Oh my. When the special Holiday menu went up in place of the vegan taquería sign at the Venice Whole Foods, I was worried that it had gone away forever. But, the food never seems to have disappeared and the sign is back. If you are looking for a place to enjoy delicious vegan Mexican food, then you need look no further than that Venice Whole Foods. They have nachos, tacos, and burritos, all made with a blend of gardein vegan “chicken” and peppers.

My nachos consisted of tofu, black beans, daiya, salsa, and guacamole, and they were AMAZING. At 7.99 a pound, they seemed a little pricey, but I’m getting so used to Whole Food’s pricing structure that I don’t even bat an eyelash at this point. I think we can all agree that Nachos are one of the few foods that are always better when someone else makes them.  So, I’m going to urge you to run, not walk, to Whole Foods and order up some vegan nachos, tacos, or quesadillas, because if they continue to sell, Whole Foods will continue to offer them, and I can rest easily knowing I have a vegan nacho hookup whenever I need it.

Without really meaning to, I turned last week into kind of a curry-themed  week. We started off with delicious samosas and rounded out our week with a Thai coconut curry(more on that later).  Having eaten my fair share of samosas, I decided that I was obviously qualified to make my own. Rather than rolling out my own dough, decided to take the shortcut of using frozen pastry squares. I did a minimal amount of internet research to put together this recipe, which worked out well as far as the potato filling was concerned. However, I really wish that I had watched some sort of youtube video on how to assemble the little bastards. I started my first samosa will a rolled-over architecture that ended up pushing filling everywhere. Then, my boyfriend modified the technique by creating little pastry purses. They held up better during the stuffing process, but opened up in a very strange way during baking. Luckily, they were absolutely delicious, so they didn’t last long enough for me to really notice how weird they looked. That realization only came a few minutes ago while I was reviewing my pictures.

It’s worth a tangent to discuss the accompanying mango chutney. I’ve heard of mango chutney on all the fancy-pants food network shows, as it seems that chefs are always serving things like “spicy habenero elephant tusk…. with mango chutney” or “tandoori fois gras….with mango chutney” or “roasted duck liver with shaved fennel…..and (wait for it) mango chutney!”. They made it seem like a big deal, so when I was at the Samosa House grocery section and saw a jar of this most-precious condiment, I snapped it up. Now, sometimes I build foods up in my head so much that they are sure to be disappointing when I finally try them. Mango chutney was not one of those foods. It was sweet and refreshing and delicious. I actually could have kicked up the spice a notch on my samosas, because the mango chutney possesses some kind of mystical g cooling property.

Currently, I would list my favorite dish as tofu lettuce wraps. I found a recipe on the Whole Foods i-phone application and decided that I had to give it a try. During my preparations, I discovered hoison sauce, which is possibly the most perfect sauce ever created. It’s sometimes referred to as Asian barbeque sauce, and it’s a key ingredient in the lettuce wrap filling in addition to being used as a dipping sauce after assembly. These lettuce wraps are ridiculously easy to make, and you can check out the recipe for yourself here. When I made them for a party, my secret ingredient was an extra cup of bean sprouts, which I added with the other vegetables. It added a nice extra crunch to the filling, and bean sprouts are just plain delicious.

Oh Paula Dean, how I envy you sometimes. Unbound by concerns for health or ethical food, you blazenly start every  dish with butter, sugar, and shortening. You laugh in the face of high cholesterol and heart disease when you add bacon to everything. You’ve never met a fry daddy you didn’t love. To be clear, I love Paula Dean, and I have read from more than one source that she doesn’t eat her signature food all the time. I believe her, because if she did, she would way 800 pounds and she does not. I also have to give Paula credit, because all of her recipes perfectly capture the audacity of American southern cooking. Naturally, when I wanted to make authentic beignets for Christmas Breakfast, I turned to the master. I took Paula’s recipe for cafe do monde beignets and appropriately veganized it. It was fairly straightforward, and I think that you can achieve good results with the following steps.

1. Replace the eggs with egg replacer powder and pre-mix it before adding to the evaporated milk.

2. To make evaporated soy milk, take 2 cups of soy milk and bring them to a simmer. Let it boil on the stove for 20 minutes, or until it reduces to half its original size.

3. For god’s sake, cut this recipe in half, because even then it made over 2 dozen beignets, and they do not reheat or keep well.

You may have noticed a lack of posts around here lately, and that’s because things have been ridiculous. In addition to working (which would be enough to keep anyone else busy), December has been filled with Christmas shopping, cookies, and lots of working out to make up for aforementioned cookies. I had the Vegan Ladies of LA over for a Vegan Cookie Exchange, which was a tremendous amount of fun. It’s been a real whirlwind of activities, and here we are on Christmas Eve. I just mixed up a very special recipe that I am going to share with you all: Coquito. As I understand it, Coquito is a Puerto Rican egg-nog-ish drink made with plenty of coconut milk. My mom makes it at Christmas, and it’s always delicious. Coquito is best served chilled over ice (this is to mask the taste of the rum), with a sprinkling of cinnamon and nutmeg. It is literally like Christmas exploded in your mouth, so you’d better enjoy, or you may find yourself the center of the classic Christmas Carol Trope.

one pumpkin pancake recipe to rule them all

I already have one pumpkin pancake recipe, and it’s pretty good: rich, pumpkin-y, not too sweet. It uses molasses, which at the time of recipe-creation, was something I always had lying around the house. Now I’ve finally managed to clear the multiple bottles of molasses out of my cupboard, but that doesn’t mean that the pumpkin pancakes need to stop. So, I came up with a new and improved pumpkin pancake recipe. These pancakes are amazing. They’re light and fluffy while still providing the intoxicating tastes and aromas that pumpkin has to offer.

This recipe makes an obscene number of pancakes, 20 to be exact, but that gives me an opportunity to share my perfect pancake freezing tip. Let the pancakes cool to room temperature, and then cut squares of parchment paper, a little smaller than the pancakes themselves. Layer a pancake, a piece of parchment paper, and another pancake. Keep going until you have a stack tall enough that it fits snugly inside of a plastic bag, and slip them inside. When it’s time to reheat, there will be no frozen stuck-together pancakes.  Also, you can reuse the pastic bags as often as you like, since they’re just pancake-freezing vessles now.

Dear Mr. Wynn, thank you, thank you, thank you for being the first casino in Las Vegas to offer Veganoptions at every restaurant. While I have to request to see a copy of the vegan menu, instead of seeing it prominently displayed next to the main menu, I do very much appreciate having an actual booklet to look at. Also, I very much enjoyed your Money Train Monopoly slot machines, and as a players club member and winner of $30, I will be back.

I’m sure that many of you have heard that the Wynn offers vegan options now. Most of it has to do with Steve Wynn going vegan. I wanted at least one fancy dinner while we were in Vegas, so I dragged my boyfriend all the way to the end of the strip. It was a little difficult to figure out where we wanted to have dinner, because none of the vegan menus are available online.  Our first strop was Stratta, an Italian restaurant on the casino floor. They had a vegan pasta dish and a cheeseless pizza option, which wasn’t all that exciting considering our lunch the day before.

A few weeks ago, we spent a long weekend in Las Vegas, which remains one of my favorite places in the entire world. The first time I went to Vegas after going Vegan, I was apprehensive. I was worried that there wouldn’t be anything to eat, and did a lot of research into the matter. That first trip went fairly well, but I stuck mostly to pasta with tomato sauce (and a side trip to Ronald’s Donuts). This past trip, I had the advantage of safety in numbers. Since my boyfriend and I are both vegan, we got to share the challenge and adventure of feeding ourselves in a city known for it’s all-you-can-eat shrimp cocktail. The following is meant to serve as a brief guide of some places that we managed to find food.

Well, we managed to pull off a fully vegan Thanksgiving without giving anyone food poisoning. Oh that’sright, that’s because I got the food poisoning out of the way before the holiday. I was doubled over in pain, cursing that spinach salad and Mrs. Winston for selling it to me. My boyfriend came through though, cleaning the house and taking care of a lot of the prep. By Thursday, I was hobbling around and the two of us got dinner on the table.

Our sensible Thanksgiving dinner consisted of “turkey” seitan, mashed potatoes, miso gravy, baked carrots, green beans almondine, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. I tried to up the healthy vegetable factor with the green beans and carrots and opted out of a sugary sweet potato dish. My boyfriend’s seitan was absolutely amazing. It managed to taste hearty and tangy, almost like meat, without being overpowering or having too realistic of a texture. The meal was rounded out with an apple tart, tofu pumpkin pie, and vegan apple pie. It was delicious, and no creatures were harmed in the making. Most of these recipes have been posted already, but here is the lone holdout: my delicious cranberry sauce.

Cranberry Sauce

2 c. fresh cranberries

1 c. water

1/2 c. sugar

1/2 c. fresh squeezed orange juice

1 TBSP orange zest

2 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. nutmeg

Combine the sugar and water and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. When it begins to boil, add the cranberries, orange zest, and spices. Cook for about 4 minutes, until the berries start to burst. Stir in the orange juice and cook a little longer, until it begins to thicken. Remove from heat and chill. The cranberry sauce will become about twice as thick as it cools.

OK, I will admit that I talk a big game when it comes to McDougalling. In October, I made it a full two weeks on the McDougall plan (with some minor deviations), but that was all it lasted. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a great lifestyle, but even I had a very difficult time keeping up with all the at-home cooking required. Also, many of the recipes that we tried left us feeling a little underwhelmed. I think it’s great to be aware of and limit your intake of oils (or any processed food for that matter), but I’ve hung up my McDougall hat once-again. I do know, however, that some of my readers are curious about the plan and would appreciate some tested recipes. So, here is one for a vegan tofu ricotta. It was a little too cheesy for my tastes, and I would reduce the nutritional yeast if I went back and did it again. I would also probably substitute fresh basil for the dried basil, because it might have livened up the flavors a little bit. I used this “ricotta” in a vegetable lasagna, where I layered brown rice lasagna noodles with spinach, zucchini, these cheese, and tomato sauce.  It was pretty good, but it’s telling when something like this lasts in our refrigerator for more than a week.