Galaxy Vegan Cream Cheese

It is spring (actually it has been for a month, but I'm behind).
The flowers are blooming, our lawn is literally a jungle out of
control, and all sorts of new veg products are hitting the shelves
faster than you can say 'march hare'.

One of the newest vegan cheeses on the street is Galaxy Nutritional
Foods cream cheese, which I got the pleasure of trying out for
all of you!

Not only is there an 'original plain' flavour, but there is also a
'chive and garlic' flavour much to Monkey-man's delight.



I can't lie, I love my bagels. But I wanted to do something a little
nicer than bagels to try out something new.

So with the 'original' we made some crepes and stuffed them with
the cream cheese, diced apples, spice and drizzled it all with
agave.



The flavor is milder than it's dairy counterpart without that
gross sour aftertaste. The texture is cross between any other vegan
(or nonvegan) cream cheese out there and sour cream. It is soft and
perfect for spreading. It doesn't turn your toast to crumbs while
you're trying to spread a layer of goodness.

We got a little spicy with the Chive and Garlic and made some
jalapenos poppers for Monkey-man's Bday.



Because it was already seasoned with just enough garlic and chives,
all we had to do was fill some halved and seeded peppers, sprinkle
with paprika and bake. Oh, yeah-- And eat to our heart's content!

We still had a little bit of each left over so we had a little European
meal the other night for dinner. Monkey-man made some classic borsht...



And I made some dumplings to go in it.



To fill the dumplings I cooked 1 cup TVP in enough vegetable
broth to make it soft, then added some salt and pepper, sage,
soy sauce and a little bit of molasses. A little plop of
vegan cream cheese and some wonton wrappers later... Deliciousness!



I really dug Galaxy's new product, I liked how smooth and versatile
it was. And the chive and garlic addition? Very nice, tasty and
savory, but not overwhelming or artificial tasting. And I just saw
it stocked in my little health food store! What a coincidence!

Good on ya Galaxy!

P.S. We just back from Paso Robles, CA and I have some great wine
stories to share with you all!

ecoVegan!

One of the sponsors of the recent Compassion Over Killing Launch
Party and maker of two hit products used there, ecoVegan has stepped
out on to the scene.

I had many people inquiring about their amazing tofu product, not to
mention the Black Pepper Island Veggie Meat Gyoza that were gone
in seriously 10 minutes.

For those of you that were unable to make it out to the party or were
there and were wondering what that deliciousness was dancing around
inside your mouth-- here is a closer look at some of what ecoVegan
has to offer!

Before the actual event they sent me an awesome sample pack so I
could decide what to use in my featured dishes.

In the pack they sent Spicy Bits



They really were spicy, not that fake heat so
many products now use. Perfect for kabobs!

Vegan Shrimp

Soooo real tasting to me!

Q-slip Tofu




Black Pepper Island Patties




Though everything was great I ended up choosing to use the Q-slip
Tofu and Black Pepper Island patties.

These products (except the Spicy Bits) are currently wholesale,
though they do have a number of retail products available.
You may be able to find some of these products cooked up a your
nearest Loving Hut.

The Black Pepper Island Patties are a soy and gluten based product
and not like a burger like it may sound. They remind me more of the
patties and faux meats of yon that I grew up on before the days of
Boca. They have a realistic texture and a peppered flavor. Similar
to some ‘chic’ patties have had before, but not rubbery like I’ve
found many to be.

I grilled up the patties and shredded them. Mixed with some stir
fried veggies in a thai black bean sauce.


It all got stuffed into some potsticker wrappers and cooked.








They were such a huge hit at the party, they did not last more than 10
minutes tops once they hit the tables.

The Q-Slip Tofu got cubed, grilled, and mixed into Thai Rice Noodles
with a thick Peanut Sauce.







This tofu is pre-seasoned and not the same texture of the tofu that
immediately comes to mind. It has the smoothness and softness of
silken tofu, but is spongey too. Cooked up you have to be careful to
retain the shape, but if you let it go and just fry it-- it yields
an amazing scrambled egg texture.

In fact, it is exactly like scrambled egg. More so than any tofu scramble
I’ve ever had. They should definitely make a hard boiled egg product.
But I had tons of people asking me about this product at the party,
so I hope to see it one day on the retail market as well as the wholesale.

In sum, everything from ecoVegan was really awesome and I am
honored that I got to cook it all up for the Compassion Over Killing
Los Angeles Launch party. Look for their products on their distributor
location page!

Vegan Fettucini Alfredo

The summer I spent living with two of my best friends, our
cheap college fare was extremely bizarre and fatty. Granted
we did eat our fair share of potatoes and the vegetarian ramen,
there were three main things I learned to cook during that time
span. I learned how to make crepes from my neighbor, mochi from a
classmate and alfredo from my roomie.

I wrote before how we used to eat a crap ton of crepe...
But I have no idea why we started making alfredo. It was
originally what me started back on a path to attempting to
reincorporate mushrooms into my diet. Ultimately that was
foiled by my strange gag reflex triggered by them.
However, we used porcini mushrooms nonetheless in hopes that
someday I could stomach them.

Since those days I continued making alfredo, but very rarely or
when I was desperate to make something my mom would eat.

I learned to make it with fresh parmesan and heavy cream and
since been trying to make a vegan version with nutritional
yeast and soymilk.

*Enter 'The Urban Vegan'

I really dig this cookbook. Unlike most of the vegan books that
get churned out, it doesn't contain a lot of asian dishes or
bizarre expensive ingredients. I have a very european palate I
must admit.

So finally I shoveled out the earthbalance and made Balcavage's
Vegan Alfredo. I made a couple adjustments...

First, I added garlic. Sorry, but I don't know what alfredo without
garlic would be like... Oh yeah. Boring.

Second, I cut down on the earthbalance and upped the nutritional
yeast. Theory was to make a roux out of the oil and yeast. Well,
to make a proper roux you need equal portions of the fat and X--
typically flour.

Third, having a proper roux you don't need the kudzu root that is
called for.



Vegan Fettucini Alfredo~ Adapted

Ingredients

3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup earthbalance
1/4 cup heaping nutritional yeast
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cup soy milk
black pepper

In a medium pan over medium heat, saute garlic in melting
earthbalance. Once the garlic becomes fragrant, add the
nutritional yeast to form your roux.

Continue to cook for about for a few minutes to cook roux.
Whisk in soymilk a little at a time. Add salt and turn to
low. Allow to simmer until it thickens up.

Toss with fettucini or other desired pasta.
I made about 2/3 of a package for this much sauce and served
it with some dark leafy greens.

To add some extra protein try tossing in some vegan chic like
gardein.

Even without the mushrooms, the memories hit me and I tasted
them anyway. Amusingly enough, Monkey-man said later that if
we hadn't had it with greens he wouldn't have been able to
stomach it either because he kept 'memory-tasting' shrimp.
Go figure! So, yes. This alfredo is so authentic tasting it
will blow your mind!

Vegan Glory- Glorious on a hot day

Recently, we set a date to hit the town and do all that we could do
on foot. By town, I mean Hollywood. On foot didn't really work out.
I took the bus all the way from Pomona to Hollywood to meet Monkey-
man when he got off work, which meant I caught the bus at 8:30 and
jump off just in time to see him get off work at 11:00 am. Yes, it
took that long.

Thankfully, I had plenty of Stuff You Should Know podcasts, so I hung
out with Josh and Chuck for a while.

Like I said the original plan was just to hoof it and see what we
could see. Well, I also had to print a paper that was due the next
day and upload an assignment I had completely forgotten about before
the afternoon. So we ended up driving back and forth to find an
actual kinkos in the blazing heat.

I had packed a small lunch and we spent the rest of the afternoon
lazying at a park. (Being greatly disappointed in what we thought
the Grove was going to hold for us). Then we hit some random Holly-
wood thrift stores, where I scored a food processor for $8. (Go me!
Finally, I don't have to use the blender for hummus!)

Poor Monkey-man was exhausted after starting work at 4am and
wandering around in the heat took a huge toll by dinner time. So I
pulled him in to Vegan Glory.
Its not thai in the sense that I know, but good nonetheless. See why...

We ordered a seitan wrap and some roti with guacamole....







Very refreshing and the perfect snack we needed. I like seitan,
but sometimes like this it reminds me of mushrooms to which I have
a sensitive gag reflex. Its that soft spongy texture, but I love
mushrooms! Monkey-man loved the roti and now I get to hear how I
need to make it.

To cool us down I picked out a fruity smoothie and he got a hibiscus
cooler. So purty! Everything was good. The place is a bit out of our
usual zone, but if I find myself drying out in Hollywood again I'll
know where to go.







After cooling down and powering up we were ready to hit our
double-feature movie. New Beverly Cinema was showing a double-bill
of David Lynch's Mulholland Drive and Fire Walk With Me.
The movies were sold out and started so late, we didn't get home
until after 2am. It was a long day for poor Monkey-man, even worse
when I had to get up to go to class at 9am the next morning...
All in the life...

Easy Soup: ABCs & Vegan Candy Bars to the stars

Busy with school the past week I've needed fast, quick fix foods
for dinner. But no crap that was gonna make me crash or leave me
hungry and coked out on fats.

I think soup has got to be one of the easiest things to cook.
They can be made fast or slow, you can put whatever you want in
them, and even if its going badly they are so easy to fix or
change into something amazing.

I found some cute alphabet pasta last week so I decided to make
a tofu noodle soup. Its a pretty straight forward list of ingredients...

1/2 onion
1 clove garlic minced
1 cup cabbage
1 carrot, chopped
1 stick celery, chopped
1/2 block tofu
3-4 cups vegetable broth
1 white basil
salt and pepper to taste
3 oz of small pasta

Just saute your onions and garlic in a little bit of water
over medium heat until translucent and fragrant. I used
vegetable bouillon cubes and thin them out with water, so
whatever you choose is fine. Add the vegetables next adding
the water/broth slowly. Add your basil and let simmer until
your veg is getting tender. Add your pasta ensuring that
there is enough water or broth to be absorbed without leaving
your soup like stew. Once your pasta starts to cook, add the
tofu (extra firm) cut into cubes and continue to cook until
your pasta is al dente and tofu is warm through.

Add the salt and pepper to taste.
I had mine with a slice of toasted wheat sourdough from TJs.
(AHH, I'm so hungry right now!!!)

Over the weekend I hung out at Monkey Man's and we hit up the
whole foods in Pasadena where we picked up our second vegan
candy bar from Go Max Go Foods.
The first we had was the Jokers bar, which I guess is like a
snickers and was pretty darn tasty, but this is the one I was
really dying to try.



The Twilight bar is pure Milky Way Goodness. Its like getting
a vegan shot of heroin. Sorry, I don't know why I'm doing all
these comparisons with drugs today. But it was good.
Only difference that you can taste is a little bit of the rice
flavor from the rice milk in the chocolate. It comes across as
coconut at first, but its real subtle.

Sorry the pictures are kinda bad, they were taken in a dark car.



Perfect chocolate, smooth caramel, and oh so fluffy... stuff.
Nougat? I don't know! Its fuffy! And its GOOD!

Tal Ronnen Book Signing in Pasadena

A little over a week ago we headed up to the Pasadena Whole Foods
for a awesome little demo and book signing with Chef Tal Ronnen,
the author of Conscious Cook. It was mainly a demo to feature
the new faux mean product he helped design, Gardein.

I don't want to say his claim to fame is cooking for celebs,
but... He cooked for Oprah when she did the vegan 'cleanse'.
(I don't watch TV) He did Ellen's wedding-- Awesome!
And continues to cater for them both, as well as do other
celeb weddings and such... I wonder if he did Zooey and Ben Gibbard's
wedding... I should have asked. Shoot.

He made a 'steak' teriyaki stir fry and a 'chick' with mushroom
sauce. Here is a link to his site recipes, which hosts a similar recipe
to what he made- except without the udon and pea shoots.



Gardein was very good compared to other faux meat products
I've had. It wasn't spongy like some cheap meat subs tend to
be when they're heavy in gluten and it actually contains more
protein than animal flesh. So if you know a carnivore that
is eating meat 'only for the protein' (and I think we've all
heard this) definitely suggest Gardein!
So far I've seen it at Whole Foods and Fresh and Easy,
its pretty much brand spanking new, so you may need to ask
your local health food stores to look in to it.



It was pretty awesome and mellow. We got to ask him about
culinary schools and how he dealt with going through the
Natural Cookery and the whole meat side of the education.
Its really only a matter of time, I know, for a real vegan
cooking school to emerge... I just wish it had been around
when I had been training. Granted there are a few places,
but not real schools,
more just classes.

So we got a few tips, had some yummy food, made some connections,
and got my book signed! I know he's still doing demos in CA
and for sure one for Follow Your Heart, so look them up and
definitely try to catch him if he's in your area.





Tee hee!

Vegan Chain on the Rise: Loving Hut

On New Years Day Monkey-man and I were pretty hard pressed to
find anything to do. Through the Holidays were a little over
being super duper lazy. We missed the Rose Parade that morning
and thought there there might have been some kind of after
event (not to do with the floats), but maybe something in town.

Well, there wasn't. But we drove around anyway, which in turn
made us hungry. I whipped out Vegan Steven iphone app and
found a place that isn't even four miles from us: Loving Hut in
Alhambra.



I was surprised that anything was even open on New Years Day,
but there were already a few other people there. It looked
like a family owned franchise and according to some of their
literature, its a growing chain all over the world!



The interior was fun, I can't compare it to where else I've been,
except some Japanese bars.

I ordered an orange juice drink... All of their drinks looked
absolutely beautiful. Check out mine!







A gorgeous presentation, topped with little tiny dried flower
petals. I'm gonna trust they know whats edible or not, hee hee.













Yummy!

Not to completely spoil our dinner, we split a meal.
We ordered a veggie burger and fries. Yeah? Sounds boring,
well it wasn't. It was gear-fab. Plus I am so over Asian
food, you have no idea. I hate Chinese food so so so so so
much and for some reason whenever people try to cook vegan
food they make it Asian. Please, hand me a barf bag and
throw away the teriyaki sauce now. Everything tastes the
same. It is the most boring and uninventive way to cook
and to top it off when people cook like that, they think they
are being super experimental and unusual because its not sold
at a fast food chain.



And it wasn't like a frozen burger out of a box, on the
pan, on the bread, to your face either. The bread
was decent, the filling was good. The patty was awesome.
We went to Green Leaves in Hollywood on Halloween and had
some sort of burger-sandwich and the bun not so good,
very white 'loves-ish'. But this patty was topped with
mushrooms and cripsy!



The Frenchie Fries were pretty tasty too. Tossed with a dry
seasoning. But pretty much your basic fry.





Yup, I'm satisfied. Num num num....

What!?? Vegan Chocolate cake?!



The cake was good, classic, filling. The frosting was a
tofu cream cheese with some cute toppings. I'd hate to really
know what is in those cherries though! I loved everything we
got. I can't wait to go back and try something else!

A funny thing that we noticed while we were there, was one
of the tv stations that was on. They had two screens on either
wall and one had the rose bowl- the other had a weird foreign
station with about fifty different language subtitles scrolling.
With the check they gave us a little piece of literature
describing all the benefits of being vegan and all the
atrocities that are taking place in the environment and against
animals. I thought that was awesome. I've never had a vegan
restaurant actually give me literature before.
It makes excellent sense too, not all of your customers are
going to be entirely veg.

But come to find out the literature and the weird tv station
that we noticed were from this organization (?) called
Suprememastertv.
I don't really find it all that strange. I've since read some
blogs and writings from people that were really freaked out
and calling it cultish, etc. Frankly, its just another
religion, just like any other.

I've gone to a lot of Seventh Day Adventist events to be
honest. They talk about God and Jesus, etc But almost
all of them practiced veganism. So if its not hurting
anybody (including animals!! yay) and it supports delicous
food... than go for it, say I. You don't have to be an initiate
to glean practical advise or information about the benefits
of a vegan lifestyle. Food is food, always without animals.

2 Days Til Christmas: Dandies roasting on an open fire

So we took a hop, skip and a jump up to the mountains to
visit with my Grandparents. Aside from making a vegan
'turkey' holiday casserole, sewing a stocking for my
sweetie, and sneaking truffles... we did what I haven't
for years, or at least since the last time I spent a fortune
on shipping to Hawaii. Yes, thats right. We toasted marshmallows.

Since shipping is not nearly what it was living in Hawaii,
I sent off for a couple bags of Dandies Vegan Marshmallows
from Pangea (awesome site by the by). My package came
with in only a couple days. Its a different brand than
what they used to carry, but they are so good.
I hate that expression "it tastes just like the real thing!"
Because really people, it is the real thing. Only Better.

We toasted them plain, stuck them on sugar cookies, stuck
chocolate chips inside of them and dropped them in our
hot chocolate! Great little treat for snuggling on the
night before Christmas Eve.

Tomorrow? I'm getting up early to make black bean and
sweet potato enchiladas to take to my Aunt's House.
Then back home to have a romantic Christmas with my Monkey
Man, our wee tree, and our own fire place.

Merry Two Days Before Christmas!
Sorry the picture quality couldn't be better, its weird lighting
and I was a bit distracted by the yumminess that was taking place.