daiya vs cheezly. cheezly vs daiya. it’s an epic battle, and i don’t know who would win. have you tried both? do you have a favorite?

daiya pizza on the left, cheezly pizza on the right

i recently had the chance to eat both a daiya and a cheezly pizza back to back…and choosing between the two would not be an easy task. if only the new teese (which i love) would have been there, my mind would have been blown.

so which one looks better to you:

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everyone knows that the tofurky feast is a vegan thanksgiving staple (we usually eat at least 2 of ’em over the holiday season). the delicious vegetarian turkey alternative has been around for 15 years, but this year there is even more to love about it because it comes with the decadent addition of amy’s vegan chocolate cake!

the folks at turtle island contacted me and asked if i wanted a coupon to try out this new tofurky/amy’s package, and of course i said HELL YES!

i’m happy to report that the tofurky roast was bigger and tastier than ever (they’ve upped the serving size this year!), and the amy’s cake was moist and delicious beyond belief. let’s start with the tofurky roast…

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here at QG headquarters, half of our household is british—so naturally, curry plays a huge part in our lives. we’ve shared with you our favorite recipe and told you about basu’s homestyle prepared foods…and today, we are giving you a heads up on an awesome vegan-friendly product line that’s available at whole foods: sukhi’s gourmet indian foods.

sukhi’s contacted us a while back and offered to send us some of their products for review. always interested in trying new things, we said, “of course!” a couple days later, a package arrived in the mail filled with tasty indian goodies. the first thing we tried was my favorite of all: the naanwich.

i love naan, i love sandwiches, and i love channa masala…so imagine how excited i was to see all three of those things rolled into one! the naanwich was fantastic. we heated it up in the oven to get it nice and crispy.

the filling was hearty and deliciously flavored, and the bread was soft and cushy. it was a special treat to have this vegan naan, because nearly every brand of naan bread contains eggs. i’m so happy sukhi’s busted out an animal-free version.

next up, we tried a box of frozen mini samosas.

these bite-sized babies were filled up with spiced potatoes and peas, and were gone in no time. seriously, so addictive! they came with a tasty cilantro chutney that was to die for, and we also dipped them in some of the other chutneys sukhi’s sent us: mango, jalapeno, and mango pickle. YUM!

lastly, we tried 2 of sukhi’s frozen vegan entrees—the vegan chili chicken with naan and the channa masala with naan, as well as a cauliflower and spinach curry we made ourselves using sukhi’s vindaloo sauce.

it was all fantastic! the only thing i didn’t eat much of was the vegan chicken, because it had bell peppers in it (which i hate). my husband assured me it was great though, and i was a huge fan of the channa masala and the vindaloo. these samples totally won us over, and we have been buying sukhi’s at whole foods ever since. they even have a new low-fat frozen line with vegan options that rock!

so if you are looking for a quick and tasty indian meal, sukhi’s has gotcha covered. seriously guys, you gotta try the naanwich!

for more info on sukhi’s check out their website!

UPDATE! WE HAVE A WINNER.

hey everyone, last week we held a contest to come up with a new kale chip flavor for rawk-n-roll cuisine, and we need your help choosing the winner!

the 3 finalists are:
“buffalo” by the broke-ass bride
“chipotle lime” by vegyogini
“sour cream & onion” by anandajc

rawk-n-roll is in the test kitchen right now, getting creative and trying to make these flavors work…but they want quarrygirl readers to influence the final decision! which flavor of kale chip do YOU think sounds best?! let us know!

UPDATE 08/09/10: WE HAVE A WINNER!

UPDATE 08/02/10: we have finalists! help choose the winning kale chip!

hey, everyone! time for another giveaway, and today’s comes to you from rawk-n-roll cuisine!

i am happy to announce that we are giving away an ENTIRE CASE of their HIGHLY ADDICTIVE kale chips. i have been a fan of these things for a long time, they make the perfect snack, and are available at most whole foods in los angeles. rawk-n-roll makes nacho cheese flavored, pizza flavored, and bbq flavored kale chips, and all 3 are fantastic. these things are delicious, raw, and totally healthy, so you are gonna want to get on this. not only do you have the chance to win this prize, but also come up with your very own kale chip flavor that rawk-n-roll will add to their menu!

here is what you need to do to win —->

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Back when I was a vegetarian living in London, I used to visit Chicago frequently. On my trips I would only eat two kinds of food: Mexican (as there is no Mexican food to speak of in the UK) and Chicago Pizza (same issue). Now that I’m a vegan living in LA there’s an abundance of incredible Mexican food to satiate my love of things from south of the border, but I really do miss the tastes and textures of a thick, cheese filled Chicago pizza that’s so humongously large that it has to be eaten with a knife and fork.

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have you ever seen a gallon of vegenaise in person?

i spotted a dude with this epic vegenaise jar at a bar in burbank last week, and i couldn’t believe it. i was frightened and in awe all at the same time.

what would YOU do with a gallon of vegenaise?!????!!!

today is officially the first day of summer, and what better way to celebrate than to do a dandies giveaway with our friends at chicago soydairy!

if you haven’t tried dandies yet, they are the tastiest, most realistic vegan marshmallows ever. they go great in rice krispies treats, hot chocolate, and smores…the perfect treat now that camping season is upon us. chicago soydairy is giving away AN ENTIRE MONTH’S SUPPLY of these beauties (4 bags!) to one lucky reader, so get ready and enter the contest.

here’s what you need to do for a chance to win a month’s supply of dandies:
1.) you must “like” chicago soydairy on facebook. (do that by clicking HERE.)
2.) you must leave a comment on this blog post about dandies.
3.) you must leave your real, valid email address when you submit your comment. (the public won’t see this, just me…so i can contact you if you win!)

…that’s it!

a winner will be chosen at random after 5pm CST on friday june 25th…so be sure to get your entries in before then! if you don’t win, you should still stock up on dandies for the summer. these things are pretty much a miracle product, and you won’t believe how much they taste like traditional marshmallows. you can order them online here, or find them around LA at places like the meet market and locali.

ENTER NOW!

UPDATE: costco no longer carries gardein. 🙁 it was a trial run, apparently. don’t let that get you down, though! be sure to request gardein each time you shop there. let’s get it back in stores.

every new vegan product goes through an arc of acceptance. first of all, it very clearly appeals to its core audience; the manufacturer will fall all over itself for any blog post, a bit of twitter love, and a handful of facebook “likes”. they will eke out an early existence sending samples to anybody who asks, while in the background, their PR machine will be laser-focused on reeling in major distribution channels to sell their products everywhere from restaurants to health food stores, all the time hoping (perhaps praying), that they will reach the nirvana of acceptance: going mainstream.

one of the most notable products to achieve “mainstream” success over the past 3 years, has been gardein. after all, how much more mainstream could a product be than to chill away in a freezer at your local costco? the answer is: none. none more mainstream.

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when i tried the new tofurky frozen pizza at natural products expo west a few months ago, it was seriously love at first bite. covered in stretchy daiya cheese and plump pepperoni bits, it was the best frozen pizza i’d ever tasted.

imagine my excitement then, when i got a letter from tofurky advertising their new pizza line, along with a coupon to get one for free. the only problem is, i couldn’t find a store in LA selling the pizzas yet. i had no choice but to hop on a plane and head up to the cutting edge food fight grocery in portland, oregon.

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we already blogged about how awesome chicago soy dairy’s new stretchy teese is, but you shouldn’t take our word for it.

for the next week, vegan essentials is having a buy one, get one free sale that is not to be missed. here are the details…

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these nachos are the ultimate indulgence, and you seriously don’t have to be raw or even vegan to enjoy them.

we’ve been toying around with raw foods for a few weeks now, and this has to be the richest most extravagant meal we’ve made at home. i suggest you give it at try—it puts most cooked vegan nachos to shame!

here’s how you make ’em…

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UPDATE 4/18/10: i recently received the following email from vegan traders w/ their side of the story. according to them, there was no health department recall. check it out:

Thank you for your notice about our wonderful vegan foods that were removed from the shelves at Whole Foods. As the owner of Vegan Traders, I must correct one important point that you made in your article. It is easy to see why this mistake was made, since customers have heard from Whole Foods staff that the food was removed due to a Health Dept. recall. In fact it was Whole Foods who decided to remove our food from the shelves, NOT the Health Dept. In our conversations with LA County Dept. of Public Health chiefs Terrance Powell and Angelo Bellomo, they deny any kind of recall or conversation with Whole Foods at that point. They later notified Whole Foods that their investigation of Vegan Traders was completed and we were clear to do business. The recall by Whole Foods was actually an internal decision triggered by a letter I sent to all stores explaining that we were being audited and therefore would not deliver that day (March 26).

Please note that all these foods are still available through all our other customer stores. As the sole distributor of these products in Southern California, I hope your readers will seek the products at the numerous independent stores who respect and appreciate our services, and continue to happily sell all the products Whole Foods was carrying and more.

Although Vegan Traders was approved by Whole Foods as a distributor and brought these companies to the shelves, one buyer, one store, one item at a time, over almost two years, Whole Foods insists that now Vegan Traders has no standing. Thus far all the companies remain loyal to Vegan Traders in the hopes that through public pressure and further negotiation with Whole Foods, the decision will be reversed. This decision by Whole Foods to eliminate Vegan Traders and our partner companies from its stores is a puzzling one for everyone.

original post:

due to some health inspection dramz, and a fundamentally flawed system, it appears as though loads of our favorite packaged vegan and raw foods are now missing from whole foods.

apparently, several brands have been distributed to whole foods by a company called vegan traders, which has recently been cited with a health violation. now although these companies never cooked food out of the vegan traders kitchen, nor did they have anything to do with the violation, they are being thrown off the shelves of all whole foods! THIS IS AWFUL! just to name a few—lydia’s organics, michelle’s naturally, rawk-n-roll cuisne, euphoria loves rawvolution, kookie karma, rahel vegan ethiopian, cru, and tomberlies have all been affected.

we received the following from an anonymous source:

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UPDATED 2/6/10: hey everyone, earth cafe was generous to let us pick two winners!! chosen at random, the winners were sean with who’s your daddy cheesecake…and lauren with banana cream. enjoy your winnings, kids! thanks to everyone who entered; now go buy some earth cafe cheesecake!

hi everyone, i’m super excited to announce that the wonderful raw/vegan/amazing company earth cafe has offered to give away an entire cheesecake to one lucky quarrygirl reader!

who's your daddy pie: rich creamy carob Mousse cheesecake

as you probably already know, we are HUGE FANS of earth cafe’s products. they make some of the best cheesecake i’ve ever tasted—and it just happens to be completely raw, vegan, and gluten-free, with no refined sugars or hydrogenated oils. these cakes are rich, decadent, and luscious beyond belief, even omnivores go crazy for them! so be sure to enter to win!

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today is a great day, because i get to announce that earth cafe (one of my favorite vegan dessert companies ever) is introducing a new pie to their already delicious line of cheesecakes!

life is sweet potato pie. by earth cafe. 🙂

earth cafe’s “life is sweet potato” pie is definitely one of their best creations to date. it’s thick and rich with a smooth velvety texture and packed with sweet complex flavors. the pie itself is moist and fluffy, and the crust has just the right amount of crunch. it’s seriously the perfect indulgence, because it tastes amazing, yet isn’t full of bad ingredients. everything made by earth cafe is completely raw, vegan, and gluten free with no refined sugars or hydrogenated oils.

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