffernutter sandwiches before they gave up animal products.

Vegan Supreme Marshmallows were amazing, but unfortunately they used Emes Kosher Jel, a product thought to be vegan until the company was exposed. Since then, we’ve suffered oh so much waiting for a new vegan marshmallow to make s’mores, Rice Krispy treats, or just eat right out of the bag. There are a few options out there, but the ones I’ve tried have been OK at best. Until now.

Last year, Sweet and Sara, a new bakery in New York City, started developing their own formula. A couple of months into their experimentation, though, the Emes scandal broke and the bakery was nearly done for before they even started. Thankfully, they didn’t give up and kept things running, managing to make what can now be called, unequivocally, the world’s best vegan marshmallow. Go ahead, quote me on that.

There are three varieties of marshmallow available: vanilla made with organic (non-refined) sugar, vanilla made with refined white sugar, and a Mexican chocolate variety. The reason for the two different types of sugar is that the refined white sugar gives a slightly more traditional marshmallow taste, texture, and color, but honestly, I didn’t find much difference between the two. Both were squishy and delicious right out of the box. It took a lot of willpower for me to not devour them all before I even got them from the mailbox to the house.

The chocolate marshmallows took me by surprise, as I’d never tried such a beast. At first the flavor felt wrong, but by the second bite I was appreciating the chocolateness of the experience. I still like plain vanilla better, but can you imagine making s’mores with chocolate marshmallows? That’d be wicked good.

Did someone say s’mores? Yes… yes, I did. The thing is, I didn’t even have to make my own — Sweet and Sara sell premade s’mores as well. These Moon Pie-ish delights have a layer of chocolate poured over a fat layer of marshmallow on top of a graham crust. They’re phenomenal, each bite an eye-rolling delight. But that’s not all… Sweet and Sara also sell peanut butter s’mores! The extra layer of peanut butter adds even more goodness, making for one of the most enjoyable dessert treats I’ve had in a long time. Great, great stuff.

Sweet and Sara Bakery also makes croissants, a toasted coconut marshmallow, and other baked goods available in New York and via mail order. Though they’re not officially open yet and haven’t set prices for all of their products, keep an eye on Sweet and Sara’s site for more information.

The holy grail has arrived by way of Sweet and Sara. Bow down at their feet.

I posted a new recipe (finally!) today for Irish Potatoes. If you’re looking for a creamy, “ouch-my-teeth-hurt” sweet, bite-sized dessert, this is the one for you. And, no, there’s not a bit of potato in it.

These are so good.

Over the past two days at work, I’ve eaten a total of one pound of carrots and half a pound of hummus.

That is all.

After yesterday’s post about working to avoid processed foods, I have a post on the other end of the spectrum: a post about the unhealthy, way overprocessed dinner we had last night. But I have a good excuse! I tried it so I could report back to you on how good (or bad) it was. I do it all for you, people!

I’ve heard a lot about Tofutti‘s Pizza Pizzaz and when I saw it in our local Giant, I was anxious to try it out. It’s made with Tofutti’s own Better Than Mozzarella Cheese, which is a good thing and a bad thing. Good because Tofutti makes one of the less-funky tasting vegan cheese on the market but bad because of the partially hydrogenated oils. It ain’t health food is what I’m trying to say.

Tastewise, again, it was good and bad. Good because it’s what I was expecting. Bad because most people don’t have fond memories of the pizza they used to serve in elementary school. This may sound like a harsh criticism, but there are times when you’re in the mood for elementary school pizza, right? OK, maybe not. Just chalk it up to a junk food craving, if you wish.

This is another one of those good “transitional foods” that will help those just becoming vegetarian. Or, like Cookie Monster says now about cookies, it’s a good “sometimes” food. But you probably don’t want to make it a daily staple.

One of my goals for this year is to cut back significantly on pre-packaged, processed foods. It’s partially to save some money—that stuff can get really expensive—but also because it was becoming a bit too much of a crutch. Granted, around our house, we used less prepackaged stuff than the average American, but we were still eating too many packaged snacks and relying on frozen meals (Amy’s, usually) for lunches. Plus, I just want to cook more.

So far, we’ve done pretty well. We still keep some Amy’s on hand for lunches when time is really tight and once or twice a week we’ll take a shortcut with dinner, but for the most part, we’ve been cooking more, baking more, and generally enjoying our food more.

One of the great things about running this blog is that I’ve gotten some killer cookbooks to review. And, of course, you can’t review a cookbook without trying a lot of recipes in it. Those nagging reviews really help encourage me to try out new dishes frequently and devote a chunk of time after work for “kitchen time,” preparing dinner. Our dog looks on with hope in her eyes, “Please can I have some broccoli? How about carrots?” (Yes, she begs for veggies.) She appreciates us cooking more, too, since that means there’s more stuff we can put aside for her to have.

One of the things that had kept us from preparing as many meals as we would have liked before was the thought that, “Ugh… I’ve got to pick out a recipe. Do we even have the ingredients?” It can be frustrating and daunting to pick and prepare a recipe after coming home from a long day at work. So, to combat that issue we’ve started doing two things:

• Planning our meals ahead of time. Sunday we plan the meals for the week, write them on Webly’s calendar, and grab what we need from the store Sunday night. Having a plan helps, even if we occasionally deviate from it.
• Building in at least one “improvised” meal. This removes the stress of coming home and wondering if we have everything we need. The idea behind this one is “a grain and some steamed veggies.” Like last night, I cooked up some quinoa which takes about 15 minutes, steamed some broccoli which also takes about 15 minutes, and added some spinach to the broccoli about three minutes before it was done. Drop the veggies on top of the quinoa, drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and there you go… a really easy, healthy dish with stuff that’s probably going to be be in the fridge and pantry anyway. I know I’m pretty late to the game with this, but by giving myself permission to not follow a recipe occasionally, the pressure’s off. (I think I feel this need to follow a recipe because I’m still learning so much about food and its preparation.)

Those two things have made a pretty big difference. The one thing we’ve always done, and continue to do, is to make 4-6 servings even though there’s only two of us. That way, we’re both covered for lunch the next day.

Do you have any favorite tips for making sure you eat well even when you get home late from work and just want to crash on the couch?

Last night I made a potato and brocolli soup recipe from The Frugal Vegan’s Harvest and Holiday Survival Guide, a cookzine I picked up in New York last year. The zine itself is nicely laid out with lots cheap, tasty recipes and fun commentary and gift ideas. This recipe in particular was perhaps the easiest soup recipe I’ve ever made and may become a good go-to dish when time or patience is short. The base recipe was a bit salty, probably due to the vegetable stock (in this case, a Better Than Bullion base). Otherwise, it was a thick and creamy soup worthy of repeat performances. I’ll post the recipe shortly.

As a side note, I’m not that enamored with the Better Than Boullion vegetable base. Sure, their slogan (“You’re in for a Treat! It’s the Bouillon Made from Meat.”) sucks, but it’s more that the flavor really doesn’t offer anything over a decent low salt powder. (Time to come clean: I rarely make vegetable stock from scratch. I know I lose points and may be kicked out of the vegan club.)

Happy 2006! Any veg-related resolutions you care to share?

The holidays were a lot of fun around our house, with family visiting and plenty of food a-cookin’. Let me see if I can remember everything we (we being me, my wife, or any member of my family that visited) made… fresh Vietnamese spring rolls (a staple), veggie pho, chocolate chip cookies, butter Earth Balance cookies, coconut pancakes, pumpkin waffles, stuffed butternut squash, vegan pierogi (SO perfect), samosas, lemon-pineapple bars, pumpkin cookies, coconut-lime cookies… the list goes on. Pictures forthcoming.

Aside from the minor conflicts mentioned earlier, the food all went over well. My dad even made a special batch of his Christmas cookies vegan and my in-laws were very flexible about eating (mostly) vegan while visiting us.

I even shot a video that I’m planning on editing down and posting here. How exciting will that be?! Not very, let me tell you!

Here’s to hoping for a wonderful year for all of you. And if you’ve resolved to go vegan this year, let me know how I can help.

I hope you all had/are having a wonderful holiday.

Christmas weekend went relatively well for us, though this was the first time in a while that “the food thing” has been an issue. This part of the family is about as far from vegan as possible, which made things a little tricky. Not really in terms of what we had to eat–we made our own meals–but in terms of having to deal with the questions and comments we’ve all heard a thousand times before. One family member in particular seemed particularly challenged by my mere presence, annoyed that I wanted to make my own curry because she was using dairy-based margarine and milk. She did buy vegetable broth in anticipation of my arrival, though, which was thoughtful, and made preparing my sauce alongside hers easier.

I also found myself challenged with the “But the cow’s need to be milked! It hurts if they’re not!” line as well as the “Plants feel pain” bit. I wonder sometimes if people really believe these things or are just repeating what they’ve heard. I can only be thankful that the honey issue didn’t come up.

In case you’re wondering how I handle these situations, I don’t let them escalate. Holidays with family are not the time to be spreading The Word. So, to the cows-need-to-be-milked comment my reply was, “Well, we won’t get into that right now” and I ignored the plants feel pain comment altogether. If I feel like the person might actually be receptive to the message or is genuinely interested in talking about it, I’ll add, “I’d be happy to talk with you about that later, when we’re not eating,” but in this case, I think it was more of a challenge than any interest in finding out why dairy’s worth avoiding.

After having not eaten or prepared meat for this long, the sights, smells, and discussion of meat are really starting to make me feel uneasy. Early on, it didn’t bother me too much because I wasn’t that far removed from it, but like they say, once you find out what goes into producing the roast on the platter, you can’t unlearn it. I end up thinking about the animals I see each week at the farm and making that very uncomfortable connection with the slab of flesh sitting out on the table.

Thankfully, to most members of the family, my veganism has stopped becoming a topic of conversation at every meal we share. It’s something they’ve gotten used to and doesn’t need to be discussed too much. As a nice byproduct, many of the family members that were most confused about the idea of avoiding meat have begun to understand the reasons behind it and have even made pleasant comments about how they “admire” the act. It’s a step in the right direction.

If you’ve read this far, the least I can do is tell you about the good food my wife and I had. One night, we joined the rest of the family for a curry dish. Our curry sauce was a makeshift concoction I put together based on the non-vegan version in the pan next to mine. We had plenty of veggies and fried tofu in ours and it was absolutely delicious. I had leftovers for lunch just a few minutes ago.

For Christmas night dinner, I made a veggie pot pie recipe from Robin Robertson‘s Vegetarian Meat and Potatoes Cookbook. We used lightly seasoned and fried seitan in place of the tofu, but otherwise followed the recipes for the pot pie and gravy as-is. The end result was spectacular. I have bad luck with crusts-from-scratch, but this one was very easy to make and came out nice and flaky. Just about everyone at dinner tried some of the pot pie and it went over really well. My brother-in-law’s girlfriend even asked for seconds, which is always nice since it’s hard to tell how seitan will sit with meat eaters.

Navigating the holidays can be a little troublesome, but you’ll always feel better afterwards if you stick to your guns while still playing the polite card. Like Bob and Jenna say in Vegan Freak (and I’m paraphrasing here), you’ll be best off if you find that halfway point between timidity and over-assertiveness.

Tuesday’s lunch:

A wicked good banh mi chay sandwich from Eden (aka “Little Saigon”) in Falls Church, VA. Thanks to the Buddhists perfecting mock meat over thousands of years, the Vietnamese have some of the best faux meat there is. On this sandwich is some fake pork so real-tasting, my wife and brother-in-law were astounded. They couldn’t tell the difference.

We also bought (and consumed) fake lobster (so, so good) and a number of other to-go lunches from the excellent Four Sisters (Huong Que) bakery.

Banh Mi is a sandwich on french-style bread and when I visited Vietnam was what I ate when I was itching for a taste of home, even though these sandwiches have a distinctly different taste than the standard American sandwich. Usually they have pork or other meat inside, but if you see “chay” tacked on to the end, you can rest assured it’s vegetarian. Really good stuff.

Last year, one of my co-workers started getting me addicted to good chocolate. As part of my training in what’s good and what’s junk, I was introduced to Dagoba’s Xocolatl hot chocolate with chiles and cinnamon. The best way to describe this drinking chocolate is, “Really good hot chocolate that leaves a nice burn in your throat.” It’s not hot going down, but a second after you swallow, the chiles kick in.

Read my (former) co-worker’s take on the same drink, which he articulates much better than I can. While you’re at it, check out the rest of his chocolate blog (not all vegan, but still…).

Also, a simple hot chocolate recipe for the less adventurous.

I love latkes. Or, as we (half-)Poles call them, Plaki. There’s just something so comforting about potato pancakes served with a healthy dallop of applesauce or sour cream. Fellow latke lovers will want to check out the Dec 05/Jan 06 issue of Satya for Joshua Ploeg’s latke recipes. Of course, all of them are vegan.

Ealier this week, Huyen whipped up a batch of the sweet potato latkes. We didn’t make the accompanying sauce, opting for some applesauce on the side, instead. I was a bit skeptical of how sweet potatoes would work, but I was floored. They have more depth than the standard latke and have some different layers of flavors than I’m used to. Very, very good.

I’m looking forward to trying the others in the collection, as well as the sauces.

I had heard earlier this year that Delicious Choices would be shutting down at the end of the year. Delicious Choices makes what’s been reported to be some of the best vegan cheesecakes in existence. I never had a chance to try one, but I’ve heard raves from a number of people about them. Well, now the recipes for all of the cheesecakes are being offered in a PDF file for $10. I plunked down my cash, took a look, and can assure you: you’ll want to check these out.

I’ve been thoroughly impressed by every vegan cheesecake I’ve tried. The Chicago Diner makes a killer one and the Oreo one I bought from Red Bamboo was phenomenal. I’ve even made my own a few times and had omnis coming back for seconds, so I look forward to trying these out. Honestly, a good vegan cheesecake is every bit as good as–and actually probably better than–its lacto counterpart.

Thanks to Erik for pointing this link out on his podcast.

This weekend was Cookie Weekend around our house. We baked three batches yesterday from three different recipes.

First was a Pumpkin Oatmeal cookie recipe from Vegan With a Vengeance and as with everything else we’ve made from Isa’s book, they were awesome. The pumpkin flavor is a great twist on the standard oatmeal cookie.

Next, we made Coconut Lime cookies from Dreena Burton’s Vive La Vegan and even though we didn’t use the coconut extract that it called for (forgot to pick it up when we were at the store), they came out wonderfully. I’m a sucker for lime (get it? sucker! har!). Throw in a subtle coconut flavor and it’s all over. These are really, really tasty.

Lastly, we made this sugar cookie recipe. They came out OK, but were kind of bland. I’m going to read through the comments more thoroughly and see if anyone’s come up with better variations because this recipe was incredibly easy and would be a great go-to recipe for the holidays.

The Cookie Monster in me was satiated this weekend.

Since I did a lot of traveling in November, my wife and I decided to stick around home this Thanksgiving and spend some quality time with each other and way too much good food. I missed being with my family this year, but it was relaxing to be able to hang out at home with no travel further than the supermarket.

We decided to devote all of Thursday to cooking. After all, even though it was only two of us, what’s Thanksgiving without a feast to gorge yourself on, right?

Here’s a rundown of our menu:

• Bryanna Clark-Grogan’s Soy-Seitan “Turkey” – I’m bored of Tofurkeys at this point, but in an effort to have something familar and turkey-like on the table, we decided to make our own this year. It wasn’t terribly difficult and the end result was quite good. The texture was that kind of bouncy texture that seitan tends to have, but the flavor was pretty spot on. My wife gave it the thumbs up and it’s awesome on turkey sandwiches the next day.
• Mashed Potatoes with Punk Rock Chickpea Gravy – Isa’s gravy kicked butt (though I’ll probaby half the amount of lemon, as it was a tad sour) and the potatoes were delicious. Who would have thought chickpeas and a load of spices would make some of the most delicious gravy I’ve tasted?
• Cranberry Sauce – Another Bryanna Clark-Grogan recipe, we used agave nectar in place of the sugar this time around with great results.
• Pumpkin Bread – We made a veganized version of my mom’s pumpkin bread recipe, one of my favorite parts of this time of year. I’ll post the recipe here shortly.
• Pumpkin Pie – Another Bryanna recipe (the first link in this list points to a load of holiday recipes) that came out quite well. I’ve failed twice in my two previous attempts at pumpkin pies, so it was nice that this one worked for me. As a bonus, it doesn’t use tofu; I love tofu, but every time I’ve tried it in a pumpkin pie, it’s been grainy. We used a prepared crust which wasn’t so great, but the pie filling was excellent.

What’d you have to eat?

Over the last week, I’ve driven over 1400 miles (and overheated on the Cross-Bronx Expressway on a Sunday night) as part of a super-secret project (the same one mentioned on this week’s Vegan Freak podcast). I had a nice chat and brunch with Erik Marcus and a nice week meeting a lot of other fine folks.

I even had a chance to visit the Greenstar Co-Op twice to stock up on snacks and pick up some amazing sea salt that I’ve been wanting to stock up on for the last four years (I know, I’m a dork). However, I’ve got a beef with Greenstar…

See, I was loading up with some various nuts and snack mixtures. I got a bag of really tasty curry cashews and grabbed a bag of the delicious-sounding orange-spiced walnuts. So as I drove to Erik’s, I tried a couple of the walnuts. Indeed, they were delicious. But something made me pause and check the ingredients. My jaw dropped when I saw on the ingredient list: “egg whites.”

Egg whites? What the hell? Why do you need egg whites in a bag of spiced nuts? Shouldn’t it just be, you know, spices and nuts?

I really am dumbfounded, and a bit pissed, at this. As Erik said, “Nuts are sacrisanct.” Can anyone clue me in? (And before you say “it’s to help keep the spices on the nuts,” then why didn’t the curry cashews have egg whites?)

Via Paul comes one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen:

Slammers: wow in a bottle.

That’s not “WOW” as in the Olestra-filled chips, but “wow” as in :”Wow, I can’t believe they’re actually marketing this crap.

What crap? Oh, Milky Way, 3 Musketeers, and Starburst milk. Did you hear me wretch as I typed that? That’s nothing… check this out:

Moon Pie milk. Now, back in the day, I liked a Moon Pie as much as the next guy, but the idea of Moon Pies in liquid form is beyond disgusting… it’s reprehensible. Especially when they’re marketing it as being healthy (“Excellent source of calcium and protein!”). You’ll be happy to know that Moon Pie milk also “delivers Moon Pie® awareness and brand loyalty” and is available in chocolate and banana flavors.

If you haven’t had enough of the insanity, read the about page where the marketing speak spews like a giant fountain of disgusting crossbranded milk products (emphasis mine):

“Bravo! Foods International Corp. has become a leading brand development company by bringing to market products that are a surprising, nourishing experience.

“Future opportunities are leading Bravo! into additional market segments with innovative branded products. The Bravo! success story is built upon a shared creative vision to focus fiercely on delivering highly competitive products to markets that deliver retail excitement, inspire brand loyalty and deliver an enviable return on shareholder investment.”

I’ve got to quote the entire “Our Slammers Brand” section because it provides more marketing speak-per-breath than anything I’ve ever read. I’m not making any of this up, just adding some more emphasis to the especially amusing phrases:

Slammers® is milk with an attitude. It combines all the goodness of Mother Nature’s perfect food marketed with a unique, fun and edgy brand personality. By segmenting the market demographically and psychographically, Slammers® is the first milk product positioned as a beverage rather than a commodity.

Just as they love Super Hero^TM comic books, TV shows and movies, kids love the Marvel® Super Heroes^TM that represent Ultimate Slammers®. They discover that each flavor is fortified to match the super power of the hero on its bottle, making the product even more fun to drink.

Teens and Tweens are drawn to the extreme athletes who represent Pro Slammers^TM. Whether they like skateboarding, in-line skating, BMX biking or the attitude these sports embody, Pro Slammers^TM is their badge of belonging, and the double slam of protein helps keep them energized and ready-to-go.

Teens go for the edgy attitude of Slammers® Starburst® fruit & crème smoothies and their four juicy fruit flavors just like Starburst® fruit chews. 3 Musketeers® Slammers® low fat chocolate milk gives young women a light and fluffy refresher while Milky Way® Slammers® reduced fat chocolate milk is a great taste all can agree upon.

Finally, banana and chocolate Moon Pie® Slammers® complete the brand family with its loyal Moon Pie® following that has been a United States phenomenon for generations.

It probably shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that Dairy Foods Magazine (oh my God, it’s a real magazine!) says, “For all its innovative efforts in the single-serve flavored milk arena, Dairy Foods says ‘hats off’ to Bravo! Foods.” (Do read this article on soy milk production within dairy plants if you get a chance.)

And, lastly, “Bravo!” is the name of the company that makes this crap? That’s almost as stupid of a name as “Yum!“

Falafel (I cheated and used the Fantastic Foods falafel mix) on a bed of greens and tomatoes with a curry/cumin vegan mayonaise dipping sauce.

My last dinner as a 20-something. Now that I’m Old, I’ll only be able to eat strained peas and carrots.

Last weekend, we went to my parents’ house for my dad’s birthday. Since it was one of those landmark birthdays, a number of other family and friends came in on Saturday for a little get-together. Since this get-together was a few days after my dad’s birthday, he had pretty much already eaten through the cake that my mom had made for him. So, we needed another cake for the group on Saturday.

Compassionate Cooks to the rescue.

I made a two-layer version of that cake. I was little worried, as doing vegan baking with a new recipe for a family of non-vegans is always a little dicey. However, the cake and the icing were easy to make and came out wonderfully. The only thing I’d suggest is to make sure you taste the icing… ours was too cocoa-y and needed some more sugar to even it out a bit.

The cake went over really well with everyone. My aunt declared, “You can’t tell there aren’t any dairy or eggs in this!” which is pretty much the reaction all vegan bakers hope for. The cake was moist (and stayed moist for days afterwards) and was really delicious. It’s a really good straight up, simple chocolate-chocolate cake recipe that I’m surely going to use as a go-to in the future.

For the last few years, I’d always wondered about those “alterative sweeteners” used in place of refined sugar in a lot of vegan recipes. While I regularly used pure maple syrup as a liquid sweetener in my baked goods, “agave nectar” and “brown rice syrup” always sounded so uppity and out of my reach, so I didn’t bother giving them a chance.

Then I realized that I wanted to be uppity, so I tried them.

Brown rice syrup is a great natural sweetener that can be used in place of any other liquid sweetener like honey or maple syrup. It “is derived by culturing rice with enzymes to break down the starches, then straining off the liquid and cooking it until the desired consistency is reached” (source). Tastewise you can’t really tell the difference in baked goods since it’s relatively light, but may work better than maple syrup in recipes where the sweetness should be less pronounced.

While I haven’t used any agave nectar yet, I’ve tasted it plain because I’d heard to it referred to as “honey for vegans” or some such before. And I’ll be damned if this low-glycemic, plant-based sweetener doesn’t have that “nearly-honey” flavor, even when eaten plain. Agave nectar is a favorite sweetener for diabetics because of it’s low glycemic value, though this site warns that “f fructose [which makes up 90% of agave nectar] is consumed after eating a large meal that overly raises the blood sugar or with high glycemic foods, it no longer has a low glycemic value. Strangely enough, it will take on the value of the higher glycemic food.”

There are plenty of other sweeteners left to try, but for now I’m happy with my two new friends, Mr. Brown Rice and Mr. Agave. They promise to be good baking buddies in the months to come.

I hate Wal-Mart and generally detest any chain store of its ilk. Target’s slightly better and I haven’t grown to hate them with all of my heart yet, and will shop there if I’m forced to choose a cheapo chain store to patronize.

However, when I went last night, it was by choice. A few days earlier I had read on another veggie blog (I forget which one, darn it!) Go Vegetarian about Cherrybrook Kitchen, a company started by a woman with allergies that makes nut-free, egg-free, dairy-free baking mixes. And, get this, Super Target carries them in their grocery department! Honestly — a vegan chocolate chip baking mix in a store like Target? That’s a big win. And, supposedly, they’re very good (I’ll report back).

After I picked up my baking mix, I browsed the shelves a bit more. A few months earlier I had swung by Target to get some soy yogurt, which they didn’t have. They still don’t, but they have quite a nice selection of soy milk. Target’s store brand even has some of those fancy chip flavors that you normally find in places like Whole Foods (think Olive Oil and Rosemary).

What really blew me away, though, was that they had loose White Peony tea. Three years ago, you’d never find white tea, especially loose tea, available in a supermarket, let alone a Target.

Times, they are a-changin’.

I’m a diner freak even though there’s pretty much nothing for a vegan to have outside of a garden salad and grits. Generally, I go for the history and architecture. This past weekend, I went to a diner and had the standard “we can’t be bothered with you vegetarians meal” of spaghetti with marinara and a side garden salad. The salad was by far the lamest salad ever. It had:

• Standard iceberg lettuce
• A single slice of cucumber
• Four tiny chunks of pepper

And that was it. What kind of poor excuse for a salad is that?

I’ve always been a popcorn junkie. I freakin’ love it. I’ll watch a movie, just so I can eat popcorn while I do it.

My popcorn of choice is hot air popcorn, popped in a $10 popper I got a few years ago and have used more times than I can count. When I was still eating dairy, I would use I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter (you can’t believe it because it pretty much is) Spray. It was perfect for popcorn because it would evenly spread the buttery flavor before sprinkling on sea salt. Unfortunately, after I went vegan, I was left without a good spray for my popcorn. GFA Brands makes a couple of Smart Balance sprays, but they have dairy in them. I wrote to GFA to encourage them to make an Earth Balance spray and they wrote back to tell me there were no plans for such an item. Bummer.

So, over the last year I’ve gotten used to drizzling olive oil on my popcorn, then sprinkling it with sea salt and nutritional yeast. I’ve grown to love it and even though friends look at me strange, they’ve generally liked it, too.

But a month or so ago I’ve found my new obsession: olive oil infused with essence of blood oranges. Blood oranges!

Now, after I pop my gigantic bowl of popcorn, I’ll drizzle just a little of this orange olive oil on and mix it around the entire bowl as much as I can. Then, I resume with regular olive oil, nutritional yeast, and sea salt. The result is that the whole bowl of popcorn smells a little orange-y. While it may sound gross, I love it. And until GFA starts making Earth Balance spray, this will be my go-to choice.

Here’s a question for you veg*ns out there: since you ditched meat/dairy/eggs, have you tried any of the substitutes for things that you never ate when you were omni?

For instance, I always turned up my nose at tuna. Yet, I bought Tuno because it intrigued me. Actually, I’ve bought it a few times and even made tuna salad with it, which would have grossed out a 20-year-old version of me.

And when my wife and I were in New York and had lunch at Red Bamboo, we ordered their calamari. I’ve never had calamari in my life, but tried the vegan version and enjoyed it (so did the wife).

Most recently—yesterday to be exact—I bought some Ricemellow Creme and made a fluffernutter for lunch. I think I’ve had one fluffernutter in my life previous to this, but how could I pass up a product like vegan marshmallow fluff? I mean, just by the very fact it exists, I was forced to try it.

(By the way, Ricemellow Creme is so good. Don’t tell anyone, but I was dipping my fingers into it last night and eating it plain. And it’s not even that bad for you… 2 tablespoons contain 40 calories, no fat, no sodium, no nothing, except for a little sugar. It’s made out of only rice nectar, soy protein, natural gums, and natural flavor.)

Sorry for the quiet around here lately… I’ve had problems with MT and my web host (others have as well), and unfortunately, the problem for me hasn’t been fixed yet. In addition, the c: drive on my home PC has crashed, which has made meeting deadlines on certain articles difficult. However, lots of cool stuff is happening.

With that aside, I wanted to add on a bit to my post from Friday about my wife’s family’s visit last week. In addition to trying a bunch of great new recipes (by the way, I posted the Strawberry Rhubarb Crumb Pie recipe), I worked with my mother-in-law on writing down the recipes for vegetarian pho and not-fish fish sauce. I’ll be posting those this week, as they are two of the most frequently requested recipes I’m asked for in e-mail.

Lastly, is there anyone in the DC/VA/MD metro area that might be interested in doing a little volunteer farm work? Let me know.

My in-laws have been in town for the last week and we’ve been doing lots of cooking and baking, almost entirely with new recipes.

Last weekend was the real kitchen marathon where we made a tofu “filet”, chocolate chip cookies, Indian-spiced Quinoa with Raisins and Pinenuts from the Compassionate Cooks site, a strawberry-rhubarb pie, and our go-to picnic dish, a cold spaghetti salad. This weekend I’ll be adapting a recipe for Fennel Slaw from Gourmet magazine.

The tofu filet was surprisingly easy and quick. The topping was really tasty and fried up fast. This would have been even better if we had marinated the tofu in a fish-like broth for a day or so (maybe one with seaweed?). One note: we had a lot of the dry mix left over. You can probably half that portion of the recipe and still have plenty to cover your tofu.

The cookies came out wonderfully and I ate way too many of them the first day after making them. I brought a batch of these to a fourth of July block party and half-considered labeling them “VEGAN COOKIES!” just so that no one would eat them and I could have them to myself. But I didn’t, and everyone ate them without exclaiming, “Wait! I don’t taste eggs in these cookies!” They even impressed my hard-to-impress sister-in-law, who I schooled on the many ways to bake without eggs.

The Indian-spiced quinoa was simply awesome. A lot of times, recipes I find on the web don’t have enough spice in them and are left tasting kind of bland, but here the balance was perfect. None of my in-laws had ever even heard of quinoa, but they dug this dish.

The pie recipe came courtesy of Terry from Poplar Spring. She had mentioned this recipe a few weeks ago when I was at the farm and I decided to give it a shot since I don’t ever recall having eaten rhubarb before. The pie was deliciously sweet thanks to the fruit’s natural juices and a brown sugar topping. The only weak point was the crust, which was store-bought.

I’ll let you know how the fennel slaw turns out. I was surprised by the fact that it called for anise and fennel, which I had always thought were pretty much identical. The Post Punk Kitchen taught me to never think for myself on food matters.

apricot haiku (inspired by these great vegan haikus)

so cute and tiny
i forgot your tastiness
please forgive me, fruit

Poor carob. It’s so misunderstood.

Often viewed as “fake chocolate” and looked at with scorn because it doesn’t taste like chocolate, carob is one of those foods that lives in the shadows, but really deserves to be considered on its own.

I’ve always liked carob. Even as a kid, when my mom would take me to the local health food store and let me buy a treat, I’d often pick a carob bar. Today, the taste of carob takes me back to my childhood, but I also enjoy it for its own taste pleasures. Baked goods with carob tend to be a little drier than their chocolate counterparts, but offer a unique bite that makes their flavor quite distinct.

One of the items that’s reminded me recently how much I like carob is Frankly Natural’s Vegan Decadence Double Carob Cookie. They look much more appealing than the picture and have a wonderful balance of carob and “other stuff,” so that no one taste is too overwhelming. Sure, not everyone can appreciate carob, but those that do will definitely want to hunt this one down in their local co-op.

To find out some more about carob, I point you to the mighty Wikipedia.

Today is a very ginger day, as I had Liz Lovely‘s Ginger Snapdragon cookies (the ginger is intense and the cookies are soft and chewy… great stuff) and Golden Moon’s delicious White Ginger tea (very sublime and mellow, one of those drinks even people who don’t link ginger would like). So, in honor of the unofficial “ginger day” at my desk, a few ginger links:

• General information
• Ginger for digestion
• 25 Pounds o’ Ginger

Vegan Outreach points out that now there are Philly-Style Steak slices in Tofurky’s already-wonderful deli line! Can’t wait to fry them up, slap them on a hoagie roll, and smother them in some Gee Whiz… it might be even better than my own adaptation!

(Also, check out their Italian Deli slices… that sandwich pictures on the front is ginormous!)

Sure “milk chocolate” is generally snubbed by those uppity chocolate aficionados, but most of us occasionally get a hankering for the taste we grew up with in unhealthy candy bars. Unfortunately, for those of us that don’t consume dairy, there aren’t many options. You’ll never find a Snickers or Hershey’s bar without milk and as much as it pains me, they don’t yet make a non-dairy Krackel bar. But if you’re looking for a straightforward, simple alternative, Chocosoy is worth checking out. Essentially, it’s milk chocolate but the milk is… wait for it… wait… wait… soy milk! Bet you didn’t see that coming!

Chocosoy has a nice flavor. At first taste it’s a bit dry, but once you let it melt in your mouth a bit, the creaminess comes through and has a nice sweetness to it. It’s texture is pleasant and there’s no lingering aftertaste, which you might expect with soy. My chocolate dope dealer Viren said that “the soy flavor was very evident throughout the whole experience,” which I didn’t notice. Perhaps it’s because I’ve become so accustomed to soy in different forms, that I don’t even notice the “beaniness” that I used to in certain products. Whatever the case, there is a slightly unique taste element in the Chocosoy, but I enjoyed the difference.

My wife tried it and really enjoyed it, right from the first bite. Interestingly, she said it was almost “too chocolatey,” which is exactly the opposite of what Viren said. It’s strange how you can get two very different opinions about the same product.

Chocosoy only comes in one variety right now, a solid chocolate ball (or a solid chocolate Reese’s cup-looking shape), but I suspect more products are on the way. I look forward to seeing what else they come up with. Perhaps they’ll offer the world’s first malted soy milk ball.

What’s interesting is that much of their site dedicates time to talking about the sustainable paper used for the packaging, and very little about the source of the chocolate. Word is that it is produced in Brazil under fair trade guidelines but has not yet been officially certified as such. Meanwhile, the sugar used for sweetening is organic and non-refined.

Back briefly to the packaging: each set of five pieces comes in a cute little paper box fastened with a tie from the Brazillian buriti palm tree. The buriti palm “is an elegant tree whose trunk can reach up to 35 meters (110 feet) in height! The buriti grows in areas where water is abundant, and its natural habitat is along the water margins and marshes, where the soil is soft.” A nice touch.

I’m glad to see a product like Chocosoy on the market. They’re tasty and the perfect size for simple snacking while not terribly heavy (50 calories per). I’ve worked my way through a number of packages already and passed a few onto friends and family to solicit their opinions.

An 8-pack (40 pieces total) costs $20 and a 16-pack (80 pieces total) costs $38, both with free shipping. You can order and find out more at Chocosoy.com.

For Easter, I made Bryanna’s Vegan Strata, a bread casserole that’s usually heavy on cheese and eggs. Indeed, it actually does have an “eggy” texture to it. I made the recipe with a few variations, including some dry white wine and cauliflower. It wasn’t the greatest thing I’ve ever tasted (which may have been due to having to settle for bread that was a bit heavy), but the flavors mixed well and the consistency was right. Leftovers mixed with some mashed potatoes (with soy milk and Earth Balance) tasted awesome.

I was surprised at how difficult it was to find a non-mock-meat-based vegan main dish for Easter. This one did the trick and I’ll likely revisit it.

Isa, the Mighty Queen of The Post Punk Kitchen, is coming out with a cookbook later this year. Want a sneak peak at some of the photos from the book?

You got it.

Tell me that Chocolate Orange Pudding with Citrus Macadamia Creme doesn’t look freakin’ amazing.

Let’s see if I can stretch this series out for the rest of the week.

• Tazo Matcha Tea Latte (click on Products -> Tea Lattes… damn non-bookmarkable Flash) – Or as I so cleverly call it, a “lat-tea.” I’m absolutely hooked on this: mix half a mug of this concentrated Japanese green tea (with honeydew accents) with half a mug of soy milk (OK, it has to be a little less than half since otherwise the mug would overflow after one step) and microwave for three minutes. The result is a creamy, green tea-y hot beverage that will make your eyes roll into the back of your head. Also quite awesome is their Vanilla Black lat-tea.
• Vice Cream – I’m not about to go out and spend $16 on two vanilla beans, but most of the recipes in this book make it fun to break out the ice cream maker (~$25) and make some homemade frozen desserts. I really liked the vanilla chocolate chip recipe… you’re not going to mistake it for Breyer’s, but an ice cream whose base is cashew nuts (!!!) instead of dairy has a very unique and interesting taste. Good stuff. Also good: the apple cinnamon flavor.
• Silk Enhanced – The most nutrient-dense soy milk on the market (as far as I know) also tastes good on cereal. Interestingly, this was originally designed as a soymilk for women because of its vitamin C, folic acid, and omega-3s… but don’t men need those, too?

Three more foods I’ve been loving:

• Newman’s Own slightly hot Salt and Pepper Pretzels dipped in Tribe of Two Sheiks Hummus with Roasted Red Pepper (the “party size” tub, of course) – Seriously. Just so good.
• Kashi Organic Promise Autumn Wheat cereal – There’s nothing fancy about this cereal, but since I tried it first a few months ago, I can’t get enough of it.
• Vegan Gourmet Cheese – Hard as hell to find, but worth the trouble. It took my local health food store six months to get it through their distributor, dispite the fact they carry other Follow Your Heart products. This stuff is definitely the best vegan cheese out there. It melts wonderfully and has a nice flavor and consistency. For those days when Veganrella just won’t cut it. (Cut it? Cut the cheese? Har!)

There are three foods that I’ve been loving recently:

• Kashi Heart to Heart Oatmeal – Easy to find and packed with vitamins (100% B12!), this has become my favorite go-to breakfast. And I used to hate oatmeal. I’m especially digging the Golden Brown Maple… it smells amazing.
• Fantastic Foods Vegetarian Spanish Paella – A great lunch for those days when I don’t have time to make a sandwich or when I’ve run out of leftovers. How many microwaveable meals have you eaten that actually have saffron in them>
• Dark Chocolate – Viren‘s gotten me on a chocolate kick. I’ve liked everything I’ve tried so far, from Dagoba’s Mint and Rosemary to Green and Black’s Maya Gold to Newman’s Organics’ Sweet Dark Orange Chocolate to Rapunzel’s Semisweet chocolate. My saturated fat intake has certainly increased over the last month or two.

Recently when I’ve written about food items I’ve tried, my commentary has been positive. I’ve been amazed at how many really good prepared foods are out there. But every so often I come across one that makes me cringe and think, “Gawd, if a non-veg*n tried this, they’d never give up {meat,dairy,eggs}.” SoyBoy‘s new “cream cheese alternative” spreads fall into that category.

After having such good experience with Tofutti’s Better Than Cream Cheese offerings (except, of course, their Smoked Salmon), I had high hopes for SoyBoy, especially since their offerings are healthier and less expensive. Besides, I’ve liked other SoyBoy products I’ve tried, like the Okara Courage Burger.

But when I tried the Chive-Y Onion Spread on a whole wheat bagel, I couldn’t keep from scrunching up my nose. This stuff was not only a weird consistency, but it tasted and smelled foul. Yeah, there are onions in there and since I see green, there are probably some chives in there, too, but it tasted like an old sock. An old sock you could spread, of course, but an old sock, nonetheless.

The original flavor version was slightly better. The consistency was more cream cheese-like but it just tasted bland. Still, the original flavor could probably be mixed with your own fresh chives with slightly tastier results.

So, yes, Tofutti’s Better Than Cream Cheese will load you up with sat fat and trans fat alike, but it’s so far ahead of SoyBoy’s offerings that I just can’t recommend choosing the healthier option over the better tasting option this time around.

My new computer has arrived and the transition has begun, so posts here should start picking up again.

One thing I’ve been meaning to do is write a follow-up to my Snakker bar review a few weeks ago. Ibrahim sent me a sample of his modified Snakker bar that features more cocoa, even though it’s at a greater cost to him. The new bar is an improvement on the original, which was already a tasty and unique treat. The sweetness of the dates is still evident, but it’s more subdued and blends even more nicely with the cocoa and peanuts. Good stuff.

He also sent along one of the Raw Bakery’s raw brownies. As with the Snakker bar, the sweetness comes from medjool dates (ingredient #1). This one’s a favorite of Carol Alt. What surprised me most about the brownie was its moistness… you’d think raw = dry, but even after being open for a week or two (I like to savor my brownies, so sue me), it still retained all its original flavor and moistness. The chocolate flavor isn’t heavy, so if you’re used to super-sugary brownies made from a mix, this is going to be a bit of a shock. But, in a good way… I mean, really, when was the last time you can say you had a brownie that tasted great and was actually good for you.

Worth noting: their new Coco Joy bar.

I also wanted to add a quick comment to my Goodbaker post. I made their brownie mix a few weeks ago. Wow oh wow. That’s all I can say. Great stuff.

Hey, why not have the best of both worlds… grab a raw brownie from the Raw Bakery and then bake some with the Goodbaker mix. Have your brownie and eat it too…

Life without a home PC continues. Things should be back to normal by next week. So, a few random things to pass along in the mean time:

• I made Chocolate Swirl Bars last night. They were really easy and came out pretty well. I added 1/4 tsp. of peppermint extract for just a hint of mint.
• Vote for the Sexiest Vegetarian Alive. How did I not make the list? Do I not look sexy in this one-piece made out of kale?
• Another blog worth mentioning: Abundant, a veggie/sustainable agriculture blog with purdy food pictures

A co-worker has been geeking out on chocolate recently, ordering bars and hot chocolate from places like Dagoba Chocolates. Thankfully, he’s a sharing individual, so I’ve gotten to sample many of the dark chocolate bars and hot chocolates he’s bought. He got me hooked and I placed an order with him this week and got my own Mon Cherri bar, Mint and Rosemary bar, and Xocolatl Hot Chocolate. It should be noted that he went in on a tea order with me last week. This entry could have been titled “The Tea Geek Meets the Chocolate Geek.”

Anyway.

Not only are Dagoba’s chocolates “the fancy stuff” (ie. “damn good”), they’re also Fair Trade Certified (seriously, is there anything more depressing than thinking about something as pleasurable as chocolate coming from slave labor?). Not all of their chocolates are vegan, but most of them are. Look for “dark chocolate” rather than “milk chocolate.” Besides, milk chocolate is considered inferior to dark chocolate by chocolate snobs. Who am I to argue?

I’ve also been enjoying the locally-purchased Endangered Species Bars which also follow fair trade practices (though they don’t seem to be officially “Fair Trade Certified”) and donate 10% of profits to environmental and wildlife charities. Each of their bars features a different endangered animal and purchases of that particular bar go directly to support that animal’s preservation. Again, not all their bars are vegan, but the following are non-dairy:

• Tiger Bar (Dark Chocolate with Espresso Beans)
• Rainforest Bar (Dark Chocolate with Deep Forest Mint)
• Grizzly Bar (Dark Chocolate with Raspberries)
• Chimp Bar (Supreme Dark Chocolate)
• Wolf Bar (Dark Chocolate with Cranberries and Almonds)
• Sea Turtle Bar (Dark Chocolate with Blueberries aka The “Oh Hell Yeah!” Bar, by me)
• Bat Bar (Dark Chocolate with Cocoa Nibs)
• Black Panther Bar (Extreme Dark Chocolate)
• Dark Chocolate Bug Bites
• Chimp Mints

Feel free to share stories of your favorite Fair Trade vegan chocolates. And you should also check out my aforementioned co-worker’s Hot Chocolate Blog. Seriously… hot chocolate… blog… that’s some good reading.

I’ve been hit up a few times in recent weeks for Girl Scout Cookie orders, which got me to thinking: are any of the cookies vegan? According to this site, which provides scans of the nutritional information from each type of cookie, only the Iced Berry Pinatas and Reduced Fat Lemon Pastry Cremes do not contain eggs or dairy.

Bummer, my two favorites contain milk (Tagalongs and Thin Mints). Oh well… may have to make my own.

I also came across this, too, which is worth reading—including the comments—for fans of Thin Mints. The blog it’s from, 101cookbooks.com looks like a worthwhile visit, too, since much (all?) of the material covered is vegetarian. Heidi has a new cookbook out titled Cook 1.0, which looks beautiful.

I’m familiar with raw foodism. I’ve mentioned on the Veg Blog numerous times over the years. I’m planning on visiting one of the several raw restaurants in New York the next time I visit. However, one thing exists I would never have ever thought of: a raw bakery.

The Raw Bakery was started recently by a team of people that wanted to bring traditionally unhealthy old favorites like candy bars and cakes to the raw realm. They currently have variations on the Snickers bar (Snakker) as well as brownies and cakes.

Before I go any further, let me say this: I’m not interested in raw foods from a health perspective. As one amusing critical review of Quintessence that I recently read said: “There are many different factors to consider when evaluating a restaurant – taste, vegan-friendliness, ambiance, service, use of healthy/organic ingredients – for me, insurance that nothing I order will be heated above 118°ree; is just not one of them.” (I realize the issue goes deeper than that, but still). However, I am interested in raw foods from a culinary perspective. I’ve always been of the mindset that self-imposed restriction can result in some of the most creative creations (see my piece about The Grey Album for a musical take on the same issue). Essentially, I’m curious to see what raw chefs can do with the restrictions of raw ingredients and cooking under a certain temperature. There’s no reason that what raw chefs do in their exclusively raw restaurants isn’t something that could be integrated into one’s regular diet or a mainstream restaurant’s menu. I’m just as curious to see what can be done in the raw baking realm. It’s all about new experiences, right?

So, with that said, I was anxious to try out one of The Raw Bakery’s Snakker bars after seeing an advertisement in Satya. The Snakker bar is “the world’s first raw bar made with a filling.” Each bar is handmade with sun-dried organic cocoa beans, organic raw peanuts from New Mexico, and is sweetened with organic honey (beware honey-dodging vegans!) and organic dates. I wasn’t really sure what to expect from the Snakker bar and I was pleasantly surprised. The sweetness of the dates is readily apparent and gives the bar a nice earthiness that balances the subtle flavor of the soft chocolate covering. And hey, peanuts! Of course they’re good.

Executive Chef Ibrahim Gencay told me that since the bar I tasted, the flavor is more chocolatey because he’s added more cocoa beans to the bar. Excellent.

The criticisms that I have about the Snakker bar are not related to the flavor or ingredients (though I’d like to see another sweetener other than honey, even if it would be slightly more processed), but with the connection to the Snickers bar by name. No one’s going to mistake a raw candy bar for its heavily processed distant cousin, and I fear that that connection might scare some people if they try the raw bar on a whim. Gencay explained to me that this wasn’t the intention. Rather, the intended connection with a Snickers bar is more emotional; the idea is that the Snakker Bar will give you a similar emotional reaction that a Snickers Bar gave you in your less-healthy days (or childhood days) and will satisfy the desire you may have to return to your junk food habits. This, I can deal with.

The Snakker bar is $3.49 for a 1.6 oz. bar ($39.90 for a package of 12) and $5 for the 3 oz. Jumbo Size (the sizes offered, I am told, may change). A tad pricey considering a Jumbo Snickers will run you about $1, but with the quality of the ingredients and the care taken in the production of these special candy bars, you can’t really compare the two prices.

I found myself enjoying the Snakker bar more as time went on, really enjoying the sweetness of the dates and the texture of the finely chopped peanuts. And, yes, I am impressed that this was able to be done. The Raw Bakery has gotten some good press recently thanks to raves from the likes of Carol Alt and Sissy Spacek, so I suspect the business will be booming before you know it. Rightfully so.

I look forward to seeing what other products The Raw Bakery dreams up and wish them the best of luck in their quest to provide healthy raw sweets.

First of all, let me state that I know I’m a geek for even noticing this and an even bigger geek for getting excited about it and posting pictures here.

Last night, I was watching King of Queens and there was a scene where characters Doug and Carrie were sitting on the couch eating ice cream, complaining about how they didn’t have any couple-friends to go out with on Saturday nights.

Take a closer look at what’s in his hand.

As the kids would say: OMFG~! It’s Soy Delicious!

Jeez… product placement of Soy Delicious last night on a sitcom and an honest-to-god commercial for Silk this morning. The world will be ours! Muhahaha!

(To further ensure my geek status, I’m curious about which flavor he was eating. Looks like it might possibly be Chunky Mint Madness.)

One of the things I realized that I left out of my previous post about holiday eating is how touched I was by the people that made it a point to make sure I had something to eat beyond what I brought. My mom’s cousin Bonnie made a separate batch of mashed potatoes for me at Wigilia (using Earth Balance and soy milk) and even commented on how she couldn’t tell the difference between them and the “regular” mashed potatoes when she tried them. Nick, who’s a college sophomore and has a vegan roommate, even made sure that Bonnie washed the butter off of the beaters before making my potatoes (though I probably wouldn’t have tripped out too about that, it was a really nice gesture and shows that he’s really conscientious).

And then there’s my dad, who told me, “I hope you don’t expect me to make a separate batch of Christmas cookies for you!” I didn’t, but he did. In a blind taste test, my mom chose the Earth Balance butter cookies as being more buttery than the regular ones! Nice.

I always try to make it a point that I don’t expect to be catered to and that I’m more than happy to bring a dish to a gathering, but I still get the warm fuzzies when someone goes out of their way for me. The same thing goes for friends that order veg when we go out even though they’re more than welcome to order whatever they want. Good people, man, good people.

Time was tight before heading to New Jersey for the holiday, so instead of making the stew I had planned on, I made Fattoush (a middle eastern bread salad) instead. The dish ended up being a hit, even though I wasn’t expecting anyone else to try it. What’s great about it is that it’s so easy to make, and as long as you have fresh herbs and the somewhat hard to find dried sumac (I got mine at a nearby Iranian grocery store), you’re good to go, no cooking involved. As you can imagine, there are many, many variations on the traditional fattoush recipe.

(Fattoush for Christmas, you say? Well, Jesus was from the middle east, wasn’t he?)

For Wigilia, Huyen searched the net far and wide for interesting vegetarian dishes that would be easy to make and that could be served cold. We went with Jablka Na Winie Czerwonym, Baked Apples with Red Wine. The recipe doesn’t say to peel the apples, but we did so that the flavors would soak in well. Something interesting I learned along the way: the only real difference between red wine and “red cooking wine” is that the cooking wine has salt in it.

Tomorrow night we have a New Year’s Eve party to go to where I’ll be making the Tunisian Vegetable Stew (for real, this time!). We’re also getting together with friends on New Year’s Day, though I’m not quite sure what I’m making yet. Though I’m thinking for dessert: this chocolate cake recipe with the mint chocolate variation of this icing. (Oh, and check out the punk Gingerbread cookies… awesome!)

Have a great New Year, everybody.

With Thanksgiving—always a stressful holiday for non-meat-eaters—just past, Christmas is staring us in the face. What are you planning on eating this holiday? Are you sticking around home or visiting family?

We’ll be visiting family, participating in the annual Wigilia Polish dinner on Christmas Eve and then spending Christmas at my parents’ house with my family.

Eating at my parent’s place won’t be too tricky. They’re all eating a meat dish and I’ll have to prepare my own main dish, but my mom’s making sure some of the sides are vegan-safe for me. Wigilia is going to be a little tougher, though, which is odd since the only meat consumed at Wigilia is fish. Yet, there are very few veg-friendly dishes there. I’ll be bringing an appetizer (not sure what yet, but Huyen’s been scouring the web, our cookbooks, and magazines for veggie Polish dishes, and I’ll probably have to bring a small main course of my own, too. I’m thinking about making a large batch of Tunisian Vegetable Stew to last through Sunday.

Looking for a last-minute gift idea? I really meant to get this review done earlier so that these could find their way into more hands for the holidays, but hey, I’ve given enough “IOU” presents with pictures of the item that’s “on the way” to know that people don’t totally disown you for a late gift.

Goodbaker fulfills a simple need that not many other companies do: the need for healthy, vegan baking mixes. Really, one of the most difficult things about transitioning to being vegan is learning how best to replace eggs in baking. Lee Busch at Goodbaker has fulfilled this need, and fulfilled it quite well.

The mixes come in simple brown paper packages with instructions stuck right on. But, really, the instructions don’t go far beyond “take x amount of water and oil, mix with dry ingredients to form a ball, and then scoop dough onto a baking sheet.” It’s about as easy as can be. Plus you can take a taste of the dough without worrying about salmonella. Tasty and food poisoning free!

Of the mixes I’ve received, I’ve tried both the Classic Chocolate Chip cookie mix and the Oatmeal Spice cookie mix. While I’m generally a fan of the straight chocolate chip cookie more than any other, the Oatmeal Spice cookie really got my attention. It’s hearty tasting and touched with just the right amount of spice to keep things interesting. While my wife and a friend of ours painted our family room, I was in the kitchen baking up a batch of these. Even though I was bowing out of the manual labor for a while in favor of baking, they both thanked me without any mention of my lack of painting time.

Now don’t get me wrong… it may sound like I didn’t like the chocolate chip cookie mix, but that’s pretty far from the trust. Indeed, Goodbaker’s mix produced the best whole wheat vegan chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever tried.

OK, OK, I think they’re the only whole wheat vegan chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever tried. But they’re good! Halfway between crunchy and soft, they really hit the spot without that nasty “I shouldn’t have eaten that feeling” that usually comes after devouring too many cookies at one time. Kids raised on nothing but Toll House cookies may take a little while to adapt to these, but at this point, I’ll take a Goodbaker cookie over a Toll House cookie any day.

A few more items I have stored away for some winter baking: a cake and ganache frosting mix and, I believe brownies. I will report back on these as I try them.

Beyond the food, though, Goodbaker is a company worth supporting. They’re environmentally conscious (they don’t use unnecessary packing material… honestly, I’ve never seen a more efficiently packed box before) and are quick to support pro-animal causes (Lee graciously donated mixes for a silent auction that we had at Poplar Spring earlier in the year). It always makes me feel really good to see good people doing good work.

It’s hard to go wrong with Goodbaker. Tasty, yet healthy, desserts from a company worth supporting.

I’m happy to report that my vegan cheesesteak with homemade seitan experiment and faux Cheez Whiz (fortunately, much less scary than regular Cheez Whiz) was a success. While it didn’t perfectly replicate the flavor of a authentic Philly Cheesesteak—though I did follow the general directions according to Pat’s—it was a damn fine replacement. Nice and heavy and significantly less greasy (for better or worse). The cheese was the big surprise… who would have thought a fake cheese whose first ingredient is Great Northern Beans could really taste like good old junky Cheez Whiz, and actually be healthy, to boot? (Yes, I know, it kind of defeats the purpose).

I’d like to perfect the recipe and make some really thinly sliced seitan for a more authentic texture. In time, in time…

Even though I’ve been vegetarian for over four years and have found that wheat gluten makes some of the most satisfying meat substitutes, I’ve always bought mine from the store. I’ve never prepared it from scratch. But if I had realized how easy (and worthwhile!) it is, I would have tried it before this week.

I used this recipe, generally following the instructions for the “beef” seitan. While it came out a little moister than I would have liked (I halved the recipe, but definitely need to use less than half the amount of water called for), after letting it refrigerate for a day, I was really happy with the flavor. Very sausage like. Not quite what I was going for, but really tasty… it had me craving more after frying up a piece and adding chunks to a simple spaghetti dish. Tonight, I’m going to slice up some pieces, throw them on a sub roll with some fried onions and peppers and top it with some uncheese for a l’il Philly Cheesesteak action.

So now I’m all psyched to try making different seitan recipes. Fortunately, Bryanna Clark Grogan’s posted a bunch of them over in the VegSource forums. Bryanna rocks.

Say what you will about PETA (and I know most people have plenty to say about them), but they are simply amazing when it comes to using the web as a way to disseminate information. They have so many sites with individual designs and it’s really astounding. I’ve seen PETA’s job openings listing a few times and know they employ their own little “web team,” which is a luxury that most non-profits don’t have. But still, they continue to impress me with the breadth of their offerings.

One such offering is VegCooking.com, a site dedicated to recipes, product reviews, and restaurant information. Robin Robinson (of Vegan Planet and The Vegetarian Meat & Potatoes Cookbook fame) does an “Ask the Vegan Chef” column, there’s a “Chef’s Spotlight,” cookbook and product reviews, and plenty of recipes and features. Really good stuff.

I’m anxious to try out some of their simple holiday baking tips and recipes. That truffle recipe sounds really easy and I’ve got some Grand Marnier just waiting to be used.

Every so often I think about those “indispensable” vegan foods. Ones that make life without dairy or eggs significantly easier. One of those products is Vegenaise (which up until this very moment I could have sworn was “Veganaise,” which they address at the bottom of this page), specifically, Grapeseed Oil Vegenaise.

Vegenaise is an excellent replacement for standard mayonnaise and tastes just excellent on a sandwich or sub. The tanginess is there and even right out of the jar, it’s flavor is quite similar to standard, egg-based mayo. As far as the health benefits of grapeseed oil (cancer fighting, lowering cholesterol, etc.), that’s all just gravy on top of the great taste. Not literally, of course. Gravy and mayo would be pretty gross.

Nayonaise is also OK, but in my eyes, not nearly as good. I would, however, like to try their Dijon Style.

Last night we made Saffron-Spiked Moroccan Stew from the Compassionate Cooks web site (I’d love to check out their DVD but $20 + shipping for a cooking DVD? A bit pricey for my blood.). It’s a simple dish to make, but the blending of spices, including the oh-so-expensive saffron, with the traditional fall vegetable, the sweet potato, resulted in a very flavorful cold-weather stew. We ate it over whole wheat couscous, but it can also be served over rice.

A funny side note: a few months ago we froze a bunch of peppers from the CSA since we couldn’t keep up with the rate they were coming in. I took some out last night with the intention of using them in the stew. I defrosted them for a few seconds in the microwave and promptly forgot about them. Today, I was talking to my wife on the phone during lunch and she asked, “Did you want these peppers in the microwave?” The light bulb went off in my head and I realized that I didn’t add them to the stew. Oops.

It’s a little late to ask, but here goes anyway: How was your Thanksgiving?

I read with interest a number of stories over on VeggieBoards about how people either had a great Thanksgiving because of a supportive family or a really bad one because of family that couldn’t help but make fun of the person not eating Turkey. Mine was pretty uneventful. Yeah, I had to deal with a dead bird, but thankfully it’s not something that I’m ever forced to deal with at home.

My cousin—who’s 20 and has been vegetarian since she was 7-and-a-half—and I ate Cranberry-Braised Tempeh. The dish itself was OK—I particularly liked the sauce—but wasn’t one of those blow-me-away dishes that might convince a meat-eater that tempeh really is pretty good. However, my grandmother tried a bite and said, “That’s not bad,” even after warning me she probably wouldn’t like it. I guess that’s sort of an endorsement.

I also made cranberry sauce which went over very well and a vegan pumpkin pie recipe that I got from Terry at the farm. The pie came out a little squishier than I would have liked, but not as much as my previous attempt using a recipe from Sinfully Vegan. Terry’s tasted excellent, though, so once I perfect the firmness, I’ll post it to the recipe section.

Oh, and how could I forget? The Saturday before Thanksgiving was a celebration with the turkeys at Poplar Spring (and they’re all turkeys over there! :) ). Somewhere around 150 people came to the potluck… there was so much good food. Plus the turkeys got treated like royalty. Even the ones that bite me when I try and pet them.

So, the next holiday season is upon us and there’s so much to do in the coming weeks. Let’s try and not get too stressed about it, OK?

And sign the Petition for Poultry over the HSUS site, too. Let’s try and get the government to consider chickens and turkeys animals.

Nell On Earth: An interview with Nell Newman, creator of Newman’s Own Organics

An enlightening interview on Grist.com about the business of organics, but what’s up with her answer to “are you vegetarian?”:

I was a vegetarian for three years as a kid. Now I am a “flexitarian.” My friends say it’s a PC name for hypocrite. I eat a little bit of everything. Ninety percent of what I eat is organic, and any meat I buy is organic, but when I go out to dinner, I don’t always investigate the ingredients. I don’t say no when I go to a friend’s for dinner and they’ve prepared a non-organic meal.

Isn’t she answering two totally separate questions there?

That aside, Nell’s got some interesting things to say about big business/mainstream organics:

Oh, it’s good that someone’s mainstreaming this industry. Adopting big-business practices is one thing, and adopting agribusiness practices that would dilute the meaning of organic is another. On the whole, I think we’re doing a pretty good job of preserving the integrity of organic foods.

As for business practices, you have to be realistic. Even running a small organics company, I’ve got constraints. I would love to not have to ship anything and use nasty packaging, but you know what, that’s not a reality. You want to do everything regionally, and just support local small farmers regionally, and then you find out there are no good pretzel manufacturers anywhere on the West Coast, so you have to make your pretzels on the East Coast and ship them. So you do as best you can, but most of the time, it’s difficult to have those high ideals and stick to them, in terms of how you produce stuff. People would love us to put our pretzels in wax paper, but would they really like it when they bought a stale pretzel? It’s a very difficult balance.

Admit it: when was the last time you ate Brussels sprouts? I like the darn things (always have), but I still haven’t had them in the last four years that I can remember. But thanks to this San Francisco Chronicle article, I’m anxious to get back on the Brussels bandwagon.

“People have committed war crimes against Brussels sprouts, probably all of them on Thanksgiving Day” …

Worthy of prosecution: putting Brussels sprouts in an aluminum pot and “cooking them for three years,” says Downing. “You get the Black Sea effect.” The dark, disgusting water comes from sulfur compounds in the vegetable reacting with the metal. Not pretty.

So read up on how to slice ‘em and shave ‘em for sprouts the way you’ve never had them before.

I’ve decided to bring together some information about Vitamin D-enhanced orange juice from various companies. I’m going to do so in this post. I’ll be writing to various orange juice manufacturers to find out where the vitamin D in their juice comes from. Results will be accumulated here.

Tropicana
Non-animal derived

Hello Ryan:

Thank you for visiting the Tropicana Website. We are happy to answer your questions.

Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin that aids in the absorption of calcium and phosphorus from food. Vitamin D functions to raise the blood levels of calcium and phosphorus and is part of a large group of bone-making and bone-maintaining nutrients and other compounds. Some vitamin D is made in the body when skin is exposed to sunlight. The form of vitamin D added to Tropicana products is vitamin D3. It is a synthetic powder and is the same form that is added to milk. Our source of vitamin D is not derived from an animal and the product is kosher certified.

We hope this information is helpful.

Judy

Minute Maid
Animal derived

Thank you for contacting Coca-Cola North America, Mr. MacMichael. We appreciate your interest in our brands.

Our Vitamin D is actually made in a process similar to how your own body makes Vitamin D. Your skin naturally makes a cholesterol called 7-dehydrocholesterol. When you go out into the sunlight, the sun irradiates your skin and this 7-dehydrocholesterol is converted into vitamin D3.

Vitamin D used in Minute Maid juice comes from isolating the cholesterol component from lanolin. Cholesterol is then converted to 7-dehydrocholesterol, which when activated by ultra-violet irradiation and purified this component becomes Vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol).

We hope this information is helpful. Should you have additional questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact us again.

Bonnie
Industry and Consumer Affairs

I was wondering if the Vitamin D3 in Tropicana’s orange juice was animal derived or not, so I wrote to them (sometimes D3 is derived from lanolin). Good idea, me! Their response has been moved to this post.

I suggested they add the information to their FAQ.

I’m currently contacting other OJ manufacturers to find out similar information. I will report back. I promise!

A couple of weeks ago I visited my sister for a birthday co-celebration with my dad and youngest niece. Since I’m no longer eating dairy or eggs, but I’m not willing to put people out, I told her I didn’t want anything special and that I could just have some Tofutti Cuties or something in lieu of cake. But instead, she said a vegan carrot cake would be great and so my sister, my mom, and I worked together using this recipe from Veg Web. It was Stacey’s first time doing any vegan baking and it was my first time with this recipe, yet the cake came out tasting incredibly good. The icing was also quite tasty, though not as thick of a consistency as it should have been (perhaps refrigerating it a bit after mixing it would help).

We used applesauce in place of the pineapples and about 3/4 of a cup of Earth Balance instead of the vegetable oil. We used one container of Silk soy yogurt in place of the three eggs and opted for all spice while leaving out the optional nuts and raisins.

I probably shouldn’t mention that my sister bought all of the necessary ingredients for the cake before I arrived, except for one: the carrots. Fortunately, those don’t require a trip to the health food store.

Have you been itching for some good vegan-related talk radio? Head on over to Vegan.com, where our friend Erik Marcus has recently started up a new program called “Erik’s Diner.” It’s available in MP3 format (“Podcasting” seems to be the term du jour for Internet-only broadcasting, though this incarnation seems to be tied to RSS feeds) and each episode runs in the neighborhood of 20 minutes. Erik covers a variety of topics from the food industry to recipes to health and has already featured an interview with the likes of Peter Singer. I’ve been listening to it on my Nomad going to and from work.

One interesting thing I learned from one of their early episodes is that some natural health food stores offer various nut butters in bulk: peanut, almond, and cashew, for instance. But what’s even more interesting is that some offer what’s called “mystery butter,” which is essentially a mixture of two types of nut butter that comes from the batches in-between making “pure” nut butters. The mystery butter is cheaper than any of the other butters because without it, it would end up being discarded anyway as residue or “leftovers” from the regular batches. Interesting stuff and certainly nothing I’d ever heard of before.

So, check out Erik’s Diner and while you’re at it, pick up a copy of Erik’s new book, Meat Market. I’ll be reviewing here shortly, but take my word for it for now: it’s a mighty fine read.

I don’t fly often, but as I mentioned earlier, I’m headed to Seattle next week and that will require putting my fears aside and getting on a plane. On my flight there, I’ll be served a meal, so naturally, I wanted to get a meat-free meal. While I have no idea exactly what I’ll be served, I came across this page about vegetarian meal options on United’s site. Interestingly, if you specify that you’re a lacto-ovo vegetarian, you will be served a vegan meal! I guess that way, they figure everyone’s happy and it makes planning a little easier for them. United First and United Business passengers, however, are offered the option of dairy desserts and milk, should they so desire. I ordered a vegan meal, but was happy to see that even if they misread it or enter it into their system incorrectly, I’ll still get what I ordered.

I thought I had remembered reading about specialty meal requests being dropped by a lot of airlines as a cost-cutting measure, but apparently that’s not the case with United. I’ll be sure to report back on exactly how soggy my giant plate of canned string beans is.

A month or so ago I started on my quest to do more baking this summer. I began with Chocolate Orange Cupcakes, then went to Chocolate Bomb Cake, and then this week, I baked the most successful recipe yet, Chewy Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies. As with the previous two recipes, this one came from The Post-Punk Kitchen. In place of eggs, it used a mixture of four teaspoons of ground flax seeds with a 1/4 cup of soy milk. I botched this part (somehow misreading the recipe as “one teaspoon of ground flax seeds and one tablespoon of soy milk”) and corrected it just before forming the dough and they still came out properly.

The recipe has you using your hands an awful lot, but when I found myself with chocolate gloves on my hands, I decided that next time around it would probably be better to use a hand mixer for some of the work. Nevertheless, after baking for ten minutes and then cooling for a few more, the cookies were very soft, rich, and tasty and sweet enough to melt holes in your teeth right then and there. I gave them to several people and the chocolate lovers among them loved them and were impressed that cookies that soft were made without eggs.

After three successful baking attempts, I’m starting to get cocky. What’s next? A vegan cake, perhaps?

Charles Miller, over at The Fishbowl asks his readers a question:

If those kooky stem-cell researchers were to discover a way to grow human meat in a vat, such that it was never at any point a real, living human being…

Would you eat it?

Oddly, just last night I decided that if I ever get rich, I’m going to develop a line of soy-based human meat analogues. “Do no harm when you eat this arm!” Think of it… there would be a whole new classification of vegetarians: vegan cannibals.

Of course, the downside would be that you’d probably have to eat a real body part or two during the development of these new products to make sure you got the taste and texture down. At the very least, you’d need a friend that was a cannibal. And, really, having a cannibal for a friend can be a dangerous thing.

So tell me, Veg Blog readers, is there a market for Tofingers and Toe-fu?

Raw food diet: As a way of life, simply not so hot

This Chicago Tribune article takes a look at the raw food lifestyle. The author decides it’s not for her:

But raw, which is supposed to encourage a simple life and a return to nature, is just too complicated for its own good. It’s great in theory but has strayed seriously from its roots. Not only are pricey appliances like a juicer, dehydrator and blender helpful if you want to eat more than lettuce, but it’s also a labor- and time-intensive lifestyle that requires soaking and sprouting various foods and recognizing deadly herbs.

I think Charlie Trotter, author of Raw has it right:

“There’s nothing wrong with mixing a little raw and cooked food,” Trotter said during a cooking demonstration. “I just want great food. And by the way, I want to live to eat another day.”

I re-discovered The Post-Punk Kitchen site the other day. The PPK is a Brooklyn, NY-based vegan cooking show with a decidedly non-traditional approach. I had visited their site shortly before their first episode aired and went back again yesterday in search of some good dessert recipes and vegan baking tips. I was happy to see that the site has grown and the show has aired two episodes on public access television. In addition, they have a DVD available with both shows, whose purchase directly supports the airing of more episodes.

In any event, the Chocolate Orange Cupcakes were awesome. Very rich with a nice hint of orange. Next time around, I might even take one reviewer’s suggestion and add a little more Grand Marnier for a stronger orange flavor. One other modification I made to the recipe: I used 3/4 cup of sugar for the frosting because using only 1/2 cup resulted in a slightly too-buttery flavor. Give it a shot, though, and also try out the Chocolate Bomb Pudding Cake, specifically recommended to me by Isa, one of the site’s punktastic proprietors.

Even though I’ve cooked more in the last 3 1/2 years of my life than I did in the previous 25, I still pretty much stick to recipes. I try all sorts of recipes of varying degrees, but it’s rare that I really go out on my own and try something drastically different from what the book says. There’s even a rule in our house that the first time we make any recipe, we have to have all the ingredients on hand, no substitutes, so that way we know what it’s supposed to taste like before we start experimenting.

The other night, I started with a wicked Pineapple-Ginseng sauce recipe from Secrets from a Healthy Asian Kitchen. The recipe suggested using the sauce to top seafood or beef. Instead, I made the sauce (as directed, of course, since it was the first time we tried it) and then dropped in half a package of extra firm tofu I had chopped into cubes and let it marinate in the fridge while I cooked some brown rice.

When the rice was nearly finished, I decided to follow some advice I read in This Can’t Be Tofu! about the best way to infuse tofu with flavor. I added a little oil to a pan and fried the tofu chunks until they were golden brown. Then I poured some of the sauce on top of them and cooked them until the sauce started to break down. I topped the rice with the tofu chunks and then poured on the remaining sauce from the pan and some from the original marinade. It was simply excellent… the sauce gave the rice a nice, rich creaminess and the tofu chunks were nicely coated and somewhat infused with the pineapple-ginseng flavor. Really good stuff. And it received the stamp of approval from the wife. We added this to “the restaurant list,” a list of recipes I’ll serve when I open up my fantasy restaurant in the future.

I’m going to formalize the recipe and post it soon, but the point of this story is that sometimes the best recipes are the loose adaptations and creative re-working from unexpected places.

While I’m quite familiar with Tofutti’s soy ice cream products and their amazing Better Than Cream Cheese line, I came across a new item (to me) in the store the other that really excited me: soft batch Tofutti non-dairy chocolate chip cookies! I grabbed a box thinking, “Excellent, soft batch vegan cookies!” And, man, do they taste good.

The problem: they have eggs in them. Huh. I thought all of Tofutti’s products were vegan, but apparently not… just dairy free. Bummer. Guess you have to read the labels even on products from companies you trust.

It might seem odd for me to deconstruct an article in The New York Times (login info) that mentions vegetarian food in a positive light, but a number of things in this article really jumped out at me. Let’s take them one by one, extracted from the original article (which you should read first, of course):

When I hear the term “vegetarian lifestyle,” I reach for my skirt steak.

Jeez. Another one of “those people?” Why are ethical vegetarians (which who I assume he’s talking about here) so scary to some people?

No one, after all, says you have to be a committed, converted, proselytizing vegetarian to eat a diet less oriented to meat. Besides, many self-described vegetarians are not, strictly speaking, vegetarians. Today’s rules seem pretty flexible, sometimes to the point where there is not much difference between vegetarians and people who eat moderate amounts of meat.

These are those “rules” and half-assed labels I’ve complained about before. Again, any move to a more plant-based diet is A Good Thing, but to say that “there is not much difference between vegetarians and people who eat moderate amounts of meat” is to imply that, hey, vegetarians won’t mind if you give them soup with chicken stock.

We do not hear, either, that a vegetarian diet promotes weight loss, probably because studies have not been done. But I don’t know any overweight vegetarians, though maybe they are walking around hungry.

I’m going to avoid going on a long rant here, but I have a big problem when vegetarianism is promoted as the ultimate weight loss solution or some such. For one, overweight does not automatically mean unhealthy just as thin doesn’t always mean healthy. There are a lot of factors that come into play, like genetics. To me, it’s more constructive to be physically active and to try and eat a healthy, varied diet (leaving ethics aside for the moment) with a focus on whole grains, vegetables, and fruits. If you eat well and are active and are considered “healthy” by metrics other than weight or BMI, then don’t stress out about a number.

Secondly, I know a number of “overweight” vegetarians… and vegans for that matter. I also know a number of unhealthy vegetarians/vegans. Giving up meat isn’t a miracle cure that will automatically make you instantly healthy if you don’t exercise and continue to eat heavily processed snacks in place of meals.

Lastly, the “walking around hungry” part… what the hell is that even supposed to mean?

Still, it sometimes takes a bit more technique to produce vegetarian food that pleases the spoiled palate. For example, I generally make chickpea soup with chicken stock and sausage. But I found that I could create a soup with just as much flavor and body as my original version by slow-cooking the onions until they are brown; by exploiting the fact that, unlike other dried legumes, chickpeas produce a delicious broth as they cook; and by adding spinach, whose character is just as distinctive as that of sausage. Serve this with homemade croutons if you can, or at least with good bread.

Though it may have been implied, it’s something that needs to be explicitly stated for a mainstream publication: use a one-to-one replacement of vegetable stock for chicken stock. It’s easy to do and personally, I could never taste the difference. Even the powdered stuff or bullion cubes you buy in the store taste just fine.

If you visit a Chinese market, you should find prepressed tofu, often cut into strips. Also known as pressed bean curd or extra-firm tofu, it has a brown exterior and is usually packed in plastic, without water.

Extra-firm tofu doesn’t mean prepressed and the kind I’ve bought have never had a brown exterior unless they’ve been pre-cooked and marinated.

Even with all these minor annoyances, the overall message of the article is right on: the idea that vegetarian cooking is boring is extremely outdated. I can honestly say that since I’ve become vegetarian, I’ve never eaten so well. No cuisine of the world is off-limits (OK, well maybe Hungarian food because every recipe I’ve ever seen has lard, but otherwise…) and there are as many preparation styles as there are cooks. It’s always heartening to see the mainstream press confirm this for themselves.

Now here’s an idea (one that I’ve dreamed about a number of times): a vegetarian Iron Chef competition. While it’s not officially an “Iron Chef” battle, the spirit’s there: one-on-one competition with just veggies between the chefs and victory. Sounds like the event, which took place at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, went well:

“The idea came about because people who are vegetarian typically have a hard time finding new dishes,” [event organizer Matt] Cheney said. “They often cook their own food, and take pride in their cooking. Everyone gets excited about having some really good tasting vegetarian food.”

The event was sponsored by the Campus Vegetarian Society and co-sponsored by Students Improving the Lives of Animals and the Student Dietetic Association. They plan to release a DVD of the event later in the year.

During a quick stop in a local health food store, I picked up a Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookie from Boston Cookies. While vegan cookies that I’ve tasted in the past have been pretty dry, this one was significantly more moist. While I wouldn’t rate this as one of the best cookies I’ve ever had, by the time I was done, I was definitely in the mood for another. But at $1.69 a pop, I stuck with one.

I had some killer vegan cake this week, too, courtesy of Alex‘s friend Shannon. I’ve got to get the recipe.

My goal for this summer is to learn to bake. I’m getting better (I’m getting good at making tofu cheesecake), but have a lot to learn. And, of course, it’s a little more complicated when you’re leaving out the dairy and eggs, but I’ve been picking up some hints and tips along the way that I hope will help.

I posted a good recipe for Tofu Sour Cream from Vegan Vittles today. It’s a great replacement for those days you just can’t buy a package of Sour Supreme.

My favorite snacks as of late: Lundberg Farms rice chips (available in four varieties: Original Sea Salt, Pico de Gallo, Sesame Seaweed, and Santa Fe Barbecue). I believe all except for the Sesame Seaweed are vegan (and, if I’m not mistaken, those have honey but no dairy or eggs). All four varieties are also gluten-free. These are so much tastier than regular potato chips and are noticeably less greasy. The Pico de Gallo have a slight hotness to them, but not so much that they numb your lips, while the Sante Fe Barbecue have a nice sweetness to them that well balances their natural saltiness.

You can find Lundberg products at any of these stores.

Yves Veggie Cuisine recently sent out a notice that they will be expanding their line in an attempt to draw more non-vegetarians into trying their line of vegetarian meat substitutes. The bad news:

Designed to make it more appealing for current non-vegans and non-vegetarians to eat meat-free, these new products were the result of extensive research into formulations that would elicit a definite intent to purchase. What we found was that the addition of natural dairy and egg ingredients dramatically increased willingness to try meat-free alternatives for current non-users.

The good news: over 30 of Yves’ products will remain vegan and will be clearly marked as such.

The new products are the Veggie Authentic Burger (a meat-like soy-based burger), the Savory Veggie Burger (whole grains, cheddar cheese, and vegetables), and a reformulated Veggie Good Dog.

This brings up the age old argument: is it better to introduce non-vegan products to help introduce meat eaters to vegetarian products or is it selling out ideals to appeal to the masses?

Hard to say and everyone’s going to have a different take on the issue, but at least they were forthcoming with the information.

I don’t see any information on their web site just yet, so here is the full text of their letter [PDF].

Happiness is 3/4 tablespoon of Golden Vegetable Miso-Cup soup mixed with 3/4 tablespoon of Red Star Nutritional Yeast. Good for breakfast, good for lunch, good for dinner. Probably not as good for dessert.

As I mentioned earlier, I really enjoyed the new Tofurky Kielbasas. In the last few weeks, I also tried their Italian Sausages and Beer Brats.

We chopped up the Italian Sausages, lightly browned them and then heated them with a store-bought marinara sauce before pouring the mixture over some whole wheat pasta. The sausage tasted outstanding: nice and meaty with just enough spice, a perfect compliment to a nice, garlicky tomato sauce.

Last week, I had the Beer Brats on a roll with some organic sauerkraut (who knew such a thing was so readily available?) and Dijon mustard. Now, when I ate meat I never had bratwurst, so I can’t really judge the authenticity of the taste and texture. All I can say is that, damn, they tasted really good in that sandwich. I’m thinking I might have one tonight for dinner…

So, all-in-all, I’m a big fan of Tofurky’s new line of sausages. They’re vegan and don’t have a list of ingredients longer than your arm… and they taste good, to boot. Color me sold.

All the varieties run somewhere around $4 for a pack of four and are available from large retailers like Whole Foods or through your local health food store (remember: they love special orders!).

This weekend I got my first taste of Tofurky’s new vegan kielbasa. Being half-Polish, I’ve tasted a few kielbasas in my time and while I haven’t been itching for them since I became vegetarian, I was certainly interested in trying these puppies out.

Interestingly, all of the new Tofurky sausages are designed to be used on a grill. I heated mine in a microwave since my grill is currently in my basement waiting for a thaw before it finds its way back into my backyard. The spices are well balanced and the texture is pretty close to the real thing, though perhaps a bit more compressed. It was tasty and filling on its own, but I think that this will really shine on a roll with some sauerkraut. Healthwise, it’s not too bad: though it has a fair amount of sodium and is far from low-cal, it’s got no cholesterol (it’s vegan, so of course it’s got no cholesterol!), 26 grams of protein, 8% of the RDA for calcium, and 10% of the RDA for iron.

Also in the fridge, just waiting to be tried: the Tofurky beerbrats and sweet Italian sausage.

Vegan kielbasa… it’s getting easier and easier to go vegetarian.

Via Orkut, of all places, Wisdom Television apparently has a new vegan cooking show titled “Food for Life” that debuts this Saturday at 7:30pm eastern and replays Sunday at 2:30pm eastern. Dr. Neal Bernard from the PCRM teams up with Marc Félix, the catering chef of the Plaza Hotel in NYC to serve up a three-course meal of Gazpacho, Pot au Feu with Couscous, and Coupe Romanoff. Sounds good to me!

To the best of my knowledge, this is the most widely distributed vegan cooking show yet. Of course, I’d love to see PBS pick up this type of show (speaking of which, where the heck has Regina gone?) to bring it to an even wider audience.

My wife and I had a party this past weekend to celebrate Tet (Vietnamese New Year), which is this Thursday. We served up vegetarian fare that included the pho I always talk about here, egg rolls and spring rolls, tofu triangles (fried and baked), a peanut satay made by our friend Kristy, and our “special” fortune cookies (special because we were having a heck of a time folding them properly, so we ended up making a hole in the middle and sticking the fortunes in, as seen here). Clean-up at the end of the night was really easy, as there was almost no food left. I take that to mean people enjoyed what we cooked. One person even made the kind comment that mine was the “best pho [they'd] ever tasted,” though the aforementioned Kristy said that my wife’s egg rolls “kicked [my] pho’s ass.” If I have to give up cooking glory to anyone, I prefer it’s my wife. :)

The baked tofu triangles came from an interesting source. When I was stocking up at a health food store near my work last week, the woman at the counter asked what I was going to make with the tofu I was buying. She told me that at a deli she used to work out, they had these baked sesame tofu triangles that sold out as quickly as they could make them. She gave me the gist of the recipe, I went home and tried it out just guessing on the amounts. It came out wonderfully on the first try, so I’m going to try and post the recipe here this week.

Apparently, in Chinese New Year celebrations, some people consider it bad luck to shed blood at the beginning of a new year, so they eat strictly vegetarian. Some us might say it’s bad luck to shed blood all year long, though, eh?

I’ve become increasingly annoyed with my local Giant supermarket. While I’m pleased they have a decent selection of frozen veggie foods and I even like how they Fresh-Food-ized their health food section (it’s the only area of the store with a wood floor), I’d noticed in recent months that their tofu selection was dwindling. Now, they’ve never offered anything like the baked tofu I can get at the local health food store, but I always counted on being able to find either silken or regular varieties of soft, firm, and extra firm tofu at Giant. A few weeks ago, the only tofu they had was regular firm. Earlier this week I decided to pick up a package of the firm tofu and simply couldn’t find it. I asked three different employees and was told four different places to check for it. It wasn’t anywhere to be found.

Really, considering how well our Giant does with health food and vegetarian options, I’d expect it to be a little easier to find the tofu.

Oh, and while I’m at it, I don’t like that there are a few chicken-based foods in the “vegetarian specialties” section of the frozen food aisle. Sure, they’re part of the Ethnic Gourmet line which has a number of vegetarian options, but the chicken dishes certainly aren’t.

Fantastic Foods’ new Fast Naturals line is worth checking out if you’re looking for something different to pack in your lunch. These tasty ready-made meals don’t require refrigeration and take only a few minutes in the microwave. My current obsession is the Vegetarian Spanish Paella… man is it tasty, especially for being ready-made. It’s vegan and has a very rich, complex flavor while keeping fat to a minimum but also providing a decent amount of fiber (18% RDA), Vitamin A (20%), Vitamin C (80%), and Iron (15%). Good stuff.

I had a pomegranate sitting in my fridge that was still (barely) good and decided to try out a tip I originally read in Sunlight Cafe for extracting the seeds. I’m happy to report that it works extremely well, so file this hint away until autumn when pomegranates come back in season:

Fill a bowl with cool water. Cut the pomegranate into four chunks and submerge the chunks in the water. Almost immediately, you’ll be able to start separating the seeds and pith quite easily. The seeds sink to the bottom, the pith floats to the top. It’s a lot quicker and much less messy than the old pick-as-you-eat method.

(And, just for fun, some nutritional information on pomegranates.)

When I became vegetarian a few years ago, I was still learning about what did and didn’t contain animal ingredients. I didn’t even think about marshmallows as a possible culprit, but indeed, they’re not just non-vegan, they’re non-vegetarian. Gelatin, used primarily as a binding agent, is made from a variety of animal parts.

A while back I pointed a recipe for vegan marshmallows, noting that the only companies that made them had since ceased production. Happily, though, this year two new brands of vegan marshmallows hit the market.

Ming from Vegan Supreme Marshmallows was nice enough to send along some marshmallows and Rice Krispy—er, Krispy Rice—Treats to try out.

I tried the Krispy Rice Treats first. The regular certainly tasted like a traditional Rice Krispy Treat, but unfortunately, had gotten a little stale in the time it took to get to me. Refrigerating it helped the problem a bit, but there was definitely still a weird texture about it. Ming confirmed that this is an issue they’re continually trying to fix. So, rest assured, they’re looking for a better solution. On the other hand, the Peanut Butter Treat’s texture was just fine and tasted excellent. Sweet, but not too sweet, and pleasantly chewy. I wouldn’t mind having one of these in my lunch bag every day.

I held off on trying the marshmallows themselves until I could get a few other people in on the testing. I put one bag in the fridge and one bag in the freezer, as suggested, to help restore the normal consistency (they can get a little too squishy in the mail). This certainly did the trick, as the next day they were ready to go in a S’mores-making test with my wife, my sister, and my 5 1/2-year-old niece. The marshmallows melted wonderfully, just like the “real thing” (if using animal products somehow makes something like this more “real”), as you can see in this picture. They stuck to our fingers as we ate the S’mores and certainly met my niece’s approval. There’s no doubt: these will cut the mustard with any audience, vegetarian or otherwise.

For me, though, the real test was how good they tasted by themselves, so we all tried a few straight from the bag. Once again, this is no half-assed vegan substitution, these are honest-to-God marshmallows that will bring memories flooding back to vegans who haven’t tasted one in years. In fact, I’d venture to say they’re even better than I remembered marshmallows tasting. They’re fluffier and definitely fresher tasting than standard store-bought ones.

The marshmallows are made from non-bone-char-refined sugar, water, light corn syrup, Emes vegan gelatin, vanilla extract, corn starch, and sea salt. They’re distributed by Vegan Essentials and a few selected stores. One 10 oz. bag runs about $6 and the Krispy Rice Treats cost $2. Expensive, but Vegan Supreme is a small company that makes the marshmallows from scratch. With time and support, I’m sure the prices will come down.

Pick up a bag online or request them at your local natural food store. Come to think of it, a cup of hot chocolate (vegan, of course) would taste awfully good with some of these right now.

This past week I was able to give the vegetarian pho recipe a real test… not just would I be making it for myself and Huyen, but for Huyen’s mother, her mother’s significant other, and her younger brother. That’s four people who know real, authentic Vietnamese cuisine. Four people that would be more than happy to tell me that my pho wasn’t as good as the pho bo (beef pho) in Vietnam.

I pretty much stuck to the recipe, but asked my mother-in-law for some advice to help give the broth a little bit more of an authentic taste, while keeping it vegan. Here’s what we did:

• She advised using a pho spice packet (available in many Asian grocery stores) with veggie broth instead of the broth recipe listed above (it’s a little easier and has the right balance to give that authentic flavor).
• I added more star anise and ginger for extra flavor. I think it would hard to overdo the flavor in pho broth.
• She roasted a shallot in the toaster and added that to the broth.
• I threw in a few dashes of soy sauce, a couple of bay leaves, and some garlic.
• Near the end, she added some salt.

Of the three or four times I’ve made this recipe, this was by far the best result. Huyen loved it, as did her mom and brother. I was surprised her brother liked it as much as he did, since he’s far from a vegetarian, but he really liked the seitan in place of the beef and ate the whole bowl. When Huyen’s mom’s SO got home from work, I heated up a bowl for him. Even as a hardcore meat-eater and someone who’s eaten authentic Vietnamese food for over 50 years, he was surprised at how good the soup was and finished every last bit of it.

I’ve decided that if I ever open a vegetarian restaurant, a veggie pho adaptation will be one of my signature dishes. I’m going to play with the formula just a bit more and then post the final version here.

Sorry for the lack of posts recently… I’ve been on vacation and away from the computer for a bit.

One lesson learned: “bonito” is a type of tuna also known as “katsuobushi.” Unfortunately, I didn’t realize this before trying Kikkoman’s Instant Miso Soup. Now I know… and so do you.

This week I tried out Blue Sky’s Ginseng Creme Soda and was pleasantly surprised. Not only does it taste good (soda products with ginseng are almost universally… not so good), but it actually has some nutrients. Yeah, yeah, it’s still soda so it has a load (39g in a 12 oz. can) of sugar, 100% of the RDA for vitamin C, 50% of your daily vitamin E, and 25% of your daily vitamin A. Not bad. Plus there’s that little “ginseng rush” afterwards.

No doubt, there are better ways to get your vitamins, but I guess if you’re going to drink soda, this would serve you better than a Coke.

The latest VRG e-mail newsletter has some good news for vegetarians looking for marshmallows (regular marshmallows contain gelatin): there are two new products on the market. The newsletter says:

The marshmallows from Pangea Vegan Products are in between the large “jet puff” sized and the mini “hot coco” sized marshmallows that you may be familiar with. Pangea’s marshmallows have the rounded shape and fluffy texture associated with commercial, non-vegetarian marshmallows.

The marshmallows from Vegan Essentials are made by Vegan Supreme Marshmallows. Cut into generous sized cubes, the marshmallows have a smooth, almost creamy texture. Regular and peanut butter Vegan Supreme Krispy Rice Treats bars are also available.

I’ve got to score me some of those!

While hunting the shelves of a Whole Foods for some decent iced tea, I came across another iced white tea worth checking out: Inko’s Original White Tea. Their tea is brewed and only a little ginger, fructose, and citric acid is added. The end result is a very light and tasty tea. Each 16 oz. bottle has less than 60 calories and 14g of sugar. It’s really tasty stuff, though I’d love to see a variety without the ginger and even less sweetener.

It sells for around $1.60 a bottle, keeping it in line with Long Life‘s tea. A tad expensive, but worth it.

Via Vegan Porn comes a CNN story where tea is once again touted as a way to lower bad cholesterol levels. Herman of VP muses, “Results like those take about five cups of tea per day to achieve, which is probably less overall hassle than cholesterol lowering drugs and their associated side effects, although this is probably a lot of caffeine for people who aren’t used to it.” Here’s the response I posted, something I can’ t believe I haven’t mentioned here before:

There are a few simple ways to combat that:

1. Drink green tea or (best yet) white tea. Both have higher levels of antioxidants and less caffeine than black tea.
2. You can decaffeinate your tea (any kind) very easily with the following method:
• Pour your hot water over the tea bag or tea leaves and let it steep for 30 seconds.
• At the end of 30 seconds, pour off the liquid. Now add more hot water and brew the tea as you normally would. Between 80 and 95% of the caffeine in tea comes out in the first 30 seconds, so this is a good way of eliminating most of the caffeine in your tea. Also, you can usually re-use a teabag or leaves a few times, and subsequent cups of tea won’t have as much caffeine as the first cup.

The good thing is that this method doesn’t hurt the integrity of the tea or its taste.

Vegan Porn points to a story in The Scotsman titled “Now seaweed is the food of love” that discusses a vegetarian mock-animal product most people would never even think of: mock oysters made of seaweed.

The developer (the managing director of a salmon farm) says they taste like the real thing but he “[isn't] sure if we can match the aphrodisiac qualities…”

“We�ve been sent recipe books and my aunt wrote to me with one of her recipes using dulse [seaweed] from the 1930s which stated it �tastes rather like an oyster�.” Though I can honestly say I haven’t had a single craving for an oyster (… ever), it’s still an… interesting… new product.

I think I’ve found a new favorite breakfast cereal that really delivers the goods in terms of nutrition: Organic Optimum Power Breakfast by Nature’s Path. It offers up 100% of the RDA for B12 (a vegan’s dream!), 100% of your daily folic acid, 15% of your iron, 25% of your calcium, 40% (10g) of your fiber, and it has Omega-3s from flax. Not to mention it uses organic ingredients and actually tastes good.

My only complaints: first, the box says “Flax * Soy * Blueberry.” Let me tell you: there are almost no blueberries in this cereal. I’ve never had more than two blueberries in an entire bowl, and they’re so small that they’re almost unnoticeable. I ended up adding fresh blueberries. Secondly, there are 16g of sugar. That’s a bit much for a “healthy” cereal, in my opinion (for comparison, a regular sized Snickers bar has about 28g). Otherwise, though, it’s a fine cereal and offers up plenty of what vegetarians and vegans need most: B12, calcium, and Omega-3 fatty acids.

Huyen and I were talking tonight and she asked, “What’s the difference between a pie and cobbler?” In case you we wondering the exact same thing, here’s the answer from iVillage (warning: barrage of ads ahead):

Cobbler is a fruit dessert baked in a deep dish or baking dish that has a topping sprinkled on before baking. A tart is made with a crust formed in a tart pan or a low, straight-walled pan with a removable bottom. A pie, similar to a tart, is baked in a pie pan that has sloping sides. Both a tart and a pie can have the crust prebaked and filled or baked with fruits, custards or chocolate.

Well, there you go!

Thumbs up to Long Life Beverages‘ (warning: annoying music on the front page) Sencha Green & White Tea with Mint and Osthmanthus organic iced tea. I had never heard of Long Life before, but when I see “white tea” on a product, I’ll buy anything. I wasn’t excited about the addition of mint to the tea, but its impact was minimal. The taste was just outstanding and is one of the best iced teas available. I’m also a fan of Honest Tea, but they have no white teas available. Both Honest Tea and Long Life teas are a bit expensive (a 16 oz. bottle costs $1.50), but both are totally worth the price. I look forward to trying out more of Long Life’s flavors in the future, especially their White Tea with Lemon Myrtle and Chrysanthemum.

The Long Life site has a good little FAQ about teas that’s worth checking out if you’re interested in some of the basics (like amounts of caffeine, the difference between black and green teas, etc.) as well as an interesting piece titled “How to Make a 3,000 Gallon Cup of Tea.”

Soy long, meat

This great article in the Toronto Star looks at mock meats from a meat-eaters perspective and generally heaps praise upon soy-based fake meats, touting their lower fat and lower caloric content as big benefits over the real deal. Well worth a look with some background, taste tests, and consumer opinion included.

(Vegan.com)

A definite thumbs up to Eat Smart Veggie Crisps, a product of Snyder’s of Hanover available in a number of flavors. The chips are low in saturated fat (1/2 a gram per 21-chip serving) and are made with canola oil rather than a partially-hydrogenated oil. The Sun-Dried Tomato and Pesto flavor was outstanding and I’ve confirmed with Snyder’s that the “natural flavoring” use in the Veggie Crisps is non-animal derived (it’s rosemary). Quite a tasty vegan snack and considerably healthier than the standard bag of potato chips.

The Vegan Spam newsletter (a product of the wonderful Vegan Outreach) pointed out that Turtle Mountain has a load of new Soy Delicious non-dairy ice cream products. The ones that had my mouth watering: the Organic Mint Mania Chocolate Coated Sandwich, the Cookies N’ Cream ice cream, the low-fat Green Tea ice cream, and the fat-free Mint Fudge ice cream. Methinks it’s time to place a special order with the local health food store.

MSN has a story on—of all things—agar-agar, the seaweed-based vegetarian gelatin alternative. It’s a surprisingly substantive article, considering the obscure topic.

(The article originally appeared in the Washington Post.)

The apocalypse must be near: McDonald’s is going to sell a veggie burger… in the United States! 600 Southern California McDonald’s will begin offering this sandwich in order to try and attract a more health-conscious crowd.

In that, I don’t think they’ll succeed. But perhaps they might succeed in convincing a few regular customers to avoid the Big Mac and grab a McVeggie instead.

No details beyond the typical (soy-based with a whole wheat bun) are available about the burger and a search on McDonald’s site for information brings up nothing. However, there’s some info on the frightening employees-only Rip the Right Rhyme contest…

Even though Seeds of Change is now owned by M&M/Mars, I couldn’t resist a recent sale that made one of their frozen meals a mere 99 cents. Their “Spicy Peanut Noodles” dish was really flavorful and tasty and, as is their policy, 100% of the ingredients are organic.

One thing to note: with 4 1/2 grams of saturated fat and 650mg of sodium, this ain’t health food. It’s also far from vegan, containing heavy cream (gee, where could that sat fat have come from?) and honey. But for lacto vegetarians who don’t mind the occasional “heavy” meal, this Seeds of Change frozen meal fits the bill.

A cup of tea may be germs’ new enemy

Some great news for tea drinkers (like me!):

“We worked out the molecular aspects of this tea component in the test tube and then tested it on a small number of people to see if it actually worked in human beings,” said Bukowski. The results, he said, gave clear proof that five cups of tea a day sharpened the body’s defenses against disease.

This weekend, I was preparing broccoli as a side dish and wanted to try something a little different. I picked out “Spicy Green Tea Grilled Broccoli,” a simple recipe from Cooking With Green Tea (not a vegetarian cookbook, but worth checking out, especially for fans of green tea). It called for chile peppers (though I used simple pepper flakes) and had a nice little kick. The green tea absorbed well into the broccoli. I was quite pleased with the dish overall.

In looking for similar recipes online, I came across Healthwell’s Green Tea Stir-Fry with Garlic and Ginger that sounds mighty good. Swap out the honey with an alternate sweetener and the recipe’s vegan.

For a good introduction to cooking with tea, visit Cat-Tea Corner’s Cooking with tea and
teatime treats.

Trying another entry from Vegan Vittles last night, I cooked up the simple Messy Mikes, vegan Sloppy Joes. I followed the recipe as listed in the previous link, but instead of tempeh, I rehydrated textured vegetable protein (pour 7/8 cup of boiling water over 1 cup of TVP and let it sit for 10 minutes, then follow the recipe as listed, replacing the tempeh with the TVP), as the variation in the cookbook suggested. It was easy, tasty, and quite filling. Not exactly healthy eating, but it hit the spot as a quick late-night dinner.

As I mentioned before, I haven’t had much time to cook recently. I hope to start changing that this week, as I’ve picked out a number of new recipes to try out. I will, of course, report on how they turn out.

I haven’t had nearly as much time to cook recently as I did a year ago. I used to be able to claim that I cooked dinner 3-4 times a week, with the remaining days being split between a quick convenience food and leftovers. These days, I feel like I’m making dinner less and less frequently, but when I do, I appreciate the results of my efforts that much more.

Last night, I tried the Chuckwagon Stew recipe from Vegan Vittles, a book put out by the Farm Sanctuary. I haven’t tried too many of the recipes from there, but I think I’ll give a few more a shot in the near future. The stew was easy to make and I had everything on hand. It was nice and thick (especially after adding the whole wheat pastry flour) and was hot and filling. If you’re not a fan of tempeh, another meat-like substitute work probably work as well, or just add more potatoes.

I’ve tried a few different vegan mayonaises over the last couple of years, and the jar I’m currently using, Grapseed Oil Vegenaise, is one of my favorites thusfar. It has that mayonaise “smell” when you open the jar and tastes great on a sandwich. Grapeseed oil is reputed to help lower LDLs (“bad” cholesterol) and raise HDLs (“good” cholesterol). If you can’t find it in your local health food store, you can order it online.

The Veganaise Story is an interesting read as well, discussing how a supposed egg-free mayonaise that was popular in the 1970′s turned out to be regular mayonaise with different labels on it…

Take the worst possible breakfast foods you can imagine and put them together in your head. Chances are it’s about only half as bad as the Hungry-Man All Day Breakfast. In this 1 1/2 lb. monstrosity of a meal you get three sausage links, two hash browns, some seriously foul looking bacon, three pancakes, and eggs.

But the nutrition facts are what are truly astounding: 1030 calories (over half of them from fat), 64 grams of fat (98% RDA) of which 21 grams aresaturated (104% RDA), 2090 mg of sodium (87%), and 22 grams of sugar. Ready for the kicker?

This “All Day Breakfast” has 690mg of cholesterol. If you’re keeping track, that’s 231% of the recommended daily allowance (which most people agree is already too high of an allowance). Perhaps the “All Day Breakfast” should be called the “2.3 Day Breakfast.” I think a diner breakfast would be like health food next to this mess of meat and greasy sludge.

The above linked article sums it up well: “Holy shit. Holy holy HOLY shit.”

(thanks, Paul)

After seeing this VegSource.com article about Taro burgers, I was a bit intrigued. I hadn’t heard of them, but apparently they’re very popular elsewhere in the world and are pretty healthy, too, providing 3g of fiber and 20% of the RDA for vitamin A with only 2g of fat (0 sat fat). The ingredient list is simple: Taro, Luau Leaf, Brown Rice, Carrots, Corn, Onions, Sunflower Seeds, Oats, Tomatoes, Canola Oil, Garlic, Sea Salt, Natural Herbs & Spices (from the Hawaii Taro Company). Sounds good!

Has anyone tried a Taro burger before?

From the moment I stopped eating meat, “natural flavoring” became my least favorite phrase.

Good news for those looking to add more whole grains to their diets: there’s finally a whole wheat pasta that tastes as good as “regular” pasta. The problem I’ve found in the past is that most whole wheat pasta is overly chewy, and somewhat mealy in texture. It generally tastes fine but there’s something a bit… off… about it. But recently I tried Bionaturae‘s organic whole wheat spaghettini. I don’t know whether it’s their method, or the fact their pasta was thinner than other spaghetti I’ve tried, but I was really impressed by its flavor and texture. After eating a meal with it, my wife and I both commented that we didn’t even notice we were eating whole wheat pasta. It’s one of those products that has the ability to make you change your habits; there’s no reason to avoid whole wheat pasta any longer, not when it tastes this good. Bionaturae also develops “regular” pasta and a few other types of whole wheat pasta (including linguini).

On the flipside of a coin, there’s a product that makes me wonder how it got onto the shelves. After trying and liking Veggie Booty, I was interested in giving Fruity Booty a shot. It has the corn-puff appearance you’d expect, flavored with a blend of orange, cherry, papaya, mango, raspberry, blackberry, strawberry, pineapple, grape, and apple. Sounds pretty good, right? Let me tell you: it’s been a long time since I’ve tasted something this foul. The taste is slightly sour, slightly bitter, and all-together unpleasant. When I first tasted Veggie Booty, I had to adjust a bit to the spinachy flavor, but it only took a couple bites. After half a bag of Fruity Booty, I’m ready to throw in the towel.

I’ve pretty much eliminated butter from my diet (aside from the occasional store-bought cookie). There are two main products I use in place of butter on bread, bagels, or when cooking/baking, and they both serve their purpose quite well.

The first, I’ve mentioned before: Spectrum Naturals’ Essential Omega Spread. Consistency-wise, it does well on toast and it doesn’t taste all that bad. It does have kind of an odd fishy smell to it (though the Omega-3s come from flax seed oil), but it doesn’t take long before you forget the smell’s even there. It can’t be used for cooking, but it’s mighty fine on a morning bagel.

The second I’d heard a lot about, but only recently tried: Earth Balance spread. This stuff is amazingly like butter, but with none of the trans-fat. It’s by no means health food (it does have a bit of sat fat), but it’s still a great choice if you’re looking to avoid butter. It tastes great, melts perfectly on toast and bagels, and can be used in baking and cooking with good results. And it’s not terribly expensive, either. I haven’t tried any of their Smart Balance line, yet.

Last night we tried a recipe for Tabbouleh with Tofu, Raisins, and Pine Nuts from The Tofu for Health Cookbook by Wendy Sweetser. While the book isn’t fully vegetarian (somewhat surprisingly), this particular dish turned out to be a wonderfully fresh tasting vegan version of the middle eastern bulgur-based staple.

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup bulgur wheat
• 7 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/2 cup pine nuts
• Grated rind and juice of 1 lemon
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
• 1 small cucumber, peeled and diced
• 2 tomatoes, chopped
• 4 tablespoons raisins
• 8 scallions, finely chopped
• 4 tablespoons of chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
• 2 tablespoons of chopped fresh mint (or 2 teaspoons dried)
• 9 oz. firm tofu, cubed
• Salt and pepper

Preparation (slightly modified)

1. Put the bulgur in a large bowl and soak with just enough water to cover it for 30 minutes.
2. Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a small skillet and flash-fry the pine nuts until just golden (it only takes a minute or so!). Drain the nuts on a plate lined with paper towels.
3. Mix the rest of the olive oil with the lemon juice and garlic.
4. Drain the bulgur in a strainer, shaking out as much of the excess water as possible. Combine in a bowl with the cucumber, tomatoes, raisins, scallions, parsley, mint, and tofu.
5. Pour in the oil/lemon/garlic dressing and mix well. Add salt and pepper to taste. Cover the bowl and put it in the fridge for a few hours or overnight. Sprinkle with the pine nuts and grated lemon rind just before serving.

This is one of those rare dishes that comes out looking as good as the picture in the book, and it tastes the part, too.

This past weekend my wife and I tried Amy’s Kitchen Roasted Vegetable Pizza, a no cholesterol, cheeseless, vegan pizza using a number of organic ingredients. We were both very pleased with the pizza: the crust was tasty and the onions, artichokes, roasted red peppers, shiitake mushrooms, and garlic made for a very unique flavor. It definitely didn’t taste like something from the freezer section.

However, I came across an interesting fact online: Amy’s “No Cheese” Pizza (which seems to have been renamed as the Roasted Vegetable Pizza) was marketed as vegan but contained honey. It appears that the company was responsive, though. A quick look at the Roasted Vegetable Pizza confirms that it is indeed vegan, with no honey. However, their Soy Cheeze Pizza contains milk derivatives and their non-dairy pot pie contains honey. Perhaps if enough people contacted them, they would consider veganizing these products as well.

Amy’s web site does a great job pointing out which products are and aren’t vegan and now defines vegan as “products [that] contain no dairy or honey.

At a housewarming party last weekend, Alex brought along Veat Fillet, a vegetarian salmon. I’ll admit: I’ve never tried faux-fish. I wasn’t much of a fan of regular fish to begin with, but I was obliged to give the Veat a shot. After all, the company’s done well with chicken, so maybe they managed to get a pretty close approximation of (my least favorite of all seafood) salmon.

While it’s not the most appealing looking item, I was impressed with how similar it tasted to salmon. The consistency was a little bit off, and the seaweed skin was a bit strange at first, but the flavor was a goog imitation. And while it doesn’t offer up much in the way of Omega-3s, like many fish, it’s 15 grams of protein gave it a little bit of a nutritional punch.

The Veat Fillet is vegetarian, but not vegan (it has whey protein) and can be found at many health food stores.

Eggplants of all shapes and sizes are best fresh from the garden

This Seattle Times article has some good information on growing and cooking eggplant. I’ve really grown to enjoy eggplant, though I don’t think the articles assertion that eggplant “is often used as the centerpiece of a vegetarian meal” is necessarily correct. Whatever the case, there’s no doubt that eggplant parmesan is a much—for lack of a better term—”friendlier” dish than its veal counterpart.

I’ve heard a lot about how eggplant has almost no nutritional value (aside from vitamin K), but looking at the nutrition facts for eggplant, it looks to be a decent enough source of a number of vitamins and minerals as well as fiber. However, this is raw eggplant (and note the numbers refer to an entire medium eggplant, probably enough for 3-4 servings). Perhaps the cooked version loses a lot of the nutritional value. In any case, a serving of eggplant only has 25 calories, so clearly it’s a good vegetable to cook with occasionally for the calorie-conscious.

The Washington Post has a good article on fresh summertime herbs that’s worth reading. The included recipes aren’t vegan, but most of them are vegetarian.

The truest phrase in the article: “[Cilantro] is the herb with which people have a love or hate relationship; there is no middle ground.”

The other night, I tried another successful recipe from The Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen. This time around, it was Saffron-Scented Risotto (Milanese). I’m a sucker for anything that includes saffron (despite it’s extreme costliness) and appreciate the effort and care that goes into properly preparing fluffy arborio rice. Moosewood Restaurant New Classics has a version of this recipe that includes dairy. But, this dairy-free version was good enough that I’m convinced dairy isn’t essential.

I was pleased with the taste: the saffron wasn’t overpowering and a delightful aftertaste and aroma stayed with me for hours. It got a thumbs up from my wife, as well. The Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen is quickly becoming a new favorite on my bookshelf.

With some aging broccoli and cauliflower in the fridge, I was looking for some good recipes to make use of what was left. So, last night I tried two new recipes and both were quite good.

The first was a side dish, Sicilian-Style Broccoli, from The Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen, a book I got earlier this week. It started by frying a little garlic and crushed red pepper in olive oil, then adding some vegetable broth (the asceptically packaged broth is great for this use), and cooking the broccoli in it with a little seasoning and some plumped currants (drop the currants in warm water for 10 minutes, and then drain) until the liquid had evaporated. Before serving, I topped it with some toasted pine nuts. It was a nice melding of flavors and textures, especially for a side dish, and was easy enough to warrant repeating. All in all, a great way to finish off the broccoli.

The main dish was from Quick Vegetarian Pleasures, a book which I used last week for a simply awesome baked couscous recipe with spinach, tomatoes, (soy) cheese, and pine nuts. Last night’s dish was linguine with cauliflower and a great creamy tomato sauce with nutmeg (a nice little kick). The sauce called for low-fat milk, or combination of low-fat milk and cream. However, I veganized the dish simply by replacing the low-fat milk with low-fat soy milk (Super G brand, about 5% DV fat and 3% DV sat fat) and a dash of arrowroot (as a thickener). The sauce could have used just a tad more seasoning, but it still tasted great and made good lunch leftovers today.

Last night I tried out the Fennel Leek Soup recipe from Moosewood Restaurant New Classics, which we got out of the library last week. I’ve tried a few fennel and leek soups in the last year, and this one ranked up there with the best of them (thought not quite as good as this one). The recipe is vegan, gets some extra nutrition from spinach, and makes use of the entire leek since the stock is made from scratch. It took quite a while (and would have taken a lot less time starting with a veggie stock from bullion cubes or stock powder), but made for a nice dinner with lots of leftovers.

Does anyone have any suggestions for other recipes to try from this book before we have to return it next week?

My last meal with meat was in September of 2000. It was at a Vietanamese pho restaurant with a co-worker. Pho was my favorite meal at the time, especially after visiting Vietnam and having it once or twice every day. Unfortunately, Pho Bo, by its very definition is a beef noodle soup, so my decision to become vegetarian meant that I had to give up my favorite meal and the absolutely incredible aromas that went along with it.

Or so I thought.

It’s been a full 19 months since I had my last bowl of pho, and since none of the pho restaurants offered a vegetarian version (though I’ve told they exist), I decided it was time to try and make my own. Fortunately for me, the Vegetarian Resource Group had an article about travelling in Vietnam as a vegetarian, including recipes for the broth and the soup ingredients. This past Friday night, I decided to give it a shot, praying that the aromas I fondly remembered would fill the house and the relaxed feeling I got from eating pho would return to me.

I had this feeling that recreating the soup as a vegetarian dish would be successful. I figured that the smells and tastes that go along with pho came not from the meat, but from the seasonings and fresh vegetables. With ingredients like cinnamon and the gloriously-scented star anise, it was bound to smell good while cooking.

Friday night after work, I stopped by the nearby Asian market to pick up some of the ingredients that aren’t at the local Giant: bean sprouts (a huge bagful), some seitan in a can, Napa cabbage, cilantro (available at the supermarket, but it’s more expensive), and the rice noodles (I got specifically thin “pho noodles”—they’re also available in a thicker version). I had picked up cinammon sticks a week or two earlier and got a few pods of star anise from a local health food store. The star anise was so light that it didn’t even register on the scale—they charged me 2 cents. Everything else, I had at home.

The broth is pretty basic, starting with vegetable stock, soy sauce, garlic, and onion and then adding some charred ginger, cinnamon sticks, two pods of star anise (that’s two stars), and two bay leaves. After simmering and removing the solids, I added a couple dashes of Vietnamese cinnamon for a little extra flavor. Regular ground cinnamon would work, too, but Vietnamese cinnamon (available at Whole Foods and similar places) is stronger.

The soup ingredients are also relatively basic: noodles, seitan, bean sprouts, and some greens. The recipe linked above is well written and worth following.

The entire preparation and cooking time amounted to about 35-40 minutes, not bad for a soup. With anticipation, my wife and I took our bowls and sat at the table to try this new recipe for an old favorite. After the first incredible sip, I must have blacked out with pleasure… this stuff was good! And, it was extremely similar to how I remembered traditional pho. The spices were pungent but not overpowering, the textures were proper (especially with the optional added peanuts), and it made me feel warm and comfortable. My wife, who is Vietnamese and still eats meat, also thoroughly enjoyed it. Success!

It’s hard to describe how happy I was to find a suitable vegan adaptation of a favorite meat-based dish. It’s definitely going to become part of my regular arsenal. I heartily recommend it to those of you who have been lucky enough to experience pho and those of you who haven’t, as well.

The broth is ready to be ladled over the noodles and greens.

Ryan (donning the only male Vietnamese garb in the house — the wedding ao dai) prepares the bowls.

The final product.

Related Links

Vegetarian Vietnam
Sally Bernstein’s wonderful Vegetarian Journal article about travelling in Vietnam as a vegetarian. Includes the recipes I used.

A Bowl of Pho
A thorough weblog entry describing the intracies of the pho experience.

Soup restores heart, soul in many cultures
A Washington (D.C.) Times article about various comfort soups, including pho.

If you’re looking for a quick and tasty soup, it’s hard to do much better than Imagine Foods’ Creamy Potato and Leek Soup, a wonderful organic (and vegan) soup that heats up quickly (a minute in the microwave will do it). Sprinkle some rice cheese and some fresh chives on top and you have yourself a great dinner. It’s also not terribly expensive and I’ve even seen it at the local Giant.

Alternatively, if you’re into making soups but don’t have an hour-and-a-half to spend, might I recommend Curried Carrot Soup from Lorna Sass’ Short-Cut Vegetarian. It’s wonderful creaminess comes from coconut milk which also serves to mute the potentially overpowering flavors of curry and a pound of carrots. I’m a big fan of this one for its rich, but not overwhelming, flavor, the nutrional punch it packs, and it’s quick and easy nature (30 minutes will cover preparation and cooking). However, I will say that either the curry or the coconut milk didn’t agree with me well afterwards.

Now if Lorna Sass would just get her own web site…

Alex was nice enough to buy me a bag of Veggie Booty recently. Despite the bizarre marketing behind this product, it’s mighty tasty (imagine a more popcorn-like rice cake with actual flavor), and pretty darn healthy, too. There’s no saturated fat, very little sodium (70mg), and a nice little dose of fiber and vitamin C. While it’s probably not the ideal way to get your leafy greens (it’s flavored with spinach, kale, etc.), you could do worse, that’s for sure.

What’s odd is the number of people that have heard of Veggie Booty—I mentioned it to several people and they all said, “Oh, yeah! I’ve seen that before.” None of them had actually tried it, though.

Last night I was checking out my referrer logs and came across The Kosher Kitchen’s Veggie Patch, a new weblog that features periodic recipes. I decided to try the vegan Cream of Tomato Soup with Orzo recipe from Vegetarian Times. I’m happy to report that though it wasn’t a one-pot recipe, it was easy to make and tasted great. Plus, us men can’t get enough tomatoes in our diet.

It’s funny—it wasn’t long ago that the only soup I would eat was chicken noodle (and I abhorred tomato-based soups), but these days, there’s nothing more satisfying than trying a new soup recipe. This one is well worth trying since, unlike many soup recipes, it took less than 30 minutes to prepare and cook.

One more post today to make up for my silence: I tried the BK Veggie the other day and plan on reporting it to you shortly, but I’m waiting on a bit of information first. In the meantime, I encourage you to head over to Vegan.com and read the articles (and listen to the MP3) in the “Burger King: Support it or Lose It!” box on the right side of the page. As you can imagine, some of the hardline vegans are coming down on Erik for supporting the product, but I wholeheartedly endorse his opinions on this issue, seeing it as a great step towards educating the fast-food eating public about healthier alternatives that cause less animal suffering.

I made a trip to Fresh Fields last night to pick up a few things while I was in the area (I don’t have one near my house) and needed to get dinner, so I decided to try one of their custom made sandwiches. Though it was a bit pricey, $4.99, it was mighty good and there were more than enough options for meat-eaters and vegetarians.

My sandwich consisted of spinach, cucumbers. roasted vegetables, tomato, and red onion on whole wheat bread with—and this is the best part—saffron-garlic mayo. Mmmm…

I wouldn’t mind seeing some faux-meats as an option and maybe a vegan version of the saffron-garlic mayo (perhaps adapting this recipe with the amounts cut way down for normal use—a gram of saffron can cost $80).

I’m a fan of Jelly Belly jellybeans, especially the popcorn and toasted marshmallow flavors. One thing that’s concerned me, though is that a lot of jellybeans are made with gelatin, which is clearly not vegetarian. I had heard that Jelly Belly brand was safe, and didn’t see any gelatin listed on their label, but I decided to e-mail them just in case, to make sure.

The response, from Mr. Jelly Belly, was positive: there are no animal or animal-derived products (including gelatin) in Jelly Belly jellybeans, but vegans may want to avoid them because they are coated in a mixture that contains beeswax, to give the beans their glossiness.

That’s the final word for you.

Last year when I shopped the aisles of Giant (a major fast-food chain in my area of the country), I was pretty amazed at how many soy milk options there were.

Now, though, my mind is blown. The refrigerated variety sells better, but the soy milk available in the aseptic packaging has the most variety. Get this: Giant now offers a store brand soy milk! It’s only about 10 cents cheaper than others, but nutritionally, it stacks up pretty well. Though it doesn’t have as much protein as Edensoy Extra (from what I’ve been told—thanks, Brant—this is one of the most nutrionally-dense soy milks on the market), it does offer 50% of the RDA for vitamin B12, the same as Edensoy Extra. Surprisingly, the store brand also uses organic soy beans (which now seems to be rule rather than the exception, thankfully).

One of Europe’s most popular soy milk producers, Belsoy, is now adorning the shelves of US markets. Unfortunately, at the Giant near me, they’ve cut back on the Edensoy selection in favor of Belsoy. I bought one of their original, unsweetened varieties to try with my cereal. Since it’s lacking in the B12 department, when I use it with my cereal, I sprinkle on a little Red Star Nutritional Yeast first. Tastewise, it’s nothing to write home about, but does the job in cereal.

But the variety of soy milks has also increased. Last Christmas, you may have seen Silk Nog, but did you know that Silk also makes Silk Creamer, Silk Mocha, Silk Soylatte, and Silk Chai? Another interesting variety that caught my eye was Vitasoy‘s Green Tea Soymilk. I decided to give it a shot, and was pretty impressed. It definitely has that subtle green tea taste (they use Japanese Green Tea), but with a nice, milky consistency.

While I rarely drink soy milk (or cow’s milk, for that matter) by the glass, I use exclusively soy milk in my cereal. I’m also a fan of almond milk, but have yet to try the box of Rice Dream sitting in my fridge.

I’m thinking that sometime soon, I’d like to organize an “alternate milk” taste test with vegans, vegetarians, and meat-eaters to see how they stack up tastewise, and nutrionally. If you live in the Northern VA area and might be interested, drop me a line.

We hadn’t made our own pizza in a while, so last week we fired up the oven and put together the best nearly-vegan pizza we’ve made yet. I tell you, I’m loving Veganrella‘s flexibility more and more. It worked great on the pizza. We only used one kind of faux meat (Safeway’s soy selection was pretty poor): chopped up Momo’s Veggielicious Drummettes, which were quite good, even without the sauce. We used no dairy except for the bit that was already in the Boboli pizza crust. Anyone have a tried and true vegan pizza crust recipe that you’d sell your soul for?

The Veganrella also came in handy last night when I made Rice and Peas with Curry Cheese Sauce from Nava Atlas‘ Vegetariana. It took a little while to make, but most of the time was spent cooking the rice. The curry cheese sauce was mighty good, and I used Veganrella with great results. This stuff would be excellent over some steamed broccoli. The final result was a tasty, but relatively mellow, blend of Indian spices (tumeric, cumin, etc.) and easy to find ingredients. This was another “not-quite-vegan” dish, as I used a 1/2 cup of plain yogurt (I couldn’t find plain soy yogurt).

For a quick lunch, I have got to give props to Heba’s Health Foods, a company (individual?) that has some really tasty pre-made vegan lunches available in Northern Virginia health food stores. I’m particularly fond of the Meat Free Veggie Chicken Orzo, which has orzo, non-GMO soy flour, green and red peppers, onions, garlic, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper, and tumeric in a small plastic container for $2.80. I’m a huge fan of orzo and the faux chicken has a nice consistency.

Heba’s doesn’t have a web site, but I called them up to ask a few questions. They offer about 25 different packaged meals including hummus, baba ganoush, and a few different pestos. Almost all of their offerings are vegan (apparently one or two items have dairy) and are available in Virginia, DC, and Maryland. She is looking to expand to the Carolinas as well. If you’d like to get in touch, Heba’s address is 7210 Nathan Ct / Manassas VA 20109. She can also be reached at 703-361-2958.

Last month, I mentioned a recipe for Portuguese Chouriço and Kale Soup that sounded very tasty and quite simple. Of course since chourico (chorizo) is sausage, it’s not exactly vegetarian fare. I wondered, out loud, how I could duplicate this recipe’s flavors without using the meat. I got some great responses. Ann mentioned Soyrizo, a soy-based version of chorizo by El Burrito Mexican Foods. I put in a special order with a health food store and am waiting for it to come in. Jen mentioned TVP, which I’ve never tried, but I picked some up over the weekend. CompassRose mentioned that Bryanna Clark Grogan over at VegSource might be able to help.

Well, lo and behold, Bryanna is now offering up a bunch of vegetarian chorizo recipes, including Portuguese Chouriço! I’d like to think she stumbled upon the Veg Blog and was inspired, but I’d be flattering myself. I’m content with chalking it up to a happy coincidence.

The recipes look very doable and the original recipe from the Food Network was simple enough that this little bit of added work is no big deal. I can’t wait to try it out.

After having tried a few recipes from The Voluptuous Vegan (a gift from Alex), I can definitely say that the book’s recipes are among the most unique I’ve tried. However, I can also say that it’s not a book to go to when you get home at 8pm wondering what to cook for dinner. The dishes are time consuming, but the results are very much worth it.

Last night I made the Creamy Chickpea Soup with Moroccan Spice Oil. The soup itself was pretty straightforward, though it took a couple hours to cook (like most good soups). Chickpeas are a pretty mellow ingredient, but they worked well in this particular dish. The key was the spice oil. It’s made by toasting whole cumin, coriander, and fennel seeds, then grinding them with ground cinnamon, ginger, and red pepper flakes. The spices are then transferred into a skillet with a 1/4 cup of olive oil and cooked until the oil is heated through. The mixture is then strained through cheese cloth (I used a spice bag) and the remaining dark brown oil can then be saved for a month in a tightly sealed jar. Just a bit of this oil is added to the soup just before serving and really adds a lot of strong flavors to the soup.

Though I can’t post the recipe here, I will point you to this hard to read page (a cache of the Vegetarian Times article that posted these recipes) that has the recipe for both the soup and the oil. Start with the phrase “This soup is a centerpiece unto itself…” and go through the phrase “… and store in tightly closed jar.”

A while back I bought some soft, silken tofu with the expectation of using it in a smoothie or a soup. This past weekend I was preparing a recipe that called for firm or extra firm tofu, so I reached in my fridge and grabbed the box, totally forgetting that it was of the soft, silken variety. Unfortunately, I cut it open before I realized my mistake. I cursed myself, put the tofu in a container with some water and substituted some three-grain tempeh in the recipe.

I made a small batch of soup the following night, so I was able to use some of the submerged tofu. But, by last night I began to worry about the tofu growing mold, so I forced myself to look online and find a simple recipe I could prepare that would use the rest of it up. I came across the oddly named Hefner Tofu.

So, with visions of the Playboy Mansion dancing in my head, I made the stir-fry with a few modifications based on ingredient availability. I used a few slices of an organic leek in place of the green onion and Shoyu as my soy sauce of choice. I also left out the MSG (which, though listed in the ingredients, isn’t listed in the poorly constructed instructions). Predicting a bland result from this dish, I added some garam masala, fine white pepper, and a couple other random spices.

It came out pretty well. It was mushy, but had a nice flavor to it. It probably would have tasted especially good over rice. Huyen tried it out and really liked it, saying that it had the consistency of animal fat. Of course, I don’t look at that as a good thing, but to each their own. :)

Last night’s new recipe was a leek and brown rice dish from Greek Vegetarian Cooking by Alkmini Chaitow. I have to say that while the end result tasted decent, the recipe was a bit confusing. When it said to “cover ingredients with water, just barely,” I took it to mean that the water level should be just above all the ingredients. Turns out that this isn’t the case, as the water never came anywhere close to evaporating completely. The dish was a little mushy as a result.

This recipe for Leek and Rice Pilaf looks similar to the one I made, but is more specific. The book’s recipe also had two pounds of canned tomatoes and one large onion, chopped as well as 1/4 cup of olive oil (versus 1 tablesoon).

I’ve been looking for some nice, quick ethnic dishes as of late and I think this might be a good “go to” dish once I perfect it.

Last night was one of those “it’s getting late, let’s make something quick for dinner” nights, so I sauteed some leeks and carrots in olive oil and dry white wine and sprinkled them with nutmeg (nod goes to Nava Atlas for this) and put it on top of some pasta (butterfly pasta and ziti). I also poured an off-the-cuff sauce on the pasta made up of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, basil, oregano, sea salt, and a dash of sugar. I topped things off with a little bit of shredded Veganrella. The end result was surprisingly flavorful (but not overwhelming) and the whole process (preparation and cooking) took less than 25 minutes.

Last night’s new recipe met with mixed results. This time around I made a cauliflower, potato, and lentil soup with some Indian flavor, a recipe from Nava Atlas’ wonderful Vegetarian Soups for All Seasons. While I was pleased with the Indian flavor that the Garam Masala gave the soup, Huyen thought it was a little bit too overpowering, negating the taste of the cauliflower. I think had we used larger chunks of potato and caulflower rather than dicing them so finely, it might have turned out a little better.

I must admit, though, I’m becoming a fan of Garam Masala, a blend of cinnamon, cumin, coriander, cloves, and black pepper that’s traditionally used in North Indian cooking (the South Indian version has fenugreek and turmeric and more coriander). CuisineCuisine.com has a some good information on Garam Masala, as well as some recipes for making your own. Like curry, when it’s used in soup, it makes the house smell wonderful (one of my favorite by-products of cooking an Indian-style dish).

During our visit to the Finger Lakes last month, we had lunch at the Harvest Deli (good pictures on their For Sale page), a conveniently located vegetarian food court-style eatery in Ithaca. I had a wonderful vegan Cuban Seitan-Steak Sub sandwich. They had a nice variety of ethnic vegan options and a full line of smoothies and juices. Ithaca has a lot of vegetarian choices, but the Harvest Deli is definitely worth a stop if you’re spending the day shopping in the Ithaca Commons.

Hm… the recipe for Portuguese Chouriço and Kale Soup sounds mighty good. I wonder if it can be successfully de-meated. Obviously, either Unchicken broth or vegetable broth would be substituted for the chicken broth, but the main ingredient is where it gets a little tricky.

The soup’s main ingredient is chouriço, a smoked pork sausage seasoned with paprika, crushed pepper, garlic, and other spices. The trick would be trying to get the right levels of seasoning on a sausage substitute. I found a page about how to make your own chouriço, which might be helpful. I think I’ll start directly with a store-bought imitation sausage and attempt to marinate it in a similar way.

It should be an interesting experiment. The soup sounds like it would be nice and warm and spicy, a good combination for cold winter nights.

Here’s an interesting item for the kitchen: the SoyaJoy soy milk maker. Supposedly, it removes any “bean taste” and can also make almond milk and tofu. It seems pretty trendy, and perhaps unnecessary considering the wide variety of soymilks currently on the market. (randomWalks)

This weekend, my wife and I had some friends over and I cooked up a pair of new dishes that both went over well.

I started with a Fennel and Soy Cheese soup from the Soy for Health Cookbook by Kurumi Hayter, a Christmas gift from my sister-in-law. I wasn’t sure how this dish would turn out or go over with the group since fennel isn’t exactly an everyday ingredient and soy cheese has a bad rep amongst non-vegetarians, but I decided to give it a shot since a number of people at the dinner were lactose intolerant. Soy cheese is much easier to digest and fennel is one of the best natural aids in digestion that I’ve found, which would be important considering what I served as a main dish.

Turns out my concerns were for naught, as the soup went over extremely well with everyone. It was a nice, light and creamy combination of fennel and leeks topped with a bit of Veganrella mozzarella-flavored rice cheese. Personally, I liked this soup so much that I’ll be making it again for another couple of guests that are coming over.

The main dish came from Nava Atlas‘ Vegetariana: Pasta with Cauliflower, Currants, and Pine Nuts. The recipe called for quite a bit of dairy (ricotta cheese, low-fat milk, and parmesan cheese), so I decided to go half-and-half. I used regular part-skim ricotta, Lactaid (lactose-free) low-fat milk, and a soy-based parmesan cheese. That way, there was still enough thickness and “regular” cheese flavor in the dish, but I cut back on the lactose, keeping in mind our guests. The toasted pine nuts added a really nice flavor to the dish, but I think I should have made a little bit more sauce, as it was a bit light on the pasta. Still, the end result was nice and tasty, and reminded me why I love barely-browned cauliflower in a dish.

Today the Washington Post looks at soy milks. It’s quite a lengthy article and worth a read.

One of the stranger things that I purchased at the co-op in Ithaca was Fiji Ginger. Imagine if you will: pieces of ginger covered in chocolate. Each piece is the size of a Raisinette and even the most hearty of ginger lovers (as opposed Mary Anne lovers?) could only eat a few. I’m telling you: these things are strong.

If you’re interested in trying a bizarre snack foods and can stomach a little ginger, give these a shot. They’re… interesting.

We spent Christmas at my parents’ house in New Jersey and they hosted a 13-person Christmas night dinner. Being sensitive to my vegetarian diet, my mom ordered a Tofurky Feast for me. At Thanksgiving, I had had the main part (the roast and stuffing) and enjoyed it, but this time I got to try out the tempeh drumsticks and the Tofurky Jurky wishsticks. The appearance of the drumsticks was mildly amusing, but I was surprised at their taste. It had a much grainier texture to it than most tempeh that I’ve had. It was spiced nicely and wasn’t a bad compliment to the Tofurky roast.

I was especially surprised by the Tofurky Jurky. Though the sticks weren’t the traditional shape of beef jerky, their flavor and saltiness seemed pretty close to what I remember beef jerky tasting like. Good stuff.

My main complaint with Tofurky remains, though: the appearance. The “skin” looks more like my Tofurky is wearing a skully. Taste is more important to me, but unfortunately, having a Tofurky means enduring insults and rude comments about its appearance by other guests. When you think about it, though, I guess it’s a more pleasant sight than a dead turkey…

Last night I tried miso for the first time in the Miso Vegetable Hot Pot from Lorna Sass’ Short-Cut Vegetarian. Miso’s an interesting beast: though its pasty consistency isn’t terribly appealing (it dissolves into soup broth) and it smells kind of funny, it’s actually a pretty tasty way to add a little salty flavor to your soup (it is relatively high in sodium, so those on sodium restricted diets might want to avoid it). It’s made from fermented soybeans, so it has similar health benefits to other soy products. According to the International Vegetarian Union, though, some Japanese brands of miso contain fish stock.

My version of the above recipe was actually pretty different. Instead of dark miso I used a sweet white miso, instead of tofu, I used long-grain rice tempeh, instead of bok choy I used organic spinach, I left out the baby corn, and I added carrots and celery. And since I didn’t have enough in the way of scallions, I used 1/4 cup scallions and a 1/4 cup of regular yellow onion, chopped. The end result was pretty similar to the original, I’d imagine. The broth was nice and tasty and the almost-raw veggies added some nice crunch. Not bad. Huyen went back for seconds, so that’s a good sign. :)

Often when I’m looking for something to cook and don’t feel like running to the supermarket to pick up the necessary ingredients, Huyen or I will slap together a stir-fry with whatever veggies are in the fridge and serve it over rice or noodles. It’s a simple “go to” meal that offers up some taste and stays healthy. Last night’s “go to” stir-fry, though, was quite good. Better than usual, actually.

In extra virgin olive oil, we stir fried onions, garlic, cabbage, green beans, and broccoli. We then added some seitan in a can (woa, that rhymes!) and Ramen noodles. The juice from the seitan blended nicely with the other ingredients while the seitan itself provided a nice “meatiness” to the dish. For seasonings, we added a standard store-bought seasoning blend, a dash of pepper and sea salt, and (I think) a sprinkling of dried thyme. It came out tasting extremely good with a variety of flavors and textures. About the only thing I’d do differently would have been to add the noodles later so that they were a little more crispy.

It just goes to show that sometimes the best dinners come from “making do” with what you have on hand.

After watching an episode of Regina’s Vegetarian Table yesterday, I was inspired to make her New England Risotto recipe. Risotto, of course, is a traditional Italian recipe that uses the unique Arborio rice. Regina gave it a little New England twist. I liked the taste of the apples mixed in with the sage and smoked gouda. I probably could have let it cook a little longer, and it wasn’t as fluffy as I would have liked, but it made a nice, hot dinner and worked well for lunch leftovers.

One thing I encountered worth noting is that it called for “dry onion soup mix.” I was going to use Lipton Recipe Secrets onion soup mix, but held off because it listed the ever-questionable “natural flavors” in the ingredients. As you may know, the only difference between natural and artificial flavors are the source. Artificial flavors are made in the lab while natural flavors simply derive from a “natural” source (which may include animals). An artificial flavor and a natural flavor can be exactly the same, chemcially, but must be labeled differently based on the source. It’s important for vegetarians to remember that “natural flavors” can mean beef powder or chicken brother as easily as it can mean vegetable powder. This was best illustrated by the McDonald’s french fries debacle, where the company caused an uproar by not specifiying that their natural flavor came from beef-derived flavoring.

I checked a few other brands of dry onion soup and noticed that Knorr’s uses both beef and chicken-derived flavoring, which was enough of a hint for me to stay away from Lipton’s. I did find, though that the store brand onion soup mix did not have any animal derived flavoring (though it did contain MSG). I have written to Lipton’s to find out if their dry onion soup mix is vegetarian-safe.

This year, my wife and I celebrated our first Thanksgiving together as a married couple. And though we’ve been living together for a number of years, this was the first time we hosted a family Thanksgiving dinner. The house was crowded, but smells of good food filled the air.

Out of the 12, though, I was the only vegetarian, so while everyone else chomped on turkey, I enjoyed my first Tofurky. Yes, the occasional jabs at having a “fake” turkey and the “ewww… that looks disgusting” comments were a bit annoying, but I was happy. The Tofurky was easy enough to cook, about an hour in the oven, basted in an orange juice/soy sauce/brown sugar combo and wrapped in foil with some chopped carrots and potatoes. The end result tasted pretty darn good. The consistency was pretty close to turkey and the stuffing was an added bonus. I still can’t speak highly enough about their gravy: it’s just oustanding. Every person I had try the gravy responded the same way, with a surprised look and a “Wow, that’s good!”

Perhaps the best comment came when my brother-in-law, who is 15, but more open minded than most his age, tried my Tofurky leftovers the day after Thanksgiving. “I’m disappointed,” he said. “I thought I was going to be able to make fun of this, but it’s actually pretty good.”

Last night Huyen made two batches of bran muffins, one with eggs and one with Ener-G Egg Replacer (easy to spot on the store shelf with its distinctively late-70s/early-80s package design). The verdict: almost no difference. Tastewise, they were indistinguishable. The texture on both batches was the same. The only minor difference was that the batch made with Ener-G had a flatter (less puffy) top than the batch with the eggs, but that may have been due to replacing vegetable oil for vegetable shortening, too.

The egg replacer is a simple white powder made of potato starch, tapioca starch, calcium lactate, methylcellulose, sodium carboxymethylcellulose, calcium carbonate, and citric acid. The box contains a number of recipes as well as simple directions on one-to-one replacement for eggs in other recipes.

No doubt: Ener-G egg replacer is an outstanding replacement for eggs in muffins. Now to try them in pancakes…

On a whim I decided to try Spectrum Naturals’ Essential Omega Spread and was surprised to find that it’s an excellent butter/margarine substitute. It’s excellent on toast or bagels and has the benefit of supplying Omega-3′s in the form of organic flax oil while avoiding the cholesterol associated with butter and the trans-fatty acids accociated with margarine. It’s a vegan product, getting its butter flavor from soy, and really is worth checking out.

As much as I love Turtle Mountain‘s Soy Delicious ice cream, I have to give the thumbs down to their Big Buddy oversized ice cream sandwich. While the ice cream is fine, the chocolate wafers are incredibly dry, which ruins the whole experience. After all, what fun is an ice cream sandwich if you’re not licking the chocolate off of your fingers afterwards? I’ll stick with Tofutti Cuties.

I love using fresh herbs when I cook, but a lot of times I won’t want to buy it by the bundle like the sell at the supermarket. Unless you grow the herbs yourself, they go bad pretty quickly. Like most people, though, I have an ample selection of dried herbs at my disposal. A week or two ago, I search around the web a bit to see if I could find out if there was a good “fresh herb to dried herb” ratio that I could use. I found some slightly varying information, but the general consensus seems to be this: for every tablespoon of a fresh herb, you can substitute a teaspoon of the same dried herb. Put another way, the dried version of an herb is equal to 1/3rd of its fresh counterpart.

Now you know.

Last night’s successful new recipe came from Sundays at Moosewood in their “New England” section. It was Potato-Leek Vinaigrette with red bell peppers. And wow, was it good. It was listed as a main dish and worked well as such, but I can picture it as the perfect side dish to a hearty stew, too.

It starts with leeks sliced and boiled for five minutes combined with cubed potatoes (I used white potatoes, a variety I hadn’t tried before that are supposed to be good for boiling, similar to red potatoes) and a sliced red bell pepper. I used extra virgin olive oil instead of standard vegetable oil for the vinaigrette dressing (making it tastier and healthier), which also called for fresh dill (I used dried), vinegar (I used standard white), garlic, salt, and pepper. Preparation and cooking were easy, just remember to leave time for the dish to chill before serving.

The recipe is (obviously) vegan and was quite satisfying. I’m already thinking about leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

I don’t report often on frozen vegetarian dinners here, so I should probably mention that I tried Amy’s Kitchen organic, vegan shepherd’s pie. All of Amy’s products are meatless, eggless, and use organically grown products. This particular pie was also dairy free and wheat free (for those with allergies).

Huyen tried it a few nights earlier, microwaved, and really didn’t have too much to say about it. I gave it a shot last night, baked in the oven. Cooking for the specified amount of time wasn’t quite enough for our oven, but the pie still came out tasting nice and full and hearty. Especially nice: next to no fat, something you don’t often find in a dish as thick as this. This was, believe it or not, my first experience with Amy’s, and it was a good one. The Amy’s line is healthy, tasty, and offers a different fare than vegetarians or vegans usually expect from their frozen food selection.

I picked up my special-ordered Tofurky roast from Healthy by Nature. Unfortuantely, I wasn’t very specific when ordering and only got the roast rather than the whole Vegetarian Feast (with drumsticks and Tofurky Jerky wishbones). Healthy by Nature, as I’ve mentioned before, is my favorite health food store in the area. Others I’ve been to have placed special orders and never gotten them in. HbN has a number of friendly employees and is always well-stocked with vegetarian/vegan items as well as organic fruits and vegetables. Plus they’re the only place in the area that carries the mint Tofutti Cuties. :)

It should be an interesting Thanksgiving: this will be our first family Thanksgiving that we’re hosting. I’m the only vegetarian in the bunch, though, so there will still be a turkey on our table, unfortunately.

I also picked up some gravy as well, which I tried last year and really enjoyed.

A definite thumbs up for “Tofu in Simmered Leeks and Tomatoes” from Vegetariana. I served it over organic whole wheat spaghetti and the result was a bright tasting dish seemingly made for autumn nights.

I just finished baking some almost-just-about-vegan brownies from Vegan Vittles (the first recipe I’ve tried since I got the book several weeks ago). It looks good, smells good, and tastes pretty darn fine, too. Nice and rich and only a tad dry.

Oh, why is it “almost-just-about” vegan? Because I used regular white sugar rather than unbleached cane sugar or organic sugar. Regular white sugar may or may not be run through animal bone char during processing.

Though I’ve been quite pleased with all the dishes I’ve tried from Nava Atlas’ Vegetarian 5-Ingredient Gourmet, I finally hit one that I didn’t care for: curried red lentil and spinach soup. Perhaps it’s because I’m not a huge fan of spinach. Or maybe it was that I didn’t have red lentils so I substituted organic green lentils. Whatever the case, the end result wasn’t pleasing to my palate, but at least I can know that it was mighty healthy.

Though the only companies that manufactured vegan marshmallows have stopped doing so, VegSource now has a relatively easy recipe.

This weekend, my family was in town. This, of course, meant that I’d be cooking for them and that they’d be treated to a new vegetarian dish of some sort. Last week I made soy sloppy joes and though my sister initially turned her nose up at it, she decided to give it a shot (she was pretty hungry, I guess). Not one to easily admit defeat, she actually said, “This… is really pretty good!” That’s like a five-star review in Zagats, folks.

Saturday night I cooked up some Veat, sliced and served on spaghetti with a garlic sauce (a serving suggestion from the box itself). While the Veat smelled like chicken right out of the package, it wasn’t terribly appealing in appearance until after it was cooked and sliced. The taste was also good, enough to impress my very-not-vegetarian grandmother.

As a side dish, I made up a very tasty fennel, orange, and pomegranate salad recipe from The Voluptuous Vegan (thanks, Alex!). I had never had fennel in anything other than seed form before, and it was quite good, especially combined with the very sweet flavor of pomegranate seeds (take note: pomegranates are in season now). The book seems to have a bunch of tasty sounding recipes, including an eggless potato latke recipe and a chocolate-peanut butter cake that sounds interesting.

Usually my lunch is made up of leftovers from the previous night’s dinner, which works out well. But last week I felt more like going back to the every day sandwich routine. I bought some rolls (I want to know where you can find whole wheat sub rolls—do they even exist?), some Tofurkey peppered deli slices, and a pack of Tofutti American faux-cheese slices (which are vegan). I added some mustard or Nayonaise, tomato, and lettuce and had myself a nice vegan sub.

I was certainly impressed by the good flavor of the Tofurkey peppered deli slices (they even satisfied Huyen, who gets picky about my faux-meat products) but I was most impressed with how much better the Tofutti faux-cheese slices were versus the Veggie Slices I’m used to. Interestingly, though Veggie Slices have casein (a skim milk protein) to help get the cheese texture, I was more satisfied with Tofutti’s texture and flavor. Note that Tofutti slices have more saturated fat than the veggie slices, but for most healthy-eating vegetarians/vegans, this shouldn’t be a problem.

As mentioned below, the current issue of Organic Style (a new spinoff of Organic Gardening) has a brief feature on white tea (this link will likely disappear when the next issue hits the stands). As you may know, I’m a huge fan of white tea’s subtle flavor and find few things more relaxing than a cup of Sow Mee or Silver Needle. Interestingly, while green tea has always been touted for its health benefits, white tea has those same benefits, only amplified. The lower amount of caffeine is just a start.

“The newest health drink comes in a teacup, and this time, it’s not green. The antioxidants in green tea that safeguard cells from damage and prevent cancer, heart disease, and osteoporosis are also in white tea—in higher concentrations.”

One thing I didn’t know is that there is now a skin cream made from white tea by Origins called A Perfect World White Tea Skin Guardian. Whether or not it’s actually better for your skin, I don’t know, but it’s still pretty cool to see this rare tea being mentioned outside of tea enthusiast mailing lists.

I have a cookbook of traditional Hungarian recipes at home that I’m itching to use. Most of them use meat, which can easily be substituted for, but the problem is that almost every dish calls for lard.

Can anyone recommend a good substitute for lard (and how much would be equal to x lbs. of lard)?

Last night was chilly, chilly enough to turn on the gas fireplace, so I decided to start the “stew-making season” by trying out a new recipe from Moosewood Cooks at Home: Eggplant Mykonos.

The eggplant added a nice heartiness to the stew, but I liked the fact there was fennel, dill, and spinach mixed in as well. It also got a good response from my non-vegetarian wife, who seems to really dig these vegetarian stews. She said this was one of her “new favorites,” so it’ll be finding it’s way into a regular rotation. It warmed us up and filled our tummies quite nicely and didn’t take all that long to prepare and cook (a little over half-an-hour).

For dessert, we made up some incredibly good (but simple) orange creamsicle smoothies, based on the recipe from The Vegetarian 5-Ingredient Gourmet. Even better than Stewart’s Orange N Cream soda and similar to the ever-popular Orange Julius, this particular recipe didn’t even require a blender, though we used one to get that extra frothiness.

The other night I made a chicken salad-like recipe from The Vegetarian 5-Ingredient Gourmet that had crumbled tempeh mixed with curry, non-dairy mayo, and mustard. I had it with some crackers as a light dinner, but it would have also been a nice side dish for a more substantial meal.