Vegan Recipes and Plant Based Cooking

All this talk of the food stamp challenge got me thinking. Gweneth Paltrow's fail was pretty amusing. Some journalists got in on the act too and just plain embarrassed themselves. To be fair, if you live in California, it's probably impossible to live healthy on $31 per week for food. California is incredibly expensive. You could live on crap food at that price, but fresh or healthy is off the table. But pretty much everywhere else that is a luxurious allotment of food monies. And I live in a pretty expensive area. The Jersey shore is not known for its low cost of living. Our food prices are pretty substantial. Evenso, I think $29-$31 per week is more than ample. That is if you don't eat meat. That's the trick. Fresh produce is affordable, in vegetable form, not so much in the fruit variety. The bitter irony being that for most people the food stamp challenge is just regular, everyday life. With or without public assistance, most of us have to live on a tight food budge...

I received an email from light life. This is a rare occurance. Apparently they've come out with a new line of refrigerated meatless burgers. Which is music to my ears and lips. One is fortified with quinoia. Which is great, but I'm allergic. The other is black bean based. Which I love. Black beans are an aweseome meat replacer. There are few things in life I love more than a great meantless burger. There's something so satisfying about making/comsuming a patty that defies the typcial dead animal protocol. The root of it is the sandwich. It doesn't need to be a dead thing. It just needs to be delicious. ANd that's easily accomplished through other means. The fact is, good veggie patties are trickier to create, but far more rewarding. Any asshole can throw together a typical hamburger. Big whoop. But it takes an attist to assemble a crave worthy veggie patty. And crave worthy they are with the right ingredients and topppings. Meat is easy to make good. It takes a r...

Last time I was at Ruby Tuesday, which was only a few weeks ago, I was told the veggie burgers were off the menu. Gone. I was in shock. How do you go from two awesome meatless patties to none at all. That's simply not logical. Especially when all your competitors are offering meatless burgers. It was a sad day for me personally. The Ruby Tuesday veggie burger was my favorite. I craved it. It had the perfect balance of flavor and texture. It was not to dry, not too wet. It had it all. And then like a dream, it was gone. That's what I get for trusting a chain restaurant. Betrayal. Ruby Tuesday may or may not care, but I'll not likely return. There's no reason to do so. Their mediocre selection of regular food is no temptation. And their salad bar lost its shiny new appeal many months ago. What's most inexplicable to me is that change took place right after a brand new Red Robin moved in practically next door. Their menu features a veggie burger that can be c...

Red Robin opened in my hometown just recently. Actually, it opened in the beginning of February, but their website said it was still coming soon. But I was nearby and decided to check and see if it had opened yet. It had. I was only a month behind. Had been eagerly awaiting this. I am always eager to sample new veggie burgers. I love a good veggie burger. And I know it's a much bigger achievement than a good regular burger. Their website boasts that you can customize your burger any way that you want. However, when you get to the restaurant, the actual menu doesn't really provide any way to do so. There's no list of toppings from which to choose. I found myself scanning the various 'gourmet burgers' trying to figure out what add ons were available. What I needed desperately was a list of things I can add or subtract from my 'burger', like they have on their website. The DGB burger looked good. With arugula, roasted tomatoes and spicy aioli. So I got th...

I recently tried whole grain pasta for the first time. I was definitely one of those skeptics who looked at the brown color of it and thought it would be gross. I was totally wrong. It tasted the same as regular pasta, with just the slightest hint of that nutty wheat flavor. Had some with a cream of celery soup sauce, which was great. Had some more with a mushroom based sauce. Also very good. the slight hint of wheat actually paired really well with the mushroom flavors. All in all, I was pleasantly surprised. I expected wheat bread flavor, but it wasn't like that at all. Although, I have to confess it did not keep me full any longer than ordinary pasta. Not sure what that's all about. The ultimate conclusion: whole grain pasta looks strange, but is actually quite good.

It's that time of year again. Romaine and other lettuces are officially out of season. So it's time to switch to cabbage for your salads. Cabbage makes a great salad base as far as I'm concerned. I miss it all summer long and look forward to its return as the fresher, cheaper choice. The best thing about cabbage though, is how well it keeps. Lettuce, you get a week tops. Cabbage on the other hand ages very slowly. It still looks as fresh as the day I bought it after 8 days in the fridge. If you haven't yet tried using cabbage as your salad base, it's time to start. Forget slaw. Cabbage is more than that slimy picnic staple. It's just like lettuce, only better. Chop up green, red or other cabbage in advance and store in a large metal bowl in your fridge. In separate containers store other salad ingredients. Celery, carrots, broccoli, potatoes, cucumber, onion. Whatever you like. I always store all the salad part separately.When you're hungry simply toss...

I get a lot of searches for this... so as far as I know, yes, Sabbra Hummus is vegan. It's just chick peas, lemon juice and tahini for the most part. You could contact Sabbra to confirm, but I think it's safe to say hummus of any sort of vegan. It's simply the nature of hummus. Datem on the other hand is a complete mystery. I should no doubt be in contact with various bread companies, but do I really want to know the asnwer. Do I really want to discover that ordinary wheat bread is somehow made using dead animal parts. It's not a best case scenario, that's for sure. Another popular search is Progresso vegetarian soup. There are several of which I"m avare. What I appreciate about this brand is they label them accordinly. It's very considerate. If it says vegetable soup on the front and you turn the can to the nutritonal info, it may say in the top in bold that it's non-vegetarian. Smart. A lot of folks assume if it says veg on the front that it's saf...