follow your heart? of course, they are the ones who make the awesome fake mayonnaise and the vegan cheese that doesn’t melt! yeah, and they have that supermarket in the valley with all neat healthy stuff. but did you know they also have a restaurant? i don’t know why it never occurred to me until recently to try their café (maybe eating in the back of a grocery store didn’t sound very appealing), but now i’m sure glad i did. the food was spectacular, and the atmosphere was just fine—i forgot that the bustling health food market on the other side of the wall even existed.

breakfast burrito: scrambled tofu, black beans and vegetarian ‘chorizo’, wrapped in an oversized whole wheat tortilla. served with spanish rice, guacamole and vegan sour cream. $7.95

follow your heart burger: burger pattie with vegan cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, vegenaise and thousand island dressing, on a toasted whole wheat bun. $7.95

before i even say that the food tastes good, check out those huge portions they give you for under $8! with the economy plummeting and food prices soaring, i challenge you to find a healthy vegan meal in a sit-down restaurant at a better value. on top of that, everything tasted incredible. the burrito was stuffed with the finest of fake meat, and the sour cream & guac garnishes were delicious. the burger was also tasty and hearty—the follow your heart cheese was even melted. how on earth did they accomplish that?

Read the rest of this entry »

as the summer rapidly approaches, it’s handy to have an arsenal of cool, refreshing meals that can be whipped up in less than 15 minutes. enter veganomicon and pete’s tofu to go.

veganomicon’s corn & edamame sesame salad, atop spinach leaves with asian dressing

pete’s tofu 2 go ready made tofu, with mango wasabi sauce (and we added in some chili garlic sauce as well)

so simple to make and ready in minutes, this was the perfect meal for a scorching hot evening spent sitting on the couch with a bottle of wine. there was just enough to satisfy without leaving us full, bloated and feeling guilty.

more pix after the jump…

Read the rest of this entry »

so i finally got around to making a meal from the much raved about cookbook, veganomicon. i picked what appeared to be the easiest recipe in the book (i cannot cook), did some ingredient hunting at the local health food store, and i was in business. special thanks to your vegan mom for pointing me in the direction of nature mart for their bulk bins of vital wheat gluten.

veganomicon’s black bean burger with sautéed mushrooms, sprouts, tomato, onion, avocado, vegenaise and colman’s english mustard.

in the end, these burgers turned out great…although i was a little worried during the process. after i had done all my fancy ingredient shopping at nature mart and whole foods, while in ralphs i realized i’d forgotten to buy bread crumbs. argh!!—all the varieties they offered contained whey, nonfat dry milk, or (shudder) egg whites. i decided it wasn’t worth the trip in la traffic to the nearest health food store just for one ingredient, so i used crumbled up hamburger buns instead. i think this resulted in my patties falling apart a little bit, but i just kept cooking them (longer than the recipe suggested) and they turned out just dandy.

more pix after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

One of the glorious things about pasta is that it’s really quick and easy to cook. It takes a lot of practice to get amazing pasta, but you have to try almost as hard to screw it up completely (overcooking it is about the only sin). One of our favorites is extremely fast to prepare and can be adapted in a multitude of different ways. Like most Italian recipes it’s simple and leaves little scope for error.

Tastes even better than it looks!

The key is to prepare everything separately, and then bring it together into a tremendous crescendo of flavor and texture right at the last minute. In that way you’ll keep the sausages crispy, the pasta firm and the sauce just tangy enough.

Yummy pasta in a bowl!

This is so simple to cook, you could do it with your eyes shut, but I don’t suggest you try that in case you get burned. That’s not good.

Read the rest of this entry »

long beach is great place to hang out in the spring. it’s got pleasant weather, tons of cool bars, a historic transatlantic relic, and now (i’ve finally found) the zephyr vegetarian cafe.

mf burger: homemade patty, tofutti cheese, sprouts, tomato, onion, romaine, mushrooms, avocado & vegan mayo

grilled tofu sandwich: tofu, grilled onion & mushrooms on toasted bread with vegan mayo $5

zephyr cafe is a funky little vegan paradise tucked in between the busy streets of downtown long beach.

the inexpensive fare, serene atmosphere, and all together tastyness of the food make zephyr a must on the list of places for vegans to hit-up when visiting the LBC.

i, myself, was very reticent to even try out the zephyr cafe. the immediate association with a red hot chili peppers song was enough to turn me off…not to mention the hippie vibes and lack of burritos on the menu. however, being in long beach overnight surrounded by chain restaurants and fish joints was enough to make me swallow my pride and give zephyr a chance…and boy, i’m sure glad i did!

i’ve heard a lot of complaints on reviewy type websites about the parking difficulties at zephyr cafe. well, i know from personal experience that those problems can be avoided by parking in the lot next to the rock bottom brewery just a short walk away. not only will you be able to park in downtown long beach for free, you’ll have time for a nice pint of cask ale before heading over to the organic-bottled-beer-only zephyr cafe. (i prefer to get my drinking done at a real bar and letting the nice vegan food soak up my drunkenness…rather than eating tons of lovely food with tasteless “healthy” beer—but suit yourself!)

now, more about the amazing food.

Read the rest of this entry »

at quarrygirl.com, we are always looking for new vegetarian restaurants to hit up, and last weekend we got lucky with the spot.

savory garden burrito: with garden veggies, cheese and savory sauce (all non-dairy): $8.95

guacamole burger: a homemade burger patty served on a wheat bun with guacamole and a side of almond rice: $8.95

as many of my fellow imbibers know, the hermosa/redondo/manhattan/whatever beach areas are great places to find breweries and specialty beers. what i DIDN’T know until last weekend, is they are also great places to find uncharted vegan fare.

after planning a day of drinking in hermosa beach, i decided to research some food options on the internet. one spot, a vegetarian restaurant, kept gaining my attention and outshining all the other restaurants with its glowing reviews. so of course, we had to give it a try…
Read the rest of this entry »

because i have a traditional english husband, i decided to cook him a traditional english dinner…vegan style!

cornish pasty: a baked savoury pastry case filled with diced fake meat, potato, onion and peas.

the pasties came out wonderful. i’d never had one before, but my husband assured me they tasted authentic, as good as anything he’d had back home.

recipe after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry »

i write this post for two reasons: to give you a wonderful, hearty chili recipe that can be ready in no time, AND to show you a great new product i just discovered.

extra protein seitan and worthington chili

this chili recipe is awesome, and soooooo full of protein…but even more importantly, i hope it introduces you to a WHOLE NEW VEGAN PRODUCT that’s been right under your nose for years: worthington! 

have you ever even heard of this product? i hadn’t until recently. but now that i know it exists, i find it in every ralphs i visit, from city to city. 

recipe after the jump. (and even if you are familiar with worthington, you’ll wanna read how to make this ultimate seitan chili meal anyways!)
Read the rest of this entry »

ahhh…sunday morning breakfast. what better way to begin the end of the weekend than with a stomach full of homemade vegan food?

fantastic frittata: quarrygirl.com’s veganized version of the monterey frittata

i REALLY love a leisurely sunday breakfast. 3 cups of coffee and a calorific vegan feast sounds like the perfect way to prolong the agony of the forthcoming week. but in a world where most restaurants are packed on sunday mornings and/or pride themselves on the fact they shovel heaping piles of eggs onto peoples’ plates, it’s hard for me to get morning meal satisfaction on the day it matters most. 

this week, i found solace in this amazing recipe…located right under my nose, in the back of my cupboard, on the back of a tofu scrambler box. all it needed was to be veganized…
Read the rest of this entry »

Ordering pizza was one of my favorite activities before I became a vegan. Now, though, that avenue of pleasure is firmly closed off to me since I don’t eat dairy. All is not lost, though — if you live close to Hollywood in LA, there’s always Damiano’s, but their delivery customer service is appalling (last time I ordered it took them nearly two hours to deliver a cold pizza — and that was when I lived under two miles away). There’s a reasonable frozen pizza option, but nothing beats freshly made pizza with ingredients you can select and add at will.

So, I set about creating a similar experience to delivery pizza in terms of taste, timing and effort. I succeeded in two of those (taste and timing), but on the effort front, nothing beats the convenience of calling a ‘phone number to get hot food delivered to your home, just as nothing beats not being milked to death if you’re a cow.

When I used to order pizza, it would take around 40-50 minutes from picking up the ‘phone to the local Pizza Hut to when it arrived on my doorstep. This method of preparing this pizza takes a little less time, but the end result is very comparable to delivered pizza if you’re happy to put in the effort.

Read the rest of this entry »

i used to love the holiday season. i’d look forward to it all year long, not because of the silly holidays themselves, but because every november through january, i could go to my local health food store and stock up on the recently deceased unturkey.

since the unturkey’s passing, i’ve unsuccessfully been searching for a substitute. now don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with tofurky, and i do appreciate the fact that it’s everywhere. it’s just that unturkey set such a high standard, i can’t help but search for something better to replace it.

luckily, this january i stumbled across the celebration roast at my favorite whole foods. i had a good feeling about it, and i was wise enough to buy 3 roasts, which were all gone within a month! while it’s still not quite as good as the unturkey, it comes pretty damn close!

the catch is, celebration roast is made by a company called field roast, and in los angeles their products are very hard to come by. as of this posting, the whole foods in el segundo (the mother of all health food stores) is the only place i’ve been able to find them.

i suggest you make a trip out there and grab anything field roast you can get your hands on. while they no longer have the celebration roast (DAMN!), they do have some really tasty vegan sausages. again, not to dog on tofurky, but these are just SO much better. if only they were more widely available. not even this massive whole foods heaven carries all the products on the field roast website, which i imagine are amazing as well.

for now, i’ll just have to look forward to the holiday season and get by with my sausages. they make a great breakfast atop some potatoes and smothered in hot sauce.

i love food that causes me pain and makes my eyes water. so naturally, i find a typical potato salad rather dull. last night i came up with this recipe (adapted from many others) that’s extremely spicy, rich with flavor, and 100% vegan.

here’s what you’ll need to make it happen:
2 pounds of red potatoes
4 stalks of celery
1 red onion
1 1/2 cups of vegenaise
5 tablespoons of colman’s english mustard
1 teaspoon of salt
black pepper to taste (i use lots!)

Read the rest of this entry »

it’s rough coming home from a gig late at night, half drunk and too lazy to cook. luckily, tofutti has it all taken care of for us.

in 25 minutes max (that is, if you follow the “for the best results” instructions) you can have a crispy mouth-watering pizza, with MELTING vegan cheese ready to suit any occasion.

Read the rest of this entry »