I couldn’t resist.

Fresh, summery tempeh salad.

It’s Meatless Monday, the most wonderful time of the week!  Or, the only thing that doesn’t make Mondays totally suck!  Either way, have yourself some delicious Tempeh Salad today, and kiss goodbye to your case of the Mondays.

If you’re not a tempeh fanatic, you may not know that tempeh comes in may different flavors. You have your basic soy, of course, but there’s also multigrain varieties made of things like rice and barley, and even flavored tempeh like “garden veggie” varieties. They have distinctly different tastes, so try a bunch and find your fave! If you are put off by the slightly bitter taste of tempeh, boiling it for a bit first will take a lot of that away.

Tempeh is also awesome because it’s a fermented food, meaning its proteins are more digestible, it has reduced oligosaccharides (that component of beans that makes beans, you know, do their bean thing), and it’s pro-biotic. Plus, it’s a super source of those wonderful soy isoflavones that are protective against all sorts of diseases.

So go forth, vegan masses, and eat tempeh!  Here’s a recipe to get you started.

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A crappy cell phone picture of delicious orange-almond green beans.

It’s Meatless Monday, that wonderful time of the week when we’re allowed to demand that our omni friends forego the flesh and try some new vegetarian delights.

To inspire your day of cruelty-free chow, today’s meatless recipe is Orange-Almond Green Beans.  Okay, so green beans are generally meatless anyway.  But people are going nuts with the bacon these days – it’s like, oh look, I’ve made a delicious pasta primavera.  What does it need?  Bacon!  How about these roasted carrots?  Bacon!  Chocolate cake?  Bacon!

Ahem.  Sorry.  (Seriously though, fuck bacon.)

This is a 100% BACON-FREE (is that going to be a new food label now?) dish that is still unbelievably delicious.  If it’s too early for fresh green beans, you can certainly use asparagus instead – just skip the initial boiling step.

This recipe has 2 speeds: normal, and extra-super-fancy.  See the note for how to fancy it up, like if you’re making it for a throwdown against Bobby Flay.

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Since the greatest love in my life is baking, I decided to spend this V-Day weekend baking my favourite recipes.  Most of them, of course, happened to be my versions of several recipes by Isa Chandra Moskowitz, author of The Post Punk Kitchen blog, Veganomicon, Vegan with a Vengeance, Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, and several other fantastic vegan cookbooks.  (I seriously think I own more of her cookbooks than anything else.)  Isa is my favourite vegan chef.  I started using her recipes before I even went vegan, and discovered my passion for baking through her recipes.  She is my inspiration, so I decided to use my V-Day as an ode to her. Read the rest of this entry →

Hi Friends! While going through my overstuffed files of food pictures I found a few shots that reminded me of some delicious breakfasts I’ve made in recent months. The delicious dish I want to share with you now is two fold. The first component involves making some bread. Some amazing cardamom bread! This recipe was featured in Vegetarian Times not too long ago, and has become an absolute favorite in our home! Plus the dough tastes like marshmallows. You really cannot beat that! The second portion is a simple french toast recipe with some modifications, which, when combined with the cardamom bread, create Chai French Toast!! Serve with a big mug of homemade chai!

First step first, Cardamom Bread!

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For the Year of the Vegan Chomp! last Wednesday, we made two different delicious desserts.  We also gave a chance to a few other chefs to try their hands at desserts for Chomp! and it turned out wonderfully.  Melanie and I worked together on the red bean cupcakes (recipe to come soon) and the wonderful Miss Jenny helped me out by making all of the almond cookies for the ice cream sandwiches.

The green tea almond ice cream sandwiches were a bit of a new thing for me, as I had never made ice cream before and do not have an ice cream maker in my possession.  I found, however, with a little research and a little improvising, that no ice cream maker is necessary!  Isn’t that great?  So, not only is this recipe super delicious, but it is also super easy!  Here goes: Read the rest of this entry →

Year of the Vegan, indeed! This was a great turnout, taking into account the below freezing weather – of course! Although we’ve been putting on these dinners for nearly a year, we’ve never really featured tofu as an entree ingredient. (Well, maybe; there was all that scrambled tofu at our ‘Breakfast for Dinner’ Chomp last summer). Excitingly enough I was able to get some local, GMO-free bulk tofu through my job at Watercourse Foods. I brought home about 30 pounds and froze it immediately. I thawed the soybean curd in question and proceeded to press out excess water by utilizing plates, baking sheets, books, cans and many handtowels. I wrapped the cut tofu in the towels, placed plates and flat surfaces on top and piled on the cans and books. After a good 30 – 45 minutes I unwrapped the tofu and gave an extra little press between my hands over my kitchen sink to really ensure excess moisture was minimal.

Onto the Citrus Tofu recipe, itself!!

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I’ve been baking up a vegan cookie storm this holiday season! Maybe it’s just me and my personal qualm with the commercialism and consumerism of Christmas and the holidays, but I’ve decided that baked goods make the perfect present! So, instead of buying expensive and/or useless gifts for people, I’ve been baking all week delicious vegan goodies! Baking presents for people is great for a few reasons (other than the fact that it’s delicious!): 1) it’s relatively inexpensive, 2) you get to put your heart into something homemade for others, and, most importantly, 3) you can open up your (maybe omnivorous) friends to the possibilities of delicious vegan baking! I’ll be darned if you don’t get at least one person asking you for recipes…

So here’s what I’ve been baking all week! Read the rest of this entry →

At the beginning of the month, P&A hosted Thanksliving Chomp to get you started on preparing for an animal-friendly holiday. We served up a 100% vegan holiday meal including, cornbread-stuffed roasted pumpkin, rosemary mashed potatoes, green beans almondine, mushroom gravy, dinner rolls, maple cranberry relish, and pumpkin spice cupcakes (see posts from Chomp cooks Melanie and Kayla for some of these recipes). Our goal was to inspire you to wow your family with some amazing plant-based dishes.

We also had the opportunity to give out ten free Celebration Roasts over the month thanks to Field Roast Grain Meat Co., makers of arguably the best holiday vegan meat alternative on the market. If you are still looking for an easy centerpiece that will please any crowd, check out some recipes from the Field Roast website.

If you are hosting this year, or you’re in the mood for some scratch home-cooking, like you should for a family holiday, VegNews has you covered with a fantastic vegan Thanksgiving guide with 26 complete original recipes for entrees, vegetable dishes, savory sides, and desserts. Especially enticing for me are the Holiday Lentil Loaf and Autumn Pecan Pie. No excuses now. Get your ingredients lists ready.

Daphne

I’d like you to meet Daphne. She is the turkey we have decided to sponsor through Farm Sanctuary’s Adopt-a-turkey Project. Endorsed by Ellen DeGeneres, this campaign is a great way to start a new tradition with your family. Instead of spending $30 or more to pay a factory farm to intensively confine a turkey, mutilate her without painkillers, and deny her veterinary care, you can use that money to give a rescued turkey a long happy life where she is treated with true respect and love. You can still sponsor a turkey. If you are still wondering whether you want to end your family’s tradition of the big bird at the table, you might want to watch Farm Sanctuary‘s video below, entitled Thanksgiving’s Toll on Turkeys.

Another recipe from the last Chomp vegan dinner, which was our big Tapas Night. It is an example of a dish that is simply vegan without trying. I can’t wait to make these again.

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 lbs small red potatoes, quartered
• 1/2 cup plus 2 Tablespoons olive oil, divided
• 1 tsp coarse or kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp dried rosemary
• 1 can (about 14oz) diced tomatoes
• 2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
• 1 Tbsp minced garlic
• 1 Tbsp chili powder
• 1 Tbsp paprika
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp ground chipotle pepper
• 1/8 to 1/4 tsp ground red pepper

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425°
2. (For potatoes) combine potatoes, 2 Tbsp oil, 1 tsp salt and rosemary in large bowl; toss to coat. Spread mixture in large shallow baking pan. Roast potatoes 35 to 40 minutes or until crisp and brown, turning every 10 minutes.
3. (For sauce) combine tomatoes, 1/3 cup olive oil, vinegar, garlic, chili powder, paprika, 1/4 tsp salt, chipotle pepper an dred pepper in blender or food processor. Process just until blended. Transfer to large saucepan. Cover; cook 5 minutes over medium-high heat until slightly thickened. Let stand until cooled.
4. To serve, drizzle sauce over potatoes or serve sauce in seperate bowl for dipping.

(Makes 10-12 servings)