Yoforia is a delicious fro-yo place located on N Highland Ave in Atlanta.  It is a direct descendant of Pinkberry.  You can get this delicious non fat yogurt in multiple flavors including: green tea, blueberry, mango, plain, dark chocolate and pomegranate.  You can get up to 3 toppings and they range from fruit to tasty kiddy cereal snacks.  I got 1/2 green tea yogurt and 1/2 pomegranate yogurt with blueberry, almond and granola on top.   It was incredible! I have also tried to blueberry yogurt and it was outstanding! Yoforia is not vegan but it’s a tasty snack for an every once in awhile treat.  Added bonus: no HFCS or partially hydrogenated crap!

MmmmmmmMmmMm! I was so excited for the return of True Blood (on HBO) that I took to the kitchen and made some vegan cupcakes! Yes, I know they’re not red, but it’s cool….they’re delicious!

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and either grease a cupcake pan or use paper cupcake liners.  In a medium bowl combine 2 1/4 c flour, 1 1/2 c sugar, 3 1/2 t baking powder, 3 T unsweetened cocoa and 1 t salt and stir together.

In a large bowl, mix (using a hand mixer) 1/2 c creamy or crunchy natural peanut butter, 1 1/4 c soy milk, 1 ripe banana (mashed),  and 1 t vanilla extract.

Add the dry mixture to the wet and stir (by hand) until combined.  Spoon the batter into the liners or greased cupcake tins and bake for 20-25 minutes. You can frost them with your favorite icing or do what I did: crunchy peanut butter with a sprinkle of cocoa powder! If you are going to frost them, be sure to wait until they’ve cooled.  I got 12 big cupcakes out of this recipe.

This was totally awesome.  It was quick to make and was made from an almost empty fridge.  I made a spinach salad base with shredded carrots, avocado and red onion…you basically want to use everything that would be good on top of a black bean burger.  When the black bean patty was done cooking, I melted a piece of veggie cheese on top, placed it on top of the salad and then lined yellow mustard, organic ketchup and sriracha across the top.

This idea would work with anything, really; you can switch it up and use a chik’n patty or a veggie burger.  It was the perfect amount of food for our late night dinner.

This was a recipe in the making for about a week.  Every time Loren asked what was for dinner I always threw a “peanut butter jelly tortilla” in with the other options but he never bit.  The night I added “french toast-adilla” into play, he bit.  To make this crazy awesome dish, smear peanut butter all over one side of a whole wheat tortilla.  Add your favorite jelly to one half as well as sliced bananas.  Fold the tortilla over so that the peanut butter is on top and bottom and use it to seal the edges together.

Prepare an egg wash with 2 eggs and a dash of soy milk.  Pour the egg wash over the sealed quesadilla, moving it around so the entire thing is covered in the wash.  Place the quesadilla in a medium sized skillet (sprayed with some olive oil) on medium heat.  Flip just like you would with French Toast.  At one point, we positioned the half moon section of the quesadilla directly against the pan (as shown) and poured some of the leftover egg wash on top of the quesadilla so it created a thick egg outside to it.

Once it’s cooked to your satisfaction, cut into 4ths and sprinkle some cinnamon on top.

I surprised Loren with a nice breakfast this morning to start his day with a bang! Inside a whole wheat tortilla lies spicy scrambled eggs, spinach and Veggie Shreds cheese.

To make spicy scrambled eggs, crack two eggs into a small bowl with a little soy milk and whisk until mixed.  Next drop in 2-3 T of hot salsa and stir. Pour into a small skillet (that’s been sprayed with olive oil) and then add some Morningstar Farms Italian sausage crumbles and a dash of freshly ground black pepper and sea salt.  Every one has their own scrambled eggs method…I like to keep mine moving with a rubber spatula.  Once the scramble is completed, I put down a bed of spinach on top of the tortilla, then then eggs, then the Veggie Shreds.

Another good non meat to use, is to cook a black bean burger and then break it up into pieces and use that instead of cooking ’sausage’ in your eggs.  You get the same amount of spice and meat.  If you’re vegan you can use crumbled tofu instead of the eggs.  Put it in a skillet with some olive oil, salsa and veggie shreds cheese and cook (moving frequently).

Delicious!

Pasta at its best! As my beach trip quickly approaches, I’ve been letting the food run out in the house and only buying things that Loren will eat while I’m away (so my house is seriously lacking in my fruits and veggies). This dinner started with some salted boiling water for the noodles and then started building itself as I ventured through my cabinets and fridge.

Bring 3 T extra virgin olive oil, minced garlic (1 large clove) and chunks of red onion (about 1 cup) to medium heat in a large skillet. Keep this moving so you don’t burn the garlic (very important in making sauce…if the oil is too hot and the garlic turns brown, you’ve burnt it).  After you’ve cooked this for about 4 minutes (you’ll smell the onions and garlic) add the broccoli (I used a bag of fresh broccoli).  Let this cook for about 5 minutes (you may need to pour some more oil on top of the broccoli so they cook down a little) but while it’s cooking,  add 2 cups of halved grape tomatoes, 1 cup of raw sun dried tomatoes (not in water or oil…just dried in the sun) and 1 cup of tomato sauce.  Once the tomatoes have heated through, they will begin popping (or breaking)….you can speed up this process by squishing them with a fork into the skillet.  I then added some Morningstar Farm veggie Italian Sausage crumbles, some fresh rosemary from my garden and turned the heat down to low and covered (stirring occasionally).  Once the veggie sausage heats through, your sauce is done.  I poured the sauce over my cooked noodles, mixed and added some freshly grated parmigiano reggiano cheese.  Once plated I topped it off with some fresh basil leaves.

This is one of my newest favorite pasta dishes! It goes very well with some Cabernet.

Raw vegan sushi is too pretty not to post for the 292,038,727th time.  I made it with some of the usual ingredients: cucumber, broccoli shreds, avocado and carrot.

When I’m eating raw I often find myself missing one of my favorite meals: the sandwich. My raw vegan lettuce wraps do a great job putting an end to my sandwich hunger!

I made a lettuce wrap station on the table featuring shredded carrots, shredded broccoli, raw sun dried tomatoes, basil leaves (from the garden), avocado, green pepper slices, red onion, diced tomatoes, Tofurkey sliced in strips, raw asparagus and a variety of condiments: yellow mustard, grape seed oil Vegenaise, spicy brown mustard and Sriracha. We used romaine lettuce for the wrap (much like the raw-co).

I could put away like 6 of these bad boys.

Using left over raw ‘refried beans’ as well as the leftover vegetables that were prepared for raw-co night, I made myself a taco salad! When we make raw-cos, we use romaine lettuce and then wrap vegetables and ‘beans’ inside them.  I cut up the leftover romaine for the base and then added all of the leftover vegetables (carrots, broccoli shreds, grape tomatoes, red onion and green pepper) and then added an avocado half and a scoop of ‘beans’.  I used some organic, raw tomatillo salsa for dressing.

It was extremely filling and I only got through 2/3 of it. Loren had to come to my aid to finish it up.

I made this sandwich for Loren the other morning and had to take a bite.  It’s delicious and super filling–this is definitely a no side item sandwich!

First step, prepare your bread.  I put vegan butter on one side of both pieces of bread (just like a grilled cheese) and placed them on top of each other with the butter sides touching.  Then on the side of the top piece of bread that’s looking up at me (its un-buttered), I spread a thin layer of Vegenaise just to give the sandwich a little more flavor (I use the grape seed oil Vegenaise).

Next step, start your tempeh! Tempeh needs to cook in some liquid in the skillet for about 5 minutes before you place it on your sandwich.  I sliced a chunk off my tempeh bar and then sliced that bit thinly in half (so the two thin pieces would fit the bread perfectly).  I turned a small sized skillet on to medium heat, poured some soy sauce (about 2 T)  into it and then placed the tempeh on top, moving it around a little to ensure that it was covered and let it ride.  I flipped the temeph a couple of times to ensure that it warmed all the way through.  The tempeh will soak up the liquid in the pan.  Once it was finished, I started constructing the sandwich!

I put one slice of veggie cheese on top of the Vegenaise layer, then the tempeh on top of that, another piece of veggie cheese and finally, the last piece of bread (butter side out).  I’m assuming everyone has made a grilled cheese before so you all know that the butter sides of the bread go down on the pan. I used the same pan as I cooked the tempeh in; because the tempeh soaked up the soy sauce, I didn’t have to worry about cleaning it first.  Any reminisce left on the pan will add a little more flavor into the bread.  Cook the sandwich, flipping from time to time (still on medium heat) until its reached your desired deliciousness. (hehe)

You can fancy up the sandwich by adding onion, tomatoes, spinach, etc.  I was in a simple mood that day otherwise I would have! Maybe next time….