I celebrated my 6-year vegan-anniversary the way any respectable vegan would, with avocado toast, and coffee with coconut creamer.


This is my first winter in Philly, and I knew it would be a little milder than New York, so I was expecting a little less snow, maybe a few less days below zero... But not a disappearing winter. Winter in Philly is pretty much non-existent this year. We have only had a couple of really cold days, maybe even getting to the 20s, but most winter days here are 40 degrees and feel like a regular ass fall in New England. It's too bad, because I fell in love with the winter in NYC, and I see this year they have gotten a much better winter than down here, but alas, I will make curry anyway. I made the Down Home Curry from Isa Does It, which is so easy and customizable. I added whatever veggies I had on hand and cranked the spiciness up to 11. No one can take my winter food anyways from me!!


Alex is big pizza fan, and so on one of our cold nights here we heated the house up by making pizza. We used some gardein chicken strips, red sauce, made the mozzarella sauce from Chloe's Vegan Italian Kitchen and topped it with shredded basil. It was so good and Alex was so happy with it-- but I still would have preferred to eat this as a bowl full of pasta instead!! #TeamSpaghetti4Life


Alex whines when he doesn't have cookies and the only way to make him stop is to make him some cookies. I suppose I win, too, since I get cookies when I'm done. These are the Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies from The Super Fun Times Vegan Holiday Cookbook, but I left the chocolate chips out of the batter and just pushed them into the top of the baked cookies for a makeshift-hershey kiss kind of cookie. They were pretty much impossible to stop eating.


We know how to weekend:

My fave recipe from Super Fun Times Vegan Holiday Cookbook that I've made so far is the Chipotle Mac & Cheese. This recipe has been on her blog for years, but I hadn't made it in a while on account of her coming out with the roasted red pepper mac in Isa Does It. But I will say that this one has reclaimed the #1 slot for best mac. I have made this again twice since taking this photo!


Every day is Taco Tuesday in my apartment. Alex loves to make tacos, and he gets really creative with his little condiments and spreads. Me, I just like the staples: black beans & rice, tofu or seitan, a crunchy slaw, guac & hot sauce. He likes to go all fancy and make a "special tomato compote" but by the time he is done making all his components, I am done eating my tacos. I have zero patience when it comes to waiting for tacos.


The Bean Bourguingon from Super Fun Times Vegan Holiday Cookbook, was so amazing. It was the perfect winter stew, and served over creamy mashed potatoes, it takes on a new life as the most comforting thing you ever ate. Alex said the coconut oil made the potatoes "too coconutty" and wouldn't eat them. More for me :)


We have been spending a few hours a day on the weekends at coffee shops, me reading, Alex working. I love One Shot Cafe right nearby my place in Northern Liberties. So far this year I have finished three books! That's really good for me, since I'm kind of a slow reader and have pretty bad attention issues. Even if I can't focus, I still like going to the coffee shop and settling in for a few hours to just relax, sip your coffee and be present. A day to be grateful you don't have any kids yet.


More tacos! These are when I was going to make the Cinco De Mayo fajitas from Super Fun Times Vegan Holiday Cookbook but then I realized that it is only seitan, onions and peppers wrapped in tortillas, and so I just made that plus slaw and guac and turned it into taco night, yet again. The Pinto Bean Seitan recipe from that book is really easy and came out perfectly, which is what I used for these.




We started a little "Pizza Fridays" tradition, where we go to Blackbird after work on Fridays. I pick up Alex on my way home and we go get slices. He always gets a sandwich and fries (which I eat a lot of) and I get two slices. This is the Balboa slice, but I like their Haymaker slice, and their Spicy Barbecue slice as well. Let's be real I will eat any slice available and like it.


I made the quesadillas from the Cinco De Mayo chapter of Super Fun Times Vegan Holiday Cookbook. These were great, and I will definitely make them again. However, this book is unfortunately riddled with errors or just bad directions. Honestly, I think this is the first cookbook of hers that is pretty unreliable. So this recipe said to chill the cheese in the fridge for three hours or overnight, and when I was done making the cheese... I had no idea why it would need to be chilled. It was a spreadable consistency, and the photo shows a very messy and kind of drippy cheese sauce. I said, screw this, I'm not waiting three hours to eat this, and proceeded to make the quesadillas with the cheese straight out of the blender, and they were no worse for the wear. Later the next day, after the cheese had chilled overnight, I made more using the leftovers and could tell absolutely no difference after the cheese had been chilled. This is just one example of a minor issue, among several other issues I have found with recipes in this book, the most egregious being the chocolate buche de noel cake, and an experienced cook would be fine (most of the time) but yeah, not for beginners. Kind of disappointed! Where were the editors and testers on this one?? For Superbowl, I made four recipes from the Superbowl chapter, one of them being the Philly Cheesesteak Casserole. The recipe says to line the casserole dish with slices of bread, and then make the filling, but never actually specifies to pour the filling over the bread slices, then top with breadcrumbs and bake. While the filling was great, the bread at the bottom simply soaked up grease and got super tough and over-chewy, making the casserole very difficult to cut through, even with a steak knife. Next time I would cube the bread after cutting off the crust, and make the bottom of the casserole a light layer of bread cubes, or leave the bread out all together.


My coworker took a vacation to Ecuador, and returned with vegan chocolates from Ecuador for me! It was soo delicious and I ate it all within a day and a half.


At the end of the month we went to NYC to see American Football, visit our friends, and hit up some spots to eat, old favorites and new.


We went to Champs upon arrival, and during the wait, got Dunwell Doughnuts. Damn, they are the finest doughnuts in all the land. Dottie's donuts really do not have shit on these. Sorry, Philly, but your vegan donut game ain't that strong.


I made a reservation at Modern Love Brooklyn, knowing I would be in town on this weekend, and Modern Love opened up just one month after I moved to Philly, so I was super bummed not to have gone yet, and needless to say, very excited to go.
We began with wine, and the arancini, risotto balls stuffed with almond cheese, and deep fried. I don't know why they were served in this super awkward cereal-bowl, but these were definitely the best thing we had that night. The sauce was great, and there was a nice bit of lemon zest coming through. These set the bar pretty high!


I knew I wanted to get the Mac and Cheese even before we arrived. I had been checking the menu a few days before, and following along on Instagram to see what kind of specials they were offering, and I knew it was going to be the mac and cheese, and that it was going to be great. Wrong. I am so sad to say that this was extremely disappointing. The noodles were so far overcooked that they were basically falling apart. The sauce was not cheesy at all, and nothing like the red pepper mac in her book. The tofu had a nice pecan crust, but the tofu itself was unseasoned. There was kale and cauliflower too, but they were cold. Sad face.


Alex got the Surf and Turf, Glam chowder with Seitan chops, popcorn fried cauliflower and roasted radishes. The seitan was pretty good if I remember correctly, but it was served right on top of the chowder and the flavors all got muddled and.. bad. He really wished those radishes were red potatoes, and honestly so did I. The cauliflower was good. It was crunchy and satisfying, and provided a crispy element to a murky, muddled, wet meal. It was also enough food for four people. Just way too much food. We would have taken it home if we lived there, but couldn't as we were headed off to the show. Boo.


The pies they post on Instagram are so beautiful and I am always so awed by them and I knew I definitely needed to get pie when I went. I knew it would be the best pie, by the author of the Pie book, which I learned to make amazing vegan pies from years ago. Wrong. This pie was bad. The crust was dense and hard, not flaky at all. I really would have loved this to be heated up, since everybody loves a warm apple pie with vanilla ice cream. Hell, I think I remember getting warm apple pie from Burger King as a kid. Even Burger King warms up their stupid apple pie. The ice cream was nice, and the coconut whip was good, though unsweetened (this is dessert). The apples were cold, not super soft. Just a big sad eleven dollar slice of pie with a side of tears.
I hadn't heard any bad reviews, and I'd been reading all of my friends' takes on the restaurant, every one of them loving it. But when I went, the service was so bland and not great at all either. Our waiter was so blah, did not say hi or what can I get for you, just kind of showed up with a notepad and stared. My wine had weird bits in the bottom of my glass. Isa was going table to table saying hi and how is everything but stopped before she got to mine! That's not an honest complaint, I know she can't get to every table, I'm just a big fan and would have loved to say hi. Boo. I am so sad to say that I will probably never go back to Modern Love. The food wasn't very good at all, and with such great options in NYC and Philly, there just isn't any point. You broke my heart, Modern Love!


ANYWAY, life went on, we saw one of our favorite bands that night, we hung out with our good friends and hit up some good spots that we used to frequent. We were only in town for a day and half, so we didn't have much time to meet up with others or go to more spots, but we will be back to NYC again soon, perhaps this summer.
Also, This week is Valentines Day, and I got a reservation at VEDGE, the most awesomest dopest best restaurant I've ever been to anywhere, and I'm going to eat a lot of amazing food. Also I got my taxes back and am briefly rich, so I have lots of new makeup finds to share with you, perhaps I will do a Valentines Makeup Post, if any of you would be remotely interested.
Super excited for the rest of February and all the other months coming, I'm in Philly, I'm doing my thing and life is good.
Love & Miss you all!!
KZ

This isn't from Vegan Bowl Attack, but I decided to make the Orange Chicky Seitan from the stir-fry section of Isa Does It. I actually had opened The Great Vegan Protein Book to make their Fake-Out Sesame Seitan and Broccoli, but then realized that the version of Orange Chicken in Isa Does It was way less complicated, and I had everything I needed on hand for it. Also I just realized that I put mushrooms in there. How did that happen?
 At one point last week, my fridge was overtaken by various tupperware containing miscellaneous leftover pieces of dishes I'd made. What to do with them all? Make a bowl of them!! Here I have some white rice leftover from my stir-fry, leftover lentils from ravioli night, some butternut squash pureé, also from ravioli night, and a sad-looking sweet potato left all alone in my produce basket. After everything was piled on, I sprinkled on my leftover parsley, then topped it all with Hampton Creek's Just Sweet Mustard. Y'all know I love mustard.


Back to Vegan Bowl Attack! Next I made the Cashew-Crusted Tofu Stir-Fry. Alex loves stir-fries, and I love that he loves them, because they are so amazingly easy to make. The cashew breading was easy to do, just pureed the nuts, mixed them with rice flour, pressed the tofu into the coating and pan-fried them. By now, us vegans can basically make a stir-fry while we do our nails, so this dish was a piece of cake to make. Making cake is much harder than this. You get my point.


In other news, I got a job! Woot Woot! The day I accepted my offer, Alex took me out for happy hour at Front Street Cafe. Everything is so cheap during happy hour, so we split a bunch of stuff. It's a great place to bring anyone, because at least half their menu is vegan, and there's plenty for vegetarians and the omnivores in your life, too. The food is also amazing.


I'd been wanting to try the buffalo cauliflower for a while, but I never ordered it, since they give you so much that it's almost enough for your entire meal. But since we were just doing Apps & Zerts, it was the perfect opportunity to seize the cauliflower. It was super crispy, great buffalo sauce, vegan ranch, and even Alex ate them. He "hates" cauliflower, so it was a win for everyone, especially this underappreciated vegetable.


We split the vegan cactus taco, which had sweet potatoes and slaw and other good sauces and condiments, the blood and soul of any taco. After all this, potato wedges and a few beers, we'd had ourselves an extremely pleasant Tuesday.


Next from Vegan Bowl Attack, I made the Mezze Fusion Bowl. Toasty pita triangles are included in this lovely medley of quinoa tabbouleh, olives, artichokes, hummus and tofu feta. The recipe called for homemade baba ghanoush, but I went for store-bought hummus because Alex is an eggplant-hater. The tofu feta was almost no work to make, it just required some marination. Not much to argue with here, everybody loves a mezze-platter. Also, don't be a dringus and buy your artichokes in a glass and not a can. These canned artichokes were the pits. Sorry for talking about pits on my food blog.


Once I start working, I'll miss spending sunny afternoons out on my patio with my very good-looking husband.


One time I ate seitan tacos for all three meals in a day. Since that day was yesterday, I chose to start this morning with this apple pie smoothie bowl from Vegan Bowl Attack. This was a perfect use for my many apples I still have from apple-picking. I might have made too much... But I topped it with lots of chopped almonds and pecans and a little maple syrup because I had no time or sense to make the actual topping that goes on this, and my hunger is a serious thing. I think I was just sad that I couldn't top it with my granola, which contains hemp protein, which I was afraid would make me fail my drug test. I think it won't. I dunno, can never be too careful!!


Oh look, some of the tacos I mentioned! So I think I've mentioned this before, but Barcade has a special on Fridays, from 12-5pm wherein you can obtain 2 vegan tacos, chips and a beer for $10. The chips usually have cheese on them, so we left it off, but the bartender brought us over some salsa for them because he was so nice and concerned about our bare chips. These were great, as always. I'd probably keep coming back for them even if they weren't great, because it's so damn cheap.


We went to Pabst Fest this weekend at Electric Factory. There were a lot of great bands playing, and it was a really great deal, moneywise, because it'd cost sooo much more to see them all separately. They had all sorts of activities outside in addition to the bands, such as a van to spray paint, arcade games, dancefloor, a Philly photo set (a doorstep that looked like Rocky's with a 215 on the door and other Philly things), and all the PBR you could fathom. I fathomed none.
The first band we caught was Diarrhea Planet. I've been told to check them out many times, but never had until this show. Not really sure if it's my thing, but it's good for what it's trying to be.


 Next, we saw Beach Slang, a Philly band that Alex has been into. The singer reminded me so much of someone I used to know who played music in our hometown and I could barely pay any attention because I was thinking of that the whole time. Dude obviously likes The Cure a lot though.


The main reason we got these tickets was to see Guided by Voices. They played 20 songs in one hour as promised. Obviously very lucky to have an opportunity to see them play.


We saw Mac Demarco and Hop Along play afterwards, but I failed to document them. They were both great, even though Frances took some digs at NYC... I forgive her. Kind of.

Vegan Bowl Attack has an extensive and impressive salad section. The first one to catch my eye was the Walnut Chorizo Taco Salad! I am so obsessed with the chorizo taco salad from byChloe that I knew I had to make this one asap. It was super easy to make the walnut chorizo, just dump walnuts and spices into a food processor and then sauté it for a few minutes. You can just chop all your accoutrements while your chorizo is toasting. I didn't make the sour cream, even though that would have been easy too, I just drizzled some Just Ranch dressing from Hampton Creek over the top of mine. Alex required a vinaigrette instead, so I figured the sour cream would just go bad before I could eat it all anyway. I opted to leave out the tortilla bowl, and by opted I mean I had no large tortillas. This salad was awesome regardless of the lack of edible bowl.


For dessert I thought I'd better get on the giant apple haul I have in my kitchen before they go bad, so I made Apple Crisp from Vegan Pie In The Sky. I topped it with So Delicious Cashew Cream Ice Cream, my favorite vanilla-style ice cream. You can't beat the creamy texture, not icey, doesn't melt too fast, exactly what you need in a vanilla ice cream. It may be a tie between them and Van Leeuwen's in NYC. They make seriously amazing vegan ice cream, too!


I am anxiously anticipating vegan mofo coming up for the month of November!! I plan on participating on Instagram and on this blog, so let me know if you are also participating and I'll make sure to visit your site during mofo!
Sending all my good vibes,
xo,
KZ

Begin with a lightly grilled whole wheat tortilla and some chipotle refried beans, as ridiculous an amount as you choose.


All my homemade mexican food must have lentil taco meat. The BF cries if I don't make it. I have recently learned of the vegan phenomenon of including roasted potatoes in tacos. I'm for it.



Now put on the generally acceptable taco toppings, be it grilled corn, tomatoes, guacamole, tofu sour cream, chopped red onions, pears, chocolate... whathaveyou.

Now I know not everyone gets amped about making 7 layers for just a dip. It's not like my mom is going to see this and go whip this up on a school night. This can be reserved for special occasions, with special friends. Or if you're like me, you could do a couple steps tonight and a couple steps tomorrow and have this on your table right quick. The choice is yours.

I don't know why, but I think of tacos as the ultimate family food. Don't you? Also, on a side note, I was thinking about that episode of LOST where Kate tells her husband she's a fugitive and yells through tears, "I Don't do Taco Night!!" Then I somehow caught that exact episode on TV last night, then produced a taco dip. This series of events led me to tacos, my ultimate purpose or calling in life. See? Life is sequential and purposeful.

*For gluten-free variation, I suggest doing this with tempeh crumbles. That could rock the house, actually, GF or not.

1 cutlet seitan
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup chopped pineapple
2 chipotle peppers, chopped
1/2 red onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 cup pineapple juice
2 tomatillos diced fine, or 2 tablespoons tomatillo salsa
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped

sliced onion
cucumbers, cut into matchsticks, both optional, for garnish
4-6 small round corn tortillas

Heat olive oil in  large heavy skillet. Cut seitan into small, bite-sized pieces and sautee in pan until browned and crispy on most sides. Remove from pan.
Sautee onion until lightly brown and soft. Add garlic and chipotle and sautee 1-2 minutes more. Add tomatillos and cook for 1-2 more mintutes. Then stir in pineapple juice and turn off heat. Taste and sprinkle with salt and pepper if you like.
Warm tortillas in steamer basket, oven, microwave, whathaveyou, for about 1 minute. To assemble tacos, spoon some seitan into the middle of tortilla. Then sprinkle with 1-2 tablespoons chopped pineapple, a few slices of red onion, cucumbers, and cilantro. Some guac never hurt anyone either.

Enchilada, above, is filled with seitan, salsa, chiles, onions, peppers, and "queshew". You like it? I thought of that this morning. I ususally make the ppk queso. It's delicious and queso-y, but it takes a little too long for me to throw together at a moments notice, because when the queso craving hits... well, we could all be dead by then. So to save the planet, I came up with a quick version.