Vegan Mofo Begins

Vegan Mofo is upon us; a month of vegan blogging launched by Isa Chandra Moscowitz at Post Punk Kitchen. The goal is to blog at least 20 times during the month of September. Due to my vacation in New York I was a little tardy getting started, so I have some catching up to do. 

You can check out Vegan Mofo here (http://www.veganmofo.com/), and see Charlie's Kitchen on the BlogRoll. 

I'm going to continue posting menu suggestions for most meals, plus recipes. That's the goal, anyway. I'm starting back at grad school today, and the semester looks set to get pretty busy. If there's a time crunch, I might have to choose homework over blogging, but my goal is to manage both if I can.

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Breakfast:

- fluffy pancake with strawberries and slivered almonds* (for recipe see post from 19th August)

Lunch:

- salad of arugula, chick peas, beets, celery, figs, red onion, meyer lemon mustard vinaigrette

- rustic bread

Snack:

- apricot and blueberry thumbprint cookies from Vegetarian Times

http://www.vegetariantimes.com/recipe/thumbprint-cookies/

Dinner:

- green bell pepper stuffed with brown rice and soyrizo*, coleslaw*, red beans

- nectarine

I can't believe how easy these stuffed bell peppers were! Not very photogenic, perhaps, but easy and hearty. To make them, take leftover brown rice and mix it with soyrizo (about half and half). Slice the tops off the peppers, scoop out the seeds, stuff them with plenty of filling, and replace the top as a "lid" to help maintain moisture. Cook in a pre-heated oven for 45 minutes at 350 degrees. Serve hot or cold.

I'm really into vegan mayo right now, hence the creamy coleslaw. I'm making up for years of lost mayo consumption because until about a week ago I was laboring under the mistaken belief that vegan mayo is gross. Isa Chandra Moscowitz convinced me to give it another try, so I did, and to my pleasant surprise it was actually delicious. Although, perhaps it's just been so long since I had real mayo that I've forgotten what it's supposed to taste like. Anyhow, I'm loving it. Isa says that you have to be careful which brand you buy, because some of them are not as good as others. I don't know about that. All I know is that I bought the only type that they had at Safeway (Reduced Fat Vegenaise by Follow Your Heart) and it's good. To make the coleslaw I used the shredding attachment on my CuisinArt to grate 3 carrots, 1/3 of a large green cabbage, and 1/3 of a red onion. Then I stirred in liberal quantities of mayo (I didn't count, but it was probably somewhere in the region of 6 tablespoons. Makes about 6 servings. 

Thanks to friends Gloria and Wendy for their gift of today's salad dressing; a delightful lemony vinaigrette from Tea Here Now. Highly recommended.