Baked Ziti, Great Greens

The Chef: Elizabeth

The Menu: A healthy, hearty take on baked ziti using gluten-free pasta, tomato sauce, and a tasty tofu ricotta. Elizabeth chose an all-green theme for today's lovely leafy salad, including romaine, green olives, cucumber, avocado, and grated zucchini.

The Goods: Is it just us, or is this week rapidly whizzing by? We can't believe tomorrow is already Thursday, which marks a celebratory occasion: SF Vegan Drinks! With the weather finally turning sunny, we can't wait to trek over to Martuni's, San Francisco's most happening piano bar, and throw back a few $5 vegan Orange Creamsicle Martinis (this month's special!) at our favorite monthly meet-up. In addition to enjoying a few drinks, we're also pumped to nosh on veggie dogs and vegan popcorn—yeah, it's pretty much the perfect trifecta of summertime treats. If you're local, stop by to meet the VN staff, make new friends, and down a few stellar sippers.

Homemade Vegan Meatballs

The Chef: Colleen

The Menu: Oh, just your basic bowl of ziti and pasta sauce—with homemade vegan meatballs!! Seriously, we are not even sure how Colleen managed to make all this in just an hour, but she did, and we are stoked. Well, OK, we do know that she used Match Meats Ground Chicken as a base, but then loaded these baked babies up with spices, and cooked them perfectly. The end, love, meatballs.

The Goods: Well, it's raining and gross here at the VNHQ today, but the inclement weather has not dampened our spirits. It's Friday, we'll be doing a giveaway next week, and for those who are into this kind of thing, it's the first night of Hanukkah. Need some vegan Hanukkah recipes? Maybe you should head over to VegNews.com, where we just happen to have some.

Coconut-Ginger Bowl

The Chef: Lyndsay

The Menu: A satisfying sup of ziti, grated carrots, chopped asparagus, peas, onions, garlic, and garbanzo beans, all tossed in a very yummy coconut-ginger sauce. We all topped our bowls with hearty doses of Parma, and sopped up the sauce with slices of walnut bread. This veggie-laden lunch was a tasty way to start off the week!

The Goods: There might have been a little something sweet that we enjoyed right after our savory lunch. Elizabeth was in LA over the weekend, and brought back treats from the utterly phenomenal post-Genesis-Awards brunch hosted by Moira Nordholt. Moira whipped up an incredible spread of edibles, and was kind enough to send Elizabeth back home with a doggie bag of homemade truffles. Yeah, that says homemade truffles. We, um, devoured them. Check Press Pass for full details of the weekend, since VegNews was simultaneously at the Genesis Awards and the Seattle Green Festival. Speaking of green, we're giving away a Green Cleaning Kit over on VegNews.com. Get your spring cleaning off to a green start!

Vietnamese Ziti

The Chef: Elizabeth

The Menu: OK, you caught us. The ziti is Italian, not Vietnamese. The spring rolls, one of which you see at left in its pre-rolled glory, were Vietnamese, but since there's no really smooth way of combining the ideas of spring rolls and baked ziti, well, we came up with the brilliant solution of Vietnamese Ziti. Filled with sauteed tofu, shredded carrot, sliced cucumber, and rice vermicelli, the spring rolls were a perfectly light accompaniment to the extra-super-rich baked ziti. Swimming in marinara and two, count 'em!, varieties of homemade, non-dairy cheese, this magnanimous main course was better than any non-vegan baked ziti we've ever had.

The Goods: It's not actually that Elizabeth is suffering from some sort of cultural-culinary identity crisis—she's happily swathed in green clothes and Irish pride today, while her Italian half felt right at home when the baked ziti came out of the oven—it's that we're testing recipes! Yes! That means that both of these awesome dishes will be yours to make once the May+June issue of VegNews comes out next month. Until then, we have a litte St. Patrick's Day giveaway going on to tide you over. Happy Vietnamese-Italian St. Patty's Day!