Meet Local Vegans!

Even for those of us that live in big cities, it can sometimes be hard to meet other vegans. If your area doesn’t have some sort of meet-up type group for vegans or vegetarians, think of starting one! Or, you could always join one in the city nearest you and go hang out with them. I mean, it’s probably just once a month, so isn’t it worth the drive to experience the wonder of a vegan potluck?

In Atlanta, we have a group that meets once a month for lunch on the weekend. We either go to a restaurant or have a potluck at someone’s house or at a park. To give you an idea, a couple of things I remember making for potlucks: rose scented baklava and seitan chicken & waffles with chickpea gravy. Yeah. So if you’re an Atlanta area vegan, check it out.

And, Ashley Nicole is organizing a potluck picnic in Candler Park at the end of October. The last one rocked, so you should go!

Quick, Lazy Lunch

I didn’t have any leftovers today for lunch. Luckily there’s a grocery store nearby that has veggie sushi. It always tastes pretty fresh and is one of the more healthy things you can grab really quickly. And, it just got healthier — they now make some with brown rice! I can hear a certain someone making gag noises as I type this. Quiet, no one is making you eat brown rice! Yet!

Sorry the pic is kind of crappy, but the natural light coming in just isn’t hitting it at the right angle and we refuse to turn on the overhead lights in my office. It’s a web cave tradition. Note my super cool Apple mug in the background that I got way back in 1994 when I worked at Kinko’s in San Francisco. Wow, I just realized how old that mug is. Lalalalalala!

Teese Cheese Rocks

Why I think Teese is the best vegan cheese out there:

1) It tastes the best

2) It melts the best. See?

3) It keeps longer in the refrigerator without turning all pink. We know who I’m talking about here. And it freezes well.

4) It cleans up easier. I just discovered this one. You know how other vegan cheeses turn into glue if you don’t clean them up immediately? My tired, lazy ass left a teese covered knife sit out overnight. I thought for sure I’d be scraping on that for a while, but after a short soak, the stuck on bits slid right off. Cool!

Just to be fair, I’ll give the only minus I can really come up with. Okay, I’m sort of a freak about getting stuff on my hands, especially anything oily or greasy. Well, Teese feels REALLY nasty on my hands. And you’d think if it felt that greasy and gross that it would taste that way too. But no! It’s not heavy or greasy tasting at all! Wow, I somehow turned that downside into another plus. You’d think they were paying me to write this. They’re not, I swear!

Pumpkin Bundt with Maple Glaze

A couple of weeks ago we had a big ‘ol vegan Thanksgiving to send off a friend to Ghana since she was going to miss it. We had all the appropriate goodies like Tofurky, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, etc. It was a huge carbfest! The best part is that we get to do it all again when real Thanksgiving rolls around. Woo hoo! I brought an apple pie and this Pumpkin Bundt with Maple Glaze.

It’s a veganized version of this recipe. I used flax seeds for a couple of the eggs and vegan sour cream for another couple. Then I just added a bit more soy milk to make up for the 1 less egg’s worth of eggy sort of stuff. And subbed maple syrup for the honey in the glaze.

So I’m going to try and participate in VeganMofo this year. That’s a post about vegan food every weekday for the entire month of October. Oy. We’ll see how that goes.