Vegan Ugali with Bean Soup

It’s been a long while since I’ve used this blog, but I just made a recipe that was too good not to share. One of my new Twitter friends recommended this ugali with bean soup. Yes, I’m at the “sharing vegan recipes with strangers” portion of quarantine.

It’s cheap to make (I wasn’t counting, but I’m sure the ingredients are under $10), is made with mostly shelf stable ingredients (the only fresh veggies are an onion, a tomato, and a green pepper), and it is SO DELICIOUS. And easy to make – the longest part was forming the corn meal into balls, which honestly I feel like you could skip + just hack off a piece if you’re feeling lazy.

Click here for the recipe.

Nutty Cow Cheese Is the Shiz

Holy cow, you guys! Nutty Cow Cheese is coming out next month, and I’m really excited for it, because it is by far the best cheese-substitute I have ever had.

Granted, there’s not a lot of competition. Nutty Cow Cheese could be way ahead of the field just by tasting not-awful. But they went one step further: it tastes GOOD. It tastes good, and there’s no nasty soy aftertaste.

Kale Chips, or, Turning Kale Into AWESOME

I have a secret: my dog likes kale more than I do. She will eat a chicken bone right off of the street and swallow the whole damn thing if no one stops her, but when it comes to vegetables, she super has me beat for healthy eating. There are weeks when I eat more cookies than anything else. (Cookies are kind of food, right?)

This makes me a Bad Vegetarian.

Whatever though!!! I’m human, and I don’t have to just eat raw discarded kale stems. We can smother our food in salt and fat. These kale chips were SO GOOD. And so simple. And so delicious. Hell yeah.

Vegan Tofu Scramble and Fried Potatoes

My mother is obsessed with this recipe, from http://www.vegkitchen.com/, so I thought I would share it here. Ever since she got a bad cholesterol reading from the doctor and drastically reduced the amount of meat and dairy she eats, she’s been on the lookout for the “perfect” tofu scramble to replace eggs. The secret, according to her, is to use vegetables that go well with potatoes, so that you can slather the whole thing with ketchup and not taste the tofu at all. That’s about how I felt towards scrambled eggs when I used to eat them, so this recipe is a pretty good compromise for someone who can tolerate tofu but is not overly fond of it. Anyway, it tastes pretty darn good, and you can view the heart-healthy, low-cholesterol recipe below.

Vegan And Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Cookies

In honor of Celiac Awareness month, I found a cookie recipe from my classmate Chelsea’s blog Gluten-Free Unlimited, and made it vegan. These were a little crumbly, but completely delicious! They’re also easy to make if you’re short of ingredients — basically all they need is peanut butter, sugar, corn starch and baking soda.

Here’s the recipe below, paraphrased from her blog:

Soy Mocha and Vegan Marshmallows!

So, I found these vegan marshmallows in Whole Foods this week.

 I was really excited, because I’m, you know, five years old. I have actually never seen vegan marshmallows in a non-kosher grocery before (and even they sometimes use fish gelatin as a kosher alternative), so this blew my mind. They were $7 a bag, but you know, if you like marshmallows, totally worth it. They’re all-natural, too, so they’re worth checking out even if you’re not vegetarian. You can find them online here: http://www.chicagoveganfoods.com/dandies_vegan_marshmallows/

I wanted to do something fun with the marshmallows, and make my coffee more interesting. Solution: add chocolate, and stir.

Cotton Candy Is the Best Vegan Dessert

I think we can all pretty much agree that cotton candy is the best thing ever. So why is it eaten so infrequently?

Um, I don’t know. Maybe because people hate delicious things?

I think maybe there is a conspiracy in the Western world. The folks who sell cotton candy at zoos and circuses don’t want you to know that home-consumption cotton candy machines sell for as low as $40, and are easy to use. They want a monopoly on beautiful, magical spun sugar.

Vegan Cheese (And Other Horrors)

Vegan cheese!! What is up with you?

Seriously. I have never, ever, ever had vegan cheese that tasted good. Ever. At most, it can be a tolerable cheese-like substance, if used sparingly, and doused with other ingredients. Say, a few sprinkles in the middle of a burrito. But I don’t think soy will ever match up to the quality of real cheese. And I think soy should stop trying.

Meatless Mondays and What YOU Can Do To Curb Global Warming

On March 21, 2012 in Purchase, N.Y., the weather was an unseasonably warm 80 degrees – 20 degrees above the average temperature for New York in March, which is 60 degrees. The weather this spring has been beautiful so far this spring, but there’s an ominous feeling behind all the sunshine and warmth.

Below, you can see a video of Purchase students enjoying the warmth and reflecting on global warming.

“It does concern me about what’s going to happen in July,” said Samantha Yergo, a senior at Purchase who was sunbathing on the lawn at Alumni Village.

Vegan Baking Substitutes, Onion Rings, And How PETA Is Sometimes Helpful

I’m still pretty new to vegan cooking, so my mind was blown when I found this cheat-sheet of egg and dairy substitutes on Bliss Tree. It comes from PETA, whose politics I don’t always agree with (thanks for the graphic of the baby chick crying), but this thing is seriously helpful in the kitchen. I experimented with it this weekend and cooked something I’ve been wanting to make for a while. . .

Vegan onion rings! (Recipe below the fold.)