you gotta love the a taste of life booth at the hollywood farmers market. as if the breakfast sandwich (one of the top ten vegan items to eat in los angeles) wasn’t enough to get you out of bed early on sunday…

vegan chocolate chip cookie. $1

now you have their homemade chocolate chip cookies to tempt you as well.

these things are baked freshly, are super fluffy and moist, and will only set you back $1. this is the kind of cookie that you bite into and it starts immediately melting all over…in a good way! it’s cakey and juicy all at once and just oozes with rich creamy chocolate. mmmmm.

and while you are at the taste of life stand, you would be a FOOL to leave without buying one of their breakfast sandwiches. i know i go on and on about these, but they are WORTH THE HYPE.

vegan breakfast sandwich. $5

moist biscuit, melted cheese, succulent sausage, grilled tofu…all smashed together, ALL VEGAN. like an egg mcmuffin but way better and tastier. oh, and as you know a taste of life also makes the best vegan soul food in town…so stock up on some mac and cheese and bbq tofu while you are there as well.

see you sunday!

a taste of life
hollywood farmers market
cross street of ivar and selma
every sunday
8:00am – 1:30pm

PS: thanks to @havingmysay for telling me about these awesome cookies!!

if there’s one reason to drag your ass out of bed before noon on a sunday morning, it’s this breakfast sandwich from a taste of life. that’s right, the makers of the best vegan soul food in los angeles have also created LA’s best vegan mcmuffin—a soft gooey faux sausage and tofu biscuit complete with deliciously creamy cheese. although the restaurant recently closed its storefront, they are still serving food at the hollywood farmers market every sunday from 8:30am to 1:30pm…the only catch is, these hot little muffins tend to sell out. when i arrived last weekend at around 10:30am, there were still several left, but i heard that by 11:30 they were all gone.

vegan breakfast sandwich: sausage, tofu, and cheese on a fluffy muffin. $5

damn, i can’t even tell you guys how much i loved this thing. i unwrapped my sandwich and ate it right there in the street, and it was honestly one of the best breakfasts i’ve had in my life. the biscuit was incredibly soft and fluffy, the sausage was hearty and meaty, and the tofu was soft in the middle and nicely browned on the outside. oh, and the CHEESE….the cheese was just amazing. it’s the same stuff that a taste of life puts in their vegan macaroni and cheese, which is the best in LA.

there is absolutely nothing lacking or meh about this sandwich. it’s seriously decadent, perfectly greasy, and not “vegan-tasting” in any way. my only advice would be to order a drink as well, because this thing made me seriously thirsty. i know i will be returning to the farmers market and buying these on a regular basis…they are total vegan crack as far as i’m concerned.

so who is getting up early on sunday morning to eat the best vegan breakfast sandwich in los angeles? trust me, it’s worth it.

a taste of life
at the hollywood farmer’s market
northern side of selma between vine & ivar

PS: special thanks to brittany from sick of lettuce for telling me about this breakfast sandwich. without her, i wouldn’t know it existed, and my life would suck slightly more.

the newest addition to los angeles’ rapidly growing vegan scene, locali conscious convenience, is a one stop shop on franklin avenue for all your animal-free needs. the small store puts an emphasis on health-conscious and eco-friendly items, and sells loads of vegan ready-to-eat meals, faux meats, and frozen products. locali’s selection is also awesome because it consists of really unique and organic products from several local and sustainable suppliers…stuff you won’t always get at, say, whole foods. seriously, this place is too good to be true, and exactly what this city needed.

on thursday, locali opened with a soft-launch and started selling all their vegan goodies along with fresh bakery items and hearty soups. by next week, they will be launching a full deli with sandwiches and salads, some of which will hopefully be vegan.

here are just a few of the things that caught my eye at locali today, stuff you can’t find anywhere else (that i’m aware of) in los angeles.

taste of life ready-to-eat meals. that’s right, our favorite vegan soul food restaurant has tons of little items packaged up on the shelf at locali. i’ve seen their stuff before at other health food stores, but locali definitely has the best selection. there was even a taste of life hoagie on sale that looked delicious. vegan hoagies?!?! what will taste of life think of next? i can’t even keep track of their menu…!

sheese vegan cheese. you may remember sheese from our vegan pizza challenge…it’s a very hard to find vegan cheese that comes all the way from scotland. i’ve never seen it for sale in los angeles, and locali offers it in several different flavors.

tons of goods from the sensitive baker, la’s only gluten-free bakery. locali carries a large assortment of bagels, breads and muffins at the counter…plus vegan pizzas, bread sticks and cookie dough in the freezer for you to take home and bake yourself.

vegan condoms. yes, for all you party people, vegan condoms. i didn’t get any, so you will have to try them out and let me know how they hold up. here’s a pic i snapped with my iphone…it may be a little blurry because i was giggling too much to steady it.

do it for the animals.

those are just a few of the really special things locali has to offer. they also your typical items like tofurky, soy bleu feta, and  tons of other ready-to-eat meals from local vegan restaurants (including some mouth-watering ethiopian wraps from rahel’s). it’s quite incredible.

in addition to being all around awesome and having enough vegan products to make me want to eat there all day, locali has some the sweetest, friendliest staff around. the minute we walked in, they greeted us with a complimentary re-usable bag and thanked us for visiting. the dude behind the counter was able to answer all our questions about vegan products, and even offered us samples and a free bagel. and the cool thing is, they had no idea i was going to blog about them or anything, they were just plain nice for no reason. they really care about customer satisfaction and make you feel welcome in their wonderful little store.

so that’s it, locali conscious convenience is definitely worth a visit if you are a vegan who cares about the environment. it’s a great addition to our little vegan community here in los angeles, and i think they’re doing a super job. i wish them much success—in a world of 711’s and circle k’s, locali is a breath of fresh, clean, unpolluted air.

locali conscious convenience
5825 franklin avenue
los angeles ca 90028
323-466-1360

open 7 days a week
7am – 11pm

for thanksgiving this year, we here at quarrygirl.com threw a non-traditional dinner party and invited the parents. sure, my parents will still have their slaughtered carcass tomorrow…but today, their holiday feast was all vegan.

everyone seems to be blogging about their thanksgiving menu, so i thought i may as well do the same. i’m no cook, and i didn’t spend tons of time in the kitchen. but we did manage to throw together a mix of store-bought and homemade dishes that pleased our omnivore guests. here is the rundown:

suds: we celebrated nonturkey day this year by opening up our first bottle of homemade beer. it’s been brewing downstairs in our guest room for two weeks, and today it had finally reached a very drinkable and alcoholic point. full disclosure, we made our wort beer from a kit. we didn’t go all mad scientist, boiling hops or anything. that’s for next time. thankfully, the beer came out quite well. a strong, delicious, fruity dry-hopped lager.

appetizers: we really, really know how to class it up for thanksgiving. that’s why for a pre-meal snack we served a bag of doritos spicy sweet chili nachos with terra potpourri potato chips, along with fritos hot bean dip and calavo guacamole. super fancy, eh? in our defense, this dish was super last minute. (duh.) we stupidly headed out to go grocery shopping on thanksgiving morning in search of horderves and ended up abandoning ralphs because the parking lot was too crowded and bristol farms because it was a fucking zoo in there. (i did see pauly shore though, and had to explain who he was to my husband, yay!) we ended up at the closest place to our house by far to purchase food, the canyon country store. i don’t know if you’ve ever been to this little hippie shack, but they don’t have much selection. hence the truck stop appetizers we ended up serving. it’s all good though. tasty as fuck, and no prep time.

salad: mr. meaner took care of the salad this year, because he kicks ass at that. he made the previously blogged about “best salad in the world”, although this time he toasted the pine nuts and whipped up his own batch of zesty lemon balsamic vinaigrette. total hit.

stuffing: this is actually the first year i’ve ever cooked homemade stuffing. usually i just grab a box from whole foods, add a few ingredients and call it a day. this year, i decided to try a really healthy and simple stuffing from happy herbivore’s cookbook, pudge-free holidays. she’s compiled a list of tasty-sounding holiday recipes without all the fat and calories that usually come along with this time of year. i made a batch of the traditional thanksgiving stuffing with mushrooms and vegan sausage. the only change i made was i added some garlic, because i can never have enough of that. i can tell you this is much tastier and much healthier than the store-bought box crap i’m used to making.

sides: we outsourced the cooking of our side dishes to the awesome vegan soul food restaurant, a taste of life. i could never make food this good, so why even try? we ordered two sides of mac and cheese and two sides of kale. both were delicious and impressed the hell out of my omnivore parents. if i could cook this well, i’d never eat out. but i can’t…so i get take-out on thanksgiving day. yay.

vegetables: mr. meaner took it upon himself to toss some thickly sliced potatoes and carrots in olive oil and oregano, then bake them to perfection. we also had some steamed broccoli and cauliflower to round it all off.

roast: since our favorite thanksgiving centerpiece, the unturkey, is no longer available, we have been looking for a worthy replacement. we spent the last two years with the tofurky, which is good but not great. this year we opted for the very scrumptious celebration roast. field roast is a company up in seattle who makes tons of great faux meats, from sausages, to slices, to several different flavors of roasts. their products are kind of hard to find in los angeles, so if you ever see them, buy ’em up. follow your heart consistently stocks the celebration roasts, and a handful of whole foods carry the sausages. while the celebration roast is no unturkey, it’s pretty damn incredible. the body, crust and middle stuffing are all magnificent. (please note, some folks have made a website and posted a recipe for the original unturky. i’m way to much of a cooking n00b to try it, but others have. and i am jealous). the celebration roast will totally do for now.

dessert: i actually did some baking some baking this thanksgiving! when i bake, things usually go wrong…but luckily, this holiday my shit came out pretty nice. i went through several recipes online and adapted my own from many to make a chocolate-chip vegan cheesecake. a total crowd-pleaser, this cheesecake made me so proud. plus it satisfied my sweet tooth for the day.

here’s the recipe i “came up with,” standing on the shoulders of giants:

vegan chocolate-chip cheesecake

ingredients:
1-14 oz package firm silken tofu
1-8 oz package tofutti better than cream cheese
2/3 cup sugar
splash of lemon juice
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp cornstarch
about 1/2 a 12oz bag of chocolate chips
1-9 inch vegan pie crust

method:
preheat oven to 350F.
put silken tofu and tofutti better than cream cheese in the blender and blend until smooth.
add the sugar and blend until no granules remain.
add a splash of lemon juice, the vanilla and the corn starch, then blend until smooth.
add 1/2 a 12oz bag of vegan chocolate chips and stir it up with a spoon.
pour the mixture into the pie crust and bake for 40 minutes.
refrigerate before serving for at least 4 hours.

result:
yum.

all around, we had an epically delicious thanksgiving. good to know we could gorge ourselves on all kinds of dishes—healthy stuff, junk food, salty appetizers, sweet deserts, salads, roasts and vegetables—all without killing any animals. what a fucking concept, right?

here’s to hoping the rest of the world will catch on. hope you had a great thanksgiving!

back to restaurant reviews now for quarrygirl…