Caesar Salad, Creative Croutons

The Chef: Liz

The Menu: Today Liz took a page from Alicia Silverstone's book The Kind Diet by preparing us Alicia's signature Caesar salad. This rich, tangy salad combines romaine lettuce with homemade Caesar dressing made of almonds, tahini, lemon juice, olive oil, soy sauce, garlic, Dijon mustard, and water, and freshly baked croutons. Since the VN kitchen is fresh out of bread, Liz improvised by popping seasoned and slightly warmed tortilla squares into the mix and finished off the meal with roasted eggplant, carrot, bell pepper, and tomato.

The Goods: We're big fans of this Caesar salad recipe, which calls for clean, whole ingredients that leave us feeling completely full and satisfied. The only thing more fun than cooking by the book might be the opportunity to look through a new book, and if your summer reading list is as sorely neglected as ours, we recommend you check out the fabulous, brand new VegNews Book Club. Whether you love discussing literature or simply need a new veg-friendly book to devour, the VN Book Club is the place to be. Currently, readers are hotly debating Mad Cowboy by Howard Lyman. Have some opinions about this bestseller? Join the conversation today!

Peanut Butter Pasta

The Chef: Kristen

The Menu: One of Kristen's signature dishes, the peanut butter and tomato pasta toss. This delicious dish is a savory treat featuring collard greens, a simple sauce of—you guessed it—PB and tomatoes. Maybe that combination strikes you as a little crazy, and maybe it is. Crazy good! Kristen also made one of the loveliest salads we've seen in a while: mixed greens, homemade croutons, avocado, grated carrots, halved cherry tomatoes, and toasted sunflower seeds. Yes, we are happily full!

The Goods: It's a rainy, vile day here in SF, but we won't let the weather dampen (aside from literally, as we all pretty much got soaked on the way into the office today) our spirits. Why not, you ask? That would be because this week we have the time-honored tradition of SF Vegan Drinks to perk us up! Come out and see us this Thursday, or we'll be forced to drink all of the drink specials before you get there.

Cookbook Week: Mushroom Pizza & Caesar Salad

The Chef: Abigail

The Menu: Crispy, doughy Thin Mushroom "Pizzas" paired with a light, tangy, classic Caesar Salad from The Kind Diet. Yes, the recipe does substitute whole-wheat tortillas for pizza dough, and no, we're not complaining. These scrumptious tortillas were covered in Tofu Cream—another recipe from The Kind Diet—and topped with button and shiitake mushrooms, onions, garlic, and black olives. To accompany our meal, Abigail whipped up one of the best Caesar salads we've ever had. Full of flavor, the greens and homemade whole-wheat croutons were covered in a to-die-for salad dressing that included puréed almonds, Dijon mustard, tahini, and fresh lemon juice. 

The Goods: First, congrats to Abigail on her first day in the VN kitchen! With not a leftover in sight, we can safely say that Abigail did an amazing job. Second, another congrats to SSheilah, who won yesterday's copy of The Kind Diet! Ssheilah, we agree about the dried fruit—it can liven up any meal! Simply send us an email with your full name and mailing address, and your winnings will be on their way. Finally, for tomorrow's copy of the book, tell us in the comments: From classic to creative, what's your favorite recipe substitution (like today's tortillas standing in for pizza dough)?

Corn Fritters and Caesar Salad

The Chef: Colleen

The Menu: Crispy corn fritters—featuring fresh corn—dolloped with ketchup and vegan sour cream, a lovely Caesar salad with big, crunchy croutons, and fresh strawberries on the side. Yes, Colleen is a fancy chef and spiralized the carrots for the salad. Yes, we like that about her.

The Goods: It's been quite the week of eating here at the VNHQ, and today marks our very last copy of Vegan Yum Yum to give away. First, congrats to Carll from yesterday's comments! We love Danielle Konya too! Carll, send us an email with your name and mailing address, and we'll send your book right out. Now, for the last copy of our Vegan Yum Yum giveaway, here's another blog-related question. Tell us in the comments: What's your favorite weekend adventure? You can check out a few of ours over on Press Pass!

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!

Spicy Soup, Cool Couscous

The Chefs: Aurelia and Colleen

The Menu: A perfectly balanced pairing of spicy butternut squash soup with a cool couscous salad. Aurelia made the fiery soup, using green curry paste for a depth of flavor and spice that was utterly delicious. Garlicky croutons that were tossed with hearty amounts of Parma made a savory addition to the velvety soup. Colleen's couscous salad, full of fresh basil, cucumber, carrots, broccoli, and swiss chard provided a lovely counterpoint. Did we also top that with tons of Parma? Yes, yes we did.

The Goods: We're gearing up for the Green Festival here in SF this weekend, and, evidently, so are a number of our friends. We had the good fortune of hosting Yvonne Smith, aka The Traveling Vegetarian, vegan chef Justin Lucke, and festival volunteer extraordinaire Paul Saccone today. Just to make the afternoon a little sweeter, Rey Ortega of Sun Flour Baking Co., stopped by with two things we love: freshly baked cookies and Dan Piraro.

Rad Ratatouille

The Chef: Elizabeth

The Menu: A quick ratatouille tossed together from what we had on hand. More specifically, tomato sauce, eggplant, bell peppers, onions, garlic, and herbs made a lovely medley for our sauce, and the savory main was served over an amaranth polenta. Today's simple salad was made extra garlicky with garlic-rubbed croutons and a lemon-garlic dressing.

The Goods: Sometimes we can all use a new grain in our lives. While Elizabeth is a committed pasta lover, the amaranth called to her today. Though she had imagined more of a fluffy, rice-like consistency, the more-porridgy dish that she ended up with was a pleasant surprise. Moral of the story? Don't forget the lesser-loved grains: amaranth, teff, and quinoa!

Sandwich Week: Messy Muffaletta

The Chef: Elizabeth

The Menu: Muffaletta. The New Orleans original usually comes stuffed with meaty and cheesy weirdness, but today's veganized version was a savory treat. Olive spread made from black and green olives, roasted red bell peppers, and garlic is the main flavor in this handful of a sandwich. Layered atop the olivey goodness we enjoyed faux salami, mozzarella-style Teese, roasted red and yellow bell peppers, and then another dollop of olive love. Also, we munched on herbed croutons in a spring mix salad with roasted zucchini strips. This took nearly as long to describe as it did to eat!

The Goods: The trick to muffaletta is to get a good, sturdy round of sourdough bread (it could be French bread, but since we're in San Francisco, sourdough it is), cut open the top, and hollow out the insides. Pack the ingredients into the bread all the way to the top so that the whole sandwich is one, solid piece, which will make slicing it into sections easier. (You can see that Elizabeth didn't quite stuff today's full enough, as the top sunk in a bit. More practice!) This is the perfect picnic sandwich, since it gets tastier and tastier as it sits all assembled and the oils from the olives get into the bread.

Miso Soup and Mashed Potatoes

The Chef: Molly

The Menu: A light, lovely miso soup with cubed tofu and fresh spinach warmed us up from the inside out today. Alongside we devoured a mash of russet and sweet potatoes flecked with fresh parsley, and a filling salad with mini-tomatoes and coconut-baked croutons. It was quite the feast!

The Goods: This will be the last lunch for most of us in the office this week as tomorrow we head down to Anaheim to attend Expo West 2008, this year's installment of one of the largest annual trade shows for the natural, organic products industry. Molly, in addition to being today's chef, will get to add a couple more tags to her cooking roster since she'll be in charge of holding down the fort and keeping Café VegNews up to date while the majority of our team heads south.

A Lotta Frittata

The Chef: Elizabeth

The Menu: Frittata. It's fun to say, it's fun to eat, it's pretty much the most fun you can have at lunchtime. Today's mixed-up main contained some leftover spaghettini, tons of organic broccoli, and a super-secret tofu mixture. Okay, okay, we give—you strong-armed us. The mystery tofu is a blend of silken and extra firm 'fu combined with olive oil, nutritional yeast, curry powder, and a little bit of salt. The same old everyday-style salad was graced with bits of delicious mango—courtesy of Ms. Frankie—and the Skinny Bitch in the Kitch homemade herbed croutons that have become a gripping addiction in the office ever since we sampled them last Friday.

The Goods: As is probably already apparent, we don't tend to make totally traditional dishes around here. That said, the Italian custom of throwing everything that happens to be in the fridge into a frittata that comes out of the oven all warm and homey is certainly a cooking style we can appreciate. While this frittata might not have been the most intricate creation ever to grace Café VegNews, it certainly did warm us up on another dreary winter day here in SF. What's the perfect addition to any fake-eggy dish? Bacon Salt. Curious? Don't miss the a full review in the March+April issue of VegNews!

Sketti Sauce

The Chef: Elizabeth

The Menu: Okay, where it says "Elizabeth" next to "chef" is pretty much a lie. This is her dad's pasta sauce, which has always been referred to in their house as "sketti," regardless of pasta shape. We think it may be a direct translation from the Italian word "spaghetti" which means, "I'm too lazy to say the word spaghetti in its entirety." That Dad, he makes a nice-a sauce-a, and , even nicer, he's usually willing to share. So today we have whole-wheat rotini with sketti sauce and Yves Veggie Brats in Zesty Italian, salad with olive pugliese croutons, and, wouldn't you know it, some olive pugliese slices.

The Goods: Sometimes, the best meals are the ones you re-heat. It's already established that we are all about the leftovers here at VN, especially when they come in the form of a hearty Italian lunch.