This past weekend, we went to see “Planet Earth Live” at the Hollywood Bowl with our good friends Tim and Ildy.   I always love a night out at the bowl, complete with tasty food and wine, good friends and live music, all whilst tucked away in the Hollywood hills.  It’s definitely one of my favorites things about LA, and having been big fans of the “Planet Earth” series, Ryan and I were really excited to see this show, which featured the LA Philharmonic playing along to images from the BBC documentary.

Watching the “Planet Earth” visuals with a crowd turned out to be a very different experience from watching it in our front room, and kind of gave me a different view of the series.  If you’ve seen the show you’re familiar with how incredible the images are, but also how stressful some of the sequences can be, especially the predator and prey relationships.  There were certain scenes I couldn’t even watch (partly because I’d seen them on the show and once was enough!), and people had audible responses to both the touching and violent moments on the screen.

I was really struck by this very strong reaction from the crowd.  People loved watching the polar bear cubs play with their mom, but they seemed to have a really hard time seeing the fox catch the fluffy little bunny, or the Bambi-esque deer being pursued by the snow leopard.  And the irony was not lost on me.  Here the audience was freaking out about animals being killed and eaten, and yet I’d be willing to wager that most of them had done the same thing just minutes earlier without giving it a second thought while enjoying their meat-laden picnics.  There was a sequence where a snow fox was trying to steal an egg from a flock of geese, and it was an epic battle with the geese all chasing him off and trying to defend the nest.  When the fox finally got an egg, I kid you not, people were literally yelling at the screen.  Yet how many of these same people eat eggs everyday… (or chickens or cows or pigs, etc)?  Unlike the geese in the film that live out their lives in their natural habitat, factory farmed animals experience a tortuous life in the most horrendous and unnatural conditions from the moment they’re born.  We live in a society that apparently feels more empathy for the animals on the screen than the ones we put into our bodies, and I just find this disconnect pretty fascinating, if not a little disheartening…

Okay, thanks for indulging me, I’ll get off my soap box now so we can move onto the food!  Of course my favorite part of the night is the picnic, and for our main dish I made Curried Tempeh-Mango Salad Sammiches from “Vegan with a Vengeance”.  I can’t believe I hadn’t made these before!  They were the perfect blend of savory and sweet flavors, and were really simple to make.  I’ll definitely be making these again!  I also rarely use pita bread, and it was a nice change from the standard sandwich.

Stay tuned for the rest of the food we enjoyed including homemade roasted red pepper hummus and brown sugar kiwi tarts.  In the meantime I’ll leave you with some photos of Ildy, Tim, Ryan and me having a ’stach-tastic time!

Okay, right off the bat I have to tell you that yours truly took the above photo.  I don’t think I’m anywhere near Ryan’s level yet (although in my defense, he has been doing it for over fifteen years and happens to be amazingly talented), but I think I’m off to a good start!  He’s been giving me some photography lessons of late so that I can eventually take over as he’s getting busier and busier with work.

So, onto the food!  One of my favorite summer dishes is a simple potato and green bean salad with a vinaigrette dressing.  You know me and potatoes… it’s hard for me to not like anything even associated with them.  Green beans were one of the only vegetables I used to eat, so they’re a favorite as well.  You can use any type of green bean here, but I prefer thin haricots verts.

There was a feature on ways to use a basic vinaigrette in the magazine Real Simple years ago.  I copied the pages from my Mom’s issue and made that version many times over the years.  For some reason I always misplace the recipe, but I’ve made it so many times that now I just improvise.  The original calls for lemon juice, but you can play with different vinegars and use whatever you have on hand.  I think the original called for honey as well, so I use agave nectar instead.

This salad would be perfect to bring to a picnic or barbecue, or just to have alongside a sandwich for a nice lunch.  I also sometimes add bac’un bits or tempeh fakin’ bacon if I feel like it.  I didn’t this time, but it’s a nice addition that makes the flavor a little more hearty.

Green Bean Potato Salad with Shallot Vinaigrette

10 ounces green beans
20 ounces baby potatoes
1 medium shallot, minced
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons agave nectar
2 teaspoons minced chives
2 teaspoons minced tarragon
salt & pepper, to taste

Wash the potatoes and cut them in half.  If they’re large you can quarter them.  Put the potatoes in a pot and cover with fresh water.  Add a pinch of salt and bring to a boil.  Once they’re easily pierced and slide off the knife or fork used to test them, drain them and put them in a large bowl.

While the potatoes cook, you can either steam or boil the green beans.  Tip and tail them, and slice them into about 1 to 1 1/2-inch lengths.  Make sure they’re cooked enough to not be squeaky (this drives me crazy!), but not so much that they aren’t overcooked and mushy.  I just keep tasting them to make sure they’re the texture I like.  Drain them, and add them to the bowl with the potatoes.

For the vinaigrette, mince the shallot and add it to a small bowl.  Pour the white wine vinegar over the shallot, stir, and let the mixture set for a couple of minutes.  Add the olive oil in a thin stream while you whisk, and then add the mustard and agave nectar.  Whisk the vinaigrette well to incorporate everything, and add salt and pepper  to taste.

Pour the dressing over the hot potatoes and green beans, and toss to coat.  This will keep well in the fridge over night, but it’s best served at room temperature.

Notes: If you don’t have fresh herbs you can use dry.  Just start by adding 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon dry and add more to taste if needed.  You can also use other herb combinations, or just leave them out altogether.  Don’t worry about have exactly the measurements listed – I just used those because they happened to be the amounts I grabbed at the farmers market.  You can always double the vinaigrette if you need to, or save some of it for a different salad if you have too much.

I came across these gorgeous miniature eggplants at the Farmers’ Market yesterday morning and just couldn’t resist them. I’ve never had them before and had no idea what I was going to do with them, but I knew I could probably figure something out.  You might not be able to tell from the photo, but each of these eggplants is smaller than a regular sized egg.

I didn’t want to loose the beautifully colored skin of the little eggplants, so I thought I might grill them with the skins on.  When I also found this beautiful purple basil at the same market stand (which I’ve also never cooked with), I figured that just like the eggplant, basil is basil regardless of the size and color, and it would be perfect chopped and sprinkled over the grilled eggplant along with a squeeze of lemon juice.

Then I realized it might be really tasty to make a lemon basil pesto and serve everything bruschetta style on some toasted baguette slices.  Of course I never need an excuse to make basil pesto.  It’s definitely one of my favorite things, and I love that it’s as easy as throwing everything into the food processor.  I was really interested in seeing how the pesto would turn out with this purple basil as the base.

I’m happy to say that it was super tasty.  Pesto is so good that everything it touches is delicious.  Spread on some toasted garlic-rubbed bread and topped with little slices of grilled eggplant, it was the perfect summer afternoon snack.  It’s impressive enough to serve to guests, but simple enough that you won’t be slaving in the kitchen.  And if you have an outdoor grill, even better – your kitchen will stay cooler, which is always a plus in the hot summer months.

Baby Eggplant Bruschetta with Purple Pesto

8-10 baby eggplants
3 cups loosely packed purple basil
3 tablespoons raw pine nuts, divided
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
3 cloves garlic, divided
large pinch of gray salt
juice from half a lemon
2 1/2 – 3 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1 baguette, sliced
1 tablespoon chopped Italian parsley

Wash and slice the eggplant, and either spray or brush the slices with olive oil.  Cook them over high heat on a stove-top grill pan, or on a traditional grill.  Set aside.  While the pan is still hot, grill the slices of bread, and set aside to cool slightly.  (I sprayed the slices with olive oil, but you don’t have to.)  Peel one of the cloves of garlic, and slice off the top.  Rub the garlic on one side of each of the bread slices once they’re cool enough to handle.

Put the basil, remaining 2 cloves of garlic, nutritional yeast, lemon juice, salt, 2 tablespoons pine nuts and 1 tablespoon olive oil in the bowl of a food processor, and process until a rough paste forms.  Stop the machine, scrape the sides and taste the pesto.  You might need to add more lemon juice, olive oil or salt.

Toast the remaining tablespoon of pine nuts in a small saute pan, carefully watching to make sure they don’t burn.  To assemble, spread each slice of bread with some of the pesto and top with a couple slices of the grilled baby eggplant.  Sprinkle with a tiny bit of salt, the toasted pine nuts, chopped parsley and a drizzle of olive oil.  You can also garnish these with some small leaves of purple basil.

Notes: You can use this pesto as you would regular green pesto – we had the rest of it with some gnocchi for dinner.  If you can’t find purple basil, this would also work with regular green basil.  If baby eggplants are not available where you live, you can substitute 1 small globe or one large Japanese-style eggplant.  I also found that the baby eggplants were just a little bit bitter.  I hadn’t salted them, because I figured since they were so small they wouldn’t need it.  Not sure if any of you have experience cooking with them, but if you do, I’d love to hear how you prep them, and if they’re normally bitter at that size.

I’m a huge fan of polenta.  I know it’s really easy to make from scratch, but I like to buy the pre-made tubes of it for even easier meals.  Sliced up and pan fried (or baked), it makes the perfect base for so many different toppings.

I had some kale on hand that I needed to use up, and I thought it would be great over the polenta.  Throw in some white beans for protein and you’ve got a quick and easy weeknight meal.  You want to use a high quality balsamic vinegar for this recipe.  This is my favorite, but if all you have is the basic stuff from the store you can always reduce it a bit in a saucepan, until it gets nice and syrupy.

Polenta with Balsamic Kale and White Beans

1 18-oz. tube Food Merchants Organic Polenta
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup minced onion (red or white)
2 cloves garlic, minced
pinch of red pepper flakes
1 bunch kale, washed and chopped
1/2 cup vegetable broth
1 15-oz can white beans, drained and rinsed
sea salt and fresh cracked pepper, to taste
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar, plus more for drizzling

Slice the polenta into 1/2-inch thick rounds.  Heat a large non-stick skillet over medium-high heat and brown the polenta on each side.  (I use a spray olive oil for this, but you can use regular olive oil, or no oil at all.) Set aside.

While the polenta is cooking, heat a large pot over medium to medium-high heat and add the olive oil.  Add the onion and saute until it’s softened, about five minutes or so.  Add the garlic and red pepper flakes and saute for about a minute more, or until fragrant.  Add the kale with the water still clinging to the leaves, give it a stir, and cover the pot.  Cook for a couple minutes to start wilting the kale, then add the vegetable broth, cover and stir again.  Cook the kale until it’s tender, about ten minutes or so depending on how hot your pot is.

Once the kale is almost tender, stir in the white beans and cook with the lid off, just until they’re heated through.  Add the balsamic vinegar and salt and pepper to taste.

To plate, place a couple polenta rounds on the plate and top with the kale mixture and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar.

Notes: I find that the polenta takes a while to turn golden brown.  This might be because I don’t use a lot of oil, but don’t be worried if yours also takes a while.  If you like more heat, just add more red pepper flakes.

Never heard of zebra potatoes before?  Neither had I, until Ryan found these at the Hollywood Farmers’ Market.  We couldn’t resist picking some up to experiment.  Of course you never have to twist my arm to try a new variety of potato!

These look like a mix between a red potato and a Yukon gold.  I’m not sure what they’re actually a mix of, but they had a great texture and flavor reminiscent of those two types of potato.  I chose to mash them, but since they look just like any other potato once peeled, I think that next time I’d roast them, keeping the skins on so you can still see the mix of colors.

I paired these up with some gardein chick’n scallopini and roasted asparagus, one of my favorite combos. The recipe for the scallopini is right on the bag, but in case you’d want to make this with some other meat substitute, here are the basics…

You start by dredging the cutlets in flour before pan frying.  Once they’re golden brown, remove them to a plate and add some wine or veggie broth to deglaze the pan, or in non-cook-speak – scrape up all the yummy bits that are stuck to the pan.  Once the liquid has boiled and reduced a bit, add some capers, some margarine and some lemon juice.  I just eye-ball all the amounts and keep tasting and stirring until I get it just right.  Add the cutlets back to the pan to coat them in sauce and serve.

The asparagus is even easier.  I just give it a wash and a snap that removes the woody lower part of the spear, toss with some olive oil and salt & pepper, and roast the whole thing in a 425 degree oven on a parchment-lined baking sheet.  I stir them after about 10 minutes and cook for maybe ten more minutes, maybe less, depending on how thick they are.

I love mashed potatoes so much that they get their own post, although I prepped these a little differently because I had some cashew cream on hand that I used in place of non-dairy milk.  They won’t help you fit into your jeans, but they’re worth the extra exercise!

I’ve been dying to try morel mushrooms for so long now, but I’ve never been able to find them in the past. When I realized it was finally morel season, I became obsessed with finding some.  The only place I’ve found them so far is at the Hollywood Farmers’ Market, but I’ve read that they’re also at some markets in Santa Monica.  I bought a large handful, partly because they’re pretty expensive, and also because I was a little worried they wouldn’t be able to live up to the hype, and I didn’t want to go all in if that was the case.

The first thing I did after getting them home was look online for recipes and prep information.  Some sites said they needed to soak in salt water before cooking, and others said the worst thing you can do is soak them in water, because it dilutes the flavor.  Mine were pretty small and seemed clean enough, so I just wiped them a bit.  Soaking fresh mushrooms just seems wrong to me, but maybe some of you have more experience with morels and can lend some insight…

I decided to go with a simple preparation so that I could really experience the flavor and texture of the morels on their own.  Mine were pretty small, but I still sliced them in half so that more surface area would get coated in “buttery” and salty goodness.  I tossed them with a little white rice flour (one of the recipes I came across said this would yield a more crispy result), and then pan fried them until golden in some Earth Balance margarine.  I finished them off with a little sprinkling of Maldon sea salt.

Then came the moment of truth – the tasting.  For me, they totally lived up to the hype.  I love the flavor of mushrooms, but I can sometimes be picky about the texture.  A huge, soggy portobello just doesn’t do it for me.  I prefer when the mushrooms are cut smaller and really caramelized.  The flavor of the morels was amazing, and the texture was even better.  They were firm, and even a little chewy, but not in a rubbery way. I could happily eat platefuls of them.  Now I’m even more obsessed, so if any of you are morel fans and have favorite recipes, send them my way!

I sometimes forget how great a simple salad can be.  This one is from Janet Fletcher’s “Fresh From the Farmers’ Market”, and I used a mix of baby escarole and frisee lettuces.  Combined with the shallot vinaigrette, avocados, and oranges, this salad is full of different textures and flavors, all of them fantastic.  It calls for naval oranges, but when I saw our market had blood oranges – which I think are perfect for salads because of their beautiful color – I grabbed them up to use alongside the regular naval oranges.

I have a real soft spot for blood oranges.  The first time I had one was in Barcelona, Spain.  I studied abroad in London my senior year, and during our spring break, my dear friend, Lindsay, and I traveled around Europe together.  Lest you think it was some extravagant and lavish trip, let me dispel that image.  We did the trip on the cheap, often sleeping on trains or staying in less-than-glamorous hostels.  We lugged our backpacks all over the place and ate as much street food as we could get our hands on.

In Brussels we had a real Belgian waffle chock full of pearl sugar from a street vendor, and we still talk about that waffle to this day.  We spent almost a full day in cold, rainy Austria eating pastries in a cafe.  And don’t even get me started on Italy… One of our goals was to eat gelato at least twice a day while we were there, and at least three times on our last day.  I clearly wasn’t vegan at the time!

The whole trip really revolved around food for us, and during our brief stop in Barcelona, we were directed to the Boqueria Market where we bought some blood oranges.  I’d never seen them before, and I thought they looked and tasted amazing.  Every time I see a blood orange, I think of Lindsay and of that trip, one of the best of my life.  I so vividly remember all of the food we ate and all of the little adventures we had along the way.

Chicago Soy Dairy recently sent me a sample of their new mozzarella teese, which I think should be coming out to stores shortly, though I’m not sure exactly when that will be.  I wanted to find something that would really highlight the teese, and I’d seen a recipe for White Pizza with Sage in Deborah Madison’s “Local Flavors” cookbook that looked amazing.  It’s a very simple recipe where the whole focus is on the mozzarella, so I thought it would be the perfect thing to really put the new teese to the test.

I used the pizza dough recipe from the cookbook ( it was enough for two crusts, so now I have another pizza dough ball awaiting me in the freezer!  Joy…).  Once your dough is ready, you just lay out your mozzarella slices on top, brush with a little olive oil and bake for about 7 minutes in a 500 degree oven.  Take the pizza out, lay the sage leaves out over the top, and put it back in for 10 minutes or so.  Sprinkle it with some sea salt and red pepper flakes before serving, and you’re good to go!

The original recipe called for Parmesan to be added with the seasonings, and I didn’t have any vegan Parmesan on had, so I just left it off.  Honestly, I really don’t think it was needed.  The salt does it’s job just fine, and none of the spotlight is taken away from the mozzarella.

Speaking of the mozzarella, it was awesome on this!  I have to admit that I was a little nervous when I was laying it out over the crust.  The whole pizza depends on the cheese here, since there’s no sauce and very few other toppings for it to hide behind.  It wasn’t particularly stretchy, but that was probably because it had cooled a bit by the time we took photos and actually got to sit down and eat.  But it was really creamy and tasted perfect on this.  I’m a huge vegan-cheese-skeptic, and I was totally impressed.

The only thing I’ll do differently next time is make sure the sage leaves have plenty of olive oil on them when I lay them over the mozzarella.  You can see in the photo that the pieces with more oil stayed flat rather than curling up in the heat of the oven.  That’s just a minor detail though; on the whole, this was really delicious!

Happy Cinco de Mayo!  Living in Southern California, there’s no lack of holiday celebrations to take part in today.  If you’re having people over, or even if you’re just having a quiet night in, this Mexican-Style Casserole is the perfect thing to celebrate the holiday.  Now, I say Mexican-”style” because I have to admit that it’s not the most authentic dish.  I had some lavash bread, so I used it in place of tortillas.  I figured it was similar enough that it would work, and it also happens to be the perfect size and shape.  The “Cuban-style” black beans don’t help the authenticity either, but they sure taste good!

If you’d like a more authentic dish, by all means use tortillas and different beans.  The fun of creating a dish like this is that you can always just add whatever fillings you like best.  I got these ingredients from Trader Joe’s, but if you don’t have one nearby you can just get similar products in place of the ones I used.  This casserole is spicy, tangy and satisfying enough to fool any meat-eater.  But the best part just might be how easy it is to make!

Mexican-Style Casserole

1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 small (or 1/2 large) yellow onion, diced
1 package soy chorizo
4 sheets of lavash bread
1 10-oz. container Avocado Salsa Verde
1 15.5-oz. can of Cuban-style Black Beans (or plain black beans)
1 12-oz. container fresh Mild Salsa
2-3 tablespoons Tofutti sour cream (or your favorite non-dairy sour cream), at room temperature

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, and lightly grease a 9 x 13 inch pan (I use an oil spray).

On Saturday I presented a dessert demonstration at Animal Acres’ Compassionate Cooking Extravaganza, and I had the chance to see a couple of the other presenters including Rod Rotondi, founder of Leaf Cuisine and author of “Raw Food for Real People”.  His presentation about raw foods was extremely informative.  In particular, I really appreciated that he made the whole thing seem so approachable as I’ve definitely been intimidated by some raw food recipes in the past.  Rod taught us how to make this kale salad, and I was really excited to try it at home.

I used one bunch of kale, pulling the leaves off the stems by running my thumb nail down them (one of my favorite tips from the presentation – so much easier than how I’d been cutting out the stems!).  I washed up the leaves in my salad spinner, and then tore them into teeny pieces.  I added the juice of about two lemons, sea salt and some avocado.  (I say “some” avocado because the two I had were not in their prime, and I had to cut away lots of bad parts.  Rod’s version had plenty, and it was really creamy and delicious.)  Then you just mash everything together and massage the “dressing” into the kale leaves.  I added some chopped raw almonds for some added texture and flavor.

This couldn’t have been easier to make, and it was really tasty.  It also makes a lot of salad, which is nice because it only tastes better the next day – I’m having it for lunch as I write this!