King Cake Time!

Today is Fat Tuesday, the last big hurrah before Lent. Not that I observe Lent or anything. But I'll take any excuse to party.

Every year, I bring a King Cake to the office. I always use the same tried-and-tested recipe from Kittee Berns of Cake Maker to the Stars. Here's the recipe! Plus, she has newer recipes for gluten-free king cakes.

Here's this year's cake. It's a jelly roll-style cake shaped into a ring and covered with icing and Mardi Gras colored sugar. There is a hole in the center of this cake, but it's covered in sugar:

I've never had a non-vegan king cake, but I've always heard people complain that storebought versions of these Danish-like cakes are dry and tasteless. Not so with Kittee's cakes! The dough is moist and almost cinnamon roll-like. Each year, I go with a different filling. This year, I opted for Tofutti cream cheese whipped with powdered sugar and strawberry pie filling:

You're supposed to hide a baby in the cake and whoever finds it in his or her slice is king or queen for the day. And they have to bring the cake next year. Here's the little guy before he was rolled up and baked into a cake:

Sadly, I've no idea who found that baby! My co-workers devoured all but a slice of that cake today, and the remaining slice is the end piece, where the two parts of the cake were squished together. I know it can't be in there because I put him closer to the center. Somebody must not want to bring the cake next year because they're being pretty hush-hush about the baby.

Oh well! I'm sure I'll bring the vegan king cake again next year anyway! Now, off for some vegan gumbo and Abita beer. Laissez les bons temps rouler!

Engine 2-Approved Crunk Chili

The Memphis Whole Foods is currently hosting a 28-day Engine 2 diet challenge. If you're not familiar with Engine 2, it's a "plant-strong," no-oil diet created by vegan firefighter Rip Esselstyn. You've no doubt seen Rip's line of Engine 2 brand cereals, crackers, almond milk, and more. And of course, there's a book all about the diet, appropriately titled The Engine 2 Diet.

Anyway, Whole Foods invited me to lead a cooking demo for one of their regular Monday night Engine 2 classes. They asked me to make something from Cookin' Crunk, but most of my recipes do contain oil. I'm not big on oil-free diets for everyone. But they're great if you need to lose weight or make a radical health turnaround. So I thought I'd use this opportunity to show people how easy it is to adapt an oil-containing recipe into an oil-free one.

I decided to make my Chipotle Chickpea Chili. The original recipe only has one tablespoon of oil, which is used to saute the onions, garlic, mushrooms, and tofu. So I swapped out that oil with two tablespoons of water for a water saute. Also, the chipotle chili in the recipe fills the chili with so much flavor that you don't miss the oil at all.

The class went well! Everyone was so nice and attentive, and they all seemed to like my chili. I'm impressed that so many Memphians are interested in going vegan for their health.

Here's the chili I made:

And here's the oil-free recipe, adapted from Cookin' Crunk.

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Chipotle Chickpea Chili
Adapted from Cookin’ Crunk: Eatin’ Vegan in the Dirty South by Bianca Phillips
Yields 4 to 6 servings


2 tablespoons water or broth
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
8 button mushrooms, sliced
1/2 pound extra-firm tofu, drained and cubed
1 canned chipotle pepper in adobo sauce, minced
1 28-ounce can low-sodium diced tomatoes
1 14-ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 14-ounce can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 cup frozen corn
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon adobe sauce (from the canned chipotles)
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon cumin

Heat the broth on medium heat in a large non-stick stock pot for a minute or so. Add the onions and cook for 2 to 3 minutes. If the liquid dries up before the onions have softened, add a couple more tablespoons of broth or water. Add the garlic and mushrooms and cook for another 5 minutes or until mushrooms begin to cook down slightly. Keep adding broth or water by the tablespoon to keep the veggies from burning or sticking to the pan.

Add the cubed tofu and chipotle pepper and cook for another 5 to 7 minutes or until tofu is lightly browned.

Add the tomatoes (and the juice from the can), chickpeas, kidney beans, corn, tomato paste, chili powder, adobo sauce, salt, and cumin. Turn heat to low, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes.

Who Dat Crunk Vegan?

I'm dat crunk vegan! Ha! Tonight, I took part in my very first cooking competition — a gumbo contest. I entered my Tempeh Gumbo from Cookin' Crunk in the Tennessee Equality Project's annual Mardi Gras Celebration and Gumbo Contest. TEP is a state-wide organization that fights for LGBT equality.

Locally, they convinced the Memphis City Council to adopt LGBT-inclusive workplace protections for city employees last year. And they're currently fighting some anti-gay bills going through the state legislature, like the nationally infamous "Don't Say Gay" bill that would ban discussion of homosexuality in Tennessee schools.

Every year around Mardi Gras time, TEP holds this gumbo contest. I had the only vegan (or even vegetarian) gumbo this year, so I was up againt all sorts of meaty stuff. Here's my team table. We were called Who Dat Crunk Vegan? (a reference to the popular "who dat?" New Orleans Saints support chant).

I'm not sure how many people came through and tried my gumbo for the People's Choice Award, but I went through two gallons (and only left with about two cups of leftovers). The bar where it was held — Earnestine & Hazel's — was so packed that people were crammed in shoulder-to-shoulder. I only had to explain what "vegan" meant to about two people out of the hundred or so who tried my gumbo! Most people were super excited to try a vegan gumbo.

Here's what all went into my gumbo:

And here was the end result:

I didn't place in the awards, but that's okay. I was up against a lot of meat in a room full of meat eaters, but what's important is that the event raised money for TEP and I exposed some people to vegan food for the first time! Who dat?!

The Lotus & the Artichoke

There's something whimsically charming about the title of Justin P. Moore's self-published vegan cookbook, The Lotus & the Artichoke: Vegan Recipes from World Adventures, that just calls to my inner child.

Photo from lotusartichoke.com

The name sounds a bit like it would belong to a vegan children's book. And with that magical word "adventures" thrown in, well, it sounds perfectly lovely. Not that I was an adventurous kid. Quite the opposite actually. I would have taken a good book and an (entire) bag of Cheetos in my room over a spontaneous, outdoors adventure any day. I was a fat kid, and the only kind of adventure I wanted to go on was one involving my palette.

So this book is just perfect for grown-up me! I still hate spontaneity and anything dangerous, but I'll take a culinary adventure in a hot second. Justin generously mailed me a review copy of his tome from his home in Germany last month, and now that I'm post-cleanse, I'm ready to travel around the world without ever leaving his book.

The book is divided into four sections — the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Europe —and each is jam-packed with recipes (and a gorgeous, full-color food photo on each page!). Each section is prefaced with Justin's memories from traveling to countries on those continents. This dude has done some serious traveling. Puts me to shame. The furthest I've ever gone is Cozymel, Mexico. But that's okay because I can explore the world through Justin's recipes.

I started my global culinary tour tonight with this Paneer Makhani from The Lotus & the Artichoke:

Pretend like that short-grain brown rice is basmati, mkay? I was out of basmati.

It's an Indian dish that's traditionally made with a rich tomato sauce, cream, and paneer cheese cubes. In this vegan version, the paneer is made with fried tofu coated in a nutritional yeast/cornstarch mixture. I've made tofu paneer from other recipes, but those didn't have any special treatment for the tofu. I loved this battered, fried "paneer." So delicious.

The cream in the traditional recipe is substituted with a thick and creamy cashew cream made from blending cashews with water. And of course, there are a ton of Indian spices added in (mustard seeds, coriander, cumin, garam masala). The rich and creamy sauce was amazing. I literally licked my plate when I was done. Don't worry. Nobody saw me.

I can't wait to cook my way through the rest of this book. I'm especially interested in some of the Austrian and German recipes since I'm sure my German ancestors ate some of these same dishes — Vegan Schnitzel, Spatle (with leeks and cheeze sauce), Kartoffelpuffer (potato pancakes with homemade applesauce).

I also can't wait to try the Indo-Chinese Vegetable Manchurian, the Gulab Jamuns (Indian doughballs in syrup), the South Indian Spicy Sambar (lentil soup), and Masala Dosa.

The Vietnamese Pho with smoked tofu and veggies sounds delightful, and the seitan-stuffed Vietnamese Banh Mi is on my to-make list for sure. Heck, I'm even excited about cooking from the Americas section — Mac & Cheeze Forest (baked mac with tofu and broccoli), Tex-Mex Black Bean Burgers, and Roasted Walnut Brownies!

Learn more about Justin's book on his blog of the same name. And if you want your own copy (ebook or hard copy), just head over to Justin's Kickstarter page, where he's currently raising money for the second printing in English and the first printing in German!

Banana Pumpkin Hemp Energy Bars

With all these posts about vegan fried eggs and Daiya-covered pizzas lately, you might be wondering if I'm actually sticking with my post-Thrive Forward cleanse goals. Remember when I pledged to eat daily salads, post-run smoothies, alkaline foods, and homemade energy bars?

I think I'm actually doing a pretty decent job of balancing the uber-healthy (Vega smoothies, lots of kale, and plenty of raw food from Balewa's Vegan Gourmet) with the little indulgences (I had raw falafel tonight, followed by a sugary slice of vegan king cake).

I've definitely continued making my own wholesome energy bars using a formula from the Thrive Forward website. It's a chart that tells how much fruit, nuts, seeds, grains, etc. should go in your bar recipe, but you can pick and choose what ingredients go in. As I dream up new bars, I'll share the recipes here.

My first creation are these Banana Pumpkin Hemp Energy Bars:

These have a lovely toasty flavor from the popped amaranth, lots of protein from the hemp powder, a superb crunchiness from the pumpkin seeds, and plenty of natural sweetness from dates and bananas. Perfect as a snack before a run or weight training session.

Banana Pumpkin Hemp Energy Bars
Yields 8 bars

1/4 cup amaranth
1/2 cup sliced banana
1 cup sliced, pitted dates
1/2 cup hemp protein powder
1/4 cup raw pumpkin seeds
Pinch of sea salt

Place the amaranth grains into an air popcorn popper. Turn it on and pop the amaranth like you would pop popcorn. Some grains will pop into tiny white fluffy kernels and others will simply brown and take on a toasty flavor. Both are totally okay! When the unpopped grains are nice and toasty-looking, turn off the popper and set aside.

Add the banana, dates, hemp protein, pumpkin seeds, salt, and popped amaranth to the base of a food processor. Process until the mixture forms into a ball. Remove the ball and roll out into desired shape onto a piece of waxed paper or a cutting board. Cut the bars into 8 equal sized pieces. Store in the fridge.

Vegan Fried Egg!!!

When I first cracked open Annie and Dan Shannon's Betty Goes Vegan, I was immediately drawn to a gorgeous full-color photo labeled "vegan fried egg." It looked to be a slab of fried tofu with a yolky center. I flipped to the recipe and learned that the "yolk" is actually Dan's famous homemade vegan cheese sauce. Look!! I cut into my first Vegan Fried Egg to show off its yolky center:

I'm a sucker for a fried egg. When I was a kid, few things satisfied me more than fried egg sandwiches with mustard. That's what my little friends and I would make when we'd have slumber parties. That's what I often made for a quick dinner or late-night snack in college. Now, when I was frying actual chicken eggs, I did not care for runny yolk. Gross.

But since going vegan, when I've experimented with vegan egg stuff, like the Vegg or Rocky Shepherd's (the inventor of Vegg) pre-Vegg sunny side up vegan fried egg, I've found that I enjoy a little yolky texture. Real yolk is gross. It's chicken embryo food. Disgusting. But vegan versions are made with real people food. Like Dan's Cheezy Sauce, a creamy, nutritional yeast-heavy homemade sauce.

But how does the fried tofu get a yolky center? I wondered the same upon seeing the picture in Betty Goes Vegan. The recipe calls for something called a "flavor injector." So I hit up Lit, Memphis' homegrown restaurant supply store, and found this mysterious needle that's apparently most often used to inject marinades into meats. I took it home, whipped up the cheeze, and sliced some tofu. Then I started injecting!

Looks crazy, huh? Basically, you inject the sauce until the tofu starts to bubble. But you have to stop before the tofu bursts. Out of four slices, I only popped one. For breakfast yesterday, I enjoyed an "egg" with some Ezekial toast slathered with Earth Balance and Marmite and a bowl of melon (for good measure).

A number of the breakfast recipes in Betty Goes Vegan call for the Vegan Fried Egg. There's No-Huevos Rancheros ("eggs," guacamole, corn tortillas, peppers, and onions), the #1 Breakfast Sandwich ("eggs," Daiya, tempeh bacon, and kale on whole wheat), Turkish Vegan Eggs ("eggs," peppers, spices, and sour cream), and the Grand Vegan Breakfast (an English breakfast of "eggs," vegan sausage, baked beans, taters, vegan bacon, tomato, mushrooms, peppers, onions, and toast).

Or you could just stack some "eggs" between whole grain toast and add a squirt of mustard, Bianca-style.

Betty Goes Vegan!!

I've been a huge fan of Annie and Dan Shannon's blog, Meet the Shannons, for years. I've made a number of their recipes (not surprisingly, they were all ramen-related ... hey, I know what I like), and they never disappoint.

Their Vegan Garlic Chicken Ramen with a Vegan Hard Boiled Egg may be one of my favorite recipes of all time. And the Crunchy Vegan Asian Chicken Salad (with ramen!) is equally amazing. My mama actually stumbled across their blog while researching vegan beignets, and there she found her favorite recipe for making the homemade fried pastries. She's made them several times, but she's yet to make them when I'm in town (mama, I know you're reading this, and this is a HINT).

You can imagine my excitement when I learned that Annie and Dan were working on a cookbook, a massive compendium of veganized Betty Crocker recipes. And now that book — Betty Goes Vegan: 500 Classic Recipes for the Modern Family — is FINALLY in my hands!

Let me just say this: I love most all of the vegan cookbooks in my collection (and I have lots). But few speak to me like Betty Goes Vegan does. I feel like Annie and Dan wrote this book JUST FOR ME. That's because it's packed with the kind of food I like to eat — simple, comfort food that's heavy on the "meat" and full on the flavor. There's a little something for everyone in this massive book, but the recipes definitely lean toward those for heartier appetites like mine. You won't find too many airy-fairy recipes that try to make vegetables the star of the show. These are easy, protein-heavy dishes for growing vegans.

These are based on Betty Crocker recipes, after all. And Betty likes to keep things simple. She's a modern lady — trying to raise a family, keep a house clean, and create dishes that make everybody happy, all without making it seem like she had to bat an eyelash to do it.

You won't find pretentious, overly gourmet recipes in Betty Goes Vegan. No, ma'am. What you will find is Vegan Chicken Fried Green Beans (holy hell!), Drunken Vegan Duck Stir-fry, Avocado and Tequila Steakless Tacos, and Baked Vegan Chicken and Easy Waffles. There's that Vegan Beignet recipe my mama loves and even Vegan Venison with Cranberry and Wine Sauce (the "venison" is made with Gardein beefless tips). There are doughnuts galore and enough pudding recipes to impress even Bill Cosby. There's even a recipe for Cajun Deep-Fried Tofurky with Okra Giblet Gravy. Annie and Dan live in New York, but judging by the soul in so many of their recipes, I think they could pass for honorary Southerners.

Since the book arrived last week, I've made four dishes! I'm going to show you three here, but I'm saving the fourth (vegan fried eggs!!) for tomorrow's post because it's so awesome that it deserves a post of its own.

For the Superbowl last night, I couldn't resist trying Big Baby Hot Wings:

For the "chicken," I used my own homemade seitan recipe from Cookin' Crunk. The recipe suggests several options for the wing base (May Wah Healthy Vegetarian Food wings, Match vegan chicken, or homemade seitan). While I love me some mock meats, I don't have access to May Wah or Match here, but homemade seitan worked wonders in these. The sauce was heavy on BBQ and light on hot sauce. And even though I love spicy, spicy food, these were a fun spin on my usual butter and hot sauce-heavy wings.

I also made Dan's Guacamole:

It's guacamole. Good guacamole. The kind with fresh, diced jalapeno, garlic, and chopped cilantro.

The night before the Superbowl, I made a giant pot of my chili recipe from Cookin' Crunk to practice for an upcoming Engine 2 diet class I'm teaching at Whole Foods. But rather than my make my usual cornbread to eat on the side, I opted for the Cheezy Jalapeno Corn Bread from Betty Goes Vegan:

This is hands-down the best cornbread I've ever put in my mouth. No lie. It's soft and almost melts in your mouth, but it holds together in a slice. It's spicy (from the jalapenos). It's cheesy (from the Daiya cheddar). It's nothing short of amazing.

I can't wait to make this cookbook my new go-to. You can make it your go-to as well since the book will be officially released on February 5th.