Vegan Pizza Taste Test

The Chef: Jennifer 

The Menu: Five vegan cheese pizzas and kale and green salads from Herbivore.

The Goods: It's not a bad day in the office when you get to feast on five different pizzas for our VN Taste Test, and also square off with your co-workers in Apples to Apples. Today, our office was filled with the smell of baking pizzas as we were anticipating this taste test like no other. Continuing our tradition of games at lunch, Managing Editor Elizabeth Castoria brought in her copy of Apples to Apples (which she suspiciously won!). Making the day even better, we had not one, but four pups in the office who joined us on our sunny deck as we played. This taste test will be featured in the issue we're working on right this very minute—September+October. But until then, check out an extra special sneak peek at our hot-off-the-presses July+August issue on This Just In.

Vegan Burgers and More

The Chef: Alexandra, Amy's Kitchen, Fry's Vegetarian, Ashera's Gourmet, and Wholesome Chow

The Menu: A taste test lunch feast of Amy's Kitchen Vegetable Barley Soup and Sonoma Burgers, Fry's Vegetarian Veggie Burgers and Chicken-style Nuggets, Ashera's Original Vegan Burgers, and Wholesome Chow's Lemon Poppyseed Cake and Gluten-free Chocolate Chai Cake.

The Goods: I ate it all! OK, I didn't, but I probably could have. Today, the VN staff enhanced lunch with a giant taste test of veggie burgers and meats, plus some sweets. While we all had our side meals (I brought the Amy's Kitchen soup from home), the burger patties and chicken nuggets were the highlight of the day. A good veggie burger is always welcome at the VNHQ, and we loved them all! Plus, the weather's beautiful in San Francisco, so we were lucky enough to eat our lunch on the sunny deck while puppies pranced (yes, these puppies do prance) and occasionally begged for food around us. It was a post-card perfect hour, soaking up the vitamin-D and attempting to tan. Wish you were here! Speaking of, our Publisher Joseph Connelly and Associate Publisher Colleen Holland couldn't join us, because they're in India on a VegNews Vacation (check out the photos here)! Lucky ducks. Well, we got cake, so there.

Southern Comfort Food

The Chef: Abby

The Menu: Hello, comfort food! Spicy barbecue ribs, flaky Daiya biscuits, and savory cashew gravy made this one of the most hearty, filling meals we've ever had. Abby's to-die-for biscuits were a rich and delicious treat, especially paired with Frankie's famous ribs and barbecue sauce. Abby rounded out the meal with a fresh green salad that included green bell peppers, diced tomatoes, and avocado. 

The Goods: A lunch brimming with comfort food was exactly what we needed to brighten our very overcast Thursday. Yes, the weather outside is dreary, but things here at the VNHQ couldn't be better. Aside from researching (read: taste testing) delicious baked goods all week, we just received advanced copies of our March+April issue featuring cover gal Leanne Mai-ly Hilgart! Maybe our Thursday is going pretty well, and maybe it's partly because tomorrow is Friday. Or maybe dizzying sugar rushes and/or magazine shipments are to blame. Whatever the cause, we're not complaining!

Pancake Palooza

The Chef: Abby

The Menu: A plethora of pancakes, as you can probably tell from the photo above. Maybe this breakfasty bounty has something to do with a Taste Test feature in an upcoming issue, just maybe. In case anyone was wondering, there are lots and lots of vegan pancake mixes out there! Ms. Abby paired the pancake goodness with soy chorizo and chopped apples for little bursts of sweet and savory.

The Goods: It's a good thing that Abby had already secured her place in the kitchen as our resident breakfast maker, and that she was willing to have today's menu dictated by our editorial needs. Yes, the taste testing process is probably one of our favorite parts of putting together this little magazine of ours. For your reference, eating these many pancakes, silver-dollar-sized though they may be, makes one feel as though her body has become roughly 90 percent batter, five percent syrup, and the rest vital organs.

Taste Test Thursday: Curry Compilation

The Chef: Aurelia

The Menu: Myriad ready-made meals! Continuing with the taste test theme for today, Aurelia whipped up a variety of Asian-inspired packaged meals, and complemented them with perfectly fluffy rice and curried sweet potatoes with tomato. We sampled Kerala Vegetables from Tasty Bite and the Bangkok Beauty and Sherpa's Delight curry-flavors from Going Native. Oh, and you may notice a little extra curry (because there's no such thing as too much curry!) from Jenny's awesome lunch on Monday.

The Goods: When the taste-test fever hits the VNHQ, there's no stopping it! We love trying out all kinds of great, new, vegan products and getting to tell you all about them. In case you were wondering, the theme carried over into our dessert selection as well: We tried French Meadow Bakery's Peanut Butter Bliss Cookie Bites. These all-natural, slightly salty treats were a nice balance to the spiciness of the curries. We may get crazy and actually cook something tomorrow, but no promises!

VN Tea Party!

The Chef: Lisa

The Menu: A tea tasting! Today we enjoyed a variety of teas from Pixie Maté and Zhena's Gypsy Tea. Some of the yummy flavors we sampled were Dark Roast and Lemon Maté from Pixie Maté, and Coconut Chai, Pomegranate Rose, Red Lavender, and Gypsy Love from Zhena's Gypsy Tea.

The Goods: We are all tea fiends here at the VNHQ, though some of us moonlight as coffee drinkers, too. Since we had all these lovely teas in the office it seemed that the only thing to do was have ourselves a tea-party taste test! Favorites from among the flavors we sampled were the Coconut Chai and Gypsy Love, and with the stimulating effects of the maté, we should all be extra productive today!

Special: Cookie Alert!

The Chef: Crumbz Cookiez, Inc.

The Menu: Cookie dough!

The Goods: Here at the VNHQ we love cookies. You can just imagine our glee, then, when Crumbz delivered some of their preservative-free, ready-to-bake, vegan cookie dough right to our offices, complete with baked samples for us to try. Pictured above, you see the very chocolaty staff-favorite flavor, the Double Chocolate Chip. Crumbz also offers Oatmeal Chocolate Chip, Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip, and Classic Chocolate Chip flavors, and yes, it totally thrills us to see the words "chocolate chip" repeated that many times. Right now the dough is only available at a few stores in Northern California, but the company hopes to continue to grow. As for us, we might be continuing to grow too—ahem—since discovering Crumbz!

Special: Cheese Alert!

The Chef: Dr. Cow

The Menu: The most amazing cheese tray we've ever come across. Pictured above are the cashew, macadamia, and hemp varieties of Dr. Cow's raw, vegan, aged artisan cheese. Yes, all those adjectives are true, and yes, the cheese is phenomenal.

The Goods: Getting to taste brand spankin' new vegan cheese may be the best job perk of all time. Dr. Cow's cheeses are so new that they aren't yet listed on the company's website, but you can find a more in-depth description on The Discerning Brute, blog of the wonderful, cheese-bearing Joshua Katcher, who is Dr. Cow's PR man. The whole VN office was floored by both the taste and texture of these diminutive wheels, and we predict you'll be hearing about them much more in the future. (Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, maybe some magazine you know will just have to host a few wine and cheese parties...) Excuse us, we need to slip into an absolutely delicious cheese-induced coma now.

Vegan Nachos

The Chef: Colleen

The Menu: Nachos. Freakin' nachos. Oh, and savory black beans, fresh guacamole, and an amazing tofu scramble with the sausage from Tuesday's taste test, broccoli, and mushrooms. Yes, we are indeed spoiled.

The Goods: Let's talk nachos. Oh yes, the pretty, melty cheese you see on those chips is 100-percent dairy free and incredibly delicious. Interest perked? Well, unfortunately we can't tell you who makes it, since it's still a prototype, but trust us, as soon as we get the okay from the company we'll be blabbing everything we know about this savory treat. For the present, however, you'll just have to make do with knowing about the awesome chips which served us well as cheese transporters. Mexi-Snax whole grain white chips were the perfect, salty vehicles for our mystery cheese. They also stood up well to the rigors of nacho baking, for which they get major accolades. Anyone else have nacho secrets you'd like to share? Spill the beans in the comments!

Taste Test Tuesday

The Chef: Elizabeth

The Menu: Today we feasted on a super-sausage taste test, but more on that later. Can you have hot-dog-style lunch without chips? We think not. Blue corn chips are the way we do things around these parts, and a great green salad with shredded zucchini, pistachios, avocado, and butter lettuce added a little actual nutrition to the meal.

The Goods: Curious about the taste test? While we're not at liberty to disclose much information, let's just say that mystery "meat" never had it so good. Today's main came from a certain well-known faux-meat manufacturer who wanted us to give some initial feedback on a few new and improved flavors. When we get offers like this one, the answer is always a big, fat yes. So, while we can't tell you anything more about the fake-meat itself, we can say that our usually all-female office turned into a bona fide sausage party today.