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

I totally tricked my husband by calling this soup "Broccoli Carrot Soup" instead of it's actual name, "Cheddary Broccoli Soup" from Isa Does It. If you never ate broccoli cheddar soup out of a bread bowl from Panera, then you may not understand the thrill, but for the rest of the human population, I give you a version that is MUCH BETTER than any soup Panera has ever managed to scoop into a bowl, made of bread or otherwise. It is super cheesy, hearty and amazing. I served it in an actual bowl, but I used bread slices as my utensil. The spoon is only a prop for the picture.


During Vegan Mofo, I mostly just posted on Instagram for whichever prompts I could manage. Here is the one from the prompt to veganize an old family recipe. Maybe the only food I missed when I went vegan was scallops. My mom used to make this baked scallop casserole that I loved, and so I figure why not try to veganize that? I'd seen some impressive vegan scallops on Olives For Dinner's blog from mofos past so I went with the king oyster mushroom stem idea. I sliced the stems in scallop-sized pieces, and soaked them in a garlic and veggie broth bath. After that, I seared them in my skillet. Then I made a cashew cream sauce using cashews, leftover scallop marinade, and a nori sheet. I poured the sauce over the scallops, then mixed in a ton of Ritz-style vegan crackers and dotted with Earth Balance (don't judge me). I baked it until browned. Observe.


The scallops tasted really tough, and I think maybe I should have not seared them, or I don't know I'm not sure. Maybe they should have been cut into smaller baby scallops. Who's to say? Flavorwise this was spot on. It tasted like the sea from the nori sauce, and creamy from the cashews. The crackers were some sort of Ritz knock-off that were just cheaper and accidentally vegan. I don't usually buy crappy products like that but it was for the sake of veganizing a casserole, and so I strove for authenticity above all else. I hear you judging me. Quit it.


We finally went to a shop-up at Spreadhouse, a random coffee shop that virtually serves no vegan food normally. They host a shop-up for vegans every once in a while, so we went down, hung out with our friend Lauren from Cake Thieves, ate macarons and Yeah Dawgs, and Alex got this bbq seitan sandwich from Monks Meats. I ate one of the pickles off it.



Whenever I ask Alex to cook, he makes one of two dishes: BBQ chickpea salad, or Potato Leek Soup. Guess which one this is?


It's a family favorite in our house (tiny apartment) and the recipe we use is from Isa Does It. It's pretty amazingly easy, you just chop a couple things, sauté, simmer, and blend. So simple-- just don't tell Alex. He's a beginner.

I had pickles on the brain ever since I got some pickles from Brooklyn Brine at the shop-up a few weeks ago. They were so unbelievably delicious and they were perfect for me while I was doing my salad and smoothie reign-of-terror diet, because whenever someone would eat cake in front of me, or drink a beer in front of me/spill a beer on me, I just ate one of these pickles, and everything was calm again. When I ran out of them it was rough. The hanger sets in quick. That's why we went to the Pickle Shack in Brooklyn. We went on my post-salad diet, which is no diet at all. We began with fried pickles, because it's pickle heresy not to.


They have the best beers at the pickle shack. I got a Founder's Mosaic Promise. Alex thought we could share. Pffft. I ended up drinking 2 1/2. They were delicious.


I ordered the Carolina-style BBQ Pulled Mushroom Sandwich. And a Kale Salad, of course. Old habits die hard. It came with a pickle and I made a strange noise while I ate it. Alex thought there was something wrong with me, but actually it was just a really good pickle.


Can someone please explain wtf this stone slab is doing here and where tf is my plate???


The mushroom sandwich was dope, as I knew it would be. Alex went for the veggie burger, and that's a rookie mistake. A good veggie burger is very few and far between. You order it only when you must, or when you know it is the best thing on the menu. This $16 pile of mushy seitan was not worth it. He said it was okay, but I took a bite and deemed it under par. Isn't it weird how the best veggie burgers are found in the strangest places?? My favorite veggie burger ever is made at a non-vegan Brew-pub called Harvest Moon in the college town of New Brunswick, NJ, home of the grease truck and "Fat Sandwich." No seriously- it's the best veggie burger I've ever had.


Dat ketchup tho. They make their own and it is something worthy of a standing ovation.


For dessert we split the Huckleberry cobbler. The definition of a cobbler is disputed. Many consider it the same as "crisp" with an oat-brown sugar topping baked on top of the fruit in a large dish, some consider it a dish of fruit with cake batter poured over it and baked, others consider it cake batter with fruit on top of it and baked, and some people think of it as shortcake, just fresh fruit with biscuits. This version of cobbler, was a berry-cake sort of stew with a scoop of vegan vanilla ice cream on top. Now, let's be clear. The main event is the ice cream. But somehow all together, you get the sweet berries with a little savory (corn) batter the cold ice cream all meeting the hot berry-stew. It sounds weird but it's very, very magical.



Another day during vegan mofo, you were supposed to make a dish that someone or something famous would eat if they were vegan. I was slightly confused by the question, since we all could eat vegan food, whether we are vegan or not, so I waited until some other people posted theirs before I picked mine. It was kind of an homage to a character or to a person who is known for loving a dish, like Popeye, who loves spinach, or Garfield, who loves lasagna. I quickly noted that doing a cartoon character was the easiest way to go for this, and decided if the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were all vegan, they'd order this pizza from Vinnie's. I'ts a vegan "chicken-parm-style" pizza, with marinara, teese, and some kind of vegan chicken bits. No anchovies, of course, since that is the Turtles' one specification about their pizza.


We took a little road trip up to North Adams, MA to go to the Mass MoCa museum. North Adams is in the top left-hand corner of the Berkshires by the borders of VT & NY. It's a really pretty drive, albeit a long one, but it was actually starting to look a little like fall up there.






 Some of the pieces are performance art pieces, which I've never been a big fan of, nor understood in general. But I did enjoy Jim Shaw's exhibit, Entertaining Doubts. Very surreal but satirical. I want to see his show in NYC later this month.
Here's Alex looking  like he's too cool for art school:




This is the first time I felt like moving back to New England since leaving home after college.


NYC is great. I will miss the shit out of it when I leave. But we can't stay forever.


We went apple-picking with Jessica and Ava while we were home! Ava's first apple-picking trip! She's only 17 months, but we decided to bring her along to help pick apples for fun! The tractor that picked us up had a little dog in the front :)




I love how cheap things are in MA. We filled a gigantic bag full of apples that was overflowing with apples, at least like 50 apples, for $25. I also got a huge butternut squash for $2. Did I tell you how I paid $15 for 6 peaches at the farmers market by my apartment?? WTF is the deal??


I love fall! I can accessorize fully! Here I am modeling the Vegan Fall 1 catalogue for the season: black leggings and flannel plaid dress, vegan belt, jean jacket, acrylic scarf, purple high socks, vegan boots, and knit hat. All this can be yours from the KZ collection this fall only.





So anyway, Alex's dad is a singer, and he played a show at the Big E! He got us some tickets so we could see him play before we went back to New York for the week. It was fun to see him play, especially since I don't think I've seen him play in over 5 years!


When we got back to NYC, it was chilly and wonderful. Fall has been making me want to stay in bed and snuggle forever. It's finally not boiling temperature in my apartment and I can pull the covers over me without fear of waking up a puddle. Not just in a puddle-- but KZ being just a puddle. It is finally Chili Weather!!! I made a batch of my favorite chili and cornbread and watched a movie, Heathers, to be exact. It was odd, but I liked it anyway.


While my friend Amey from Vegan Eats & Treats was in NYC visiting, I got to meet up with her for dinner at Peacefood! We were busy gabbing about all things vegan and NYC so all I managed to take was this photo of my favorite thing from Peacefood, the fluffy quinoa salad. I've been following Amey's blog for years so it was great to meet her and her husband finally!


We have so many shows to go to this fall! We had tickets to Beirut at Radio City last week! We haven't been there in at least three years, so it was nice to go back. It's really an amazing space. It's so beautiful inside, and very different from the spots we normally see shows at. Last time we had better seats, but this time we were in the very last row of the orchestra. We could still hear fine, but being up close is definitely cooler. Beirut was great! It always gives me nostalgia listening to them. It puts me back in college in Painting I, listening to Gulag Orkestar while I painted with acrylics, listening to "Postcards from Italy" on repeat. Basic? Maybe but it still makes me nostalgic.



Alex begged me to make strombolis again. It's a serious job, and it's not very healthy for you, but once every 6-8 months I'll give in and we reminisce about our Stuff Yer Face days where I learned to drink beer and eat bad salad.





Highlight of the weekend was seeing Destroyer at Webster Hall. He was so amazing. This was my first time seeing him live, but I went with a bunch of people who'd seen him a lot of times and said he's always amazing. He had a full band with horns, saxophone and keyboards, along with the usual drums, bass and guitar, but I could hear each instrument really perfectly. The whole band was really on, and I always appreciate when the band puts on an amazing performance because it isn't always the case. A+ to Destroyer, I've been a fan for many years.



Of course at the first sign of cold weather I had to make the Dilly Stew With Rosemary Dumplings from Isa Does It. This soup is so comforting and amazing for cold weather days. Just make it, and you'll understand. No really, make it, and like it. It will hypnotize you into enjoying the cold weather. It's happened to me before.


I still have about 10 apples left from apple-picking, but I had about 20 before I made this apple crisp! I was making my soup and thought I could throw this together while it simmered. I used the recipe from Vegan Pie In The Sky because I'd never actually made that recipe before and I actually had all the necessary ingredients on hand, like apple cider :) I used the remainder of my So Delicious Cashew Ice Cream to top our bowls.






More fall food to follow!
<3
KZ