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 made nachos for the second time ever and they were from Thug Kitchen 2. The queso was made from butternut squash and miraculously, Alex liked it and ate most of them.


I finally made something from Healthy Happy Vegan Kitchen, the Pesto Chickpea Bowl, which was fantastic with these heirloom tomatoes. In the middle is rice mixed with pesto and chickpeas that have been sautéed. It was a great balance of salty/sweet between the intense salty tart pesto and the super sweet and fresh yellow heirloom tomatoes. I'm sad I didn't get to eat more of these heirloom tomatoes while they were still in season. It's so sad that produce's seasons are so short. I needed more time with peaches and tomatoes. Now I have twelve months to wait. Life is suffering.


We celebrated Alex's birthday back in Brooklyn. It's only a couple hours or so north, and most of our friends are there, so we thought it'd be a great place to celebrate. We decided to hit up the Vegan Shop Up, mostly because our friend Lauren from Cake Thieves was coming from Texas for this one and we didn't want to miss her. For food/sweets, we were most excited to go to Peaceful Provisions for their amazing mammoth croissant/donut/pretzel tribrid treats. They really make the tastiest things. Ever since their vegan cook-up win, we have been their biggest fans. Plus, it's two adorable twins who are so sweet and also brilliant pastry sorcerer unicorns. This box of love was Alex's birthday loot from them!! It's the coveted croissant donut with soft pretzel elements that has a maple frosting and bits of vegan apple sage sausage, AND an amazing birthday brownie with all sorts of layers, like a layer of chocolate chip cookie, a layer of oreo and then a layer of cosmic brownie. Sorcerers.


I saw a soup of this sort on Amey's Blog and wanted to make something similar too. I love white bean and tomato soups, and with some fresh summer tomatoes and basil, this soup left us wanting for nothing. I sort of winged it (wung it?) for the recipe, but I roasted 2 heads of garlic and 5 or 6 large tomatoes, while I caramelized a large onion, and sautéed even more garlic, added everything to the pot with some veggie broth and simmered for another 30 or so minutes, mashing the tomatoes and garlic every few minutes. Then I stirred in the basil, some spinach and cannellini beans just to heat through and served. With bread. Like we each ate half a loaf of french bread with this. What kind of monster eats soup without bread??


On a rough day, feeling a little hopeless, a good cup of coffee and a window seat is a great comfort. I'm lucky to live near so many great coffee shops. I always burned with jealousy when I was in New York and passed by coffee shops on the way to work and saw all these people working all day inside, so cozy with their laptop and coffee, while I stood for 8 hours a day in an office. Now, I'm enjoying my chance to spend a few hours a day at a local coffee shop while I do some work, or catch up on my reading. I've been to One Shot a few times, who have great coffee, great space to work and lots of vegan pastries in their display case. There looks to be many veganizable items on their food menu, too!


Also, a tip from Amey, I made the Grilled Eggplant Lasagna from The Abundance Diet. It has no noodles, but slices of grilled eggplant and zucchini as the layers, sort of acting as the noodles. It has quinoa and lentils mixed into the red sauce for added protein and texture, and a creamy cashew sauce on top. I think I used the Mozzarella Sauce from Chloe's Vegan Italian Kitchen instead of Somer's because it's so easy, and I knew I loved it. This was great for me, but Alex didn't like the quinoa and lentils meshing with his sauce, nor is he an eggplant fan, so this one didn't go over so well with him. He kept wondering "where's the noodles?" which you have to admit is a valid question. For me, I knew about the lack of noodles ahead of time so I wasn't disappointed, and it packed such a giant serving of veggies it one hit, so I felt like this was the healthiest lasagna I ever made!




We went to another show at PhilaMoCa, this time to see Owen. Birthmark opened, and since we'd seen them before, we got there early to see both sets. It was just Nate, and behind him they played a Bob Ross video on the projector. While Bob Ross was captivating, Birthmark played such a cool set, and since his style is all about layering sounds and rhythms over one another, it seemed really appropriate to have Bob Ross layering paint and colors behind him. Alex wrote a great piece about the show, if you care to take a gander.




So, I've been a fan of Owen since the early 00s and have seen him live about 10 times. The man is good-looking, you can't deny that. In 2008, I drew a likeness of the three men I wanted to marry at the time. They are all celebrities, and I guess Alex didn't make the cut. Luckily for him, I grew out of the idea of marrying a celebrity by 2015. Points if you can guess who they are based on my artistic skills in 2008.


Something inspired me to make ravioli recently. It must have had to do with the length of time it had been between now and the last time I made it, and at least enough time must have passed for me to have forgotten how obnoxious making ravioli is. I also never make enough to freeze, and just eat all of what I made in one shot. It just takes too long to make hundreds, though I did probably make around 45. I ate about half and Alex ate the other half. It kind of sounds like a lot now, but I didn't have any trouble eating that many. I'm the ravioli champ, is what I mean to say.


In Philly, a lot of venues sell tickets to shows in person, and after years of buying them online at the risk of them selling out or the venue not selling them in person, we have incurred a serious amount of fees. Sometimes we have paid the price of a whole ticket in fees for a ticket. Sometimes they charge you a credit card fee, a processing fee, and a shipping fee. So when we had the chance to grab tickets straight from the venues around the city, and even at local record stores, we were there. Here's Alex exiting the Electric Factory flush with tickets, sans the fees.




The skyline is no NYC skyline, but what's the sense in comparing? If a sky looks pretty and you are not obstructing traffic, you are obligated by the social media committee to take a picture for the rest of us to see on the internet. I'm just doing my duty.





We went apple-picking on Saturday, because it's September and everyone knows that's when all the good apples are out. Alex was my resident tall person, there to get all the good apples that no one else could reach.

Also, there to carry all the heavy apples we picked already. And look cute. These were his duties.


I love fall. Here is my annual obligatory apple-picking autumnal selfie, feat. Alex.


I finally made the Tempeh Agrodolce from Isa Does It. It was amazing, though pretty labor-intensive. I made the polenta and got the tempeh in the marinade while I got the sauce going and made a banana bread to fill in a little gap (okay I made it a more-involved process than it had to be!). Then, I cut and grilled the polenta, and browned the tempeh. It wasn't too difficult, just time-consuming. The dish had great flavor, was definitely something new, and helped me branch out from your run-of-the-mill tomato/basil/pasta combo.

I made nachos for the second time ever and they were from Thug Kitchen 2 and the queso was made from butternut squash. Miraculously, Alex liked it and ate most of them.


I made something from Healthy Happy Vegan Kitchen, the Pesto Chickpea Bowl, which was fantastic with these heirloom tomatoes. I'm sad I didn't get to eat more of these while they were still in season. It's so sad that produce's seasons are so short. I needed more time with peaches and tomatoes. Now I have twelve months to wait. Life is suffering.


We celebrated Alex's birthday back in Brooklyn. We decided to hit up the Vegan Shop Up, mostly because our friend Lauren from Cake Thieves was coming from Texas for this one and didn't want to miss her. For food/sweets, we were most excited to hit up Peaceful Provisions for their amazing mammoth croissant/donut/pretzel treats. Ever since their vegan cook-up win, we have been their biggest fans. Plus, it's two adorable twins who are so sweet and also brilliant and pastry sorcerers. This box of love was Alex's birthday loot from them!!


I saw a soup of this sort on Amey's Blog and wanted to make something similar too. I love white bean and tomato soups, and with some fresh summer tomatoes and basil, this soup left us wanting for nothing.

On a rough day, feeling a little hopeless, a good cup of coffee and a window seat is a great comfort. I'm so lucky to live near so many great coffee shops. I always burned with jealousy when I was in New York and passed by all the great coffee shops and people working all day from the comfort of them, while I stood for 8 hours a day in an office. Now, I am loving spending a few hours at a time on my laptop at a great coffee shop while I do some work, or catch up on my reading.


Also, a tip from Amey, I made the Grilled Eggplant Lasagna from The Abundance Diet. It has no noodles, but slices of grilled eggplant and zucchini as the layers, sort of acting as the noodles. It has quinoa and lentils mixed into the red sauce for added protein and texture, and a creamy cashew sauce on top. I think I used the Mozzarella Sauce from Chloe's Vegan Italian Kitchen instead of Somer's because it's so easy, and I knew I loved it. This was great for me, but Alex didn't like the quinoa and lentils meshing with his sauce, nor is he an eggplant fan, so this one didn't go over so well with him. He kept wondering "where's the noodles?" which you have to admit is a valid question. For me, I knew about the lack of noodles ahead of time so I wasn't disappointed, and it packed such a giant serving of veggies it one hit, so I felt like this was the healthiest lasagna I ever made!




We went to another show at PhilaMoCa, this time to see Owen. Birthmark opened, and since we'd seen them before, we got there early to see both sets. It was just Nate, and behind him they played a Bob Ross video on the projector. While Bob Ross was captivating, Birthmark played such a cool set, and since his style is all about laying sounds and rhythms over one another, it seemed really appropriate to have Bob Ross layering paint and colors behind him. Alex wrote a great piece about the show, if you care to take a gander.




So, I've been a fan of Owen since the early 00s and have seen him live about 10 times. The man is good-looking, you can't deny that. In 2008, I drew a likeness of the three men I wanted to marry at the time. They are all celebrities, so Alex didn't make the cut. Luckily for him, I grew out of the idea of marrying a celebrity by 2015. Points if you can guess who they are based on my artistic skills in 2008.


Something inspired me to make ravioli recently. It must have had to do with the length of time it had been between now and the last time I made it, and at least enough time must have passed for me to have forgotten how obnoxious making ravioli is. I also never make enough to freeze, and just eat all of what I made in one shot. It just takes too long to make hundreds, though I did probably make around 45. I ate about half and Alex ate the other half. It kind of sounds like a lot now, but I didn't have any trouble eating that many. I'm the ravioli champ, is what I mean to say.


In Philly, a lot of venues sell tickets to shows in person, and after years of buying them online at the risk of them selling out or the venue not selling them in person, we have incurred a serious amount of fees. Sometimes we have paid the price of a whole ticket in fees for a ticket. Sometimes they charge you a credit card fee, a processing fee, and a shipping fee. So when we had the chance to grab tickets from the venues around the city, and even at local record stores, we were there. Here's Alex exiting the Electric Factory flush with tickets, sans the fees.




The skyline is no NYC skyline, but what's the sense in comparing? If a sky looks pretty and you are not obstructing traffic, you are obligated by the social media committee to take a picture for the rest of us to see on the internet. I'm just doing my duty.





We went apple-picking on Saturday, because it's September and everyone knows that's when all the good apples are out. Alex was my resident tall person, there to get all the good apples that no one else could reach.

Also, there to carry all the heavy apples we picked already. And look cute. These were his duties.


I love fall. Here is my annual obligatory apple-picking autumnal selfie, feat. Alex.


I finally made the Tempeh Agrodolce from Isa Does It. It was amazing, though pretty labor-intensive. I made the polenta and got the tempeh in the marinade while I got the sauce going and made a banana bread to fill in a little gap. Then, I cut and grilled the polenta, and browned the tempeh. It wasn't too difficult, just time-consuming. The dish had great flavor, was definitely something new, and helped me branch out from your run-of-the-mill tomato/basil/pasta combo.