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?

I have a confession to make. You can't tell anybody. I don't know why I do it, but when I'm flipping through the channels looking for something I can burn out to and access some beta waves, I usually land upon a marathon of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. Now, I know what you're thinking. The guy with ridiculously bleached facial hair with a sunburnt face who wears sunglasses around the back of his head who travels to the all the best kept secrets in America to see who's serving up the best slop in town? Shameful, I know. First thing's first: I can't eat anything that is prepared or featured on the show. Everything should, by vegan law, gross me the hell out and make me change the channel faster than you can say "7-Way-Cincinatti-Style-Chili." But there's something so eerie about what happens when I watch this show. I don't want to stop. Freaks me out. I guess I just like watching people cook, no matter what they're cooking. Anyways, I was watching someone on the show at their restaurant that his father's father's father passed down to him make a dish that looked like something I would order at a 99's or TGIFridays if my parents took me somewhere like that when I was kid. It was a cheesy pasta dish with spicy chicken and bacon. You'd be hard-pressed to find somebody who wouldn't really like the way that tastes. But being vegan is fun, because its my job to figure out a way to make a dish just like that, with the same basic idea, but use all different ingredients. I love a good challenge. 

This is a pecan pie I made last weekend! I got the recipe off of the ppk website, and it worked out pretty flawlessly. Vegan caramel has stumped me before, but this time...no such stumpage occurred. Since this is my first blogging experience, I just realized that when I type the word "vegan" in Blogger, it red-underlines it. So lame. Get with the times, Blogger! Half the Internet is vegan by now, isn't it? 

So if you go to the ppk website, you'll see that they're coming out with a new pie book, and if you know me, you obviously know that's all I've been talking about for something like three months. My goal is to cover the Earth in vegan pies, and surely there will then be peace on Earth. I mean who could fight on a pie-covered battleground? We will then rename our state Pie Jersey and become our nation's capital, and further issue each state its own state pie. What will your state's state pie be?? If I were you I'd hope I got strawberry rhubarb crumb. 

It's my favorite.