Oh, What a Feast! and A Few of My Favorite Things

Yesterday's Thankful Day meal was truly a feast! I made Allison Rivers Samson's Meatloaf Remixed, Mushroom and Apple Stuffing with Mushroom Gravy, Healthy Exposure's Sweet Potato, Pear, and Chickpea Tzimmes, Bryant Terry's Citrus Collards Redux (with cranberries instead of raisins), C'est La Vegan's Chocolate Chip Date Cake, and Jennifer Raymond's never-fail Pumpkin Pie.

The most fun I had all day was whipping up the Soyatoo for the pumpkin pie!

Today is Black Friday, the day when consumerism runs at its most rampant. I prefer to celebrate Buy Nothing Day today and thought that instead, it would be a great day to share a few of my favorite things that you might like to buy on some other day. (It goes without saying that whiskers on kittens are a few of my favorite things). Any of these would make a wonderful gift for yourself or someone you love. Enjoy!

I can't begin to express how much I love my Moo minicards! They're half the size of standard business cards and are a creative, fun way to introduce yourself! They're completely customizable, and you have the option of selecting a different photo for every card. Here are just a few of my cards featuring photos from my food blog in all of their full-color glory:

Lulu's Raw Chocolate Alchemy Bars are handcrafted in small batches and made with low-glycemic coconut palm sugar and organic, fair-trade cacao beans.

I once read a blog in which someone said they thought that maca tastes like feet. Well, I don't know what feet taste like, but admittedly, I'm not a huge fan of the taste of maca. But I am impressed with all of the health benefits attributed to maca, including its ability to: increase energy, stamina, and endurance, regulate hormonal imbalances, enhance memory, and act as an anticarcinogen and antioxident. So when I heard that Lulu's Chocolate Bars contain maca, I thought this might be a delicious way to get some maca into my diet and indulge my chocolate obsession at the same time. My favorite flavor is the Coconut Cin Bar, which ... well ... doesn't contain any maca. It's an infusion of cinnamon, dark chocolate, coconut, and the sensuously smoky flavor of my new favorite superfood: mesquite! I also love the Aztec Crunch Bar, and Chocolate Maca Chunk, which does contain maca.  The Maca Green Bar and Chocolate Maca Chunk are also very tasty ways to get your daily boost of maca.

Anyone who has ever met Robert Cheeke can't help but be wowed by his energy, enthusiasm, effervescent personality, and yes, his stunning physique. He's a walking bundle of compassion in action, who lays to rest the myth that award-winning muscles of steel can only be built upon a diet that contains animal protein. In his book, Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness, Robert shares an inspiring road map to help you go from flab to fab no matter what your starting point, and from unhealthy omnivore to totally ripped, lean, mean, and vibrantly healthy vegan, if that's your goal. Robert's motivational style of writing got me pumped up enough to get my butt back into the gym. And if this book can do that for me, it will make the perfect gift for anyone who needs a little fire lit under their tush to help get them off the couch or away from the computer and back into action.

You've heard of Latisse? It's touted as "the first and only FDA-approved prescription treatment for 'inadequate or not enough' lashes." Nothing could horrify me more than the idea that a healthy woman would use a glaucoma drug to grow longer, darker, or fuller lashes. What I find most astonishing, is that when you look at the before and after photos on Allergan's website, there is nothing wrong with model's lashes in the before photos! Now, what woman wouldn't love to have longer, fuller, darker lashes? I know I would. But would you really want to use a drug that can permanently change the color of your from blue or green to brown? And is it really worth the the risk of any of a number of other "side" effects like eye redness and irritation, uveitis, macular edema, cataract, reduced intraocular pressure, and vision problems, just for longer, more luscious lashes?

There are many non-prescription products on the market that will do the same thing, without such harmful side effects and for significantly less than the $120/month Latisse will set you back. One such product, GrandeLASH-MD recently came to my attention. I wanted to be sure that this was a cruelty-free product, so I wrote to the company's owner, Alicia Grande. She promptly replied, "GrandeLASH-MD has not been tested on animals. It was tested on 55 humans through a plastic surgeon and opthamologist. There are no animal-based ingredients, and it's paraben-free." Made with peptides, vitamins, and botanicals (see the full list of ingredients here), the company claims that you will see results in as little as 4-6 weeks. Of course, I was skeptical. While I would love longer, darker, fuller, lashes, I felt that my wimpy eyebrows needed more immediate help, so I decided to try GrandeLASH-MD on my eyebrows first.

Seeing is believing! The before and after photos were taken 60 days apart. And although I have no idea how it works, I am astounded by the results.

Lunchsense lunchboxes intrigued me for quite a long time before I finally got my hands on one. I'd seen them at trade shows and thought they were the ultimate in lunchbox organization.

The lunchbox is lead free, and all the nifty little storage containers it comes with are lockable, microwave, freezer, and dishwasher safe, 100% airtight and watertight, stain resistant, and BPA free.  It comes in three sizes, and I chose the medium sized one for myself, but wish I would have gotten the large size since Mark is the one who packs a lunch everyday. Still, I packed up Thanksgiving leftovers for him to take to work today, and it all fit! Get yourself one of these babies, and it's guaranteed to be the last lunchbox you'll ever buy!

Here's one of those it's got-nothing-to-do-with-the-holidays-but-it's-a-delicious-discovery-nonetheless ideas. I've never been a huge fan of deep-fried foods, but since becoming a McDougall girl, one of the foods I've sorely missed is onion rings. Then I came across a post for Isa's OMG Oven-Baked Onion Rings (that woman is a vegan culinary genius!), and I couldn't resist trying them. They are better than any fried onion rings I've ever eaten in my life! They've got so much flavor and none of the greasiness!

A Festive Holiday Treat! Rosewater-Glazed Lemony Cranberry Cookies

I love Autumn! It's the season of colorful foliage, pumpkin pie, and the time of year when Pizza Research Institute starts putting cranberry sauce on their vegan Chef's Choice pizzas! My recipe for these super-moist and chewy Rosewater-Glazed Lemony Cranberry Cookies was recently featured on my friend Millie's Nuestra Cena blog. But just in case you missed it, I'm sharing it with you here. I sometimes make these cookies with a lemon glaze, but the rosewater glaze looks so festive, I can't resist making them this way for the holidays! But the glaze is completely optional. These cookies are very rich and delicious without any glaze at all!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup Earth Balance Buttery Spread, at room temperature

1/2 cup evaporated cane crystals

1/3 cup firmly-packed organic brown sugar
1/2 tsp grated lemon zest
1 1/2 tsp Egg Replacer plus 2 Tbs water

2 tsp pure vanilla extract 

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 tps aluminum-free baking powder
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 1/2 cups chopped pecans 

1 1/2 cups chopped fresh cranberries

Rosewater Glaze (optional—see recipe below)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F and lightly grease two large cooking sheets. Whisk together Egg Replacer and water in a glass measuring cup and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl mix together on medium speed, Earth Balance, sugars, and lemon zest. Beat in Egg Replacer mixture and vanilla until combined. Set aside

In a medium mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and cinnamon. Gradually add the dry mixture to the wet mixture, then gently stir in the pecans and cranberries.

Drop by large teaspoonfuls onto the prepared cookie sheets. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until cookies are golden brown. Remove from oven, and let cool slightly before removing to cooling racks.

Prepare Rosewater Glaze while cookies are cooling. Drizzle the glaze over the top of completely cooled cookies. Makes 2 dozen cookies.

Rosewater Syrup and Glaze

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups evaporated cane crystals
1 cup of Organic Red Roses (I buy them from Mountain Rose Herbs)
1 cup water

Directions:

Place all ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to a gentle boil, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to low, and simmer for 45 minutes, until syrup has thickened. Remove from heat, and when cooled, strain through a fine-mesh sieve. Pour syrup into a squeeze bottle, and place candied rose petals into a container with a tight-fitting lid. Refrigerate syrup and candied rose petals for up to two weeks. Candied rose petals can be enjoyed as a sweet treat just like candy, and the syrup is divine on crackers or toasted English muffins, over Purely Decadent Vanilla Bean coconut milk ice cream, and as a glaze for cakes and cookies!

Happy World Vegan Day!Living Vegan on the Cheap

If not for the heavy taxpayer subsidies to the meat and dairy industries, the prices consumers would pay for them would be so high, as to be out of reach for most Americans. The impact of meat consumption on the average family's food bill today is less than half of what it was in 1970. But the cost of consuming animals can't be calculated in one's food bill. The impact of intensive factory farming and its end result, cheaply produced animal products, is doing more damage than ever to human health and the environment, not to mention the animals themselves.

Still, I get sticker shock each time I fill up my grocery cart. Organic produce is still significantly more expensive than conventional pesticide-laced options, and I'm hard pressed to find a decent whole-grain bread for much less than five dollars a loaf. Buying from bulk bins rather than cans, boxes, and plastic packages and making everything from scratch are certainly money savers, but who has time to soak dried beans or make her own bread every day? I certainly don't. And even though I've all but eliminated every last vestige of fake meat from my diet, tofu still costs 50% more than it did just two years ago, and let's not even begin to talk about the cost of Daiya vegan cheese. I've calculated that the average meal costs me between four and five dollars per serving, which is one reason why lately, I've slipped back into depending on takeout several times per week. By the time you calculate in the time and energy used for meal preparation, a tasty vegan meal from one of favorite food carts really doesn't cost that much more. But I've joyfully discovered that there is a way to create deliciously satisfying vegan meals on the cheap and do so without spending hours in the kitchen. Enter my new favorite book—Robin Robertson's Vegan on the Cheap.

Robin Robertson is one of my favorite vegan chefs. She has eighteen cookbooks under her belt, including the ground-breaking Vegan Planet, which holds a treasured spot in my extensive cookbook collection, showing many pages that are well-worn and stained. Her latest book, Vegan on the Cheap: Great Recipes and Simple Strategies that Save You Time and Money features 150 enticing recipes that cost between 50¢ and $2.00 per serving. Now that's a money-saving idea I can really wrap my lips around!

Vegan on the Cheap contains a cost comparison chart, meal-planning tips, menu ideas, and other smart-shopping tips. Searching through the recipe index, I found many familiar favorites like Lasagna and Coconut Curry Rice, and a few surprising dishes with intriguing names like Skordalia, a creamy Greek garlic sauce, Pot au Feu, a French mélange of root vegetables, and Bobotee, a South African curry-seasoned casserole. The apples, raisins, and almonds in Robin's Tempeh Bobotee tempted my taste buds enough to dig head-on into this recipe first. The casserole looked great out of the oven,

and even better on my plate!

Pronounced with the emphasis on the second syllable, bobotee (or bobotie) is traditionally made with ground meat and an egg-custard topping. There's a surprise in every bite, which has nothing at all to do with animal-based ingredients, but instead comes from the apples, raisins, and almonds. It's a bit like eating your favorite stuffing, but heartier, because of its protein-rich tempeh base. Making Robin's bobotee inspired me to create my own curry blend, since I wanted a mild curry, and the only curry powder I had on hand was rather hot. And I impressed myself with Robin's recipe for Cheepskate Chutney. Pineapple, assorted dried fruits, ginger, brown sugar, and just a tiny bit of red pepper blended beautifully together.  It was so gorgeous that it almost made up for my sloppily plated casserole, and it was quite possibly the best chutney I've ever eaten!

The next recipe I tried confirmed that there is no sacrificing taste for economy. I first came across photos of this dish on Keri's I Eat Trees blog. (Go there if you want to see stunning photos of this dish and several others from Vegan on the Cheap.) Take a look at the Deconstructed Enchilada Bake:

Doesn't it look a little like a Jackson Pollock painting? Made with mashed pinto and black beans, it was deliciously wholesome and hearty and a snap to put together! (There was no need to fill and roll enchiladas or make a complex enchilada sauce.) I just love finding tasty new money- and time-saving ways to enjoy beans, don't you? Beans have never sounded very appetizing to me, but put them together creatively with a few well-chosen ingredients, and they open a whole new world of culinary magic. The Cheezee Sauce topping made the dish taste rich and creamy while going easy on the fat and calories.

With recipes for Walnut Crusted Tofu with Spinach and Orange, Indian Spiced Lentil Ragu, Pumpkin Spice Cake with Chocolate Glaze, and Chocolate Chip-Walnut Rice Pudding, I can't wait to sink my teeth into all of the recipes in this wonderful book. And I'll be buying several more copies to give away as Christmas and Chanukah gifts.

Following are the recipes for the Deconstructed Enchilada Bake and Cheezee Sauce from Vegan on the Cheap excerpted with permission from  John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Copyright © 2010 by Robin Robertson. Happy World Vegan Day! Enjoy! And don't forget to check out my holiday recipe for Rosewater Glazed Lemony Cranberry Cookies on Nuestra Cena this Friday!

Deconstructed Enchilada Bake

Ingredients:

1 Tbs olive oil (I made this McDougall friendly, and substituted 1/4 cup vegetable broth)
1/4 cup minced onion
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1 1/2 cups cooked or 1 15.5-oz can pinto beans, drained, rinsed, and mashed
2 Tbs water
1/4 tsp salt
Black pepper
1 1/2 cups cooked or 1 15.5-oz can black beans, drained rinsed, and mashed
1 24-oz. jar tomato salsa
8 7-inch flour tortillas
1/2 cup Cheezee Sauce

Directions:

Heat the oil (or broth) in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion, cover and cook until softened, about 4 minutes. Add the garlic, chili powder, and cumin and cook, stirring, for 30 seconds. Add the pinto beans, water, salt, and pepper to taste. Cook, stirring frequently, until the flavors have blended and the mixture is well combined, about 5 minutes. Add the black beans and 1 cup of the salsa. Mix until combined. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly oil a 9x13-inch baking pan. Spread a thin layer of the remaining salsa on the bottom of the prepared pan. Arrange half of the tortillas on top of the salsa, overlapping as necessary.

Spread the bean and salsa mixture over the tortillas in the baking pan, then top with the remaining tortillas.Spread the remaining salsa on top of the tortillas and drizzle with the Cheezee Sauce. Cover with foil and bake until hot and bubbly, about 30 minutes. Removed from oven and let sit for about 10 minutes before serving. Serve hot.

Cheezee Sauce

Ingredients:

2/3 cup nutritional yeast
3 Tbs cornstarch
1 1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp garlic powder
2 cups plain unsweetened soy milk
1 Tbs olive oil
2 tsp fresh lemon juice
2 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp yellow mustard

Directions:

In a medium saucepan, combine the yeast, cornstarch, salt and garlic powder. Turn the heat on medium and whisk in the soy milk. Cook, stirring until the sauce thickens, about 1 minute. (I cooked it for 3 minutes.)

Remove from the heat and stir in the oil, lemon juice, vinegar and mustard. The sauce is now ready to use. If not using right away, refrigerate the sauce in a container with a tight-fitting lid, where it will keep for several days.

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.