Vegan in Vegas

In between all the fun of moving and unpacking, I got the chance to go to Las Vegas for a couple days since my husband was going for work. I had never been there before and wasn't sure how much I'd like it. I'm not usually a fan of big crowds and have no interest in gambling, but I ended up really having a great time!

The first stop was at a Whole Foods for some snacks where I was greeted by the "Welcome for our fabulous Las Vegans" sign!

I found a tasty veggie wrap and a smoothie at Tropical Smoothie Cafe, which is located on the strip across from the Cosmopolitan where we were staying. It's a great inexpensive option if you're looking for a bite.

This delish vegan soft serve is from Pop Up Pizza which is located in downtown Las Vegas, inside the Plaza Hotel.

Of course we had to stop by the Bellagio to see the fountain show which was pretty amazing!


We paid a visit to Slice of Vegas Pizza, which is located in the Shops at Mandalay Place on the strip. They have a whole vegan menu, which I forgot to take a photo of, but there are tons of choices. Pictured above is a pesto garlic bread, roasted cauliflower, and a veggie sandwich - everything was great!


Our evening at the Wynn hotel seeing the impressive show "Le Reve" and having dinner at Red 8 was extra amazing. Vegan Dim Sum?! I was so excited, and it did not disappoint! The Wynn and Encore hotels both have vegan options at all the restaurants, so make sure you pay a visit to some of the great places there.


While in Downtown Las Vegas we found Le Thai, which was a delicious dinner stop! I tried the tofu and veggie stir fry, plus a cucumber salad with peanut sauce - yum! This was totally our kinda place, wish it was closer to home.


Lastly I wanted to talk about the Cosmopolitan hotel, where we stayed. Check out the beautiful pool above! I figured out that going to the pool right at 8am when it opened was perfect. No crowds, but it was already like 90 degrees out so perfect for a swim. I also tried out the vegan burger at Holstein's which is located inside the Cosmopolitan on the 2nd floor. Thanks to fried dandelions, who mentioned it in her vegas post!

It was a quick trip but also a nice break. I was able to get work done during the day but go out to eat fun food and see shows and museums at night! I could get used to that. :)

To see some more of my travel photos, you can follow me on instagram.

Have a favorite vegan dining spot in Vegas? Please share in the comments!

Pesto Risotto and Caramelized Cauliflower from the Horizons Cookbook

A few weeks ago, my friend from Philadelphia came to visit me and she brought me a great present - the Horizons: New Vegan Cuisine cookbook by Rich Landau and Kate Jacoby. These chefs used to have a restaurant called Horizons in Philadelphia, but now can be found at the amazing Vedge, so I knew that the recipes in this cookbook had to be incredible. We selected two recipes to try while my friend was here: the Basmati Risotto with Pesto, Peas and Tomatoes, and the Caramelized Cauliflower in Spanish Green Garlic Sauce.

We made a few slight changes to the risotto by adding in a few things we had on hand such as the mushrooms, and using arborio rice instead of the basmati, but we followed their directions for making the basil pesto sauce which was delicious! I had never had a pesto risotto before but I can say now I am a fan.

The caramelized cauliflower was also really amazing. We mixed our cauliflower with some brussels sprouts and roasted both together, and then topped it with their parsely and garlic sauce and I LOVED it. We definitely ate well that evening.

The rest of this book is filled with some really interesting and tasty sounding recipes including appetizers, soups, salads and desserts. I can't wait to try out more.

You can get a copy of the Horizons Cookbook here, and also check out their new cookbook Vedge which is coming out later this year. It looks promising!

Thanks for stopping by!

Vegan in Paris

I recently returned home from a trip to Paris. My husband and I decided to go for a fun sight-seeing vacation as well as to celebrate our first anniversary. We fit a ton of museums, historical sights, wandering and shopping into one week and we had a great time. I was nervous about finding things to eat in a city that in famous for loving it's meat and cheese, but with some planning ahead of time things were actually easier than I thought. Check out my restaurant stops below as well as some general tips if you are planning a trip to Paris!

The one food related activity we booked ahead of time was a market tour and cooking class with La Cucina di Terresa. It offers vegetarian cooking classes with Terresa in her quaint Paris apartment. We met her at the Sunday organic market and picked out ingredients for our lunch, and some extra things like homemade dairy-free chocolates. Terresa was a great tour guide and pointed out some sights to us as we walked back to her home. It was great to have a local to show us around and give insider tips on shopping. We created some tasty dishes in her kitchen: a farinata (chickpea flatbread), a Swiss chard pasta with a lemon walnut sauce, and a traditional French dessert made from almond milk with pomegranate called Blancmanger. Terresa was happy to make our menu fully vegan for me. We tried some local natural wines too. I was feeling a bit jet lagged and Terresa sent me home with leftovers and herbal tea at the end of the class- so nice! It was a pleasant way to spend a day in Paris.

Farinata made in our Paris Cooking Class

We had dinner one night at the vegan restaurant Le Potager du Marais. It is a small place, but was not at all crowded when we got there around 7pm. They have an impressive menu with some vegan versions of french food and some other interesting creations. We ordered the soup of the day which was Green Pea and vegetable, a French Onion soup, and then a Quinoa Burger with gratin potatoes and a dish called "Pink Lentil Balls". We enjoyed the soups a lot - the portions were way bigger than we expected. The main dishes were good too, but just not quite to our taste. I think from reading some reviews online that the dishes here are a little hit or miss. We did split the chocolate mousse for dessert and this was excellent. I would say it's a good vegan option in Paris but maybe not a "must go".

Chocolate mousse at Le Potager du Marais.

Here are some other various foodie photos I took while in Paris. The top left is a veggie and hummus sandwich, tabbouleh salad, and juice that I grabbed for lunch from Le Bio d' Adam et Eve, near the Les Halles station. Let me tell you, when we got to this place I was SO happy because they actually had vegan labels on their selections! The food was very tasty too, and is all organic. Wonderful place!
The top right is another meal we had from Veggie, a place we found on the fly while realizing we were hungry after visiting the Musee d'Orsay. It's a small shop and deli type restaurant and while they didn't have menus the waiter told us 3 specials for lunch that day and assured me of which was vegan. We weren't really sure what we were getting but ended up with a stir fry and vegetable type dish with salad, and a tasty baked vegetable dish that had potatoes, carrot and squash and was served with rice. Definitely a solid stop if you're near the area.
Bottom left - the fresh french bread that we enjoyed almost every day. There are a lot of choices in the bread shops (boulangeries) but I felt pretty safe with the Pain Traditional.
Bottom right - selection of tofu and other mock meats inside a natural grocery store called Naturalia.

Pictured above is the fabulous lunch we had at Les Cinq Saveurs d'Anada which is located near the Pantheon. They have mostly vegan options, but do serve some fish and other things. If I remember right the menu was marked with what was vegan. This place is amazing! I tried fresh carrot apple juice and a salad plate, and my husband got a tofu plate with rice, quinoa, and salad. Everything was really delicious, especially the tofu. It was so nice to have a fresh and healthy meal. This place would be on my "must go" list for sure!

The last recommendation on my list is the Gentle Gourmet Cafe. This is a fairly new vegan restaurant in Paris (It used to be a B+B) and we had a great dinner here on our last night. Pictured above is a pumpkin leek soup (with a hot chocolate in the background), a Mediterranean salad with chickpeas, a potato gratin type of dish with salad, and the most amazing dessert crepe of all time. We seriously almost licked that plate clean. I got my wish of trying a crepe in France, and it was even filled with soy milk ice cream! Yum. Definitely make a stop here!

View from the top of the Arc de Triomphe at night, Pyramid at the Louvre, Notre Dame and the Seine, Stained glass inside Sainte-Chapelle.

 
Some General Tips
1. You can't really just pop in to any place and expect to find something vegan-friendly on the menu or be able to modify something like is common in the US. Most places we passed just walking around I would have had a hard time finding something to eat. I did a lot of research ahead of time on Happy Cow and other sites and made a list of restaurants that had vegan options. My husband got a map app for his phone and we put in all the sites we wanted to see as well as my list of restaurants. That way if we were out sight seeing and wanted to find food nearby, we could just look it up and see what was close. This was seriously a life saver!

2. We rented a small studio apartment through Flipkey, and this turned out to be a great advantage too. In addition to feeling like you are living more like a native, we had a small kitchen and were able to eat some easy meals at home. We would get fresh bread and bring it home for a snack almost every day. I stocked up on snacks like trail mix and fruit, and would bring something along when sight seeing.

3. Neither of us speak any French, and I was a little worried about getting by. Almost everywhere we went like restaurants and shops we had zero problem. We asked people nicely if they spoke English and most either said "of course" or that they would try their best. I think being friendly and not expecting things goes a long way. Most of the menus in restaurants had English translations too!

I hope that this post will help anyone planning a Paris trip, and maybe inspire a few people to think about going! I think traveling and experiencing new places is worth it, and I'm happy that with careful planning it's easy to find some great vegan food there as well.

Thanks for stopping by!

Tangerine French Toast

Even in my pre-vegan days, I wasn't really a huge fan of french toast. I would never choose it over say, waffles or cinnamon rolls. I tried to make it at home a few times, but it always came out not quite right. My husband is a much bigger french toast fan than I am, so when I was given a sample of the Vegg to review, my first thought was to whip up some vegan french toast and see what happened.

The Vegg is a vegan product that is made to resemble egg yolks. It comes in a powder form, and you need to mix it in a blender with some water to get the correct consistency. Conveniently there was even a recipe for french toast included on the package! I decided to use this as my base recipe, and added some other flavors in for fun.

Tangerine French Toast
 makes 3-4 servings

2 tsp Vegg powder
3/4 C water
3/4 C almond milk
1 tangerine, juiced (about 1/4 C juice)
few drops vanilla
4-6 pieces bread - cut into thirds
vegan butter
for garnish: powdered sugar, maple syrup, tangerine slices

Mix together the Vegg powder, water, and almond milk together in a blender.
Pour this into a shallow dish. Stir in the tangerine juice and a few drops of vanilla.
Heat a skillet over medium-high heat and melt some vegan butter.
Slice your bread into strips and dip both sides into the liquid mixture. Fry the bread in the heated skillet, adding more vegan butter as needed. Flip to cook both sides until golden brown.
Top with powdered sugar, maple syrup and tangerine segments.

When I was mixing the Vegg powder in the blender I was surprised by how much it actually smelled like eggs. It's not a smell I'm used to anymore, so it was a little weird! I was worried the french toast might taste too much like an egg, but actually the end product was delicious! I think with all the other flavors going on and the fact that I covered the french toast with a nice layer of powdered sugar and maple sugar it was hard to go wrong. The tangerines were so perfect too!

I do think that you could easily make this recipe without the Vegg in there, but if you are really missing eggs in your dishes or for someone who is still transitioning to a vegan diet, I think this product could be very useful. I was happy to test it out, and I think I'll make this french toast again!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Vegan Food Swap: October 2012

It's time for the October vegan food swap reveal!

The vegan food swap is a wonderful idea created and organized by The Verdant Life.
You get matched up with a person and send them a box full of your favorite vegan foods. It's a great chance to try new things and meet other bloggers! Plus it is really fun to get a surprise box of food in the mail. :)

This month I sent a box to Jannifer, who doesn't yet have a blog. I hope you enjoyed your treats!

I received an awesome food swap box from Mary!

Here's a list of what was in my box:

• Can of Pumpkin
• Imagine Mushroom Gravy
• Dried Sour Cherries
• The Essential Bite Banana chip oat
• Blueberry Muffin Larabar
• Justin's Nut Butter: Vanilla Almond and Chocolate Hazelnut - my 2 favorite flavors!
• Fearless Chocolate Bar
• Adorable halloween cupcake liners

I loved the halloween theme, such a cute idea! She also included this fun card with a recipe for pumpkin mac n cheese which I will be trying soon.

Thank you so much for the great vegan swap box, Mary!

If you want to join in on the vegan food swap fun, you can sign up right here.

There will not be any swaps in November or December, but you can join in for January!

Friday Flashback

1. I finally bought some new vegan makeup - Ecco Bella
2. I found cocomels!
3. A dinner my husband made me - pasta with zucchini and yellow squash. :)
4. Smashed kidney bean tacos
5. Baked mango tofu
6. Kitty nap time


Have a great weekend!

Friday Flashback: Eating Out

As my 3rd week comes to an end I wanted to discuss eating out. It is probably the aspect that has been the most challenging for me, but I don't think it's too hard once you get used to what to look for on menus. Colorado in general is fairly health-conscious so there a lot of options where something will work for vegans.

There are a lot of great websites that you can look up restaurant chains and see what items are vegan, and I also found a great Colorado specific one complete with a vegan restaurant list - Vegan Coloradical.

Another thing that has been helping me out is that we signed up for Mile High Organics, which is a home produce delivery service. It's easy and convenient with our busy schedules and it forces me to eat a variety of vegetables! You can have them deliver each week, every other week (what i do), or on any schedule you'd like. Thumbs up! (I guess this is not really eating out, but oh well!)


Here are a few snapshots from my week...

1. A delicious salad from modmarket. I love this place because they label everything (vegan, dairy free, gluten free, etc).
2. My creation from a Mongolian Stirfry. I like these type of places where you can go through the line and pick whatever you want, it makes it easy to customize.
3. Justin's Chocolate Hazelnut Butter. This stuff is amazing!! They are a Colorado company, but I hope you can find it wherever you are.
4. Starting a new embroidery project!

Have a fun weekend!

What are your favorite vegan cookbooks?

The internet has a plethora of great recipes for vegans, and pinterest is one of my favorite go-to sites to look up a quick idea. Sometimes you just need a book though, for the pretty pictures and the convenience of having tips all in one place. I have bought two books so far.

Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook

The Kind Diet

 

Does anyone have any great book recommendations?
What's the one vegan resource you can't live without?

 

Some delicious broccoli from my kitchen