Something about that acidy, tart, savory and yet sweet tomato sauce cries out for a burst of something fresh. Basil to the rescue! Either cut into tiny ribbons, or torn into little bits, it provides a beautiful fresh bite to the super-savory sauce. I think I actually have pictured here a combo of parsley and tomato, but more fresh and green stuff, more better, right?


I've never been one to turn away a lovely pile of green spinach when paired with a dreamy red tomato sauce either.


Maybe the champion dish for the tomato & basil combo is a marinara pizza. Nothing beats a freshly tossed dough with beautifully blistered basil. You can smell this pie from a mile away! It's hard to argue with a pizza that looks like this. What is your favorite color-combo when you're eating??

The shop-up was Saturday, and we made a plan to day drink. I got a Barrier Kapow and a Singlecut Full-Stack. I certainly didn't need more than that ;).


I mostly just spent the time sitting at the bar gabbing with Abby Bean and eating these broccoli cheese empanadas from Freakin' Vegans. It was great! A Yeah Dawg made an apperance as well as several macarons from Sweet Maresa (who else??) and a mini pecan pie square from Gone Pie. It was a seriously decent Saturday.

Here's me and Abby's dog 89 not looking at the camera. I always like the idea of spending some time at the bar with some good food and good people, watching whatever throwback 80s move is playing at Pine Box, and if I can pet a cute doggy too, the day is all the better for it.


We went grocery shopping after a long beer nap following the shop-up. Alex was amused by the small size and description of these apples. They were labeled "Lady Apples", you know, because ladies are small and tiny like this apple. WHATEVER KEY FOODS.


This is Tempeh Piccata which came from no recipe, but rather from my brain. I think I've watched Giada de Laurentiis make Chicken Piccata enough times in my life to know how to make Piccata anytime I want. I chose tempeh, which I browned before removing from the pan. Then I made a sauce with onion, garlic, lemon, capers and white wine, and cooked some broccoli florets in that broth while it simmered. I also roasted some cauliflower florets, because I just wanted to. We served it over angel hair, and that's it.


We couldn't decide where to go for lunch on Sunday, so we went to Smorgasburg in the new Prospect Park spot. The vegan options looked slightly slimmer than Smorgasburgs past, so I grabbed this BBQ Jackfruit sandwich with cole slaw from Chickpea & Olive. After I got it, I noticed a few more tents with vegan options, Monks Meats was there, and The Regal Vegan was making sandwiches too. They always have the Alchemy Creamery selling vegan Ice cream pops and stuff at the Smorgasburgs but I didn't grab one that day.


Alex got his beloved Calexico Beet Burger from Chickpea & Olive. They make a good burger. Beets, that is. I am a beet burger fan. Chickpea & Olive have some good bread. It's a very important part of the burger experience. If you get a so-so bun, you'll probably have a so-so burger experience.


We landed on pizza for dinner. We decided we love Chloe's Vegan Italian Kitchen and wanted to make something from it. We went with the Crumbled Sausage & Mozzarella Pizza. The sausage is made of pureed mushrooms and walnuts, that you just cook in a sauté pan until it gets dried out enough to make crumbles out of. It was a very strange method but the end result was super tasty.
The Mozzerella was a garlic cashew cream sauce that you just pour over your pizza after it's baked, and bake it some more for about 5 minutes.


I loved this pizza! I want to make more pizzas from the book for sure.


It looks even better on Instagram <3

The next thing on our list from project cookbook was the Homestyle Pot Pie from The Great Vegan Protein Cookbook. I really love pot pie, and this recipe was calling out to me. The picture in the book was just so pretty, so I knew I needed to make it soon. Maybe I'll start reviewing these cookbooks on here once I've made a lot more stuff from them. Would that be interesting?


I am normally a fan of crust on the bottom (as well as on the top) and most of the recipes for pot pie forego the bottom crust. This recipe gives you the option to do either one, but since I was making a bunch of stuff already and this was a weeknight, I thought maybe I'd just buy a pie crust and spread the cut-outs on top of the pie. Wrong! No vegan pie crusts were available at the store. There were some piecrusts that were already pressed into pans, but I didn't want that, and I didn't even check if they were vegan. I did see some gluten-free pie crusts too, but of course, they weren't vegan. No respect. I ended up making my own crust when I got home, which actually was pretty easy. I chilled it while I made a dessert, and chopped the vegetables and made the stew-part of the pie, then just rolled it out and cut-out shaped to lay on top. I think my crust wasn't big enough, since there were some gaps in between my shapes. It was tasty nonetheless.


More from our cookbook project soon :)

These are golabkis, little Polish burritos, with a cabbage tortilla and lentil filling.


After you roll them up, you cover them in a tomato sauce and bake them. They were pretty easy to make. They were the first thing I made, so maybe I just had more steam and they felt easy. Who's to say.


Every year for the past several, my mom and I have been making our own pierogis to bring with us to Wilgilia. My dad took a few action shots for us demonstrating the process.






I wish I had taken pictures of the final ones. We had a ton. Also my crimping skills are on point.


I made my mother-in-law these gluten-free carrot cupcakes with cream cheese frosting! I am no expert at gluten-free baking and I definitely had some trouble with these cupcakes, but she still enjoyed them anyway. I will perfect my recipe for next time. Anybody have a solid gluten-free carrot cake recipe they swear by?



I made some stuffing for Christmas Day, along with some mashed potatoes and gravy. Also some chickpea cutlets and roasted veggies, all unfortunately not pictured.


Last, I made this cake. It's an "eggnog" cake, but I always use silk nog and it tastes great and no one has any clue or cares that it's vegan because it's so good. It's also so easy.


Our Christmas morning spread: leftover eggnog cake (I made 3...) gingerbread cookies, chopped pineapple and assorted pears. Pears are key.

 This is my sis modeling her new Boston Terrier socks I got her. Totally got myself a pair too. That always happens when I buy her gifts.


A couple days after Christmas we drove back to New York with Alex's dad and his girlfriend. They usually visit annually so it was nice to walk around with them. His Dad likes to visit the Times Square Area, especially after or around the holidays. Most New Yorkers would never be caught dead there, and I am inclined to agree with them, but in the spirit of the holidays and for the sake of my family wanting to see it all, we stepped slowly in a mob of people waiting to see the tree and ice rink.




Come on, you're not going to go all the way out there and take baby steps in foot traffic for 5 hours and NOT take any pictures. Here's us being cute without privacy.


The next day we got Roberta's with our friend Lauren from Cake Thieves and enjoyed life once more.


After pizza, we stopped at Dr. Cow and picked up some fancy cheese. I have been meaning to try their cheese for a while now, and I'm glad I did because it is great.


It's not that I need to be having wine and cheese parties -- It's that I can. I shared this cheese with my lovely vegan friends and would love to try some other kinds too, though this one was great. When I one day host a vegan wine and cheese party I will find that sommelier who told me I "just could never understand the finer things in life" and tell him he's particularly not invited to my special party with artisan cheese. And wine from the corner store. Because I can't understand the finer things in life.

You guys I made a ton of pies for Thanksgiving! They told me I didn't have to cook any food, and in hindsight, I really should have, but I figured I could at least supply the desserts. I did make a seitan roast and some cashew-creamed onions (which were an inexplicable hit) but they were so easy it was like I didn't cook at all. These pies on the other hand, weren't. I'll explain:


My family on my mom's side has a lot of food allergies. I'm vegan so I'm guilty of being a pain in the ass but we also have a variety of dairy allergies, that I suppose I willingly encompass, so that lets them off the hook. But we also have some corn allergies -- which are trickier than you'd think if you consider what contains cornstarch, corn syrup, cornmeal... powdered sugar! I've figured out how to dodge that one but that's another story. The biggest allergy offender of all is that eight of my relatives on that side of the family don't do gluten. Some of them choose to avoid it (I think?) and some of the kids are super allergic, and I could never live with myself if I made a little kid sick by feeding them something that was accidentally contaminated. So: what made this pie process so difficult and lengthy was that everything I made this with needed to be either run through the dishwasher or soaked in boiling water. It was otherwise easy, since I only had to swap out one or two ingredients to make these pies gluten free. So about six hours later I emerged with these cheesecakes and pecan pie. I served them with the new SO delicious coconut cool whip and they loved it. In fact, my little cousin put only the cool whip on her plate for dessert.


I've been in curry mode lately. It's all I've wanted to eat, being in the spirit of winter and all... I'm pretty sure that curry was invented for the purpose of winter. There is nothing like eating a spicy hot curry on a freezing cold day, and having that heat in the back of your throat to warm you up. I still haven't made a bunch of the curries and soups from Isa Does It, so I've been digging up on that chapter lately. Above is Chandra Malai Kofta, which I have already made twice this month. It's basically these zucchini meetballs over some rice with a spicy curry sauce over the top. I like to make the kofta into mini meetballs instead of big footballs, for maximum zucchini meetball impact. I also sauteed up a bunch more zucchini and threw that in as well for some vegetable nice. It really is aromatherapy and I suggest you make it NOW.



It is open season for chili. This is me doing what I do best, which is pile guac onto things, eat cornbread and drink beer while watching Twin Peaks.


We had ourselves a serious Meatball Weekend. Saturday we went to the first of two Holiday Shop-Ups in Bushwick, where we got beers and macarons. Five, to be exact. The flavors I picked were pecan pie, french vanilla quince, gingerbread and I also got two hot chocolate marshmallow. I ate them all within ten minutes. Okay I shared some with the BF. But I could have eaten all five. Swear.


We decided to skip the food at the Shop-Up and deliberated whether we wanted Champs for lunch or to try somewhere new. We passed Roberta's on the way to the car, and I'm like, "Hey! Everyone talks about how good that place is!" And so we went in and got pizzas! The only vegan option is the Rosso, which has red sauce and garlic -- HOWEVER, This sauce is out-of-control good, and the sauce is clearly what makes or breaks a pizza. I added mushrooms to mine along with a ton of chili flakes and this chili oil that they have on the tables. It was amazing. I ate all of it. The next day we were hanging out with a friend and mentioned we'd been there the day before and loved it, and he said he loved it too and that we should go right away for dinner. So I literally went again. The very next day and got the very same thing. Meatball.


We found the strength to tear ourselves away from beer and pizza for a quick second to eat some doughtnuts from Dunwell, too.


Sunday we did some Christmas shopping and fueled for lunch at Terri in the Flatiron area. I got the chicken caesar wrap and Alex got the vegan meatball sandwich (meatball weekend). I liked his better I think. My chicken was too chickeny. I'm vegan, so...


Monday I made a giant batch of Down Home Curry from Isa Does It which couldn't have been more perfect for warming the soul. It fed us four times each. Also I have been tearing it up on bass. More to follow.

My mom liked her mini doughnuts! I am glad, because they were a lot easier and faster to make than cupcakes. They were super cute and a success! The morning after the wedding, we went to brunch with my sister-in-law-to-be in Northampton, and it was super nice to see her. She's in college doing fun and interesting stuff and it makes me wish I were still in college too and could spend most of my days drawing or painting or speaking spanish again. sigh..



After brunch, which I failed to take any pictures of, we went to Haymarket to read and listen to tunes in a lovely environment. I love coming here to read when I'm in town. They had vegan hot chocolate, but I went for the vegan chai, because chai. So it was me, chai, and Morrissey, with a few tunes to set the mood.


I went to the supermarket with my dad the day earlier, and took a picture of this tiny zine that was at the checkout. Are these a thing?? People eat something named this???



This is said garlic pie. We put our own red chili flakes on top.

Meh. I don't really miss pizza the way people miss pizza. Back me up on this. I'd rather eat spaghetti always. Spaghetti 4 life.