Pesto and Peas

The Chef: Elizabeth

The Menu: A pasta salad of sorts with pesto, tempeh, garbanzo beans, peas, and bell peppers

The Goods: After an extremely fun weekend of scooting down to LA for the Humane Society's Genesis Awards on Saturday, my dinner when I got home last night was decidedly of the "throw together whatever's in the fridge" variety. So, with some on-hand cashews, garlic, frozen spinach, and one bunch of fresh basil, this impropmtu pesto came to be. Back at the VNHQ the excitement continues, as tomorrow we'll be talking veganism and manliness in our Twitter Chat, and Thursday we're headed out for SF Vegan Drinks! Whew!

Quinoa Salad

The Chefs: Hilary and Herbivore

The Menu: Herbivore's quinoa salad with onions, kidney beans, spinach, tomatoes, celery, avocado, and soy chicken. 

The Goods: It's Twitter Chat Tuesday! In addition to the exciting Twitter chat that we have later today about healthy eating, we spent a big ol' chunk of our morning figuring out the most compelling topics and guests to grace our chats later in 2012. After all of that talk about healthy eating, quinoa seemed like a good base for today's lunch. If you're less of a health nut and more of a shopping guru, be sure to check out our giveaway (!) of a gorgeous faux-leather handbag from Matt + Nat's spring 2012 collection—Associate Editor Jennifer Chen and I splurged on bags from this cruelty-free brand last year, and we've never looked back. 

Spicy Peanut Pasta

The Chefs: Elizabeth and Valencia Whole Foods

The Menu: Savvy Savories Spicy Peanut Noodles with a side salad of romaine, kale, grape tomatoes, cucumber, orange bell pepper, red cabbage, and fennel.

The Goods: Friends, it's Monday. Finding leftover salad from Friday's potluck lunch in the fridge ensured that some greenery made it into today's lunch, and the peanut pasta added a nice warm element. If eating balanced meals is something you struggle with, even as a vegan, don't miss out on tomorrow's Twitter Chat! We have a truly awesome lineup, including Michael Greger, MD, Gena Hamshaw, and Julieanna Hever, RD, to help answer all your healthy-eating questions. The fun starts at 6pm PT, so don't be late!

Masala Dosa

The Chefs: Joni and Udupi Palace

The Menu: Crispy masala dosa filled with spiced potatoes and onions, steamy sambar (lentil-onion soup), and three kinds of chutney—savory coconut, seasoned tomato, and zesty ginger.

The Goods: Nothing inspires fantasies of travel to exotic, sunny locations more than grey San Francisco mornings. Since the vacation had to fit within my hour-long lunch, travel to India via feasting on a masala dosa at Udupi Palace was the next best thing! Besides, with such a busy and exciting week here at the VNHQ as we finish up the September+October issue of VegNews, not even lousy weather could tempt me to actually leave town. We’ve also got a Twitter chat with four amazing farm sanctuaries tonight at 9PM ET/ 6PM PT. But at the VNHQ, when we work hard, we play harder, and I can’t wait for summery cocktails at this month’s Vegan Drinks Night at Martuni’s this Thursday at 6PM. 

Dharma's Delight

The Chefs: Elizabeth, Colleen, and Dharma's

The Menu: A smorgasbord of yummy brunch! Breakfast burritos filled with tofu scramble, homestyle potatoes, beans, and guacamole, plus sides of salad, tempeh bacon, freshly squeezed orange juice, salsa, and enormous raspberry jam cookies.

The Goods: Colleen stayed the night in Santa Cruz last night, and is the nicest person on the planet. These two facts combined to create the incredible lunch you see here, as Colleen stopped at Dharma's on her way into the office, and picked up a bountiful brunch for all of us. Yes, we are totally spoiled. Yes, we devoured everything. This lovely treat was the perfect way to celebrate our 11th anniversary, which happens to be today. The extra-rad surprises didn't stop there today; for those of you on Twitter, you might have noticed that one Ellen DeGeneres, wife of our gorgeous July+August covergal Portia de Rossi, tweeted about the issue!

Herbivore Lunch to the Rescue

The Chefs: Jennifer and Herbivore

The Menu: The chicken shawarma—a wrap with soy chicken, potatoes, pickles, hummus, avocado, harissa, and magic—plus kale salad with soy chicken and avocado.

The Goods: Sometimes, you need lunch—stat. With tonight's Twitter Chat and Vegan Drinks to contend with after work, I ran to Herbivore to procure lunch for myself and our Managing Editor Elizabeth Castoria. You know what happens when coworkers share lunch? It means that two people both get to eat two awesome things, in this case, a shawarma and a kale salad. Here's hoping it's enough to power us through the rest of the day!

Vegan Breakfast Casserole

The Chef: Elizabeth

The Menu: A delicious breakfasty bread-pudding casserole, with cubed bread, winter squash, a tofu cream sauce, spinach, and leeks.

The Goods: First, I apologize for the quality of this photo. Sometimes a cell phone really is actually more of a phone than a camera, especially in the case of my flip phone. Yes, I said flip phone because they do still exist and I do still have one. Internets, schminternets. Though today's photo isn't terribly exciting, we have a bunch of super-snazzy news to perk up your reading experience. First, tonight is our very first ever Twitter Chat, featuring our gorgeous cover gal Kris Carr. Could we be more excited? No. We're also starting to see responses to our Vegan Bucket List feature in the brand-spankin' new March+April issue, which is highly exciting. And, if all that wasn't enough, this week we'll be hosting SF Vegan Drinks with Vegansaurus! Do we love an excuse to drink on a weeknight? Mayhaps!

Veggie Chili, Flavorful Kale

The Chef: Chas

The Menu: Hearty, flavorful veggie chili chockfull of carrots, black beans, kidney beans, onion, green beans, and crispy squares of spicy tofu comprised the majority of today's lunch, and man, are we happy about it. Chas also marinated kale, our favorite dark leafy green, with olive oil, braggs, and rice vinegar and served it steamed alongside one of his signature salads—halved olives included.

The Goods: One of the many reasons we love Chas is that he is king of salads. Don't get us wrong, we've adored every dish he's ever prepared, but there is nothing on par with a Chas Chiodo salad, dressed to perfection with just the right balance of olive oil, Braggs Liquid Aminos, and nutritional yeast. In other news, tonight marks the much anticipated, VN-sponsored Lyman v. Niman debate in Berkeley, Calif. The VN staff will be reporting live at this can't miss, edge-of-your-seat event, and we'll be covering all the details, as well as tweeting updates during the event to keep everyone up to speed.

Carrot Soup, Crunchy Salad

The Chef: Abigail

The Menu: A bright, blended, chilled soup that had pretty much every vegetable in our kitchen in it. Abigail used tomatoes, carrots, bell peppers, and even a little bread pudding leftover from yesterday. For her super-crunchy lettuce-less salad, Abigail combined chopped broccoli, orange bell pepper, cherry tomatoes, and apple.

The Goods: Happy Earth Day, everyone! Our lunch today was extra green, since it was vegan (as always) involved zero cooking (Abigail just whipped the soup together in the Vita-Mix), and used leftovers so that they didn't go to waste. Huzzah for the planet! Oh, in case you haven't been following us on Twitter today, we are doing a HUGE Earth Day giveaway. You only have a few hours left to enter, and trust us, you want to enter. Can you say huge gift basket full of goodies from Sweet & Sara?

Mighty Good Marinara

The Chef: Liz

The Menu: A lovely—and colorful—meal of gluten-free pasta topped with a delicious marinara that had chickpeas, spinach, and rosemary all thrown in for good measure. A bean salad with tons of avocado and cherry tomatoes made a multicolored side.

The Goods: This is it! The next time you hear from us we'll be reporting from LA, where we'll be at Expo West 2010, exploring the miles of booths. Stay tuned to Twitter and Facebook for all the haps!

Bean-tastic Chili

The Chef: Abby

The Menu: A totally filling, fantastic chili with beans galore, diced tomatoes, and the perfect blend of spices. What would chili be without Abby's signature biscuits alongside? We don't know, and we don't want to find out! Thankfully, she made up a fresh batch for us today, which we eagerly devoured. Oh, and also a salad. Woot, salad.

The Goods: This week will be fast and furious at the VNHQ, since we're heading down to LA on Thursday for Expo West 2010! You might remember Expo West from years past; it's an enormous trade show that we attend yearly to discover the hottest new vegan products on the planet, and tell you all about them. This year, we'll be reporting live from the show via Twitter and Facebook!

Presto Punjab

The Chef: Kailey

The Menu: A deliciously doctored ready-made Indian meal. On a bed of brown rice, Kailey served up a packaged Punjab Choley to which she added some fresh tomato. Oven-roasted zucchini and yellow-squash chips made a savory side, and we thoroughly enjoyed the big, hearty salad, which featured cucumbers, red onions, and tons of Parma.

The Goods: It's a busy time here at the VNHQ, but then again that's pretty much all the time. We once again took in as much vitamin D from the sun today as we possibly could, and talked about the exciting trip to LA that the majority of our staff will be taking for AR 2009. In case you're one of those super-hip types, you can totally follow the conference's progress on Twitter!

Stupendous Celebration Brunch

The Chef: Colleen

The Menu: An absolutely stellar brunch! It's difficult to decide where to begin when describing the awesomeness that is the plate you see before you, since everything was outrageously delicious. Up at the top there, we had an out-of-this-world tofu scramble, with cherry tomatoes, kalamata olives, spinach, and a special blend of spices. Moving clockwise, we gobbled up garlic-roasted white and purple potatoes, which were crisp on the outside and perfectly cooked on the inside. Even today's salad boasted something special, with slices of strawberries drizzled in a homemade balsamic vinaigrette. Finally, oven-fresh blueberry scones finished off our heaving plates. Oh, and was there sparkling white wine and orange juice for mimosas and toasting? Yes, yes there was.

The Goods: So, as we're sure you all know already because you follow us on Twitter, VegNews is officially the recipient of not only Best Lifestyle Magazine in the 2009 Maggie Awards, but also of Best Website!! Yes, we're utterly freaking thrilled. To help us celebrate, Aimee and Allison of Vertebrae, the design firm that did our major website redesign in October last year, joined us for today's special lunch. And, just because she happened to be in town on this celebratory day, Yvonne Smith, aka The Traveling Vegetarian, also shared in the fun. And by fun we mean food and booze. And yes, we could totally deal with every Monday going exactly like this. Want to help us keep the celebration going? Then don't miss SF Vegan Drinks this Thursday!

Yummy Mélange

The Chef: Aurelia

The Menu: A little of this, a little of that was the motto at lunch today. Aurelia perfectly prepared some brown basmati rice, which we heaped with helpings of Moo Moo's Sweet 'n' Spicy Curry Tofu and Poblano Chickpea Patties. Next, we got garlicky. As you might have read on Twitter, a motherlode of Vegenaise arrived today, so Aurelia made a lovely aioli which we slathered on garlic fries. Finally, a bright beautiful salad with sliced mushrooms, shaved beets, red-leaf lettuce, and grated carrots—with a homemade lemon-garlic dressing, of course—finished off the plate.

The Goods: If there's anything better than a super dose of garlic at lunch, we don't even want to know about it. Can you really go wrong with garlic fries? No, indeed you cannot. Something else that's guaranteed awesome is our sale! Right now, in honor of Earth Day—which happens later this month, for anyone who's reading this from the comfort of a cave—we're offering our TreeFree edition for just $15. Trust us, once you try out this super-sleek, clickable, searchable, printable gem, you'll be hooked.

Potage du Potato

The Chef: Elizabeth

The Menu: Soup! It's raining and blah outside, so soup was definitely in order. Thankfully, we had an abundance of onions, potatoes, and parsnips, which all got blended together to make today's chunky soup. A simple salad with spinach, red-leaf lettuce, grated beets, and croutons made a satisfying side. Oh, and that lovely edible flower on the side? That would be a nasturtium which Frankie brought in and filled with guacamole. Trust us, if you haven't experienced the spicy delicious kick that nasturtiums provide, you might want to go ahead and do that—asap.

The Goods: Today is a pretty big stinking day here at the VNHQ. We have an announcement: officially, we are doing that thing that all the kids these days are doing. Yes, we've joined Twitter. Wonder what we'll tweet about? Oh, maybe something along the lines of our cover contest, maybe something about our current giveaway, and, of course, what we're eating for lunch!