vegansaurus!

Product Review: VonDulce Danish Candy!  »

I got some gratis samples of VonDulce’s handmade Danish candies to try! VonDulce is a vegan-owned business and the creator, Karolina Zakonek, gave me some awesome background info. While hard candies here in the states are often vegan-friendly, they are usually made with corn syrup. In contrast, check out the sugar Karolina uses:

[VonDulce candies] are made with Fair Trade, 100% Organic, Kosher, Evaporated Sugar Cane, which is not filtered through animal by-products, and produced under strict organic standards. The sugar is not treated with herbicides or synthetic fertilizers, and no chemicals or bleaching agents are used. The freshly squeezed Organic Sugar Cane Juice, is evaporated and crystalized on the same day it is harvested. The Sugar Mills are self sufficient, using the crushed cane stalks (called bagasse) as a fuel for the boilers, which generates electricity, so there is no need for fossil fuels. 

Holy crap that’s some serious sugar! Talk about guilt-free. And no bone char! Nice. I already like supporting vegan businesses but that sugar is just so cool, it makes it all the better. Yes, I’m talking about cool sugar.

Karolina grew up in Denmark where hard candy is a common treat. She learned to make these candies the old fashioned way and uses the same recipe candy-masters used in the late 1700s. She orders all her natural flavoring oils from a Danish supplier so she can get the purest ingredients available. She also doesn’t use plastic molds (which is how most candies are made) so you don’t have to worry about toxins and chemicals leaching into the sugar! Wow girl, you are thorough! I appreciate that. 

My official verdict: These candies are the yum! And SO PRETTY! My favorite flavor is the Lemon Pucker. It’s a great mix of sweet and lemony-sour but not too sour. It’s unique too, nothing like a lemon Jolly Rancher or what have you. The Berry Me and Peppermint were yum too. And if you like root beer, the Sassafras is for you! All the flavor of root beer in a little candy. And licorice fans have definitely found their match, apparently that is a Danish fave! Another note: these candies are gluten-free, gluten-free friends!

So if you want to support a vegan biz and eat some tasty, old-fashioned sweets, head over to VonDulce’s Etsy page and go crazy! Oh and hey, on VonDulce’s Facebook page, they are having a little caption contest and you can win candies before Valentine’s day! So check that out!

Eco-Planet Organic Cheddar Crackers!  »

Vegan cheddar crackers! I’ve been looking for you my whole vegan life! Eco-Planet Cheddar Crackers are not the same as Goldfish but they sure do hit the spot! And they are great, the shapes are so funny! There’s a sun, an earth, a wind energy pinwheel and an electric car! Hilar! Plus, the designs on the crackers catch bits of salt in them, that’s my favorite part.

Now, keep an open mind, but my favorite thing back in the non-vegan days was Cheddar Goldfish and Peanut M&Ms. I swear to you they taste super good together! I am not even kidding! No one believes me until I make them try it and they are like, “Megan, you are queen of snacks!”* So once I find the vegan Peanut M&Ms, look out little eco-crackers because IT’S ON.

I got these from VeganStore.com (among other things!!!) but I’ve also seen them at the Fairway market in Redhook. 

*And I’m like, “I’m already the queen of so many things, I don’t know if I can sustain another kingdom!” But then I accept the title because I’m a benevolent ruler.

Rau Om’s mind-blowing new vegan cheese; you must try!  »

I just tried this Tofu Misozuke cheese from Rau Om spread on some whole grain crackers and it was SO DAMN GOOD.

Well, not that exactly. What had happened was, when it first arrived, I greedily ripped open the packaging, cut off an enormous chunk, and stuffed it straight in my maw. Then, I spit it out because it was DAMN POTENT. I then read the accompanying information and saw that it was supposed to be eaten like CHEESE. My bad!

Finally I came correct with some crackers and it blew my mind one more time. Creamy, pungent, expensive-tasting, “real” cheese. Like, you could serve this to omni guests and they would eagerly wish to learn more about it, and you would be like, “NOT UNTIL YOU GO VEGAN, OK?” and then they would go vegan and BAM! Look at you and your activism, all saving the world and shit via delicious vegan cheese. 

If you want to try this stuff inside the United States, you have two options: You can order from maker Rau Om’s online store; or, find them at Sunnyvale and Palo Alto farmers markets. Also, if you have a minute, read this article to learn tons about this kind of cheese, so that you know more about things than everyone else, and can make other people feel stupid when you talk about it. Like, who doesn’t know about tofu misozuke!? Philistines!! 

Spotted at Trader Joe’s: Cookie Butter, vegan dog treats, and organic coconut oil!  »

Just thought you’d all like to know, because cookie spread is ridiculous, and often really hard to find in the United States. Biscoff was spotted at Cost Plus, but there can always be more cookie spread. Always more. Always. Anyone have any cookie spread cake or cookie recipes? Because I’m finna experiment.

Annnnd organic coconut oil is so great for holiday baking and for high-heat cooking and also, spread that shit on some toast and call it a day. OMG, make grilled cheeses with it. Melt it on popcorn! Use it to grease locks and break into your neighbor’s house to steal the cute dog she never walks/smash in her insanely loud sound system! The sky’s the limit!

And finally, check out these cute-ass vegan holiday dog gingerbread men! Trader Joe’s really works it on the packaging and I appreciate the effort. So does Hazel and Toby! Actually, they don’t give a shit about the packaging but they do like the cookies!

Earth Balance Organic Coconut Spread: Put it on or in EVERYTHING  »

Earth Balance Organic Coconut Spread. Oh, hell yes. Use it as sexual lube (commonly known as, “lube”), massage oil, in cupcakes, on toast, on a spoon, for high-temperature frying, or for high-temperature sexual relations. This shit does it all! There’s a reason this won product of the year at Vegnews, and your holiday baking just got a whole bunch more delicious. Plus, it’s all organic, so it doesn’t have any of that bad, shady palm oil in it (warning: shitty PDF). Seriously, if you love orangutans (and who doesn’t! They’re basically the muppet version of Jay Z and Bruce Vilanch’s love child), then only buy the organic Earth Balance DO IT. And since the organic regular Earth Balance is hella whipped, it’s not as good for baking, but now that shit doesn’t matter because this coconut spread is perfect for all your baking needs! Also, use it to get gum out of hair and to shine your silver! DO IT.

To further convince you of its glorious truth: Here’s a PDF from Earth Balance with tons of recipes, and coupons! Whole Foods also has a coupon — I wonder if you can combine to actually make money on this deal?? Learn the art of the pon, people. 

Eat this immediately: Gourmellows! They’re what’s for every meal if you’re not an idiot!  »

You guys, you really really really really really have to try these gourmellows from Desiderio Chocolates. Yes, gourmellow — it’s GOURMET and MARSHMALLOW made into one awkward word, but who cares, the taste is nothing short of legendary. Legendary, I say! I found them while browsing the vegan section of the adorable Abe’s Market instead of working (it’s one of the many things I do that don’t involve working), and BAM: Gourmellows:

They’re half-fudge, half-marshmallow (roughly the same composition as yours truly) and then covered in the smoothest dark chocolate I’ve ever had. It’s almost milk chocolaty. I mean, HOT DAMN! It tastes like nothing I’ve ever eaten, and I’ve eaten pretty much everything. If you don’t believe me, I’ll send pictures.

Man, I love Gourmellows so much. I’ve gotten into the adorable habit of g-chatting my boyfriend simply, “GOURMELLOW DOWN!” because it makes him sad that he’s at stupid work without delicious gourmellows and I’m living the dream!

Get at them, either via Abe’s ($14 for six, or $12.60 if you give them three friends’ email addresses, YOU ASSHOLE) or Desiderio Chocolates’ Etsy store ($6 for three). Also, their sea salt caramels are UNSANE. You like nougat? Oh, they’ve got your nougat! Oh fuck it, just get a sampler snack pack and go to town, fatty. FUCK, I see that they’ve got ROCKY ROAD, TOO. Goddammit!

Here’s the sea salt caramel:

Here’s my hand-model hand and a Gourmellow EXTREME CLOSE-UP:

Product Review: Galaxy Nutritional Foods’ new vegan cream cheese!   »

[Totes awesome Instagram pic of the whole operation]

I got a chance to sample Galaxy Nutritional Foods new vegan cream cheese and I give it all my thumbs up! It’s yummy! First I made a bagel with the chive and garlic flavor, complete with tomatoes from my parents’ community garden plot, and it was tasty. I will say that it wasn’t garlicky enough for me—if you tell me it has garlic, it has to be garlicky with a capital HOLY MOLY. But it was good and didn’t have that kind of weird aftertaste some vegan cream cheeses have, you know?

BUT THEN! I decided to take the plain cream cheese they sent me and make vegan red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting! MINI red velvet cupcakes! I made mini bundt cakes too but I can’t figure out how to make them look nice with frosting; they are more glaze-friendly. Now, if there’s one thing I hate, it’s red velvet cupcakes with VANILLA frosting. BLEH! It’s GOT to be cream cheese. I used this recipe and it was good for the cake but I don’t recommend the cream cheese frosting recipe that goes along with it. The frosting recipe doesn’t have any sugar in it and kind of tasted crazy. I looked at every other cream cheese frosting recipe on the internet and they all had two to eight (eight!) cups of confectioners sugar in them, so I added about a cup to my butter-and-cream-cheese mixture. MUCH IMPROVED! My final decision: YUM! Excellent cream cheese frosting! My omni sister loved it too, and my mom said it was delicious and it’s the only red velvet cake she’s ever liked! High praise.

[The only mini cupcake papers we could find in our house were Halloween-themed! SPOOKY!]

The thing I like about this vegan cream cheese is that it’s like kind of tangy—you know how real cream cheese is a bit tangy? Like plain-yogurt-tangy? Yeah, it’s like that. Tofutti and those others totally lack that. Maybe it’s because this is the first vegan cream cheese that’s cultured? Could be! You know how science is! I think this cream cheese would be really good for making those simple cream cheese-based cheese cakes; those should be a bit tangy.

My sister said you can’t tell how small and adorbs the cupcakes are so we took a pic with Mitsy to show scale:

Oh, Mits. 

Vegan MoFo PLUS: Tofu Xpress makes amazing antipasto!  »

The cool dudes over at Tofu Xpress were kind enough to send over a unit for review, and I was so pumped about using the nifty gadget that I decided to incorporate it into my Vegan MoFo recipe. Talk about slicing two carrots with one knife!
The Tofu Xpress is a fully dishwasher-safe, easy-to-use, gourmet kitchen tool. Though it was created to remove moisture from a traditional block of tofu, it can be used for other foods that need pressing as well. To use, place a block of firm or extra-firm tofu into the container, attach and lock the lid, and let it do its job. Most of the water will be gone after an hour or so, but you can leave the Tofu Xpress in the fridge overnight, or however long you’d like.

Once pressed, tofu becomes easier to grill, marinate, stir fry and bake and results in richer flavors and increased versatility. After food prep, the machine is easy to clean and store, with only two, corrosion-resistent parts. Miraculous! After searching for some relatively simple pressed-tofu recipes, I was thrilled to find the perfect project: Marinated Tofu Cheese.

After pressing a block of extra-firm tofu for 48 hours (I wanted to be sure!), I chopped it into small blocks and tossed it with sun-dried tomatoes, kalamata olives, fresh basil and rosemary, extra virgin olive oil, and a little salt and pepper. After making sure it was well combined, I packed the whole mixture into a Mason jar, topped it up with more olive oil, and let it sit in my fridge—patiently—for almost four days to soak up all the goodness.

Today, I picked up an Italian loaf at a local market and packed it, along with about half of my ready-to-devour mixture, and headed into work. After tasting the antipasto goodness myself, and gathering feedback from my foodie coworkers, the consensus is that my first Tofu Xpress experience was indeed a GREAT success!
Next time I’ll add a few whole cloves of garlic to the marinade, but aside from that it was truly delicious and rich. One of my coworkers said she’d even love to serve it at a party! Win! Can’t WAIT to try another recipe!

[Tofu Xpress image via Rollin’ Oats Market]

Rescue Chocolate: greatest company ever, order everything!  »

You guys all know about Rescue Chocolate, right?! If you don’t it’s probably because you’re less charitable and compassionate than I but it’s okay. I will illuminate you and in return, you owe me your first born. Now, don’t EVER EVER had a kid and we’re even stevens!

Rescue Chocolate is an all vegan chocolate company that donates 100% of their proceeds to animal rescue. HOW RAD IS THAT? And the actual chocolate? I tried it this weekend when I was in Portland (JEALOUS?) and it was SOOOOOO GOOOOOOOOD. I had the Peanut Butter Pit Bull, which I bought strictly because it has a cute-ass pit bull on it, and I was expecting to LIKE it but I LOVED it! Usually dark chocolate is just too bitter for me because I’m a delicate flower but this was SO good — peanut butter mixed with rice krispies (SO SMART) and then coated with creamy dark chocolate. It tasted like a high-class Butterfinger and you know what they say about those things: If you lay a finger on my Butterfinger, I’ll murder your whole family.

Order everything (or buy at a local store if you live somewhere great) because they really are the absolute greatest and all vegan and all delicious and about to be all mine, so HURRY!

Inside pic of a PBPB, GIVE IT TO ME:

UPDATE 9/2/11: I am bummed to find out that Rescue Chocolate isn’t on the Food Empowerment Project’s list of places that don’t use slave labor to get their chocolate. I am sorry I didn’t check the list first, because it’s such a good guide and I really do want to support places that are guaranteed happy for everyone. Rescue Chocolate, please use the good stuff so I can go back to ordering massive quantities on the reg!