Final Salad of the Year

The Chefs: Elizabeth and Herbivore

The Menu: A big, gorgeous  green salad.

The Goods: You guys. You GUYS. It's pretty danged near impossible to describe the incredible day that we're having here at the VNHQ. Our staff is what you might call extra-double-super excited about our upcoming holiday break (this is our last day in the office until Jan. 2, 2012!), and the presents have been coming fast and furious. It's intense. The day started with Assistant Editor Anna Peraino bringing in cookies within cookies for Associate Editor Jennifer Chen, then progressed to a couple dozen candy cane brownies from Sticky Fingers for the staff from our publishers. If ever there was a day to feast on salad, it's today. We've had holiday music blasting all day, and things just basically couldn't be more festive. Here's to an amazing holiday season for everyone! We'll be back next year!

Oatmeal and Fruit

The Chef: Anna

The Menu: Oatmeal with blueberries and an orange on the side

The Goods: The holidays are the best—dinner parties, soy nog, so many cookies you can't count—but all those parties and treats can also wreak havoc on your stomach. Case in point: moi. After a week filled with four holiday parties and taste-testing for the VegNews Holiday Cookie Contest, I woke up over the weekend feeling less than ideal. Enter: oatmeal. Simple, tasty, and filled with fiber, this meal, while boring, will hopefully get me ready for round two of holiday eating, i.e., my parents' house. But until then, it's oatmeal time!

Bolani

The Chef: Joni

The Dish: A bolani—traditional Afghan flatbread—stuffed with potatoes and a side of pesto for dipping

The Goods: When I saw this Afghan specialty at the grocery store, I knew I needed to try it—I’m always on a quest to incorporate international flavor into every meal I eat. Adding worldy pizzazz to food would definitely be a good tactic if you’re considering entering the VegNews Holiday Cookie Contest. We’re looking for the most inventive and delicious cookie recipes known to the holiday season, so send them our way for a chance to win fabulous prizes, like a KitchenAid stand mixer.

Vegetable Platter at Gracias Madre

The Chef: Joni and Gracias Madre
The Menu: A yummy veggie platter with refried black beans, rice, warm kale salad, and fried plantains.

The Dish: Most of the VN staff is saddened by the fact that Gracias Madre is currently for sale, so we’ve been heading there for lunch this week to say our goodbyes to this beloved establishment. This is probably one of the last meals I’ll have here, as I’ll soon be heading back to Upstate NY to spend the holidays with my family. Right now, the VN team is currently working on web stories for the month of December. Get ready for the hottest articles to revive your holiday spirit, starting next week on VegNews.com. Happy Friday!

**Thanks for the photo, Lyndsay! I was way to ravenous for lunch and forgot the camera. While I didn't have exactly that meal, it is a great representation of Gracias Madre's amazing hearty Mexican food.** 

Couscous Mania

The Chef: Hilary

The Menu: My favorite couscous with mushrooms, broccoli, baked tofu, carrots, rosemary, and thyme. 

The Goods: Things are a little quiet in at the VegNews HQ with Managing Editor Elizabeth Castoria and Associate Publisher Colleen Holland on the VegNews Vegan Yoga Retreat in sunny Mexico, but the rest of the staff is keeping it cool between yesterday's Thanksgiving—Round 2 and a taste-test of Genuto vegan gelato. I made my favorite couscous to nosh away the early winter blues, since we're too busy for a hot-toddy break. Gear up for the holidays by entering your favorite recipe in the VN Holiday Cookie Contest. Peppermint-stick sugar cookies? Butterscotch gingerbread bars? The sky's the limit! We can't wait to read—and eat—what you come up with. 

Peanut Butter (and) Jelly Time

The Chef: Anna

The Menu: The classic PB&J and a big-as-your-fist orange to go with it

The Goods: After an entire weekend of stuffing my face with delicious, rich food (Do I restrict my gluttony solely for Thanksgiving? Goodness, no!), it's time to get back to basics. This sandwich-and-fruit combo has weaved itself throughout my entire dietary life, and I was happy to once again dig in today. As happy as I am to have a respite from stuffing and pie, I can't wait until its time to head back to my family in Denver for Christmas cookies, soy nog, and a whole lot of baking. Do you have a stellar vegan holiday cookie recipe that wows taste buds year after year? Enter the VegNews Holiday Cookie Contest for your chance to win a KitchenAid stand mixer! And in case you already have one, I have that very mixer on my Christmas list. Just saying.

Tofu Scramble

The Chef: Joni and Boogaloos

The Dish: Tofu scramble with peanut-ginger sauce, crispy home fries, sourdough toast, and orange juice

 
The Goods: Office Manager Lyndsay Orwig and I headed over to Boogaloos for brunch. This little diner reminded me of my hometown of Saugerties, NY, where 24-hour diners are sometimes the only place to hang out with friends late at night. I’ll be heading back to upstate NY for the holidays to visit my family. Can you believe the holiday season is coming up so quickly? In fact, Halloween is Monday! Get the inside scoop on all the best vegan Halloween candy via the handy VegNews guide.

Panini Farewell

The Chefs: Colleen and Valencia Whole Foods

The Menu: A freshly made, grilled panini with portobello mushrooms, roasted red pepper, avocado, spinach, and tomato slices—all on rosemary focaccia bread.

The Goods: Although I felt guilty for not brown-bagging lunch today (who has time during these final days before Christmas?!?), all feelings of guilt quickly subsided after one bite of this lovely panini. The folks at our neighborhood health food store/gourmet market whipped up their signature vegan sandwich filled with roasted vegetables, and then added fresh tomatoes and avocado for good measure. For that, I thank them. I am also thankful because the entire VegNews staff is off for our annual break until Monday, January 3. We hope you have a wonderful holiday and New Year celebration, and we'll be back in 2011. Cheers!

Pre-Holiday Salad

The Chefs: Elizabeth and Herbivore

The Menu: A big, beautiful kale salad. Kale, vegan chicken, tomatoes, cucumbers, huge slices of avocado, and a super-tangy lemon vinaigrette dressing make a pretty darn perfect salad.

The Goods: We are in what some might call the final countdown. Deadlines are looming, the holiday break is nearly here, and between trying to get everything finished before we leave and making enough Christmas cookies to choke a horse (which, hello, we would never do—not vegan!), time is a precious commodity. If you are feeling similarly crunched, check out our list of three super-quick, cheap gifts. If you have a bit more leisure in your life at the moment (really?! How?), read up on the top 10 events that propelled veganism into mainstream culture this year for a bit of inspiration.

The BEST Vietnamese Sandwiches

The Chef: Colleen and Saigon Sandwich

The Menu: Toasted French rolls stuffed with marinated tofu, shredded carrots, cilantro, cucumbers, and jalapeno peppers—all drizzled with a bit of soy sauce.

The Goods: Vietnamese sandwiches, also known as banh mi, may be the perfect meal. Fresh, delicious, and, yes, cheap, these unique sandwiches always satisfy. There are a number of shops around San Francisco selling this popular meal, but my hands-down favorite is Saigon Sandwich in SF's Tenderloin district. For just $3.75 a pop, the baguette, sauce, tofu, and vegetables are always just right—and come together for the city's best Vietnamese 'wich. And luck was on our side today, as VN publisher Joseph Connelly surprised the entire staff with sandwiches for all. In other news, we just announced a scintillating cover contest: Whom do you think is on the cover of the next issue of VegNews? Check out all the possibilities here, and let us know your favorite! Also, I am guest blogging for Savvy Abby this week and share my Top 5 DIY Vegan Holiday Gifts. Enjoy, and happy crafting this weekend!

Gourmet Leftovers

The Chef: Colleen and Millennium Restaurant

The Menu: An Asian roulade, consisting of spinach, shiitake mushrooms, and seitan all wrapped in a crispy yuba shell; wasabi-edamame mashed potatoes; and my signature holiday salad with greens, dried cranberries, sliced apples, and walnuts tossed in a maple-balasamic vinaigrette.

The Goods: Although I enjoyed a lunch of leftovers today, I knew I was in for a treat by bringing leftovers from a sumptuous meal at Millennium earlier this week. And those wasabi-edamame mashed potatoes were incredible—Executive Chef Eric Tucker never ceases to amaze me. To complement the leftover theme, I still had some dressing from the VegNews Thanksgiving Feast so was able to throw together a nice fresh salad. And voila! My Friday lunch. In other news, has the holiday bug hit you yet? We're feeling it around here, especially with our fabulous all-vegan Holiday Store! Check it out here—and get stocked up on peppermint soy candles, boxes of chocolate, holiday cards, and more. Have a great weekend everyone!

Amazing Macaroni!

The Chefs: Made by Lyndsay and Frankie, eaten by Brooke

The Menu: The amazing VN macaroni and cheese, topped off with some of Frankie's homemade chocolates!

The Goods: So some mornings (read: most) I'm forgetful or lazy or late, and therefore forget or don't feel like or don't have time to make a lunch. These are the mornings I'm grateful for my wonderful VN co-workers, including Ms. Lyndsay Orwig who so graciously shared her VN mac and cheese with me. And yesterday, as you might have read in This Just In, a Ms. Frankie McGee gifted us some homemade chocolate-covered, cream-cheese filled dates and chocolate-covered almonds. Don't mind if I do! That's why I love the holiday season! Are you as emphatic about this time of year as we are? Check out VN's complete survival guide to the 2010 holidays!

Celebratory Salad!

The Chefs: Herbivore and Elizabeth

The Menu: A deliciously huge kale salad with tomatoes, cucumbers, soy chicken, and gigantic slices of avocado.

The Goods: A salad this size is basically heaven for lunch. Packed with my favorite vegetable of all time, kale, and avocado, there's absolutely nothing missing from this fantastic lunch. This salad is celebratory not only because tonight is the first night of Hanukkah (Need recipes? Check here!), but also because today marks our 400th post on Café VegNews! We've come a long way (literally—the office moved across town!) since our very first post, and it's been a pleasure to have our readers along for the ride. Here's to the next 400 delicious vegan lunches!

Cinco de Mayo Vegan Fiesta!

The Chef: Elizabeth

The Menu: Some very highly delicious Chorizo-Spinach Sopes, recipe courtesy of VN columnist Terry Hope Romero's latest book, Viva Vegan! While the recipe itself calls for handmade, fat tortillas, we were a little crunched for time and so substituted blue corn ones. The sizzling SoyRizo and spinach combination were completely wonderful, and the added bonus of shredded cabbage and fresh guacamole made us feel highly celebratory. Also there was salad. Woot, salad.

The Goods: Since this isn't the type of blog where we keep all the goodies to ourselves, we'll be giving away one copy of Viva Vegan! Does anything say "Happy Cinco de Mayo" better than 200 recipes for Latin-food lovers? Nope, didn't think so. To enter to win this stellar cookbook, tell us in the comments: What is your favorite variety of Latin food? We'll pick a winner before tomorrow's post!

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?

Irish Rice and Beans

The Chef: Elizabeth

The Menu: Ok, you caught us, these rice and beans are not technically Irish. But, since we were actually out of potatoes and whiskey, we thought they'd suffice. Elizabeth combined them in gallo pinto and served a salad of romaine, cherry tomatoes, avocado, carrots, and cucumber alongside.

The Goods: Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone! Here's hoping that by this time of the day you're knee deep in your favorite green vegan beer. May the luck of the Irish carry you home tonight!

Cookbook Week: Fettuccine with Figs and Walnuts

The Chef: Elizabeth

The Menu: A highly delicious, very filling meal of whole-wheat fettuccine, doused in a cashew-cream sauce with figs and walnuts, topped with toasted breadcrumbs. A simple salad with tomato and red onion balanced out the extremely rich pasta.

The Goods: As we're sure you're aware by now, all the dishes this week are recipes in Robin Robertson's latest work, 1,000 Vegan Recipes. Robertson mentions that this recipe is one of her favorites, as it's adapted from a dish that her mother would serve every Christmas Eve. Which leads us to two points: one, congratulations to phrog from yesterday's comments! Send us an email, and we'll send your copy of the book right out. Two, for today's copy, tell us in the comments: What is your most delicious holiday tradition?

Cookbook Week: Roasted Vegetable Frittata

The Chef: Liz

The Menu: A bevvy of breakfast goodies from 1,000 Vegan Recipes! Liz busted out a delicious frittata with potatoes, mushrooms, red bell pepper, and onions, and accompanied the hearty main with hash browns and Match Meats Breakfast Sausage. Savory and filling, breakfast for lunch might just be one of our all-time favorites.

The Goods: The comments from yesterday told us that overwhelmingly Vegan Planet is your go-to cookbook from Robin Robertson. Thanks to our trusty random number generator that picked the winning comment, we'd like to wish congratulations to Olivia! Olivia, send us an email with your full name and mailing address, and we'll send your copy of 1,000 Vegan Recipes right out. For today's copy, let's talk holidays. Tell us in the comments: What's your favorite holiday dish?

Simple Lentil Soup

The Chef: Abby

The Menu: A perfectly easy lentil soup with potatoes, carrots, tons of garlic, and a bunch of yummy Indian spices. This was just about the best thing that could have possibly come out of our kitchen today, since all we ever want to eat is soup, what with the frigid temperatures we've had recently. Abby also made a lovely side of brown rice topped with marinated Match Meats Ground Chicken that she baked to perfection.

The Goods: Yes, we could easily eat soup every day and be totally happy at lunchtime. Come next week, however, we're going to bust out of our comfort zone and delve into a sampling of Robin Robertson's latest work, 1,000 Vegan Recipes. Will we be giving away one copy each day? Why yes, yes we will. Speaking of giving things away, in case you missed our Holiday Newsletter that launched this morning, check it out here. Maybe it has tons of holiday recipes, tips, and ideas, and maybe it is also really, really cute. We're just saying.

Soup and Pasta Salad

The Chef: Sara

The Menu: A lovely, spicy tomato soup with a side of toasted tortilla triangles, and a big pesto pasta salad with fresh veggies. Sara chopped up zucchini, broccoli, red onions, carrots, and greens, and added a ready-made pesto by Maison Le Grand for our dining pleasure. Yum. We then proceeded to drown the memory of our healthy lunch in ice cream, which is just not a bad idea at all.

The Goods: We are thrilled to announce that for the first time ever, VegNews has our own, customized holiday cards on sale! They are pretty stinking cute, so you should probably go check them out. Unless you want us to be sad and drown our sorrows in Candy Cane Joe-Joe's, which we might be doing anyway.