Vegan MOFO Day 1: Vegan BLT Sandwiches!

Vegan MoFo is here again, everybody! For those of you who don't know, October is Vegan MoFo, or Month of Food. This gives all us vegans...especially the foodies!...a great excuse to talk as much as we can about food, cooking, cookbooks, veganism, health, etc. And you know we love to talk about what we eat, not to mention talking about what everyone else is eating, too! So all in all, Vegan MoFo is like our month-long food porn fest. yeah.

For the first day of Vegan MoFo, I will share about my underground restaurant. It doesn't have a name or anything yet, but I'm working on that! Basically, I serve food restaurant-style out of my apartment once a week on Sundays. I make one meal and dessert, and whoever hears about it and wants to come is MORE than welcome! It's going around by word of mouth right now, and word of blog I suppose, so I hope that it will continue to grow as I keep working at it! This past weekend was the fourth installment of the "supper club" type get-together, complete with all the good stuff....

The main dish: Vegan BLT Sandwiches!! One of my favorite things to make in the summertime to celebrate the abundance of awesome tomatoes. Since I still had plenty to use up at this end of summer period, I figured BLT's were a must. They have tempeh bacon (see a few posts ago for that recipe!) from local tempeh, crisp organic lettuce, my mom's homegrown tomatoes, avocado, and vegan mayo, all on homemade millet bread! What a sandwich!!

On the side, I made Local Potato Salad (made with local potatoes, red onion, garlic, and carrots!)...

The other side was Citrus-Spice Pickled Watermelon Rind from Terry Bryant's Vegan Soul Kitchen cookbook. I loved these!! I saved all my watermelon rinds from my last local watermelon of the season and pickled them with lemons, oranges, and spices. Delicious! A perfect item for that summer to fall transition!!
And NO meal would be complete without dessert!! In keeping with the local produce theme, I decided to make a tester recipe from Terry Hope Romero's upcoming Vegan Latina cookbook: Sweet Corn Ice Cream!!

Corny, creamy, simple, delicious. Even more irresistable when I topped them with Praline Pecans!! I mixed barley malt syrup, Earth Balance, soy creamer, cinnamon, salt, sugar, nutmeg, and pecans together and poured the mixture over the yummy ice cream...
Let's just say I had no complaints!

More MoFo to come!!

I Got Vegan Soul Kitchen!

For a graduation present, my wonderful and lovely friend, Anna, got me Vegan Soul Kitchen by Bryant Terry! I have read several other bloggers talk about this cookbook and it looked like something that would be right up my culinary alley...and I was right! Filled with delicious and healthy soul food, this cookbook transforms any kitchen to a down-home oasis.

The first recipes I made from Vegan Soul Kitchen were the Whole-Grain Mustard and Cornmeal Crusted Seitan and the Garlic Broth-Braised Brussels Sprouts. These were both so simple to make and absolutely delicious to eat! I served them with a side of spice roasted sweet potatoes, a recipe of my own. I made this dinner for my friend, Sarah, and myself, and we both thought these were great, homey dishes!I highly recommend this cookbook to anyone who loves comfort food, healthy food, or easy-to-prepare food!

With a little room leftover for dessert, Sarah and I hit up Sparky's, the local ice cream shop, for some vegan sorbet! The sorbet flavor of the day was Pineapple-Lime Sorbet...this was summer in a cup!! Very refreshing and cool!

I'm so glad summer is here! Now, if I only had air conditioning....