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.  Wheeler’s was started by Damion, who used to work for Carvel.  He makes the ice cream using a method developed in 1832 by Augustus Jackson.  That’s old school.

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.