Vegetarian Noodle Soup

The Chef: Liz and Sunflower Restaurant

The Menu: A satisfying bowl of vegetarian noodle soup filled with mushroom, cauliflower, snap peas, broccoli, red peppers, carrot, celery, tofu, and rice noodles paired with a small order of brown rice—all of which I covered in a generous amount of soy sauce. And washed down with a Diet Coke.

The Goods: I live right across the street from Sunflower, so you could say that I'm somewhat familiar with its vegetarian noodle soup, in that I eat it all the time. On top of being a totally tasty way to warm up a very chilly Friday afternoon, this delicious meal—which, due to generous serving sizes, is easily two meals in one—was a mere $7. Does that mean I'll have some extra cash to throw at the East Bay Vegan Bakesale this weekend? You bet it does.

Semi Pad Thai

The Chef: Gabrielle

The Menu: A lovely, VN kitchen take on pad thai sans the peanuts, with rice noodles, tofu, and spinach marinated in a lovely, tangy sauce of lemongrass, garlic, onion, ginger, lime juice, and Braggs Liquid Aminos.

The Goods: Today, Ms. Gabrielle turned out her first meal in the VN kitchen, and lets just say we're pretty darn happy she did. As ardent fans of all things noodles, we were pretty much in heaven with this flavorful, gluten-free feast. In addition to preparing her first lunch at the VNHQ, Gabrielle also posted her first Press Pass entry today! Read all about her adventures touristing the city, and find out which doughnut shop she recommends you check out, asap. Today's balanced meal was exactly what we needed on this chilly Thursday, but we're hoping for brighter skies tomorrow when award-winning vegan chef Chloe Coscarelli stops by the VNHQ to generously cater us a homemade meal. We're totally thrilled to catch up with Chloe and her equally fantastic mom, Shelley. That is, assuming we don't die of anticipation before lunch. We'll work on that.

Lime Peanut Noodles

The Chef: Liz

The Menu: Lime Peanut Noodles with (Seitan), Kale, and Carrots. Yes, those words are capitalized because this is an actual recipe from the about-to-be-released Vegan Yum Yum cookbook. And yes the seitan is in parentheses because we didn't have any. Liz made a fantastic substitution of tofu, which we eagerly devoured. Of course, no meal at the VNHQ would be complete without a green salad to go along, and Liz came through wth a yummy mix of greens and avocado.

The Goods: First, congrats to Liz on her first turn in the VN kitchen! Today's lunch totally rocked! Next, we just happen to have a couple copies of the book in the office, and we'll be giving one away every day this week! Thanks to everyone who commented yesterday, though sadly there can be only one winner. That winner is Jennidy! Jennidy, send us an email with your name and mailing address, and we'll send your book right out. For today's copy, tell us in the comments: what's the strangest substitution you've ever made, and did it turn out to be a delicious discovery or despicable disaster?

Rice Noodles, Peanut Sauce, and Pizza

The Chef: Joseph

The Menu: A delicious duo of savory dishes. We thoroughly enjoyed our "appetizer" of Trader Joe's Roasted Vegetable Pizza doused with Daiya cheese, which Joseph served alongside a heaping portion of rice noodles with peanut sauce, green beans, and bell peppers. The noodle dish was based on a recipe from Lorna Sass' Short-Cut Vegan. Were we complaining about our full plates and bellies? Heck no.

The Goods: Sadly not pictured are the yummy cookies Joseph brought in for dessert, which had just about everything cookies could possibly have. Oats? Check. Chocolate chips? Yes. Rice Krispies, walnuts, cinnamon, and shredded coconut? You bet your buns. Speaking of buns, it's possible that some of us had to move slowly and stuffedly away from the feast today.

Oh My, Thai!

The Chef: Stacy

The Menu: A terrific, two-course Thai treat! This may well be the most colorful lunch ever to be featured on this blog, and it was as delicious as it was vibrant. Ms. Stacy busted out a totally wonderful Thai-food-inspired coconut soup with sweet potato, fennel, spinach, green onions, and carrots. Alongside was an equally attractive rice-noodle salad with a few of the same ingredients, plus basil and thin slices of bright-red pickled ginger, which was tossed in a light, lovely vinaigrette.

The Goods: There's nothing to brighten up a slightly dreary day like a super-colorful lunch and some special-guest-type company. Today we had the pleasure of dining with Justin Lucke, one of our favorite local veg chefs and Organic Athletes. Oh, any maybe there's a hidden message in today's headline. We're just saying, it pretty clearly says "my thai," and what event is happening tonight? Oh, that would be a little something we like to call SF Vegan Drinks. Yes, subtlety has always been our strongpoint. Now come see us at Martuni's!

Faux Meat Farewell

The Chef: Jenny

The Menu: A tangy stir-fry of broccoli, kale, and mock meats stood nicely next to a hearty helping of rice noodles flavored with teriyaki sauce and shredded carrots. Aromatic roasted acorn squash with Indian spices completed the tantalizing trio, making a flavorful and filling lunch. Adding a true taste of adventure to our culinary quest, Ms. Jenny incorporated one of the lesser-known mock meats—vegetarian intestines. Yes, you read that correctly. Intestines. Only with her skills could such a curious ingredient be turned into an A+ lunch, with no complaints from the diners.

The Goods: Last week's gorgeous sunshine seems to have gotten lost on its morning commute, leaving the VNHQ a little gloomy. Today, the down-and-out weather is on par with our official announcement of Ms. Jenny's last lunch as chef. Sad but true, our beloved office manager is soon leaving for sunnier skies. Café VegNews will miss her creative lunches and superb culinary skills, but we're sure to remember her farewell lunch of intestine ingenuity!

Sensational Salads

The Chef: Aurelia

The Menu: A sampling of delicious salads! Aurelia made two internationally inspired dishes, each of which we ate with gusto. The Mexican-themed, very colorful black bean, corn, and red bell pepper salad was a festive feast, and the Asian noodle salad with fresh romaine, grated carrot, chopped seitan, and more bell peppers was equally enjoyable. Little rice crackers served as scoops for the bean salad, and added a toothsome crunch to the meal.

The Goods: It's freaking hot. Like, really hot. Not like we-live-in-San-Francisco-and-aren't-used-to-the-heat hot, but actually, technically hot. We are talking more than 70 degrees. If it weren't for some work to be done on a certain forthcoming website relaunch, we'd all be beach-bound. In addition to basking in the outrageously gorgeous sunshine, we also got to bask in the sunshiny company of one Ms. Erin Williams of the Humane Society of the United States, who's in California campaigning right up until election day for Yes! on Prop. 2. It's always great to have guests, but it's especially nice to have guests who bring good news, like Prop. 2 being ahead in the polls!

Asian Combination

The Chef: Jenny

The Menu: A pan-Asian treat of stir-fry and soup! First we enjoyed a very green stir-fry which featured green beans, collard greens, tofu, and noodles. Delicious? Yes. An excellent method of incorporating everything from the fridge? Indeed. Alongside the main course Jenny served up a Thai-inspired coconut-avocado soup. Yes, it would have been appropriate if we had all died of gustatory pleasure after eating this decadent, slightly spicy soup. Yum!

The Goods: We were slightly suspicious that Jenny—who's an avowed sci-fi fan—might have been secretly replaced by a Jenny-bot today. The cause for our concern? The soup was raw! That's right, Jenny (or her android alter-ego) whipped up the incredibly luscious soup without so much as lighting a burner. Since her fiery Cuban disposition lends itself more to cooked foods than raw foods, this was a first for Jenny—and definitely a trend we'd like to encourage, even if the amazing food is robot-produced.

Cookbook Week: Vegan Express

The Chef: Jenny

The Menu: That's right, we actually followed a recipe! All this week on Café VegNews we'll be making meals from actual cookbooks, just for something new and different. To kick this week off, Ms. Jenny made the very delicious Singapore-style Yellow Curry Rice Noodles with Tofu from Nava Atlas' Vegan Express. These lovely noodles were tossed with shaved carrots, cubed tofu, and chopped red pepper, and served with a fresh salad featuring multi-colored swiss chard, tofu, and lemon slices.

The Goods: We're all about trying new things this week, as well as busting out some of our tried-and-true cookbook favorites. Although Jenny hadn't made anything out of Vegan Express before today, she was impressed with the vibrant photos and the fact that the dessert recipes seemed doable even for a non-baker like herself. In case you haven't seen it yet, there's a full review of Vegan Express in our July+August Music Issue. Continuing the just-in-case theme, make sure to cast your vote in our 2008 Veggie Awards survey! And, finally, there are still four days to make a claim on the July Café VegNews giveaway—don't forget to leave a comment, lest someone else make off with your haggis.

Messy Pesto

The Chef: Elizabeth

The Menu: A late-summer pesto with broccolini, sautéed red bell peppers, and big, lovely bites of avocado. This meal took a turn for the lighter side with the substitution of rice noodles for the traditional wheat pasta, and the standard side salad brightened the plate a little bit too.

The Goods: One of the tell-tale signs of an Elizabeth lunch is the heavy-handed avocado. But really, why stop at adding it to one dish when you can just as easily add it to both? If you haven't yet tried sprucing up your pasta dishes with avocado, go for it. We're pretty certain you'll be glad you did. If you's just not an avocado fan, well, we're sorry to say, you probably have no soul. Er, um, we mean, uh, it's okay to not like something as intrinsically awesome as avocado. Sure.

Cold Noodle Salad

The Chef: Aurelia

The Menu: An absolutely amazing Vietnamese cold-noodle salad with grated carrot, chopped romaine, fresh basil, cilantro, jalapeño, and a refreshing soy-sauce and fresh lime juice dressing. Dotted with Spicy Veggie Tempeh and garnished with tart lemon wedges, this meal was the perfect cool treat for our unusually hot day.

The Goods: It's 87 degrees in San Francisco today, and we are freaking out, as is totally appropriate. The mercury almost never climbs this high here, and to celebrate the heat we took a super-hot brisk walk on the beach. With Aurelia's spot-on Southeast-Asian meal and the cooling sea breeze, we were able to mentally transport ourselves to Vietnam's sandy shores.

Spicy Stir-Fry

The Chef: Lisa

The Menu: Some lovely, saucy, stir-fried veggies (broccoli, grape tomatoes, and collard greens) tossed over rice noodles made up our delicious main. Sides of spinach salad with fresh chunks of avocado and our favorite Chinese-style mushroom buns made this quite the full meal.

The Goods: Considering our propensity for travel in Southeast Asia, it should come as no surprise that we'd want to recreate the flavors found in the cuisine there. Since we don't actually have all day to simmer spicy sauces to perfection, Lisa decided to take a little help from World Foods' line of ready-made stir-fry sauces. Today we tried the Thai Basil Chilli and Vietnamese Five Spice varities. While we would have rather actually been in Thailand or Vietnam, these flavors definitely added some kick to our stateside lunch.

Tasty Testing

The Chef: Elizabeth

The Menu: There's a lot going on here, so we'll take it one step at a time. Ready? Okay, first up top there you see a bowl of laksa, a savory Singaporean soup with rice noodles, tofu, scallions, cucumber, and sprouts. Moving counterclockwise (there's a reason, trust us) we have a barbequed tempeh skewer bathed in velvety peanut sauce. To lighten things up, a small cucumber salad with fresh mint and soy sauce-based dressing. Finally, a dessert (see—dessert should be last, there's the reason) couscous infused with dried fruit, toasted almonds, and cinnamon.

The Goods: Wondering what prompted this culinary collage? The secret component that all these dishes have in common is: the July+August issue! That's right, the recipes for all these delightful edibles will soon be yours. Well, just as soon as the end of June rolls around, and you get your hands on a copy of VegNews! Until then, we hope this photo supplies a sufficient stand-in.

Lo Mein Lunch

The Chef: Jenny, with special Sous Chef Katie

The Menu: A delightful plate of Asian-inspired delicacies. Jenny served up lovely rice-noodles with grated carrots, spinach, and a blend of savory spices, a tofu-and-broccoli stir-fry, a simple green salad with tomatoes and more grated carrots, and spinach-mushroom buns. Whew! Trust us, the meal was as filling as the long description implies. Ms. Katie may be the official VegNews carrot-grater from here on out, since she did such a first-rate job on the roughly 10 pounds of carrots that went into today's meal.

The Goods: Since Katie works remotely, it's a real treat to get to see her happy face in the office. If there's anything that could make a visit from a far-flung comrade better, it's being surprised with Key Lime Cheesecake. Yes, Ms. Frankie is at it again with her amazing—and astoundingly generous—surprise cheesecakes. She likes to "test" recipes (which always seem to come out perfectly, though she swears she's just trying them out), and we like to pretend that we're doing her a favor by acting as willing test subjects. Here's Katie with today's "experiment:"

Miso Soupy

The Chef: Aurelia

The Menu: Oh yes, it's going to be a soupy week here. Today we got off to an excellent start with a lovely mild miso from Ms. Aurelia, complete with bite-sized nibbles of tofu and nice, big pieces of collard green leaves. Adding to the comfort food theme was a rice noodle and bell pepper toss, and some delicious slices of Judy's Breadsticks. Everything on this plate was warm, homey, and satisfying, which are just about the best possible adjectives to use at the start of the week.

The Goods: We're mostly dried out after the big storms this weekend, but even though the majority of the actual rain has passed, there are a few of us in the office feeling a little under the weather. To combat the encroaching sore throats and sniffly noses a nice pot of hot soup and a few gallons of tea are just what the doctor ordered. Ok, none of us is actually a doctor, nor has anyone played one on TV, but most of us here drink tea regularly, and are always on the lookout for great new cold-fighting blends. Anyone have a favorite?