Spicy Peanut Veggies

The Chef: Abby

The Menu: A fabulous mixture of potatoes, broccoli, carrots, black beans, and celery all blended together in Native Kjalii's Spicy Peanut Sauce. Yes, it's spicy and fantastic. We cooled our mouths with red quinoa, and Abby made a really yummy mustard vinaigrette for her salad of romaine, spinach, avocado, cherry tomatoes, and almonds.

The Goods: Is there anything better than a big plate of satisfying veggies? Why yes, it's a plate of satisfying veggies covered in two sensational sauces. Oh, and there's a little milestone that we're celebrating today; celebrations always make lunch more fun. What's the cause for applause, you ask? This entry right here marks Café VegNews' 600th post! Woo hoo! Here's to the next 600!

Chili and Sandwiches

The Chef: Abby

The Menu: A very yummy homemade chili, complete with kidney and black beans, sweet potatoes, red quinoa, tomatoes, and spices. By spices, we pretty much mean garlic, which is just how we like things here at the VNHQ. On the side Abby served finger sandwiches with sautéed mushrooms and some melted Ste. Martaen cheese. And, of course, no meal here would be complete without a lovely green salad. Today's had sliced bell peppers and mushrooms for extra veggies!

The Goods: Ok, we have some big news. You know about our sister site VegWeb.com, right? And how it has thousands of awesome vegan recipes, yes? Great. But! Do you know which of those are the absolute best? We need your help to determine which recipes from VegWeb will be featured in the May+June issue of VegNews! We are thrilled to announce our first-ever VegWeb Recipe Showdown! Voting will last until next Wednesday, and by voting you'll be entered to win some amazing goodies from Sticky Fingers Bakery! Lots of exclamation points!!

Cookbook Week: Sweet Potato-Lentil Stew

The Chef: Abby

The Menu: A light, lovely soup with lentils and sweet potatoes, as you might have assumed from the title. Sides of red quinoa and steamed broccoli continued the warm, homey trend, and a fresh spinach salad with orange sections and sunflowers added a little color to the plate. For dunking, where would we be without bread?

The Goods: The end of Cookbook Week is upon us, and we have just one more copy of Alicia Silverstone's The Kind Diet to give away. First, a hearty congratulations to Tanya from yesterday's comments! Tanya, send us an email, and we'll send your book right out. So now that we are at the end of the week, let's talk weekend plans. For the last copy of the book, tell us in the comments: how are you going to be kind this weekend?

Quinoa and Cake

The Chef: Lyndsay

The Menu: A delicious and nutritious blend of quinoas, both red and regular, topped with Punjab Eggplant (thanks, Trader Joe's!) and tofu. A mixed-greens side salad with sliced red onions, avocado, and a light sprinkling of Daiya finished off the plates.

The Goods: As you may have already read on Press Pass, we had a little something special for dessert today, namely a yummy Almond Milk Chocolate Cake from local confectionery Violet Sweet Shoppe. Um, how can you not eat something this adorable?
We served slices of this behemoth à la mode with scoops of Coconut and Mocha Almond Fudge Purely Decadent with Coconut Milk. Sometimes, when it's Monday you need a little something sweet! To share the sugar, um, figuratively, we have a totally sweet deal! All this week, we'll be giving away Sarah Kramer's latest work, her 2010 Go Vegan! Calendar. Just leave us a comment with your favorite cake-and-ice-cream flavor combination, and we'll pick one winner each day. Go! Comment! Win!

Quinoa, Curry, and Kale

The Chef: Elizabeth

The Menu: A bed of red quinoa topped with a yellow curry that featured steamed potatoes and garbanzo beans. If there's anything that can properly accompany a big, hearty curry, it's a big, hearty kale salad. Grated carrots and sliced cucumber topped today's favored green.

The Goods: Though sadly not pictured, we also enjoyed a highly delicious nectarine-blueberry pie, courtesy of Ms. Laura Beck who procured the sweet treat from Mission Pie on her way into the office. Yes, we love it when she comes in for lunch and meetings. Yes, we also ate more macaroni salad, but didn't have the heart to put it in the picture three days in a row. Speaking of numbered days, every minute brings us closer to the end of voting in the Veggie Awards Survey. So, vote now!

Curry and Company

The Chef: Colleen

The Menu: An absolutely lovely light yellow curry with tons of veggies! Colleen added carrots, broccoli, zucchini, onions, garlic, and cherry tomatoes to a coconut-milk curry broth, all of which she served over a super combination of basmati rice and red quinoa. Um, yum. A light salad of a pirate's favorite leafy green (you guessed it: arrrrrrrugula) and red cabbage with a snazzy lemon dressing completed these perfect plates. Oh, and the Vegenaise shipment we got in today? Colleen snuck a spoonful into the aforementioned dressing, but the result was so light and lemony you would have never even known it was in there!

The Goods: So you know all about the curry, here's the part about the company. Today we had the pleasure of dining with Melissa's brother, Mike, and his girlfriend, Amy, who are out visiting from Colorado for the weekend. They are, in a word, hilarious, and it was a highly enjoyable way to end the week. Oh, and did we mention that today is gorgeously sunny and we got to have popsicles before returning to work? Yeah, things are pretty stinking awesome around here.

Curry in a Hurry

The Chef: Stacy

The Menu: A spice-infused, stick-to-your-ribs substantial, sickness-be-gone curry. Contrary to the title of this post, Stacy most certainly did not cook our meal in haste, but we have to admit that this colorful and creative quinoa, black-bean, and parsnip-studded star was certainly consumed in, well, a hurry. We just couldn't quit serving ourselves spoonfuls scooped up with whole-wheat naan and heaped with Sriracha hot sauce and Parma for extra pizazz.

The Goods: It's a beautiful Friday afternoon, which means we're pretty much automatically in a good mood at the VNHQ. There's also the fact that, oh, a little thing we like to call our May+June issue arrived in the office today. Let's just hope that no dogs were nearby when we emitted our high-pitched shrieks of delight. Now that the initial excitement has faded a bit, we've settled back down to work, and dogs in the vicinity appear to be unscathed, we have an über-important question for you: Which part of your May+June VegNews are you extra excited about reading?

Instant Indian

The Chef: Lyndsay and Joseph

The Menu: A totally satisfying meal of Indian-inspired dishes. While he was in the office briefly this morning for a meeting, Joseph decided to lend a helping hand to today's chef by cooking up a cumin-spiced blend of basmati rice and red quinoa, which was absolutely delicious. Lyndsay topped our day's grains with ready-made Punjab Eggplant, made a huge side salad with lettuce and carrots, and sliced up some naan from Gourmet India—another find from Expo West. Since so many store-bought naans contain dairy, it was thrilling to find this totally vegan version, complete with all the fluffiness and authentic taste we could ever want.

The Goods: Mondays always seem to find us short on time and long on tasks here at the VNHQ, so taking a little help in the kitchen—whether from considerate co-workers or the convenience store—is always a good thing at the beginning of the week. Oh, and did we mention that we totally love Indian food? It's true, we do.