I actually made this video back in October as a guest post for xgfx (my favoritest mega-vegan-gluten free blog). I forgot to cross-post it here so I think a lot of people haven’t seen it yet. It’s one of my favorites, and I’m planning to incorporate this dress into my Mardi Gras costume!!
PS The recipe didn’t turn out so delicious so I’m not going to bother typing the whole thing out.
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I just realized that I shamefully haven’t posted since September so I thought I’d share this video that I didn’t make, but is still pretty darn wonderful. My Drunk Kitchen is a delightful video blog from the perpetually inebriated Hannah Hart.
Recently I met with a group of students who were in New Orleans for a service trip. When one of them mentioned that she’s friends with Hannah Hart I literally squealed with excitement. That’s how much of a vlogging crush I have on her. She makes fun of vegans in this video, but she comes around in the end and seems to really enjoy this raw vegan cheesecake. Yum!
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Last weekend some of my fellow AVODAH alumns hosted an afternoon of bartering. Everyone brought home made products, ranging from hummus to fresh juice to calligraphy to mix CD’s. It was super satisfying because although I arrived having put minimal effort into making a few things, I left with a bounty: pickled okra, a beautiful necklace, bright purple ABC juice (apples/beets/carrots), fig preserves and soft pretzels for my non VGF sweetheart.
My offering to the bartering table was pickled carrots (I pretty much just made up the recipe as I went along) and raw vegan cherry chocolate cupcakes. These were inspired by this wonderful recipe from For the Love of Food. I followed the recipe to a T, using macademia nuts and cashews for the allotted amount of nuts, and the addition of some dried cherries. I found that this made them very oily, but still delicious and extremely rich.
I incorporated the fig preserves into an original ice cream recipe that I really should feature in a future post: vanilla fig cardamom custard. The base was a cashew cream, which made the whole things more rich and creamy than any vegan ice cream I have ever made at home. Yum!
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Tagged bartering, cashews, gluten-free, macademia nuts, pickled carrots, raw, raw vegan cupcakes, vegan, vegan ice cream
So apprently Portland, ME is a very VGFriendly place. I had the pleasure of visiting Maine for a week this summer with three of my favorite people in the world and I quickly discovered that although the state is known for it’s seafood, there are abundant options for gluten-free vegans. From a shop-off at Trader Joe’s (oh Trader Joe’s!) to a repeat trip to Silly’s, a quirky diner that highlights vegan and gluten free options on its extensive menu, I found myself eating around the clock.
One of our more hilarious dining experiences occurred when we stopped by a spot called Kama Souptra at the Public Market in downtown Portland. This little soup shop has an array of vegan options, kindly marked on their menu, and a really cool program for regulars: you can buy your own bowl! For $30 you get your own beautiful hand-made bowl and $1 off every bowl of soup you order for the next year. Considering how good their soup was, this seems like quite a good deal. I went with the Bouktouf, a chilled zucchini soup, with a side of gluten free bread which I was assured was also vegan. As I sat with my friends devouring the soup, we all remarked that this was the most fluffy, crusty gluten-free bread imaginable…or was it?! Ten minutes later the cashier from Kama Souptra came over to our table. “You wanted gluten-free bread, didn’t you?” he asked. When I confirmed his suspicion he apologized profusely for giving us glutinous bread. Greatly relieved to hear that I am not serious allergic to gluten, he gave us a free gluten free roll and said that if I came back on another day and said I was “Miss New Orleans” I could get a free bowl of soup!
I was stoked! That’s when my friends informed me that Mr. Souptra had clearly been hitting on me. I guess my straight-dar is a little out of order. I was promptly re-named Miss New Orleans as we headed out into the rainy August afternoon with full bellies and a few belly laughs.
For a simple Bouktouf recipe visit The Splendid Table. I pretty much followed this recipe except I left out the cilantro and used tomato sauce in a jar instead of tomato paste because I am avoiding cans. Unfortunately I realized too late that Whole Foods store brand tomato sauce has Parmesan in it, so by all means use a different kind of tomato sauce!
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Tagged bouktouf, gluten-free, lady gaga, soup, splendid table, vegan, you + I, zucchini
Sarah Brown and Courtney Pool have written a thought-provoking piece called “Exploring the Link Between Sexuality, Diet and Self-Esteem” at choosingraw.com. “Throughout our lives, we have both felt stressed by pressures to be thin, look sexy by mainstream (read: white patriarchical) beauty standards,” they write, “There is unending pressure to align with advertisements, models, actresses and stereotypical images of femininity that can negatively impact self-esteem of women regardless of sexual orientation.” I have definitely found this to be true, especially as my initiation into queer culture was through pop culture like The L Word that blatantly promotes mainstream beauty standards. I’ve never had an eating disorder, but like most women (and many men) I grew up with disordered thinking about food. Since making the very conscious decision to become a vegan, I have a much more healthy relationship to food and eating. I have also unintentionally lost a fair amount of weight. I have been frustrated by the amount of praise I receive for conforming to white patriarchal beauty standards. Let me know if you have thoughts on how to respond politely to people who praise you for being thin when you don’t think that thinness is something that should necessarily be praised!
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This summer the Rethinkers have been studying health epidemics such as childhood obesity and type II diabetes. On Thursday they are going to speak out about these issues at our annual news conference, but they have also created a spectacular zombie music video that expresses their point of view. This is truly a youth-centered creation. They wrote the script, drew storyboards, helmed the camera, made their own choreography and designed zombie costumes!
Here’s the 4-minute trailer:
And here’s the full short film:
Here is the full short film and here is the 4 minute trailer version.
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I’ve always had a soft spot for gay marriage. Despite my qualms with the Institution of Marriage, when the Courage Campaign came out with a video a few years ago of little kids holding up signs saying “don’t divorce my parents” with Regina Spektor crooning in the background, I couldn’t help bursting into tears. As much as I know that Marriage is a tool of patriarchy, that’s it’s fundamentally misogynist and heterosexist, there’s something about children growing up with loving, intentional parents who are recognized as valid caregivers that really gets my tear ducts going. When I proposed to my girlfriend on a trip to New York for our fifth anniversary, patriarchy was the last thing on my mind.
The big news in New York isn’t sitting quite right with me, though. Reading the Sunday Times this morning over a VGF breakfast of tofu scramble with radish greens and toast, I could feel the tears welling up as I started to scan an article on the political machinations behind the passage of NY’s marriage bill. However, as a I read on I felt a tickle of frustration as well. This bill seems to have been as much the product of community organizers as Wall Street honchos who happened to have gay kids. The take home message seemed to be that change comes when the powerful start to take it personally. Maybe this is just the cold hard truth, but it doesn’t feel so good when I think about all the queer people who are farthest from the halls of power: undocumented immigrants, homeless youth, sex workers, and trans folks who have almost NO legal protections. Their issues have not been at the center of the “Gay Agenda” and it’s pretty clear why. Their dads don’t usually work on Wall Street. Their moms don’t usually date State Senators.
This is all by way of saying that my tears today aren’t just tears of joy. There was some bitterness mixed into my breakfast as well.
This might be my favorite vlogisode yet for a few reasons: 1) I used up the last of my hand-picked blueberries from the beautiful Pearl River Blues farm in Poplarville, MS; 2) I haven’t posted in such a darn long time; 3) I made up the recipe myself!
These fruit and cream stuff blintzes are a Rachel original! I brought them by my friend Ann’s house and they were gobbled up, along with the yummy vegan chai, cupcakes and hummus that she was serving up.
Here’s approximately how I made them:
1. To make the blueberry sauce, heat about a cup of fresh blueberries in a small saucepan over medium heat. Squish them with the side of a spoon so they release all their juices. Cook them for awhile so that the juice boils down into more of a sauce. I ended up adding a little bit of cornstarch, but you don’t really have to do this. Set aside in the fridge.
2. To make the sweet ricotta filling, blend the following ingredients in a food processor: about a cup and a half of soaked cashews, about half a can of coconut milk, about a teaspoon of vanilla, agave to taste, a pinch of salt, half a pack of firm tofu crumbled in your hand. Blend to the consistency of ricotta cheese. (I pretty much made this up as I went along, so you should totally experiment! It turned out freakin’ delicious!)
3. Now for the magic! Soak a rice paper wrapper in hot water so that it becomes wrappable. Fill it with a stripe of ricotta and a stripe of either blueberry sauce or strawberry jam. Wrap up like a burrito and then place in your serving dish. Continue until you have filled up your serving dishes with blintzes. Cover with a healthy coating of both fillings and a few strawberries (fresh would be nice, but I used frozen). Put in the fridge until ready to serve.
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Ok big shout out to Elena Pinsky for requesting the actual recipe for VGF Lasagna, as seen in this post. I hope you will try this one at home. It’s super easy to make and is the best VGF comfort food I have made. Also, I think I invented this particular version! The cashew ricotta is from the Veganomicon, but the combination of scrumptious ingredients is my own.
First, pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Now start by making the…
Red Sauce
Ingredients: olive oil, a few cloves of garlic, one medium onion, 1 14-oz can of diced tomatoes, 1 4-oz can of tomato paste, salt (to taste), Italian herbs, dash of red wine and/or balsamic vinegar
1. Chop the onion and saute over medium heat in olive oil until it gets very soft. Add the garlic and saute for another minute or so. Mmmm…smells good.
2. Add the can of diced tomatoes and stir. Then add the tomato paste and stir. Add a dash of red wine and/or balsamic vinegar for some kick. Add a few shakes of salt and some Italian herbs for yummy flavor. Continue to cook over medium heat for five minutes or so. Then turn off the heat and let sit while you make the…
Cashew Ricotta
Ingredients: 1/2 cup raw cashew pieces, 1/4 cup lemon juice, 2 tablespoons olive oil, 2 cloves garlic, 1 pound firm tofu (drained and crumbled), 1 1/2 teaspoons dried basil, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt.
1. Blend everything except the tofu, basil and salt in a food processor (a blender would probably work). Then add the tofu and blend some more. Then add the salt and basil and blend one more time. Easy-peasy!
2. Transfer from the food processor to a bowl and set the bowl in your workspace for the fun part….
Making the lasagna rolls
Ingredients: Red sauce, cashew ricotta, rice paper wrappers
1. Soak a rice paper wrapper in hot water. I use a pie dish to hold the water because it’s the perfect size. The rice paper will get all soft and sticky. Place it on a plate.
2. Now we’re gonna work kind of like we’re making a burrito. Make a big stripe of red sauce in the middle of the wrapper. Then make another stripe with ricotta. “Roll” up your wrapper by flipping one edge over, then flipping the other edge over, kind of like folding a letter before you but it in an envelope, but with two kids of delicious sauce inside. Pick up the lasagna roll and place it in a big baking dish.
3. Keep rolling until you fill the baking dish. These are so yummy that you are going to want to really squeeze them in. When the dish is full, add a layer of both sauces on top.
4. Stick the whole mess in the oven for about 25 minutes, or until you can’t resist. Then remove from the oven and serve by scooping out individual rolls.
This is just for fun. There is no cooking involved, just the most adorable karaoke of all time:
