Earth Day Phoenix 2013

It's Earth Day! One of my favorite days of the year. And today, I'm at Earth Day Phoenix with Cult of Kale and other friends, and we're handing out food samples, vegan information brochures, and smiles to all the attendees that come by our booth between 11am and 1:30pm. Come say hi!

[Maybe you were there? Thanks for stopping by!]

Here are the store-bought products we are sampling at our vegan info booth as well as tips for locating them.

Vegan Meats

Field Roast:

Mexican Chipotle Sausage (chorizo-like)

Italian Sausage

Smoked Apple Sage
Frankfurters
 

Found at Whole Foods, Luci's Healthy Marketplace, Phoenix Public Market, and New Frontiers Marketplace (Sedona & Flagstaff). Ask your local grocer to stock these!



Gardein:

Beefless Tips

Found at Whole Foods, Safeway, Bashas, Fry's Marketplace....and possibly others.

 

***

 

Non-dairy Milks

Blue Diamond Almond Breeze

Sweetened Chocolate Almond Milk

Sweetened Vanilla Almond Milk

Found at Whole Foods, Target, Sprouts, and possibly others.

 

 

Silk

Vanilla Soy Milk
Chocoloate Soy Milk

Found at Sprouts, Whole Foods, Frys Marketplace, Walmart, and many other grocers.

  

 

 

So Delicious

Vanilla Coconut Milk
Chocolate Coconut Milk (shelf stable)

Found at Sprouts, Whole Foods, and others.

 

Rice Dream

Horchata (shelf stable)

Found at Sprouts and Whole Foods.

The stores mentioned are not a comprehensive list of locations where these products are sold, just where I know they are. Check your local grocers, especially Fry's Marketplace, Whole Foods, Sprouts, etc. If you cannot find the products you are looking for at a grocer near you, ask them about ordering some in. The more requests they get, the more likely they carry those items.

If you are open to shopping online, you can also buy many of these products from Pangea, Food Fight Vegan Grocery, and Vegan Essentials.

***

Cookies

The cookies sampled were from the Whole Foods Bakery as supplied to them by Aphrodite Bakery according to the label. Whole Foods sells these cookies regularly, and they are quite delish!

If you'd like to make your own vegan chocolate chip cookies from scratch, here is the best recipe ever, from the Post Punk Kitchen and Isa Chandra Moskowitz. You should be familiar with all of the ingredients, except maybe tapioca flour and the almond milk, but that's not so strange nor hard to find. I get Bob's Red Mill Tapioca Flour from Sprouts and Whole Foods, but I know other grocer's carry it and other brands. Also, make sure you get the semi-sweet chocolate chips without any dairy (check the ingredients list).

Post Punk Kitchen's Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe


Thanks for your interest in veganism!  Feel free to browse the yellow-orange tool bar items at the top, they have the most information for new veg*ns. And please do not hesitate to leave your questions in the comments, tweet, post on facebook, or just plain email.

Recipe Round-up: Vegan Thanksgiving Goodies

Every year more and more vegan holiday recipes are shared. Below is a link to my previous Thanksgiving Recipe Round-up, and after that, the rest are links to goodies being talked about this year.

2010 Thanksliving Menu Round-Up

[And if there is one dish I could personally recommend for Thanksgiving, it's the Sage- and Pumpkin Seed- Encrusted Seitan with Roasted Garlic Pumpkin Sauce, it's a fantastic main dish.]

Moving on to the new stuff...

~Chef Chloe is well-represented over at the New York Times Vegetarian Thanksgiving section with her Chocolate Pumpkin Bread Pudding, Maple-Roasted Brussels Sprouts With Hazelnuts, Harvest-Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms, Coconut Mashed Yams with Currants, Southern Skillet Black-Eyed Peas and Cauliflower, and Quick Biscuits with Maple Butter.

~Oh She Glows blogger, Angela Liddon has some healthy recipes featured at Veg News: Guilt-Free Garlic Mashed Potatoes, Sumptuous Shepherd's Stew, and Sinless Sticky Toffee Pecan Pudding.

~Cornmeal Buttermilk Biscuits, Coconut Butternut Squash Soup, Herbed Cream Collards, and Fourless  Chocolate Cake with Whipped Cream from several awesome vegan chefs via VegNews.

~Dreena Burton's Plant Powered Kitchen has a whole bunch of Vegan Thanksgiving and Christmas Recipes...too many to give you the details, just check out her post.

~And of course, The Post Punk Kitchen has an entire category of recipes perfect for Thanksgiving.

Let me know what you plan on making!

Sophie's Kitchen Breaded Vegan Fish Fillets and Vegenaise Tartar Sauce

Sophie's Kitchen Fish Fillets (and onion rings)

Recently Follow Your Heart released several new products, including Vegenaise Tartar Sauce. Never a fan of tartar sauce but definitely a fan of Vegenaise, I was really interested in trying it. I finally found it at Whole Foods, but I needed something to go with it. Luckily, I also found Sophie's Kitchen Breaded Vegan Fish Fillets.

I really liked the combination, so tasty! The tartar sauce is tangy, thick, and creamy. It's strong, so you don't need a lot. And the faux fish, well, I don't know how fishy it is on its own, but I liked the texture and I liked the flavor. Works for me! And the combination is definitely awesome.

The Vegenaise Tartar Sauce is gluten-free and soy free. And while Sophie's Kitchen Breaded Vegan Fish Fillets are not gluten-free, they do offer vegan scallops, prawns, shrimp, and crab cakes that are.

Sophie's Kitchen focuses on vegan seafood options; crab cakes, calamari, scallops, prawns, shrimp, and breaded shrimp, in addition to the breaded fish fillets. If you're interested in trying them, head over to the website because Sophie's Kitchen has a manufacturer's coupon for a buck off, good through December.

The other new items in the Vegenaise line are Horseradish Sauce, Pesto Vegenaise, Barbeque Vegnaise, Roasted Garlic Vegenaise, and Chipotle Vegenaise. Looking forward to trying some of these as well, but Whole Foods only had the Horseradish in stock as of this post.


Follow Your Heart's Vegenaise Tartar Sauce
Rating: ****1/2

Sophie's Kitchen Vegan Fish Fillets
Rating: ****

***** awesome! Highly recommended.
**** hey, this is pretty dang good.
*** not bad at all.
** eh.
* bad. Keep looking for alternatives.

[You can find Vegenaise products and the Sophie's Kitchen line of seafood at Whole Foods. I think they are both relatively new products, so keep an eye out at the grocers who sell vegan items.]

The Sexy Vegan Cookbook & Show

"Brian Patton, aka The Sexy Vegan, is the executive chef for Los Angeles-based vegan food-delivery service, Vegin’ Out. He also hosts an instructional cooking video show on YouTube where he plays ukulele and shows off his goofy side." from Laughing Squid.


The dude's got the funniest book trailer I have ever seen. And I usually hate book trailers. haha.


The Sexy Vegan Cookbook Official Trailer





An episode from his instructional online show: New England Blam Chowder.

Products Sampled at Earth Day Phoenix 2011

Here are the store-bought products we sampled at our vegan info booth at Earth Day 2011, as well as tips for locating them.

Vegan 'Meats'





Field Roast:

Lentil Sage Quarter Loaf



Mexican Chipotle Sausage (this is the chorizo like one)

Italian Sausage

Found at Whole Foods and New Frontiers Marketplace (Sedona & Flagstaff).





Gardein:

Beefless Tips

Found at Whole Foods and Frys Marketplace.

Lightlife:

Smart Links Breakfast-Style Sausage

Found at Whole Food, Sprouts Farmers Market, and some Frys Marketplaces.

***

Non-dairy Milks

Living Harvest

Tempt Hemp Milk (shelf stable)

Found at Sprouts and Whole Foods.

 

Pacific

Oat Milk (shelf stable)

Found at Whole Foods and Sprouts.

Blue Diamond Almond Breeze

Sweetened Chocolate Almond Milk (shelf stable)

Vanilla Almond Milk (refrigerated)

Found at Whole Foods and Sprouts.

Silk

Dark Chocolate Pure Almond Milk (refrigerated)

Original Soymilk (refrigerated)

Dark Chocolate- Found at Sprouts. Original- Found at Sprouts, Whole Foods, Frys Marketplace, Walmart, and many other grocers.

So Delicious

Vanilla Coconut Milk (refrigerated)

Found at Sprouts and Whole Foods.

Rice Dream

Horchata (shelf stable)

Found at Sprouts and Whole Foods.

The stores listed are not a comprehensive list of locations where these products are sold, just where I know they are. Check your local grocers, especially Fry's Marketplace, Sunflower Market, Whole Foods, Sprouts, etc. If you cannot find the products you are looking for at a grocer near you, ask them about ordering some in. The more requests they get, the more likely they will be to carry those items.

If you are open to shopping online, you can also buy many of these products from Pangea, Food Fight Vegan Grocery, Cosmo's Vegan Shoppe, and Vegan Essentials.

Stay tuned for the cookie recipes from Earth Day Phoenix 2011.

Sage- and Pumpkin Seed-Encrusted Seitan With Roasted Garlic-Pumpkin Sauce

[pictured without the Roasted Garlic-Pumpkin Sauce which is really just a globby orange sauce]

It might look a little funky, but the Sage- and Pumpkin Seed-Encrusted Seitan With Roasted Garlic-Pumpkin Sauce is one of my favorite dishes, especially for holidays like Thanksgiving. It is a main protein dish and well worth the effort in the kitchen. I serve this every year at Thankful Veghead, it is a favorite for many others (omni, vegetarian, and vegan alike). You can't go wrong with serving this dish.

Sage- and Pumpkin Seed-Encrusted Seitan
With Roasted Garlic-Pumpkin Sauce
[From PETA]

Makes 4 to 6 servings


For the Marinade:
2 cups extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup tamari soy sauce
1/2 cup Dijon mustard
10 garlic cloves
1 Tbsp. ground black pepper
1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice

For the Seitan:
1 lb. seitan, cut or shredded into large chunks¹
1 cup shelled pumpkin seeds (also called pepitas)
3 Tbsp. finely minced fresh sage
2 cups flour
1 tsp. smoked paprika or regular paprika
Salt and pepper, to taste
3-5 Tbsp. olive oil

For the Roasted Garlic-Pumpkin Sauce:
1 half-pound diced pumpkin or equivalent amount of canned pumpkin
2 shallots
8 allspice berries
2 oz. nondairy margarine²
1 sprig thyme
5 roasted garlic cloves
1 cinnamon stick
12 oz. vegetable stock
2 oz. olive oil
1 oz. pumpkin seed oil³

DIRECTIONS
For the Marinade:
• In a blender, mix all the ingredients until smooth.

For the Seitan:
• Pour the marinade over the seitan and refrigerate overnight.
• With a large knife, chop the pumpkin seeds to form a powder. Transfer to a medium bowl. Add the sage, flour, smoked paprika, salt, and pepper and stir to combine.
• Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Dip the seitan chunks into the pumpkin seed mixture and coat completely (if the seitan does not come packaged in liquid, dip each piece in a little bit of water first).
• Place the seitan in the oil and fry until lightly browned and crispy on both sides. Drain on paper towels.
• Serve hot with Roasted Garlic-Pumpkin Sauce.

For the Roasted Garlic-Pumpkin Sauce:
• Preheat the oven to 400°F.
• In a baking dish, combine the pumpkin, shallots, allspice berries, vegan margarine, thyme, garlic cloves, and cinnamon stick. Cover and roast for approximately 25 minutes, or until the pumpkin is tender.
• Remove the allspice and the cinnamon stick. In a blender, combine the pumpkin mixture with the vegetable stock, olive oil, and pumpkin seed oil until smooth. Serve warm.

My preferred ingredients and where to find them:
1.White Wave Traditional Seitan - Whole Foods
2.a. Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Sticks- Sprouts, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Sunflower Farmers Market

b. Earth Balance Vegan Original Natural Buttery Spread- Sprouts, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Sunflower Farmers Market
3.Cucina Viva Pumpkin Seed Oil- AJ's Fine Foods

Native Foods' Wellington

You might not be able to order one of these from Native Foods, but if you like to experiment you could maybe make your own with your favorite ingredients.

Almost Beef Wellington with Madeira Sauce

Cider-Mashed Sweet Potatoes and Almost Beef Wellington
(I know, the photo is crummy. But we were more concerned about feasting than photos.)

I've been wanting to make this recipe for several years now. In the past, I have refrained because I don't really care for faux beef and because this recipe requires 100% too many mushrooms, more than one should ever consume. Yeah, I don't like mushrooms either. But it sounded fancy, I was confident the Gardein faux beef would work well, and I was pretty sure my company would like it.

So this year, instead of Easter Pie, I went for the Almost Beef Wellington with Madeira Sauce. And it was well worth the effort. It has a fancy taste and presentation, and even though it is packed with mushrooms, I thought it was pretty tasty. If using puff pastry scares you, don't worry about it. It was super easy to use. Just thaw, unfold, stuff with the innards and crimped closed. It was basically like stuffing and folding a burrito. The filling and gravy were more work than the pastry, and those weren't too bad either, just some sauteeing really.

This would be a good main dish for holiday dinners. It's very different from the other analogue traditional options like Field Roast and Tofurky, so you could serve both and have better variety, or you could just choose your favorite.

Gardein Savory Stuffed Turk'y

I was so excited to see this product, you have no idea. I love so many of the Gardein faux meat products, particularly their faux chicken. And as I am having Thanksgiving with my omni family and I didn't want to make a huge Tofurky or Celebration Roast just for myself, I thought this product might be perfect portion-wise. One bag contains 2 little stuffed vegan turk'ys, one for dinner and one for leftovers. I would be able to focus all my cooking energy on bringing sides to share.

So it is with a heavy heart that I inform you that I didn't really care for the taste of them. Aside from the cripsy outer shell, that is, I did like that. It does come with a gravy, but I didn't really like that either. [Big sigh.] I know, I was disappointed too. I have no idea if this is a "just me" thing or not. It could very easily be my picky taste buds. I've been noticing I really only like the taste of faux chickn in general. For example I'm not a huge fan of mock steak or beef, though I do like the mock shrimp.

So how does this Gardein product compare to Tofurky and Celebration Roast? Well, I like both of those much better and despite my love for Gardein, I'd probably pick one of those over the Stuffed Turk'ys. But an even better option might be using Gardein's Chickn Scallopini for Tal Ronnen's Thanksgiving recipe, the Sage and Pumpkin Seed Encrusted Gardein with Cranberry Cabernet Sauce. Looks/sounds so good!

If you've tried the Savory Stuffed Turk'y, I'm curious, what did you think?


Gardein Savory Stuffed Turk'y
Rankng: **


***** awesome! Highly recommended.
**** hey, this is pretty dang good.
*** not bad at all.
** eh.
* bad. Keep looking for alternatives.

[Gardein products can be found at Whole Foods.]

Viva Vegan: Peru! Part 2

So yesterday I mentioned hosting a Peruvian dinner for some friends, but really it was an excuse for making some goodies for myself. Here's the menu and some photos of the dishes. I'm not going to post the recipes, you can find all of them in Terry Hope Romero's Viva Vegan cookbook, which I highly recommend you purchase.

~~~
My Peruvian Dinner Menu

Appetizer
Mixed Mushroom Ceviche

Main
Peruvian Seitan and Potato Skewers (aka Seitan Anticuchos)
Yellow Chile Grilled Tempeh (with Ají Amarillo)
Peruvian Potatoes with Spicy "Cheezy" Sauce
Peruvian Red Chile-Corn Salad with Limas and Cherry Tomatoes

Condiment
So Good, So Green Dipping Sauce (Green Ají Sauce)

Dessert
Chocolate Orange Spice Cake with Dulce de Batata (Sweet Potato Sweet Mash)

~~~~

I neglected to get a photo of the Mixed Mushroom Ceviche, but just picture juicy oyster, cremini, and white mushrooms in a thin yellow sauce. I don't like mushrooms, so this one was made purely for my guests. One of my friends said she is not a big fan of mushrooms either, but she liked how it was prepared. I used the ají amarillo paste in this one and it definitely gave a nice kick. I also 'only' made the mushrooms, not the sweet potato and corn garnish that tends to accompany it.

I didn't get a photo of the So Good, So Green Dipping Sauce either, but it's basically the color of light green lettuce with darker green leafy flecks. And it was a big hit. Very tasty and easy to make. I'd love to use it on tacos.

Yellow Chile Grilled Tempeh (with Ají Amarillo) 

I really wanted more sauce on the tempeh, cause even after marinading them it didn't seem to absorb as much as I would have liked. I wanted it dripping! I think next time I'd cut the tempeh into smaller pieces. I'd really like to try this sauce with seitan because I much prefer seitan to tempeh. I like tempeh these days, but it definitely has been an acquired taste for me. Topped with the So Good, So Green Dipping Sauce, this was pretty tasty.

Peruvian Red Chile-Corn Salad with Limas and Cherry Tomatoes

I actually made  this one with choclos (large Peruvian corn kernels) and Campari tomatoes (because they looked gorgeous and they didn't have any cherry tomatoes that looked right for the dish). This salad was ok. I'm not really a corn person, and I only like lima beans a little. The sauce and tomatoes were good. I know some of the others really liked the salad.

 Peruvian Potatoes with Spicy "Cheezy" Sauce

I was little bit disappointed with this one. Of course, I went into this with certain expectations; I wanted it to taste just like the Papas a la Huancaína I used to get at a Peruvian restaurant and it didn't. I added the huacatay to the sauce, which was optional for the recipe, and I think, to me, it had a really weird flavor. I'm going to try this dish again without the huacatay and see if it makes a difference. Or it could have been that because I was stuck on options, I used French Vanilla Coconut Milk Creamer for the heavy cream substitute throwing the flavor off, though I really didn't taste the vanilla or coconut. My friends seemed to like this one, there were almost no leftovers. I'm determined to make this one work for me!

 Peruvian Seitan and Potato Skewers (aka Seitan Anticuchos)

I started out trying to make this dish as grilled skewers, but I grew impatient with threading the ingredients onto sticks and with how it cooked. So I pretty much pan fried these in a cast iron grill pan. This was easily my favorite dish. So good! I am now a big fan of the ají panca paste. Loved the sauce. I'll be making this one again, for dern sure.

Chocolate Orange Spice Cake with Dulce de Batata (Sweet Potato Sweet Mash)

Normally I don't like chocolate cake. At all. Nor do I particularly care for sweet potato-based desserts. But this cake was pretty good. And it got even better after being in the fridge for a couple hours, too. I think the orange-spice flavors merging with the chocolate flavor is what made it work for me. And the sweet potato paste gave it a nice non-frosting sweetness without making it too rich. Very moist. Good stuff. Also, a short cut on this recipe is to use the bags of frozen, already-diced sweet potatoes which you can find at Whole Foods and Fry's Marketplace.

Speaking of ingredient tips, I've already mentioned the special import ingredients in Part 1, the only other "special" ingredients were seitan, vegan mayonaise (Vegenaise), agave, cake tempeh, garbanzo flour, nutritional yeast, soy creamer (watch out for some of these that are labeled non-dairy but still have dairy ingredients), and almond milk. You can find all of these at Whole Foods. The seitan and nutritional yeast are the only things that are super hard to find at other stores. Sprouts carries most of the other ingredients, and Fry's Marketplace carries a few things too. You might have to look for garbanzo flour in the gluten-free section.

Tomorrow, I will post a few other resources for vegan Peruvian food. Mmmmm. But right now, I need a piece of that cake!

Viva Vega: Peru! Part 1

Viva Vegan: Peru! Part 1

Long before I was a vegetarian, there was a really good Peruvian restaurant in Chandler that my sister and I loved going to. The restaurant has long since disappeared, and even though there are a couple others in the valley, they are really not vegan-friendly. So, I was super excited when Terry Hope Romero's Latin foods cookbook, Viva Vegan, wasn't just Mexican food, and in fact, it includes recipes from Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Argentina, Cuba, as well as Mexico and a smattering of other Latin countries.

One of my favorite entrees from the Peruvian restaurant was Papas a la Huancaína, potatoes covered in a cheesey sauce. When I read through the Viva Vegan cookbook, I discovered a recipe for the dish, called Peruvian Potatoes with Spicy "Cheezy" Sauce. I knew I had to make this, in fact, I wanted a whole Peruvian dinner, dammit! And so I rounded up some guinea pig friends and planned a full meal.

Here is Part 1 where I share tips, photos, reviews, etc from my Peruvian dinner.

First, here we have the special ingredients from Peru that I purchased. I found all of them at my 'go-to' place for all ethnic foods, LeeLee's Oriental Supermarket.

Choclo Desgranado. These are basically giant corn kernels, easily the size of my thumbnail. Typically, choclos are served aside ceviche, but I used them in Terry's Peruvian Red Chile-Corn Salad with Limas and Cherry Tomatoes.

Peruvian Olives. Black olives are often used as a garnish for Papas a la Huancaína. These ones are similar to kalamata, and as such, I was not a fan. I fully confess that I really only have eyes for the California black olive and have never met another olive that I like. However, the olive aficionados at the table liked them. Also, they have seeds which is always a turn off to me.

Ají Panca Paste. Ají is the general South American term for a chile pepper. Panca peppers are mild, but have tons of smokey, fruity flavor. In fact, I really liked this paste in the sauces I made for the Peruvian Seitan and Potato Skewers (aka Seitan Anticuchos) and the Peruvian Red Chile-Corn Salad with Limas and Cherry Tomatoes. I can't wait to try this paste in other dishes.

Ají Amarillo Paste. Made from yellow-orange hot peppers the heat is supposed to be slightly less than that of the jalapeño, with a little bit of a sweet fruity kick. This paste also has a good flavor. I used this one in the Yellow Chile Grille Tempeh with Ají Amarillo, the Peruvian Potatoes with Spicy "Cheezy" Sauce, and the Mixed Mushroom Ceviche.

Huacatay. [wah-kah-tie] Aka "Peruvian or Andean black mint", according to Viva Vegan this unique herb is like a combination of tarrgon, mint, cilantro, and oregano, so if you cannot find it, she lists the amounts of the other herbs needed to create a similar flavor. However, you can find this bag in the frozen Latin foods section at LeeLee's. And because it is frozen, you just take what you need as you cook and the rest keeps in the freezer. If you like the Ají Verde sauce they often have on the table at Peruvian restaraunts, most of them have this ingredient so it really might be extra worth the purchase of a full bag.

Tomorrow- the full menu and food photos! Stay tuned.

Viva Vegan: Peru! Part 2

Vegan Chicken Salad

Great Grandma's Fruit Salad and Vegan Chicken Salad Sammie

I think the next time I make this I will try it with a little more dill, or maybe with spicy dijon mustard. It was a really good sammich though. Just make sure you give it a little time for the flavors to merge in the fridge.


Vegan Chicken Salad Sammie
(inspired by Food Network Kitchens)

INGREDIENTS
4 cups chicken-style seitan, diced ¹
1 stalk celery, diced
4 scallions, trimmed and thinly sliced
1 teaspoon tarragon
1 teaspoon dill
2 tablespoons parsley
1 cup vegan mayonaise²
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons salt
black pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS
In a mixing bowl, toss together the seitan, celery, scallions and herbs. Set aside.

In a small bowl, whisk together the vegenaise, lemon juice, mustard, salt and pepper to taste. Add to the seitan and mix gently until combined. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Serve on a bed of lettuce with sliced tomatoes, in half an avocado, or as a sandwich.

*****************************

My preferred ingredients and where you can find them.

1a. Trader Joes' Chickenless Strips - Trader Joes
b. White Wave Seitan, Chicken Style (water pack)- Whole Foods
2. Vegenaise- Sprouts, Fry's Marketplace, Whole Foods

Vegan Breakfast Sausages

Yves vs. Lightlife vs. Tofurky

I realized as I was taste-testing these snausages that I am not very good at describing the details of flavors or textures. I can give you a number rating on a scale, I can tell you if I will eat something again, and I can tell you if I like something. So that's what I am gonna do.

To start with, I cooked all of these by lightly pan frying them with cooking oil spray til they were sufficiently browned and warmed. I tasted each of them plain, with some water refreshment to cleanse the palette.

Onward to the review!

Tofurky Breakfast Links

These are juicy, which is good, but they have a weird peppery taste, like red bell pepper or something that I'm not too keen on. They're ok but not my preferred product. I'd eat them if I needed to. I was disappointed because so far I like the Tofurky Franks the best of all the faux hot dogs.

Yves Meatless Breakfast Patties

I couldn't find the Yves Breakfast Links, I suspect they are only available in Canada, so I got these. I wasn't impressed with them when I did the comparison testing of all three brands. They were kind of crumblyish in texture though they held together. Eh, ok.

But when I ate a patty cut up onto an oven-cooked pita pizza a couple of days later, they were far better tasting. They were firmer and just plain tastier. In fact, they were pretty dang good on the pita pizza. So, these were redeemed. I'd eat them again, but mostly just on pizza.

Lightlife Smart Links Breakfast Sausage Style

These are by far my favorite. I can eat them plain or dipped in maple syrup and they are flavored the way I remember sausage links tasting, firm and um, sausage-y. They're a nice quick addition to breakfast whether you are eating a tofu scramble, toast, or oatmeal.






Tofurky Breakfast Links

Ranking: **


Yves Meatless Breakfast Patties
Ranking: ***

LightLife Smart Links Breakfast Sausage Style
Ranking: ****
***** awesome! Highly recommended.
**** hey, this is pretty dang good.
*** not bad at all.
** eh.
* bad. Keep looking for alternatives.


[Tofurky can be found at Whole Foods, and sometimes Trader Joes. Yves can be found at Whole Foods, and sometimes Fry's Marketplace. LightLife can be found at Whole Foods, and sometimes Sprouts and Fry's Marketplace.]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Note: None of the Morningstar Farms Sausages are vegan, they all contain milk and egg ingredients. Match Foods has a vegan breakfast sausage, but you'd have to order it online as there are no local stores that carry Match products (according to their website). And don't forget about the LightLife Gimme Lean Ground Sausage Style option. You can easily make breakfast sausage patties with it.

Vegan Creamed Chicken and Biscuits

Creamed Chicken and Biscuits, Hazelnut Green Beans, and Fresh Fruit

My sister made this dinner for me. I must say that the Vegan Creamed Chicken and Biscuits tasted like a pot pie. But the nice thing about it is you don't actually have to make a pot pie. Take some biscuits and then just pour the seitan, veg, and cream on top. I hadn't had a pot pie in awhile and it quickly brought me back to when I was younger and would eat frozen tv meals. One of my favorites was the chicken pot pie. Mmmm for a nice vegan version.

Mock Creamed Chicken

(from Razzle Dazzle Recipes)

INGREDIENTS
1 package (10 oz) frozen peas and carrots
1/3 cup margarine or vegetable oil
1/3 cup flour
1/3 cup chopped onion
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 and 3/4 cup vegetable broth
2/3 cup soy milk
1 cup cooked favorite vegetable, potatoes, green beans or mushrooms (optional)
1 and 1/2 cups chicken style seitan¹

DIRECTIONS
Rinse frozen peas and carrots under cold water to separate; drain. Heat margarine in 2 quart saucepan over low heat until melted. Stir in flour, onion, salt and pepper. Cook, stirring constantly, until mixture is bubbly; remove from heat. Stir in broth and soy milk. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Boil and stir 1 minute. Stir in vegetables and seitan.


********************************
'Buttermilk' Biscuits
(from Holy Cow! Vegan Recipes)

INGREDIENTS
1 cup very cold soymilk (or almond milk), plus 1 tablespoon soymilk
1 teaspoon vinegar
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
2 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons vegetable shortening, chopped into small cubes.
1/2 tablespoon canola oil

DIRECTIONS
Mix the (1 cup) soymilk and vinegar together and set aside to curdle.

Mix together flours, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. With a strong fork or a pastry-cutter, mix the shortening into the flour until you have a coarse mixture with no large pieces.

Add the curdled soymilk-vinegar mixture and mix quickly until the dough comes together. Make a ball of the dough, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 15-30 minutes.

Then take the dough and roll it out into about 1/2-inch thickness. Use a round cookie cutter about 1 and 1/2 to 2 inches in diameter to cut the biscuits. Place the biscuits on an ungreased cookie sheet.

Reroll any leftover scraps of dough to cut more biscuits from it. Brush the tops of the biscuits with a mixture of 1 tablespoon soy milk and 1 tablespoon canola oil for a nice, golden-brown glaze. Leave about 1 inch space between each.

Bake the biscuits in a preheated 450-degree oven 10-12 minutes. Cool on a baking rack. **************** My preferred ingredients and where to find them: 1. White Wave Seitan, Chicken Style (water pack)- Whole Foods

LightLife Gimme Lean Ground Sausage-Style

You can't really tell, but there's a pita crust, slices of zucchini,

onions, and veggie sausage under that Daiya.

It's funny, I wasn't a big sausage eater back in my meat-eating days. [Wow, that sounds a little dirty.] I usually preferred ham, bacon, or pepperoni. So it's a little strange that I find myself making little veggie sausage pita pizzas every so often. But the fact is this Gimme Lean tastes good and is so versatile. I use it on pizza, in pasta, in veggie skillets, with breakfast, etc. If I liked meatball sandwiches, I'd probably make those too.

LightLife Gimme Lean Ground Sausage-Style

Ranking: ****

***** awesome! Highly recommended.
**** hey, this is pretty dang good.
*** not bad at all.
** eh.
* bad. Keep looking for alternatives.


[LightLife can be found at Sprouts, Whole Foods, and Fry's Marketplace.]

Sunshine Burgers Original

I am desperately in love with the Original Sunshine Burgers. So much so, I've been eating several a week; topped with sliced cucumbers, romaine lettuce, alfalfa sprouts, tomatoes, grilled onions, sweet relish, dijon mustard, and vegenaise on a whole wheat bun. Mmmmmm!

Sunshine Burgers are not meat analogues, and they aren't exactly a veggie burger either, but they still make awesome sandwiches in their own right. The base for all Sunshine flavors are sunflower seeds and brown rice. The original flavor is made from ground raw sunflower seeds, brown rice, carrots, herbs, and sea salt. They are soy, wheat, and gluten free. I know a lot of people want soy alternatives, and these burgers are perfect for that.

Sunshine Burgers Original

Ranking: *****

***** awesome! Highly recommended.
**** hey, this is pretty dang good.
*** not bad at all.
** eh.
* bad. Keep looking for alternatives.


[Sunshine Burgers can be found in the frozen foods section at Whole Foods, and possibly some of the other health food stores in the valley.]

zpizza, Phoenix, AZ

Pizza is like my favorite food. Ever. I could probably eat it every day. In fact, I'm craving pizza just writing this.

Ever since I heard zpizza offered a vegan pizza topped with melted Daiya, I've been trying to find an opportunity to visit. A national chain, we have 5 zpizza locations here in the valley; Midtown Phoenix, Downtown Phoenix, Metrocenter-area Phoenix, Phoenix/Paradise Valley, and North Scottsdale.

I was fortunate to visit the zpizza downtown, which is just off the lightrail at Monroe and 1st Ave. I debated building my own pizza but instead determined it was cheaper to buy the pre-styled Berkeley Vegan. Which is just as well, because it was delicious! The pizza is topped with Gardein veggie burger crumbles, which is more like a mock spicy sausage. As with many Gardein products, these little crumbles were very yummy. Plus, marinara, zucchini, red onions, bell peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms, and the Daiya mozzarella shreds. So yum.

I will be back, zpizza! And soon!

zpizza (Downtown)
Ranking: *****

***** awesome! Highly recommended.
**** hey, this is pretty dang good.
*** not bad at all.
** eh.
* bad. Keep looking for alternatives.


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zpizza (Downtown)
111 W. Monroe St  # 130
Phoenix AZ, 85003
(602) 254-4145
http://www.zpizza.com/

Hours
Daily, 10AM-9PM