vegansaurus!

I took Meave’s challenge because you DO NOT FUCK WITH MEAVE. I know everyone else is making delicious veggies and shit but you know what I like to say: FUCK A VEGETABLE/IT’S COOKIE TIME/I’M SLEEPY. So, I made stuff with Vegg, the new vegan egg yolk product stuff! Sarah made a realistic fried egg that looked to be the bomb and I had to get in on the action. Here’s what I made.

1. Scrambled Veggs (using the recipe from their website)—really good! I think it tastes like eggs but what do I know? It has that same consistency, and, for lack of a better way to put it/my limited vocabulary, it’s kinda slimy in the way that eggs are? Like, in a good way. Does that make sense? WHO CARES WHAT DO YOU KNOW.

2. Pad Thai (using Chloe Coscarelli’s DELICIOUS recipe, adding in scrambled veggs, subbing the new chili lime cashews from Trader Joe’s—LOVE THESE—for the peanuts and adding Soy Curls!) IT WAS SO DAMN GOOD. Seriously, stop doing everything and make this right now!

3. WAFFLES! These were eggy and funky fresh! We made regular sized ones and then monster ones and we topped them with maple syrup and ginger syrup and organic Earth Balance (We’re weaning off EB until we know more about the palm oil, but we have tubs left…next time I’ll make this coconut butter!) and we FEASTED!

4. Hollandaise sauce (using the recipe from their website)—HOLY SHIT. My mom used to make this every holiday for breakfast and it was always my favorite seasonal treat. This tasted freakishly like the one my mom used to make! I’m gonna invite her over to confirm my findings but I think we can safely say that IT’S ON HOLLANDAISE. 

Sorry for the shitty photos but I’m an amateur, all right! Anyway, A++++ will do business with again, love Vegg, love what it does, it tastes like egg yolk, it has the consistency of egg yolk, and it’s versatile! I’m gonna make a custard next, and then who knows?! The sky is the limit! Or, my pants size is the limit! LET’S GO. 

And we’re not talking about “all the vegetables on mustard-slathered bread,” either, because that sandwich is boring. Compassion Over Killing’s got the scoop: The three sandwiches are called the Sweet Riblet, the Malibu Greek, and Italian Black Bean, and the “Italian” bread is vegan, and that’s all we know!

Have you tried a vegan sandwich yet? Let us know! We don’t usually long to live in the D.C. area, but today, we’re totally envious. Eight franchises are offering these sandwiches; find them at COK!

If you are dying for vegan Subway in your neck of the woods (and we know you are!), contact the company via WeLoveSubway and ask, firmly and politely, for the vegan options you need. SANDWICHES FOREVER!

[photo by Compassion Over Killing]

I’m on the celebrity beat this week because your regular vegan celebrity news correspondent is on vacation, like a fancy lady! Come back soon, Jenny! Come back soon so I don’t confuse Sharon Stone with Michelle Pfeiffer again, like an idiot.

So, celebrity news: First, Sharon Stone Michelle Pfeiffer announced last week on CNN that a CNN program, “The Last Heart Attack,” and reading a book called Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, inspired her to adopt a vegan diet because she doesn’t want to die of heart disease related to the consumption of animal products. This is like how I’ve started intermittent standing at my desk because I don’t want to die of sitting. Stars, they’re just like us! Ms. Sharon Stone Michelle Pfeiffer says she’s also working on getting her husband, David E. Kelley, to eat vegan as well, which shouldn’t be too hard. Who could say not to that glorious creature?

Next, Larry Hagman turned to a vegan diet after being diagnosed with cancer last year; he says he’s now cancer-free, and healthy enough to work again, reprising his role as J.R. Ewing on TNT’s new Dallas. Which means nothing to me, as a person who grew up in a General Hospital household, but some people are excited about/dubious of/irritated by this thing. Larry here has said that he plans to eat fish and eggs again, which is too bad, but eliminating milk is a big and good deal. Cow’s milk is a terrible, harmful industry! Stay off the teat, Larry.

We’re always happy to have new members of team vegan. OK, maybe not jerks, but observing a vegan diet can mitigate from general personal awfulness. The point is, famous people going vegan, hooray! Welcome to the club, celebrities! We promise not to ask for your autograph (unless you want us to), and to share our vegan secrets. Now, what are you bringing to the potluck?

[Michelle Pfeiffer photo by JeremyChristopher via Flickr; Paris Match covers via Patrick Peccatte]

Quarrygirl and Chicago Vegan Foods are at it again, this time with another genius VEGAN PIZZA DAY on Sat, June 30. Of course, all us fatties gotta represent and get down on some g-d pizza LEZ GO:

Here’s a list of places to get vegan pizza in the SF Bay Area (and beyond!), do you know of any other places to eat delicious vegan pizza? I know there are lots of places not listed here, but we’re not perfect! For example, I had a BOMB vegan STUFFED CRUST pizza delivered from Red Tomato Pizza in Berkeley the other day that I plan on blogging. Here’s some pics to get you all psyched for PIZZA PIZZA:

If you know any pizza joints that might want to offer a discount for VPD, holler at your girl!

Beyond Meat, the vegan chicken meat that’s more real than the real thing but not dead so fun, HAS ARRIVED!! Sample it this week at the following San Francisco Whole Foods stores:

Monday, June 11th: Franklin store (11:15am-12:30pm); Haight store (4:15pm-5:30pm)
Tuesday, June 12th: Potrero store (11:15-12:30); Noe store (4:15-5:30)
Wednesday, June 13th: SoMa store (11:15-12:30)

And then, look for it in the prepared foods cases* it looks like Whole Foods is gonna start making mad deliciousness with it! This stuff is freaky realistic and I think maybe it’s meant more for meat eaters but we gotta support because 1) vegans gotta be all up in it and 2) we love to eat! Hopefully if it gets crazy popular, it can be used to feed people in developing countries a healthy protein for cheap and people will start grilling this shit up on 4th of July and chickens will get to be happy and goofy and take dirt baths and lay in the sunshine and just not give a cluck! SO yeah: eat it, spread the word, make it happen. 

*I don’t think you can buy it like, in the frozen or fresh sections yet… but maybe soon??

Check out this cake! Isn’t it gorgeous? It’s the vegan carrot cake that Pink bought to celebrate her daughter’s first birthday! Vegan baked goods, for the win! That is some beautiful handiwork, from Jamaica’s Cakes in Los Angeles.

Join our team, Pink! You know I’ve been saving you a seat for awhile now, starting with when you called Kayne out, not once, but twice, for being a total fucking idiot.

When I’ve turned to vegan ranch dressings in the past, I’ve always been disappointed. So I’ve taken it upon myself to make one that reminds me of Hidden Valley. What can I say? That is what my palate wants.

Let’s do this.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cup soaked cashews
3/4 to 1 cup water
2 cloves of garlic
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup white rice vinegar
1 tsp pepper
1/2 Tbsp. salt
1/2 tsp. agave nectar
The juice of half a lemon

Instructions
Blend all ingredients until you get the smoothest product you can! I use a Vita-Mix. I’m sure you can use a blender or food processor to pulverize these ingredients, but you may need a nut milk bag handy to strain any chunks. 

Taste. Make sure it’s a flavor profile you expect from ranch. Add more salt, pepper or vinegar to you liking. Remember, this is your base, and you are the star of this recipe.

After blending, add 1 tsp. Italian herbs and 1 tsp. dill, and mix by hand.

This is recipe that tastes best when it sits (in the fridge) for a couple hours, even better overnight. Perhaps you like your dressing a little more dill-ish? Add more! You are the chef! More salt and pepper? DO IT!

Serve and watch your party guests go crazy. I love to serve my ranch with a faux meat product (homemade seitan) because my friends are always like, “Hey, I think I could go vegan if everything tasted like this!” More potlucks, more dinner parties, because THIS IS WHAT VEGAN TASTES LIKE! 

It’s Paul Shapiro’s Animal News You Can Use! Yay!

Big news this week: Kroger—the nation’s largest grocery chain—announced that it wants its pork suppliers to accelerate the phase-out of gestation crates, and a Senate committee in New Jersey unanimously passed a bill to ban gestation crates. Here’s a good story about both, and the wonderful Jane Velez-Mitchell has a good op-ed on CNN.com today on why it’s time to end this cruelty.

Just yesterday, Pork Magazine (which you no doubt subscribe to) editorialized that “pork producers are fuming” at the success of our campaign against gestation crates. Boo hoo. Another industry commentator noted this week, “Sadly, the die [sic] is cast…For pork producers, it is better to switch than fight.”

Speaking of fighting, there was an important national AP story this week on the federal effort to ban barren battery cages and how a coalition of major meat/dairy trade groups are vigorously trying to kill the bill. (Have *you* called your Senators yet? If not, call 202-224-3121 and ask them to co-sponsor S 3239!)

Video of the week: Three of you independently suggested this one, so you know it’s gonna be good:

Compassion Couture is having their first ever sample sale this Sunday! Man, I could get down with some samples. Especially on a Sunday. Sundays are perfect for getting down with samples. That’s what god would want. 

TV is the best! You guys! One of our national treasures, PBS, has teamed up with another of our national treasures, Ms. Terry Hope Romero, and two other vegan wunderfrauen, Toni Fiore (of Totally Vegetarian) and Miyoko Schinner, to create Vegan Mashup, an all-vegan cooking show! The world is our oyster mushroom!

The Portland Press Herald has a great article about it that makes us wish summer were over already and we could be watching Terry in our homes all the time. Laura and I met her at last year’s VidaVeganCon and she’s the prettiest funniest best! If the Bay Area PBS affiliate, KQED, doesn’t pick up Vegan Mashup, I swear we will riot in the streets. We know where your headquarters are and we aren’t afraid to sit in. San Francisco autumns are totally mild, we could carry on for weeks. That’s conditional “could.”

The point is, we are really looking forward to this, and if you want to see it, maybe you should contact your local PBS carrier and demand television justice! The vegan revolution is coming, and it involves HD shots of ladies plating tacos!

[Photo by Avery Yale Kamila for the Portland Press Herald]

The internet loves a controversy!

Donald Kaul is a Pulitzer-nominated journalist and super-liberal who lives in Iowa. Last month, he wrote a column called “Vegan Confessions,” about how he’s trying to eat a more vegan diet, because of health, and how he’s found it difficult, so he doesn’t follow it 100 percent. Alternet picked it up and the commentariat went nuts: Some people excoriated him for not being vegan enough, some people were offended because his (stated) motives were health instead of animal welfare, and nearly all the Defensive Omnivore Bingo squares were filled in by the rest of them. It was, not to mince words, a shitshow.

Kaul, naturally, feels a bit wounded by the giant pile-on of mean comments, which he discusses in his latest column, “Bitter Broccoli.” As a vegan, an “animal welfare first” vegan, I feel bad as well. I know it’s easy to get caught up in the search for perfection, in the vegan community, but more and more people are trying out a vegan diet, and even if it’s only part-time, I think it’s great. The more people make issues like animal welfare and environmental protection priorities, the better off we’ll all be; even if our allies came over to our side for health issues, they’re still on our side! And we’re all on the animals’ side.

This writer seems like a nice, reasonable person. He co-founded RAGBRAI, a “non-competitive bike ride across Iowa” that’s all about fun times cycling with your fellow citizens. He just wants to eat healthier, and recognized that a vegan diet is a superior way to do so. He wrote with honesty and humor about his failures. Is that a reason to scream at him on the internet? Of course not. I can see why this might make other vegans cranky, but I don’t understand why a vegan diet makes non-vegans so mad. We’re not hurting you! We’re just over here, eating vegetables and signing petitions to stop hunts and close abusive circuses and end systematic, socially accepted animal slaughter. Why are you so angry when a nice gentleman cuts most of the animal products out of his diet?

Vegansaurus readers, I put it to you: Why do non-vegans get so riled up when another person joins the vegan ranks? My gut says “total jealousy seeing someone actually act according to a moral code,” but that can’t be the only thing. What do you think?

[photo by Carly Lesser and Art Drauglis via Flickr]