Our sister site, Fort Worthology, is hosting a cool vegan event on Sunday, April 15th:

Fort Worthology hosts a traveling roadshow of vegan food and bike advocacy, visiting Fort Worth from Portland, Oregon! Please join us on April 15th from 7pm to 9pm for Dinner and Bikes, a traveling road show of vegan food and bicycle inspiration. Vegan chef Joshua Ploeg (author of In Search of the Lost Taste) will delight with an extensive buffet, and bike journalist Elly Blue (author of Taking the Lane, Bikenomics, Our Bodies, Our Bikes, and co-founder of PDX By Bike) and publisher/filmmaker Joe Biel (founder of Microcosm Publishing and Cantankerous Titles) will present short videos and a slideshow about bicycle culture, activism, and the economy. Fort Worthology author Kevin Buchanan will also talk briefly about Fort Worth bike projects and advocacy. There will be time for questions, discussion of local issues, and perusing of the traveling bookstore.

This should be a fun event – we really look forward to trying Joshua Ploeg’s cuisine! Dinner & Bikes will be held at Avoca Coffee on Magnolia Avenue in the Near Southside, from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM on Sunday, April 15th. Tickets are $10 (which includes it all – dinner and presentations/films), and are available now.

Just thought we’d drop a line to let y’all know we have three cookie recipes in the Winter issue (issue No. 2) of Chickpea Magazine! The recipes are by Steph and the photos are by Kevin. You can snag a copy here or here.

Snag a copy and enjoy all the awesome recipes and articles! We purchased issue No. 1 through their Kickstarter campaign and thoroughly enjoyed it.

This post was supposed to go up on Friday. Oops.

Ever had Soy Curls? They’re pretty awesome. Not really healthy, but awesome. I can never find them anywhere around here, so I always make sure to add a few bags to my order whenever I place an online order at Food Fight Grocery. The main reason I like them is because they kind of remind me of seitan but without the gut-busting gluten and with a slightly better texture. You buy Soy Curls dried, like TVP, and reconstitute them with hot water or veggie broth to bring them back to life. Despite basically being TVP, I think Soy Curls have a better flavor and texture than plain ol’ TVP.

Once they’re reconstituted, you can do pretty much anything you want with Soy Curls—bake them, fry them, use them in a stew or stir-fry, make tacos—anything you’d do with any meat analogue, really. These are really the only fake meat I eat with any frequency because most are loaded with gluten and weird soy. I’m pretty sure Soy Curls qualify as ‘weird soy’ as well, but no one’s perfect, right?

The first thing I did when my Soy Curls arrived was make BBQ Soy Curls. I reconstituted them with hot veggie broth, adding a little nutritional yeast, black pepper and onion powder. Then I drained them and stirred in a healthy amount of Stubb’s BBQ sauce and baked them in a glass dish at 400F for about 20 minutes, stirring after 10 minutes. I served them on top of a pile of brown rice with a mound of steamed broccoli. Amazing! I love BBQ’d anything (especially BBQ tofu), and the sauce works really well with these, and baking the curls give them a more toothsome texture.

Next, I made vegan carnitas. I sort of followed this recipe, but not really since I wasn’t using seitan, and I added way more veggies (onions, red bell pepper, corn) and served them in corn tortillas. I used Green’s Discovery Gluten-Free Amber Ale for the beer in my carnitas. These turned out great, and I saved the leftover “beer-broth” that I cooked the curls in to made some slightly different carnitas again last night.

Soy Curls are hard to find around DFW, but several of the food carts we’ve visited in Austin and Portland use them with tasty results. Have you tried them? If so, how do you like to prepare them?

What? Another friggin’ cookie recipe?

Yes. I promise I will post some non-cookie (heck, non-dessert) recipes soon. Promise!

Last night I set out to make my signature White Diamond Cookies. Now take a look at these cookies. Do they look like chocolately delicious White Diamond Cookies? Do they?

No, they don’t. Half-way through mixing the ingredients, I realized I was flat out of cocoa powder. The really sad part? I had been at Central Market earlier, and I KNEW I was going to be making these cookies later. Good job, Steph. Good job. Most of the time I have three or four half-used containers of cocoa powder lying around. But no such luck this time.

So standing there in the kitchen, with a half-mixed batch of cookies and no option to turn back, I had to ask myself an important question—the kind of question that makes or breaks a good chef—what the hell do I do now?

After seconds of reflection, I decided to press on and explore new culinary territory. I decided I’d just omit the cocoa powder, increase the flour a tiny bit, and stick to just semi-sweet chips and omit the white ones.

The results were tasty. Unfortunately, these are not gluten-free, but I don’t see why you couldn’t use a gluten-free flour blend like Bob’s Red Mill or your own mixture.

Lesson learned last night? Always, always, always buy cocoa powder. Always. Every time you’re at the grocery store just buy a box, even if you already have a gross at home—then you’ll never have the problem I had last night.

Accidental Vegan Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1-1/2 cups natural style peanut butter
• 1/2 cup almond or soy milk
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch mixed with 1/4 cup water
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1-1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350F. Cream together sugars, milk and peanut butter with an electric beater (or stand mixer). Beat in cornstarch mixture and vanilla. In a separate bowl, sift together flour and baking soda. Add to peanut butter mixture and stir until well mixed. Stir in the white chips. Form the dough into tablespoon-sized balls, flatten them in your hand into cookie-shaped rounds. Place on a lightly oiled (or parchment-paper-lined) cookie sheet and bake 8-10 minutes. Let them cool for a couple of minutes on the cookie sheet, then transfer to a rack to cool completely.

Remember those awesome Gluten-Free Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies from a few weeks ago? Well, this recipe is a variation on that, only with a gingery, almond kick. They’s not crispy like a traditional gingersnap, but if you rolled the dough thinner and made cutout cookies, you might get something close to a crispy gingersnap.

Just like their peanut butter cousin, these cookies are vegan, gluten-free and oil-free. And amazing! Feel free to increase the ginger or add some cloves and nutmeg (I would have, but I was out). And if your ginger and cinnamon have been sitting around in your cupboard for a while, I would highly recommend running to the nearest place with a bulk spice section and stocking up on fresh spices – you really need the freshest spices to get the right taste in a cookie like this.

Vegan Ginger Cookies

• 1/2 cup almond butter
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon molasses
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 2 tablespoons almond milk
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• Scant 1/4 teaspoon salt
• Heaping 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 cup Bob’s Red Mill All Purpose Gluten Free Baking Flour
• 2 tablespoons quinoa flour

• 2 tablespoons oat flour

• 1/4 cup sugar (approximate)

Preheat oven to 300F. Whisk together almond butter, brown sugar, maple syrup and molasses until smooth. Whisk together the remaining ingredients (except the 1/4 cup sugar) in a separate bowl, then gently fold into the almond butter mixture (a rubber spatula works well for this) until just combined. Place the 1/4 cup sugar in a blender or food processor (a Magic Bullet works well) and process until fine. Transfer sugar to a shallow bowl. Scoop dough with a tablespoon measure and form into a ball. Roll in the sugar, then place on a lightly oiled or parchment-lined baking sheet and flatten with your fingertips. Bake for 12 minutes. Do not over-bake. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for five minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely. Makes about 15 small cookies.

Boy, I’m smart. For some reason, I was thinking Vegan MoFo was in November, but no, it’s RIGHT NOW! Time to panic, right?

So, while we gather our thoughts and prepare to dive headlong into the Vegan Month of Food, here are some pics of vegan eats we’ve had around town.

The Soul Food Plate, which is the current Blue Plate at Spiral Diner.

Vegan Peanut Butter and Jelly cake from Stir Crazy Baked Goods at Avoca Coffee. Definitely one of my favorites from them.

Tofu Banh Mi from Nammi Truck.

Vegan Breakfast Boat from Yes! Taco. One of the few things that really make me say Yes! to breakfast is this.

Another cake from Stir Crazy – chocolate this time!

Now’s that time.

I’ve had cookies on my mind a lot lately, but I’m picky about my cookies. There are several criteria a cookie must meet before it goes into my mouth (unless I’m just really desperate, of course).

• It must be vegan (this criterion must always be met).
• It must be gluten-free (sometimes this one falls by the wayside if something looks particularly yummy ).
• It must be whole-grain or mostly whole grain.
• It should be low- or no-oil.
• White sugar should be minimal or none.
• It must totally rock my tastebuds.

So with all of the that in mind, I present you with the awesomest peanut butter cookies I’ve encountered. They are all these things and more. And if you look at the ingredients, they’re not all that bad for you. Peanut butter. Oats. Maple syrup. Quinoa flour.

Speaking of quinoa flour, if you can’t find it or don’t want to buy it, just increase the Bob’s All Purpose Gluten Free Flour or oat flour. I think the quinoa flour adds a little something special to the cookies, but they’re your cookies – do what you want. And if you do want to use quinoa flour, the cheapest way to get it is the bulk bin at Central Market. It’s not cheap flour, but at least in the bulk bin you can get just what you need and spend as little cash as possible.

Enjoy these cookies with a big ol’ glass of almond milk. And stay tuned – I’m working on a ginger-almond version.

Gluten-Free Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies

• 1/2 cup natural-style peanut butter, well stirred
  
• 1/2 cup maple syrup
  
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
  
• 1/2 cup Bob’s Red Mill All Purpose Gluten Free Flour
  
• 1/4 cup quinoa flour
  
• 1/4 cup oat flour (just grind up oats in your blend until they look like flour)
  
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
  
• Heaping 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Preheat oven to 300F. Whisk together peanut butter, maple syrup and vanilla until smooth. Whisk together the remaining ingredients in a separate bowl, then gently fold into the peanut butter mixture (a rubber spatula works well for this) until just combined. On a lightly oiled or parchment-lined baking sheet, drop dough with a tablespoon measuring spoon. If desired, press a cross-hatch pattern into the top of the cookie with a damp fork. Bake for 12 minutes. Do not over-bake. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for five minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely. Makes about 15 small cookies.

About a year ago, I learned about green smoothies watching The Chef and the Dietitian videos, and now it’s rare that I make a smoothie that doesn’t have something green in it.

Sound gross? It’s not if you make it right. The key is the use milder tasting greens, like baby spinach (many people like to use kale or dandelion greens), as well as using frozen ripe bananas and plenty of frozen fruit. A healthy dose of cocoa powder doesn’t hurt either.

I had the hardest time getting a decent picture of this thing – I’m not the one with the photography skills around here! I threw some raw cacao nibs on top of mine for extra awesomeness. Did you know that 1 ounce of cacao nibs has over 300% of your daily needs for iron? Take that, red meat!

I’ve been having a green smoothie for breakfast every day for the last month, and I love it! It’s a great way to get a tons of healthy foods into your diet first thing in the morning. This is the recipe I’ve developed to suit my tastes. These measurements are approximate – feel free to modify as needed. And just so you know, I don’t have a fancy Vitamix – my blender’s an Osterizer from Target, so you don’t even need any out-of-the-ordinary equipment!

And if you are not yet brave enough to make your own green smoothies, Spiral Diner has some excellent ones on their Blue Plate menu right now!

Can’t Taste the Greens Smoothie

• 1 cup almond milk (or other vegan milk – I use unsweetened Almond Breeze)
• 4 pitted soft medjool dates (soaked at least 1 hour if dried) OR 2-1/2 tablespoons maple syrup or coconut palm sugar
• handful fresh spinach (or kale or dandelion greens)
• 1-2 tablespoons flax seed meal or hemp seeds
• 1 frozen, sliced ripe banana
• 1-2 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 1 cup frozen blueberries and/or strawberries
• 1/3 cup crushed ice (optional)
• More almond milk, as needed

Place the milk, dates, spinach, flax, cocoa and banana in a blender and process until smooth. Add the remaining ingredients and blend until completely smooth. If the smoothie has trouble turning over in the blender, add more milk, a little at a time, until it processes completely. You may also need to stop the blender completely and stir the mixture around, since the frozen fruit can get stuck together sometimes.

And for you Fort Worth folks, I’ve found that Sprouts has the best medjool dates – the ones I’ve bought there are super soft and blend excellently. You can buy pre-packed bulk ones in their bulk section. Check the date on the label and buy the freshest ones you can find – older ones tend to be drier! Your smoothies will be better for it!