Ikepalooza!

The Chef: Hilary and Ike's Place

The Menu: A vegan version of the "Not Tonight Honey, I Have a Headache" sandwich: vegan chicken, fakin' bacon, soy cheese, "dirty sauce," lettuce, tomato, pickles, mustard, and barbecue sauce. 

The Dish: Earlier today, a total frenzy broke out at the VNHQ when we found out that one of our favorite sandwich joints, Ike's Place, was giving away free sandwiches today to tweet-happy fans (namely, us!). After what seemed like hours of salivating over the ample options from the online menu, Office Manager Lyndsay Orwig, Editorial Assistant Joni Sweet, and I headed over to pick up our decadent order. We were greeted by Ike himself!

 We waited until we got back to the office to wolf down our sammies like banshees. Hopefully our appetites will recover in time for the post-Vegucated dessert reception—come join us tonight for Obsessive Confection Disorder treats, So Delicious ice cream, and Honest Tea refreshments! 

Veggie Sandwich Extreme

The Chef: Elizabeth

The Menu: A mighty fine veggie sandwich courtesy of Java Beach, chock-full of tomatoes, pepperoncini, romaine, avocado, red onion, hummus, mustard, and—most importantly—pickles. Stacked on fluffy Dutch crunch bread, which has been my favorite bread since childhood, these sandwich fillings hit the spot, as did my second course: an apple.

The Goods: So basically, there are two kinds of veggie sandwiches: the kind that suck and the kind that don't. How do you know which variety is in your lunchbox? It's easy: if your sandwich boasts avocado, pickles, hummus, and pepperoncini, you've a lunch that doesn't suck. The heartbreak of sucky veggie sandwiches is painfully familiar to most vegans, but thankfully, so is the joy of stellar cuisine. If you happen to be a Thai-food fanatic, we have some great news! VegNews is going to Thailand for a two-week food tour, and you're coming!

Celebratory Ike's Sandwiches

The Chef: Ike's Place

The Menu: Seriously satisfying, fully-stacked vegan sandwiches from Ike's Place, including one Green Goblin, one Meatless Mike, and a whopping three Brutus' (pictured above).

The Goods: WE LOVE IKE'S! These sandwiches are, hands down, the best in the city—nay, the world. You may be wondering why we differed from our daily, office-made lunch today, and the answer is simple: we're celebrating! This morning, VN Publishers Joseph Connelly and Colleen Holland made a monumental step for VN's future by signing a lease for a new space in San Francisco's Mission District! We're totally pumped to relocate the VNHQ to a happening new neighborhood nudging every great vegan and vegan-friendly restaurant in the city. We won't relocate right away—you know we're going to thoroughly beautify the space first. Once we're all moved in we'll definitely share pictures—yes, it will not be unlike how your friends gush about their new babies, or how your aunt gushes about her cats. We're just that excited.

Tuna-less Sandwiches

The Chef: Elizabeth

The Menu: Tuna-less sandwiches made with chickpeas, red onion, garlic, vegan mayonnaise, and seasonings situated between slices of tomato and avocado on a slightly toasted bun. Elizabeth balanced this hearty meal with a light, fresh kale salad which included cabbage, tomato, and puréed mushroom, carrot, and onion, and prepared a simmering side of garlicky basmati rice to top it all off.

The Goods: We love a good, meat-free sandwich here at the VNHQ, and these tasty, satisfying tuna-less sandwiches were no exception. We are also huge fans of crunchy kale salad, so Elizabeth pretty much made our day with this great, green side. Over our delightful lunch we chatted about our weekends, how awesome it is that Bob Harper has gone vegan, and how excited we are to see Skin Trade, a new film from vegan director Shannon Keith exploring the cruel practices of the fur industry, tonight at its San Francisco premiere. It's a busy week for vegan filmmakers, as the world premiere of feature film Bold Native screens tomorrow in Los Angeles.

Seaside Sandwiches

The Chef: Java Beach

The Menu: Sandwiches! Some of the ciabatta variety, some of the bagel variety. All had hummus, avocado, and veggies.

The Goods: Today was what we call in the biz "proof day." Proof day is when we read the proofs of the magazine from the printer, and scrutinize them to the nth degree to catch any last-minute edits. It can be what therapists refer to as "stressful." Actually, this round went extremely well, though we didn't quite have enough time to make ourselves lunch. So, we hightailed it to our local café, Java Beach. They made us lunch, we paid them, the end.

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!!

Ike's Sandwiches

The Chef: The team at Ike's Place

The Menu: Um, Ike's. These are the best sandwiches in the world. You can disagree if you want to, but do so knowing that you're wrong and making a mockery of yourself. Fresh, soft Dutch crunch bread, tons of veggies, Dirty Sauce, and any number of fillings make these sammies the be-all-end-all sandwiches. We ordered the Backstabber, a couple Womanizers, Nacho Boy, Chester the Cheetah on gluten-free bread, Eli Manning, and the Meatless Mike—all vegan, of course. When you eat an Ike's sandwich, there's no room for salad.

The Goods: Today has been semi-calamitous here at the VNHQ. Yes, the internet likes to go out when we're working on e-newsletters; yes, the printer decided take a little unexpected break in the middle of printing; and yes, we've all been thinking Office Space kinds of thoughts all day. But! Today is also a special occasion, as it's the one-year anniversary of our relaunch of VegNews.com. To properly punctuate this momentous milestone, we had lunch generously catered by Ike's Place. Let's just say that after these sandwiches, all seems right with the world.

Curry and Rice

The Chef: Liz

The Menu: A super-flavorful Indian curry with tons of veggies! If there's anything a team of vegans likes better than a plate full of vegetables, we don't even want to know about it. Brown rice made the base for our satisfying meal, and we topped it with a yummy curry of potatoes, carrots, broccoli, mushrooms, and chickpeas. Then we sprinkled Daiya over everything, mostly because we could.

The Goods: Today's meal was totally fantastic in its own right, but, sadly, it really didn't stand a chance in comparison with what we're having tomorrow. In celebration of a spectacular, surprise event, we're having lunch catered by none other than our beloved Ike, of Ike's Place. OK, there might be one thing vegans love more than a plate full of vegetables: a smorgasbord of sandwiches!

Grilled Cheese Friday

The Chef: Colleen

The Menu: Delicious open-faced grilled-cheese sandwiches with fresh halved cherry tomatoes, basil, and Daiya on whole-wheat bread. Colleen made an incredible marinated kale salad with carrots, red cabbage, and the perfect balsamic vinaigrette.

The Goods: It's Friday, and Colleen arranged for a little surprise. Lyndsay's mom decided to fly out for a surprise visit from St. Louis, which made us all jump around with glee when we saw her come into the office. It's always wonderful to have lunch guests, and is even more so when we're not expecting them! (OK, so long as at least one person is in on it...) It's also sunny and gorgeous, and all over things are pretty much fantastic. We hope everyone thoroughly enjoys the weekend, and we'll see you Monday!

Everything-but-the-kitchen-sink Sandwiches

The Chefs: Stacy and Melissa

The Menu: A smorgasbord of sandwiches! Our chefs today used just about everything they could from the fridge, and the results were as delicious as they were varied. Melissa whipped up a lovely tofu salad with almonds, raisins, celery, and a touch of curry powder, which we slathered on toasted bread and topped with Tofurky slices, baby spinach, grated carrots, and more condiments than we could count. Some of Aurelia's awesome millet salad got reinvented with the addition of grated beets and carrots, sliced zucchini, and chopped green onions. We also doused carrot sticks, baby white carrots, and chips with Roasted Mole sauce, garlic dips, and spiced ketchups.

The Goods: Usually Fridays serve as our clean-out-the-fridge days, but today our chef tag-team pulled out all the stops. It's amazing just how many different condiments one magazine staff can fit into a standard-size refrigerator. Sandwiches are pretty much made for loading up with savory extras, which means that today's meal was pretty much perfect.

Sammiches, Suckas

The Chef: Colleen

The Menu: Sammies! Colleen toasted some walnut bread, caramelized some onions, and served some absolutely delicious sandwiches of Tofurky, veggie burgers, and tons of toppings. Chips and a simple cabbage slaw served as very tasty side dishes.

The Goods: We're a skeleton crew here at the VNHQ today. Lyndsay and Stacy are up in Seattle getting ready for the Green Festival which is appropriate enough considering Earth Hour tomorrow, Aurelia has been on vacation all week, Joseph's at a conference downtown, and as if that weren't enough, Colleen's taking some well-deserved time to visit with her family. But, of course, she was kind enough to make lunch for us before leaving! Suffice to say that those of us left holding down the fort are well-fed and quite happy, despite a healthy dose of onion breath. In case this small fact has eluded anyone, today is March 27, 2009. Divide 27 by nine, and you get three. Yeah, we're pretty good with numbers. Just saying. Oh, and maybe you're wondering what's up with the "suckas" in today's title. It's Friday, that's what's up.

Cookbook Week: Vegan Soul Kitchen

The Chef: Aurelia

The Menu: More stellar soul food! Yeah, um, maybe we totally love having soul food twice in the same week, and maybe, just maybe, we were all totally blown away by the loveliness of this plate. Oh, did you actually want to know what all that gorgeousness is? Well, fine. Ms. Aurelia's Open-Faced BBQ Tempeh Sandwiches with Carrot-Cayenne Coleslaw started out with toasted, fluffy rosemary focaccia, which she topped with some super spicy barbecue-style tempeh, and, of course, the crazy-colorful slaw. Is that not the prettiest little cabbage you ever did see? Yeah. Yum.

The Goods: Bryant Terry's Vegan Soul Kitchen promises to be one hell of a cookbook, especially if today's lunch is any indication. First of all, look at that plate. Gaw. Secondly, Aurelia reported that the recipes were easy to follow and put together, though she did recommend reading them all the way through before beginning—let's just say that the coleslaw was incredibly delicious, despite not having marinated overnight. It would be difficult to describe how very much we enjoyed these sandwiches, so instead we'll leave you with a little Radiohead, which, according to VSK, is this meal's soundtrack!

Super-Satisfying Sandwiches

The Chef: Colleen

The Menu: Maybe just about the most amazing sandwiches ever to be produced at the VNHQ. Maybe. Colleen toasted some perfectly crunchy rustic bread, made her signature cumin-seed-infused hummus, marinated tofu in teriyaki sauce, tossed chopped cherry tomatoes with basil and garlic, ripped fat leaves of lettuce from their heads, and, oh yes, she caramelized onions to go on top. These behemoth hand-holds were perfectly accompanied by a huge, hearty marinated kale salad with thick slices of button mushrooms and a generous sprinkling of craisins.

The Goods: Holy crap, this was one phenomenal meal! The only way to properly enjoy such a fantastic feast was to eat al fresco, in the nearly 60-degree sunshine that's currently shining down on us here in San Francisco. Today's lunch was a lovely end to the workweek (the afternoon doesn't count!), and a satisfying beginning to the weekend, which promises to be full of fun. The Fancy Food Show will be going on, there are events to attend, organizations to start, and books to write. Though, of course, first thing's first—if anyone needs us tomorrow, we'll be lying on beach towels in the sun.

Vegan à Go-Go! Week: Day Two

The Chef: Elizabeth

The Menu: Faux-chicken salad sandwiches, straight from the pages of Vegan à Go-Go! This yummy blend of steamed tempeh, vegan mayo, pickles, mustard, and fresh parsley fit perfectly between slices of thick, hearty olive pugliese. With a little fresh romaine in the sandwiches and a light mixed-greens salad with tomatoes, we enjoyed today's lighter lunch.

The Goods: It turned out to be very appropriate that lunch today could easily have made a pretty picnic, seeing as it was literally 78 degrees outside. Yes, 78 as in almost 80. Yes, in San Francisco. Yes, we were happy. For your next outdoor meal, nice fresh sandwiches are always a good way to go, and these faux-chicken salad standouts definitely passed the test.

Ridiculously Good Roasted Vegetables

The Chef: Colleen

The Menu: An incredibly yummy open-face roasted-vegetable sandwich featuring mashed avocado, toasted bread, and herbed bell peppers, eggplant, onions, and shiitake mushrooms. A fresh salad of romaine lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumber perfectly complemented the homey goodness of the sandwiches.

The Goods: We were very happy that Ms. Colleen busted out an all-vegetable lunch today since reading over the entries in our monthly giveaway might have turned us off fake meat—at least for the day. In a nearly unanimous decision, Patricia was the clear winner for her response:

I was a 4th grader in 1971 and I don't know what was worse—the 10 cans of WHAM I had just spent a month of allowance on & made my mother drive all over Buffalo, NY hunting it down only to gag at it OR the "mock loaf" my Polish grandma made me out of kasha, nuts and some grey gravy shaped into little chicken-like legs that made me cry.

Patricia, send us an email and we'll send out your very own can of vegetarian haggis pronto. Congratulations!

Sumptuous Sautée Sandwich

The Chef: Colleen + Barna Mink

The Menu: Freshly baked, crusty artisan bread with vegan mayonnaise, Dr. Praeger's California Veggieballs, collard greens, and sautéed shiitake mushrooms, zucchini, and cherry tomatoes.

The Goods: So yesterday the very resourceful and generous SFVegan founder, Barna Mink, whipped up a loaf of bread with the leftover pizza dough from yesterday's lunch and left it as a "parting gift." Uhh, hadn't he just made us two gourmet vegan pizzas from scratch? But we don't ask questions when food is involved. So today, using her gourmet sandwich know-how, Colleen made excellent use of both the fresh loaf and the remaining veggies from our weekly organic veggie delivery. With built-in chefs like these at our office, it's a wonder we ever leave! Happy 4th of July everyone! See you on Monday!

Sensational Sandwiches

The C hef: Lisa and Frankie

The Menu: Slammin' sandwiches, super sandwiches, and superb sandwiches would also be appropriate titles for today. Let's just say, these babies were good. Frankie made a very delicious faux turkey and fresh bread which she generously brought in for us. If that doesn't scream for sandwiches, we don't know what does. Lisa took the idea and ran with it, breading and pan-frying the not-turkey, slicing avocado and tomato, and putting it all together with fresh lettuce leaves and Vegenaise. Um, yum. Also, you may have noticed that there are a couple of salads. Go ahead and put any of those "s" adjectives in front of the word salad, because both of these were scrumptious. On the top we have an Israeli couscous with home-grown lemon and mint (also courtesy of Frankie) and lower on the plate you see a lovely pilaf with chopped tomato and scallions.

The Goods: Oh, goodness. Okay, first of all, there's all the goodness you see on the plate above, which was really fantastically good. Second, our issue launch party is sold out!! We are thrilled and absolutely can't wait to see you all there. If you don't already have tickets, don't despair: there are still a few volunteering opportunities available. One of them can be yours with a simple email.

Cleansing Week: Day One

The Chef: Elizabeth

The Menu: Maybe the most delicious pb & j ever. Multigrain bread, crunchy all-natural peanut butter and sweet apple butter made for a lovely, yet lonely, lunch.

The Goods: So, the plan was for everyone in the office to do a cleanse this week and get our digestive systems working good as new. We'll be posting on each of our experiences on our "cooking" day, and let you in on how these little food-free experiments are going. You may have noticed that it says, "the plan was for everyone" to cleanse this week. Well, here's what happened when Elizabeth gave The Master Cleanse a try.

For anyone unfamiliar, the Master Cleanse involves drinking a mixture of filtered water, lemon juice, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper for 10 days. It's a widely used cleanse, and seemed fairly innocuous. Elizabeth started on Monday, thinking that having the first day done with when she got back to the office today after the long weekend would be a boon. The cleanse proved to be a touch too intense, and by 9:30 pm Ms. Elizabeth was cranky, dizzy, had an absolutely splitting headache, and was ready to shiv someone for something solid to chew. Thankfully, a well-stocked pantry kept her from committing any crimes, and she thoroughly enjoyed a simple bowl of noodle soup. As the only one in the office who's eating, pb & j seemed the obvious choice for lunch since it didn't make the kitchen smell like food and was portable for a sunny, early afternoon stroll. Make sure to check back all this week and see how the other VN staffers are doing on their fasts, and kudos to them for sticking with it!

Also, we've just received word that VegNews is nominated for "Best Vegan Publication" in the 2008 Vegan Environmental Awards, which is quite an honor considering that the awards are given in Britain and we, as you may have noticed, are based in the US. Click here to vote for us!

Sandwich Week: (Unlikely) Hero Sandwich

The Chef: Colleen

The Menu: Never outdone, Colleen capped off our super sandwich-week with a real winner. After sneaking off to buy her secret weapon, a fresh-baked, crusty, artisan loaf, she whipped up a batch of roasted artichoke-hearts, yellow peppers, and zucchini. When drizzled with a rosemary-based marinade, topped with caramelized onions and avocado, and paired with a light, crisp, romaine salad, this medley made for one of the most sinfully decadent sandwich-plates of the week.

The Goods: After a week of rich, over-the-top, fancy-pants sandwiches, we were all relieved that Colleen decided to go the basic grilled-vegetable route. Some of the VN staff tend to think vegetable sandwiches are for "suckers and hippies,” but once they got their jaws suitably dislocated, and their teeth sufficiently sunk into this crispy, thick, and juicy sandwich, it was clear that even plain ol' roasted veggies, when layered between two thick slices, magically become the world's most perfect meal. Move aside, cupcakes! We at VNHQ wholeheartedly believe vegan sandwiches are going to take over the world. Thanks so much to everyone who contributed ideas for this spectacular theme week! We are already plotting our next theme.

Sandwich Week: Fish-Free Tuna

The Chef: Aurelia

The Menu: That's right, it's another stellarly veganized classic. Today's tuna sandwiches were deliciously fish-less, and made with toasty whole-wheat bread, fresh romaine lettuce leaves, big slices of tomato, and avocado, which makes everything better. Aurelia also whipped us up some seasoned potatoes which we proceeded to douse in Wholemato's Spicy Organic Agave Ketchup. We got a preview of the new flavor, and let's just say that we like a spicy ketchup. Speaking of previews, that's exactly what today's sandwich was: a preview of the new Veganize It! column in the soon-to-be-released May+June issue. For all those of you who want recipes, rejoice! You'll be able to make this very same sandwich once the issue hits newsstands.

The Goods: But wait! There's more! We also got treated to some utterly delectable Divine Treasures courtesy of someone's awesome boyfriend. These chocolates come from a vegan-owned company in Connecticut, where they make a huge array (caramels! peanut butter! toffees! oh my!) of artisan goodies. Feel free to begin drooling now: