Saucy Stir-Fry

The Chef: Lyndsay

The Menu: A couple of extra-saucy stir-fries chock full of fresh, fabulous vegetables. Lyndsay divvied up her potatoes, broccoli, bell peppers, carrots, and tofu into two camps: General Tsao and Spicy Kung Pao. Using ready-made sauces from Simply Asia kept cooking time to a minimum, and Lyndsay served both stir-fries over perfectly fluffy rice. A nice, big salad with tons of avocado, grated carrots, and fresh lettuce added more veggies to our plates.

The Goods: For our first day back on cooked food after Raw Week here at the VNHQ, it was certainly exciting to smell the aromas of lunch wafting out of our kitchen. Of course, we'd never forgo our staple side of salad, no matter what's on the rest of the plate! Even slightly more exciting than lunch is the fact that the VegNews Speaker Series launches two weeks from tomorrow! Tickets are going fast, so be sure and get yours now!

Raw Week: Angelic Pesto

The Chef: Colleen

The Menu: A fitting finale to raw week! Colleen, who cleverly brought in her spiralizer, made incredible angel-hair pasta from white sweet potatoes, which she covered with a delicious, slightly spicy, pesto and chopped tomatoes. A huge salad and a couple Olive Flats—which are a very salty jerky treat made from olives—finished off the meal.

The Goods: Now that we've thoroughly detoxed from the craziness of Expo West with this whole week of great, raw lunches, we're feeling ready to tackle the weekend. What do our weekend plans include? Oh, maybe a trip to Ike's, maybe a scoop or two at MaggieMudd, or maybe a trip across the bay for a huge, hearty brunch at Fellini. Whatever we each end up doing, we guarantee there won't be a salad in sight!

Raw Week: Sensational Slaw

The Chef: Stacy

The Menu: An assortment of excellently raw edibles! Ms. Stacy really went all out with her culinary creativity today, for which we are ever so grateful. First off, she prepared a bright, beautiful salad with sliced trumpet mushrooms, grated carrots, and chopped onions. Then she whipped up some homemade hemp butter, which she layered on celery sticks with raisins for finger food. Finally, Stacy's stellar slaw blew us all away. She grated broccoli stalks and acorn squash and added crushed cashews, chopped garlic, and raisins. This slaw was easily the favorite savory dish of Raw Week so far!

The Goods: Not only did Ms. Stacy's meal totally satisfy, but we were also treated to a trio of desserts from Ani Phyo's newest book, Ani's Raw Food Desserts thanks to Joseph and Colleen. Um, yum. The glory you see below includes raw oatmeal cookies, cacao-and-cinnamon-rolled truffles, and walnut cocoa bark. Picking a favorite from these three was very, very difficult. We'll be sampling each of them over and over again until we've come to a definitive conclusion. In case anyone's wondering, the picture below was taken before we descended on the treats. It is currently not nearly as full of goodies! Keep your eyes peeled for a special event announcement coming soon!

Raw Week: Rawkin' Tacos

The Chef: Aurelia

The Menu: Some decidedly delicious raw tacos and a big, beautiful kale salad! Aurelia blended red bell pepper and cashews for the filling of our romaine-wrapped tacos, and garnished them with sliced green onions. The lovely and satisfying salad consisted of chopped kale, sliced trumpet mushrooms, and slivered red onion, all of which was tossed with a perfectly tangy homemade dressing.

The Goods: It's midway through Raw Week! So far, so good, though there was some brief discussion of mashed potatoes today at lunch. And mac 'n' cheese. And brownies. OK, so maybe we aren't all raw at heart, but our plates haven't seen a lick of cooked food, and everything we've eaten has been totally yummy.

Raw Week: Zucchini Zaniness

The Chef: Elizabeth

The Menu: A zillion uses of zucchini! Today's zukes were peeled into ribbons to make raw pasta, which Elizabeth topped with a pesto of basil, garlic, cashews, and a splash of hemp-seed oil. Since you can't very well make ribbons out of the seedy parts of zucchini, those got blended with carrots, maple syrup, and cinnamon to make the little soup shooter you see at the top of the plate. Finally, a very, very simple salad of romaine and red bell pepper completed our plates.

The Goods: We're still enjoying our raw refreshment after the insanity of Expo West, but today we were feeling a little bit dessert deprived. Thankfully, we found a stock of really yummy raw gelato in our freezer from Organic Nectars, which we quickly devoured. We're not sure if the whole gelato-gorging process is really in the spirit of the diet cleanup, but it followed this week's raw law to the letter, which is good enough for us!

Raw Week: The Return

The Chef: Colleen

The Menu: A really, really, really awesome raw salad. Colleen busted out a delicious spinach and mixed-greens salad with big, satisfying chunks of avocado and slivered red onion. Her homemade flax-lemon-hemp dressing perked up our taste buds, and a side dollop of Zukay's Garlic Dill Relish added a zesty flavor.

The Goods: So, maybe you remember a little something about our whole team going to Expo West over the weekend to try out tons and tons of new, awesome, vegan products? Yeah, let's just say that after eating more samples than any group of people should be allowed to in a three-day period, we are all excited to bring back Raw Week this week! We'll be chopping, blending, and not-cooking to our hearts' content, and, we hope, making amends with our over-taxed digestive tracks. Oh, and maybe we'll have some sneak peeks from the amazingly adorable Ani Phyo's forthcoming book, Ani's Raw Food Desserts.