Vegan Etsy Holiday Market at the V Spot Vegan Cafe!

As promised, here are some more details on the VET holiday market in Brooklyn, which will feature a number of VET artisans! We're very excited to be hosted by V Spot, an excellent vegan restaurant in the shopping district of Park Slope. If you're in the NYC area, we hope you can stop by and join us this Friday evening for the launch party! And if not, we're sure you'll enjoy perusing the wares any time during the holiday season - and sitting down for a bite and a nice sip of something as well! One tip: the breakfast empanadas during brunch are TO DIE FOR!! :D

It's A Wonderful Life- Daiya Vegan Cheese, Strong Hearts Cafe, and Co-Op Grocery Finds!

The other day, last Friday to be exact, Jessi and I took a little adventure out to Syracuse, NY where we had planned to see a band play. Low and behold they were playing at a farm, and when I couldnt get an answer at the farm to find out what their definition of "farm" was we decided the chances of animals being there were high...so what did we do instead?

We headed on over to the Syracuse Co-Op Grocery store, grabbed some organic portabellas and ran into a pal of mine who works there, she told us that they now have Daiya Vegan Cheese, in bulk! We walked right by it and would have never even noticed, I dont make a practive of looking in the cheese cooler hah! For the last couple of months we have heard nothing but rave reviews of Diaya Cheese, and were waiting and waiting to have enough money to try it. Thank you co-op for making it easily accessible.

We left the co-op arms full and wallets on E and headed over to Strong Hearts Cafe, it an all vegan cafe in Syracuse, NY and Friday night is pizza night! We saved up for this night for a long time and were very very eager to munch on some Vegan Chicun Wang Pizza, which consists of dough, hot sauce, seitan strips, sheese blue cheese (which is to die for and tastes a lot like bleu cheese), and smothered in the Daiya mozzarella cheeze.

By the time we sloshed down our vegan milkshakes, we each could only eat one slice of the AMAZING pizza!

So we boxed it up and brought it home, after a long hour drive it was time for a bit of a snack again...so we each had one more slice and saved the rest for morning.

What did those crazy folks do with their bulk Daiya cheeze anyway? Well, glad you asked, we decided to make some of our famous spicy tofu subs and melt the daiya cheese on top! They turned out amazing and are super simple to make. Which makes for a cheap easy meal when you cant afford to eat organic raw veggies the entire winter in upstate NY (which sucks by the way, we are still trying tho!)

These were so simple to make, so heres the recipe!

You will need:
1 or 2 pounds of tofu, depending on how many meals you want to get out of them (we each got 2 meals out of our half of the big sub)
Your favorite hot sauce, we like red hot, it doesnt have corn syrup or sugar in it
Vegenaise
Black Olives (if you dig them)
A roll or many rolls depending on what you prefer (we went big ahha real big) Make sure to check ingredients strange dairy crap loves to creep its way into breads
Daiya Cheese shreds (however much you want)
1 c. nutritional yeast

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees
Drain the tofu, leave it a bit damp so it can be dipped! Dip each strip of tofu into the nutritional yeast (you can also mix in some garlic powder, if you love garlic)and place on a cookie sheet. Bake the tofu until it gets a bit crispy...the thinner you slice it the better it gets nice and crispy that way.
While the tofu is baking mix up your sauce, take a glob of vegenaise and add hot sauce until its the spiceyness that you prefer, set aside. Pull it out of the oven, dunk it in the hot sauce (or soak it, which I do sometimes) then spread the tofu slices on your roll. Cover with more sauce if you fancy, sprinkle with black olives, then smother with the daiya cheese. Put back in oven, just to melt the cheese....Yes thats right, daiya melts and stretches! Pull it out and munch! I wouldnt suggest eating this all the time, or atleat I wouldnt eat it all the time....but you could eat 3 and still be eating healthier than a meat/dairy eater...so have fun!

Posted by and recipe by Heather of Holistically Heather

A vegan meal at Ralph's at the Park... I suppose stranger things have happened?

As you may know, my fiance and I spent the week of August 17 in New Orleans. As you also may know, New Orleans is not known for its plethora of vegetarian restaurants. While it does have an up and coming veg community, it has only one veg restaurant, and that one happened to be on vacation the week we were in town! What is a vacationing vegan couple to do?

Well, as we all know vegans can eat well anywhere with just a smidge of determination. It's only the odd steakhouse that truly has nothing on the menu for a vegan, and even when dragged to such an establishment by family members or the like we can still usually get some decent french fries. Luckily, New Orleans actually does have many restaurants with great vegan options - Middle Eastern places like Mona's, Medditeranean cafes that serve a variety of roasted vegetable sandwiches and pastas, Japanese restaurants with the standard vegetable sushis and tempuras, and Thai sit-downs that are happy to leave the egg out of the noodle plates and are clear about which dishes contain fish sauce. There's even a Vietnamese place on the Westbank called Pho Tau Bay that has a vegetarian section on the menu - and it's truly awesome.

But the most remarkable meal we had during our week in NOLA came from a quite unexpected source. We've been questioning Ralph's on the Park, a fairly upscale establishment across the street from the main entrance to City Park (hence the name), for a couple of months now regarding the possibility of getting them to serve our wedding party a veg brunch after the ceremony. The ceremony is, of course, happening in City Park just steps from Ralph's, so it would be wildly convenient. Unfortunately they specialize in seafood and things like roast pork, so we feared that asking them to do a vegan meal for fourteen people might be a bit of a stretch.

Well, Friday morning we had a semi-impromptu meeting to see the room they could give us and to maybe discuss potential menus. But since the woman we've been speaking with wasn't in town (everyone leaves NO in August), there weren't any potential menus. The room was lovely though, and the girl helping us was sweet. So we asked if, maybe, could the chef do something for us for lunch right then and there?

Well, our helper was slightly taken aback. But she spoke with the kitchen staff, who took it as a challenge no doubt. And as any vegan knows, it's just not that hard to create a vegan meal when you've already got a fully staffed and stocked kitchen. It took them a minute, but the meal we were served was incredible.

Appetizer: Watermelon and mango tartar, lightly seasoned with herbs and garlic. It was amazing! The fruit was still light and crisp, and their flavors were only enhanced by the preparation.

Main course: Creole tomato in a tomato basil chutney, lemon infused cous cous in a lightly grilled vadalia onion ring, and - la piece de resistance - lightly breaded and fried domestic and wild mushrooms including shitakes, oysters, and chantarelles. For a place that doesn't have even a singe vegetarian appetizer on its menu, this was a fairly astounding plate to receive.

The chef came out to present the meal when it was ready, and came out again to see how we liked it. Naturally we showered him with appreciation. After all, when someone goes out of his way to create such a deluxe vegan meal, he should be praised! Mayhaps they'll figure out that it's just not so hard - that you don't have to mess around with any tofu or mock meats to create a great vegan meal and get some veg options on your menu.

Friday was our last day in the city, and this experience was such a great way to leave off. The moral of the story? Ask for what you want! You might just get it, and someone might learn something valuable in the process.

Until next Monday,

hearts,
Melissa Bastian

Finding the big V in D.C.

As you may or may not know, a few weeks ago I traveled a wee bit south to Washington D.C., both to visit with one of my good friends who still lives there and to engage in the first try-on session of my Vegan Wedding Dress Mission. I had scheduled a session with Aria, a great little company which offers all of its dresses in satin, and I couldn't have been more pleased with the results.

But poppets, was I going to travel to a major metropolitan area and then *not* search for fabulous vegan vittles? Doesn't seem very likely, does it.

As luck would have it, Aria's private boutique in Dupont Circle just so happens to share a building with an upscale pizza joint called Pizzeria Paradiso. According to the internets, this place would put vegan cheese on any pizza. This fact is one not substantiated by their website or menu, which I find rather silly. However, our waitress was more than happy to confirm.

So after the dress-trying-on extravaganza, Kimmy and I went on downstairs and stuffed our faces with crispy thin crust pizza piled high with veggies, and mine smothered in vegan cheese as well. (Once I realized that I actually can get into Aria's size 12 dresses - and heck, even their size 10s, without busting any zippers, I was able to eat with abandon.) I got the Siciliana - it's like they chopped up a whole backyard garden on there. Totally awesome. All in all it was a satisfying afternoon to be sure. It seems that vegan cheese on pizza is no rarity in D.C., and VegDC has been kind enough to list all proprietors of this delight for us, by neighborhood. Thanks guys!

After the pizza gorge, we went on the second mission of the day - and honestly, one that was much more my kind of mission than trying on fancy dresses. For a couple of years now I've been dying to try out D.C.'s own all-vegan bakery, Sticky Fingers. My chance had finally arrived! It was a harrowing ride on the Metro: they're doing some crazy maintenance on the signals after the accident that happened a couple of months ago, and as a result they're single tracking all of the trains on the Red Line. If you don't live in a subway town, let me translate: this means trains come about a fifth as frequently and creep along at about half a mile an hour. But eventually we made it to Gallery Place and transferred to the Green Line, and all was well.

So then. Sticky Fingers. First of all, that place is enormous! Maybe I've just gotten too used to the sizes of things in NYC, where every store is the size of a shoebox because even a shoebox costs about a million dollars a month to rent. But can D.C. be very cheap? I think not. Anyway, for a bakery this place is LARGE. The joint was also hoppin' - I mean srsly ppl, it was pretty packed. When I did finally decide what I wanted, I had to wait for about six people to put in their orders before I could get a word in edgewise. To which I say awesome! I love to see vegan businesses doing a bustling trade.

Upon entering, you're faced with two full sized glass cases full of baked delights - cupcakes, cookies, brownies and bars, sticky buns, cakes... the list goes on. To your right you'll find a nice big case full of sandwiches and other to-go meal type items, and of course bottled beverages. And also on offer behind the counter are hot dogs, chilli, espresso-type coffee beverages, and more. And of course it's all vegan all the time! In other words, it's kind of like heaven.

But that's just the first half. To your left, you'll see a sizable seating area with a nice big window facing the street for people-watching. The booths are upholstered in a deep sparkly pink plastic, and the tabletops are wacky boomerang patterned Formica. It's the perfect spot to enjoy your cupcake and/or cappuccino. The walls of the whole place are painted in a sort of dripping-chocolate motif, and there's a dash of kitch in the collections of old kitchen gadgets and knick knacks which makes it very homey. But they also have free wi-fi, which gives it a very modern (and useful) edge.

But I know what you really want to know. What did I eat? Well I'll tell you. Man, was it a tough decision! Kim is "not a sweets person" - so much help in so many places, but no help at all in a bake shop. I was traveling by train, and traveling light. I also wasn't going home until the following day. So it's not as if I could bring a dozen cupcakes home with me - but oh, how I would have loved to! So after thinking long and hard, I approached one of the very friendly counter staff, who had already endured about fifteen minutes of me taking copious pics of the shop. I stated my choice: the strawberry creme vanilla cupcake. Fruit flavors are not usually my thing, but this one just had something special. I mean, look at it! I also asked the girl helping me what she suggested - her favorite thing, and she said the sweet and salty cookie. So one cookie it was.

Naturally I sat right down to dig into my cupcake. And it was freaking amazing. Vanilla cake moist and perfect, topped with what can only be described as strawberry mousse. But not that fake sort of pink tasting "strawberry" that for some reason we feed to kids all the time. Real live strawberry. I mean, there were actual strawberries in there - you could see the seeds! Sure it was plenty sweet, but it also had that natural tartness that accompanies real fruit and makes such a nice balance in this kind of delicacy. It was so rich and fabulous that I think it took me a full fifteen minutes to eat. I'd say I got my money's worth.

Did I love Sticky Fingers enough to seriously consider buying a t-shirt? Yes, yes I did. If they'd been selling coffee mugs I would totally own one right now. And how much does it break my heart that they make wedding cakes? Really terrifically beautiful wedding cakes!? Somehow I don't think the thousand mile journey to New Orleans would suit a wedding cake... humph. But listen: if you're planning a vegan wedding in the D.C. Metro area, check this place out for sure! (They also cater!)

Oh, and that sweet and salty cookie? It was the perfect snack about halfway through my train ride home the next day. Still wonderfully chewy and soft. Thanks counter girl for that super awesome suggestion!

It being a short trip (36 hours!), that was the extent of my real vegan adventures. Sure I ate other things, but more of the "what can I find here that's vegan" variety. And that's not nearly as exciting. But honestly, if I'd had any more truly exciting vegan adventures I may have passed out - I'm easily overwrought.

And so, my loves, I bid you adieu.

Until next Monday,

hearts,
Melissa Bastian