Tag: summer

Summer Spaghetti with Corn and Tomatoes

The year I went vegetarian, 1996, I received Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone as a Christmas gift from one of my co-workers. And I’ve been using it regularly ever since. Again, not a vegan cookbook but there is plenty in here for vegans. I come back to this recipe just about every summer when corn and tomatoes are at their peak. I’ve used corn pasta in the past, but this time I used whole wheat spaghetti. The recipe calls for a little cheese which I just ignored although I did sprinkle some fake parmesan on top.

Oh, and there at the top, corn muffins with that coconut Earth Balance. Need more delivery systems for that spread.

Composed Quinoa Salad Platter

Now here’s a good one for summer. Healthy, light and room temperature or cold. Actually, I’d vote for room temperature on this one. Remember the sources for recipe by email I posted a few days ago? Well, that’s how I found this recipe by Nava Atlas. I browsed the veggie recipes I’d collected for inspiration while making my shopping list. Kevin doesn’t like olives so I didn’t use them. And I substituted almonds for the pumpkin seeds. And the red bell pepper is there, I just chopped it up and tossed it in with the bean salad. This also made great leftovers for lunch the next day. I tossed it with some baby salad greens that needed to be used up. You could make this really pretty to serve like Nava does, or just kind of throw it on a plate like you see here.

Slip & Slide Party

It’s not as dirty as it sounds. Well, yeah, it was dirty. But in the muddy kind of way. Danielle and Matt hosted a slip & slide party to celebrate her art show at Youngblood. We brought over our soft serve machine and I cranked out a huge batch of vegan waffle bowls. Yep, vegan waffle bowl sundaes. We know how to do things in Atlanta.

Here’s my waffle bowl making station. The vodka gimlet helped when I wasn’t pouring them all over the floor. D’oh.

Here’s a lovely waffle bowl sundae. Mmmmm….

Oh, and this isn’t the little plastic sheet of a slip & slide. This was an inflatable, 2-lane slip & slide, with palm trees and a pool at the end. Insane!

Oh, you need action shots? Here, they’re taking a cue from Wipeout and spinning around before heading for the slide. Kevin didn’t quite make it.

Vegan Waffle Cones & Bowls

We had the perfect opportunity to work out the waffle cone maker yesterday when our friends had a vegan ice cream social at their store to celebrate the 1 year anniversary of the retail location of Cosmo’s Vegan Shoppe. The recipe we used last time turned out cones that were a little too hard. So after a bit of googling, I found one that didn’t rely on a ton of eggs and was easily veganizable. And they turned out perfect.

box of vegan waffle cones and bowls

I think there were about 16 total, and they went fast. Hey, I ate one. I’m not shy about stuff like that. No one wants to be the first at the buffet, etc. I don’t mind getting things started.

vegan waffle bowl sundae

Turnout was crazy. Seriously, who were all those vegans packing the store for at least two hours? Pretty good for one of the top 10 least veg friendly cities, eh? *cough*vegnewssux*cough* Others were taking pictures of actual people, so those should show up on the intarwebs soon enough.

Oh, yeah, there’s a recipe too! It’s adapted from the one I found here. And yeah, you do need a waffle cone maker. Oh, and in case you’ve ever wondered, you can indeed put regular granulated sugar into a food processor to make powdered sugar.

Vegan Waffle Cones

1 box SoyaToo Topping Cream
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1 ½ cups powdered sugar
1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon cornstarch
Oil, for the iron

In a bowl with a whisk, whip the SoyaToo Topping cream with the vanilla until thick. Beat in the remaining ingredients to make a batter. Let the batter sit for 30 minutes.

Heat up waffle cone iron and brush with a little oil. Pour some batter in and close the lid to bake and brown. Open the iron and remove the browned batter and fold over itself, overlapping it, on a wooden cone-form into a cone. Or, throw over an upended flat bottom bowl, lightly press it to the shape, and remove when cooled enough to be firm and cool on a cookie sheet or rack.

Or, if you’re lazy, you can just get cones from Let’s Do Organic. They have regular vegan and gluten-free sugar and cake cones and bowls. You can even get a party pack that includes bowls and sprinkles.