C'est La Vegan

Before going vegan I used to love buffalo chicken fingers – not the wings, but fried chicken tenders in buffalo sauce.  I never really understood the point of eating a wing (I still don’t), and bones in food always freaked me out.  Obviously, it’s been a while since I’ve eaten real buffalo chicken anything, but [...]

Ah, hummus… the vegan’s best friend.  Hummus tends to be the first thing people choose to serve to vegans when they aren’t sure what else to make for them, and is often the only thing a vegan can eat a a party that’s chock full of cheese and salami plates.  You know, like at all [...]

Over the years I’ve made lots of mushroom pates.  I keep trying to find the perfect recipe, and this one comes pretty close for me.  There are a couple tweaks I might try next time I make it, but for now this is really tasty.  I got the recipe from one of my favorite sources, [...]

Whenever I go to the Farmers’ Market I always get inspired to try new fruits and vegetables, although sometimes I have no idea what they are or how to prepare them.  I didn’t initially even know that these were fava beans, and even though I’ve never had them and had no idea what to use [...]

I love artichokes, but I so rarely buy them fresh.  Maybe it’s because I think it’ll be too much work to prep and steam them.  Once I do it though, I realize that it really isn’t that hard, and it’s so worth it.  They’re delicious, and they’re also really fun to eat.
I’d been thinking about [...]

I’m a huge fan of hot and creamy baked dips.  They’re perfect for entertaining in that they’re not much harder to make than cold dips, but they’re so much more impressive.  They’re also especially great for this time of year when the weather’s chilly and there’s lots of football on the tube!
I have a favorite [...]

I saw Nigella Lawson make this Middle Eastern roasted eggplant dip on one of her cooking shows years ago, and since then I’ve made it many times for get togethers at our place, or as a dish to bring to a party. This doesn’t have an overpowering eggplant flavor, so even if it’s not your [...]

A few years ago I saw a Good Eats episode featuring fried plantains.  They looked and sounded so good, and I made a mental note that I’d have to try them someday. Cut to breakfast a few months ago at Hugo’s Restaurant.  They were featuring a special that had plantains as part of the dish, [...]

The next dish that I made for our Hollywood Bowl Picnic was the tempeh pate from the Native Foods Cookbook.  This is one of my favorite recipes, and I can’t even count how many times I’ve made this.  We’ve eaten it in Palm Springs wraps (Ryan’s favorite), I’ve baked it in puff pastry, served it [...]

This was the final savory dish for our Hollywood Bowl picnic.  Both recipes are from Veganomicon, and the technical (but too long for a blog post title) names of both are Greek-Style Tomato-Zucchini Fritters with Fresh Herbs and Mediterranean-Style Cashew-Cucumber Dip.  That’s a mouthful!  No pun intended…
These fritters were a huge hit.  I chose to [...]

The title of this dish is a mouthful, but it’s actually much simpler than it sounds.  It’s really just a mish-mosh of recipes I’ve been wanting to try for awhile now.  The first recipe is the Almond Feta with Herb Oil from the April edition of Vegetarian Times magazine.  This recipe takes patience, but [...]

One thing I really miss since giving up meat is a good tuna sandwich.  There were a lot of reasons that we finally gave up fish (and said goodbye to non-veggie sushi, which is really what was holding us back), but one thing that was freaking us out was the amount of mercury we were [...]