The Sisters Vegan

TTFN

2010-03-17T14:37:00.000-07:00

When Kell and I started Sisters Vegan back at the beginning of 2008, we had nooo idea how much fun we would have. We've met so many cool people, eaten so many yummy things, and been to so many great places.

But all good things come to an end, or in this case, a beginning (wait how does that work, I don't know just roll with it plzkthx). Kell and I have decided to move on up to our own projects for right now. She's right about to graduate from art school and start an amazingly successful career, and I'm applying to cooking school and trying to write a cookbook. Neither of us have as much free time as we used to, so for now, we're going to put Sisters Vegan on a bit of a hiatus.

We really, really appreciate all the love and kind words we've received over the past two years. It makes me so happy to see how we've both grown as vegans during that time, and how much more acceptance veganism has gained! It's practically fashionable!

If you'd like to follow either of us on our continuing (mis)adventures, you can check out Kelly's artblog at http://meltykelly.blogspot.com/, and you can check out Meg's new vegan cooking blog at http://suchavegan.blogspot.com/.

See you around, and happy veganing!

XOXO,

Meg

Tester fun + a question

2010-02-11T09:40:00.000-08:00

I'm still on a roll with testing for Isa's newest book, so here's a taste (har) to keep you excited!

Tamarind BBQ Tempeh & Sweet Potatoes

Potato Celeriac Soup with Brussels

Tortilla Soup

Chickpea Piccata over mashed potatoes and arugula

Brussels Sprouts Potato Hash

Tempeh & Black Eyed Pea Meatballs and Olivada Marinara over gluten-free pasta

Speaking of GF pasta, I am totally in love with Ancient Harvest Quinoa's gluten-free pasta. It holds up equally well in stove-top pasta dishes as well as baked casseroles. The elbows and the spaghetti are my favorite. And it doesn't give you crazy poops the next day! I just wish they made lasagna noodles. Anyone got a recommendation for other GF pasta to try?

I'm working on a post about vegan knitting. Any questions about vegan knitting, or yarn, or anything else you'd like to see in the blog, please leave a comment and let us know! I'm curious to see what sort of direction readers expect/want from this blog. We kind of started it as a chronicle of our first baby steps as vegans. It's still important to us to help out newbie vegans as much as possible (Mom, Dad, come on, you know you can do it!), but also that we explore other topics as well. So let us know!

Yikes!

2010-02-05T09:19:00.001-08:00

We haven't blogged in FOREVER. Eeps. Sorry. That's going to change soon. Mostly it's because I used to do all my blogging while at work (productive use of company resources mmmyes), and now I've changed positions and am super fucking busy during the day, and pooped when I get home. I promise though, we'll be better. XO!

Well with that out of the way, I wanted to point y'all in the direction of some awesome things going on this month.

First of all, on February 12th there's this awesome Vegan Valentine's Dance thingy being put on by a bunch of great people and featuring food from TONS OF PEOPLE including the fabulous ladies at both Sugar Beat Sweets and Fat Bottom Bakery! The price is a little steep but you get lots of free shit and since everyone vegan in the Bay Area knows each other, you're bound to see at least a couple peeps and guzzle beer at the same time! Also I've been to a different event in that same building, and I gotta say, the Brower Center is like California in that it knows how to party. It's pretty and big and super awesome.

Speaking of Valentine's Day and baked goods, the next San Francisco Vegan Bakesale is the following day, February 13th! Come stock up on sweets for your ~~honey~~ agavebunny, as Valentine's is the NEXT DAY FOOLS ack ack I totally have no idea what to get my BF, ideas plz!!!!! I'm probably going to bring persimmon walnut chocolate chip blondies again yo, so come eat that shit up before I do and gain more winter weight oops.

Speaking of bakesales, check out Fat Bottom Bakery's review of the first ever East Bay Vegan Bakesale, complete with photos of cute people and dogs, here! (I'm the hottie in the blue hoodie and braids.)

East Bay Vegan Bakesale TOMORROW!

2010-01-08T15:41:00.001-08:00

We've been absent from the blogosphere for a while but we're coming back soon, and bettah than evah, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, go here and eat awesome things while supporting great organizations and maybe even picking up a $1 book or three!!

East Bay Vegan Bake Sale!
Saturday Jan. 9 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
@ Issues, at 20 Glen Ave. at Piedmont Avenue in Oakland

See you there!

San Francisco Vegan Bakesale!

2009-12-04T08:18:00.001-08:00

In case y'all hadn't heard, tomorrow is the December San Francisco Vegan Bakesale! All proceeds go to Save a Bunny and The Food Empowerment Project. Over 50 bakers (yours truly included) + adoptable bunnies + Ike's sandwiches = a most excellent day of delectableness.

So I'll see you in front of Ike's Place @ 3506 16th St, San Francisco, CA, between 11am and 4pm, yeah?

Giving thanks

2009-11-25T09:53:00.000-08:00

Things have been quiet at the Haus Sisters Vegan (+JP) lately. School, health, and family things have been keeping us busy. But I wanted to make a quick post, because this Thanksgiving is going to be a little different for us this year.

My grandma, my mom's mom, passed away on October 11th. She was diagnosed with mesothelioma in August, and a few months later, she was gone. It's been really hard for everyone, but especially my mom, my aunt, and my cousin. They were taking care of Grandma (and my Grandpa), and the rest of us, too. I may have made over 12 dozen cookies for the memorial service, but mom, Joanne, and Michelle were the ones to talk to the doctor, Grandma's pastor, and relatives. The hard parts.

Grandma Mildred was a very special person. She was kind, supportive, funny, loving, strong-willed, and a wonderful cook and baker. More than one speaker at her memorial service mentioned her blackberry pie, myself included. Even though I don't think she really understood it, she was super awesome about me being vegan, and made her signature rolls and berry pies with vegetable-based shortening instead of butter for me. How lucky were we?! She always always made sure there was food we could eat, even driving all the way out to Whole Foods in Petaluma one time for us. Grandma Mildred supported her children and grandchildren unwaveringly, despite our flaws, and I think that's why we all turned out alright. (It may also be the reason why she had so many grey hairs on her head...I'm looking at you mom! ;)

I feel like of all the parts of me, as much as I constantly struggle to define who I am and come up with no answers, the parts of my life that have Grandma in them make sense, and those parts are solid and reassuring, and make the rest of the puzzle pieces fall into place around them.

This will be our first Thanksgiving without Grandma. I haven't felt the loss as hard as I do right now. But out of this loss came the amazing realization of how much my mom's side of the family loves and supports each other through loss and hardship, how awesome it is to have these super-awesome women and men in my life, and no matter what, I can count on them. Especially in contrast to my dad's relatives. I also discovered that I have a really great group of friends in the Bay Area and Oregon (and elsewhere!) who care for me and that I can count on them, too.

I have so much to be thankful for this year, even though it's been one of the hardest of my life. Thank you, readers, for making this blog so fun. Thank you, friends and family, for being there for me. Thank you, Kelly and JP, for hugging me when I come home.

I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving! We're making what is now the traditional vegan dish of Pumpkin & Black Bean Casserole (this year made with butternut squash), and the (vegan) Pumpkin Cheesecake with Candied Cranberries from last month's issue of Vegetarian Times. We'll report back.

(Grandma didn't like to have pictures taken of her, so I couldn't find any of her in the kitchen, but the one above is of her in just a small portion of her AMAZING beautiful and bountiful garden, and the one below is from Thanksgiving of last year.)

Autumnal Gleegans

2009-11-07T18:26:00.000-08:00

Autumn is at our doorstep, and so is our Gluten-free friend Mark! Mark has known longer than we have about the trials of having dietary restrictions around other people, so I learned a lot from him regarding ingredients and substitutions.
However, Vegan cookbooks are increasingly having more and more gluten-free recipes, doing all the work for us. Vegan Brunch was the culprit this time. We made Gluten-free Buckwheat Pancakes and updated Tempeh Bacon. Word of caution to the Gee-Effers - use Tamari or Braggs Liquid Aminos instead of soy sauce. I really almost screwed that one up.
Needless to say, the pancakes were gorgeous and poofed up more than any GF baked goods I have ever made (remind me to tell you the sad tale of the GF vanilla cupcakes sometime) and despite all of the different flours and flax, its substantial, nutty taste was not at all 'health-foody'.
Tempeh bacon is definitely a staple in this household, so I already knew that I could depend on it. I was really pleased to be able to make something so quickly and easily that everyone could eat.

Additionally, we had to serve our vegan guest lunch as well, so we broke out some more McDougall soup. Four of the soups I mentioned in my last post are gluten-free, and Mark took on the Lentil soup, which I can only guess that he enjoyed, seeing as how he wolfed it down just an hour or two hours after we had our glorious vegan breakfast. I had Minestrone, which didn't impress me as much as the chunky tomato, but it was good.
I would recommend heating these soups up in a pot on the stove. I think my problem keeping them warm enough while I eat is because they're really thick and hearty, and a Microwave even on 2 minutes or so just don't do the trick, at least not evenly. So if you're close to a stovetop, use it, otherwise give it a stir halfway through nuking.

Vegan Mofo Day 27: Ike's - A Love Story in Photos

2009-10-27T14:54:00.000-07:00

If you live in the Bay Area and have not yet been to Ike's Place...get off your ass. Run, drive, fucking get your butt onto BART for christ's sake and get one of these sandwiches into your belly. They are the size of a baby and ten times as delicious (OH I'M KIDDING baby-eating = so not vegan and also immoral I think). All sandwiches come with a random lollipop and they are super nice about making sure vegan 'pops go with the vegan 'wiches.

They have an insane menu, most of which can be made vegan, and even some shit off the menu that's vegan, too. Ask the super friendly/nice/hot people who work there for suggestions if you are overwhelmed by the choices, they'll never disappoint! They also now have gluten-free bread, so all you gleegans can get in on this shit (I'm rapidly coming over to the dark gluten-free[ish] side so this makes me ecstatic).

Me: vegan Paul Reuben, add avocado, extra pickles, on the dutch crunch bread
Kell: vegan Not So Sloppy Ike with 'meat'balls (see picture) on dutch crunch bread

Just look at that delicious fucking sandwich:

We ate at Ike's last weekend to ~~get hella fat~~ fuel up before the San Francisco Walk for Farm Animals (more about that later). LET THE EATING COMMENCE!

Om...

...nom!

That is one fucking HALF of the sandwich. Srsly you guys, this shit is intense.

Also Ike is a very sexy man. When he gave me and a friend our sandwiches, he was all "Here you go ladies, and btw, the lollipop is vegan" and gave us a VERY handsome smile. I would have fainted but I had a sandwich to devour. PRIORITIES!

This is the last entry I do after eating four Late July organic vanilla bean sandwich cookies. SQUEE!

Vegan MoFo Day 22: Doctor Mc D and Me

2009-10-22T15:58:00.000-07:00

Day 22 of Vegan Mofo is also Day 1 of...Dr. McDougall Chunky Tomato Ready-to-Serve Soup review!
I'd like to preface the review with a little information about Dr. McDougall, though, because I had heard about him long ago before I knew what the term "vegan" meant, and I realize that not everyone knows what he's all about.

As you can see from his website, Dr. John McDougall developed a diet to help at-risk individuals reverse the effects of health conditions through a vegan diet program. This all began in Santa Rosa, very close to where Meg and I grew up. He even had a spot on the local radio station (the token Celine-Dion playing lite rock station that our mother adored) where he would talk about diet versus health versus the risk of heart and weight problems. Tons of restaurants in Sonoma County have a "McDougall" menu, which are generally much healthier, and vegan. Pretty cool, right? Personally, I feel like even though generalized or fad diet programs always have issues, his program lends some credibility to the *already* proven good effects of a vegan diet on one's health. He also seems up to date on happenings in the vegan health scene. I just noticed that he has a podcast page that touts interviews with folks like Dr. Ornish, Howard Lyman, and other folks who either advocate a vegan diet, or alternatives to drugs, pills, and surgery.

Now, onto the IMPORTANT business. I had in my paws a carton of McDougall Chunky Tomato soup. Now it is in my belly.

Being a healthy vegan when you're harried and always on the go and constantly buried in homework or your job can be difficult. In the household of the Sisters Vegan, we cook and make our own lunches as often as we can so we have control over the ingredients, and we save money. However, in a perfect world, midterms would not exist. So, Meg has left it to me to do some reviewing of something I eat a lot - Ready-to-serve soup.

I'm not sure if this tasted so great because vegan tomato soup is just so darn hard to come by in stores up north, but this soup was AWESOME. I consider myself something of a picky eater when it comes to soup, and I loathe blandness, but honestly, this was right on the mark. The tomatoes tasted really great and fresh and sweet, and entirely unlike a lot of tomato soup I've had - that is, something that smells like spaghetti-O's and tastes about as good.

What's even better is the fact that each serving is ninety calories and packed with some pretty good stuff. My ONLY qualm is that they have no microwave time listed on the box ("Just heat and serve!") and any college student knows that the likelihood of having a stovetop nearby is...well, unlikely. I found that 2 minutes does it just about perfectly.

Most evenings when I feel like something nutritious and delicious I envision myself pulling out Isa Chandra's new low cal cookbook, or cruising through Vegan Express. However, for those nights when I'm just plum pooped from 10 hours of class, I can definitely see myself pulling some of this soup out of the pantry.

McDougall Soup 1 of 7 = success!

Vegan Mofo Day 13: Color Me Vegan!

2009-10-13T15:46:00.001-07:00

Check out my fajita quilt. I was bound and determined to veganize the Chili's Fajita Recipe, one of my favorite things to eat in the world, and I think I succeeded. Sadly, we were all so bent on eating them, that I have only photos of the ingredients before they were horfed down:

More and more I have read in magazines about studies claiming that the more colorful something is, generally, the better it is for you. Obviously fruits and veggies have some of the most vibrant colors, and the most nutritional content, compared to colorless starchy foods. This is probably nothing new to anyone who's reading a cooking blog, but I liked this quote:

"[I suggest eating] seven servings a day of fruits and vegetables, each from a different color group. (To meet your orange-yellow needs, for instance, eat a papaya, nectarine or grapefruit). For most people, iceberg lettuce, French fries and catsup are their three vegetables. [] This is an attempt to bring us back to our evolutionary roots."
- Dr. David Heber, the founding director of the UCLA Center for Human Nutrition and author of the just published What Color Is Your Diet? (HarperCollins)

Vegan MoFo Day 9: Poor Woman's Tempeh Bacon

2009-10-09T20:24:00.000-07:00

I love tempeh bacon. I could probably eat my weight, and Kelly's weight, in tempeh bacon, in one sitting. And I would die happy.

I am also a busy girl. I work, I jog, and I volunteer, and sometimes I like to sleep and see my friends (preferably not at the same time) - so what's a girl to do when she wants tempeh bacon NAAAAOOOOOWWWWW?

When I want delicious tempeh bacon, I reach for the recipe from Vegan With a Vengeance. When I'm being a lazy asshole, I make Poor Woman's Tempeh Bacon.

Don't judge my filthy teakettle

I kind of wing this recipe, so you should feel free to not measure and splash away. It's done in less than 10 minutes.

Poor Woman's Tempeh Bacon

Cube or slice 8oz of tempeh into your desired shapes. Heat 1 tsp of olive oil in a pan over medium heat. Brown tempeh for 4-5 minutes, flipping occasionally. Add 1-2 tablespoons of the following, to taste:

Soy sauce (or tamari)
Ketchup
Maple syrup

...and 1/4 tsp of liquid smoke, if you like it smokey.

Stir tempeh to coat and cook for a few minutes, depending on your desired level of sauciness.

I've used this recipe for quick BLTs, to top soup with, and to eat on top of kale/rice bowls. Use your imagination and use the extra time to crochet that baby blanket that's been sitting in your basket forevs, or give your cats some extra scritchin'.

Vegan MoFo Day 8: Soup Weather

2009-10-08T18:53:00.000-07:00

With temperatures dipping (well as much as they dip in California...), and my freaky body that gets cold at the slightest breeze, my mind turns to staying warm. Scarves, tea, blankets, baking cookies as an excuse to stay near the hot oven (uh huh)...and soup!

Soups are one of my favorite meals because you basically chop a bunch of shit up, throw it in a pot, and it cooks itself. Okay, maybe it's not as simple as that, but they're quick, economical, and you'll have lotsa leftovers, especially if you double the recipe, which doesn't take that much more time, but does make a ton of food.

I thought I'd throw up my top 10 soup recipes. Most of them are pretty easy and quick, and all of them are delicious and belly-warmin'. I don't have pictures for all of them, and some of these photos are pretty awful, but let me assure you, they're much prettier than I can show here.

1. Chili Sin Carne (from Vegan with a Vengeance by Isa Chandra Moskowitz)

2. Smoky Refried Bean Soup (from Fat Free Vegan) with avocado and cilantro and lime on top

3. Hungarian Mushroom Stew (veganized, from The Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen)

4. Smoky Split Pea Soup (from Eat Drink & Be Vegan! by Dreena Burton) with tempeh bacon squares on top

5. Apple & Carrot Soup with Coriander (from Get It Ripe! by Jae Steele)

6. Ancho-Lentil Soup with Grilled Pineapple (from Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz & Terry Hope Romero)

7. Chipotle Corn & Black Bean Stew (from Vegan with a Vengeance by Isa Chandra Moskowitz)

8. Chickpea Noodle Soup (from Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz & Terry Hope Romero)

9. Thai Corn Coconut Stew (from Eat Drink & Be Vegan! by Dreena Burton)

10. Cream of Broccoli (veganized, with added potatoes, from The Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen)

Vegan MoFo Day 6: SF World Veg Fest

2009-10-06T19:39:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in my last post, on Saturday I was tabling for Compassionate Cooks at the San Francisco World Veg Fest in Golden Gate Park.

Colleen Patrick-Goudreau is a lovely wonderful feisty person and I had such a good time being her sidekick and talking to people about veganism and cooking!

Me and Colleen, repping it East Bay style

Both of her awesome cookbooks were selling like hotcakes!

I was STOKED to find out our table was right next to Sugar Beat Sweets, the hottest new thing since hotness was invented!!

Erica, me, and Melisser

Seriously though, the ladies of SBS rock vegan baking like no one else and I was lucky enough to sample a cinnamon bun the size of my head, a chocolate cheesecake bar, a s'mores cheesecake bar (made with Dandies!!, and a rice krispies treat (I shared! Kelly and JP were stuck at home doing homework so I brought some back for them). It was all so insanely decadent I can't even begin to describe how happy it all made me. If that's not enough sugary deliciousness for you, how about some FROSTING SHOTS?!

Yes. Exactly what it sounds like (ie, amazing).

So cannot wait for their storefront in SF to open!!

Also got my picture taken with Josh from Herbivore! (I also promptly bought the girly version of the shirt he's wearing.)

I feel faster/smarter/sexier just after having stood next to him. Like a vegan Jesus.

Much food (other than wonderful baked things) was also consumed: a raw curry avocado wrap, a parfait and a SUPER DELICIOUS blueberry limeade from Alive, yummy taquitos from Flacos, and afterwards, a fun dinner with friends at Cha-Ya's new location!

I saw so many people I knew this year! I realized that it was a year to the day that I had met Melisser for the first time, mere weeks after I'd moved to the Bay Area. So much has changed in a year! I have a new position at work, I've made lots of friends, I moved in with Kelly and JP, I picked up some new hobbies, and, nearly doubled my cookbook collection in size, and we'll be getting a few furry additions to our little family in 1-2 weeks! There's some not great stuff that's happened as well, and I miss Oregon and my friends like whoa, but I'm happy I'm finally feeling a little settled into my East Bay digs for the moment.

It was just a really awesome Saturday.

Vegan MoFo Day 2: Testers

2009-10-02T08:24:00.001-07:00

On this, the 2nd day of Vegan MoFo, I am eating a chai latte persimmon muffin spread with a little vegan cream cheese and a crisp juicy Johnathan apple. GOD I LOVE AUTUMN. I can wear my cute sweaters and plaid shirts and my sexxxy new boots and drink gallons of hot chocolate and gain 10 pounds and blame it on holiday cookies bahahahaha!

Anyway.

Isa testers!

Eggplant-Chickpea Curry with Cashew Cranberry Biryani

Baked falafel

Spicy black eyed peas & greens with ginger mashed sweet potatoes & apples

Unfried fried rice and 5 spice delicata squash

If any of you are going to the San Francisco VegFest tomorrow, and you see a fidgety looking girl with brown hair and a tattoo, it's probably me. :P I'm helping the lovely Colleen Patrick-Goudreau table, so come by and say hi!

Vegan MoFo Day 1: Millenni-Yums

2009-09-30T20:44:00.001-07:00

I'm going to kick off Vegan MoFo with a comic about our excursion last week to Millennium.

CLICK HERE for teh comicses

Sucka MoFo: Vegan Month of Food 2009!

2009-09-30T08:08:00.001-07:00

Happy autumn y'all! I don't know what the weather is like where you are but there's an undeniable crispness in the air during my morning commute, and my bike wheels is crunching through more and more crispity brown leaves. YES. I love autumn so much. There's squash, and the last of the really amazing tomatoes and corn, and Halloween, and appley things, and wind, and VEGAN MONTH OF FOOD!

That's right, Vegan MoFo is back for its third year. Kell and I participated last year as well. Isa says:

The idea is to write as much as you can for the month of October about vegan food. The blog entries can be about anything food related - your love of tongs, your top secret tofu pressing techniques, the first time your mom cooked vegan for you, vegan options in Timbuktu - you get the idea. There is no strict guideline for how much you have to write, but we shoot for about 20 times a month, or every weekday.

If you want to participate, head over the Kittee's blog! It's super fun, a little challenging, and way educational.

And now some random stuffs! The Sisters Vegan is now on Twitter and Facebook, so if you like reading random shit and hearing about what I made for dinner, follow us on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook!.

There's big news around the Berkeley Three's household: we're getting CATS! And they DANCE DANCE DANCE and they DANCE DANCE DANCE! Not really. Well sort of. They're very cute despite the lack of dancing. My parents have been taking care of a stray that they named Hildie for the past few months, and all of a sudden about a month ago they heard mewing from our woodpile...KITTENS! There were three kittens with Hildie, all completely different colors. Mom is going to keep Hildie and one of the kittens, and we're taking the other two, as soon as they're old enough. ALL of them are obviously going to be spayed/neutered but we have to wait until they're old enough. We cannot wait. I promise many pictures.

And the most important thing: Kelly and I are participating in Farm Sanctuary's 2009 Walk for Farm Animals in San Francisco. Basically we get to raise money to help animals and look super sporty doing it. It's a win-win. Seriously though, it's a really awesome thing to do and since there are walks taking place all over the country, you should do it too!

So if you'd like to sponsor us (even $1 or $5 helps!!), please throw some cash money right here. If you have no money to spare but would like to help and aren't already vegan, please consider going vegan for the month of October in solidarity! You'll find a great list of resources and blogs to the right of this entry with plenty of helpful info on the hows and whys of veganism and plenty of delicious recipes. Speaking of which, I'll be posting more Isa testers shortly.

Happy MoFo!!

Happy birthday Kelly! + Isa testers

2009-09-23T08:28:00.001-07:00

IT'S KELLY'S BIRTHDAY TODAY!! WOO! My baby sister is growing up, which is exciting/terrifying because I swear to god she was like 6 years old yesterday. How she got into bars with me I DON'T KNOW MAYBE IT'S TIME TRAVEL but anyway, she deserves a fantastic fucking day and many many hugs and showers of presents. We're going to Millennium tomorrow (for her first time!) so there will be much food scarfing. Anyway HAPPY BIRTHDAY KELL and plz to not throw up on anything in the house if you get drunk tonight k thx.

In other news, I have Isa tester photos for you! Gaze upon them and become hungry!

Open-faced Portobello Reuben with 1000 Island White Bean Spread

Moroccan Chickpeas & Zucchini

Summer Lovin' Curried Corn & Veggie Chowder

Curry Laksa

Tempeh Helper

Cauliflower Pesto Soup

Black Bean & Olive Tacos with Garlic Lemon Yogurt

More later!

Weight lossy: Testing for Isa's new book

2009-09-08T11:34:00.000-07:00

While 2009 has been kind of a shitstorm for me and my family, one of the coolest things going on in my life (and keeping me sane) has been all the recipe testing I've been doing. I'm lucky enough to be testing for Isa Chandra Moskowitz, the woman who with a single book taught me how to cook and embrace veganism.

The new book is slightly different from her previous books, in that it focuses on low-fat, high-fiber, veggie-full fare! It's not a diet book, though; it's got filling servings, gorgeous colors, and ridiculously flavorful sauces; it's for people who want to eat well, not for dropping a few pounds and then going back to stuffing yourself with salt and vinegar chips (not that I, um, do that). And, it's pretty pantry-friendly, too! Win!

So feast (har) your eyes on the deliciousness:

Quickie BBQ Tofu

Smokey Tempeh & Greens Stew

Black Bean & Yam Soup with Orange & Cilantro

Quinoa Salad with Black Beans and Toasted Cumin Seeds (I used black quinoa)

Spicy Potato and Corn Salad

Caribbean Curry Black Eyed Peas with Plantains & Jerk Asparagus (this meal has become a weekly staple in our house)

Mushroom & Cannelini Bean Paprikas with Scarlet Barley

Everything has tasted so great so far. I feel GOOD after eating this food, and it has shocked everyone, vegans and non-vegans alike, that this it's healthy! No one has walked away from my table feeling deprived.

More to come!

Happy Labor Day: Vegan Latina testers

2009-09-07T16:23:00.001-07:00

Hope everyone is having a lovely Labor Day! If you're in the states, that is. Monday 3-day-weekends usually throw me off, but I managed to get work done AND take a nap without feeling guilty about it, so I'm doing quite well.

I have some new Vegan Latina testers to throw your way. Terry just keeps impressing us with her delicious creations. I CANNOT wait until this book comes out and I encourage everyone to snatch up a copy (or two) when it does.

Classic roasted tomatillo salsa

Red beans with Dominican style sazón

Quinoa roasted pumpkin risotto (Quinotto)

Pan-fried spicy quinoa & beans with red onion salsa

Hearty pumpkin and cranberry bean stew (Porotos Granados) - I subbed navy beans

Coming soon: I'm also testing for Isa Chandra Moskowitz's new book! I've got quite a few pictures together and I'll be posting about that more often. Kelly also spent a few hours in the kitchen making homemade pear sauce, and will doing a write-up of that as well!

Waffles

2009-08-17T16:20:00.000-07:00

So some of you may have noticed that I haven't upated my Awful Waffle blog in FOREVS, and that is true. I think I'm going to let it die. Unfortunately making waffles and my goal of losing weight don't always go together. The good news is, that means all waffle talk will take place on The Sisters Vegan. So hurrah! It's a celebration, bitches!

So, waffles. JP has been asking me for weeks to make the Yeasted Waffles from Vegan Brunch since we had them at a friend's housewarming party (can I get a what what for insanely delicious and food-coma-inducing waffle parties?!). Trouble is, I'm a lazyass (really!), so JP decided to go into uncharted culinary territory and make not only his first waffles but his first yeasted waffles, at that. And they were FUCKING AMAZING. And the best part about waffles is that there are usually leftovers, which means the following Monday morning when you have to get ready to go to work at your shitty job where you will spend most of the day hoping your boss has forgotten you exist, a light toasty yeasted waffle with homemade raspberry jam spread on it tastes like it was made by Jesus himself.

Anyway.

We invited our friend Bike Friend Nathan over (the man can smell brunch from miles away) and we had ourselves a fancy brunch, complete with the waffles, tempeh bacon (recipe also in Vegan Brunch), and various fixins': Earth Balance, maple syrup, two kinds of Grandma-made jam (raspberry and peach), and stewed apples.

What are stewed apples? Well they're basically warm delicious sugary apples for putting on top of things. I'd never made them before, just thought they sounded like a good idea and modified this recipe (ignore the giant disgusting picture of dead pig).

Stewed Apples
Makes I dunno how much, enough for four people anyway

4-6 cups sliced apples (I just kind of eyeballed it)
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup water
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp allspice
1/8 tsp ginger
1/8 tsp salt

Combine all ingredients in a large, heavy saucepan. Cover and cook over medium heat for 25-30 minutes or until apple is tender as you want it to be, stirring occasionally. Apples will be nice and sweet and spicy and floppy and tender and a little caramelized when you're done!

I leave my skins on. We're not a fan of peeling fruit or vegetables in this house, be it cucumbers, carrots, apples, or pears. That's where a bunch of the fiber and deliciousness is, anyway. I GUESS bananas/citrus/pineapple are exempt.

Tester heaven

2009-08-06T15:14:00.000-07:00

SQUEE! We love our new house with our gorgeous kitchen and lovely gas stove and pretty living room and backyard and SQUEEEEE! Pictures (once we finish putting everything away and cleaning) are forthcoming.

In the meantime, living with both Kelly AND JP means there are three monkeys in the kitchen to do the work, giving us more time to make more elaborate meals, including some fabulous dishes from Vegan Latina testing. Terry continues to make our tummies very very happy with her creative and gorgeous recipes! Especially the desserts (see below!).

Evidence:

Chayote & Potato Salad with Capers & Peas

Zesty Orange Mojo Baked Tofu

Columbian Green Onion Salsa

Cashew Crema

Chili Grilled Tempeh

Yellow Rice with Garlic

Amaranth Polenta with Roasted Chilis

Calabacitas (Fresh squash saute)

Yuca with Cuban Garlic Lime Mojo

Quinoa Corn Chowder with Limas & Aji

Simple Arroz Con Leche (this BLEW MY MIND!!! SO GOOD!!!)

Cafe con Leche Flan (WOWZERS is all I can say)

The best part of testing is that it's brought a lot of new ingredients into my repertoire, or new ways to use familiar ones. Fucking love it. Everyone should buy this book when it comes out, which is sometime next year!

A Birthday Comic!

2009-07-26T21:40:00.000-07:00

We had such a good time at our friend Kristen and Alex's birthday party that I decided to make a comic about it!

Thanks to Kristen and Alex for inviting us, and Melisser for the rockin' brownies, and everyone else who brought awesome food!

Oh, Portland!

2009-07-24T15:35:00.000-07:00

Once again while in Portland, OR, I had an amazing amazing time with friends new and old and ate myself silly. I also had more work done on my tattoo at Scapegoat, and there were plenty of 4th of July revelries to be had.

FLAVOUR SPOT! WAFFLES WAFFLES WAFFLES!

If everyone in the world had one of these vegan waffle sandwiches, there would be no war.

Snarfing waffle while walking down Burroughs. I am teh hardcore.

Happy Bowl with garlic aioli & BBQ sauce...

...and an iced almond milk chai latte, both from Sweetpea Bakery

The case at Sweetpea. FILLED WITH DELECTABLES!

Brownie from Black Sheep Bakery c/o Kelly at the farmer's market! Also starring Erica's foot.

Mexican bowl...

...and lavender lemonade from Blossoming Lotus downtown

My haul from Powell's

Coconut lemonade from a coffee shop in SW whose name I don't remember...they also had vegan lemon poppy seed scones!

I went to Bay Leaf with Happy Herbivore and her husband, who were passing through town at the same time I was!

Spring Rolls

Sesame Tofu (my favorite dish, I get it every time!)

Pad Thai

Mango Tofu

Chocolate Glazed Doughnut from Voodoo Donuts

My friend Morgan's awesometastic vegan neighbors once again went all out and made an amazing vegan brunch that I am still dreaming about!

Tofu scramble breakfast burritos with meatless chorizo and potatoes, and fruit salad

My contribution: strawberry-banana "Anything Goes" muffins, made using the recipe in Vegan-a-Go-Go! Thanks Sarah Kramer!

More tattoo.

Homegrown veggies taste the best: balsamic-maple tempeh with zucchini, kale with peppers & onions, and couscous. The kale and zukes are from Erica's gorgeous wanna-live-there-forever garden!

...and a happy 4th of July puppy!

Sadly I did not get pictures of two fabulous breakfasts at Paradox, which were two of the best vegan meals I've ever had EVER, and various bagels and things bought at Herbivore, etc. Ah well, there's always next time, right? ;) Many thanks to the friends who graciously put me up and fed me and shared in my adventures! <3<3<3

Do you miss us?

2009-07-22T08:34:00.000-07:00

Hi y'all! Just wanted to jump in with a quick update. I know blog entries have been sparse lately but it's because of something awesome - Kelly is moving in with me and JP, into a fabulous 100 year old apartment in an AWESOME part of Berkeley! So there will be more regular updates in the future, along with more of us cooking, reviewing, and taste-testing together!* HURRAH! We'll dish on Portland, camping, family visits, and all the associated food/pics soon!

I also wanted to mention that Sisters Vegan is (naturally) the last vegan blog to finally get on Twitter! (Ha. You love us because we're awkward.) You can find updates, links, and random vegan musings at: http://twitter.com/sistersvegan!

*I'm sure we will also occasionally scream at each other, but that's okay. At least we've stopped punching each other in the boob (mostly).

Vegan Independence Day!

2009-07-12T14:33:00.001-07:00

So as fate would have it, on a great holiday opportunity for some delicious cookins, our beloved Meg was being hogged by Oregonians, so JP and I were left to fend for ourselves on the 4th of July. The verdict: Lasagna.

I used the Random Girl Mushroom and Sausage Lasagna Recipe that I like so much...

...Which yielded some delicious results and many scrumptious leftovers. We also tried Random Girl's Raspberry Cheesecake Bars (we used blackberries instead!) and wrestled with it a bit but it ultimately came out pretty tasty.

Yay, cooking. Hopefully Meg returns to blogging soon so you can get your hands on a real entry!

Portland, ho!

2009-06-29T13:33:00.000-07:00

It's true. I'm off again on Wednesday to travel into the Great White North aka Oregon for some much-needed vacay. I'm going to be visiting old friends, meeting up with some new ones, getting more tattoo, and EATING MY WAY THROUGH TOWN. Yessss, Portobello and Flavour Spot, I'm COMIN' TO GETCHA!, to borrow the immortal words of the fabulous Laura B.

Yes yes, I know you're all horribly jealous of my ~~pathetic~~ fabulous jetsetting ~~joke of a~~ life, so in order to soothe the envious beast(s) inside you, I'm offering up Vegan Latina tester recipe photos. I'll return Monday with a bigger tummy, a sore arm, and many pictures of P-Town. Yay veganism!

Sweet Basil & Corn Pot Pie

Arroz con Seitan

Creamy Avocado Tomato Salsa (Venezeulan Guasacaca)

Tomato Salad with Sweet Crisp Onions (Ensalada Chilena)

Tempeh asado

Savory Orange Rice, Brazilian Style

Braised Brazilian Shredded Kale

Quicker Red Posole

So Good, So Green Dipping Sauce

Peruvian Red Chile Corn Salad

You know how we do

2009-06-23T13:05:00.000-07:00

Yes, it is, in fact, completely true, that I have vegan raised donuts chauffeured to me by a classy lady all the way from Las Vegas, NV, to Berkeley, CA.

The fabulous Erin of Vegan Homemade was lovely enough to offer to pick up some lucky Bay Area folks some donuts on her way back from Vegas. OMG, right? Like how awesome is that?

(This is, ahem, minus one maple bar that was etted as soon as the box was opened.)

Featured: another maple bar, a glazed regular, a cinnamon roll thingy, a bear claw, and an apple fritter. The boy and I devoured that maple bar last night (OMG so delicious! Haven't had one since freshman year of college!), and we split the bear claw and the remaining maple bar for breakfast this morning. I shared mine with a coworker who said, and I quote, "never again will i lol @ vegan doughnuts," end quote. Cannot waaaaaait to eat the rest, but as I can already feel the effects of the impending sugar rush, I'm trying to take it slow.

Speaking of baked goods...

The Worldwide Vegan Bakesale is in full swing, and any of y'all anywhere remotely near San Francisco this weekend should come by! I'm making wheat-free chocolate chocolate chip cookies, and there will be a lot, nay, a MOUNTAINOUS BOUNTY, of delicious vegan baked goods. The always amazing Melisser, the Urban Housewife, will be bringing cupcakes for the masses, as well as many other swell PPKers, including the aforementioned awesome Erin and the fabulous fierce folks from Vegansaurus!, all laden with delicious sugary delectables. To up the ante, on Saturday, the bakesale will be held in front of Ike's Place. I don't know exactly what it is they do to their sandwiches (MANYYYY vegan options!), but I would swear to you that they are made exclusively from pure uncut cocaine, because I took one bite and now I want Ike's EVERY GODDAMN DAY.

Remember that sugar rush I was talking about? Yeah.

Anyway! Here's the info, and some links to even more info:

Saturday, June 27th, 11AM – 4PM
3506 16th Street at Sanchez, in front of Ike’s Place (aka CRACK SANDWICH PALACE!)

Sunday, June 28th, 11AM – 4PM
800 block of Capp Street, near 24th St (about 1/2 block from 24th Street Bart)

Proceeds go to Animal Place in Vacaville and East Bay Animal Advocates. Both are super awesome good causes and you should absolutely make it rain on the vegan bakesale!

Plus I'M going to be there on both days, so if you want to catch a glimpse of my finely-toned yet round and scrumptious ass, or to hurl rotten vegetables at me, please to stop by and say hello.

More info:

Worldwide Vegan Bakesale SF

Info at The Urban Housewife

WWVBS Facebook page

Updates from the Lazy Half

2009-06-18T13:54:00.000-07:00

So on account of me being a lazy jerk and never updating, you all get a very eclectic entry about all the cookings, artings, and outings going on in my life.

Firstly, I've been living with the parents this summer - I'm in this bizarre limbo between classes and apartments and stuff, so I'm kickin' it small town style in the Great Hick North. I wanted to let everyone know that, despite their stubbornness to commit to any kind of veg*n diet, my parents are always accommodating with my sister and I, and so far we've had some great vegan meals together. Below on the left is "pesto cream" pizza, and on the right is your standard tofu scramble and potatoes.

Also, mom and I went on another vacation to Mount Shasta after my GF buddy Mark and I had had such a good experience. Did you know they have vegan, gluten-free macaroons in this tiny remote truck stop town at Lynnie's Bakery?!
This time we rented a cabin and prepared our own food. Below is a tofu egg salad sandwich with oven fries and fried tofu and vegetables with spicy peanut sauce.

My sister said I should post some of my vegan-relevant art on here. I haven't incorporated veganism into nearly as many pieces as I would like so far, but at the same time it's hard to make a statement without it seeming somewhat of a contrived turnoff.
The first was from an editorial assignment where we had to make some kind of illustration with some kind of relevant political statement or human interest angle. It's probably not entirely clear but I wanted to do something about the canadian seal hunt - it incited a little bit of discussion (and some people were mortified at the concept!) about the seal hunt, and it was a really fun project.

The second is a print I made in a printmaking survey course - I had a couple different sketches for vegan-inspired lino prints and went with this one.

I'm still in art school and just messing around with different media...but, hope you guys like it - crossposted from my blog, where my other school art can be found: http://meltykelly.blogspot.com

TGIF

2009-05-29T11:19:00.000-07:00

Anyone else TOTALLY OVER May? Yeesh. Totally ready for June to throw awesomeness my way.

Anyway, it's FRIDAY, and that means Vegan Latina tester pics!

Warm Yuca & Cabbage Salad with Tofu Chicarrones - one of my favorite recipes so far!

Potato Chickpea Enchiladas with Green Tomatillo Sauce and Pine Nut Crema

Salvadorian Slaw

Seitan Saltago (Peruvian Seitan & French Fry Stir Fry) - yes you read that right

And two kinds of seitan:

Steamed White Seitan

Steamed Red Seitan

Hope everyone has a FABULOUS weekend!

Vegan Brunch

2009-05-27T13:56:00.001-07:00

If you couldn't tell from reading the blog, I love love love brunch. It's the perfect way to start a lazy Sunday, it's delicious yummies to fuel your fun-filled day, it's the solution to a wicked hangover...you really can't go wrong with brunch.

Which is why I was fucking STOKED (yes, I said it, what, let's fight) when I heard about Vegan Brunch by Isa Chandra-Moskowitz, the gorgeous kitchen goddess who gave us Vegan with a Vengeance, and, with Terry Hope Romero, forms half of the dynamic girl culinary duo that wrote Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, Veganomicon, and the upcoming Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar (the last of which yours truly has been test baking for) (No I don't use proper grammar) (I clearly had ice cream at lunch).

Enough with the product plugging! I love all Isa's cookbooks; your favorite verbally incontinent spazzy blogger (aka, me) barely knew how to cook before she got Vegan with a Vengeance in her grubby little ewok-like hands. And look at me now! I may have no direction or ambition and drift aimlessly upon the blustery sea of career advancement, but I can cook a tofu scramble so good it makes men leave their wives just to gaze upon my culinary expertise with barely-concealed lust. My cookies have brought entire empires to ruin. The last thing you'll all see before the end is my aproned silhouette, standing on a mountain top, a tray of biscotti thrust towards the heavens as the sky burns and the seas boil!

Anyway!

What I'm saying is, this book, like Isa's other books, kicks ass. It's just something about the way she speaks to the reader; there are no pretensions, no demands; it's like having a friend in the kitchen, helping you out. I've loved everything I've made from Vegan Brunch so far. Even if the idea of rolling/falling out of bed on a Sunday at 10am is repellent to you, most of the recipes can be used at late afternoon picnics or potlucks. Or, fuck it, make pancakes in a drunken stupor at 12:30am on a Thursday night. Because, um, I've certainly never done that. (The sad thing is I'm better at flipping pancakes while inebriated than while sober.)

But really, how could you NOT get out of bed for chocolate-beer waffles? Shiitake-dill frittata? Pumpkin pancakes? Lemon-cashew stuffed crepes with whole berry sauce? Homemade vegan sausages, muffins, scones, it's all here, folks. OM NOM FREAKING NOM is, I believe, the scientific term to describe the deliciousness.

Here are some lovely lovely photographs of recipes I've made out of this book. Most of them are from over the weekend, which the boy and I spent up in Sonoma county at my parents' domicile.

Classic Broccoli Quiche (from Easter)

Caramelized Onion Quiche (what, I fuckin' like quiche)

Cashew Ricotta

Omelette stuffed with Cashew Ricotta, balsamic mushrooms & onions, and leftover potato wedges

Potato Avocado Salad

Not picture, but also made (and devoured) was the coffee cake, with the apricot cardamom variation!

So go and buy a copy, preferably from your local bookstore! Berkeley peeps, I got my copy at Moe's Books on Telegraph, might want to call ahead and see if they have it.

I'm getting tingles just thinking about that potato salad. OOooooh.

Millennium's Southern Comfort Dinner

2009-05-26T14:26:00.000-07:00

Last week I was lucky enough to go to Millennium's Southern Comfort Dinner with a great group of friends. The staff were dressed up as yokels and the food was fantastic, and it was a great way to (prematurely) start the holiday weekend off right.

We kicked off the meal with some appetizers and drinks:

Buckt-o-Beer

Corn bread, rye bread, some other bread I can't remember

Nachos (complete with 'cheese' sauce, beans, jalepenos, soy chorizo, and guac) and fried green tomatoes

Then tucked into some iceberg "wedgie" salads with 1000 Island dressing and tofu "deviled egg":

Then the entrees. There were four to choose from, and I got pictures of mine and JP's:

"Oyster" dog on french roll with homemade tartar sauce, onions, and breaded and fried maiitake mushrooms, with sides of bourbon black eyed peas, slaw, and steamed veggies

"Shake & Bake"d seitan over white rice with some kind of yummy sauce, same sides

Everything up to this point was FABULOUS. Food shared with friends is always fab but the SoCo meal was just the right amount of greasy and delicious and it was so much fun.

Dessert, however, was a little disappointing:

Spelt "muffcake" with (almost) all the fixins'

Perhaps it was because my expectations were high after hearing about last year's do-it-yourself brownie sundae bar, but the do-it-yourself "muffcake" (ie: muffin) sundae bar just wasn't doing it for me. The scoop of homemade cherry ice cream was AWESOME, toppings were YUM (julep hot chocolate sauce, chipotle strawberries, etc), but they were already running low on several (the crushed oreos and the whipped cream) by the time we got to dessert (and our reservation was quite early in the evening!). The most disappointing aspect was the muffcake itself. There were three choices of flavor (strawberry, chocolate, spelt with cream cheese frosting), and the general consensus was that the muffcakes were very dense and not very flavorful. I love muffins, but they are breakfast or snack food; if I go to Millennium, I expect to be blown away, and I have been in the past, but this dessert wasn't quite up to their normal standards. I think they were experimenting with a new idea, and hopefully next year it will be better.

However, the rest of the meal definitely lived up to or exceeded my expectations, and I encourage everyone living in or visiting the Bay Area to go to Millennium at least once! I will commence my Millennium stalkery again in the fall, as the pumpkin tiramisu with gingerbread ice cream I had last time we went made me moan in a manner most unsuitable for a fancy restaurant. Whatever, I bet it happens all the time there.

Happy Wednesday: Vegan Latina tester pics

2009-05-13T11:04:00.000-07:00

It's been busy lately in Sisters Vegan land, hence the infrequent posting! But I hope Vegan Latina tester pics will make up for it! Terry is amazing and all the recipes I've tested so far have been delicious! My favorites are all the amazing soups.

Venezuelan Black Beans (Caraotas) & Tofu Chicharrones with brown rice and avo

Shambar: Hearty Andean Mountain Stew with Mushrooms and Bean

Peruvian Spicy Cheezy Sauce with chopped tomato on top

Sweet Potato Chipotle Bisque

Cuban Black Bean Soup, habanero variation

Venezuelan-style Arepas (it's the english-muffin-but-not lookin' thing on the bottom) - even tastier when made with friends!

Chimichurri Baked Tofu (on the right, covered in yummy sauce)

Creamy Potato Soup with Avocado

Portlandia

2009-04-28T14:34:00.001-07:00

So after months of toil, I finally accrued enough vacation time to go on a short jaunt up to P-town, aka Portland, Oregon, aka the best city EVER. I went to college in Eugene, and since I was the SUPER COOLEST and decided to stay for a fifth year, during that time I got to visit my much smarter friends who moved to Portland after graduation.

I didn't get to do or eat everything I wanted to because my time was so short (vegan waffle cart, I think about you and weep!), but I'm planning another trip up in July so cross your fingers. And, most importantly, I got to spend lots of time with dear friends that I miss very much, and who were kind enough to put me up for a night or two during my stay. There was also a long walk with a cute dog, Smash Brothers tutorials, a birthday party, shopping, multiple vegan donuts & bagels, yummy homebrew and backyard sunshine, the comfiest blanket ever, some amazing homemade meals, and a new tattoo!

Picture highlights:

Kale 'n Quinoa bowl with tempeh and avocado, and chamomile tea, from Red & Black Cafe

Amazing delicious want-to-eat-a-wagon-full-of-them Chickostick donut from Voodoo Donuts on top of recently purchased copy of Thrive by Branden Brazier (from Herbivore)...what a juxtaposition. I'm sorry Branden, will you still go out with me? Or at least allow me to stare at pictures of you creepily? Wait, I already do that...

Funny sign I saw while wandering around

Nobody beats Sweetpea's bagels and schmear, or the atmosphere

Gorgeous cherry blossoms from inside Sweetpea

The inside of Scapegoat Tattoo

Getting tattooed by Dylan. It hurt so good.

AMAZING vegan brunch that my BFF M-poo's neighbors made us...to-die-for biscuits and gravy, potatoes, tofu scram, and OJ. Not picture: fruitses!

Moral of the story is, if you're vegan and haven't been to Portland yet, get off your ass!

Birthdays, picnics, and easter, oh my!

2009-04-14T13:11:00.001-07:00

Long entry but it's mostly photos!

Our weekend at home with the famfam was all two girls could ask for, and we have photo evidence to prove it!

First up is our picnic on Saturday. Mom, Kelly, and I rode our bikes 4 miles down to Asti Winery (the site of the former Italian-Swiss Colony), and Dad met us there with a picnic lunch that Mom had prepared that morning!: Chips, hummus, a huge container of veggies and pickles and olives, bananas, and 21st Century Carob Cookies, an Isa/Terry cookie tester!

Mr. Coyote came to visit us! He played at chasing birds, but I think what he really wanted was Terry's cookies!

That evening we celebrated my dad's birthday. In the afternoon, Kelly and I made the Bananas Foster Cake from My Sweet Vegan. Being at my parents' house meant I got to use my mom's stand mixer! Yay! And yes I am wearing my awesome CakeSpy t-shirt. The cake was so delicious, two omnis and three vegans have made promises of undying love to it. I think it's now my favorite recipe from MSV. And it has bananas in it, that means it's healthy, right?

Not the greatest decorating job ever, but I'm still practicing. I don't get a lot of opportunities to make cakes (they're not exactly bike-portable) so this was a fun experience to put some of the skills I learned from the UO Craft Center cake decorating class to use.

For dinner we made one of my favorite meals: chickpea cutlets with mustard sauce (both recipes from Veganomicon), roasted asparagus with garlic, and mashed potatoes, which were made extra special with the addition of chives from the garden.

We also made Easter brunch Sunday morning, which consisted of Classic Broccoli Quiche from the PPK blog (and Isa's upcoming brunch book), herbed red potatoes, and fruit salad.

I hope everyone had a lovely, restful weekend!

Happy Bunnies Effing Day!

2009-04-10T09:01:00.001-07:00

What can I say, I'm not at all religious.

But, our family still is (sort of), AND today is our daddy's birthday (happy birthday Daddums!), AND I am lucky enough to have a half day at work, so Kell and I are headed up north to visit the famfam. There will be much bike-riding and food and hopefully some chocolate. 'Twill be excellent.

I leave you today with testers from the lovely and talented Terry Hope Romero's upcoming Vegan Latina cookbook! The recipes span the South American continent and so far they are fun to cook AND fun to eat!

Colombian red beans, Llapingachos (mashed potato pancakes) and Peruvian Spicy Cheezy Sauce

Simple Sofrito

Butternut Black Eyed Pea Tostadas

Pupusas with Simple Latin Tomato Sauce, Swiss Chard with Capers & Raisins, Cilantro-Lime Rice

Beans with Rice, the remix (Pinto Gallo)

Homestyle Refried Beans (featured in simple tacos)

There are also these AMAZING Eggplant Torta Sandwiches (complete with Pickled Red Onions, OMG TASTY!) that I didn't get a picture of...because they went in our tummies so fast! Favorite recipe thus far.

Why yes, I DO use the same plates for EVERYTHING I cook. Back off, it's vintage Corningware from the 1970s! (I <3 50s & 70s kitchen stuff...and knitting patterns/yarn.)

Are you starving now? Because I am. Where's my banana?!!

Happy Friday!

2009-04-03T09:01:00.001-07:00

Happy Friday y'all! I never understood the phrase "living for the weekend" until I graduated, starting working, and then got a new bike. I commute with it all week, which is great, but the best part of owning a bike, the uphill battles and downhill adrenaline rushes, start tomorrow, and I can't fucking wait!

It's been too long since I posted Isa & Terry cookie testers! Isa posted an amazing Flickr set which has muuuuuch better photos than mine, so move any electronics out of the way before you click that link - it's mouthwatering!

Even so, here are my humble test cookies:

Lazy Samoans (toasted coconut/chocolate...like the girl scout cookies)

Peanut Butter Chocolate Pillows...thar's peanut butter in them thar cookies!

And my personal favorite...

Cheesecake Chip Topped Brownies

Yes, they did, in fact, blow my mind.

Animal Place Widget!

2009-03-27T15:25:00.001-07:00

Hey - just thought I'd throw this up. I made a widget for Animal Place because I figured it might help them get some more donations if they could get the word out more, and I think people would like to learn more about it. If you click on "share" you can post it to Facebook, Myspace, Blogger, Livejournal, tons of places. Our widget builder (www.sproutbuilder.com) is free to registered nonprofit organizations - they're a great way to virally spread the word about animal sanctuaries, vegan events, books and other stuff. :)

Irish Soda Bread aka Breakfast

2009-03-18T08:34:00.000-07:00

For some reason I can't fathom, I haven't made anything from Joy of Vegan Baking by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau in a long time. I pulled the thick volume out on Monday, however, because I knew there was a recipe for Irish soda bread within. My workplace had a St. Paddy's Day potluck yesterday, and I wanted to bring SOMETHING I could eat! (I was pleasantly surprised, incidentally, that a coworker brought a cabbage sesame salad that was not only accidentally vegan, but AMAZING!)

The recipe is quite simple, and I was impressed by how simple the ingredients were. This is a recipe you could make almost anywhere. Flour, salt, baking soda, white vinegar? Who doesn't have those on hand? If you're a college student who goes home for the holidays, this would be a really easy recipe to contribute to a holiday meal, and show your famfam that vegan baking IS indeed possible and also ZOMG delicious. The only tricky ingredients might be the soymilk and the vegan margarine. But soymilk (or another nondairy milk) is so easy to find these days, and you could always bring some Earth Balance with you in a little tupperware container.

Very quick to mix up, then 35 minutes in the oven and you're done and you have yummy , slightly moist, thick bread to share with your family and friends.

I added the optional raisins, and also the zest of one orange, because my boyfriend says that's how he likes it, and the boy's ridiculously Irish, so I'm not going to argue. I also replaced half of the all purpose flour with white whole wheat flour.

I ate the leftovers for breakfast this morning at work with a cup of jasmine green tea.

Colleen recently posted the recipe on Facebook, so if you haven't added her as a friend already, you should!

Read the map!

2009-03-15T13:41:00.000-07:00

Long story short, I was going to take my snazzy new bike out for a nice long ride yesterday...a nice, easy to intermediate, 12 mile bike ride in the Berkeley hills and up through Tilden Park.

Well due to me not writing down the right directions, it ended up being a 23 mile, mostly uphill, lost out somewhere near San Pablo Dam Road, can't feel my ladybits anymore type of ride. It was so so so worth it though, just look at this view, and that wasn't even the top yet:

Luckily, I'd planned ahead, and stuffed myself full of some healthy things (and some not so healthy things) to give me plenty of energy for the long hard way up and the terrifyingly fast way down!

I wanted tofu scramble, but lacking mushrooms or any of the other things we usually put in our scrambles, we decided to play the "look in the fridge, see what we've got, and throw it in, too" game. And you can't have breakfast without taters, so we made some of those, too.

And thus, Meg's Mexicalifornia Tofu Scramble and JP's Breakfast Taters were born. It's Mexicalifornia because it's got cumin and oregano and beans and onion, and avocado and broccoli. Understand? I don't either, some genius out there decided to call anything with broccoli or avocado in it "Californian" so dammit, I will too, it's my right as an American to blindly follow where others tell me to!

In my opinion the best of the best of tofu scrambles is Isa's from Vegan with a Vengeance, the recipe for which is available here, but you should buy the book anyway. Her recipe has never let me down and it's so fun to play with. Anyway if I make tofu scramble I use her recipe as a guide, but hopefully these are different enough that I can post this here and put my name on it. Anyway this is a great recipe to use when you've got leftover broccoli, beans, or onion, as we always seem to do.

I should also say that I normally enjoy my tofu scramble more...smushed? Scrambly? Whatever, than cubed tofu, but we had bought a package of Nasoya Cubed Super Firm Tofu because the nearest market to us (which is evil Safeway) recently started carrying it and we try to make it known that the neighboring vegans like it when they carry stuff we can eat, so we thought we'd just use that and make some potatoes to go with it.

Meg's Mexicalifornia Tofu Scramble

1-2 Tbsp olive oil
1 medium red onion, large dice
1/2 red bell pepper, diced
1 green onion, sliced thinly
1 3-4 oz can diced jalepenos
1 small carrot, sliced thinly and then chopped
1/2 cup chopped broccoli florets
2 tsps cumin
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp tumeric
Salt/pepper to taste
1/2 pound of super firm or extra firm tofu, cubed
1 Tbs nutritonal yeast
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 cup red, black, or pink beans (I used black and pinto beans)
1/2 bunch dinosaur kale, destemmed and torn into bite-size pieces

Top it with:

1/2 avocado, sliced
1 small tomato, seeded and diced
Get saucy: Yumm sauce, sour cream, ketchup, hot sauce (Sriracha!)

Heat up oil over medium heat in a large skillet. Add onion, red pepper, and green onion, and saute for 3-5 minutes, until onion is softened. Add jalepenos (the liquid will help out if your pan gets a bit dry), carrot, and broccoli, and saute for another five minutes, until broccoli is bright green and carrots have softened a bit. Add spices and salt/pepper and mix up, then add tofu, stirring to coat everything. Cook, stirring occasionally for 5-10 minutes, or until tofu is cooked through to your liking. Add nutritional yeast, lemon juice, and beans, stir to coat, and then add kale and put a lid on your skillet for 2 minutes, or until kale has wilted slightly. After kale has wilted, mix everything up one last time, and serve up with avocado, tomato, and accoutrements of your choice.

JP's Breakfast Taters

3 medium russet potatoes, cut in half lengthwise and sliced very thinly
2 Tbs - 1/4 cup canola oil, depending on how guilty you feel
4 cloves of garlic, chopped

Heat up a tablespoon or two of oil in a skillet over medium heat, and add potatoes. Stir to coat in oil. Cook covered, stirring occasionally so that potatoes don't stick together in a lump, for about 20 minutes until potatoes are soft and golden brown. Add more oil if they start to burn or stick. After the potatoes have cooked, add garlic and cook uncovered, stirring frequently so that garlic doesn't burn, for 2-3 minutes. Salt to taste and serve that shit up.

When you have the plague...

2009-03-12T00:16:00.000-07:00

...Eat PPK Chili. Works wonders!

I'm not the greatest cook in the world - lord knows I can't cook like my other half! But occasionally something turns out really great, and this is definitely one of those things. I used chipotle chili powder instead of regular, and it was the perfect amount of heat (I'm about medium wussy on the scoville scale. Though, my father thought it would be funny to feed me part of a scotch bonnet once). Everything was just creamy and delicious and wonderful.
Even with a few substitutions, like the poblano chilis that Whole Foods DIDN'T HAVE, it turned out nicely. I used chili-seasoned pinto beans (I had them in the pantry, was convenient) and I used the mexican-style smart beef grounds instead of the standard ones. Didn't end up using any dried chilis but I think the chipotle powder probably made up for it. So good! And it's the first time I've tried this recipe. Actually, it's the first time I've ever made chili! In my life! See, I had this problem with beans before I went vegan...now I horf them down like you woudn't believe.

Anyhow! PPK has never let me down. Now I have enough delicious vegan chili to keep me warm for the rest of the week, even if I'm sneezing and miserable. Check out the chili montage:

You like me, you really like me!

2009-03-09T14:30:00.000-07:00

I got a late birthday present from my wonderful cousin, and it was so awesome I wanted to share it:

Polenta, rice, and more legumes than you can shake a stick at (as well as handmade coasters and potholders!). NOM! I love having a well-stocked cupboard!

I came home late on Thursday to find a care package from the lovely and talented Mihl of Seitan is my Motor!

LOOK AT ALL THAT GERMAN STUFF! :D In addition to a sweet letter, there was waldbeer tea (my favorite!), Mamba (like Starburst but vegan!), Gummibärchen (gummy bears), marzipan Rittersport chocolate, Mr. Tom (vegan caramel and peanuts, tastes kind of like Cracker Jack without the popcorn...there used to be two of them but, uh, someone ate one...clearly not me...*shifty glance*), and a bag of Grünkern, which is spelt grains that are harvested when they are still green and then dried, and have a smokey taste! I think I am most excited about them. :3

My friends and family know me well. Food = a happy Meg!

You must make this soup. I command it.

2009-03-03T16:29:00.000-08:00

I've fallen in love with the Smokey Refried Bean Soup from FatFree Vegan Kitchen.

Why, you ask?

1. Easy to find ingredients available at any grocery store (except for perhaps chipotle chili powder, but really, that's worth a trip to infinity and beyond, so get yo'self some NOW!)

2. Go home, chop some shit up, throw it all in a pot, simmer for 20-30 minutes, BOOM, dinner is on the table.

3. During those 20-30 minutes, you can clean up, chop up some avocado and cilantro for the top (my addition), AND, you can cut up some corn tortillas, throw them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, spray with oil, throw on some coarse salt, lime juice, chili powder, whatevs, and bake at 400 F degrees for 10 minutes, for fresh, crunchy homemade tortilla chips that aren't nearly as oily as store-bought. And the last couple ounces aren't smushed to tiny bits at the bottom of the bag.

4. Per serving: Per serving: 257 Calories (kcal); 1g Total Fat; (4% calories from fat); 15g Protein; 47g Carbohydrate; 0mg Cholesterol; 895mg Sodium; 14g Fiber!!!

5. It's delicious, so much so that I want to make sweet sweet love to it.

The flavors get even better overnight, which means nommable leftovers for me for lunch at work the next day.

'Italian' food & pie

2009-03-02T16:21:00.001-08:00

More 'Italian' food! My heritage must be showing; it's been rainy, gray, and dismal for the past few days and it's not supposed to stop any time soon, and it makes me cranky. I need the sun!

So, I made comfort food:

Spaghetti with Beanballs with Caramelized Oion & Roasted Red Pepper Marina, both from Veganomicon

This hit the spot. I haven't had spaghetti and "meat"balls in a very long time, and I'd been craving them for a while. The bean ball recipe is very similar to the chickpea cutlets, but different beans/spices (obviously) and in ball form (also obviously). I probably would have baked them a little longer to get them a little more firm, but that was probably due to my oven; it has been even finickier than usual lately, heating 75 degrees over what it should be! Grr. I can't wait to move.

And what's dinner without dessert? Despite my cranky oven, I decided to use the abundance of citrus sitting on my counter (thanks, Mom & Dad!) to make another pie from Hannah's Mission: Impossible Pies e-cookbook:

Lemon Curd Pie

Creamy and delicious and tart! I decreased the amount of sugar a bit because JP and I are sugar-wusses, but that was the only change. I love this recipe because it uses ingredients readily available at any, and I mean in the middle of Podunk Nowhere, grocery store. I have plans to make the Mint Chocolate Chip Pie for my family's next get-together!

It'sa pizza

2009-02-26T08:33:00.000-08:00

What's better than a vegan pizza and a nice cold organic IPA? Not much. The two, when combined, are like a magical, stick to your ribs, cure all your ailments medicine. Add in episodes of As Time Goes By and you have a happy Meggie.

I make my pizza dough from scratch, though I've heard that Trader Joe's makes a vegan pizza crust that's pretty good. I use the recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance by Isa Chandra-Moskowitz, which was the first recipe I ever used and I love it. I do modify it a bit though; I replace one of the cups of all-purpose white flour with whole wheat flour. I find it gives the crust a little more oomph and also makes me feel less guilty.

Then I'll put some kind of sauce on. In a pinch, I use Trader Joe's fat-free pizza sauce - it tastes delicious, is cheap, and hey, fat-free! I've also made the pizza sauce from VwaV, which is great and really fresh-tasting. I've also used pesto (also from VwaV) and BBQ sauce (not together!), homemade (from Veganomicon or store-bought. Just be careful with store-bought BBQ sauce - not only do they often contain honey, they also can contain high fructose corn syrup - bleccch.

Before I put "cheese" or toppings on, I'll put down a layer of baby spinach. I stole the idea from Pizza Research Institute in Eugene, OR. It's just a way to get extra veggies into your pizza, and I love the taste! Be sure to pile it on, that shit wilts like whoa when cooked.

Lately I've been experimenting with cashew cheese. It's so delicious, and so easy to make if you have a food processor! It takes literally five minutes. I played around with this recipe last night; I added some extra lemon juice, as well as liquid smoke and a little salt. It's so creamy and yummy! No one will think it's cheese but it's so good, they won't care. Speaking of Pizza Research Institute, they have THE BEST vegan pizza "cheese"/sauce whatever you want to call it, and I'm pretty sure now that it's cashew-based, but apparently it's a big secret. It's bomb, though, if you're anywhere near Eugene, go to PRI.

Toppings. Whatever you want! The first vegan pizza I ever made (in summer 2007) was made from store-bought dough and no cheese subs, it was fabulous, and looked like this:

Olives, mushrooms, green peppers

The 2nd vegan pizzas I ever made looked like this:

Pizza margherita with Teese, tomato, and basil

...and this:

Teese pizza with onion, chopped kalamata olives, and VwaV pesto

A week ago JP and I made this (ignore my "rustic" crust edges, there was an incident):

VwaV pizza crust, baby spinach, TJ's tomato sauce, potato, mushroom, red bell pepper, and garlic chunks

...and then last night we made this:

VwaV pizza crust, BBQ sauce, baby spinach, cashew cheese, Light Life chik'n style strips, red bell pepper,and garlic, and, post-baking, cilantro and crushed red pepper flakes.

Anyone who says vegan pizza doesn't taste good needs to have a conversation with me.

Next up: soup and homemade tortilla chips!

More cookie love

2009-02-25T09:40:00.000-08:00

It's grey, it's rainy, it's cold, and I'm PMSing like mad. The only prescription is ~~more cowbell~~ chamomile tea and...

COOKIES! More Isa & Terry tester recipes for you:

Spelt Pecan Fig Drops

Starry Fudge Shortbread

Fruity Oaty Bars (uncut)

Espresso Fudge Brownies

Nom nom nom. Wish I had those brownies right about now!

Next up: pizza!

Roasted brussies = <3

2009-02-25T09:00:00.000-08:00

Neither Kelly nor I enjoyed brussels sprouts as children. In fact I think it would be more accurate to say we loathed them. Little boiled balls of leaves that didn't taste like anything were NOT my cup of tea. In fact the only way I could stomach them was by drowning them in fatty, unhealthy ranch dressing (sorry, mom!).

But the flavor of these little bundles of fiberful goodness changes completely when you roast them. They taste even more tender and delicious if you buy them at the farmer's market! And now I positively adore them! The outer leaves become hot and crispy and the inside gets a little softer and more palatable.

I generally use this recipe from the PPK blog, and add things if I feel like it. For this picture, I added a couple splashes of balsamic vinegar to the pan. We've also added chunks of garlic and lots of coarse salt. Try this lower-fat version from FatFree Vegan Kitchen, or this recipe for Blood Orange and Garlic Roasted Brussels Sprouts from Get Sconed!.

Trust a former brussels sprout hater - I've only got love for them now! I even eat slices of them raw in salads!

Vegan treats - the only things that keep me sane!

2009-02-22T22:48:00.000-08:00

Lord! This semester is murderous. Murderous! I barely have enough time during the day to cook a can of soup, let alone something vegan and fabulous. HOWEVER, when I have guests over, I allot a certain amount of time for baking and feasting - vegan food is always best when shared with somebody else, after all!

Here in Exhibit A I have Sunny Lemon Corn Muffins from the PPK recipe database. Delicious! I subbed tofutti sour cream for yogurt since there is no soy yogurt for at least a mile or two in any direction, it seemed to work out just fine! These guys were awesome (read: short-lived) companions during the recent rainy weather.

Exhibit B is our Seitankebabs! I had a plethora of seitan I had made while at home in Sonoma County with my vegan buddy Jon (also Isa's recipe) and decided I should try out the grillpan. Meg came and visited after brunch and we made seitan skewers. Witness the kebabbery:

Because of the shape of the seitan (I just had to insist we didn't cube them!) it was difficult to get good coverage on the grillpan, but I think they were pretty tasty. I love the texture of seitan. Meg says, sit down and eat already!

Valentine's day dinner

2009-02-18T09:01:00.001-08:00

I've been so impressed by the valentine's day meals that other food bloggers put together. I wish I was that creative! I just made something I knew my man would enjoy. He's a big fan of tempeh and potatoes, so of course the Tempeh Shepherdess Pie in Veganomicon caught my eye...

...served with a big side of mustard greens, a la Ratatouille's shepherd's pie.

And the boy is also addicted to green tea in a big way, and I'd had my eye on the Green Tea Tiramisu from My Sweet Vegan for a long time. Now, I've never made tiramisu before, even as an omni, so I was pretty apprehensive. It TASTED amazing, however, mine did not look nearly as gorgeous as Hannah's (obviously!). My matcha wasn't quite as green, and my layers not quite as straight, but the soft sponge cake and delicious cashew matcha cream sent my tastebuds soaring! So don't judge my picture too harshly. If you try your hand at this, I would definitely recommend refrigerating your tiramisu overnight. I left it in the fridge for the minimum two hours, and it was yummy, but overnight the flavors really had a chance to develop and the cake was much more green tea-y. My parents and sister came over the next day and had some of the leftovers, and they all thought it was delicious (omnivore approved!).

Happy (late) Valentine's Day!

Happy (early) Valentine's Day!

2009-02-13T09:04:00.001-08:00

Apparently Valentine's Day is supposed to be about buying expensive things and stressing over extravagant dinners and forced, awkward intercourse. Not for me, thankyouverymuch! I buy my own expensive things (cookbook addiction, anyone?), I stress over extravagant dinners NORMALLY, and I like my intercourse quick and angry. (Feel uncomfortable yet?)

No, for me Valentine's Day is all about baking! Baking what? Like you even need to ask...

COOKIES! More Isa & Terry testers, to be exact:

Hazelnut Fudge Dreamies
I think these are my favorites so far! The filling is DIVINE! The whole thing is like a delicate hazelnutty fudgy puff of yum!

Chocolate Marmalade Sandwich Cookies
JP's classmates went nuts over these!

Tahini Lime Cookies
Coworkers loved these! Like a grown-up peanut butter cookie.

Linzertorte Thumbprints
Brought these in to work today for Valentine's Day! So pretty!

All joking aside, I DO actually have a nice dinner planned for the boy tomorrow, so I'll be sure to post a review. As always, I'm making recipes I've never tried before, so we'll see how that goes.

Chinese New Year Feast

2009-02-07T20:05:00.001-08:00

Gung ho fat choy! Happy New Year! Today is February 7th, which is the day of the Chinese New Year Festival & Parade in San Francisco! This year is the year of the Ox, which is JP's year, and since Kelly was going to be staying with us in Berkeley for the weekend, we decided to make a little Chinese New Year feast and celebrate!

Chinese Spring Rolls

Hot and Sour Cabbage Soup

Chinese savory crepes

Kelly and I (with some help from JP) made the Chinese spring rolls and Chinese savory crepes from The Asian Vegan Kitchen by Hema Parekh. I'd heard nothing but good things about this cookbook but was nervous to give anything a try; I'd never really done any but the easiest, most Americanized Asian cooking, and her authentic recipes often use equally authentic ingredients. I chose the spring rolls and crepes because they seemed easy, used ingredients that are readily available in these parts, and nicely complimented my choice of soup, VeganYumYum's hot & sour cabbage soup, and the soup and spring rolls used some of the same ingredients, which was convenient.

Happily, we found everything we needed to make these at the farmer's market, except the spring roll wrappers, which were procured earlier in the month at Berkeley Bowl, and the mung bean sprouts, which I was too lazy to go look for anywhere else, so we just left them out, and the spring rolls were tasty anyway. All three recipes were very easy to make, and were only time-consuming due to prep work, i.e., lots of chopping! My only complaint was that the savory crepes recipe needed almost double the amount of water called for. Our crepes turned out more like pancakes. They were still insanely delicious, but probably would have spread more with added water.

Everything tasted so yummy! The recipe called for deep-frying the spring rolls, but as I don't own a deep fryer (ugh, I would die within a week of self-induced saturated fat poisoning), we shallow fried half the spring rolls and left the other half unfried. We actually preferred the unfried ones. They're filled with a tasty mixture of cabbage, shiitake mushrooms, carrot, and leek, and tasted very yum dipped in a store-bought peanut sauce.

The crepes/pancakes were the hit of the evening! Basically just scallions and flour, they were so simple, yet so tasty! We ate these with a bottled plum sauce we picked up at the Thai market.

The soup really hit the spot, and would be great for any sicky-poos out there trying to beat the flu into submission: it's definitely on the HOT side of "hot & sour"! Plus it makes a HUUUGE pot of soup, which = lots of leftovers!

We definitely can't wait to do this again next year, and I'm excited to try more recipes from The Asian Vegan Kitchen!

Happy Year of the Ox, everyone!

January baby

2009-02-02T13:58:00.000-08:00

Yes, it's true. I am tottering into antiquity. I turned the ripe old age of (gasp) 24 last month!

The Friday before my birthday, I was shocked/delighted by my coworkers, who had ordered me a vegan chocolate mousse cake from Nabolom Bakery in Berkeley!

I hadn't told anyone it was my birthday, and elaborate measures were taken to ensure that I would be surprised, which I certainly was! My coworkers all raved about how good it was (despite its "veganness"), and four people, including myself, went back for seconds!

The morning of my birthday, the wonderful JP surprised me with a mini muffin tin and two packages of mini muffin liners in red and white! The best surprises are always food related! (And JP seems to know this. Last year he got me a gorgeous white teapot!)

I also threw a small party in my shoebox sized apartment to celebrate. Amid one of my BFF's declarations that I "really don't understand the point of birthdays," I spent the whole day cooking for the party! (Don't worry, I spent the next day relaxing.) I made a small spread for party-goers, who were nice enough to bring lots of alcohol, including a bottle of vegan wine!

The only good-ish picture of me, with Nathan

I made Blueberry Spice Crumb Bars and Irish Whiskey Creme Kisses (Isa & Terry testers), Zimtsterne from Seitan Is My Motor (mine weren't as pretty as Mihl's!), Mushroom Pate from La Dolce Vegan (Sarah Kramer), Warm & Cheesy White Bean Dip from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan! (Dreena Burton), Butternut Squash Pumpkin Seed Rice Paper Rolls with Soy Dipping Sauce from Veganomicon (Isa Moskowitz and Terry Romero), and Save the Tuna Salad in tortilla wraps from Ani's Raw Kitchen (Ani Phyo). Kelly brought a variety of gorgeous bell peppers for dipping, and my friend Nathan brought chocolate peppermint cupcakes with peppermint frosting; the recipe is apparently from the New Farm Cookbook.

Kelly in her adorable dress; you can see the cupcakes in the lower corner!

The Save the Suna Salad wraps, spring rolls, sesame crackers, and Zimtsterne were all gluten-free as well as vegan, as one of our guests had a wheat allergy. My only complaint was the gluten-free tortillas I found at Whole Foods were not very flexible and hence did not roll well...in fact they split at the sides. But they were still good!

I have this really bad habit of trying out recipes that I've never made before for gatherings. The only exception this time was the warm & cheesy white bean dip, which I've made many times before and is always a crowd-pleaser. Still, I'm always happy with the way things turn out, and I haven't had any major disasters yet!

The best part was the cake, my god, the CAKE. I was lucky enough to have Melisser of Sugar Beat Sweets offer to make my birthday cake!! I requested the Apple Pie Cake, and she delivered! Every bite was filled with cinnamony appley goodness, and I LOVED the frosting! Consider that a testimonial, as normally I am not a frosting fan at all! There were hardly any leftovers, and what was left was happily nommed by my mom & dad the next day. Unfortunately I didn't think to get a picture before we cut it, but let me tell you, it was gorgeous. People (i.e., omnis) have been coming up to JP at school to say "I heard there was amazing cake at your girlfriend's birthday!" AND two people asked for recipes for food that I made! Mua ha ha ha! I love it!

The next day our parents came down to take me, Kell, and JP out for birthday lunch! We went to Herbivore down on Shattuck, where I had a delicious TLT (Tempeh, Lettuce, Tomato) with avocado and a tall glass of grapefruit juice. Then we headed back to my apartment, where we enjoyed leftover cake and cookies and I opened my presents, hurrah! One of which is my very own BLENDER! No it's not a Vita-Mix, can't afford one of those sadly, but me and my bright orange Kitchen-Aid are becoming fast friends. :) I've been making up for all the months without smoothies!

That night JP and I went to Millennium in San Francisco for the first time and died of food happiness. Seriously, some of the best food I've ever had, and wouldn't you know it, I brought my camera...sans memory card. ARRGH! That's what I get for actually uploading my photos. Next time!

Sadly I missed the pizza party due to being sick with THE PLAGUE (I'm still coughing almost two weeks later! TWO WEEKS!), but I heard it was fabulous and Kelly rocked the house at Rock Band. ;)

Thank you, coworkers, friends, family, and boyfriend, for making this the best birthday EVER!

C is for cookie

2009-02-02T09:29:00.000-08:00

That's good enough for me! More Isa & Terry cookie testers to whet your appetite...

Irish Whiskey Creme Kisses

Blueberry Spice Crumb Bars (uncut)

Rocky Roads

Grapefruit Icebox Cookies

Up next: my birthday spread! Stay tuned...

More cookie sneak peeks

2009-01-14T13:38:00.000-08:00

I've got lots of plans going on this weekend (more on that later!) so I'm just popping in to give you some more Isa & Terry cookie sneak peeks!

Orange Agave Chocolate Chip cookies
This one was oddly shaped, hence I love it best of all!

Pignoli Almond Cookies
My favorite so far! So delicious, they remind me of my Italian grandmother!

Fruitcake Bars
My glaze got a little fucked up due to my crazy apartment humidity, but they were delicious nonetheless!

And a picture of the fruitcake bars plus some of the previous cookies. This was taken at my grandma's house the Saturday after Christmas. Everyone loved them!

Mmm, cookies

Sooooo tasty

2009-01-13T11:27:00.000-08:00

So, you may find yourself wondering, where on earth is the Kelly half of this blog? I wondered the same thing as I scroll down the list of posts and see my name about once every 8-10 posts. Based on heavy research and a little extrapolation I have concluded that it is because I am a) lazy, and b) swamped. But FEAR NOT! Mark has returned for another episode of Gleegan cooking, and the results are amazingly delicious.

Witness below: We have christened it Vegetable Bean Soup with Corn Dumplings. It is a mad fusion of Susan Voisin's Easy Bean and Vegetable Soup and a mutant version of PPK cornbread with butterscotch syrup instead of maple (I had none!), rice vinegar instead of apple cider vinegar (again...I had none...and my white vinegar was not GF) and pamela's gluten-free baking mix instead of the flour. I think the GF flour was a little more thirsty than regular, so we ended up having to add more soymilk to get it to pour into the pan nicely. On account of that, though, they came out a little more like biscuits than cornbread. We were a little bummed at first, but then I started tearing it up and putting it in the soup, and realized it tastes Fucking Amazing, and thus begat Corn Dumplings. Go us!

Also, I went to Meg's on Friday and we had fun sister time! We made her Tamarind Tofu, a recipe currently being worked on and it was perfect and crispy. I couldn't tell you the specifics at the moment but I know it uses Tamarind juice concentrate among other things. The tofu is just fried up in a little egg replacer and cornstarch.

Nommmmmm.

One year old!

2009-01-09T08:14:00.000-08:00

Wow! I didn't even realize it until I started look at old photos last night, but The Sisters Vegan is (are?) one year old this month! Holy crap! I can't believe it. It feels like we just started. And we've met so many amazing people along the way, it's such a wonderful experience! Happy anniversary to US!

To celebrate this happy occasion, I present you with some choice pics of the Pee Wee's Veg Adventure New Year's Eve that Melisser and a bunch of PPKers put together. It was super super awesome, even for someone who was slightly too young to appreciate Pee Wee's Playhouse as a youngin'. The food was themed!

Check out this photo for the tags on what food was what. You can see my and JP's contribution in the back "Fire in the Playhouse Bread" (our first attempt with our sourdough starter!) and the warm & cheesy white bean dip from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan! All the food was amazing. No seriously, everything I put into my mouth was fantastic. I think I scarfed down about 500 of everything. And it was wondrous.

Melisser, Tess, and tiny Strummer!

Folks (& Strummer again!)

Too cute!

JP and I were ecstatic that Marissa & Howie brought Full Sail LTD!!!

More photos are up here!

Check out Melisser's and Erin's much better photographs of the night!

Kelly's coming over to make dinner with me tonight, to kick of the chronicling of our adventures for another year!

Belated Christmas Feast

2009-01-05T11:40:00.001-08:00

This year was our first all-vegan Christmas, and I wanted to share the yummy pictures! Everyone - me, Kelly, JP, dad, and mom - all pitched in, and there was a considerable lack of stress and/or breakdowns this year, which is always a good thing.

The table, resplendent...

Baby spinach salad with Softly Spiced Nuts (ED&BV!) and chopped dates

Country loaf from local bakery

Acorn squash stuffed with cornbread/pecan/pear stuffing (recipe here)

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Apple & Onion (Compassionate Cooks class recipe packet)

Grandma Norma's Candied Yams (recipe to be posted later!)

Shot of JP's (full!) plate

...and there was steamed kale (with lime) too but y'all know what that looks like already.

Everything was amazing, if I do say so myself.

Dessert was Cashew-Cream Pear Tart from My Sweet Vegan which was OMG delicious. My pears were a little juicy and I think soggified my crust a little but it was still good.

My slice with some Soyatoo! on top:

I hope everyone had amazing holidays! So far 2009 is off to a good start for me, best wishes to all our readers for the new year!

Happy Holidays!

2008-12-24T07:52:00.000-08:00

Happy whatever holiday you're celebrating, and if you're celebrating none, happy Wednesday!

We at the Sisters Vegan household do celebrate Christmas, though for us (well, me, anyway), it has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with family. This year is particularly meaningful for us. Our grandparents were in a car accident on the night of Thanksgiving. Everyone is fine, though my grandma had to have knee surgery and is off her feet for a while. My mother's parents are some of the finest people in existence, and the love and support they give their grandchildren is without bounds. That, Charlie Brown, is what Christmas is all about. Loving unconditionally and joyfully.

...and COOKIES!

Cookies are the embodiment of love! Who doesn't like cookies? Cookies are the best way to win over family, snotty coworkers (*cough*), neighbors, and frenemies.

I was lucky enough to be picked to test for Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero's cookie book coming out at the end of next year. If any of you heard a delighted shriek echoing across the Bay Area last week, that was me.

I used some of the recipes as my Christmas cookies this year. I was in charge of baking (and still have more to do!), so this whole arrangement worked out perfectly. Here are some previews:

Macadamia Ginger Drops

Citrus Glitters

Gingerbread Biscotti - perfect for the holidays, no?

Cranberry White Chocolate Chip Biscotti - these are damn good

So on that note (i.e., loving unconditionally and joyfully), please consider helping out those who are less fortunate this year, human and nonhuman. Organize an office food drive through the Alameda County Community Food Bank. Donations to Salvation Army, Goodwill, and St. Vinnie's are down - maybe now is the time to go through your closets and donate those sweaters, scarves, and boots you never wear, so they can go to someone who will. Buy video games, toys, and books through Child's Play, which will be donated to children who are stuck in hospitals over the holidays.

Find animal organizations to get involved with at the 2009 AR Volunteer Roundup. Save a life by donating to an animal sanctuary. Volunteer to walk lonely puppies and play with abandoned kitties at an animal shelter.

Or better yet, save thousands of lives by going vegan. Make it your new year's resolution. It's the best Christmas present you can give the animals, the earth, and yourself.

Happy holidays, peace on earth, and may all the days of the next year be filled with love.

Happy Herbivore's E-Cookbooks

2008-12-23T08:45:00.000-08:00

With rain and early darkness encroaching on my running and biking, AND the ubiquitous presence of vegan holiday baked goods, it's time for me to pay a wee bit more attention to how much and what I'm eating.

Enter Happy Herbivore, a blog devoted to fat-free, whole foods cooking. Lindsay says on her "About" page: "I created this blog as a way to bring healthy but delicious food to others. If I can help even one person eat healthier and feel better - my job here is done."

With two e-cookbooks and a slew of free recipes available, how can you NOT eat a healthy vegan diet, at least most of the time?

We've been trying out recipes from both e-cookbooks, and here's how the recipes have turned out:

Sneak Peak e-cookbook:

Mondo Chickpea Tacos

Love love love LOVE these tacos. In fact we're having them again tonight. Very easy, so cheap (especially if you buy dried chickpeas and cook them yourself). You can make them a little fancier if you make your own refried beans (we like Joanna's recipe from Yellow Rose Recipes), but if you're in a hurry, just use store-bought! It's such a snap to make and you'll be horfing down tacos in no time! We top ours with Tofutti Better Than Sour Cream, avocado, romaine lettuce, tomato, cilanto, and hot sauce.

Pudge-free Holidays:

Mushroom stroganoff (over noodles, with baked potato and swiss chard)

The boy has really missed stroganoff and this was my first attempt at a vegan recipe. He devoured 3/4 of the pan by himself!

African Kale and Yams Mash (with leftover BBQ pomegranate tempeh (VwaV) and tomatoes)

Baked Tex Mex Mac and Cheeze

I think this is now my favorite mac and cheese recipe. We made the Tex Mex variation (add in a can of chili), and I put slices of avocado on top. Mmm! Tasted even better the next day heated up as lunch.

We also made the Maple-Glazed Root Veggies but it wasn't to our taste, I think we're just too infatuated with roasted root veggies! It wasn't bad though and came together quickly on a night that I was really busy.

Also not pictured are the Maple Kissed Sweet Potato muffins, but they got eaten so quickly there was no time for a picture! They were some of my favorite muffins EVER, so these are a must-make! And if you don't like sweet potato, you can make them with the alternative pumpkin!

Downloadable almost immediately and only $5 each, Happy Herbivore e-cookbooks make a great last-minute holiday gift!

Proof that office potlucks CAN be fun

2008-12-19T14:48:00.001-08:00

Today was our office's Secret Santa gift exchange and potluck. I was ambivalent about the potluck; the sign-up list for dishes that people were bringing was mostly non-vegan stuff (except for me, obviously), so I figured I'd eat a lot of my hummus and chips and buy something afterwards.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I walked into work this morning and found out that not one but TWO of my coworkers had brought in vegan food! One made these cookies sans the chocolate chips, and my boss made this Cheesy Bean Enchilada Casserole. Both were FABULOUS and were enjoyed by omnis AND the office vegan (yours truly) alike. I was really touched, I almost teared up. I don't like posting pictures of food where there's omni stuff visible but I was so touched by their wonderfulness that I wanted to post a picture and this was the only one I had (just don't look if you know you'll be offended):

I made cards for all the dishes using this image printed out on cardstock and cut into tag shapes!

I brought three things: hummus (my go-to recipe is the one in Veganomicon, subbing sesame oil for olive oil and using extra lemon juice), cupcakes, and fudge.

The fudge was the Five Minute Coconut Fudge from My Sweet Vegan. It turned out great, and coworkers were sampling it before the potluck even started! I had one small hiccup while making it: the hot coconut milk and melted margarine didn't melt my chocolate chips, so I stirred everything together as the recipe said, spread it in the pan, and popped it into the oven (which was preheated for the cupcakes) for two or three minutes. After the chips melted I took it out, gave a quick stir with a silicone spatula, and then proceeded with the rest of the recipe, and it turned out beautifully.

The cupcakes were the standard Cookies 'n Cream recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, but instead of making them with Oreos (or Newman-O's, as I do), I made them with the candy cane JoJo's from Trader Joe's, which are randomly vegan in some parts of the country, and not vegan in other parts. Luckily, they ARE vegan in the Bay Area! (Or unluckily, because this means I have candy cane sandwich cookies to horf down...ugh, like I'm not already going into a sugar coma from all the holiday baked goods I've been eating). Anyway! I stole the idea from moooooooooo! on the PPK, who made these in mini-form for a birthday party I was invited to by Melisser to last weekend, and I ate like five of them while there and took more home. I added peppermint extract to the batter and I was worried that they were going to taste like toothpaste, but the mint really mellows out after baking. There was almost a disaster because I forgot to put the god damn cookies in the COOKIES 'N CREAM CUPCAKES...but it was averted. Huzzah! Hey simmer down there Tobias!

Anyhoo. All my food was much loved by coworkers, and it's seriously taking all my willpower not to go in and snarf down some more fudge.

Tonight we are celebrating both Kelly and JP's VEGANNIVERSARIES! YAYYYYYYY! Congratulations to the sis and the boyfriend! :3 I'm very proud of both of you for living a compassionate life for a YEAR now! You guys rock and make my life way more punk rock/awesome/wonderful. MUAH! BIG HUGS! There will be much eating at Weird Fish and Maggie Mudd's tonight (we finally get to use the gift certificate we won at the Vegan á Go Go Book Bash back in September!).

P.S. What did I get for my secret Santa gift? A 6-pack of local beer! Someone obviously knows me well (thanks Mahlon!).

Orange!

2008-12-17T14:03:00.000-08:00

I like orange skies...

That's San Francisco across the bay

...and orange food!

Ginger roasted winter veggies (VwaV), orange ginger baked tofu, and steamed kale

Pie in the sky

2008-12-10T15:36:00.000-08:00

Last Friday the president of the company I work for was nice enough to take the entire staff out to Citron for a holiday dinner. AND, we were allowed to leave work an hour early to make it home and get dressed up. Since I live only 20 minutes away from work by bike, I used that extra hour to make pie!

Apple Streusel Pie

Hannah of BitterSweet recently published Mission: Impossible Pies, a wonderful e-cookbook with all sorts of quick easy 'impossible' pies (pies that "make their own pie crusts," or so my wonderful cook/baker mommy says). I knew that none of the desserts at the company party would be vegan so I thought I'd make this and it would be cooled by the time we got home that night! (When we stumbled home at 12:30am, haha...) The pie was super quick and easy to make and utilized ingredients I had on hand, especially since my grandma gave us a bag of home-grown Granny Smiths at Thanksgiving. I got home from work at 4:25pm, and had this pie in the oven by 5:00pm, leaving me with a full 2 hours to get dressed before we caught our bus to Oakland (during which I farted around on the internet, then freaked out at the time and got dressed in a hurry).

The dinner itself wasn't bad. Since I was in charge of planning it (somewhat at the last minute), I was able make sure the restaurant would be able to accommodate myself and my boyfriend. We started off with a nice salad of baby spinach, dates, and toasted pecans. We were told our entree would be roasted vegetables, and included carrots, potatoes, yams, parsnips, and green beans in some kind of yummy, herbalicious sauce.

Sorry for the shitteous photo, the lighting was mood-tastic

It was good but uninspired. I found myself thinking, "This is like $4.00 worth of root vegetables, and my boss is paying a LOT more than that..." and I kind of felt bad. And knowing what kinds of lovely, flavorful, gorgeous vegan entrees the many, many, MANY talented vegan food bloggers out there can produce, the snarky part of me ("What do you mean by 'part', Meg? Isn't your entire soul full of snark?") felt like snickering. Still, it was wonderful of Citron to accommodate vegans despite being a decidedly non-vegan restaurant.

'Tis the season: Vegan Etsy

2008-12-09T14:25:00.000-08:00

I've recently become addicted to Vegan Etsy, an Etsy team devoted to creating and selling cruelty-free crafts, many of which make perfect holiday gifts for the human and non-human loved ones in your life! If you give gifts, why not give lovely handmade gifts made by friendly vegans?

My first purchase was this dish set from Jeanette of VeganDish:

I was really sick of using the disposable plates, bowls, and silverware at work, but I also balked at the idea of using the same dishes as my coworkers (some of the TV dinners they microwave on them are FOUL...call me a pussy, but goddamn it if I wanted to eat something that smelled like a butt, there's another way to go about that entirely). I loved the colors and the style of her work, and Jeanette was nice enough to do a custom order for me! Needless to say I love my dishes, I use them every day at work, and I love being able to have a VEGAN label built right in so people will stay the fuck away from them! Snooty? Why, yes, yes I am, and I LOVE IT. Don't play, you love it too. Jeanette also included a bunnybutt keychain with my order and it's hanging on my desk! It makes me happy when I look at it. What's cuter than a bunnybutt?

I've also ordered a couple sets of blank cards from Michelle at MyZoetrope:

These pictures don't do the cards justice, they're so cute and fun and a great way to encourage yourself or someone you love to whip out those Stabilos or other pen of choice and start writing! They're a great way to brighten someone's day, especially since letter writing seems to have gone the way of Mister T. Rex and Missus B. Saurus. I wish I'd taken a picture of the package they came in, it was covered with adorable drawings! It's not every day I get a package with an angry cinnamon roll on it!

That's just a SMALL example of what Vegan Etsy sellers have to offer. I want these recipe cards and these earrings and this desktop hedgehog like whoa. Give some brown sugar & shea butter soap to the loveable but stanky hippie in your life. This is the rockin'ist bag ever, perfect for sisters and BFFs. Buy something punky or pretty for your canine and feline companions. Buy a gift that will keep on giving: a vegan doggy treats cookbook, a vegan cookzine or a journal.

I know it's easy to get caught up in the consumer mindset of the holidays: TV commercials and radio ads and catalogs and hell, even relatives are telling us to BUY BUY BUY while the buyin's good! But if you buy from Etsy, at least you're not giving money to a huge corporation that doesn't give a crap you, or whether you're satisfied or not; you're buying from someone who put a lot of time and heart into their product, you're buying cruelty-free, and you're supporting fellow vegan artisans. I've had nothing but positive experiences with Vegan Etsy and I'm looking forward to more in the future!

PPK Sweet Swap

2008-12-08T09:08:00.000-08:00

On Saturday I met up with the sister and we went to the lovely Jay Moh's house for the PPK Sweet Swap! Kelly brought snickerdoodles that were DIVINE and I made a boatload of crispy oat cookies, which I'll be posting the recipe for soon. There were so many delicious sweets, and these aren't even all of them!

2 kinds of truffles, brownies, and rice crispie treats, oh my!

(My cookies are in the purplish bowl in the middlish back there) Baklava, chocolate chippers, savory snacks in the back!

Melisser's amazing brownie/chickastick/whipped cream trifle, GF pumpkin white chocolate and chocolate chip cookies, Kelly's snickerdoodles, white chocolate macadamia nut cookies

Almond cookies, cranberry chocolate chippers, fudge, rum balls, etc! Not picture: oatmeal chippers with rummy ice cream! I was in heaven!

As you can see, we were very happy vegans. It was awesome to meet and talk with so many PPKers, ones I'd met before and those I hadn't. Let's do it again soon!

There are more pics from the event in this PPK thread for those interested, and you would be a fool not to be, because there are puppy pictures!!

On the way home, we were so high on sugar that we decided to walk the two miles instead of taking the bus, and chattered like ninnies the whole time! And then Kell made me dinner! :D Which she'll be posting about laters.

Oh god...food coma! Glad the snickerdoodles were a big hit though. They seem to win over any omni mouth I can stuff one into. Loved the experience, was great to hang out and not have to answer questions about how God wants us to eat animals between mouthfuls of food (this seems to be happening a lot recently).

Gleegan baking

2008-12-04T13:52:00.001-08:00

I thought I'd share my first official foray into gleegan baking! I say official because last Christmas Kelly and I had an unofficial GF baking experience that was the result of lacking all the proper ingredients to make "normal" cupcakes (flour, leavening, etc). They were very tasty, if rubbery, banana-cinnamon cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.

Anyway. I wanted to make something wheat-free for a classmate of JP's who kindly let us park our car in her driveway while we were waiting for some paperwork so we could get a parking permit from the city of Berkeley (so we can drive it once a month, woo). I decided to stick with something simple; since it's a gift, I didn't want to run the risk of fucking anything up too badly!

This is the wheat-free chocolate chip cookies recipe from Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. Now, celiacs beware: the recipe uses oat flour. Some people with wheat intolerances/allergies can apparently tolerate it, but others can't. I'm sure that using a GF baking mix would be a fine substitute though; you can buy it or make your own.

These crispy little disks of cookieness turned out great, though flatter than I expected. The batter seemed a little runny, so I did a test batch of 6 cookies, which spread a LOT while baking:

But I just added more oat flour until the mixture seemed more cookie batter-ish, and they turned out fine. I like thinner, crispier cookies so this is actually ideal for me! Here's a comparison of the first test batch and the ones with more oat flour added:

For more gluten/wheat-free vegan fun, I recommend checking out Cupcake Kitteh and Gluten-Free Vegan!

Thanksgiving

2008-11-27T19:28:00.000-08:00

Season's greetings, vegans, vegetarians and others! Kelly here staving off a food coma with some Thanksgiving blogging. Meg and JP and I are currently draped on furniture in the living room here digesting an ample amount of vegan desserts. To give you an impression, let me outline the vegan portion of our thanksgiving menu for you:

1. Pumpkin Black Bean Casserole from FatFree Vegan
2. Mom's Creamy Mashed Potatoes with Colleen Patrick-Godreau's Mushroom Gravy
3. Grandma's Red Cabbage
4. Michelle's Butternut Squash Stuffing
5. Grandma's Rolls
6. Cranberry Sauce (2 kinds!)
7. Green Salad with Mandarin Oranges and Candied Balsamic Walnuts

And the dessert menu:

1. Blackberry Pie
2. Dreena Burton's Chocolate Pumpkin Pie
3. Prune Cake
4. Chocolate Chip Prune Bars

While we found it kind of a bummer that we couldn't dissuade the family from having a turkey this year, we want to stress how lucky we are to have parents, cousins and grandparents that made us awesome vegan food. Our super cool german grandma converted her amazing blackberry pie recipe and her rolls to versions without dairy and eggs for us! How awesome is that!?

I am so stuffed! I am also thankful that we have such a wonderful vegan-friendly family. We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving, free of drama and/or snide comments! And if not, well, you have a month to recover and find some amazing vegan recipes to dazzle your family with at Christmas.

Thanksgiving breakfast

2008-11-26T14:57:00.000-08:00

Even if you don't like traditional Thanksgiving fare (I know you're out there), how about a sweet yet hearty start to your Thanksgiving morning? Perfect for filling up on if you're facing a dinner with vegan-unfriendly family or clueless cooks.

Cornmeal and cranberry pancakes from BitterSweet

(Made with yellow cornmeal instead of the called-for white, because I didn't have any.)

AND it's festive, because corn and cranberries are actually native to North America! (Unlike most of the "traditional" Thanksgiving foods...I heartily recommend the "Thanksgiving FOR the birds" podcast from Compassionate Cooks for more on how we pick and choose our traditions.)

The tartness of the cranberries goes perfectly with the sweetness of maple syrup. I can see these going really well with Dreena Burton's Celestial Cream or eaten later cold with some pumpkin butter spread over them, as well.

Hey chickadee

2008-11-24T15:17:00.001-08:00

Chickpea cutlet time! I'd been eyeballing these Veganomicon delectable dinner delights for a long time, especially since I hear nothing but good things about them. I love chickpeas, but not nearly as much as JP does, so he was super excited. He likes them so much, he made me promise to make them at least once a week from now on.

One small thing: I managed to burn them a little both times with both methods. Let my mistakes be a message to you, my beloved readers: don't trust your oven OR stove, and read comics while waiting for the timer to go off; actually pay attention while cooking. I've learned this the hard way so many times...and still sneak off to play on the internets or read Fruits Basket, only to end up with crispy non-critters.

First attempt: pan-fried

I have to say, I like the pan-frying method better as far as taste, but I felt like I used a lot more oil, so I'll probably save it for special occasions. That said, this recipe is INCREDIBLY easy to make. The hardest part is probably mashing chickpeas, just because I don't think mine were cooked QUITE enough. You basically throw all your ingredients into a bowl, knead for three minutes, cut into quarters, and voila, cutlets. The texture is so toothsome and delicious, a little lemony and earthy, it beats any commercial fakemeat product hands down. I served them with mashed potatoes and the Veganomicon mushroom gravy (also delish, perfect for Thanksgiving, hint hint!).

2nd attempt: baked

I burnt these ones a little more, which is why they don't look fabulous, but they were still really yummy, especially slathered in stone-ground mustard. Served up with leftover mashed potatoes and gravy, and roasted veggies (onion/bell pepper/garlic/zucchini/sweet potato). I liked that this method didn't use as much oil, but the texture wasn't quite as pleasing as the pan-fried ones. Still good though.

These are so quick to put together, especially on a weeknight, all you need is some veggies and maybe a grain or some crusty bread to go with it, and you have an amazing meal. I heartily recommend you go and make these as soon as humanly possible.

Recent dinners

2008-11-20T13:39:00.000-08:00

Ancho-Lentil Soup with Grilled Pineapple (Veganomicon)

Delicious, wonderful, spicy (I doubled the spice) perfect-for-autumn soup. You wouldn't think that sweet grilled pineapple would complement the ancho so well, but it does! It's like culinary magic!

Brooklyn Pad Thai (VwaV)

Minus pepper sub carrots and mushrooms. As you might recall, tamarind concentrate was among my haul from the Thai market, so I finally got to use it in this recipe! It really adds an "authentic" flavor (ie, one of those tastes I notice in restaurant pad thai but couldn't seem to replicate at home). I also used wide rice noodles since that was all I had.

BBQ pomegranate tofu (VwaV), green bean salad (VYY), and steamed kale

Mom and dad gave me LOADS of pomegranates, which, in addition to eating as is, I love to use as a finishing touch for the tofu. I must say, either my culinary skills have improved immensely since last year or the different brand of tofu really helped. This recipe is AMAZING and I can't get enough of the sauce. (And of course, VeganYumYum's green bean salad...I substituted mirin for the white wine since I never seem to have any wine that doesn't go straight into my belly...)

Next up: I finally made the chickpea cutlets from Veganomicon! Stay tuned!

Hannah tester recipe #2

2008-11-17T10:31:00.001-08:00

Yay, the next test recipe from the multi-talented Hannah from BitterSweet! This recipe sent my taste buds soaring with two of my favorite flavors - cherry and coconut!

Cherry Macaroon Tart

A crispy yet chewy crust of coconut, filled with an amazingly addictive dark cherry filling. This was made using frozen cherries, as it's not exactly cherry season, but you can use fresh, too! I took one little taste of the filling as I was cooking it on the stove and then proceeded to eat about half of it, it was so good! I could barely wait until it had set so I could eat it. And it was pretty easy and very quick to throw together - another plus for a busy bee like me!

And I was also pleased that it matched my nail polish:

Vegan nail polish + vegan baking = happiness!

Sometimes you just have to chill out...

2008-11-14T16:10:00.001-08:00

...and have a salad. Last weekend was all about the comfort food (biscuits and gravy, Indian food, pizza, etc.), so I detoxed with this lovely bowl of happiness on Monday night while we watched a couple episodes of Blue Planet.

Field greens, mushrooms, olives, sprouts, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, carrot, radish, veg bacon bits, drizzled with Annie's Naturals Shiitake & Sesame Vinaigrette. Served with crusty french bread. (The carrots and walnuts are from my grandma!)

Roast your root veggies

2008-11-12T14:03:00.000-08:00

...because it makes them indescribably delicious!

Roasted carrots along with steamed broccoli and cashew ginger tofu from Eat Drink & Be Vegan! by Dreena Burton

Be kind to sheepies (and other woolly animals)

2008-11-11T08:27:00.000-08:00

As winter rolls around and I start shivering in 55 degree weather (I don't want to hear about how it's below 30 where you are - my chill is enhanced by my icy cold heart, sob!), clothing stores start hawking wool like it's made of pure happiness and will cure all your ills. I was never a wool fan to begin with (my skin does not like the scratchies), but when I first went vegan, I was sort of ambivalent about the wool issue.

'Meh,' I thought, 'It's not like it's fur, it doesn't hurt anyone, and besides, they NEED to be sheared, right?'

I am the first to admit I was dead wrong. Emphasis on dead.

Wool vocabulary every vegan should know:

Flystrike: [A]n animal or human disease caused by parasitic dipterous fly larvae feeding on the host's necrotic or living tissue. Blowfly strike, known as myiasis, is a common disease in sheep, especially in areas where there are hot and wet conditions. The female flies lay their eggs on the sheep in damp, protected areas soiled with urine and faeces, mainly on the sheep's breech (buttocks). It takes approximately 8 hours to a day for the eggs to hatch, depending on the conditions. This results in sores as the larvae lacerate the skin; this is the primary reason for the early removal of lambs' tails. The larvae then tunnel into the host's tissue causing irritating lesions. After about the second day bacterial infection occurs and if left untreated causes toxemia or septicemia. This leads to anorexia and weakness and if untreated will lead to death. Blowfly strike accounts for over $170 million a year in losses in the Australian sheep industry and so prevention measures such as mulesing are practiced. - Wikipedia

Mulesing: In Australia, the most commonly raised sheep are Merinos, specifically bred to have wrinkly skin, which means more wool per animal. This unnatural overload of wool causes many sheep to collapse and even die of heat exhaustion during hot months, and the wrinkles collect urine and moisture. Attracted to the moisture, flies lay eggs in the folds of skin, and the hatched maggots can eat the sheep alive. To prevent this so-called "flystrike," Australian ranchers perform a barbaric operation-called "mulesing"-where they force live sheep onto their backs, restrain their legs between metal bars, and, without any painkillers whatsoever, slice chunks of flesh from around their tail area. This is done to cause smooth, scarred skin that can't harbor fly eggs. Ironically, the exposed, bloody wounds themselves often get flystrike before they heal. - Save the Sheep!

Live export: Millions of sheep who are less profitable to wool farmers are discarded for slaughter. This results in the cruel live export of 6.5 million sheep every year from Australia to the Middle East and North Africa, where sheep are crammed aboard multitiered open-deck ships. Nearly 800,000 sheep enter the live export trade from the U.K. and are slaughtered abroad.

Australian and New Zealand sheep are slaughtered in the Middle East, after enduring a grueling, weeks- or months-long journey on extremely crowded, disease-ridden ships with little access to food or water through all weather extremes. Many sheep fall ill, many become stuck in feces and are unable to move, and many are trampled to death by other sheep trying not to fall or trying to reach water when it is available. Shipboard mortality ranges up to 10 percent. - Save the Sheep!

Mutton: From the earliest of times there was complicity in the use of wool. Merinos, which were originally from Spain, are the most efficient wool producers. Mutton breeds, which primarily originated in England, are used predominately for meat. Cross-breeds are raised for the dual purpose of meat and wool. Nevertheless, Merinos also yield mutton and mutton breeds also yield wool. No sheep escapes either function; it is just a matter of emphasis. Essentially, all wool is a slaughterhouse product. - What's wrong with wool?

Paid by volume: Because shearers are usually paid by volume rather than by the hour, they often work too fast and disregard the animals’ welfare. Sheep are routinely punched, kicked, and cut during the shearing process. - Vegan Voice: Why Wool is Bad News

If the facts aren't enough to sway you, consider this. Walk into an Old Navy or Gap or JC Penny or other clothing store. Go over to a stack of wool sweaters. There's like 20 or so, right? Then take a look around the store, and see how many of those stacks there. Consider that there are many, many more of these stores, filled with stacks of wool sweaters and coats and mittens and scarves and hats and boots. How much wool did it take to make all of those? And how many sheep need to be sheared in order to make that much wool? The Wikipedia article I quoted above talks about how flystrike costs Australian farmers $170 million in losses every year - translate that into how many sheep are suffering, especially when you consider that flystrike often occurs even when mulesing is used.

This image of stacks of sweaters and piles of gloves is no different than stacks of egg cartons or blocks of cheese in the supermarket, and the underlying ideology is no different. The concern is NOT for the animals involved: it's putting as much "product" on the shelves as possible, and quickly. Commercial sheep shearers have the same thing on their minds as slaughterhouse workers trying to butcher animals as they're moving along the kill floor: faster faster faster. Get it done.

This is not a mindset that allows compassion or concern for an animal that is nothing more than material for a sweater.

The bottom line: exploiting another creature for fashion is not nice. So quit it.

More information for your consideration:

Save the Sheep!

What's wrong with wool?

Wool: the reality for sheep

Veg For Life: The Truth about Down, Leather, Wool, & Other Fibers

Vegan Society: Sheep & Wool

Inside the Wool Industry <--well cited!

I'll be doing an entry soon about the best places to get non-wool winter goods, as well as an entry on being vegan and knitting/crocheting, for those of you who are knitters like myself! :D

I <3 turnips

2008-11-10T16:15:00.000-08:00

My new favorite root vegetable, beautifully smooth and creamy in The Garden of Vegan's Country Turnip and Carrot Soup (with vegan bacon bits on top...yes, I have an unhealthy obsession, so what?).

Why should you go get some turnips? They last for flippin' EVER. Seriously. Had these been carrots or parsnips, lo, they would have perished eons ago. But these robust little babies kept soldiering on, resolute in their determination to end up in my tummy-tummy.

Plus, soup season is upon us. I never liked soup before I went vegan - now, I am all about that shiz. One cutting board and one big pot and maybe a wooden spoon gets dirty and that's it? Heck yeah. I hate doing the dishes. Dirty dishes are the best reason to get yourself a boyfriend, IMHO. Laziness is, oddly enough, a great motivator.

So get thee to your nearest farmer's market, heave some veggies and water into a pot and voila, soup. It's pretty great.

Leftovers

2008-11-07T13:41:00.001-08:00

You'll have to forgive me for not posting for a while. My 99% sureness that I did not pass that test, and the looming knowledge that I will probably NOT being going to grad school next year, and also the crap weather (until yesterday) merged to make Meg into a big smelly lazy lump of grumpy depressive motivationless suck.*

Hence why there's nothing but a couple of really old zucchini and an ancient tub of miso in my fridge. No motivation = "Hmm, I should go grocery shopping (and do laundry), but I could sit on my ass and read Perez Hilton's blog for 3 hours instead."

No one can withstand the power of snarky commentary concerning Lindsay Lohan's latest drams. It's like sweet sweet ~~crack~~ candy.

So I've been making a lot of I'm just going to take everything in my fridge and put it in a pan and call it a night dinners.

Roasted sweet potatoes and delicata squash, maple tempeh (Get It Ripe), green bean salad (VeganYumYum) and leftover crunchy breads from the Halloween party at work.

And Bridgeport IPA, of course.

This was our election night dinner, eaten while curled up on the couch listening to NPR. Sweet potatoes and squash were from last week's farmer's market, and the beans were from my mom's garden. I can't get enough of this green bean salad recipe from VeganYumYum, it's so simple to put together but it's so tasty! The maple tempeh from Get It Ripe is fabulous and took no time at all to put together. The squash and taters were tossed in olive oil with rosemary, salt, and pepper. NOM! I cried into my Bridgeport when NPR announced that Obama had won. 8 years is a long time.

Stuffed acorn squash

I had a long day on Wednesday, and luckily JP had the foresight to put the acorn squash we had sitting on the counter in the oven. What to have with it was more of a challenge. Enter the magic frying pan! In went leftover maple tempeh, chopped zucchini, black beans, kale, and chipotle chili powder, and then into the squashy bowl that went. It was really good, if I do say so myself. The filling was sweet and spicy, and it really went well with the creamy acorn squash.

Leftovers fried rice

JP had a late night last night, and so it was one of the rare times where I'm cooking for one person. Not wanting to add to the stack of dirty dishes, I started chopping and came up with this fried rice. It's got leftover brown rice, chopped zucchini and carrots from my grandma's garden, frozen peas and corn, veg bacon bits, a slice shallot, and black beans, all fried in just a tiny bit of oil and a healthy dose of Bragg's Liquid Aminos, and topped with some avocado. I made some for John later (the douche who arranged dinner for their meeting LIED ON PURPOSE about some of the food being vegan; as in "Shhh, don't tell the vegans but this has butter in it" - WHUT?!), and added green onion and kale and fried it with tamari instead of Bragg's and it was even deliciouser.

I encourage everyone to show their fridges some love and dig through and find some stuff to make nommable leftovery food with.

*(And also hence why I'm going out and getting wrecked tonight. w00t! One thing though: Berkeley needs more bars! Come on, this is a COLLEGE town? There should be a bar every two feet. AND THIS IS NOT THE CASE! One WITHIN two miles radius of my apartment would be nice...show the boozesluts in this town some respect, Berkizzle!)

Oh also: OBAMA FOR THE WIN! WOO! Bay Area people: if you're in San Francisco around 5:30pm tonight, go protest Prop 8, because that hater shiz is NOT what California is all about. We're all about the love here, and all kinds of love, not just lame unsexy hater straight love, people - ALL KINDS DAMMIT.

Vegan MoFo Day 30: And I wonder why I have no grocery money

2008-10-30T19:15:00.001-07:00

So, I got a totally rockin' haircut the other day from Tanya of piratesalon.net, and my hair is now red-tastically awesome. Naturally, I want to make sure I take good care of my fancy new mane, so I went out in search of color-safe hair products. Unfortunately, all the Walgreens-type brands are pretty un-vegan - most of them have glycerin, and if they don't, they probably test on animals anyway (Cough, Garnier Fructis, cough. I have an inquiry to back that one up). So Tanya had recommended PureOlogy - and I had also remembered my sister and I finding out that they were vegan when we were at the hair salon in our hometown. I looked them up online, and found that yes, they were in fact, vegan. So says the PureOlogy website:

"Our commitment is to make the finest prestige products that are good for you and safe for the environment. Our 100% vegan formulas contain absolutely no animal ingredients and are biodegradable. Our containers are recyclable wherever possible and all PureOlogy products are created with respect for future generations."

And then it says on my bottle at the very bottom:

"100% vegan - This Formula is Not Tested on Animals."

Satisfying! So, with the convenient salon locator on their website, I walked a few blocks down the street to a salon and picked up some (don't get me wrong, I'm an idiot when it comes to this stuff, I just got what was recommended :P) basic hydrating shampoo and conditioner for hair that's been colored. Awesome, right?

OH GOD. Not so much. Expensive! And that was for these two wimpy little bottles...there had better be some goddamn black holes in there, from whence vegan shampoo comes a-spewing.
Look how sad I am! I have spent half an entire paycheck on my hair!

But that's alright - it's my own money, and I want to keep my awesome hair awesome, and this way I can do it in a most vegan and sustainable fashion.

So where is the food part of this entry? Well, there isn't one, really. But I'm totally making Golden Crispy Tofu from Nava Atlas' Vegan Express tonight.

Vegan MoFo Day 28: Autumny Foods

2008-10-28T13:08:00.000-07:00

As we draw near the end of Vegan MoFo 2008, I am running out of steam. Probably because the evil test of doom that I have to take is THIS SATURDAY (some fool scheduled it for the day after Halloween - dumb, right?). No matter - still going to party hardcore on Friday. Because EFF responsibility!

Anyway here's what I made last night (while I should have been, ahem, studying):

First recipe from my newest cookbook, Get It Ripe by Jae Steele. This is Apple & Carrot Soup with Coriander. Mmm! Very tasty. At first I was nervous to try it (it smells sweeter than it tastes), but after a bite I began to really appreciate the warm cinnamony appleyness mixed with the spicy coriander. Perfect for curling up with on a chilly night when your uterus hates you.

I seem to be on a cinnamon kick. Later in the evening I used up the last of the pumpkin butter my cousin Michelle gave me in these Banana Pumpkin Spice Muffins from BitterSweet. I stumbled across them while looking for vegan bakesale recipes for one of JP's classmates, and decided to make them myself! I made 6 BIG muffins, and wow were they good. Really moist, lots of spice. They use simple ingredients most people have on hand, and this recipe is a great way to use up those overripe bananas you've got stored away in your freezer. (You DO keep overripe bananas, right? It would be a travesty to simply throw them out...) The only change I made was that I used completely whole wheat flour to make them a tiny bit healthier. And they were still amazingly fluffy and delicious.

Vegan Mofo Day 26: Survey, Kelly-flavored

2008-10-26T20:47:00.000-07:00

My turn! As mentioned before, this survey was created by Jess of Get Sconed.

1. What was the most recent tea you drank?
A very strong cup of ginger tea. The burning in my throat, it is so gooood.

2. What vegan forums do you post/lurk on? If so, what is your username? Spill!
I'm a fairly lazy (read: seldom-posting-ever) member of VFF. Yeah, that's pretty much it.

3. You have to have tofu for dinner, and it has be an Italian dish. What comes to mind first?
Gosh...I haven't made that much italian food with tofu in it. Meg already stole my lasagna idea. How about seasoned tofu crumbled into pasta sauce? Yes/nom?

4. How many vegan blogs do you read on an average day?
4 or 5, probably. Yes, shameful, I know. I mostly depend on Meg to send over her favorite entries of the day to me over chat.

5. Besides your own, what is the most recent one you’ve read?
Probably Vegansaurus, as I am really interested in their reviews of places around here! I love to hear about great vegan dishes I haven't tried yet.

6. If you could hang out with a vegan blogger that you haven’t met, who would it be, and what would you do?
Susan V from Fatfree Vegan Kitchen, probably. I love the creative, healthy dishes she puts together. I would go on a hetero-date with her to the farmer's market on the Embarcadero and gaze upon the fruits and vegetables and dream up cool recipe ideas.

7. If you had to base your dinners for a week around one of the holy trilogy – tofu, seitan or tempeh, which would it be?
SEITAN! Definitely my favorite! (Sorry, Mark!)

8. If you had to use one in a fight, which would it be?
I would take some chunks of lemon seitan and shove them into peoples' eyes. Or paper cuts. Yeah.

9. Name 3 meals you’d realistically make with that tough protein of choice!
Seitan Portobello Stroganoff (haven't tried it yet!)
My own Steak-tan
Orange Sweet and Sour Baked Seitan

10. What’s a recipe in vegan blogland that you’ve been eyeing?
I have the urge to try Isa's Apple and Ginger Chops.

11. Do you own any clothing with vegan messages/brands on them?
My favorite is my standard Herbivore hoodie. It always stirs up conversations with strangers, I love it :)

12. Have you made your pilgrimage to the 'vegan mecca' yet? (Portland, duh)
I have, once, while staying with Sister the Oregonian in Eugene. She took me to Vegan Row, and I did et a glazed vegan donut. Bliss!

13. What age did you first go vegan? Did it stick?
When I was 20. Or, December 20, 2007. It has stuck, yes - I'm doing my best, loving it. Sometimes after talking to someone about it, I kind of go, "Hey.......I'm vegan!" and giggle joyfully, and maybe snort a little.

14. What is the worst vegan meal you’ve had? Who cooked it?
I am not the most prolific or creative cook in the world, nor do I have the money to go out and try all the vegan restaurants I want to try, so I can't say I've had a particularly awful vegan meal before. If something tasted funny, it was probably something I cooked, and that has happened way too many times for there to be a particularly outstanding instance.

15. What made you decide to blog?
I felt like my sister and I had a lot to say about our journey as (former) country bumpkins trying something new and so different from what we had grown up knowing. Though she is the better half of the blog (I am the lazy half) I still enjoy taking time once in a while to share my vegan adventures with a crowd I don't have to explain everything to.

16. What are three of your favorite meals to make?
Raspberry Blackout Cake With Ganache-Y Frosting and also the country potatoes from VwaV (can you guess which vegan cookbook was the only one I owned for a really long time?) and Lemon Yogurt Muffins.

17. What dish would you bring to a vegan Thanksgiving-themed potluck?
Do I have to make it myself? :P If not, then I'd bring a nomable little field roast covered with Meg's golden mushroom gravy.

18. Where is your favorite vegan meal at a restaurant? How many times have you ordered it?
Probably the Southwestern Scramble from Herbivore. UGH. That shit is SO GOOD. I've only had it once - I also love the Marinated Tofu Sandwich, I know I've had that at least three or four times.

16. What do you think the best chain to dine as a vegan is?
CHIPOTLE! I love to get a vegetarian burrito or a burrito bowl with all the vegan fixins. Love it love it love it.

17. My kitchen needs a………
Sink That Is Bigger Than My Head

18. This vegetable is not allowed in my kitchen…..!
Sorrrryyyyyyy - not a huge eggplant fan. But, it can still come and hang out. :D

19. What's for dinner tonight?
Oh boy. Cereal and fruit. AWESOME. Right?

20.Add a question here!
What vegan events are you most looking forward to? A cooking class with Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, and my first veganniversary at Maggie Mudd's.

Vegan MoFo Day 25: Post Your Spice Collection

2008-10-25T16:06:00.001-07:00

A trip to Tuk Tuk Thai Market down on University today (and a trip to Spun Sugar, yee!) and the acquisition of whole anise (so preeeetty!) made me think of a new MoFo meme: post your spice collection! All are invited, including but not limited to: racks, shelves, drawers, cabinets, armoirs, boxes, cupboards, and entire rooms (THAT WOULD BE SO AWESOME!)?! (Herbs of all manner and form are also invited to share in the fun.)

First, my Thai market treasures:

Top left to right: bananas (duh), sesame oil, peanut sauce, seasoned rice vinegar, plum sauce and pearl barley. Bottom left to ride: agar-agar powder, panko, whole anise, and tamarind concentrate.

Sidenote: the other day at Monterey Market I bought a can of mock duck and a can of mock chicken from the Asian foods section, and I mention it because Tuk Tuk had the same brand, but also carried mock abalone!!! WTF?! I want it! But JP wouldn't let me buy it unless I had a plan for how to use it. (How dare he imply I insanely hoard really random ingredients much like a squirrel collects nuts for the winter! ...Oh wait, he's right, I DO do that...).

So tell me, dear readers: what do I do with canned wheat gluten based mock abalone (and mock dock, for that matter?).

I'm particularly excited about the plum sauce. I could swim in a pool of it. And the tamarind concentrate! Now I can make those crepes that Isa and Terry made for the Love Bites! episode of the PPK.

And now, my modest spice collection:

Sadly I can't get all of them in there nice and orderly, at least three jars have to kind of float on top of the others. Most of these jars are from before I found a store that sold bulk spices. For all new spices, I prefer this nifty pudgy little jars from IKEA. The Drawer is organized alphabetically, for the most part. You'll notice not one but FOUR types of chili powder, three of which are featured here (and all of which are randomly the same brand, but were not purchased at the same time):

I'm really running low on red pepper flakes and paprika.

Recent acquisitions: white and black sesame seeds (not really spices, shut up), the chili powders, whole anise, and whole coriander seeds (I had to throw the rest of my old coriander seed stock out, because they got infested with tiny brown beetles! GROSSNESS!).

Organizing the drawer for the photo made me happier than I've been in a long time. Am I really that pathetic? (Shhhh......)

Vegan MoFo Day 24: Happy Friday

2008-10-24T17:34:00.000-07:00

I leave you today with a single, perfect, cupcake:

Classic vanilla cupcake (Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World by Isa Chandra-Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero) with cream cheese frosting

To me, it is beautiful.

Happy Friday everyone!!!

(I started a campaign in my office to get people to use refillable cups rather than disposables...the cupcakes were a reward!)

Vegan MoFo Day 23: A hint of what's to come

2008-10-23T10:49:00.001-07:00

I'm working on a project, and I wanted to gauge interest. I'm thinking about starting a blog devoted to...vegan waffles. My own recipes (and pictures of others' recipes, obviously).

I've been playing with the idea for a while, and made some starts last weekend with these:

Hashbrown waffles

These obviously did not turn out that great because I was just curious to see if it would work, so it's only shredded potato and a little oil. Next time I'm going to try throwing in a little cornstarch to make them hold together a little more and start experimenting with spices. I also didn't leave them in long enough because I was HANGRY!!! (Hangry = so hungry you're angry)

'Bacon' scallion waffles*

Sweet Pea Bakery in Portland has 'bacon'-scallion cream cheese that is amazing. And I miss Sweet Pea a lot. So I thought I'd combine those flavors in a waffle. It's a variation on the Waffles 1 recipe from Joy of Vegan Baking by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau. I'm still playing with it but since I can get vegan bacon bits in bulk at Berkeley Bowl and scallions are dirt cheap at the farmer's market, I should have a real recipe soon.

These were REALLY tasty with maple syrup, which was a nice counterflavor to the saltiness of the "bacon."

I was inspired by (a) my own love of waffles, (b) seeing some of the savory waffles that Isa's new brunch cookbook testers have been putting out, and (c) disturbed by the lack of vegan waffles offered at breakfast places. It's a tragedy, I tell you.

*I can never get my god damn waffles to be perfectly square. I blame my shitty waffle maker. And myself. But mostly the waffle maker.

Vegan MoFo Day 22: Rum Raisin Fudge Brownies

2008-10-22T12:59:00.000-07:00

I had a post up earlier about ethics and some related stuff, but I realized that Bob & Jenna talk ethics way better than I do, so head over to Vegan Freak Radio and give 'em a listen. They're smart, funny, and have amusing soundbites ("You're working hard to put food on your family!"). Plus sometimes you can hear their dogs and kitty and it makes me feel less sad that I don't have a kitty (yet!).

Anyway I have been super duper PMSy this week, but I have the perfect cure...

Rum raisin fudge brownie

And no you can't have the recipe (yet!) because it's a tester recipe for Hannah of BitterSweet. (Shh, tell no one but I shrieked with glee when I found out I was going to be a tester...while at work...while on the phone...oops!) It's fudgey and spicy and delicious. And it's soothing my savage hormones as we speak, and made a bad day at work seem better. Alcohol + chocolate = amazing.

One more glamour shot (of the less pretty side, thanks to my cutting skillz):

By the way I hella took these pictures in the conference room at lunch.

Vegan MoFo Day 21: Survey!

2008-10-21T15:04:00.001-07:00

Obligatory MoFo survey! I've been waiting for a day when I was too exhausted to cook to do this, and today seems to be it. This survey was created by Jess of Get Sconed!.

1. What was the most recent tea you drank?
A cold mug of Good Earth decaf lemongrass green tea (all the caffeinated stuff is gone, boo)

2. What vegan forums do you post/lurk on? If so, what is your username? Spill!
I'm on the VFF and the PPK as herbstsonne.

3. You have to have tofu for dinner, and it has be an Italian dish. What comes to mind first?
Tofu ricotta in lasagna! :D

4. How many vegan blogs do you read on an average day?
On weekdays, like 20-25. I am lazy through the weekend and then play catch up on Monday.

5. Besides your own, what is the most recent one you’ve read?
Cupcake Kitteh

6. If you could hang out with a vegan blogger that you haven’t met, who would it be, and what would you do?
I would love to meet Hannah Kaminsky and eat lots of vegan sushi at Kitaro in San Franciso and then go to the Japan Center, or drive to Canada and spend a day in Dreena Burton's kitchen!

7. If you had to base your dinners for a week around one of the holy trilogy – tofu, seitan or tempeh, which would it be?
Tofu – I just love the shit.

8. If you had to use one in a fight, which would it be?
One of those huge blocks of nigari tofu, frozen. That shit is heavy.

9. Name 3 meals you’d realistically make with that tough protein of choice!
Crispy sweet and sour tofu, Scrambled tofu, and the Asian grilled tofu from VwaV.

10. What’s a recipe in vegan blogland that you’ve been eyeing?
This delicata squash bisque and these Thanksgiving Burgers

11. Do you own any clothing with vegan messages/brands on them?
I've got a Cow Guevara shirt from (the late) Vegan Porn that I share with Kelly, and I have a black Herbiore t-shirt.

12. Have you made your pilgrimage to the 'vegan mecca' yet? (Portland, duh)
Shit son, I lived in Eugene (2 hours away) for four years. Did I EVER! And I miss Red & Black's and Sweetpea and Bay Leaf like crayzay.

13. What age did you first go vegan? Did it stick?
22.5 (i.e., last August). Never looked back, thriving and loving it.

14. What is the worst vegan meal you’ve had? Who cooked it?
There's this place in Berkeley called Razan's Organic, this little hole in the wall just off of Shattuck. They're a vegan-friendly omni place, but the prices are exorbitant and the food ain't worth it. I got a vegan schawarma and John got a burrito, and not only were the portions tiny but it was the blandest shite we'd ever eaten. Also service blew. If I'm going to spend like $8 on what was essentially some barely cooked tofu in a flatbread, it better be god damn delicious, because I can make that shit in my house for cheaps.

15. What made you decide to blog?
I've been keeping a personal blog since 2001, and reading vegan blogs played such a huge role in helping me go vegan that I figured I'd spread the love. This blog started as a way for Kelly and I (newbs) to learn more about veganism together and a way to collaborate on something fun while we lived 500 miles away (though now I'm a little closer, haha).

16. What are three of your favorite meals to make?
Lasagna, soup, and the black bean and sweet potato flautas from Yellow Rose Recipes.

17. What dish would you bring to a vegan Thanksgiving-themed potluck?
My late grandma's caramelized sweet potatoes. SO GOOD.

18. Where is your favorite vegan meal at a restaurant? How many times have you ordered it?
The tofu florentine at Fellini in Berkeley (3 times) and the orange sesame tofu at Bay Leaf in Portland (4?).

16. What do you think the best chain to dine as a vegan is?
Cafe Yumm, hands down. GOD they need to get their asses down to the Bay Area. My bowl of choice: Large original, vegan, sub carrots and cabbage, sub sesame jalepeno salsa for the regular red kind, extra Yumm sauce on the side. NOM!!! I haven't had a Yumm bowl in months and I think I'm going through withdrawals!

17. My kitchen needs a………
Blender. It's getting ridiculous.

18. This vegetable is not allowed in my kitchen…..!
I'm not really a huge fan of purple beets, except shredded into salads. JP loves them though.

19. What's for dinner tonight?
Quinoa, kale, and some sweet and sour tempeh and sweet potatoes.

20.Add a question here!
Best place to eat on a budget in Berkeley? Vegi Food! :D

I'll try to get Kelly to fill this out too! :)

Vegan MoFo Day 20: Grandpa's birthday

2008-10-20T10:50:00.000-07:00

My grandpa Herman's 85th birthday was last weekend, and I got to meet up with my family at my grandparents' house in Sonoma for some birthday fun! Kelly couldn't come sadly, but you know how art school midterms are (i.e., hellish).

My grandma and my mom gave me a ton of produce, including these gorgeous granny smith apples from grandma's orchard.

I also scored tomatoes, kale, swiss chard, golden delicious apples, butternut squash, a few last zucchini and summer squash, two little green bell peppers, carrots, beets, and lemons! My family is awesome. I'll have to take pictures of their gardens next time I get a chance. Both are a force to be reckoned with!

My cousin Michelle was nice enough to make a vegan dessert for us: red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting! Unfortunately, during assembly there were some, er, technical issues which involved it sliding.

Hence, Sad Cake is sad.

It still tasted REALLY good though! You can read more about it and see some awesome pictures at her blog here. Incidentally, the cake mix she used (and substituted silken tofu for the egg) was Duncan Hines, which has 12 dairy-free cake mixes! (As long as you sub something for the egg you're supposed to add.) She also used Pillsbury's cream cheese frosting which, somehow, I don't understand but somehow, is vegan! So if you're ever hankering for baked goods but are in a hurry, you might want to try one of the mixes out.

I wanted to make Grandpa cookies for his birthday, but they couldn't be too crunchy or nutty. I was flicking through My Sweet Vegan for ideas when I came across the Pfeffernüsse:

(Sorry for the crappy photo, I was running late!)

Grandpa is German, so I figured these would be perfect! No whole or chunky nuts, but with almond meal, flavored with anise, and covered in powdered sugar! I tested ~~four~~ one, and man are they delicious! A little crispy on the outside, softish on the inside, a little spicey, and that sugar coating is the perfect finish. They're a perfect snack for a tea party (or to snarf down while studying and drinking cup after cup of your caffeinated beverage of choice!). JP and an omni coworker also confirmed that they are delicious. They're my favorite recipe from the book so far!

Vegan MoFo Day 19: Pumpkin raisin walnut oatmeal

2008-10-19T21:15:00.000-07:00

A PPK thread that popped up this morning discussed what to do with pumpkin butter. Hmm, I thought, I have a jar of pumpkin butter that my cousin gave me last year and I never opened. Hmmm...

I unearthed it from the back of the cabinet and opened it. Rich, deep orange autumnal goodness was staring me right in the face, begging to be used. Thus, pumpkin raisin walnut oatmeal was born!

Pumpkin Raisin Walnut Oatmeal

Ingredients:
1 cup rolled oats
2 cups water
1/2 - 3/4 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 cup raisins
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp cloves
1/8 tsp allspice
2 Tbsp pumpkin butter
1 Tbsp whole flax seeds
Splash of non-dairy milk (optional)

In a saucepan, combine oats and water over high heat. Bring mixture to boil, then reduce heat to low and add walnuts, raisins, and spices. Let simmer, stirring every once in a while so it doesn't stick. After 5-10 minutes, depending on how thick you like your oatmeal, add pumpkin butter, flaxseeds, and non-dairy milk. Stir a minute or so more, then serve. Eat while curled up on the couch, recovering from 5k run earlier, and watching Season 3 of The Office for the fourth time.

The best part is, there's enough natural sweetness from the raisins and the pumpkin butter that you don't need to sweeten it at all! It's so yummy.

This is pretty cinnamony but I am a cinnamon lover, so if you're not a huge cinnamon fan, cut it back to 1/2 teaspoon.

Serves two and makes for one deliciously autumny morning!

Vegan MoFo Day 18: Study Weekend

2008-10-18T18:07:00.001-07:00

I've been studying like crazy lately for the 2nd part of another test I have to take. Which is pretty much how I've spent the last 6 hours of my day. (Though I did get to take a brief walk in the beautiful autumn weather that graced the East Bay today!)

So I'm just going to leave you with some pictures of what I've been eating lately. They all have crappy lighting because my dinner time these days seems to be around 8pm.

Bodacious Bean & Barley Soup (Garden of Vegan) and cornbread (Joy of Vegan Baking)

Baked Potato and Greens Soup with Potato Wedge Croutons (Veganomicon)

Asian grilled tofu (Vegan with a Vengeance), sesame green beans (Yellow Rose Recipes), with brown rice and stir-fried kale

Greek-style zucchini and tomato fritters (Veganomicon) with pan-seared summer squash (VeganYumYum), served over greens with tahini-dill sauce (Veganomicon)

Chana masala (Yellow Rose Recipes)

Maple glazed tofu (VeganYumYum) over steamed kale and leftover brown rice, red rice, and quinoa

Veggie-sizzle burritos (Eat Drink & Be Vegan!)

And people say vegans don't get to eat a variety of food. BAH, I say to thee!

More interesting posts later, I promise, my head's just too focused on 'Major Economic Earth Resources' at the moment and it's getting to me.

Vegan MoFo Day 15: Breakfast

2008-10-15T11:30:00.001-07:00

I never liked breakfast when I was in school, and I still don't like eating it before 6:30 am now. My tummy doesn't want to function that early. I've learned to make myself eat SOMETHING, though, because otherwise I am VERY cranky and start throwing out death glares at the slightest provocation, such as my boyfriend smiling at me, a coworker saying good morning, or the mailman delivering the mail too loudly.

What changed me from a 'eat nothing until I get home for dinner after drama rehearsal' sort of girl in high school to a 'spend the extra five minutes to get some quick oats on the stove, chop an apple, and dump it in with some cinnamon and raisins and flax and nutmeg' (hee hee, nutMEG!) kind of gal was my year abroad in Germany. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, way more so than lunch, and dinner is kind of an afterthought (in some households dinner is the cold meal of the day, and made up of sandwiches or leftovers). The Germans LOVE their breakfast, and I used to love it too. It usually consists of brötchen (delightful breakfast rolls), sandwich meat, sliced cheese, butter, Nutella, jam, and other spreads, coffee, tea, maybe muesli with milk or yogurt, and fruit (Mihl, am I forgetting anything? ;)

Needless to say, I don't eat the meat or dairy anymore. There are non-dairy versions of Nutella-like spreads though, even here in the states! (In Germany they're often sold in a Reformhaus or Naturmarkt.) There's also a recipe for making your own in Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. DM and many other grocery stores in Germany sell vegan brotaufstrich (bread spread), and who doesn't have a billion hummus recipes they're dying to try out? Thanks to the wonders of spending just a few more minutes in the kitchen, German breakfasts are easily within vegan reach.

The real lesson is that breakfasting more regularly showed me the benefits of starting one's day off right. I feel much more energized throughout the day, I'm not starving come lunch time (and therefore less likely to stuff myself and feel all food coma-y afterwards), and I'm not as cranky, either. The cranky thing is a big plus, because when I'm stressed or down, I tend to reach for high-sugar, high-fat foods, which I definitely do not need to be eating.

That said, during the week, it can be hard to get out of bed, let alone make breakfast. If I'm absolutely in a horrible hurry, I try to eat a banana, a piece of toast, or an apple with some almond butter, so that I at least have enough energy to bike 2.7 miles to work, but I'll bring another piece of fruit, a bagel with Tofutti mixed with chipotle hot sauce, an energy bar, or like today, a Tupperware container with granola and raspberries (add soymilk at work). If I have more time in the morning, I'll make oatmeal or farina, with frozen or fresh berries, nuts, spices, flax seeds, and soymilk mixed in.

Weekends are special for JP and I because we'll get up late and make an awesome breakfast, such as tofu scramble (Vegan with a Vengeance), with avocado and chipotle-cilantro crema (with leftover cornbread from Joy of Vegan baking)...

...waffles from Joy of Vegan Baking (the first recipe, shown here with strawberries and nectarines)...

...or banana bliss pancakes from Vive le Vegan! by Dreena Burton with raspberries from my grandma's garden and hashbrowns from VeganYumYum.

What? I like ketchup!

The best part about making pancakes or waffles on the weekend is having leftovers to freeze and have for breakfast during the week!

What do you like to eat for breakfast when you're in a hurry?

Vegan MoFo Day 13: Recession cooking

2008-10-13T20:22:00.000-07:00

For those of you who are interested in saving some money in this period of economic...oh, shall we say, unhappiness, while maintaining your faboolous vegan lifestyle (such as, for example, mine: wake up, work, make dinner, study, sleep, repeat), I've put together some handy dandy links for y'all.

This list of links may come in handy.

Some of you might remember an entry I did way back when we first started called "Eating vegan on the cheap."

These YouTube videos of Cooking with Clara, a 91-year-old grandmother who lived through the American Depression. Her first meal is pretty much vegan! (Ignore that cheese at the end.) And I can imagine making the third dish vegan by substituting the hot dogs with tofu or homemade seitan or beans. Interesting stuff and some amazing anecdotes.

And then this post by Vegan Guinea Pig, The Recession Proof Vegan Pantry, is a great read. I've also been reaching father back into my cabinets to see what comes out - why hello, quick barley! How are you?

Something I've come to enjoy recently at the farmer's market is the 'windfall' fruit, or the fruit that's dented, worm-holed, or just so damn unpretty. They sell for supercheap and as long as you don't mind cutting your fruit (which I do anyway...all my fruit has to be cut...yes I have issues it's true), they're perfectly fine.

Also I don't know about any other Safeways, but the one nearest me in North Berkeley is having a sale on House tofu until October 28th - for $1 per package! Tofu can be frozen, so stock up on that shit!

Something to get you through: Sarah at Hezbollah Tofu wrote an amazingly uplifting entry, and it makes me feel good everytime I think about it. Harumph indeed!

Hang in there, folks.