Cheesy Vegan Pasta with Homemade Garlic Bread

The Chefs: Rashida, Hilary, and Colleen

The Menu: Mama Sue's Gourmet Pasta topped with a mixture of Victoria Fine Foods' bean and mushroom marinara sauces and Café Indigo's vegan seitan cheesesteak, with a side of Colleen's homemade garlic bread

The Dish: We here at VNHQ are a resourceful bunch, as evidenced by Editorial Assistant Hilary Pollack's genius idea to take the various odds and ends in our kitchen and transform them into a cheesy, seitan-y Italian feast. Add Associate Publisher Colleen Holland's incredibly addictive garlic bread into that equation and you've got one full (and very happy) staff. Want to know what goes on behind the scenes at VNHQ? Add us on Instagram for the full scoop!

Vegan Pasta Day!

The Chef: Anna, Colleen, and Lyndsay (really just Colleen and Lyndsay) 

The Menu: Pasta day! Fresh spaghetti from Mama Sue's Gourmet Pasta covered with sauce from Victoria Fine Foods, salad, garlic bread, and a wedge of beet burger

The Dish: I am happy to be reporting from the front lines—of deliciousness, that is! (Yes, cold medicine will make you say things like that.) The VN staff decided to start cooking up a weekly pasta day, and I must say, it's one of our best ideas yet. But what's that beet burger doing in there, you might wonder? Wonder no more! Office Manager Lyndsay Orwig is testing recipes for our upcoming July+August issue, and that ridiculously tasty patty is one of them! Want to make sure you get the recipe (plus our latest vegan city showdown, vegan weddings 2012, and more)? Subscribe today!

The delicious lunchtime spread! Hello, garlic bread. 

Garlic Pasta and Greens

The Chef: Lyndsay

The Menu: A light, flavorful pasta dressed with garlic, rosemary, and olive oil, then tossed with diced tomato and garbanzo beans. Lyndsay also transformed Frankie's delicious homemade bread into the best garlic bread we've had, and finished the meal with a simple salad of mixed greens and avocado. Yes, it was pretty much perfect.

The Goods: After a weekend of heavy rain, we were lucky enough to enjoy our plates of pasta al fresco thanks to a gorgeous, sunny day here at the VNHQ. Oh, and maybe we had Cowvin Cookies from Sticky Fingers for dessert. We also might still be thrilled about the arrival of our March+April issue, which ships to subscribers this week. All in all, we're a pretty freaking happy office!

Roasted-Eggplant Puttanesca

The Chef: Colleen

The Menu: A perfectly seasoned puttanesca with roasted eggplant, tons of garlic, and salty capers, tossed with fresh spaghetti. Did Colleen also make some of the most amazing garlic bread on the planet, which featured tons of both garlic and Parma!? Yes, yes she did. Finally, a lovely green salad with big chunks of fresh avocado finished off the plates.

The Goods: After yesterday's slightly longer-than-usual, adventure-filled lunch, this meal was a comforting return to the VNHQ. We also had the pleasure of dining with Amy and Olga, friends of Joseph and Colleen, who were visiting this weekend from New Mexico. Not only were both ladies very nice, but they humored Elizabeth by talking about green chile sauce, with which she is obsessed. And so ends another week. Happy weekend to everyone!

Carrot Stew and Garlic Bread

The Chef: Elizabeth

The Menu: A welcoming stew of blended carrots and potatoes. When we say "carrots and potatoes" what we really mean is "garlic." In case there wasn't enough in the main dish, Elizabeth served halved ciabatta rolls with garlic alongside, leaving only the fresh tomato, caper, avocado, and cucumber salad garlic-free.

The Goods: Today is pretty stinking exciting here at the VNHQ. We are thrilled to welcome our two new editorial assistants, Liz and Sara, for their first day in the office! Nothing starts off a working relationship like a massive case of garlic breath, and today's lunch certainly set that tone.

Beautiful Butternut Soup

The Chef: Colleen

The Menu: A Thanksgiving-leftover-inspired spread complete with roasted butternut squash soup, extra-super-garlicky garlic bread, and a fall salad with mixed greens, sliced pears, dried cranberries, and candied pecans. Can Thanksgiving-themed food go on forever, please? Today's soup had the extra-savory spice of toasted cumin seed, which gave it a slightly exotic flavor. Oh, and in case it wasn't already clear, we love us some garlic bread—with extra garlic, of course.

The Goods: This is the kind of meal every week should start off with: delicious, colorful, and celebratory in feeling. Maybe some of us swore we'd never eat again after the delectable deluge that was last Thursday, but then again, maybe some of us knew we were lying when we swore that particular oath. Here's to being back in action after the holiday weekend!

Garlic-A-Go-Go

The Chef: Elizabeth

The Menu: All garlic, all the time. Today's meal featured three vehicles for delivering maximum garlic content: rice rotini with chunky tomato-garlic sauce, antipasto salad with a garlic-mustard vinaigrette, and finally—the clincher—garlic bread. Elizabeth doesn't like holding back when it comes to garlic, and today she just couldn't resist. The salad, as you may have already noticed, has avocado and pieces of faux salami and fresh cheese.

The Goods: You know how sometimes you just want some variety? Today we went a little beyond our usual, restricted diets and decided to let loose with a fresh, organic, goat's milk mozzarella. Every once in a while we like to just get a tiny bit wild and stray from "vegan" in the literal sense. Hey, who wouldn't want to put something in their mouth that came out of a goat?



The Real Goods: Happy April Fool's Day! There is not now, nor has there ever been, dairy-based cheese on our plates. Yuck!

Outer Sunset Freestyle Lasagna

The Chef: Aurelia

The Menu: As the title clearly states, today we had Aurelia's Outer Sunset Freestyle Lasagna. Maybe you are wondering what that actually means, well, we'll go ahead and fill you in on the details. This fantastic baked pasta consisted of rice noodles, homemade tomato sauce, and, of course, grated Cheezly on top. The holy trinity of pasta, sauce, and cheese was in full, filling effect. The salad was fresh and crisp with romaine, bell pepper, and cherry tomatoes. And then, there was the Garlic Bread. Oh yes, it was so good it gets capital letters. If there's anything better than warm, perfectly garlicky garlic bread, we don't even want to know about it.

The Goods: Far be it from us to say that this lunch was miraculous, but, well, it just might have been. It absolutely poured down rain all morning, which inspired Aurelia to make something warm and baked. When we sat down to eat, the skies were lightening a tiny bit, but the rain was still coming down. Then, just as we were finishing off the last few bites, the sun burst through the clouds. Coincidence? We think not. So don't forget: the next time you're trying to coax the sun out from behind the clouds, break out the garlic bread. You'll instantly feel better, whether or not the weather clears up.

Soup Surprise

The Chef: Joseph

The Menu: A simply sumptuous soup and salad surprise from our very own Mr. Joseph Connelly. Let's start at the top, because seriously, this soup was tops. Joseph proves yet again that working with what you have on-hand is the best way to go, as he doctored up a dried red lentil and bulgur soup mix with mandarin oranges, sweet potato, and fresh spinach. In case, like us, you hadn't previously considered oranges to be soup ingredients, start considering. They were amazing little bites of sweet in perfect harmony with the warm, filling soup. But wait, there's more. The salad was also fantastic, with both romaine and spinach, shredded carrots, apple, sunflower seeds, and Joseph's secret dressing. The pièce de résistance: super-garlicky garlic bread. If eating four pieces of garlic bread in one sitting is wrong, no one here wants to be right.

The Goods: Joseph invented lunch. No really, it's true. Okay, he invented the VegNews staff lunch, and we are all pretty thrilled that he did. It's not every day that he works from the office, so it really is a treat when he busts out a lunch like this one.