Baby Peter's 1st Vegan Birthday!

So I'm really not all that crazy about babies ... unless they're VEGAN BABIES! When my friend Stephanie (Poopie Bitch on the PPK) got preggo last year, she promised me that her baby wouldn't be lame. And she was right! Peter's not so bad for a baby. And he's been vegan all of his little life. We celebrated Peter's 1st birthday on Saturday at Steph and Richard's new house. First, Peter and his little friends went swimming in the backyard:

The best part of a party at Stephanie's house is the amazing vegan spread. If you've ever seen her old blog or her posts on the PPK, you know this woman can seriously cook. She made a Middle Eastern spread fit for king — Spanakopita from Vegan with a Vengeance, Israeli Couscous Salad, Dolmas, Hummus, Falafel, and the WORLD'S BEST Baba Ganoush. Oh, and she even made homemade Mint Lemonade and served it in cups with our names written in Sharpie:

But it wouldn't be a first birthday party without cake, right? Stephanie used to run a little special occasion cake business, and her baked treats are always out of this world. For Peter's special day, Stephanie made the Ginger-Macadamia-Coconut-Carrot Cupcakes from Vegan with a Vengeance:

And of course, Peter got to eat his cake first. While most babies just dig their hands in and make a huge mess, Peter knew the proper way to eat a cupcake — icing first!

Happy Birthday, Peter!!

Now, because I'm sure she won't care, I'm gonna share Stephanie's secret recipe for Baba Ganoush. She posted it on Facebook, so I figure it's fair game, right?

Poopie Bitch's Best-Ever Baba Ganoush
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2 1-pound eggplants, halved lengthwise
¼ cup olive oil
¼ cup tahini
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 garlic cloves, chopped

Preheat oven to 375°F. Generously oil rimmed baking sheet. Place eggplant halves, cut side down, on sheet. Roast until eggplant is very soft, about 45 minutes. Cool slightly. Using spoon, scoop out pulp from eggplant into strainer set over bowl. Let stand 30 minutes, allowing excess liquid to drain from eggplant.

Transfer eggplant pulp to processor. Add 1/4 cup oil, tahini, lemon juice, and garlic; process until smooth. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Transfer to small bowl, cover and chill. Serve chilled or bring to room temperature before serving.

Kitschy Canadian!

I'd like to send a giant thank you shout-out to Mabel Jenkins! Mabel was the 1950s housewife in Canada responsible for inventing the now-popular Canadian dessert — Nanaimo Bars! These mouth-watering sweet, creamy bars are made with a layer of graham cracker/walnut/coconut crust topped with a buttercream frosting followed by a layer of melted chocolate:

Did you just die a little from happiness on the inside? Well, I did when I bit into one of these last week. I got the recipe from the June page of Canadian kitsch queen Sarah Kramer's 2011 Go Vegan Wall Calendar. I usually always make the recipe of the month during that month, but June was so busy. So I waited until July to try these. Now I can't believe I waited so long! I may have a new fave dessert.

Ms. Mabel came up with this recipe to submit to the annual Ladysmith and Cowichan Women's Institute Cookbook. Her home in Ladysmith was just south of the city of Nanaimo, hence the bars' name. Who knows whatever happened that legendary home cook? But her bars will live on forever.

Apparently, they're pretty popular with the Canadians. And now they'll be pretty popular in my kitchen too. I shared these with co-workers and they were very quickly gobbled up.

If you don't have the Go Vegan Wall Calendar, never fear. You can also find the recipe in Kramer's Vegan A Go-Go or watch the video on Everyday Dish TV!

Take Me Out to the Vegan Ballgame

I almost forgot to post this! But last week, our local ballpark hosted a vegetarian night for members of Food Awareness, our local vegetarian society. AutoZone Park, where our minor league team the Memphis Redbirds play, makes PETA's top ten list of veg-friendly ballparks every year. They were #6 in 2011.

They gave us a buffet of all-you-can-eat black bean burgers, veggie dogs, coleslaw, pasta salad, and watermelon. Here's my plate — a black bean burger, Brim's BBQ chips, and spicy slaw:

Food Awareness member Max checks out the watermelon:

After we stuffed our faces, we moved over to watch the game. Here's Shay, Amy, Kim, Nick, and John:

Overall, we had a fabulous night! And how cool that AutoZone Park offered us a veggie buffet! It was totally their idea, but we had about 20 members show up for the fun. And the black bean burgers were out of this world. They were homemade! They offer those all at every game at certain concession stands, as well as veggie dogs, a baked potato bar with veg options, veggie sausage, and fruit.

How are the veg options at your local ballpark?

Rustic Tater Salad

Back in November, my mom picked me up a copy of Vegan Rustic Cooking: Through the Seasons at the gift shop inside the Rainbow Co-op in Jackson, Mississippi. We were driving home from New Orleans and we'd stopped there for vegan lunch at High Noon Cafe. When she saw this book, she asked if I'd ever heard of it. I hadn't. I thought I knew about almost every vegan cookbook (because I'm a huge cookbook nerd!), but this one passed my radar.

That may be because Diane White's seasonal vegan cookbook was published in the U.K. It's filled with traditional European recipes, like Cottage Pie, Baked Courgettes (that's zucchini in America), Yorkshire Pudding, and Bubble and Squeak. Thankfully, the measurements are in both metric and American equivalents, so I can understand the recipes.

I'm finally cracking the book open. I'm not sure why, but the first thing I made with this Potato & Chickpea Salad:

It's boiled new potatoes (from the downtown farmer's market) topped with chickpeas, radishes, snow peas, carrots, and plain soy yogurt. Weird, right? But delightfully refreshing and tasty. I'm not sure if this is a traditional European salad. There are a few more non-traditional recipes in the book, so it might not be. But it was very different from anything I've ever made.

The cool, creamy yogurt was a great topping for the lightly salted and peppered taters, and I loved the crunch of the radishes and snow peas. I served the salad with crusty garlic bread, as suggested in the book.

What's your favorite (or should I say, "favourite" with a "u") European recipe? I know I have some European blogger friends out there! What do you love to make?

Vegan Cuban

Full disclosure: My only exposure to Cuban food has been at the Mexican/Cuban/Spanish restaurant Country Flame in New Orleans. I've been there twice, so you can see I'm a bit of a novice. But I do follow foodie news, and I know Cuban sandwiches were all the rage a few years back.

Having never had a traditional, meaty Cuban, I wasn't sure what to expect from the Cubano Sandwich from Terry Hope Romero's Viva Vegan. But you can't go wrong with homemade steamed seitan, vegan ham, vegan cheese, sweet pickles, mustard, and Earth Balance on French bread:

I didn't have a sandwich press, so I stacked another pan on top of the sandwich while it was in the cast iron skillet. And then I stacked a giant can of tomato juice on top of that. The result was a crispy, pressed sandwich loaded with protein and cheeze. That's right up my vegan alley!

By the way, Romero suggests her steamed seitan recipe as the base for many of her dishes, and I highly recommend it. It may be the best (and easiest) seitan recipe ever!

What do you do when a recipe calls for seitan? Do you buy pre-made seitan or make your own? What's your favorite seitan-makin' method?

Grill Out

In my personal ranking of holiday importance, the Fourth of July falls pretty far down my list. Patriotism just seems a little too imperialistic to me. But there are two things about the Fourth that I absolutely adore — fireworks and grillin' out.

Nothing says summer like a hot, sweaty night spent outdoors drinkin' beer and grillin' tofu. We did that last night, right before lighting off fireworks in a nearby abandoned parking lot. Technically, lighting fireworks is illegal inside city limits, but we don't care about silly laws like that. Nothing says "let's celebrate freedom" like breaking the law, right?

Greg started off our rebellious Independence Day celebration by basting some tofu and veggie kabobs:

Here they are on the cheap-o grills we bought at the dollar store. Mine was only $5 and Greg's bigger version was $10. Score! They're cheap, but we only grill a few times a year and these are reusable. My boyfriend Paul also bought his own small, cheap grill so he could keep his meat far from Greg and my vegan food.

I also grilled some Tofurky Beer Brats that I marinated in Ghost River Pale Ale. As you can see, they're pretty well-done. I like my grilled food a little burnt, especially hot dogs:

Here I am with plate #1. I'm pretty sure I ate my weight in tofu veggie kabobs, but thankfully, I only had room for one Tofurky dog:

My friend Leslie was there too with her daughter Toya (the tiny one) and my friend April's kids, CJ and Paige.

And of course, my boyfriend Paul was there, but his eyes were pretty much closed in all the pictures. After dinner, we wore some awesome 3D rainbow glasses, courtesy of my friend Mike, for the fireworks show. The 3D effect made for a pretty trippy light show. I doubt I'll ever watch fireworks again without 3D glasses.

Product Review: Zukay Kvass

"Kvass" means "bread drink," a drink made from fermented rye bread. But Zukay Live Foods makes a raw, live, gluten-free version of kvass made from organic veggies, salt, active cultures, and stevia. They offered to send me a few bottles to review, and of course I agreed!

They sent Raw Carrot Ginger, Raw Beet, and Raw Beet Ginger Kvass:


Now, I'm a huge fan of kombucha tea, but I'll admit that it's an acquired taste. Fermented beverages have a very acidic, vinegar-y taste, and they're not for everybody. The kvass tastes very much like kombucha, but while most kombucha is flavored with fruit, the kvass is flavored with organic veggies.

I tried the Carrot Ginger Kvass with my co-worker Hannah on our Raw Food Thursday a few weeks back:

Hannah said it was a little too salty, but that didn't really bother me. I'm a salt-aholic, so nothing is really too salty for me. I really enjoyed the strong, acidic ginger flavor, and I felt a small burst of energy after drinking this.

The Beet and Beet Ginger flavors were even better than the carrot. The earthy beet flavor was a better complement to the fermented twang. This might be TMI, but all my, um, waste products were dyed pink after drinking this. That might seem weird, but beet juice stains EVERYTHING!

Zukay threw in a live Red Pepper Cilantro Salad Dressing too:

I'd been dying to try their raw dressings! Unlike most oil-based dressings, this one is simply made from red pepper, tomato, cilantro, garlic, salt, and live active cultures. No oil. And that means one tablespoon of dressing is only five calories!

This stuff is amazing! Just look at it on my salad:

Out of all the products Zukay sent, the dressing was my fave. I love a lot of salad dressing on my fresh veggies, and with this low-cal, flavorful dressing, I can really afford to drench my salad. The bottle suggests mixing the dressing with olive oil to create a vinaigrette, and while I'm sure that's tasty, it's not really necessary.

If Zukay is sold in your area, try the dressing and the kvass. It's not sold in Memphis, but it may be available in your area. Click here to find out. If it's not available in stores near you, you can place an order on their website.