Come See Me Cook Brinner at the Memphis Plant-Based Food Fest!

This weekend, I'll be doing a food demo at the third annual Memphis Plant-Based Food Fest, along with my friend/fellow blogger/future restaurateur Cassi, legendary Memphis raw foodist Balewa, my friend Amy from Whole Foods, and other awesome Memphis vegans.

Plus, there will be speakers on everything from herbology to natural birthing to organic gardening to juicing. And there will be yoga classes, meditation, musical performances, and vendors selling all kinds of hippie soaps and stuff. This will be my third year doing a food demo at the fest, and I can attest that it's always a great time. And it gets bigger every year. Here are recaps I wrote in 2012 (okay, there were two posts in 2012) and 2013.

If you're in Memphis or the surrounding area, come on down! It's at Audubon Park on Saturday, August 23rd from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. My demo will be at 11:30 a.m., and Cassi goes on at 1 p.m.  Here's the full schedule. And yes, there will be free samples of my dishes and plenty of others. If nothing else, come for the FREE FOOD!

I'll be cooking up brinner this year! I'm making my Tofu Scramble and my Sweet Potato Hash from Cookin' Crunk. I always do a run-through about a week prior to a demo, so I can make sure I've got a good list of equipment and ingredients. So that's what I had for dinner tonight, along with some Ezekiel bread spread with Earth Balance and orange marmalade.

I love breakfast at breakfast time, but somehow, it tastes even better at dinner! By the way, if you can't make it to the fest, you can find my scramble recipe here (and in my book, of course!).

Unfortunately, my Sweet Potato Hash recipe isn't online. But it is in Cookin' Crunk. It's a fun spin on Southern hash with grated sweet potato, homemade TVP "beef," onions, and a touch of parsley.

Bluff City Vegan Eats: Brother Juniper's (and Ani DiFranco!)

I've posted about my favorite breakfast joint before, but now I'm doing so in an official "Bluff City Vegan Eats" post. But first let's back up to Tuesday night.

My BFF Sheridan (we've been best friends since 8th grade ... that's been, gosh, about 18 years!) and I went to see Ani DiFranco at the New Daisy on Beale Street Tuesday night. We saw her back in 1996 (during the Not a Pretty Girl/Little Plastic Castle days), and we were sooooo excited to see our favorite folky righteous babe again.

Ani was just as amazing as we expected, and I'm pretty sure Sheridan cried a little bit. Check out the matching Ani tees we bought at the show (and my pooch Datsun in the background):

I took a vacation day from work on Wednesday to spend time with Sheridan. She lives in Little Rock, and we don't each other often enough. We enjoyed a post-Ani brunch at Brother Juniper's, a quaint little breakfast joint in the University of Memphis area.

They have three tofu scrambles, but I'm only certain that one is vegan. That's the Fahim's Special with Home Fries, Wheat Toast, and Spreadable Fruit:

Now I've eaten a crap-ton of tofu scrambles in my day, but this one is my fave (I like it even better than my own go-to recipe). Tender crumbles of tofu are swimming in this amazing tangy shitake dressing, along with red and green bell pepper, portabella mushrooms, and kalamata olives. The home fries are perfectly seasoned and fried to a crisp, and the no-sugar-added blueberry and raspberry fruit spreads are out of this world good. They even sell their spreads online and in the store.

The other tofu scrambles are Tofu Veggie and Veggie Sausage. But the Tofu Veggie contains pesto, so I assume it isn't vegan. I once inquired about the vegan-ness of the Veggie Sausage scramble, and though my server told me it was vegan, I'm not so sure. The sausage used in the scramble tastes and feels like the non-vegan Morningstar Farms patties.

Brother Juniper's also provides vanilla soymilk for your coffee, which is served in the shop's eclectic collection of mugs that appear to have been acquired from garage sales and thrift stores.

Brother Juniper's is located at 3519 Walker. Go here to see their website and read about the restaurant's fun history (or to order some spreadable fruit!).

Fiesta In the Morning

All week, I've been starting my days with savory, spicy Tofu "Sausage" Breakfast Burritos:


I love salty treats for breakfast (though sweets are okay sometimes too). But mostly, I'm a savory kind of gal in the a.m. hours. When I was a kid, my mom let me eat Ramen noodles for breakfast everyday. Probably not the most nutritious choice, but that's what I wanted.

These days, I save Ramen for special occasions, like when I need food to solve an emotional crisis. It's the ultimate comfort food for me, even better than soy ice cream. But Ramen noodles tend to be fried and pretty fatty. But I digress. This is supposed to be a post about my Tofu Sausage burrito.

For the burrito, I made a tofu scramble seasoned with garlic powder, turmeric, dried basil, celery salt, nutritional yeast, and soy sauce. I thawed out a couple the Julie Hasson sausage links I made a few weeks ago (for the recipe and pretty picture, click here), and diced them into small pieces. Then I added them to the tofu scramble.


I topped the mixture with Follow Your Heart vegan cheddar and spicy garlic-cilantro salsa and then wrapped it all up in a Garden Spinach burrito shell. Perfect way to start the day! Too bad I'm all out of burrito fixins' for tomorrow's breakfast.