Vegan

I have returned from a wonderful weekend in New York – my first trip back since moving to Colorado Springs six months ago.  Why New York? To attend, and speak at, The Seed! My wonderful and kind friends Ethan and Michael hosted me in their gorgeous home filled with love and three dogs. I kind of just wanted to stay there for the three days. We feasted each morning! Tofu Scramble and a New York (!!!) Bagel with Vegan Herb Cream Cheese Vegan Pancakes and Banana-Chocolate Bread Don’t you kind of want to move in with Ethan and Michael? I do and Dave totally understands. Saturday morning we three hopped a train into the city and enjoyed a fun-filled day at the vegan expo in SoHo. Jasmin and Mariann wowed the crowd during their talk “Fed Up!”. Immediately after, Jenny Brown spoke on her work to save farmed animals. I had to duck out early because I was on a panel discussing starting or sustaining a vegan business. Me, Gena of Choosing Raw, Kristin of Will Travel for Vegan Food (thanks for the pic, K!) and Pas (not pictured and the main organizer of The Seed – I bow down to him!) Here’s one tip from my remarks:  Think about where you stand on your veganism and how that will play out in your business. Meaning I’m very clear that I am an ethical vegan but when I’m teaching classes or coaching my opinions are not the point. I focus on where my client or student is and if she’s not vegan and doesn’t want to be, that’s fine (before I was vegan, I was not). I’ll do whatever I can to encourage her to eat more plants knowing each time she has a vegan meal it’s good news for animals. Saturday night I met Jasmin and my friend Megan for dinner at Blossom (on 9th Ave.). I feasted on chickpea latkes, seitan scallopini and a chocolate-banana pudding. On Sunday I caught Gena and Kathy’s talk on smoothies before I headed to do my own presentation. Last year I was on a panel discussing vegan blogging and this year I was invited back to talk specifically about how to move one’s activism beyond the blog. I can’t lie – I was pleasantly surprised to see a full room of people, most of whom identified as bloggers (or intending to blog). Their smiling faces put me at ease and I went for it! I focused mostly on the importance of self-reflection- know your own blog niche/voice and your own skills and interests. Once you have identified those you can begin to think about how you can use your voice and skills to work on behalf of animals. My concluding advice included the notion that while social networking is key for blogging, at the local level newspapers and radio matter so get to know your local media. I also encouraged people who choose to move their activism into a paid profession to never apologize for wanting to make a living by following their passion. Even though some of what I do for animals is now part of my career, I still volunteer and donate my skills and services. You can do both! I met some great audience members after the talk, people behind the blogs Farmers Market Vegan, The Food Duo, Rubber Cowgirl, and Zen Fans, to name a few Ali and Ted - and was delighted to see my friend Marcia, who has signed up for the Main Street Vegan Academy, and Marty. After my presentation I had some quality time with Gena Fran and Victoria. When I wasn’t hanging out with friends, listening to friends or presenting I was wandering the expo. Faves included Treeline Cheese, OlsenHaus shoes, Amrita bars and Vegan Bodega. I returned to Michael and Ethan’s completly wiped out. But I am never too exhausted for a pressure cooker lesson! )I’ll save that adventure for a post later this week.) It was wonderful to return to New York. It was even more wonderful to return home, to Colorado Springs.  I’m doing laundry right now, however, so that I can pack again tomorrow…Portland and Vida Vegan Con, here I come! *** Yesterday I asked you t

Here at Vegan Mainstream, you may know that we have been working on building an app called Vegan Here: Events Everywhere. We’ve just passed the BETA 1 testing, and we were so blown away by the feedback we got from users, that we are launching a feedback forum to gather more input from you! To

This next recipe is a favorite passed down from my mother’s mother. They’ve always been referred to in my family as “Revel Bars,” though a few years ago I found eerily similar recipe in Joy of Cooking called “Chocolate Oat Bars.” In any case, a quick google shows that this name (and basic recipe) is pretty ubiquitous, so maybe a few of you have had the joy of tasting these bars before. I have no words for how excellent these are. They have density and heft; their oatmeal layers are buttery, rich, and cookie-like, and the smooth chocolate center is reminiscent of fudge. When I was little, my mother would make these for picnics, sealing half the big batch in the deep freezer in the basement. Of course, this didn’t stop me and my brothers from eating them. When no one was looking, we would creep down the creaky stairs to this electric vestige of our Iowan roots, quietly crack the lid, and grope around until we got our hands on a frozen cookie bar. (I’m pretty sure my mother was none-too-impressed with the way those tupperware containers mysteriously emptied themselves.) To this day I love these bars straight from the freezer — it gives their fudgy middles a toothsome chew. Don’t tell my dentist, okay? Be forewarned that, in true church cookie-hour style, this recipe yields approximately one billion servings. You’re looking at a 9×13? pan’s worth of really rich 2.5? tall bars. Not that anyone will complain!  You could halve the recipe, but since you’re going to be putting a fair amount of work into it anyway, you might as well just make the whole batch and freeze half of it. Or you can just mail the rest to me. I’m always happy to help out!   Print Vegan Revel Bars Recipe type: Dessert Ingredients ———— Oatmeal Mixture 1 c margarine 2 c brown sugar egg replacer for 2 eggs, prepared 2 tsp vanilla 2½ c flour 1 tsp baking soda ¼ tsp salt 3 c quick oats ———— Filling 1¼ c soy powder 3 tbsp margarine ½ c sugar ½ c boiling water 12 oz chocolate chips 2 tbsp butter ¼ tsp salt 1 c chopped walnuts 2 tsp vanilla Instructions Grease a 9×13? baking pan with shortening. Cream margarine and brown sugar together ’til light and fluffy. Add egg replacer and vanilla and mix well. In another bowl, sift together flour, salt, and soda; add oatmeal and stir. Add dry mixture to wet and mix well. Preheat oven to 350°. Press ⅔ of oatmeal mixture into prepared pan. Next: on to the filling. Combining soy powder, margarine, sugar, and butter in a blender until smooth. In a double-boiler, melt together this mixture, chocolate chips, margarine, and salt, stirring occasionally to evenly distribute the heat. When smooth, remove from heat and add walnuts and vanilla. Pour over oatmeal base and spread until it’s distributed evenly across the pan. Using your hands, dot with the remaining oatmeal batter. Bake for 25 minutes, or until the top oatmeal layer is golden. Allow to cool completely before slicing. WordPress Recipe Plugin by EasyRecipe 3.2.1230

Excuse the short introduction to this recipe, but I’m packing my bags and heading to Portland, Oregon, to hobnob with the vegan and famous at Vida Vegan Con. I’ll be giving a food photography presentation, speaking about blog monetization with Nava Atlas, and participating in a panel on privacy and oversharing with Dreena Burton, Joanna Vaught, and Sayward Rebhal. Plus, I’ll be having dinner with friend and fellow blogger Maria, so I’m beyond excited. Daughter E is coming along as my “assistant” (camera bag bearer), so if you’re there, please don’t hesitate to come up to us and tell her that you remember when she was little bitty and wore glasses (she loves that, honest!) (...)Read the rest of Mu Shu Jackfruit Lettuce Wraps (416 words) © svoisin for FatFree Vegan Kitchen, 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: soy, Under 200

I find it almost amazing that Scott & I have lived in so many different places and we've never had air conditioning. Boston, New York City, Colorado, Lake Tahoe, Charleston, Los Angeles — none of our apartments had air conditioning. Even in Europe, air conditioning was a rarity.  This means by the end of May, I would completely abstain from any kind of "baking" until October. I also found myself avoiding the stove, too. Standing over a hot flame in an already hot and stuffy apartment during the sweltering summer? No thanks! (Our apartments have also always been very tiny, which made it even worse. Any cooking turned the place into a sauna).  So was my life limited to salads? Heck no!  Kim G. made HH Portobello Steaks on the grill! (shared via Facebook). I love a good salad, especially in the summer, but I still like having cooked foods like beans, potatoes and rice — just without using my stove.  Although my inner minimalist hates to suggest more appliances, if you live without air conditioning or you live someplace that gets very hot, it's well worth adding to your collection (plus you will use them year-round). Electric Pressure Cooker ($99.99) This is my favorite appliance of the bunch and if you can only buy one item, this would be it (though it's the most expensive).  What I love about my electric pressure cooker is that I can cook my vegetables, grains and beans without turning on my stove and it cooks my food super fast. Black beans in 15 minutes without soaking overnight! Corn on the cob in 1 minute! I also love that I don't have to keep an eye on it (I can cook beans while doing something else) and it's fantastic for travel. We take it with us every time we travel so we can make healthy, nourishing meals in our hotel room in minutes.  The pressure cooker gets me through the summer. I use it twice a day most days. I'm always making a big batch of beans, or rice or potatoes. I also love to cook corn and artichokes in it. My PC also has a "warm" setting which I find works a lot like a slow cooker. I've left frozen marinara in my PC on the "warm" setting and a few hours later it was ready and warm for dinner.  I also use my pressure cooker to make vegetable broth! Rice Cooker ($14.99-$119.00) After one too many unsuccessful attempts to cook brown rice on a crappy apartment stove, I bought a rice cooker. I even splurged on an expensive rice cooker (linked above) that had a special brown rice setting as well as an electric timer so I could tell my cooker when I wanted my rice to be ready (even if it was the next day). To its credit, my rice cooker makes perfect brown rice but I find I'm too forgetful to remember to use the timer feature so I could have gotten away with a cheaper model like this rice cooker. My rice cooker also bake cakes and works as a slow cooker, so that's pretty cool, though admittedly I've never used either feature. I could cook my rice in my pressure cooker but I find the rice cooker does the best job and I also use my rice cooker to cook quinoa on the "white rice" setting. No cooking grains on the hot stove in the summer for me! :) Check out my post (with a video!) about how to cook grains ahead in your rice cooker and freeze for easy reheating. Electric Steamer ($39.99, or less) This was the first "appliance" I ever purchased and it's a great option for those on a budget. I found mine on sale for $20.00 at Kohls and also happened to have a 20% off coupon!  Our first apartment stove was so small that I couldn't fit more than 1 small pot and a skillet on my stove at a time. I bought the steamer so I could cook my vegetables passively on the counter while I prepared other components of our meal. I quickly realized how great it was in the summer: I could steam all my veggies — even potatoes(!) — without heating my stove or oven. I gave mine to a friend when I purchased the pressure cooker, but I used it daily for ye

When I picked up some gorgeous heirloom tomatoes at my local greengrocer I knew immediately I wanted to make a Heirloom Tomato Salad with them. Some ingredients are best enjoyed simply, and this is certainly true of tomatoes in my opinion, especially heirloom tomatoes. Heirloom tomatoes lack a genetic mutation that is present in common tomatoes that provide that uniform red colour we are so familiar with, but the lack [...] Delicieux's feed has moved. Please update your feed reader an subscribe to our new feed here.

I LOVE everything about this song. Listen intently, I hope it speaks to you as loudly as it speaks to me.

Post coming tomorrow! This week I'm a stop on the blog tour for Whole Grain Vegan Baking, so check back tomorrow for the review and give away!

Last Friday was National Bike to Work Day, and even though it was gloomy and drizzly on Friday in Memphis, my co-worker Mark Plumlee and I rode bikes to work anyway. We participate in Bike to Work Day every year.The ride from my Crosstown house to my downtown office takes about 45 minutes, and there are bike lanes for much of the drive. Memphis has become incredibly bike-friendly over the last two years with 55-plus miles of bike lanes added across the city. A few years ago, folks around here didn't know what a bike lane was! Not only has Memphis grown more bike-friendly, it's also become way more vegan-friendly (as I'm sure you can tell in my Bluff City Vegan Eats series posts). Portland of the South? Not quite yet. I'd give that distinction to Atlanta or Austin. But we're getting there for sure. Case in point: the Hunger Monkey food truck.Every year, there's a little Bike to Work Day festival at lunch time in Court Square. Typically, there's live music and food trucks and lots of cyclists hanging out. But since it's rained, hardly anyone showed up at this year's fest. Mark and I were there though. And so was Dawn Vinson, Bike to Work Day's Memphis organizer (who also happens to be vegan!). And guess who else was there? A vegan-friendly food truck!Hunger Monkey is a new truck. It's only been on the streets for a few weeks, but I'd read about it on the Hungry Memphis blog. They serve meat, but they have plenty of vegan options. There's a vegan pasta dish, hummus and pita, and all the veggie sides are vegan. You can make a plate of four sides for $8. So that's what I did.There's Couscous with Tomatoes and Basil, Roasted Okra, Cooked Collards and Kale, and a Kale and Orzo Salad.The roasted okra was AMAZING! As much as I adore fried okra, I have to admit that I think I love roasted okra more (here's my recipe). These guys season theirs with a spicy Cajun-like seasoning. So good.The kale and orzo salad was also amazing. The raw kale was massaged, and I liked how there were more veggies than grains. And the couscous was fantastic (but I did have to add some extra salt). The cooked greens, which are buried under the okra in this picture, were really tasty too. They were slow-cooked, Southern-style greens, and there were little mushrooms chopped up in there.With a good 30-minute bike ride home ahead of me, it was nice to fuel up on fresh veggies rather than something fake meaty or fried (my usual go-to dining out fare).If you're in Memphis and you'd like to find where Hunger Monkey will be parked next, check their Facebook page.

Some people are born controversial, some achieve controversy, and others have controversy thrust upon them. I assume that by now most of you have heard the rumors about Toronto’s illustrious mayor Rob Ford.  It seems, allegedly, that there is an alleged video of the alleged mayor smoking some alleged crack cocaine with two alleged drug [...]