It is indeed snowing in New York. Hiding out from work and armed with the roku remote, I have camped myself on the couch. I’m watching all the streaming netflix British period pieces that I haven’t seen before.

Here are the Old-Fashioned Chelsea Waffles from Vegan Brunch. I like the bit of cornmeal in them. It adds a nice dimension. Topped with a little Earth Balance and some New York maple syrup. Yum. This is the only thing that got me off the couch all day.
Now on to the movies…

Starting with a 2009 version of Wuthering Heights that I quite enjoyed. Ah, the Bronte’s. Not as light and fluffy as the Jane Austen collection. I always want to hate Heathcliff, but I never really do. I don’t even hate Cathy in this one. This version retains the passion, but isn’t quite as gritty as some of the other versions. I give it two thumbs up.

Next on to Under the Greenwood Tree. I’ve never read any Thomas Hardy and this was very cute. Love triumphs through the classes. Starring Keeley Hawes from MI-5. Actually you could do a whole period piece feature with the cast of “Spooks”, but I’ll save that for another day.

On to Where Angel’s Fear to Tread. I’ve never read any E.M. Forester either, but you can bet the movie has got Helena Bonham Carter in it. So far it’s good. There’s always some twist though. I usually like the E.M. Forester shows better after I’ve seen them again. There’s a newish Room with a View that I like a lot, too.

Back to the couch…Ciao!

This veggie challenge secret ingredient is cranberries! Cranberries are featured in a dessert dish for this challenge.
Six challengers, all with unique and delicious creations, form the backbone of night of vegan cranberry dessert awesomeness. The discerning brute Joshua Katcher expertly emcees the event. A panel of three baking experts, Fran Costigan, Mattie Hagedorn, and Sharon Valencik judge the dishes on taste, appearance, and creativity.
Up first-and third place winner-is a double cranberry cinnamon oatmeal nut bar.Then an almond crusted chocolate cranberry mousse. Then comes my cran-velvet cake with cranberry buttercream frosting and a tart cranberry sauce. The drink is a cran-tini punch of cranberry twist vodka, orange liqueur, unsweetened cranberry juice, tangerine juice, and seltzer.Up next from Michael at heebnvegan is a Swedish-style Charoset. Michael did a funny Swedish Chef impersonation with his presentation. Bork, bork, bork! Then Mike of Simply Raw Recipes wows us with a raw cranbanapple parfait with an awesome raw cranberry juice drink. This is the second place winner. The plastic cups are made from corn and he recycles them in his compost. Up last bus definitely not least is the winning dish. This is a rice crepe with a cran-ginger sauce. Sweet and savory, this is a really unique dessert. The sweet prize is a tofu Xpress!My honorable mention prizes are some Chicago Soy Dairy marshmallows and some vegan mac & cheese from Cosmo’s vegan shoppe. I can’t wait to try these!

The non-competitive main courses were made by the volunteers and features Match Meats the latest in faux meat. My favorite of which was a sweet & sour “pork” dish. The lasagna was also lovely. It was nice to have some savory food after snacking on cake all day and then having dessert first!

Another fun evening full of vegan superstars.

Stewed daikon radish in a sweet miso sauce with a side of inari wrapped sushi rice. The thick daikon really needs to cook for awhile (like 1-2 hours) to get soft throughout, but it’s worth the wait. The texture is strangely like pineapple, but not stringy or sweet. The sauce is miso, sake, mirin and kombu dashi.

Sushi rice stuffed into inari wrappers which are thin fried tofu pockets. They are a bit sweet and pair well with the sour vinegar of the sushi rice. I’m a vegan post punk rocker chick. I really just wanted to wear tatoo sleeves, a purple wig, and the magnetic face stud. The Praise Seitan t-shirt was just a bonus.

Happy Halloween everyone!

This lovely rice bowl comes from The Pump Energy Food which has a bunch of locations in NYC. I’ll post anything where you can get tofu as a regular option. The supercharged plate is brown rice with baked tofu, spinach, tomatoes, guacamole and a “cool green” sauce which is cucumber, mint, parsley, and lime sauce.Oh, yes and the Doritos. Spicy Sweet Chili Doritos are vegan and they sell them in the bodega in the basement of my building. Danger. These bad boys are really good.

Hot wings, vegan style.

The buffalo chicken fingers are from a tester recipe. I froze them and they reheated nicely in the toaster oven. Tami’s awesome book American Vegan Kitchen will be out in February, but you can pre-order it now!

The blue cheese dip is some Blue Style Scheese mixed with veganaise. The hot sauce is Frank’s Red Hot which is my favorite wing sauce. The celery is just to make it feel like I’m having something healthy.

Here’s another quickie…

I usually make oatmeal at work for breakfast with some rolled oats and raisins, but I ate all the raisins yesterday and forgot to bring more in. I did have some peanut butter left at the bottom of the jar and I had some Crofter’s superfruit spread in the fridge. It’s the Europe blend with black currants, pomegranates, morello cherries and red grapes.I tried to make the PB & jelly all in a yin and yang formation, because I thought it would look cool, but I gave up because I was hungry. I don’t bother to microwave the oats. When I have it boils over into a big mess and I hate to wait around to stop and stir every 30 seconds. I don’t like microwaves anyway. Even though it’s not instant, just cover rolled oats in hot water and let it sit for a few minutes. By the time it’s softened it’s a good temperature to eat and you won’t burn your tongue first thing in the morning.

Isa & Terry’s new book is almost here! I preordered from Amazon and got shipping notice that it should arrive by Saturday. Woo-hoo!

Vegan junk food rules. Sweet & Sara smores are awesome. This is the peanut butter flavor.I came across the sweet & sara marshmallows and smores in the grocery store near my work. Gotta support vegan companies when you see their products right? Perfect afternoon snack.

I also really like Suzanne’s Specilaties ricemellow creme. You probably need to schlep to a health food store for this or grab it when you’re shopping online. It’s available from the usual vegan retailers, food fight, cosmos, and pangea. I’m sure ricemellow is great in frosting, fluffernutters, and rice crispy treats, but honestly, I ate most of it with a spoon. Don’t worry, it wasn’t all in one sitting or anything.

I got some giant end of the season green beans from my CSA. So I oven fried them with a good bit of olive oil and ate them with a side of ranch dressing.
I mixed some Penzeys Buttermilk Ranch Dressing mix with some tofutti sour cream for the dip. Although the name says buttermilk, the mix ingredients are all vegan: salt, bell peppers, garlic, onion, sugar, black pepper, parsley, thyme, basil.