HAPPY VEGAN PIZZA DAY!

Manfriend and I will be celebrating at 3pm with Minneapolis Vegan Meetup! We're all going to Pizza Luce in downtown Minneapolis. Manfriend works for this company and we are more than excited to stuff our faces with delicious vegan pizza that has Follow Your Heart vegan cheese on top (aaaand maybe some of their vegan rinotta cheese as well).

Some other places you can get your vegan pizza eating on in Minnesota today (and they are all excellent):

1. Psycho Suzie's in NE Minneapolis (has Daiya vegan cheese)

2. Fresh Picked Pizza in Shoreview (has Daiya)

3. ZPizza in Roseville (has Daiya and they have a deal going on today where a small vegan pizza is only $5, what uppppp)

4. Galactic Pizza in Uptown Minneapolis (has Daiya)

5. Pizza Luce (all locations in MN-click the link for the closest one to you!)

6. Mesa Pizza in Dinkytown Minneapolis (vegan pizza by the slice, no vegan cheese substitute but still fucking tasty)

OR

You could make it at home or buy one of the following at your local Whole Foods or co op:

1. Tofurkey Vegan Pizza (has Daiya!)

2. Amy's Roasted Vegetable Pizza or any other pizza with the leaf thingy on the page (best cheeseless vegan pizza in my opinion)

3. Whole Foods makes vegan pizza now with Daiya and it's magical

4. NYSlices vegan cheeseless pizza

Get eating I says!!

New look to website!

You guys like it? Because I used one finger to do it. Heck yes for free layouts.

Cramp bark for cramp pain.

This stuff is the shit. If you're not interested in taking OTC pain medication to ease your period pains, cramp bark works wonders, you can barely taste it when taking a shot of it AND it works really fast. I can safetly say it works faster than any medication I've taken.
You can apparently buy capsules of the stuff, which I guess works just as well from what I hear. It just takes a little longer to digest.
I have this stuff: Click!
It is wonderful. You drop about 1/2 tsp in a shot glass of water and down it. It kind of has a very, very vague taste of liquorice. From what I understand, cramp bark qualms the uterus' contractions when it is shedding the uterine lining, so it's some pretty wonderful stuff. I would recommend this to anyone that doesn't like taking pain medication (I didn't). Yes!

MN Vegan

The Bad Waitress in Minneapolis

The Bad Waitress is an amazing diner that has several vegan options on the menu and a delicious looking chocolate cake just waiting to be eaten by me (someday).

This place has 50's diner style decor with great music and a freaking magical brunch menu with several vegan options. Basically, there is no waitress, just someone who brings you food and cleans the table. You write down your order on a order tab that's on your table and bring it up to the cash register. Write down your table location, and then wait for delicious eats to come to you! We were at the Frankenstein table. Hee.

Please see the website for more deets!: Clicky!

First, Manfriend and I took notice of the fact that they had a vegan shake on the menu, so it was critical that we ordered this. It is pictured below.

I was scrumptious! I don't know how anyone could mess up a shake, but I'm sure it could happen. Tasted like a vanilla shake to me.

On one occasion, I ordered the Death Valley Veggie Wrap pictured above. Chalk full of delicious crunchy veggies, this was pretty damn good, even as a leftover!

The two dishes pictured above were the tempeh/tofu scrambles we had once when we came for breakfast. They were kind of bland, but add a little salt and hot sauce and this dish was simple but tasty!

All in all, this place is kind of pricey but the coffee is good, the food is decent and the restaurant itself it really fun to visit! It has that old 50's diner appeal, which I like a lot. I haven't tried their chocolate cake yet but by the power of the sugar addict in me, it will happen. We also have many items on the menu left to try and I honestly can't wait!

The Bad Waitress

2 E 26th St

Minneapolis, MN 55404

MN Vegan

Lookit!

"Santa" aka my parents (shh don't tell them I know) got a me some silicon cupcake liners for XMAS. Yay!! No more waste! So I made low fat vegan pumpkin chocolate chip muffins with them and it was SO CONVENIENT and non-wasteful that my head exploded.

Have a looky (not at my exploded head, at the muffins):

Ohhhh yeeaaahh (Barry White voice). You know you want a taste. Sorry, they're long gone, people.

Recently, I took Manfriend out for a fancy happy hour at Senor Wong in downtown St Paul where they have taco Tuesdays ($2 tacos people!) and the vegan "mockos" on the menu are included in this awesome deal. So fucking good. The "mockos" are deliciously seasoned, spicy as hell and they come with a lime to spritz on them and a slice of avocado!

Sorry the picture is so dark, but there's our "mockos" and the edamame appetizer on the left in a steam basket. We washed it all down with some very strong drinks (below). I was not fit to drive after all of that and Manfriend drove us home, but it's nothing a walk in the skyway, food and water couldn't fix.

Pictured here is the Shanghai Lemonade on the left and the Donkey Punch on the right. These drinks are not for pussies though so be aware that they are extremely delicious and alcoholic at the same time. Beware, I says!

I will definitely be going back to Senor Wong. It is easily my favorite happy hour joint in St Paul, near my work and it's freaking awesome that they have vegan items labeled on their menu. Go now!!

Senor Wong

111 Kellogg Boulevard East
Saint Paul, MN 55101

MN Vegan

Twofer Weekend: Birthday Dinner!

Lucky you guys. I'm totally feeling generous this week and am going to update AGAIN. YAP.

Ok, I turned 24 recently, and though the vegan restaurant community out here in Minneapolis is pretty good, there has been a lack of fancy vegan-friendly restaurants (mainly because they're all closing). We used to have Cafe Agri, which was so quaint and swanky and Cafe Brenda, which closed after numerous years in business. It was so nice to have them around, though I am thankful for the remaining swanky restaurants that have vegan options (for example: Senor Wong's and the restaurant I'm about to review, etc.). OK!

French Meadow Bakery Cafe is a fantastic place to celebrate your birthday dinner. They have a good amount of vegan selections, great drinks and the occasional vegan dessert (usually the vegan turtle cake is present in the bakery case and it is fucking amazing). The menu you order from is on the wall for breakfast and lunch, and for dinner they have a "specials" menu that rotates every day and their regular menu.

So, again, we went here for my birthday and it was amazing! I had the squash gnocchi and Manfriend had the this delicious Thai tempeh sandwich.

Gnocchi is pictured on the left. The flavors of this dish were so intense! The bitterness of the greens and the chewy, sweet gnocchi were absolutely delectable! Perfect combination. It had this buttery aftertaste that was so satisfying, I ate it all. I also love huge chunks of mushrooms so this dish was right up my alley. Manfriend's Thai tempeh sandwich was surrounded by a salad of mixed greens with a vinaigrette dressing. The tempeh was spicy! Holy balls was it spicy. Very tasty though.

Also! They bring a basket of bread out before you get your meal and some of the bread is vegan, some is not. It's a good thing to know before you up and eat bacon because one of the slices apparently had some in it!

I definitely recommend this place. It's nestled in the heart of Uptown Minneapolis on Lyndale Ave and nearly EVERYTHING I have had here I would get again, hands down.

French Meadow Bakery Cafe

2610 Lyndale Ave S

Minneapolis, MN

MN Vegan

Vegan XMAS Take Two!

Now, I've showed you what I made for XMAS in my last post. Now is the time I show you how generous my family is and how they accomodate Manfriend and I.

First up!: Vegan bacon cheddar dip. Bacon cheddar dip in my pregan days was a staple of every XMAS eve with my dad's side of the family. It's not the best thing for you, but in my opinion, it is essential to XMAS eve. That's why we veganized it this year! Vegans are so lucky to have Daiya.

To make, you will need the following:

And that's it. Fuck yes!

Mix half the jar of Nayonaise with about 3/4 the package of daiya, add as many Bacos (they're vegan, people) as you deem necessary and garlic powder to taste.

Put that shit on a chip and eat it. EAT IT I SAYS. You will love.

Next up, for XMAS dinner. My aunt made us vegan lasagna from a recipe I (regrettably) haven't asked her for yet. Let me just say this though...the filling involved spinach, tofu AND cream cheese and it was topped with mozzarella Daiya. Have a looky:

Again, probably not the best thing for you but if Manfriend is begging you to get the recipe, you'd best believe this was drool-worthy. Yap.

To close this post, I wanted to share something with you. I recently bought some vegan make-up from Bare Escentuals and had a consultation in the store where she make-upped me and I bought a whole crapton of beauty supplies that this girl claimed were cruelty free. Well, they sold me the set they try to sell everyone and 2 of the 3 make-up brushes had goat hair. I found this out by going to crueltyfreeface.com (Melisser Elliot's very helpful cruelty-free make-up site! Woooo! I lobe her!). I emailed the company and they were (surprisingly) very willing to give me a set of their synthetic make-up brushes (shown below). How nice! And I am very grateful-these brushes do the trick without the cruelty. Yes!

Thank you, Bare Escentuals!

MN Vegan

Vegan XMAS Eats Part One!: DESSERT

XMAS is so damn huge in terms of food for my family, I'm going to have to break the yumminess into separate entries.

For dessert, I made what I thought was going to end up being a vegan peanut buttery 7 layer bar. It ended up being more of a peanut butter cup bar, so I'm going to call this one Vegan Peanut Butter Cup Bars by Sarah.

Now, when I was pregan, I made something called a marshmellow chocolate pie and it was scrumptious. I was curious if Dandies could pull off the same kind of texture and melt just like regular marshmellows (this recipe involved melting marshmellows into chocolate and using the mixture as a pie filling).

Well let's get on with the freaking tutorial. Here's the crap you'll need:

Crust

1/2 cup of margarine (Earth Balance is what I used)

9 oz box of vanilla cookies, crushed

Filling

3/4 cup of creamy peanut butter

3/4 package of soft silken tofu

Splash of soy milk/almond milk/your favorite non-dairy milk

Package of Dandies marshmellows

Vegan chocolate chips (I had white and dark vegan chocolate chips, white chocolate chips are pictured below! Got them at Ethique Nouveau in south Minneapolis!)

If you wanted to have this in the bars, peanuts! Although I didn't do this.

Just a note before I explain how to do this: you can top this with any delicious candy or nuts you can think of. You can also substitute 3/4 cup chocolate chips and melt them if you wanted to make this a strictly chocolate dessert.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees!!

Step one:

Make the crust! Melt the margarine and grind those cookies in a food processor until it is just crumbs. Add the melted margarine and process until combined. Press well into a square casserole dish. I think mine below is an 8"x8". Pour some of the chocolate chips and other numnums you have on top of this. Put this in the oven for ten minutes or until the chocolate is just melted.

Step two:

Melt the marshmellows! Get your sauce pan going on the stove at medium heat and add your "milk" and the marshmellows and stir constantly until the marshmellows are mostly melted in. The second picture below is how it should look when you're done melting them.

Step three:

Let the marshmellow mixture cool to lukewarm temperature. Pour into a food processor or get a blender and combine it with the peanut butter and the tofu. You could stop here and chill the peanut butter mixture for delicious peanut butter pudding. But naaaah, you want to make some damn bars doncha? DONCHA!??!

Step four:

Pour peanut buttery mixture onto your crust when it's done in the oven, top with chocolate chips and whatever other numnums you got lying around.

Hell yeah. This shit went so fast, as in, people ate it! People didn't even suspect it was vegan. Yummmm!

MN Vegan