vegansaurus!

Delicious Reader Submission: First Vegan Thanksgiving  »

I’m the only vegan in my family and this is my first vegan Thanksgiving. I had brown rice & frozen veggies (somehow all our veggies had been used up), mashed potatoes made with Earth Balance and So Delicious coconut milk, and Gardein’s Savory Stuffed Turkey. 

Yay, congrats!! Love it!

San Diego Vegan Feast!  »

In the pic the is the Tofurky roast (made in the crock pot with cola & bourbon), brussel sprouts with maple glaze, cauliflower gratin, sweet potatoes with Sweet & Sara marshmallows, garlicky collard greens, stuffing, & ginger cranberry sauce.  Mashed potatoes & pale ale grave off to the side. Plus the Amy’s chocolate cake and a cherry pie for dessert.  All for 2 people!  :)

DEEEELICIOUS!! Keep these tasty photos coming, folks!

More Reader Thanksgivings! They are so very delicious!  »

From Alex: My first vegan thanksgiving! Fresh cranberry sauce, yams, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower bechamel, and whole grain stuffing with pecans and currants! And No Bake Cranberry Pear Tart for dessert!

Um, that is amazing. That is all.

Don’t forget to submit photos of your tasty vegan Thanksgiving feast! Woo!

Veggie Angie’s Thanksgiving Meal [Ed.: HOLY CRAP THIS LOOKS AMAZING]  »

This year my husband and I made roasted vegetables with a peanut sriracha sauce, rice with veggie sausage, toasted garlic potato bread rolls, and a Gardein Holiday Roast. 

Read more on her blog! Thanks Angie!!

Guest product review: SooFoo grains blend!  »

Funny name, yummy blend. SooFoo, a San Francisco-based, U.S.-grown blend of grains and pulses, is the perfect mix of new-and-exciting with simple-and-nutritious. It’s a great substitute for bland white rice or, in my household, basic, tasteless brown rice. SooFoo is completely organic and it has nine ingredients. Seems like a lot for “rice” type of food until you read them: long grain brown rice, brown lentils, wheat berries, oats, barley, black lentils, rye berries, green lentils, and buckwheat. The folks at SooFoo must’ve been big proponents of Raffi’s “Oats and Beans and Barely.”

Certified organic, Kosher, and vegan, SooFoo is one of the most guiltless products on the market. Their packaging gives some super basic, alliteration-filled suggestions on what to do with the food, such as “sprinkle in a salad,” “stir into soups,” “chuck in chili,” and “toss with tofu” among others. My personal fave is “shower the bride and groom.” I’m totally going to do that next summer. “The vegan from California brought his own hippie rice”—I can hear the in-laws already.

I threw 3/4 cup of SooFoo, 2 cups of water, and 1 Tbsp. of extra virgin olive oil into my rice-cooker. Forty-five aromatic minutes later, I had four to six servings of SooFoo, piping hot. My ladyfriend and I decided to serve it with a stir-fry of red onion, purple bell pepper, green beans, and chickpeas with a gluttony of spices. In my attempt to rid the world of all gluten products by digesting them myself, I threw my portions in a whole wheat tortilla.

I gotta say, as a faux-meat and potatoes guy, I didn’t have the highest hopes for SooFoo. But I was blown away. Seriously. Add that to the fact it also has 6 grams of protein per serving (BUT WHERE DO VEGANS GET THEIR PROTEIN?!) and 3 grams of fiber per serving, you can easily justify the chocolate-covered pretzels you also bought. 

All in all, SooFoo is pretty freaking awesome. Before I throw the rest of the bag during friends and family nuptials, I think I’ll and “toss it with tofu” next. But I’m open to suggestions!

Andrew E. Irons is a blogger from Long Beach, Calif. He co-created and contributes to Rhode Island-based hip-hop website The Echo Chamber Blog under the pseudonym Verbal Spacey. You can track his daily diatribes by following him on Twitter.

Guest post: Let’s crawl together with L.A. Beer Hop!  »

Pub-crawling reeks of being 21 and not having to care about waking up on time and decisions you’ll regret early the next morning. But as real adulthood rears its ugly head, pub crawls are actually great ways to spend a night out with friends, if you pick the perfect “pubs” to “crawl” to. Well it seems LA Beer Hop was created with such nights in mind.

The places worth heading to in Los Angeles aren’t close enough together to warrant a good “crawl.” But now, for just a $5 ticket, you can be whisked away by shuttle to three of the L.A. area’s newest and best beer-and-bar-food joints. The Pub at Golden Road Brewing, Tony’s Darts Away, and Mohawk Bend make up the trifecta of destinations that LA Beer Hop will shuttle you to-and-fro every Wednesday in November. Take a peep at the tour schedule and reserve your tickets ASAP, because they’re sure to sell out.

Not only do each of these places have vast collections of tasty microbrews to sip on, they each have a cornucopia of vegan eats that’ll make your non-vegan friends say “I WANT THAT!” Tony’s Darts Away has gourmet vegan hot dogs, Mohawk Bend has vegan pizzas and buffalo cauliflower, and the Pub at Golden Road Brewing has ginormous vegan pretzels and fried avocado sammies, just to name a few!

Vegan-friendly bar-hopping, and no one has to worry about parking or driving for just $5? Oh L.A., sometimes you complete me. Who’s coming with me?!

Andrew E. Irons is a blogger from Long Beach, Calif. He co-created and contributes to Rhode Island-based hip-hop website The Echo Chamber Blog under the pseudonym Verbal Spacey. You can track his daily diatribes by following him on Twitter.

[photo by arvind grover via Flickr]

Label me delicious: Bites of Bliss superfood treats rule!  »

As a high raw queer vegan, I think about labels a lot, how they’re helpful and also kind of complicated. Labeling a product vegan is a bold visibility move, and I like that. I’ve seen entire Facebook photo albums devoted to highlighting explicitly vegan products. It’s actually really validating, like, WE BUILT THAT, but less offensive because we’re talking about the vegan movement and not political tomfoolery. I do worry that overtly vegan labels might scare people away from trying vegan things for the first time. If all apples had huge VEGAN stickers on them, do you think everyone  would still buy them? No, they’d protest until McDonald’s finally took the stickers off, uniformly chopped the apples, coated them in chemicals, and made them into a “pie” or something.

As the Vegansaurus raw correspondent, I get the privilege of seeing a lot of products’ labeling, and that has me thinking—doth the label maketh the product? The short answer is no, but when it comes to labeling raw vegan products, I’m convinced certain labels really do help make the sale, aka trip to my tummy. Alerting consumers that your product is raw, vegan, gluten-free, soy-free, agave-free, dairy-free, and contains no GMOs is pretty much required if you want to party with the elite raw vegan foods crowd.

If the above description sounds absolutely incredible to you, then you’re in luck: I just tried Bites of Bliss, and they’re really delicious! I tried the goji berry, carob almond butter (you know there’s a chocolate-free label they wanted to slap on but were too scared of the raw chocoholics seeking vengeance. Best to downplay that particular feature!), and my absolute favorite, pineapple coconut with chia seeds. I haven’t had a piña colada since the early ’00s, but holy tropical fruit, this is truly delicious! It tastes creamy and it’s just the right ratio of pineapple to coconut.

The ingredients are delightfully simple: raw dates, raw walnuts, raw pineapple, unsweetened coconut, coconut nectar (yeah, EFF agave, that higher-glycemic sweetener!), raw chia seeds, and coconut oil—all organic, of course, and the taste is HELLA TROPICAL! I can almost feel the ocean tide and hear someone offering me bathing-suit-optional snorkel lessons. This product is a winner! Get it online and in select Bay Area health food stores.

Do you care about what’s on the label of your raw/vegan products? For research purposes it’d be rad hear about it in the comments!

This is Sarah E. Brown’s latest post! Read more by Sarah on Vegansaurus, and visit her personal blog, Queer Vegan Food.

[images via Bites of Bliss]

Live Superfoods Are Luxury In Your Blender  »

I love raw vegan smoothies so much! I tend to drink them at least once a day, for breakfast and/or after my weight lifting class (I’m trying to get super jacked on plants! Wish me luck!) Since I tend to drink the same few smoothie ingredient combinations on the reg, it’s important for me to stop—hold up—and try new flavors and ingredients.

Live Superfoods sent me samples of their organic raw maca powder, organic raw cacao powder, and organic raw coconut palm sugar to try. Though I’m used to adding maca and cacao powder in raw vegan drinks and desserts, Live Superfoods’ versions of these were truly spectacular. I feel like I’ve been adding boxed wine to my smoothies all my life and suddenly someone reached out of the sky and handed me a bottle of Chteau Haut Brion Pessac-Lognan 1982. I’m not sure that high class wine would taste great with chia seeds, but you get the point—these are very classy ingredients!

I’d never used low-glycemic coconut palm sugar before in a smoothie, and I am happy to report that it’s a wonderful add-in! Coconut palm sugar has a different maple-y flavor than stevia, my usual go-to sweetener, and nicely complements berries and other frozen fruits. The Live Superfoods cacao powder was bold and slightly fruity, and the maca was rich and malty. I have to say, this mint-infused smoothie combination is my new favorite, and is destined to be my new go-to in the morning!

Coconut Chocolate Maca Mint Smoothie (serves 1-2)

Ingredients:

1 tsp Live Superfoods Organic raw coconut palm sugar
2 tsp raw cacao powder
1 tsp maca powder
1 cup strawberries
1/2 tbs chia seeds
1/2 banana
1-2 tsp fresh mint leaves

Optional garnish:
Strawberries and/or vegan granola

Sarah E. Brown’s latest post! Read more by Sarah on Vegansaurus, and visit her personal blog, Queer Vegan Food.

Fresh ‘N Lean: Yummy organic vegan meals delivered to your door! Plus, 20 percent off for Vegansaurs!  »

First, a big whopping disclaimer: I am affiliated with Fresh ‘N Lean. It didn’t start out that way—I was just an unsuspecting lover of their maple-sweet homemade granola, gluten-free vegan lasagna, hearty chickpea Asian salads and savory lentil soup.

Then they asked me to write for their blog in exchange for an ongoing weekly supply of their incredibly delicious plant-source only food—how could I say no to that offer, right? [Ed. note: how can I be down?!]

Months later, I’m still one of Fresh ‘N Lean’s biggest fans. And since it’s vegan and delicious, I thought the Vegansaurus audience would be interested. The concept behind Fresh ‘N Lean meals is that lots of people who want to eat healthfully are just too damn busy. Blame it on the Capitalist Man, or maybe your crazy travel schedule as a hydroponic saleswoman, but most of us really can benefit from someone else doing the cooking, at least once in a while. Though the Bay Area is super great in terms of options for the vegan on the go, it can get expensive. Fresh ‘N Lean is priced to be cheaper than healthful vegan takeout, so it’s pretty cost-effective to sign up to get a few meals a week from them (or a whole week, if that’s your thing!). 

Fresh ‘N Lean is totally vegan. The food tastes good, but doesn’t have tons of added salt, sugar, or anything like that„ so it works really well for people with preventable diet-related lifestyle diseases. I  worked at a raw vegan retreat center where many guests were into the idea of eating vegan food, but once they got home were like, “What the what do I eat?” This is a cool option because while it’s not all raw, it is all fresh and good for our heart-attack-recovery celebrity friends (Hi, Rosie!) and neighbors.

Besides being yummy, Fresh ‘N Lean meals are gluten-free, corn-free, non-GMO, organic, and, like I said, vegan. My favorite dishes include the chia porridge breakfast, signature green bean salad, gluten-free vegan mac’n cheese, and all of the quinoa vegetable medleys. If you’re trying to get friends and family members into healthy vegan food, this might be a great gift. My brother, already vegan, owns a film studio, and I gifted him a weekly plan to help him feed himself when he’s so busy on set.

Fresh ‘N Lean is based in L.A. and ships nationwide.

SPECIAL DEAL for Vegansaurus readers: Use the code “vegansaurus” to get 20 percent off your order!

This is Vegansaurus raw correspondent Sarah E. Brown’s latest post! Read more by Sarah on Vegansaurus, and visit her personal blog, Queer Vegan Food.

[Photos via Fresh ‘N Lean]