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

This is 2nd street, where they often have festivals like they did on this day. There was tons of flea-market type stuff, but also lots of food. Pretty much every place serving savory food had a vegan option, and we were pretty blown away by that. We got some cauliflower asada and seitan wings with a few Yards each, because daydrinking in the summer at festivals is fun and I will be old someday.


We definitely hit the city hard trying out as many new places to eat as possible, but I have also been cooking when applicable. I want to make everything I haven't made from Isa Does It, and I still have about 30 recipes left somehow! My IG friend, @veganpastryschool inspired me to make everything from the book, as she is doing the same. She is better at making food look good in photos than me. Above is the Tempeh Orzilla, a recipe not new to me but I just really wanted to make it.


At the 2nd Street festival I got this pillow, because I really needed a new pillow and this one has Patti Smith on it and in the picture they are at Coney Island and I just had to have it. I am reading her book, M Train, now. Alex got it for me as an anniversary present <3.


I tried to eat healthy for a moment, and made this spiralized veggie salad with the peanut dressing from Isa Does It, but it didn't function quite like I'd hoped it would. I guess I just got the idea of rice noodles in my head while I was making this and then when it came time to eat the cold crisp veggie noodles, they didn't live up to my brain's anticipated rice noodle craving. At least there was avocado on it.


The internet says the best vegan cheesesteak in Philadelphia is at Blackbird Pizzeria. I got cheesesteaks at a few places and this was probably the best. I have a confession to make. As a non-vegan, I never would have liked a cheesesteak. I don't really like sandwiches... I hated anything I had to chew too much or that was too hard to bite through, and the idea of a steak sandwich would never have sounded good to me at any point in my life. I know there is no steak on this sandwich, and very thinly sliced homemade seitan, doused in a homemade vegan whiz sauce, and it was pretty good for what it was. But honestly, I just don't think cheesesteaks and me were ever meant to live happily together. I'm not actually from Philly, so hopefully they'll let me stay after having said that.


Green Eggs Cafe has three locations in the city, and one happens to be in my neighborhood. In my opinion, they do a great job making a vegan perfectly comfortable there, offering lots of options and variations of items to make them vegan. I got the breakfast burrito that had tofu, corn, housemade vegan chorizo and pico de gallo. It came with these amazing refried black beans that had great smoky flavor and a proper amount of guac. I loved my dish, but Alex didn't love his. He got the veggie burger that is listed on the menu as vegan, but when he ordered he was told that the bun wasn't vegan, and they gave him an option to have it on toast instead. He went with it anyway and unfortunately the burger wasn't good, they had buttered (with Earth Balance I think) the toast, which he really didn't like and doused it with chipotle mayo. He was really disappointed with it, so if you go, get the breakfast burrito!! Be aware that the portions at this restaurant are huge. Some of the plates I saw coming out of this restaurant had enough on them to feed about four people.


What is a Philly-Style Bagel? Well, it's a bagel that is boiled in beer before being baked! To that I say, Alright! Philly Style Bagels in Fishtown has a line out the door, amazingly nice people, great coffee, and great vegan options. They have two types of vegan cream cheese, earth balance, jam, cashew butter and almond butter. With Philly Style Bagels within walking distance, I want for nothing.



Don't think we haven't been putting our patio table to good use. We have been doing some evening drinking of Yards with friends out on our patio and damn do we love it.



The first visit, I ordered the Breakfast Burrito, because a restaurant is only as good as its breakfast burrito. This one was pretty standard, your tofu, cheeze, bacony bits and not much else. It was what you want from a breakfast burrito, and somehow I'm only just realizing now that I didn't douse it in guac, which is normal practice for me. Next time.


Alex, on both visits, got the chicken and waffles, as he is wont to do, and as he always did at Champs.


More from Isa Does It, this is the Trumpet Mushroom, Tofu and Asparagus Sauté over mashed potatoes. Okay, so I made a pretty giant vat of mashed potatoes and made four different dishes to go with them. This fit the bill, a veggie sauté with a fair amount of sauce to soak into the potatoes. I love mushrooms, y'all.


There's a Barcade within walking distance and they have 2 types of vegan tacos for $2 each and I'm unemployed so basically I have been here more than I care to admit this past month. The beer selection is great and on Fridays they have happy hour during which you can get 2 tacos, a beer and nachos (no cheese for vegans, but hey free chips) all for $10. Hipster Blue Plate Special.


West Philly seems pretty great. They are home to the only bodegas that I have seen in Philly and it pains me that I cannot walk two blocks and get bread, beer, vegan peanut butter cups and dish soap in one trip at 3am anymore. The institution of the Bodega is amazing, and I miss it. Check your boxes of pasta for maggots first, but besides that, I miss my bodega. I digress. This is what a Dottie's Donut looks like.


After Dottie's, we went to Philly Zine Fest. I picked up a few cute zines and got excited to make my own. I am currently in the process of making two!


Tonight  I made Chickpeas and Escarole in White Wine Broth from Isa Does It over mashed potatoes. They didn't have any escarole at Whole Foods (I miss my bodega) so I got a mixture of spinach and mustard greens instead. This dish was so amazing. It had lots of tang from the caper brine and a spicy hit of red pepper flakes. This read so authentically Italian for me. I want to make it for my father-in-law, who I always cook Italian food with. I think it want to marinate some tofu in roasted garlic and lemon, then grill it, and serve it over the top. Also, this was ready in 20 minutes. You can't beat that for Monday,

More Philly food and fun soon--
xo,
KZ