Why Didn't I Think of That? Pumpkin Pie Coconut Chai!

As soon as there's a chill in the air, I start yearning for hot herbal tea. My favorite blends include lavender-lemon and holy basil-spearmint before bedtime. The holy basil helps me sleep blissfully through the night, despite a snoring husband and perimenopause.

I also adore chai tea, and Mountain Rose Herbs makes an incredible red roiboos herbal chai called Firefly Chai. When I read a post this evening on the So Delicious Facebook fan page that mentioned Pumpkin Chai Tea, it sounded so delicious, I just had to try making my own recipe. It was so yummy, I finished the cup before I finished typing these first two paragraphs!



Ingredients:

1/4 cup pumpkin purée
2 Tbs So Delicious Coconut Milk Creamer (I used French Vanilla)
1 cup brewed chai tea
1 tsp sweetener of choice (optional—but I used agave)
dash of nutmeg

Directions:

While brewing your tea, mix the pumpkin and creamer in a small cup and heat in a microwave for 2 minutes. Pour the tea mixture into the pumpkin (or visa versa), add sweetener, stir, sprinkle with nutmeg, and enjoy!

P.S. I'm excited that my friend, Millie, has invited me to be a guest on her blog with my favorite holiday cookie recipe! Watch for my Rosewater-Glazed Lemony Cranberry Cookies on Nuestra Cena next Friday!

How Now, Dr. Cow?

Let the wine and cheese party begin! I've been talking about how good Dr. Cow Tree Nut Cheeses sound for quite a long while, so it was about time I tried them for myself. I'm not kidding when I say "holy cow!" The innovative folks at Dr. Cow have made the art of making vegan cheese even more flavory and savory. With textures, mouthfeel, and flavors that are remarkably reminiscent of aged dairy cheeses, Dr. Cow Tree Nut Cheeses are sure to make the phrase, "how will I live without cheese?" obsolete.

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As soon as I got my package home, I couldn't wait to rip open the little compostable corn container of Cashew Cream Cheese. Its pearly-white loveliness beckoned to me from under the peekaboo lid. Dr. Cow's Cashew Cream Cheese just seemed to be crying out for me to try it with Dr. Kracker crackers. What a perfect pairing—it was love at first bite! ♥♥♥ Smooth, creamy, rich, and delicious. Everything a girl could ever want from a cream cheese. And yes, I do think it would be very geshmak (that's "tasty" in Yiddish) on a cinnamon-raisin bagel!


Dr. Cow's Cashew and Blue Green Cheese is strikingly colorful in its mold-colored rind and has many other characteristics of dairy bleu cheese, like its sharp and somewhat salty taste. But happily, it doesn't share dairy bleu cheese's distinctive smell. It would be delicious with pears, raisins, and walnuts. And I cannot wait to crumble some into my next salad!


The caramel-colored Aged Macadamia Nut Cheese is very soft and spreadable. With just the faintest hint of herbs des Provence, it reminded me of a cross between Reblochon and Morbier or even German Quark. (Yes, before I knew better, I very much used to enjoy my cheeses!)


Dr. Cow's Aged Cashew & Brazil Nut Cheese surprised me with its delightfully smoky flavor, and the blonde-colored Aged Cashew Nut Cheese was both pleasantly mellow and wonderfully sharp. But my favorite cheese of all was the Aged Cashew & Hemp Seed Cheese. Its texture was firm but creamy, and it had a decidedly sharp bite. Its creaminess was the perfect match for some crunchy apples from my happy apple tree! 


So, what's the secret? How do the brilliant folks at Dr. Cow make their 100% raw organic artisan cheeses taste so very much like cheese made from cow's milk? It's simple. (Well, it's simple to say. I'm not at all sure that it's simple to do). They use the same process that is used to make traditional dairy-based cheese: They prepare a nut curd using some of their own home-made acidophilus (friendly bacteria) and a little royal pink Himalayan salt. And it's even more wonderful that they do it without adding any preservatives, stabilizers, artificial ingredients, or additives of any kind. While these cheeses are made with whole-food ingredients, they're not low in fat—after all, they're made from nuts. Now you may be thinking, "What's a McDougall girl like Gail doing eating this stuff?" Well, Dr. Cow Tree Nut Cheeses come in dainty packages, which makes it easy to enjoy them as delectable little indulgences. Like coconut milk ice cream, cashew whipped cream, and so many other decadent treats, they're a wonderful way to occasionally add some lovely flavor, texture, and excitement to your meals.

Hopefully by now you're asking yourself where can you buy all of this deliciousness. Check out Dr. Cow's store locator to see if there's a store near you that carries them. If not, you can order them online directly from Dr. Cow or from Vegan Essentials or Pangea. You can even order them online in Canada from upayanaturals.

Now you can tell all of your friends who say they can't give up dairy because they can't imagine living without cheese that there are some really great new alternatives. Challenge them to kick the dairy habit for a month. After thirty days, ask them how they feel. (You know they're going to say they've never felt better.) Then invite them to slowly start trying some of the cheese alternatives out there. (Some guidance here would be a good idea. After only thirty days, you may not want to start screaming about the cheese-like joys of adding nooch to everthing.) You might even buy your friend a little "congratulations gift" of Dr. Cow Tree Nut Cheese to help celebrate their dairy-free month and encourage them to keep on going! Here's my list of favorite vegan cheeses in no order of preference, because each one brings something uniquely delicious to the table:

Dr. Cow Tree Nut Cheeses
Ste Martaen Cheeses
Nacho Mom's Ultimate Vegan Queso
Sunergia Foods Soy Bleu and Soy Feta Cheeses 
2014 Update: Sunergia Foods Soy Bleu and Soy Feta are now from VegCuisine
Daiya Deliciously Dairy-free Mozzarella and Cheddar Cheeses
Vegan Gourmet Cheese and Cream Cheese Alternatives
Wayfare Foods We Can't Say It's Cheese Hickory-Smoked Cheddar-Style Spread

What's your favorite?

I Was Looking for a Good Bar and Found Great Stuff, Instead!

Did you know that there are four types of snack bars? (I didn't.) Are they really all that different, or are these various appellations just marketing tools?

• Energy bars (aka "power" or "sports" bars), were created for marathoners to give them a portable, energy-boosting snack.

• Protein bars are basically just energy bars, but with added protein.

• Diet bars were designed as a meal replacement or snack for people who are dieting. Their calorie and nutritional content varies, depending on the type of weight-loss plan they're intended for.

• Meal replacement bars are intended to fulfill the nutritional value of a low-calorie, but still often high-fat, meal.

To me, they're all just "snack bars," something to you can reach for quickly, and a convenient way to obtain some calories or quiet a growling tummy when traveling, at work, or anytime real food is not available. This means I generally only eat them when hiking or on an airline flight. For my husband, who cannot seem to eat enough food to get the calories he needs, they're a quick, easy way to get some more calories into him in between meals. So he really depends on them much more than I do, and I'm always on the prowl for the next tasty vegan snack bar. Mark will eat one just about everyday, and he likes to eat one specific kind of bar at a time. After a few months he will grow tired of them, and I am off in search of his next replacement bar.

We've been through quite a few of them. Not in any particular order, we've consumed:

Raw Revolution Bars
Pure Bars
Lara Bars
Pro Bars
Luna Bars
Vega Bars
Oskri
Prana Bars
Ruth's HempPower Bars
Macro Greens
Smart Monkey Bars
Optimum Bars
Just Great Stuff

The very cake-like Optimum Bars are my person favorite, as they seem more like dessert than a snack bar. But as I said, I don't eat them very often. Most recently, Mark has transitioned from Raw Revolution Bars to Just Great Stuff Bars, and my taste buds very much approve of his newest choice!

I love the raw goodness of Lara Bars and Pure Bars, but Just Great Stuff Bars seem to raise the flavor level up a few notches. Betty Lou's, Inc. makes Just Great stuff Bars, and I've found them at stores in three varieties: Organic Fruit & Veggie, Organic Superberry Açai, and Organic Cacao Açai.


See how fruity, nutty, and chewy-looking the Strawberry Açai bar is:


And now I see that they make a fourth flavor, Organic Chocolate Dream Greens, made with dark chocolate, dates, raisins, bananas, cashews, carrot, spinach, kale, and broccoli sprouts. That sounds like a pretty powerful nutritional punch, for a little 180-calorie snack bar! Since I haven't yet seen these in stores, I'll likely be ordering them online!

Not everything Betty Lou's makes is vegan, but they do have some other wonderful vegan snacks, many of which are great for kids, like their Organic Hippy Happy Apple Harmony Bars, (don't you love that name?), and their Gluten-free Strawberry Fruit Bars, which are low in fat and taste like delicious oversized strawberry Fig Newtons.


I also really like their North Shore Smackers—dark chocolate and almond butter patties wrapped around oats, crispy rice, and spirulina, and sweetened with agave and rice syrup taste more like dessert than a snack!


You can order their entire vegan lineup right here.


I was looking for a good bar, but I found Just Great Stuff and a whole lot more! Have you tried Just Great Stuff Bars yet? What's your favorite snack bar?

Nacho Mom's Ultimate Vegan Queso

Fat Goblin makes Nacho Mom's Ultimate Vegan Queso. That's a simple enough way to start a post. But their website puts it another way. It boasts that Fat Goblin is the "Manufacturer of Mind-Blowing Vegan Queso That's Fat on Flavor But Wickedly Healthy." That's not only more colorful, it's also accurate. To back up the latter part of that proclamation, their home page includes a lengthy list of all of the things that Nacho Mom's Vegan Queso doesn't contain, like dairy or other animal ingredients, cholesterol, soy, nuts, sugar, or fat.

Wait a minute—queso without fat? Fat-free queso? Queso sin grasa? Isn't that an oxymoron? This stuff can't possibly taste good. I was a bit dubious about the "fat on flavor" part of their statement.


So what is in it that makes it taste like queso? Well, of course, the ingredient that gives it its "cheesy" flavor is nutritional yeast. It also contains tomatoes, green chiles, flour, paprika, salt, garlic powder, and other (unnamed) spices. I fully expected Nacho Mom's Vegan Queso to taste like little more than glorified nutritional yeast. But when I dipped my spoon in and took a small taste, my tongue and I were both surprised to discover that it tasted a lot like ... queso! The texture is smooth and creamy. And it's also a bit picante (at least for my palate), so I mixed it together with some milder Trader Joe's Smoky Peach Salsa and made a delicious dip for tortilla chips. I ate a whole bowlful along with a big green salad for lunch that day. I was sold on the flavor part!


The number of ways that Nacho Mom's Vegan Queso can be enjoyed is almost endless. The list includes such yummy ideas as using it to make a Southwestern style mac 'n cheese, grilled cheese, and guiltless cheese fries. (I can't wait to try the latter with baked sweet potato "fries.") Last night I decided to try Nacho Mom's with my Black Bean, Corn, and Rice Burritos, which I thought tasted pretty amazing already.


Wow! Nacho Mom's Vegan Queso took this meal to a whole new level of yumminess. It sure seemed like I was eating something "bad," because it tasted so good!

Thank you, Chef Alana, for creating a creamy, melty cheese that tastes so decadent, but is fat-free and McDougall-friendly. I love Nacho Mom's Vegan Queso so much, I'm actually considering getting this tattooed on my belly:

OK, maybe not. But Nacho Mom's Vegan Queso is so good, its flavor is forever tattooed on my tongue. Discover for yourself all the tasty ways to enjoy Nacho Mom's Vegan Queso. It's starting to pop up on natural food store shelves everywhere, but you don't have to wait to find it at a store near you. You can order a jar at any of these online vegan stores right now: Cosmo's Vegan Shoppe, Vegan Essentials, Food Fight Grocery, and Pangea.

I See Veg People!

I had an amazing time at the Portland Vegfest last weekend! And I can't believe that it took me almost a whole week to write about it. It was so wonderful to see so many of my vegan friends from near and far there! I hadn't seen my dear friend, Dr. Michael Klaper in many years, and it was a joyful reunion!


And after five years of online camaraderie, finally meeting my virtual buddy, Kyle Vincent was also a special treat! He's such a sweet, compassionate, and funny guy!


Vegan bodybuilder, Robert Cheeke, is living proof that you don't need to eat meat, eggs, or dairy to have a strikingly beautiful muscular body. Wehn I first me Robert five years ago, he was living here in the Willamette Valley. Now he's down in Los Angeles living in vegan heaven. I didn't tell him, but I am insanely envious! He thoughtfully signed a copy of his new book, Vegan Bodybuilding and Fitness for me, and I am really looking forward to reading it!


My very favorite acquisition from VegFest was this nifty button, a cute homage to the movie, The Sixth Sense, and a very thoughtful gift from my Naughty Vegan friend, Jeff Rogers. 


Wearing it in a room filled with vegans was lots of fun, but wearing it out in the real world gives it a whole other meaning. I like to think of it as an exercise in creative manifestation.

Saturday night, my friend, Ken Viscidi, and I went to Blossoming Lotus and had ourselves an amazing dinner! We started with  two sensational appetizers: Live Nachos and a Creamy Pesto and White Bean Dip. They were beyond scrumptious!


Ken and I both had big eyes and growly tummies for the many plates of Four Cheese Lasagna that were carried past us, while we waited more than 45 minutes for our table. (It was worth the wait!) But by the time we were seated, they were all out of lasagna, so we had to quickly make two other choices.  Ken opted for Black Bean Chili Quesadillas, but I hungered for something a little different and ordered the Crispy Thai BBQ Salad. I'm a sucker for anything with the initials "BBQ" in the name, and mixed greens, crispy rice sticks, curried cashews, and Thai spiced barbecue soy curls topped with a creamy ginger dressing and toasted coconut sounded irresistible.


After my very first forkful, I declared it the best salad I have ever eaten!
With so many tasty-looking dessert choices, it was difficult to choose just one. But I was already quite full, so I asked Ken to choose and said that I would take a bite of whatever he ordered. He brilliantly chose the Blood Orange Live Cheesecake. Now I would have played it safe and selected the Key Lime Cheesecake. But not Ken, God bless him! He went for broke.


Ken and I both took a bite and just gave each other a wide-eyed look. We couldn't believe how powerful the orange flavor was, and I had to ask our waitress if they used some kind of orange extract or oil to give it that amazing flavor. She told us that there was nothing orange in the cake, other than the blood oranges. If you can imagine what the brilliant red color of that cake might taste like, that's exactly what it tasted like—an explosion of blood orange! Needless to say, I couldn't stop at just "a bite," and Ken thoughtfully allowed me to eat half of his cake. I can't wait to go back to Blossoming Lotus again!

I didn't forget that in my last post I promised to share the recipe for Carrot Apple Muffins I came across on allrecipes.com. We still have lots of apples on our little tree, and so we're still enjoying our happy little harvest! So here's the recipe. These are really quite lovely for breakfast.


Ingredients

• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups finely grated carrots
• 2 large apples - peeled, cored and shredded
• 6 teaspoons egg replacer (dry)
• 1 1/4 cups applesauce
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil or 1 banana, mashed
• 1/3 cup raisins (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease muffin cups or line with paper muffin liners.
2. In a large bowl combine brown sugar, white sugar, flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Stir in carrot and apple; mix well.
3. In a small bowl whisk together egg substitute, applesauce and oil. Stir into dry ingredients.
4. Spoon batter into prepared pans.
5. Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes. Let muffins cool in pan for 5 minutes before removing from pans to cool completely.

Happy Apples!

I planted a little apple tree a year ago, and what a mighty harvest it has blessed us with in its very first year! The tree was no more than a 5-foot-high tender shoot when we planted it, and now it has branches thrusting a foot and more higher. While we've already picked well over two dozen apples so far, it still has two dozen brightly-colored globes hanging from its slender branches. It's such a happy little tree!


I have no idea what variety these apples are. They look like small Gala or Braeburns, but as I recall the gentleman at the farmer's market who sold me the tree (for a whopping ten bucks!) said that it was some kind of apple/pear hybrid. But they taste wonderful! They're crispy, not too tart, and not too sweet.

After eating a few, I wondered what I might bake with them. Hmm ... apple pie just seemed too ordinary, and apple cobbler just didn't get me all worked up into a baking frenzy. But apple cake—now there's an idea! So I scoured the web for some recipes and found a vegan apple cake recipe on Madhuram's Eggless Cooking blog. The photos were mouthwatering. She even made apple cake truffles by rolling pieces of the cake into little balls and then dipping them in melted chocolate! So with a few tweaks, (I reduced the fat by replacing half the Earth Balance with apple sauce), and used So Delicious Original Coconut Milk Beverage in place of the soy milk. (It adds such a nice "crumbiness" to all of my baked goods!) While it meant that my cake didn't brown quite as much as hers, it still came out deliciously moist and fluffy. And since I diced the apples, instead of grating them as she did, the texture had delightful bits of crunchiness, too.


While super delicious all on its own, I wanted to dress my after-dinner cake up a bit and couldn't decide between Purely Decadent Vanilla Bean Coconut Milk Ice Cream and Healthy Top Whipped Topping. Healthy Top is my new favorite indulgence! It's about the same price as my beloved Soyatoo (about $4.59/box), but it seems to make a lot more. The company that makes MimicCreme also makes Healthy Top. So far, I haven't been able to wrap my brain around MimicCreme. I've tried cooking and baking with it, but with less than amazing results. Healthy Top, on the other hand is incredibly dreamy-creamy! This soy-free whipped cream is made from coconut oil, almonds, and cashews. That's a whole lotta fat and a whole lotta yum! I really have to restrain myself from eating it straight from the carton. It's absolutely incredible with fresh strawberries. The only problem I have with Healthy Top is its name. It's much too decadent to be called "healthy." They really should have called it Tasty Top, Creamy Top, Dreamy Top, or even Crazy Delicious Top. Anything but Healthy Top!


After all that talk about Healthy Top, it may surprise you to know that I went for the Purely Decadent last night. (Actually, I'd already had my Healthy Top fix earlier in the day.) Just look at how moist and fruity this cake is!


What else will I do with all these apples? I just found a recipe for Carrot-Apple Muffins. Stay tuned ...

Snappy Apple Cake

Ingredients:

2 Tbs Earth Balance, softened
3/4 cup evaporated cane crystals
1 1/2 tsp Ener-G Egg Replacer
2 Tbs water
2 Tbs So Delicious Coconut Milk Beverage (I used Original, but Vanilla or Unsweetened would work, too)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
3 cups baking apples, diced (you can also grate them, if you don't want little chunks)
1/4 chopped walnuts

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F and grease an 8-inch square baking pan.

In a large mixing bowl, cream Earth Balance and sugar until light and fluffy. In a tall glass, whisk together Egg Replacer, water, coconut milk, and vanilla until foamy. Add the Egg Replacer mixture to the creamed Earth Balance and sugar and beat together with a hand mixer until thoroughly combined. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and beat together. Batter will be thick. Using a large spoon, stir in apples and walnuts.

Spread the batter into the prepared baking pan and bake for 35-40 minutes until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean and cake begins to pull slightly from the edges of the pan. Can be served warm with ice cream or whipped topping, or at room temperature on its own.

Tofu to Gail: "Press Me at Your Own Risk!" ... No More!

Just last week I was saying how a TofuXpress was at the top of my wish list. And look what arrived in the mail yesterday!


When I first heard about the TofuXpress from my friend, Bryanna, I didn't think I really needed one. After all, anyone can build a "tofu tower" out of heavy items they have lying around the house. So this is how I used to press my tofu:


No less than five minutes after I completed my last tofu tower, it all came crashing down. I ran into the kitchen to find a floor full of broken shards of glass, porcelain, and grains of rice scattered everywhere. I admit that I went a bit overboard with this one, but to be honest, it wasn't the first time this had happened. I realized then that I really needed a TofuXpress. So I stopped being foolish, and I got one.

Now I can make The Great Untuna Salad


and Scrambled Tofu (recipe below)


without turning my kitchen into a hazard zone. So, that's just what I did today. I used my new handy-dandy TofuXpress and made a tofu scramble for dinner. I loved not making my hands red and chilled from crumbling tofu that still had the last vestiges of cold water in it. And it crumbled so easily! In only an hour, the TofuXpress removed more water from my block of tofu than any tofu tower ever could. See how bone-dry this block of tofu looks:


It's hard to tell from the photo, but this block of tofu compressed to about two thirds it's original size. I can't even imagine how much more water would have been pressed out had I left it in the press overnight.

My TofuXpress came with everything you see here:


including a marinating lid, instruction booklet and recipe guides, and a light tension spring attachment for silken tofu and for making vegan cheese and yogurt. (Apparently, this is an optional item, but one I thought would come in very handy.) The TofuXpress also comes with a 1-year limited warranty, although with its sturdy construction, it seems rather indestructible to me.

While reading the instruction guide, I discovered that the TofuXpress can also be used to squeeze the water out of defrosted frozen spinach. That was super exciting news to me, because my hands get nearly frostbitten whenever I try to squeeze all the water from frozen spinach when making Pizza Bombay from Vegan Planet.

I often write about how much I enjoy eating breakfast for dinner. My recipe for Garden Tofu Scramble served with Smoky Tempeh Strips and Roasted Potatoes is one of my favorite go-to breakfast-for-dinner meals. And now that I have my very own TofuXpress, I'll probably be making it even more often.


I used to think that $39.95 was a steep price tag to pay for this nifty gadget. But much like my Cuisinart immersion blender, it's one of those kitchen tools I didn't think I needed until I got one. Now I am kicking myself in the butt for not having purchased a TofuXpress years ago. It makes life a little easier (and in my case, a lot safer) and my tofu doesn't mock me anymore. If you want your very own TofuXpress, head on over to their website and grab one for yourself.

I think there are as many recipes for scrambled tofu as there are snowflakes. And I really do want to try Julie Hasson's Yummy Tofu Scramble, because Bryanna has been telling me how wonderful it is! Everyone has their favorite spice blend, and most people like to add nutritional yeast. Following is my favorite recipe for Garden Tofu Scramble. I actually prefer it without the nutritional yeast. But you can of course, add up to 1/4 cup, if that suits your fancy.

Garden Tofu Scramble

Ingredients:

1 lb extra firm tofu (I use White Wave Reduced Fat Tofu drained and pressed)
2 tsp toasted sesame oil
4 green onions, chopped
3 tsp low-sodium soy sauce or wheat-free tamari
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp ground pepper
3/4 cup shredded carrots
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 small head broccoli, cut into small florets
2 cups packed spinach leaves

Directions:

Using your hands, crumble tofu into a bowl and set aside. Heat oil in a large non-stick skillet over medium heat. Sauté green onions 3 minutes until slightly softened, then mix in tofu and sauté for 2 minutes more. Add soy sauce, stir well, and cook for 2 minutes more. Add spices, and mix together well.

Mix in the shredded carrots and red bell pepper. Sauté for 3 minutes. Then add the broccoli florets and about a cup of spinach. Stir well, then add remaining spinach. Stir, and cover skillet. Continue cooking until spinach is completely wilted, about 5 minutes more. Makes 4 large servings.

Reubenesque

I titled this post "Reubenesque," because Allison's recipe for Grilled Tempeh Reuben Sandwiches makes one voluptuously sexy sandwich. When I saw the mouth-watering photos on her blog post, they just bowled me over. Now, I've never been a big fan of the Reuben sandwich, as corned beef was never high on my list of favorite foods, nor was the idea of eating any meat with Swiss cheese. And the tempeh versions of this classic sandwich that I'd tasted in the past had all been rather uninspired. But I'm a sucker for grilled onions and Thousand Island Dressing, and I was definitely in the mood for something completely different, so I thought I'd give Allison's recipe a shot.

I have to agree with Allison. This is far and away, one of the best sandwiches I've ever eaten! The secret I think, is in browning the tempeh with the spices and grilled onions and also substituting mashed avocado for the Swiss cheese. And it didn't hurt that my Thousand Island dressing turned out to be the best I've ever tasted. I used my own homemade vegan mayo instead of Vegenaise, and sweet pickle relish in place of the dill pickles. But any way you make this, it's going to have to be great. Try it, and see if you don't agree that it's one helluva tasty sandwich!

Bryanna's 5-Minute Miracle Chocolate Mug Cake

Sometimes I just really want a nice, gooey dessert. And sometimes, I just gotta have chocolate. Usually this urge strikes right after dinner, leaving me unsatisfied and wishing that I'd baked something earlier in the day day. So when I found the recipe for Bryanna's 5-Minute Chocolate Mug Cake on Vegsource, I couldn't wait to try it. Since it is so fabulously quick and easy to make and yes, yummalicious, it can be whipped up anytime the urge strikes in the future! I also couldn't wait to share it with my readers.

All you need are a handful of simple ingredients, a couple of coffee mugs (or ramekins), and a microwave oven. Over the years, I had drastically reduced the use of my microwave oven and had even considered getting rid of it, because of articles I'd read about the hazards associated with its use. But in Bryanna's vegsource post, she thoughtfully provided a link about microwave cooking, safety, and nutrition. I learned a few things I wasn't aware of. For example, I didn't know that doctors Neal Barnard and John McDougall both use microwave ovens in their cooking. If they don't fear the microwave, why should I? And another tasty tidbit: Did you know that a microwave saves 80% of the energy that would have been used in a regular oven?

After assembling the ingredients on my counter top, it took me less than four minutes to measure them out and mix them together, and another minute and ten seconds to heat them. Oh yeah, these babies came out nice and chocolatey!

Mark ate his naked, (the cake was naked, not Mark!), but I couldn't resist eating mine with a scoop of So Delicious Green Tea coconut milk ice cream! Ordinarily, I would have grabbed a container of vanilla, but since I was out of it, I discovered that green tea, coconut, and chocolate are a heavenly combination. Such a deeply rich and satisfying dessert as this, which can be put together in no time at all, truly is a miracle!

Taming the Heat

Do you love kitchen gadgets? I certainly do! Get me near a Sur La Table or Williams-Sonoma store, and I can do some seriously damage to my bank account. I don't know how I ever lived without my Microplane grater or my apple corer. Anything that will make meal prep quicker and easier is something I must have. At the top of my wish list right now are a tofu press and an industrial French fry cutter. You hear that, Santa?

I also love spicy foods: I can never get enough Thai, Indian, or Mexican food. But I don't love super hot foods. I know there are lots of people who really like it hot—the hotter the better. But I don't enjoy setting my taste buds on fire. I always deseed and devein hot peppers like jalapeños, habañeros, and Thai chile peppers before cooking them. Carefully removing and discarding the seeds as well as the white cross walls and veins, where the capsaicin is produced, is how you can tame the heat.

How often have I cut myself cleaning out the inside of a jalapeño, and how many times have I thought how tedious it is to do this job? (Quite often, actually. A knife in my hands is a disaster waiting to happen.) So what a stroke of serendipity that I should run into Joe Norris, the owner and inventor of the PepperShark, at the Eugene Celebration this past weekend!


This snappy little stainless-steel precision tool is designed to clean, deseed, and devein peppers.  It fits neatly in the palm of my hand, and with its smooth finish and razor-sharp loop fashioned at the tip, I was ready to try it out on this little green lovely:


I ran the tip around the inside of the pepper, and removed the inner flesh and most of the seeds in one swift stroke.


As you can see, the walls still remain. But this is where the PepperShark really earns its name.


Instead of having to use a knife to scrape or cut the white walls away, I simply ran the tip of the PepperShark over the remaining veins and in seconds was left with a perfectly clean jalapeño! What a neat little timesaver!


Next, I wanted to try the PepperShark on a bell pepper. I cut off the top, and what I'd usually do at this point is cut off the bottom, pull out the center part, cut the bell into segments around the veins, and then either cut or grate the veins to remove them.


But in this case, all I had to do was pull out the core, and slide the PepperShark over the veins to be left with a perfectly clean bell.


And now that I have these beautiful peppers ready to roll, I think I'll prepare some Black Bean, Corn, and Rice Burritos for dinner tonight. Oh wait, the recipe doesn't call for red bell. That's okay, I'm going to chop this one up and throw it in anyway. It will be all the more delicious!

Here's an exclusive offer just for my readers! Order your very own PepperShark today (did I mention that they're only ten bucks?), and Joe will throw in a free PepperShark as a bonus! That's buy one, get one free, (one for you and one for a friend!) if you leave a comment on this post, and then head on over to the PepperShark website and place your order today!  You'll want to place your order, then go to the contact page and mention my name or "Hungry Vegan" blog to get your free PepperShark. What a deal!

After you've received your nifty new PepperShark and have had a chance to play with it, I would love to hear how much you love it, and I know that Joe would, too!

Ste Martaen Gourmet Cheeses are a Delightful Vegan Alternative

I first learned about Ste Martaen Gourmet Cheese Alternatives on Twitter, of all places, and I'm glad that I did. These tasty semi-soft vegan cheeses are available in Muenster, Pepper Jack, Smoked Gouda, Colby, and Olive varieties. They're a great soy-free option made with simple ingredients: purified water, agar, organic cashews, nutritional yeast, lemon juice, tahini, sea salt, and spices. Am I going to tell you that they taste just like real cheese? Of course, not. I'm not aware of any non-dairy cheese that perfectly mimics the flavors achieved from the curdled milk of cows, sheep, goats, or other mammals. (And that's a good thing in my opinion.) But just like the Feta and Bleu Cheeses made by Sunergia Foods that I love so much and Daiya's Mozzarella and Cheddar cheeses, Ste Martaen vegan cheeses offer even more versatility in the kitchen and add new palate-pleasing pleasure to everyday vegan meal-planning.


I thought that the Meunster was a beautiful thing to behold! These cheeses shred and slice wonderfully.


And the Smoked Gouda made a delicious cheeseburger. That's a gluten-free Chez Gourmet Oregon Harvest Veggi Patti, (my new favorite go-to burgers), on a Dave's Killer Bread Blues Bun and yes, I do like ketchup!


Last Saturday I treated myself to a delightfully light, picnic-style lunch, which I actually did bring outdoors to enjoy, since the weather was exquisite! All of the Ste Martaen cheeses paired beautifully with Dr. Kracker Seeded Spelt Flatbread Crackers. A handful of farmer's market-fresh strawberries, a small bunch of green grapes, and a glass of vegan Radical Red Wine from The Organic Wine Works rounded out the meal.


I decided to surprise Mark last night and made a huge plate of nachos with Trader Joe's Veggie & Flaxseed Tortilla Chips and Ste Martaen Colby and Smoked Gouda cheeses. We both enjoyed the gooey goodness of the Nacho Cheese Sauce, and you can find the recipe here.


If you're lucky enough to live in Chicago, you'll find Ste Martaen Gourmet Cheeses at Whole Foods, Bonne Sante, and True Nature Foods. Otherwise, you can order them online direct from Ste Martaen.

Tasty Update: Mention this post with your first order, and Ste Martaen will send you one free cheese!

Tasty Update #2: New vegan cheese companies are sprouting up like bean sprouts! Check out: Miyoko's Kitchen and Vtopian for vegan aritisan cheeses that are so sensational, even your dairy-consuming friends will be amazed!