Another one of my go-to, get-it-on-the-table-quick meals has been the Cheater Pad Thai from The Happy Herbivore Cookbook. I double or triple the sauce and add tons of veggies. I also use quinoa linguine in place of the rice noodles for a little extra fiber and protein. This stuff may not be terribly authentic, but damn, it’s so good! If quick and easy vegan recipes are your thing, I highly recommend The Happy Herbivore Cookbook. It’s great for those nights when making dinner seems absolutely impossible.

This apple crisp is my own creation, but it still needs some tweaking. I think it has good potential, though. It was tasty, but lacking any “wow!” factor. It just needs some tweaks, then it will be good to go.

Its wow-lessness did not keep me from eating a ton of it, though.

These gluten-free muffins are also one of my own creations, and I’ll be posting the recipe soon. I’ve been experimenting with gluten-free muffins on and off, and the results can be hit-or-miss. These were a hit. They’re made with blue cornmeal, carob chips, and gluten-free flour. I’ve really been loving carob lately. Back in the ’60s and ’70s, carob was slated to be the Chocolate of the Future. Sadly, it didn’t work out. That’s okay, though. I can still make these muffins and dream.

This was Tuesday night’s dinner—broccoli, carrots, pineapple, edamame, and brown rice smothered in a delicious peanut sauce. The recipe is old-school. I think I came up with it in 2004 or 2005. It’s a little sweet and a little savory, and I think peanut butter and pineapple were made for each other. And you don’t just have to use this sauce for stir-fries (is that the correct way to pluralize stir-fry?). Toss it with pasta, dunk spring rolls into it, or use it as a salad dressing. Use it anywhere you need a peanutty-pineapply flavor.

Poor Girl’s Peanut Sauce

1/2 cup peanut butter 3 tablespoons pineapple juice 3 tablespoons tamari or soy sauce (liquid aminos work, too) 3 tablespoons agave or maple syrup 1/2 teaspoon chili powder 2 cloves garlic Dash black pepper.

Place all ingredients in a blender and process until smooth (a Magic Bullet-type blender works well for this). Alternately, if your garlic is well-minced, you can whisk everything together in a bowl until smooth, adding the liquid ingredients to the peanut butter a little at a time, until smooth. If you like a thinner sauce, add more pineapple juice.

Makes about 1-1/4 cups.

Few things beat a good mac ‘n cheeze. I posted this recipe a while back, but I like to avoid too many recipe that call for large amounts of fake cheeze or fake meat. Not only are those things expensive, not everyone like to eat the fake stuff all the time. I like to keep it simple and cheap, so I came up with this. I use quinoa macaroni to keep it gluten-free, but you can use any small pasta you like.

It’s the chickpeas, nutritional yeast and dry mustard that make this mac cheezy. No Daiya necessary. Also, it’s not loaded down with margarine like a lot of vegan cheeze sauces.

The mac in the picture has some Daiya sprinkled on top, but I usually don’t do that; I just happened to have some in the fridge that needed to be used up, so I threw it on top during the last 10 minutes of baking.

Baked Mac ‘n Cheeze

1 8-oz box small pasta (macaroni, shells, spirals, penne) 1 15-oz can chickpeas (garbanzo beans), drained and rinsed 1 cup unsweetened plain almond milk 3/4 cup nutritional yeast 3 tablespoons white or yellow miso 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon dry mustard (powder) 3/4 teaspoon paprika 1 teaspoon minced garlic 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper 1 tablespoon tahini Dash hot sauce

1 recipe breadless crumbs

Preheat oven to 350F. Cook pasta according to package directions, drain and rinse and set aside. In a blender combine everything else (except the breadless crumbs) and blend until totally smooth. This is your cheeze sauce. In a large bowl, combine cooked pasta and cheeze sauce, stirring gently until combined. Transfer the mixture to an oiled 8×8-inch glass baking dish. Sprinkle the breadless crumbs over the top and bake uncovered for 25-30 minutes.

Saturday night I decided to make the Smoked Tempeh Pizza With Carrot Pesto. I used tofu and mushrooms in place of the tempeh, because that’s what I had, and I substituted walnuts for the olive oil in the pesto. The results were delicious, and the most impressive part was the crust! I’ve tried making gluten-free crusts before with very mixed results (mostly bad), and this crust was simply perfect. It’s thin and a little crunchy—just my kind of crust. It’s made with brown and white rice flour, rice bran, and flaxseeds—very simple and very allergen friendly. I’ll be using this crust recipe a lot in the future!

Another thing I’ve made recently is this lovely dessert:

I made Chef AJ’s raw brownie recipe, pressed it into a pie dish lined with waxed paper, and made an “icing” out of almond butter, maple syrup and cocoa powder. Raw chocolate pie! It was so good!

I also have a few recipes I’ve been working on that I’ll post soon, including one that consists of rice pasta tossed in a coconut milk cream sauce topped with a mess of artichoke hearts, sundried tomatoes, capers, onions and garlic. It was delicious, and Kevin told me that I was allowed to “make this a lot,” so it’s definitely a winner! I’ll have the recipe up as soon as I have it finalized (I like to make things at least a couple of times before I post the recipe).

Also, I’ll have a recipe up soon for this lovely casserole, made with quinoa, chickpeas and veggies (oh, my!).

Most of the time when I make mac ‘n cheeze, I use a simple nutritional yeast sauce with no fancy ingredients, but I’ve been getting bored with my usual recipe, and I wanted to make an extra authentic version for our Christmas day lunch this year, so I came up with this. It’s way richer than what I normally make, but it’s so good! And it’s easy to make ahead–just do all the stove-top steps the night before, pour into the casserole dish, store in the fridge, then bake the next day. Simple!

Fancy Pantsy Mac ‘n Cheeze

1 7-ounce package brown rice or whole wheat pasta (spirals, macaroni, or penne works best) 1-1/2 cups shredded vegan cheeze (Daiya works well. Use cheddar or a mixture of cheddar and mozzarella) 1/3 cup nutritional yeast 1-1/4 cups unsweetened plain almond milk 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon ground mustard 1 tablespoon cornstarch Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Cook the pasta according to package directions. Drain and return to a medium sized pot. Add the remaining ingredients and cook over low heat, stirring constantly until the cheeze is melted and the sauce is smooth. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.

Preheat oven to 350F. Pour the mac and cheeze into a greased 8×8-inch casserole dish and bake for 30 minutes.

If you’re in a big hurry, you can skip the baking step and serve the mac right off the stovetop. It will still be good, but baking it adds that special, I-actually-made-an-effort-with-dinner-tonight touch. You could also add a pinch of turmeric to make it extra yellow, but I’m not so picky about the color as long as it tastes good.

We can’t run a Fort Worth vegan blog without talking about Spiral Diner at some point. It’s a little hard, though – what can we say that hasn’t been said already? Spiral Diner, Fort Worth’s 100% vegan restaurant on Magnolia Avenue in the Near Southside, is the promised land for Fort Worth vegans. It’s a landmark, one that’s beloved by vegans and non-vegans alike. It has a wide-ranging menu full of variety and flavor, a cool staff, a fantastic location in a hip indie neighborhood, and tons of character. We realize most long-time FW vegans know about Spiral, but since we’re hoping this blog also encourages new vegans in Fort Worth, we need to post about Spiral.

Virtually everything we’ve tried at Spiral has been delicious. It’s some of the most flavorful vegan food you’ll find anywhere, let alone in Texas. There are incredible sandwiches, like the legendary Jamaican Jerk BBQ…

Or the Chopped BBQ…

Awesome salads like the Taco Salad…

Or the BBQ Salad…

Tasty Mexican dishes like the nachos…

And the quesadillas…

There’s the chili…

The smoothies…

And the frighteningly tasty desserts.

Even the appetizers are engaging, like the flavorful nacho cheese sauce (seen here with corn tortillas).

On Sundays, there’s even Biscuits & Gravy and an all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast!

Seriously – just go and take a look at the menu. Whatever your taste, it’s likely that Spiral will have ten things that satisfy you.

What’s more, they even do custom cakes:

(That’s actually the cake from our own wedding party – we had a 100% vegan wedding party catered by Spiral – check the spread in the pic below.)

One could go on and on about Spiral, but you get the idea. It’s ridiculously tasty 100% vegan food – in Fort Worth! The presence of Spiral serves to dispel the “Cowtown” stereotypes of this city, and has blazed a path for ever-increasing vegan dining options in Fort Worth. We salute you, Spiral Diner – you’ve made being a vegan in Fort Worth downright pleasant.

Spiral Diner 1314 W. Magnolia 817-3-EatVeg spiraldiner.com

So, it’s not really cold yet, but we can wish, right? And with colder weather comes heartier appetites for comfort foods like pasta, potatoes, and piles of tempeh or seitan over rice, covered in sauce.

Last winter when it was so bitterly cold, I came up with this recipe. It’s reminiscent of Hamburger Helper, but without the meat, dairy and general processed grossness of its pre-packaged predecessor.

For the pasta, I used rice penne, but rotini or macaroni would work well, too.

Hamburger Helper’s Awesomer Vegan Sister

2 cups uncooked pasta 1 small onion, diced 1/2 cup unsweetened plain almond milk 12 oz package frozen “beef” crumbles (Boca is vegan) 3/4 teaspoon cajun seasoning 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper

Cheeze Sauce 1 cup unsweetened plain almond milk 1/4 cup nutritional yeast 1/4 cup flour 1 tablespoon garlic powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 tablespoon paprika 1/4 teaspoon vegan mayo 1 teaspoon cornstarch

Cook the pasta according to the package directions.

While the pasta is cooking, make the cheeze sauce. In a small sauce pan, whisk together all the sauce ingredients and cook over medium heat, whisking constantly. When it just starts to boil, lower the heat and cook until thickened. Set aside.

Cook the onion, crumbles, and cajun seasoning in a lightly oiled skillet until onion is translucent and crumbles are heated through. Add the drained, cooked pasta, almond milk, ground pepper, and cheeze sauce and cook over low heat until everything is heated through. Serves 2-4.