vegansaurus!

This photo is from the WaPo.

You know what I’m pissed about? That no one invited ME to participate in this taste test the Washington Post ran, comparing six un-turkey alternatives you could be having at your table this week, or whenever else you feel the need for turkey alternatives.

Spoiler alert: Tofurky and Field Roast won. By a lot. They’re my favs, especially Field Roast products, so I’m not surprised.

What I am surprised about: There are six vegan turkey alternatives?! A major daily newspaper is covering this?! Their write-up is nuanced enough to explain why people might say no to dead flesh on the table (health, environment, animal rights) AND to point out that fake turkey has some issues of its own (highly processed, weird ingredients, questionable environmental impact)?! 

I’ve never served one of these guys before— last year I stuffed pumpkins with polenta and seitan bourgignon, the year before I made cholent from Veganomicon and a lentil stew, stay tuned for this year’s plans… But I’ve eaten them and I get the appeal. I’m glad they exist. And I’m glad the mainstream world is paying attention to them. 

Things are changing. Slowly. Yay! Something to be thankful for!

Ok here are the results (you can see them bigger here):

Agree? Disagree? Tell us below!

So many vegan Thanksgiving dinners, so little room in your stomach! Right? Or, so many vegan Thanksgiving dinners, but OMG you have plans with the family! The friends! Don’t worry, Source in SF has you covered. Not only are they serving a phenomenal Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, they’re serving it Friday, as well! You are so stoked, I can tell.

The ENTIRELY VEGAN menu includes:
     Choice of butternut squash soup or green salad
     ‘Gobble’ with ‘giblets’ gravy
     Homemade cranberry sauce
     Savory mushroom stuffing
     Creamed spinach
     Candied yams (with Dandies marshmallows!)
Plus(!):
     Choice of living pumpkin spice cheesecake or pumpkin spice snowball with orange-pumpkin-cinnamon frosting.

All of this, for a steal, at $19.95 a person. They’re accepting in house reservations, walk-ins, and phone-orders. You probably want to come eat there, because for real - sexiest staff in San Francisco.

Say hi to the baker! She’s been working really hard on making these desserts the best ever! 

Wait, are you still allowed to buy food on black Friday? It’s doesn’t count as consumerism if it’s vegan, right? I kid, I kid. But really, come for the desserts.

Call Source at 415 864 9000 for more details.

FULL DISCLOSURE: Jenny Bradley is the baker at Source (see above note about her being the baker at Source!) and she provided this inside scoop on their thanksgiving!  If you’re looking for other Thanksgiving options in the S.F. Bay Area, check out Meave’s post on that.

Photo by quarrygirl is making me HUNGRY

Oakland you are so damn lucky today!! Living Social has it made for you. Not only can you get $25 of Souley Vegan for $12, but ALSO snag $30 of groceries from The Food Mill for $15. 

If you’re reading this blog and live in Oakland you best know about Souley Vegan, but maybe you haven’t heard of The Food Mill? It’s rad. It’s got the best bulk section of anywhere I’ve ever seen, even better than Berkeley Bowl or Rainbow Grocery. Maybe not Rainbow. But it’s good! It’s where I bought dried sassafras and sarsaparilla for making root beer. 

Anyway, these two deals combined are almost enough to make me move back to the Bay Area. Promise me three meals at Souley Vegan and I may even come visit? EAT THIS BECAUSE I CAN’T RIGHT NOW I’M JEALOUS! Can you mail Tasty Crispies? Arg!

Any of y’all ever go to P.F. Chang’s? It was my favorite restaurant when I was but a wee teenager in Indianapolis, and one of the yummiest menu items was the vegetarian lettuce wraps. I found myself craving these this weekend, but the nearest Chang’s is on the other side of the bay, so I decided to try to make some instead. Even though I used the “wrong” kind of lettuce because that’s what I had so GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK, they were still really yummy:

            Goes well with Blue Moon, 2-Buck Chuck, Absolut straight from the bottle, +c.

Accidentally Low-Carb Lettuce Wraps Ingredients

1 head of lettuce (iceberg probably works better than the red-leaf I used)
3 Tbsp. peanut oil
1 pound of tofu, pressed and diced into 1/2-inch cubes
1 cup celery, minced
5 smallish carrots, minced
1 8-oz. can of water chestnuts, minced
2 bulbs shallots, minced (PROTIP: save time by mincing all this shit together, in a food processor if you’ve got one)
1 Tbsp. minced ginger (did you know you can buy that madness in jars now?)
1 tsp. coriander
1 tsp. thyme
1/2 tsp pepper
1 Tbsp. rice vinegar
2 Tbsp. soy sauce
1/2 cup cilantro
Hot chili paste or sriracha, to taste

Directions

1. Heat your skillet on medium-high, and pour 2 Tbsp. of the oil in there. Once it’s hot, throw your tofu in there. Stir frequently until it’s pretty brown; this will take maybe 10 minutes. Add your ginger, coriander, thyme, and pepper. Stir for about a minute, and then add your minced mix. Take a moment to appreciate the shallot: It’s like if garlic and onion had the most beautiful, delicious baby ever in existence, not that babies are generally delicious, I mean, I wouldn’t know about the taste of babies, OKAY GOD ANYWAY.
2. Stir and cook for a while (10 minutes-ish?) until your veggies are soft. Add the vinegar, soy sauce, and as much chili paste or sriracha as you can handle. Cook for a while longer until some of the liquid evaporates. Once it’s acceptable to you, remove from heat. You might want to let it cool for a while so its sheer heat doesn’t rip holes in your lettuce.
3. Take a leaf of lettuce, put some of this mixture on it, roll it up to the best of your ability, and nom. Make sure you have a fork nearby.

Warning: These are low-carb, so if that’s bad for you, add some rice or toast or something. I would marry carbs if they were a person, so I had some popcorn later in the evening. #popcorn4lyfe

Welcome to yet another travesty in American culture: Puppylocks. They are feather fur extensions for dogs. Feather fucking fur extensions for dogs. The world is a crazy place. It’s bad enough that people wear feather extensions, now their dogs have to? I find it completely offensive, like, towards life in general. I think it’s super whack and corny but I know that people think feather extensions look nice on them (even though they don’t) and people really care about how they look, but a dog, at best, does not give a fuck about feather extensions. Is it really worth torturing roosters for this?

The demented company that makes Puppylocks is Condition Culture. Call them and write them angry emails about how ridiculous and cruel they are—oh, and don’t forget to mention how fucked up their feather supplier is! The company they proudly get feathers from is Whiting Farms, one of the world’s largest producers of “fly tying feathers” (you know, for the glorious “sport” that is fishing). Whiting Farms says they “harvested” 125,000 roosters in the year 2000—that is pre-feather extension craze. I don’t want to imagine how many they “harvest” now.

A piece about the fad in the Seattle Times says the feathers ”come from roosters that are genetically bred and raised for their plumage. In most cases, the birds do not survive the plucking.” Some places do live-plucking? That’s a horrible and sickening process. But according to the Seattle Times, at Whiting Farms, “the roosters live about a year while their saddle feathers — the ones on the bird’s backside and the most popular for hair extensions — grow as long as possible. Then the animal is euthanized.” So Whiting Farms claims it doesn’t do live-plucking, I guess thank god for small favors?

If the roosters being killed just for their feathers isn’t bad enough for you, you can read about the breeding process in ”The Hackle Manifesto“ by owner Tom Whiting himself. This “manifesto” is pretty nuts actually. Does he not have a PR person?

First, Tom tells us how helpful objectifying the roosters can be:

It is good to start out with the appreciation that even though the hackle breeders get the credit for the fine feathers, it is the roosters who do the actual producing. It is the chickens, or more specifically the individual feather follicles within their skin, which generate the coveted feathers. The bird itself can be viewed (if you are a reductionist) as merely a biological support system for feather follicles extruding dry fly hackle.

It gets better:

First it should never be forgotten that the unit of use is the individual feather. The whole breeding program must always focus on the feather… Too easily does the focus of the bird or the pelt distract from the all important individual feather… So don’t select birds, select for feathers, and then use the birds that happen to be attached to those feathers.

Wow. This dude is such a dick. He does say that you have to “pamper” the roosters and create optimum conditions for them or the feathers suffer. I guess giant rows of stacked cages means pampered? 

Eventually, he gets into the difficulty of examining feathers on a live bird: 

These aren’t gentle barnyard or fancier chickens, but demons in hackle disguise. And your goal is to look at their feathers, objectively and carefully. Well I have news, he ain’t exactly going to cooperate

You see every hackle rooster seems to realize who exactly is responsible for sentencing him to a solitary cage for the last 6 months, with nothing to look at or listen to other than lots of other confined roosters. And he also realizes he probably has only one good chance to hammer the living hell out of you… And then you have to go catch the son of a bitch as he eludes you then ambushes you from under the cages. Your sentiments can quickly shift from wanting to evaluate their necks to wringing them. Some of my most sheepish moments in life have been after hurling an especially bad rooster across the barn in utter frustration, only to watch them flutter and sail to the floor, ruffled and cackling indignantly, with every single other rooster in the shed chiming in to let you know they all witnessed your little moment of weakness.

Um, say what? Who is this guy? I think he’s in too deep. Shit is getting to him. No, shit has clearly gotten to him. Or, he just blew the roof off a haughty rooster conspiracy! Those indignant mofos are in it together!

So, that is where these Puppylocks come from. Is this really justifiable in the name of some weird projected dog vanity?

Let’s do the time warp again! Remember this little number? It’s my version of a recipe that this very blog posted from another blog last year. It’s a butternut squash and mushroom tart from The Tomato Tart!

See everyone? I’m not all about fake turkeys and worrisome ingredients. I know how to cook dishes from whole foods (as in ingredients, not the store). That being said, some of you have got to be in the same boat as me, with family members that are all “everyone, OUT OF THE KITCHEN! NOW!” which is how holidays at my Grandma’s house tend to be (while the real turkey is roasting! Yikes!). So I rely on monstrous soy turkeys where all I have to do is set the oven for my vegan holiday feast [Ed. note: I thought it was GLORIOUS! Not monstrous!]. Whatever it takes to avoid bickering make the most of family time, right?

For some reason, every once and a while, I can get away with making a delicious, elbow-grease-inducing (though so worth it!) recipe like this one.

Some changes I made:

-Added a little cinnamon to the butternut squash, whilst in the food processor.
-Added about a half of a tablespoon each of cornstarch and arrowroot to the squash, instead of silken tofu.
-Caramelized a white onion, then sauteed the processed butternut squash mixture with it.
-Sauteed garlic with the mushroom topping.
-Used sherry wine instead of sherry vinegar with the mushrooms.
-Used olive oil instead of Earth Balance for everything except the crust.

Overall, it’s a stellar recipe whether you use my modifications or not. To tell you the truth, on Thanksgiving I made the original version of it and the next day I changed it up. What can I say? At twenty-nine (last year) I was the the youngest person home for the holidays. I got antsy.

What a beauty!

Did you make this when you saw it up last year? Did you make any modifications? Are you going to make it this year? Tell me everything! 

Lena

Lewis

How cute are these babies? Pro tip: SO CUTE! They are at the Harvest Home Animal Sanctuary in Stockton, CA and they need homes! Lena and Lewis both have petfinder pages. The brother and sister were found sad and dirty on a country road in Stockton in October. Lena is lively and gentle and likes getting hugs (OMG!). Lewis is a “miniature athlete with a winning heart of gold,” and is looking for some nice active humans. They sound so cute! They LOOK so cute! Someone out there must be looking for cute puppies like these. If you can’t adopt them, maybe you know someone who can? Send this around to your friends and family! Post it on Facebook! These guys deserve homes and every little bit helps!

If you want more info or want to meet Lena and/or Lewis, contact Lena at rescue@harvesthomeanimal.org.

John Bartlett has a great line of comfy-looking clothes featuring a lovable tripod named Tiny Tim! Tiny Tim is Bartlett’s late dog that he rescued from a sweet rescue organization that took him in from a high-risk shelter. After his dear dog passed, Bartlett created the Tiny Tim Rescue Fund that’s “dedicated to raising and distributing funds to independent rescue groups who are pulling directly from the high-risk shelters.” When you purchase anything in this collection, ten percent of the proceeds go to the Tiny Tim Rescue Fund. 

I think the sweatshirts are super-cute. They have the style available in tons of men’s designs as well as women’s, with a few things for pups too. I’m into this reglan style above. And all the sweatshirts look so comfortable! And a lot of the shirts are that perfect grey—Rocky grey as I call it. I love that shit. 

Ubuntu’s chef Aaron London has a side dish for us for Thanksgiving! IT’S EXCLUSIVE (I think, maybe not) and DELICIOUS (this is for sure a fact) and something we can all make and serve to our family so they don’t die from butter and lard consumption on the big day. Happy holidays!

Ingredients
4 bunches of kale, pulled from stem and washed
2 onions, peeled and thinly sliced
3 lemons
3 cloves garlic, grated on a microplane
½ tsp. red pepper flakes
½ cup extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 cup golden raisins
1 cup cooking sherry
½ cup pine nuts, toasted at 325 F for 10 to 12 minutes
2 tsp. balsamic vinegar
Vegan parmesan cheese substitute, i.e. Parma
Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions
Sweat the onions over low heat in a heavy bottomed pot in ¼ cup olive oil until translucent. Add the garlic and chili flake and continue to cook while stirring until the raw garlic smell is gone.

Add three bunches of kale to the pot and stir until well coated with the oil and onion mixture. Add in ½ cup water and place a tight-fitting lid on the pot. Continue to cook over low heat, stirring occasionally for approximately one hour, until the kale is braised and very tender.

Place the raisins in a small pot with the sherry, and cook on low heat, while stirring, until the raisins are plumped and tender. Then place them in a bowl and add the balsamic, pine nuts, zest and juice of 1 lemon, ¼ cup olive oil, and reserve.

Use a sharp knife to slice your remaining kale into thin ribbons, and toss this with the juice and zest of two lemons. Hold this in the refrigerator for up to 20 minutes.

Once your kale is braised, and the other steps are done, run a knife a few times through the braised kale; you don’t want to chop it too much, just get it into more manageable-sized pieces.

Lay the braised kale out on either a large platter, or individual dishes, and drizzle with some of your pine nut vinaigrette, then top with the raw kale and the remaining vinaigrette. Finally, top the dish with as much vegan parmesan-substitute as you like.

Serves six. This dish can be eaten as is, and is also very nice served over red quinoa.

Here is what it could maybe look like, even though it’s an entirely different recipe:

(I know this post is very Christmas-y, but basically I eat the same-ish meal for both Thanksgiving and Christmas, so of course I assume everyone else does the same!)

Last Christmas, I went all out and treated myself to a Vegetarian Plus Vegan Whole Turkey. I was super curious after seeing the ads in VegNews. Now, I’m a Tofukery fan — I like it, but I’m not in love. I’m also a vegan who LOVES faux meat, in taste and in image. I think it’s hilarious this vegan turkey is actually shaped like a turkey. I could not contain my excitement about eating a drumstick again. Vegan drumsticks = pure joy.

I bought my vegan turkey at Rainbow Grocery and lugged it to Grandma’s house in Redwood City. I showed it off to practically anyone I came across. The thing is like, 4 pounds and has to defrost overnight. So plan ahead! It also comes with gravy and stuffing, but I put those aside (in Grandma’s freezer, for a later date) and made my own. There’s actually a cavity to put the stuffing in. This thing is intense!

Empty Cavity

It’s possible I went a little overboard with the stuffing, as you can see from the split seams.

I tried to bake this monster according to the directions, but unfortunately my aunt had turned off the oven, forgetting I had to prepare my vegan meal! (I’m sure it was just an accident…) So, it took a little longer than the directions stated.
The turkey was well worth the wait! So tender! So moist (ew)! So flavorful! I AM IN LOVE. I have been so excited for the holidays to roll around so I can get another one!
For real, this faux bird is delectable. It’s meant to feed 8 - 10 people, but I have the appetite of 5 people so I ate half of it in one night. I think I’ll lay off of doing that again this year (no promises). I learned my lesson the hard way, and felt sick for days (which didn’t stop me from eating the leftovers. Really. It’s that good. Don’t get me started on the turkey sandwiches with veganaise…)

Vegan Christmas plate! ‘Turkey’ drumstick, gravy, stuffing, carrots and twice baked chipotle sweet potato (recipe from The Vegan Girl’s Guide to Life).

My parents are in London at the moment, visiting my cousin and his sweetie pie little daughters, Sophia and Joanna. Turns out, Sophia has taken a shine to the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society and adopted her own dolphin! I asked her to write a little bit about the WDCS and she was kind enough to oblige!:

I became interested in WDCS when I was reading my nature magazine (National Geographic, Kids). At the end of it was an adoption form and a bit of information about WDCS. They allow anybody to adopt a dolphin, whale or porpoise, but it is actually aimed at kids. I adopted a dolphin called Moonlight; she has a one year old calf called Mellow Yellow. Here is a picture of a dolphin:

WDCS is: 

The global voice for whales, dolphins, porpoises and their environment. 

Here is a link to where you can find out more about Moonlight.

Click here for the kid’s zone. 

-Cousin Sophia Rascal, Age 10, UK

I know, she’s very well spoken. She’s also a mean soccer player! Or football player, as they would say. Now I want to adopt a dolphin! No I probs would adopt a whale. I feel so bad for them all the time. Sigh. Let’s just look at the cute dolphin drawing!