It's Vegan Mofo everybody!

I'm coming to you hot with a fresh new hard drive! If you are new here, Welcome-- I'm KZ, Philly vegan mermaid indie princess extraordinaire~

This is my 7th Mofo, and I plan to participate both here and on my IG, @kzcakes. Vegan Mofo always reignites my love for cooking, my love for blogging, sharing food with friends and family, my love for fall, and discovering new vegan friends through their blogs worldwide. For year lucky 7, I decided to do a theme. It's called Memory Lane-- about comfort food meals that take me back to the first time I made them back when I was either a little baby vegan, or even pregan, conjure old good memories, and helps me confront how far I've come on the vegan cooking scene. A good plate-- or bowl [vegans love bowls] of a comfort food kind of dish also screws my head on a little straighter after a long day. It's so satisfying to go through the steps that you could still do blindfolded, even if you haven't made the dish in years. So friends-- I'm gettin' satisfied.

I used to be the biggest Food Network junkie. When I was sixteen, I had little to no interest in cooking, had relatively picky taste, and a pretty small appetite. My dad and I started watching the food network together and suddenly I was hooked. I would binge-watch episodes from the second I got home from school or work until bedtime. I especially loved watching Giada De Laurentiis and her show, Everyday Italian. She made things I had never seen or heard of and made them look so unbelievably good and suddenly I was in the kitchen, making all sorts of variations of Italian specialties. My boyfriend, now husband, and I would make a rotation of Italian chicken and pasta dishes, this one being the first: Roman-Style Chicken. It was breaded chicken with tomatoes, peppers, onions, capers and parsley, and I always used to serve it with spaghetti. Everything I made came with spaghetti, and almost still does, but recreating this dish, I opted for mashed potatoes with cashew cream. I made seitan cutlets using the recipe from Super Fun Times Vegan Holiday Cookbook, because that recipe is so simple and awesome, and just dredged the cutlets in a little flour before I seared them. Then I took them out of the pan and made the sauce with the aforementioned veggies, some white wine and herbs. Done! This really took me back, and I remembered making it in my mom's kitchen about 14 years ago.

I can't wait to see everybody's mofo posts this month!! 

xo,

KZ