This week the newest member of our family turned one. That thing that every person you know (and don’t know in line at Target) says about it going by way too fast is true. Completely true. We had a great day celebrating and we couldn’t have made it happen without the help of Isa Chandra and Terry Hope Romero’s Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. It’s a must own for all your celebrations. This birthday, we went with the basic chocolate cupcake and chocolate mousse topping. Super simple and incredibly delicious results — rich and chocolately but not too sweet. It’s way past my bedtime, but I had to share these recipes. Oh and if you have a little extra time check out a few youtube videos on how to pipe icing with a pastry bag. It’s totally worth it and beyond easy.

Side note: Has anyone tried any of the recipes from their book as full cakes or just cupcakes? It should work as a regular cake too, right?! Vegan baking can be persnickety…

Chocolate Mousse Topping

12 cupcakes
About 15 minutes to make plus an hour to chill
From Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World by Isa Chandra and Terry Hope Romero

Basic Chocolate Vegan Cupcake

12 cupcakes
About 40 minutes to make
Also from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World by Isa Chandra and Terry Hope Romero

The post Cupcakes So Good There’s No Way They’re Vegan — But They Totally Are! appeared first on Well Vegan.

I’m over spending a small fortune on kale chips. Excellent snack, but the mark-up on those salty bits is out of control. I can and will make my own! And so will you. Add in some homemade potato chips for good measure and we just about have a party on our hands. Naturally (and ironically) on the evening before embarking on my spontaneous snack making adventure, I had been dissing the mandoline in a serious way. I think I may have even declared it nearly useless as a kitchen gadget. Sheesh, that’s some bad mandoline karma I was cooking up. It does serve a few unique purposes, but it’s so freaking dangerous it’s hardly worth it. Many a finger tip has been lost to an overly eager or down right careless mandoline owner. All that aside, it came in super handy when making these chips. Easily cut my prep time in half. But know that you’ll be fine with a sharp knife too. These are great little snacks for taking to a party or keeping kids entertained (and eating KALE) on a rainy day. Something kinda special about homemade chips (and donuts — another day we’ll make donuts!). Super easy, but keep your eye on them when they’re cooking. You may have to take the ones around the edges of the sheet pan out before the rest are done. Don’t want burnt chips — even your dog won’t eat those!

If you want to add a bit more flare to your kale chips, add 1 teaspoon smoked paprika to the bowl when you toss with the olive oil. You can do the same with the potato and sweet potato chips, but you’ll want to sprinkle closer to a tablespoon of smoked paprika on those to those when you take them out of the oven to flip.

Kale, Potato and Sweet Potato Chips

Four to six servings
A little over an hour to make

The post Snack Making Adventure:
Kale, Potato and Sweet Potato Chips appeared first on Well Vegan.

My dear old dad begs to differ, and has brought it to my attention that it is not in fact time to switch gears and start cooking warm weather food. While we reside in the warm weather bubble of Southern California, he maintains residence in the blistery cold mountains of Montana. His meteorological situation is extreme, but I suppose most of the country is still immersed in cold winter weather. Only those of us residing in Southern California have moved into spring. More warm and hearty dishes are in order. More specifically, he requested a post on how to make a proper vegetable stock. I wasn’t so much in the mood for stock making this weekend, but our 80 degree beach day passed to a cool 65 yesterday so I give you this, a vegan pot pie recipe. Do you remember those little Swanson pot pies that were like 4 for a dollar way back when? It’s kinda funny, the tofu in this recipe mimic the texture of the weird chicken bits in those to a tee. Strange but true. Knowing that, I hope it doesn’t turn you off. There’s nothing to fear from tofu. Now chicken with an off spongey texture, that is the off-putting part. But I digress.

So the foundation of this is similar to the Shepherd’s Pie if you happened to make that. Vegetables sautéed then mixed in with some vegetable broth, soy sauce and nutritional yeast. Really a great technique you can carry over to all sorts of warm wintery recipes. If you’re trying to cut back on salt, which I’m always a fan of, use water in place of the vegetable broth (or opt for a low sodium variety) and by all means, replace the soy sauce with Bragg’s. Regular soy sauce has over 900 mg of sodium per tablespoon. I like to substitute soy sauce with half Braggs Liquid Aminos and half water, so at least you’re getting some amino acids as well. It’s an easy to switch to make.

Aside from that, there are only a few other tips I have to offer. First, frying the tofu is a bit tedious. I hate turning little bits of tofu over. I find a fork works best, but it makes me wish I had one of those fryer things like Paula Dean has built in to her kitchen. I could hardly justify such as absurdity frying tofu a couple times a month, but it would be nice to have a neighbor with one you could borrow. Just drop all those little tofu squares in and be done with it in like 20 seconds. That’s the life. Oh and before I get a daydreamy about frying bulk tofu, let me also recommend doubling the pie crust part of the recipe. You won’t need twice as much, but whenever I go to the trouble to prepare something a little more labor involved, I like to make it count. Wrap the other half tightly in plastic wrap. Put it in a freezer bag and it will keep in the freezer for several months. Then next time you’re up for a pot pie or a quiche or any other recipe in need of a flaky crust just pull it out of the freezer and let it defrost over night in your refrigerator. I do the same thing with cookie dough and homemade baby food. But I’ll be the first to admit my freezer is a bit out of control. Once I hit capacity, we literally have a solid week dedicated to eating every odd ball thing I’ve deemed freezable. Lately I’ve been wondering about freezing chopped onions and celery. Needs a solid googling and maybe even a note into good ‘ol Christopher Kimball at America’s Test Kitchen. Love those folks.

Vegan Tofu and Vegetable Pot Pie

Adapted from The Kitchn
Six servings
A little over an hour to make

The post It’s Still Cold, So Make This Pot Pie appeared first on Well Vegan.

He started the diet to support his mother in law, who had cancer a few years ago and wanted to eat uber healthy to improve her chances at beating it (and she’s doing great, by the way). But Max had his own health motivations, as well. About ten years ago he needed a kidney transplant, and I was able to donate one of my kidneys to him. The transplant was a success, made even smoother because we are a perfect genetic match. However, even with the close match, he was on a dizzying schedule of medications. After adopting the diet, he was able to cut out a number of his meds, not to mention having more energy, and loosing weight. It’s all pretty amazing, and it’s been a moving example to the rest of our family of how important eating well really is.

In the months since the interview, he’s actually loosened up his diet a bit, enjoying the occasional non-RAVE meal with friends, and not stressing so much about it all.—Casey Koteen (husband of Well Vegan)

Q&A with Max

You’ve been on a plant-based diet, although you took it a step further with the RAVE diet. How does that relate to veganism?
On RAVE you don’t eat any animal products, which is like being vegan. But it gears towards more of a raw-based diet where you don’t eat refined things like soy milk, or say some refined ingredients put together to taste or look like a burger. On RAVE you wouldn’t eat anything processed like that.

What does refined exclude? For instance, would you eat peanut butter?
Well, at Whole Foods they have a peanut butter grinder and so I’ll take peanuts and grind them into peanut butter. Basically it should maintain as close to its original form as possible.

What got you started eating healthier?
Deniz’s mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, and Deniz did a lot of research on diet and other things that her mom could do other than chemotherapy. She found the RAVE diet, and we tried it as well, basically to support her mom doing it. After reading the book and doing research, I was thinking it would be great if I didn’t have to take some of the medications I was taking for blood pressure and cholesterol.

You’ve had some amazing benefits from changing your diet, what have been some of the most measurable?
Getting off of blood pressure medication. For a while, when I was on it, my blood pressure was still 140/80, and I imagine if I wasn’t taking it at all back before the diet, it might be 150-160/100. But now I haven’t been taking it for a year and half or more, and this morning for example my numbers are 113/75, so my blood pressure is excellent with just changing my diet and not even taking medication for it.

And then before I was on medication for cholesterol it was 190-200, and the medication actually helped bring it down, but now I’m not taking it and I’ve got it down below 150, which is what I shoot for.

My creatinine, which is one of the main things I measure to see how my kidney implant is doing, is the lowest it’s ever been. My all around numbers are just really good.

How soon after switching your diet did you notice an improvement in your numbers?
Well, the only one I could immediately measure was blood pressure, because I only measure cholesterol every four to six months. But my blood pressure started dropping immediately, within a week or two. During that time I was constantly having to tweak my blood pressure medications because it was dropping too low with the dosage I was originally on, which actually wasn’t very fun. I’d get blood pressure spikes, or it would go too low. But I noticed a change right away.

What was your doctor’s reaction?
He was stoked. He said that in the earlier days they controlled blood pressure by diet, before the medications. So he was happy that changing my diet had other positive effects. I’ve seen other doctors too, and they’re impressed I’m a kidney transplant recipient who’s not on blood pressure or cholesterol medication, and that I’m as healthy as I am.

Take us through a normal breakfast for you.
I usually eat muesli with water, and blueberries and strawberries. Sometimes I’ll have just fruit. I like Bob’s Red Mill Muesli. I basically look at the nutritional data on the side for low fat, low sodium, no cholesterol, and no crazy ingredients I can’t pronounce.

Do you eat three big meals or snack throughout the day?
I eat three big meals, but I do snack in between, too. I snack on a lot of nuts, pumpkin seeds, walnuts, sunflower seeds. I try to have a salad with most of the lunches and dinners, and for those I’ll make pizza, tamale pie, stuffed tomatoes, lots of rice with vegetables. In fact, if the fridge is getting kinda empty, I’ll just make a big batch of rice and whatever veggies are in there I’ll throw it on there with some low sodium soy sauce, or even salsa. We make a lot of sandwiches, too.

Do you eat bread? That must be a processed food, right?
I use whole-wheat tortillas, which aren’t 100 percent RAVE, but I’m ok with that. I use lavash, a middle eastern bread, and I can get it with just four or so ingredients. Sometimes I’ll use whole wheat bread, all natural. It’s got some non-RAVE ingredients, but the nutritional value is good and it’s not like it’s Wonder Bread.

I remember a few Christmases ago, you had a day or two where you relaxed the diet and scarfed down some candy, and your blood pressure spiked right away.
Yeah even if I go back to only RAVE diet the next day, as that stuff goes through my system I don’t feel great. The funny thing about that though, is if my blood pressure is at 140—if it’s 150 I definitely feel it and it sucks—but say 140 over 80 or 90, I won’t feel that great, but I read about people who have every day blood pressures of 160/90, or 170/110, and I can’t believe people can function at those levels. I think it’s part of acclimating to that life.

What’s normal blood pressure?
The diastolic should be between 110 and 120, so say 120 and below. And the systolic should be between 60 and 79. 120/70 is the platform they use in the U.S.

So what’s your favorite RAVE meal?
Thai Wraps, that was one of the first ones we made, and I’ve made a ton of the recipes and to be honest, some of them suck. But the Thai wraps are really good. If we have people over who aren’t used to the diet, we’ll make that. It won’t taste like cardboard to them because they’ve been eating Big Macs.

The post Eating With Purpose: Vegan Diets to Control Blood Pressure, Cholesterol appeared first on Well Vegan.

Now I know folks aren’t beating down the door to have a vegan bring the snacks on Super Bowl Sunday, but these recipes may just knock their socks off. Take that cholesterol-laden warm artichoke dip! Oh I do miss that one, but not the way I felt after wolfing it. And after a couple beers the manliest, and most carnivorous of your gathered spectators will freely admit that yours was in fact the best snack of the day. Yep, we’re aiming high here. The best, and only the best. So here goes. Adorable, tasty and simple to make, the awesome mini pizza followed by the equally adorable and wonderfully savory mini twice-baked potato bite. Let’s get to it, or the game will be over.

Mini Pizzas

Eighteen mini pizzas
About 30 minutes to prepare

Naturally, you can make these mini pizzas with any toppings you darn well please. If you do use vegan cheese, use it sparingly. It’s never that great and I’ve found the more you add, the more disappointing it gets. A little sprinkle will do the job just fine. That aside, I used a new one from Trader Joe’s and it melted surprisingly well. If you’re looking for fresh pizza dough, good old Trader Joe’s can hook you up with that too. If you don’t have a Trader Joe’s nearby and you aren’t inclined to make your own, stop in to your favorite local pizza place. They’re usually good about that sorta thing. One last tip: these pizzas are small, chop your toppings accordingly.

An alternate fake-cheese-free topping recommendation: red sauce, broccoli, roasted red peppers, vegan basil pesto.

Oh and if you’re looking for an easy vegan pesto, check out the Amore brand in the tube. I use it for everything!

Twice-Baked Potato Bites

Adapted from Simple Food
Eight servings
About one hour to prepare

The original recipe for twice baked potatoes calls for sour cream. On our first pass we used vegan sour cream and they were alright. No bad at all, but a little flat even with the fresh chives. On our second attempt we substituted the sour cream with a vegan Chive & Garlic Cream Cheese from Go Veggie!. Pretty awesome. Just the flavor kick we needed, but if you can’t find it at the store vegan sour cream or vegan cream cheese works just fine. If you happen to have a mellon baller on hand, the smaller side works great for scooping the potatoes out. If, not any small spoon will work. But seriously, wait until they’re cool before you scoop. These little spuds can really hold their heat.

The post Super Snacks for the Super Bowl appeared first on Well Vegan.

It’s been cold here. And by cool I’m talking 30s. San Diego does not get this cold, at least not consistently, so it’s caught us all by surprise. We do not own the proper attire. We are cold and shivering, so we must eat warm and hearty thing to sustain us through this most brutal of Southern California winters. Tragic, I know. But for those of you truly enduring a harsh Northern winter, I give you this to keep you toasty: a wonderfully warm and hearty tempeh based version of the classic Shepherd’s Pie. Full of protein and topped with the fluffy mash. Here goes our version, hopefully your prep goes a little smoother.

Out of the gate, I lost my sidekick. Downed by a potato peeler. It’s a shame because she’s a darn good peeler. After the medics took care of grazed thumb, she was back crumbling tempeh while I finished up the spuds. No one ever said Shepherd’s pie was easy. Actually, it is pretty easy. There’s some prep work to be had, but after that assembly is a cinch. I was working from an awesome tempeh based Veganomincon recipe with a few simple twists. And can I add that I am just loving tempeh these days—tempeh hash, kale avocado wraps with spicy miso dipped tempeh.

I had a few lonely carrots hanging out the in fridge, so in they went. You could really add in any heartish vegetable to the mix—green beans, cauliflower, spinach. I made the mashed potatoes with vegan butter and a little soy creamer. Easy as that. If you wanted to get all fancy, you could add some cashew cream into the potatoes, but really no need. It would be especially good, but not necessary unless you just happen to have some around.

Tempeh Shepherd’s Pie

Adapted from Veganomicon
Eight servings
About 90 minutes to prepare