Golden Soup, Kale Salad

The Chef: Liz

The Menu: An old-fashioned veggie soup filled with russet potatoes, sweet potatoes, roasted onion and garlic, spinach, and spices cooked and blended in the Vita-Mix. Liz paired this silky soup with a fresh salad overflowing with kale, spinach, diced tomatoes, crimini mushrooms, cucumber slices, chickpeas, shredded carrot, and avocado.

The Goods: It's been awhile—read: more than one week—since we've dined on a crisp, crunchy kale salad, and lets just say that no one is complaining about its return. It's a quiet day here at the VNHQ, with operations slightly slowing after sending our July+August Anniversary issue off to press last Thursday. Don't worry, we're definitely not celebrating by eating our weight in dairy-free Mango Custard. That would be an absurd, delicious waste of time.

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?

Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup

The Chef: Elizabeth

The Menu: A simple take on the classic lunch combo, grilled cheese and tomato soup. Armed with only 15 minutes, a broiler, and a Vita-Mix, Elizabeth made open-faced grilled cheese sandwiches (yes, they certainly are pretty close to pizza) using Judy's Breadsticks and both mozzarella and cheddar Daiya. For the soup she blended diced tomatoes with a head of garlic, a splash of olive oil, salt, and cayenne, then garnished the individual servings with chopped cucumber. Yes, those are all of the ingredients, and yes, this cool soup was literally ready in five minutes. And, of course, a big salad with avocado, kidney beans, pinto beans, and caramelized pecans finished off the meal.

The Goods: This meal came together incredibly quickly, which was a boon since our team is a bit scattered today. Joseph and Colleen are setting up our booth for the Green Festival here in San Francisco this weekend before they head to Los Angeles tomorrow for PCRM's Art of Compassion Gala. Just to keep the rest of us sane, as we're going to press on our May+June issue today, Abby whipped up a batch of her famous biscuits with cheddar Daiya. Oh, and it's sunny and Friday. Yes, lots going on here at the VNHQ. Hope we get to see some of you at our Green Festival booth this weekend, and say hi to our publishers if you see them all dressed up at the gala. Happy weekend, everyone!

Multi-Bean Soup

The Chef: Liz

The Menu: Have we ever mentioned that maybe we love a little something in our office called the Vita-Mix? Because we effing do. Liz blended today's delicious soup—which featured potatoes, tomatoes, all kinds of beans, carrots, and spices—as well as her freshly made salsa. Did she made homemade tortilla chips to go with the salsa? That's right, she did. The salad—made of mixed greens, beans, and avocado—she left intact, to our delight.

The Goods: It's been a freakishly long time since our last blended soup, and we were thrilled for the return of this satisfying main course.

Bright Green Soup!

The Chef: Elizabeth

The Menu: A delectable, raw Spinach Thyme Soup that included loads of green veggies, herbs and spices, hemp oil, agave, meat-free chicken bouillon, and a subtle kick of garlic. Elizabeth paired this nutritious, bright green bowl of soup with a similarly hued side salad complete with mixed greens, mushrooms, tomatoes, kidney beans, garbanzo beans, and diced bell peppers. Were there also slices of sunflower seed bread to dip into our soup? Indeed there were.

The Goods: In case there were any doubts, this lunch acts as proof that we are still obsessed with making soup in five minutes in our new Vita-Mix. People, it's bright green soup! In five minutes! It will never get old. This light and fresh vegetable-filled lunch was exactly what we needed after a week of over-indulging in sweets. So, in true VN style, we followed our cleansing, healthful lunch with to-die-for desserts from Sticky Fingers Bakery. Yes, our publisher's did generously order us Valentine's Day treats from Sticky Fingers, and yes, we know that they are the best.

Everything Soup!

The Chef: Abigail

The Menu: No shock here, we're sure, but today we enjoyed some yummy, blended soup! Abigail put just about everything she could find in this one, including oatmeal, carrots, chocolate, spinach, and cayenne. Did she even have to cook it? Nope! After a few minutes in the whirling Vita-Mix, our soup was steaming. A colorful side salad with kale, pine nuts, red cabbage, and cherry tomatoes made a crunchy balance to the smooth soup.

The Goods: We're not going to lie: we kind of have a ton going on today. First of all, did you see our Valentine's Day Newsletter? It's pretty freaking cute (if we dare say so ourselves) and full of excellent tips, deals, and events for this Sunday. Second, we might have made a fairly major announcement about our March+April issue cover. We're just saying.

Black Bean Soup

The Chef: Lyndsay

The Menu: A silky, blended black bean soup, which we topped generously with Daiya. Does the bowl look a bit like it's full of chocolate pudding? Yeah, it did to us, too. But back to oh-so-savory reality. We gobbled up a side salad bursting with kale and avocado, and lovely little quesadillas, also made with Daiya.

The Goods: Yep, still going with the soup. No, we don't have the excuse of an impending blizzard for all this soup-making, but you know what? We don't really have a good excuse for covering everything we can in Daiya, either, yet that is exactly what we do. So there you have it.

Cream of Tomato Soup

The Chef: Elizabeth

The Menu: As you might have guessed, another blended soup! Seriously, we are elbow deep in soup over here, and pretty freaking happy about it. This time, Elizabeth simply blended canned diced tomatoes with a sautéed onion and some cashew cream, and voila, we had soup. A marinated kale salad with avocado and freshly sliced baguette made perfect side dishes to our homey main.

The Goods: No, really, we are obsessed with making soup. Pretty much everything that can be blended is going to be blended. Soup is like the new Robitussin. Got a cough? Eat some soup. Trapped in your snowed-in home? Soup. Just about out of soup? Add some water and blend it up—more soup!

Cream of Broccoli Soup

The Chef: Liz

The Menu: A rich, delicious, blended cream of broccoli soup that featured potatoes, cashews, garlic, onions, carrots, and, of course, broccoli, which Liz topped with toasted breadcrumbs. A spinach salad with grated carrots and halved cherry tomatoes, toasted baguette slices, and a helping of brown basmati rice made mighty good sides to our mouthwatering main.

The Goods: As you might have read recently, the VNHQ is now home to a shiny, new Vita-Mix. We pretty much spend every spare second here talking about what foods we want to blend up, and the ideas so far have spanned from the ridiculous (burrito soup, anyone?) to the ridiculously delicious, like today's lunch. Yes, you can pretty much expect every meal this week to have some sort of soup, smoothie, or other blended item. Feel free to tell us your favorite recipes!

Burrito Day!

The Chefs: El Burrito Express and Joseph

The Menu: Burr-freakin-itos. We love these. Whole-wheat tortillas wrapped around perfectly flavored rice, yummy refried beans, and tons of guacamole make these the preferred proof-day food. With a side of roasted veggies from Joseph and a hearty helping of chips and salsa, these fantastic foil-wrapped goodies made a mean meal.

The Goods: As you may have guessed, today is proof day, which means that we have the proofs of the March+April issue back from the printer, and need to exhaustively go over them to catch any last-minute edits. Consider this thing edited. Also, we might have gotten a delivery that had us jumping up and down with glee. One word: Vita-Mix.

On-Purpose Pulao

The Chef: Joseph

The Menu: A very yummy curry 'n' pulao combo! Pulao, in case you weren't aware, is a spiced rice with peas, which Joseph served alongside a big helping of curry. This was pretty much an everything-in-the-fridge curry, and featured potatoes, tomatoes, garbanzo beans, broccoflower, carrots, onions, and just a splash of coconut milk. We also had a special beverage treat: freshly made pineapple-coconut shakes! Using his beloved Vita-Mix, Joseph blended up fresh pineapple with a little coconut milk and agave. Um, yes, we could totally live on these.

The Goods: Aside from the delicious shakes, everything on the menu today came from Devra Gartenstein's book, The Accidental Vegan. While recipes are a rarity in the VNHQ kitchens, sometimes it's fun to make lunch by the book. Of course, the fact that everything we make here is vegan is definitely on purpose!