The third installment of Veggie Conquest took place this past weekend and it was another smashing success.

In case you missed the introductory blog post, Veggie Conquest is an amateur cooking competition similar to Top Chef... except that it's not televised. Oh yeah, and it's ENTIRELY VEGAN! The event is held monthly, and you can buy a chef ticket in order to be part of the competition or a taster ticket for an excuse to stuff your face. There are generally about six chefs participating and sixty-five tasters in attendance. One week prior all ticket holders are notified of the "secret ingredient" and course to be prepared so that menus and taste buds can be primed.

This time around it was cranberry dessert and the submissions were incredible. Though not normally a big fan of cranberries, I was surprised to find how sweet and delicious they were incorporated into such delights as "Double Cranberry Cinnamon Oatmeal Nut Bar," "Almond Crusted Chocolate Cranberry Mousse," "Cran Velvet Cake," and the inventive (and winning) "Rice Crepe with Cran-Ginger Sauce." I was not as much of a fan of the raw submission, "Cranbanapple Parfait"; the texture was too much like a runny pudding for my taste. Neither was I impressed by the "Swedish-Style Charoset," submitted more as comedic performance art than recipe contender.

As most vegans know, the biggest thing to hit our culinary universe this year is Daiya. It's a totally yummy vegan cheese that melts and shreds just like dairy cheese. (Check out SuperVegan's love-letter, er, review.)

We thought we'd take a look behind the curtain and find out more about the wizards behind this new Canada-based cheesy phenomenon. Here they are, the Daiya Dudes. Andre Kroecher is the mad-scientist inventor of Daiya, and co-founder of the company with business-savvy Greg Blake.

SuperVegan: Why did you set out to create vegan cheese and what were your main criteria?

Andre Kroecher: I have always really loved dishes such as pizza, lasagna, quesadillas, burritos, which typically have cheese in them. Being a vegan though, I found that simply removing the cheese from these left me terribly disappointed. I tried replacing the cheese with extra salt and olive oil, but to me the taste and texture is just not nearly as satisfying.

Having a background of more than 10 years experience as a product developer, I had a real passion for trying to invent a vegan cheese that might actually have the properties of real cheese. I also love imported exotic cheeses and other European cheeses like havarti, so I decided to just start experimenting to see if I could make something that would satisfy me more than the other [products] out there. I tend to naturally approach things in an unconventional way and this yielded some unexpected results. Eventually, I developed a block of something quite like a soft havarti style cheese.

Greg Blake: When I tried the havarti style cheese Andre made I was convinced that it had commercial potential, but what would be even better would be to create a cheddar and mozzarella style vegan cheese that actually tasted, shredded, sliced and melted like dairy-based cheese.

Preheat your Broiler. Cut heads of broccoli in half and blanch in boiling water for 4 minutes. Dry on Paper towels and place on a greased cookie sheet (Figure A.) Rub each floret with Veganaise and sprinkle with salt, pepper and nutritional yeast (Figure B). Place under Broiler for 10 minutes or until blackened.(Figure C) Serve as a delicious side dish to your meal (Figure D).

I didn't invent this recipe, but I'd be hard pressed to tell you where it originated from. I know it was in a Men's magazine; this is my veganized version of that recipe.

This is one of Supervegan's posts for Vegan MoFo 2009.

I've got Peter Gabriel's song "Big Time" stomping through my head. Here's why: The all-vegan cookbook by Chef Tal Ronnen, Conscious Cook: Delicious Meatless Recipes to Change the Way You Eat (which was released on October 6), is now number three on Amazon's bestseller list and number two on Barnes & Noble's.

I'm on my way, I'm making it: Big Time!

Chef Tal is beloved by many, but perhaps the most influential in the Tal Fanclub is Oprah Winfrey. (I'm not one to really care about celebrities, but even I admit she's pretty big-time.) Conscious Cook was featured on her show yesterday. For those not in the know, Tal Ronnen was Oprah's personal chef for her 21-day vegan 'cleanse'. Check out today's headline on her home page under the Food section--there's a picture of Chef Tal and the headline: "Go vegetarian with recipes from The Conscious Cook."

Chef Tal is a vegan evangelist through food. Aside from being a creative chef who rubs elbows with the highest echelons of celebrity, Ronnen serves as an adviser to college and corporate cafeterias on veganizing their menus and has worked with major gourmet vegan restaurants (read his official bio). He also helped in the development of the new vegan meat-replacer Gardein (check out SuperVegan's reviews of Gardein).

Didja hear? It rained in LA. Don't worry! It's right back to 92 and sunny, but for a few days there, it was a sure sign of the apocalypse. People were FREAKING OUT.

I, on the other hand, put on long pants and close-toed shoes for the first time in a long time, went to Trader Joe's for provisions, followed the directives of my fauxtein ("Cook with me!") and made stew with the beefless tips provided by the good people at Gardein. I loosely followed this recipe, adding way more veggies (peas, two kinds of green beans, mushrooms, tomatoes), some extra spices (salt, garlic, thyme, rosemary) and swapping out the onion soup mix for some "beef" broth.

Results, Day 1: (There will be many days worth of stew.) It looks better than it tastes. It's disappointingly bland. The Beefless is also flavorless. Or, the flavor it has is not what I want in m'stew. I thought about marinating them beforehand, but I kinda wanted to see how it would turn out used as-is. Lesson learned: do not use as is. But even the veggies are bland. I'm not sure if this is due to crock pot cooking, which I have never done before, or the flash freezing process they surely endured. Save yourself appx. $25 on groceries, and just saute some $3 mushrooms, cause that's all I taste.

Results, Day 2: No magical vegan elves came and fixed it overnight, but it's improved slightly. "The flavors have gotten to know each other" as my mom says, but not nearly enough. I'm still not proud to have birthed it. Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to eat it. The texture's good, it's thickened up a bit, and well, it's there.

Results, Day 3: I heard a some high pitched giggling, jingling, and pitter pattering in my kitchen during the night--I got up, sharpened my elbows, and went to check it out (I had been cat food burgled by a hungry raccoon last week, so I'm on high alert). I found the crock pot out of the fridge, a tiny pouch of Magic Yummy Dust on the counter, and one abandoned elfin slipper near the cat door. The stew is delicious! Robust and full of various tastes! I think there's even more of it than there was before!

(Okay, I haven't had any since day 2, but I wanted to end on a posi note.)

Next up: Chicken Scaloppini.

This is one of Supervegan's posts for Vegan MoFo 2009.

Look, I wish every piece that I did for SuperVegan was this perfect amalgam of deep thought and research; a post so fully fleshed out and full of wit that it set the comments a blaze with spirited debate. But, blogging my friends, is capricious and sometimes an MF like me has gotta write about sandwiches.

So. What did I do? I turned to my fellow SVers and posed the Question "What's your favorite homemade sandwich?" - then the post just wrote itself. The results after the jump.

Mine:

Toasted Birdland Multi-Seed Bread, slathered in Veganaise and Tofu Cream Cheese. Topped with Tofurky peppered deli slices and crispy Tempeh Bacon; piled high with thinly sliced ripe roma tomatoes, spring mix, clover sprouts and avocado.

The fine people over at Gardein sent me a box so that I may be your Super Guinea Vegan. Inside that box was a box made out of styrofoam. Inside the styrofoam box there were some frozen meatless technologies on ice! First up:

"marinara chick'n good stuff." Or, as I like to call it: Chicken Marinara!

Two to a pack, these cutlets are breaded balls with sauce and cheese in the middle. The package said, "Enjoy me" on it, so my mock meat was giving me orders. Now here's what I did, and I'm not claiming to be a Top Chef or anything (Heeey, Jennifer! You don't MESS in that kitchen.), but I will say that in my preparation for making this, my life has been altered forever. And because I love you, I'mma share:

Did you know that if your local Whole Foods uses Daiya Cheese in their prepared foods department like mine does, that you can saunter over to them with a smile and a soup container from the soup bar and they will fill it with the shredded cassava wonder and charge you for it by weight? A medium tub cost me $3.27, which by vegan standards is basically free.

So, I placed the cutlets on a baking sheet, surrounded by an army of broccoli so that they couldn't flee, (broccoli sprayed with olive oil Pam and sprinkled with salt and pepper) and baked them at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. then I took them out, covered the cutlets in some marinara sauce, covered the marinara sauce in Daiya cheese, and baked them for 5 minutes more.



Verdict: I enjoyed you. I burnt the broccoli; nay, my very very tardy dinner guest caused me to burn the broccoli. I preferred the sauce I put on top of the cutlet over the one already inside, but the chickenry was convincing and the breading was pretty perky for having just gotten off a plane, truck, and my freezer.

This is one of Supervegan's posts for Vegan MoFo 2009.

Saturday, I was thrilled to see actress Alicia Silverstone give culinary demonstrations followed by a discussion as part of the Food Network's New York City Wine & Food Festival presented by Food & Wine and Travel + Leisure magazines, Whole Foods Market and hosted by and benefiting the Food Bank For New York City and Share Our Strength.

The veg star tied her hair back and walked us through how to prepare recipes from her new book, The Kind Diet: A Simple Guide to Feeling Great, Losing Weight, and Saving the Planet, set for release this Tuesday, October 13.

In her book, Alicia discusses the powerful life-altering choice to become cruelty-free and the breakthroughs she experienced. She also addresses common nutritional concerns faced by those new to a plant-based. The book covers every nutritional base, from the standard protein and calcium issues and beyond.

This is a weeknight cookie: simple, not a lot of ingredients and easy to make on a weeknight. I usually have all of these ingredients on hand so they're a snap to whip up last minute. They're super soft, so, the name is fitting.



Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Work the sugar and shortening until fluffy. Add "egg". Stir in the vanilla and pineapple. Mix up the dry stuff and add to the wet stuff; combine well. Add tablespoon sized balls to a greased cookie sheet and flatten with a fork.

Bake for 10 minutes. Cool cookies on hot baking sheet. Then, eat.


This is one of Supervegan's posts for Vegan MoFo 2009.

I'd like to nominate Susan Asato for Super Vegan status. This lady submitted several hand-cooked vegan creations to the Orange County County Fair and took home some distinctions:

• Vegan Sun Dried Tomato Cornbread Muffins - 1st place Muffins, plus Division Winner for Quickbreads (muffins, scones, loaf pan breads, coffee cakes, etc.)
• Vegan Chili with Beans - Honorable Mention, Chili Cookoff
• Vegan Apple Pie with Crunchy Pecan Topping (recipe below!) - 1st place, Pie Contest
• Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies with Pecans (recipe below!) - 2nd place, Chocolate Chip Cookies with Nuts

Keep in mind, these competed against "regular" foodstuffs, not in some "special needs eaters" category, so kudos to you, Susan, for raising the esteem of vegan cuisine!

Here are two of her award winning recipes for you to bake for me (double up and follow a "one for you, one for me" policy of vegan baking):