You know how the vegan mission, at times, is to make vegan versions of all the world's meaty traditional dishes and make them better than the original with our new creative spin? What if you just tried to recreate a dish you got at a restaurant that was already vegan? Is there any creative challenge involved? It feels weird, but I did it anyways. My favorite place to get sliced (sliced: when it's really late, too late for dinner, but too early for breakfast and you need food so you go get pizza by the slice) is Vinnie's in BK, and my favorite of their vegan slices are spicy chicken and barbeque chicken. Now, their versions are different than mine as they include vegan cheese and mine does not. However, my versions are 100% inspired by their already-delicious-vegan pizzas, so thanks Vin. You rock.

Do you ever have those days where nothing seems to go right?

Like if you really really wanted to make flatbreads with a cashew veggie spread and thought about making them all day at work, then came home, knowing you had everything you need in your fridge, then got half-way through making them and realized you didn't have one essential ingredient?

You were then forced to fly by the seat of your pants and come up with plan b. 

What do you do when life gives you pizza dough?

Make pizzette of course!

So the original plan was flatbreads, as you know, but once I had a food processor full of veggies and cashews, I reached to the back of my fridge for my tofu, and it was a frozen solid block. The spread isn't much on its own, not to mention proteinless (cashews aren't quite enough), so I scrapped it. I had pizzette on my "to test" list under the appetizer category and hadn't made any pizzette in a while, so since I had pizza dough at my fingertips, I thought I'd test a recipe I had jotted down earlier in the week. It was called "Pizzette with caramelized onions and barbecued artichokes." Sounds great, right? So I reached into my fridge and grabbed a full jar of artichoke hearts packed in water, for my barbecuing pleasures, and twisted. Nothing happened. I twisted and I twisted until my hands couldn't twist anymore. The boyfriend met the same end to the jar of artichokes. As posted on instagram, "All the kings horses and all the kings men couldn't open that freaking jar of artichokes." And now we're looking at plan C. 

Cauliflower.

I have been seeing people buffalo it like crazy lately, and have been wanting to try it. Why not put a practical twist on the buffalo and barbecue it? 

So I gave it a shot, by steaming first and then tossing in barbecue sauce. It ended up a little watery, making my lovely bite-sized pizzette a true barbecue experience because they became ridiculously sloppy. A quartered artichoke heart would be perfect. So someday, when I get my jar open, I will try again with the way I intended. 

I have been cranking out the mexican recipes lately. I think enchiladas are my favorite mexican vehicle, but I'm sure I will change my mind about that by the end of this post. After much travel and day-tripping around to different states, cities and restaurants, I am finally back in my kitchen, spatula in hand, poised to scramble.

Tacos are my favorite mexican vehicle now, so I made a bunch of tacos this week to satisfy my craving for the blood of young tacos worldwide. I actually played this incredibly amusing game while I was on a plane this summer, where I make columns of categories of the elements that make up a dish. The first column was nationality or ethnicity of the dish. The next column was full of strange or curveball kinds of veggies. the next column was full of dressings or sauces. The last column was the vehicle the dish would come to be in. I numbered each column and made my boyfriend pick a bunch of numbers, 1 from each column. I came up with- 1.American 2.fennel 3. slaw 4. taco. This was obviously the most appealing sounding of all of my combinations, and so this little taco was born with a silver spoon in its tortilla. It's BBQ seitan with a fennel/onion/mango slaw and some guacamole, because what do I eat without guacamole?

The classic staple taco in my house is lentil meat, tomatoes, guac and 'queshew'. I will say it as much as I can. 

One year in college, my best friend and I spring breaked it to florida and ate keylime pie at every single place we could find it. I haven't had keylime pie since, so I was compelled to change that. I made this one out of Vegan Pie In The Sky with some cashew whipped cream. I feel like I ate more whipped cream than pie. But doesn't that always seem to happen?

My friends and I decided to throw a thanksgiving in July party this year, because thanksgiving food somehow tastes better in July, because it seems forbidden. You're supposed to cook with in-season flavors! You have to wait until the end of autumn to rightfully enjoy thanksgiving food! So this was kind of fun and rebellious. I think I'm the only one who gave the rebelliousness a second thought, but my food tasted all the better for it. This was our dessert- Pumpkin spice cupcake with maple buttercream and a candied pecan. 

So what did you do this summer?