Chloe's Kitchen

You might remember Chloe Coscarelli as the baker whose vegan cupcakes beat out non-vegan cupcakes on Food Network's Cupcake Wars in 2010. It was a big moment for vegans. Proof that our vegan baked goods are not only "just as good" as their dairy- and egg-containing counterparts, but actually better. I mean, vegans have always known that, but Chloe's cupcakes gave proof to the world.

Now the award-winning baker has released her first cookbook — Chloe's Kitchen: 125 Easy, Delicious Recipes for Making the Food You Love the Vegan Way. Yep, it's a mouthful ... of awesomeness. This full-color book is loaded with stunning photos of classic comfort food.

In fact, everything looks so delicious that I had the hardest time deciding what to try first. But since Chloe's family is of Italian descent, I figured I'd better start with pasta. There's a whole chapter on pasta called "Oodles of Noodles" with recipes ranging from Italian classics like lasagna and fettucine alfredo to Chinese chow mein and Drunken Noodles in Cashew-Shiitake Broth.

But the gorgeous photo of Stuffed Shells with Arrabiata Sauce was calling my name. Unfortunately, I couldn't find jumbo pasta shells anywhere! So I settled on manicotti, which wasn't nearly as attractive:

Don't let this ugly picture fool you. This dish was deeeelicious! The manicotti is stuffed with a homemade tofu-based basil ricotta and then it's topped with a homemade spicy tomato sauce (I added extra spice to mine). Yea, shells would have been prettier, but I'm sure it tastes about the same.

What I love most about this book (besides the lovely pictures) is that it focuses on real food. You won't find any fancy-schmancy uber-gourmet crap and, while healthy, the recipes aren't over-the-top with nuts and seeds and hippy vegan stuff. It falls somewhere in the middle, in that comfortable place where mom's home cooking falls.

Other savory dishes on my to-make list include the Avocado Pesto Pasta, Country Meatloaf and Golden Gravy with Orange-Scented Cranberry Sauce, Tempeh Piccata, Pancakes for Dinner (!!!), and BBQ Pineapple Pizza. Also, the recipe for Chloe's Award-Winning Mango Masala Panini looks like a must-try.

But you're probably thinking, "Wait, I thought Chloe won Cupcake Wars for her cupcakes? What about dessert?"

Never fear: The "Cupcakes and More" chapter has you covered. Of course, Chloe included her recipe for the Cupcake War-winning Ginger Nutmeg Spice Cupcakes. But there's also Chlostess Creme-Filled Cupcakes (like Hostess cupcakes), Baked Sprinkled Donuts (I think you all know how I feel about donuts ... hearts), Buckeyes (peanut butter cups on a stick!), Sea Salt Toffee Bars, and Yoga Cookies (Chloe's favorite oatmeal-raisin-chocolate chip-walnut post-yoga treat).

If you're looking for a compendium of easy-to-prepare, food-for-the-soul recipes, you'll find just that in Chloe's Kitchen.

Vegan Nostalgia

I've been vegetarian since age 14, but I didn't really start cooking until my early post-college years. When I moved to Memphis after college graduation, I owned one vegetarian cookbook — Vegetarian Comfort Food by Jennifer Warren. It's a book I was given to review for my college newspaper, The Arkansas State University Herald. Little did I know back then, I'd eventually end up reviewing vegan cookbooks for my blog as a second job.

Since it was my only cookbook, I made a ton of recipes from Warren's book. That's where I got my to-go homemade spaghetti sauce recipe, and it's where I found one of my all-time favorite uses for tofu. I used to make the Colonel's Fried Tofu from that book all the time. In fact, that was the first recipe I ever made that called for nutritional yeast. I remember reading "nutritional yeast" in the ingredients and thinking, "What the hell is that?"

I found it at a local, now-defunct Memphis health food store and immediately brought the Colonel's Fried Tofu into heavy dinnertime rotation. It's battered in eggs, but since I stopped eating eggs in 2004, I've quit making the recipe.

Of course, eggs are an easy substitute in vegan cooking, but honestly, after going vegan, I'd stocked up on so many other cookbooks that I just forgot about this beloved recipe until last week. I had extra tofu in the fridge and lots of Vegg powder in the pantry. So I veganized the recipe using Vegg eggs in place of chicken eggs:

My first bite brought me back to the early days. Those were simpler times when I only made a few things over and over. Now I rarely ever make the same thing twice. This may be one of my all-time favorite ways to eat tofu and it's so easy! You just dip it in faux eggs (I used Vegg powder, but a mix of cornstarch and soymilk would work too) and then dip it into a mix of bread crumbs, nooch, and parsley, and then you fry it up. Delicious!

On another note, I've been asked by my Farmie friend Douglas to mention the Farm's upcoming World Peace Diet Conference with vegan guru Will Tuttle. It's happening May 3rd through 6th at the Farm. Check it out if you can! Attendees will have one-on-one time with the World Peace Diet author, vegan cooking classes, guided meditations, and a fun Farm tour! Click here for more info.

Sriracha Makin' Party!

Ok, so y'all know how much I love sriracha, right? I put that shit on everything! I even have an "I Heart Sriracha" sticker on my car. So when my friend Shauna of Veg'n In the Burbs suggested that we make our own rooster sauce, I was in like Flynn.

I met Shauna at her house on Sunday armed with a 2-pound bag of red jalapeno peppers. She already had everything else we'd need: jars, a canner, garlic, sugar, and vinegar. Here's the recipe we used.

First, we chopped the peppers and threw them — seeds and all — into a big ole pot:

Then Shauna added loads and loads of garlic and a little brown sugar and white vinegar:

Here's everything before we cooked it down:

The mixture is simmered for a few minutes until the peppers are kinda soft, and then it's blended with an immersion blender. When it was ready, we spooned the sriracha into cute little jars and placed them in the water canner.

When you're making rooster sauce, it helps if you have an actual rooster around. Shauna doesn't have a rooster though. But her pet hen Scarlett was a fine stand-in. She wandered into the house from the backyard a few times through the open screen door, and we had to re-direct her outside.

After the canning process, I came out with six jars of sriracha! This stuff is awesome.

It's a little chunkier than the bottled stuff, so it reminds me more of the chili-garlic sauce that also comes in the rooster bottle. But the taste is so amazing! I've been eating it on everything! I'm already halfway through the first jar I opened.

Now that I know how easy this is, I plan to make all kinds of hot pepper sauce this summer. We planted a variety of hot peppers this year — white habanero, regular habanero, Trinidad Scorpions, jalapeno, Thai hot chili, and even ghost peppers! My mouth is gonna be on fire!

Magical Traveling Vegan Potluck

Since November, my friends and I have been taking turns hosting our Magical Traveling Vegan Potluck once a month. Well, almost every month. It was my turn to host in March, but my weekends were just too busy. So we skipped March, and I had my potluck this past weekend. My friends are all bomb-ass vegan cooks, but I really think we all outdid ourselves this time.

I've been itching to pull out the deep fryer for some time, but I really can't bring myself to do it when it's just for little old me. This potluck sounded like the perfect opportunity to make a batch of the Fried Macaroni & Cheese Balls from Hearty Vegan Meals for Monster Appetites:

First, you make a delicious cream cheese and nooch-based macaroni and cheese. Then, you form it into small balls and place those balls in the freezer overnight. The next day, they're battered, fried, and dipped in marinara. I could have eaten this whole plate!

Stephanie (a.k.a. Poopie Bitch on the PPK) brought Pizza Rolls!! You know, like cinnamon rolls with pizza stuff (marinara, Daiya mozzarella, vegan sausage). I would eat these over cinnamon rolls any day!

Mike brought THE WORLD'S BEST VEGAN QUESO. Oh yes, it was really the best! He just melted Daiya cheddar with Ro-Tel and a little almond milk in a Crock Pot. It has the same exact consistency as the Rotel dip I remember from my childhood. This will be my new go-to queso recipe.

Greg brought his famous Tofu Chicken Nuggets. He made these for the last potluck too, and they were a huge hit.

And Greg also brought Vegan Lox and Bagels. Now, I've never had real lox, and I never liked fish, so this kelp powder-based lox spread kinda freaked me out. It tasted so real that I couldn't eat more than a few bites. I'm pretty sure I'm not a fan of kelp.

Misti brought a yummy Pasta Salad. She's not a vegan, and I think this may been her first vegan potluck! I'm so proud of her for whipping up a delicious vegan dish!

It was Cassi's first vegan potluck too. And guess what she made? Vegan Jello Shots in cute-ass little lime rinds! They look like tiny watermelons. She Facebook-messaged me on the day before the potluck asking where she could find vegan jello, and I had no idea what she was up too. Ha! These were spiked with vodka!

For dessert, I had to make more use of that deep fryer. So I made the Maple Bacon Donuts from Hearty Vegan Meals for Monster Appetites. The donuts are flavored with real maple syrup and maple extract, and they're sprinkled with bacon bits! Biting into one was like biting into a waffle coated with maple syrup and bacon on the side.

Leslie brought a Fruit Pizza! It had a lemon cookie crust, a layer of cream cheese, and bananas, strawberries, and blackberries. This was a refreshing healthier treat after all that deep fried stuff and fake cheese:

And a potluck just isn't a potluck with a batch of Stephanie's cupcakes. This time, she made mini Chocolate Cupcakes with Cherry Buttercream. These were so moist and awesome. Stephanie is the world's best baker, just fyi.

Well, that's it. I'm pretty sure my friends and I have the best vegan potlucks in the world.

MemFEAST III

I live in Crosstown, a historic Midtown Memphis neighborhood with a load of blight and a lot of charm. My neighborhood surrounds the 1.4 million-square-foot vacant Sears Crosstown building, the old headquarters for Sears until the late 1990s:

For the past couple of years, Crosstown Arts — a nonprofit with big dreams of redeveloping this monstrous space into some mixture of arts, retail, and housing — has hosted MemFEAST. Participants pay $25 per ticket for a delicious vegan-friendly meal and all-you-can-drink wine or beer, and artists present ideas for potential projects. The diners vote on their fave proposal, and the winner receives $5,000 to bring their art project to life. Pretty cool, huh? Oh, and this year, the whole thing went down in the basement of the eerie, abandoned Crosstown building.

I've been to every MemFEAST since the event began. You can read about past events here and here. In the past, the art project proposals have all centered around public art projects, but tonight, artists proposed film projects centered around Memphis neighborhoods.

Every year's menu is vegan-friendly, but this year's MemFEAST was over the top. The dinner was buffet-style, and I might have gone a little overboard! Check out my (over)loaded plate:

On this plate: Edamame, Sweet Corn, and Farro Risotto, Asado Garlic Thyme Crusted Tempeh, Drunken Portabella, Seitan Satay, Chimi Churri, Cilantro Mint Chutney, Warm Spring Vegetable Salad, Vegan Antipasto with heirloom bean hummus, spring pea butter, olive tapenade, pecan "ricotta," raw and grilled vegetables, croutes and pita, and an assortment of quinoas and lentil "caviar." And the very best part? Butternut Squash and Pumpkin Seed Picadillo Tamale with Carrot-Habanero Puree, Spring Greens, Satsuma and Carrot Salsa, Butter Bean Guacamole, and a Chocolate-Chili Emulsion.

Can you imagine being at a buffet catering to mostly non-vegans with a menu of mostly all vegan food?! Crazy!! I'm pretty sure there was no meat. There were a few vegetarian dishes with cheese though. But no meat!

Oh, and let's not forget dessert! Check out this vegan Raw Strawberry Cobbler with Coconut Crumble and Candied Citrus:

As you can imagine, I'm stuffed. It's hours later, and I'm still miserably full. Crosstown Arts and their chef Miles McMath outdid themselves this year.

And in case you were wondering, the winner of the film proposals was Nicki Newburger, Mark Adams, Alan Spearman, Morgan Jon Fox, and Sean Faust. They proposed a film called April, about a little girl and her favorite neighborhood tree in Soulsville. The tree is named April, and all the kids in the neighborhood meet up there. It's a magic tree. They had my vote! Now, they'll get $5,000 to make their film!

Daiya Wedges!!!!

When I first heard that Daiya was introducing solid block cheeses, I was pretty much beside myself with joy. I already have Daiya shreds running through my veins because I eat so much of it, but the shreds are kinda messy when, say, topping a veggie burger or melting a grilled cheese. Unfortunately, it takes aeons for our Memphis Whole Foods to pick up new products, so there was only one way to obtain my very own Daiya wedges — Vegan Essentials!

Luckily, it's about Easter time, and my parents still give me an Easter basket (yes, I'm 31, and I still get an Easter basket ... yes, I have no shame ... no, I don't even really celebrate Easter). It's always stocked with hard-to-find vegan goodies that my dad picks out from Vegan Essentials and accidentally vegan Easter candy that my mom scours around for in regular stores. So I asked my daddy if he'd include some Daiya Wedges. Look, there they are!

Also included were Peanut Butter Pillows from Chocolate Inspirations, Inc (they're just like vegan Butterfingers!), a few more packages of Vegg powder, and lots of traditional Easter candy that just so happens to be vegan (like Skittles, Sour Patch Kids, and cotton candy). And a fairy glow stick wand (because I'm really just a big ol' kid).

But back to the subject of this post — Daiya Wedges! They make three flavors — Cheddar, Jack Style, and Jalapeno Garlic Havarti. I received the Havarti and the Cheddar, and since the Harvarti is a new flavor for Daiya, I opened that one first:

What to do with it though? First, I decided to go the traditional block cheese route and slice it up for cheese and crackers. I served that with a snacky plate dinner of crudites with garlic hummus and some Pea Hummus from the Happy Herbivore 2012 calendar (peas blended with nooch, garlic, and vegan mayo).

You can't have cheese and crackers without wine! To celebrate this joyous cheesy occasion, I opened a 2005 bottle of some fancy-looking French wine (may not actually be French, but it looks French to me) that I got for my birthday:

The verdict? I love the slighty spicy, super garlicky flavor of this cheese (especially paired with the smoky red wine)! And while it was delicious sliced on crackers, it was a little too soft for that.

So I tried melting some over a bagel for breakfast. Then I topped that bagel with sauteed oyster mushrooms (that I grew myself!) and vegan sausage:

Holy crap, y'all. This harvarti was MADE to be melted. I should have known since meltability is Daiya's strong point. It improved the texture and flavor about tenfold. And this may have been the most satisfying breakfast I've had in a while.

I've not yet tried the Cheddar, but I'm pretty sure I know what I'll make with it first. Can you guess? I'll give you a hint. It starts with a "g" and rhymes "spilled peas."

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Papa Crunk turned 58 today! But I celebrated his birthday on Saturday. My parents baby-sat one of my dogs and one of my cats while I was in Middle Tennessee wrapping up the cookbook photo shoot. Datsun, my 9-year-old lab mix, loves visiting his grandparents! And Akasha, my 9-year-old cat, is on meds twice a day. So they usually watch those two while I'm gone. The other 5 cats and my little pit bull mix, Maynard, stayed home with my friend Greg as a sitter.

Anyway, I had to pick up my babies on Saturday, so Paul and I drove to my parents' house in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Every year for the past three years, my mom has made my dad's favorite sandwich for his birthday — The French Fry Po' Boy!

We discovered these in New Orleans on a family vacay several years ago (thanks, Kittee!). Now, my dad requests them every birthday. It's a hoagie bun stuffed with steak fries, cheese (I used Daiya), lettuce, tomato, and onion. We also add guacamole to ours because we're a family of guac freaks. And I topped my sandwich with pickled jalapenos because those are the bomb (and yes, I can still say "bomb" if I want).

What better to serve with a French fry sandwich than more fries, right? We had sweet potato fries on the side! Carb and grease heaven!

My dad LOVES peanut butter! So my mom made this Peanut Butter Pudding Cake for dessert:

It's cakey on top with a creamy peanut butter sauce on bottom. I ate mine with a generous scoop of So Delicious Coconut Milk Turtle Trails ice cream.

Here's a fun family shot of my dad, me, and my pup Datsun:

Happy Birthday, Daddy!