Sunday, November 6, 2011

Most epic vegan dessert of 2011!!


That doesn't build it up much right?!I decided for my party this evening, it was going to be only the best for my guests. Therefore, I served this Triple Chocolate Mousse cake touted as the best vegan dessert of the year. I always get nervous serving an untested recipe at a party, but this just shows that you shouldn't be afraid to take risks. This cake was like a party in my mouth and my pants at the same time. I know that will be more confusing to some of you more than others. Regardless, this cake was a hit with (sadly) not one lick of leftovers. So make it if you want to impress somebody! And just because I like you, here are the rest of the "year's best" recipes.

Monday, October 31, 2011

Hoe Down: Part 2


Our next chapter begins with more rain and a vegan cocktail party! In a huge tent! After a delightful afternoon making new animal friends, it was time to get ready for free wine, sunset yoga and hoe down fun! Katherine and I went back to the tent city that you see below to get dolled up like hoe.....downers ;)



 In the tent was a local band heavy on the fiddle. I was in looooove! Available to sample were new vegan products like Queso and Dr.Cow nut cheese. Oh yeah, and free wine!

This evening turned into my first experience doing yoga with a buzz, a popcorn stand, line dancing with a caller and amazing new friends!


The next morning it was sunrise yoga! I got up an hour earlier than I needed to because of no watch *d'oh*. My mistake allowed me however, to see the farm wake up. To revel in the stillness and beauty around me. Later that morning we got to sit through some of the most amazing speakers I've ever heard. At this point, the clouds opened up and it started to POUR. It was no big deal, it wasn't like we had to dissemble a tent and drive back to Canada or anything :/. So we ditched early to take down our monstrosity of a camp set up, but lost the battle when it collapsed on us. So lame. Before we left this amazing place, we got one last unforgettable meal! First is was pulled BBQ with pitas, olives, bean salad and mmmm....fresh tomatoes and basil. We were all crammed into the people barn to escape the rain, which is also were they have all of their visual displays. This shot is of my delicious lunch, which does not include the sad animal in front of me. Pigs are awesome y'all!


Just when I couldn't eat another bite, a line up starts to form beside me. This line was chock full of some EXCITED people. I had to see what was up...VEGAN ICE CREAM BAR. O.M.G. So here I was in line, hoping from one foot to another with anticipation. Did I want coconut vanilla, cookie dough or chocolate? Rice mallow fluff (which btw tastes exactly like the original), crushed cookies, granola, sprinkles, vegan chocolate and caramel sauces? The answer was yes. To everything! Farm Sanctuary really practiced what they preached here. All of their plates, cups and silverware were compostable!


So finally, with one gigantic mouthful of ice cream heaven, we bid adieu Farm Sanctuary Hoe Down.


Even writing about this trip months afterwards, I feel waves of gratitude that I was able to be part of this amazing event at this spectacular place. Until we meet again....  


 

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Caramel peanut butter apples=I just peed a little bit!


Oh baby! If there's anything that makes people loose it more than a surprise cupcaking, it's caramel apples. They have negligable health benefits and your face ends up covered in sticky sweet caramel. That's called a life win. In preparation for Halloween, I present to you simple caramel apples from The Post Punk Kitchen. Your welcome.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Hoe Down 2011: The time free wine happened near pigs


There is this place called  Farm Sanctuary. A foxy dude named Gene Beaur started it by rescuing a sheep from a pile of downed animals at a stockyard. He brought it to this beautiful farm in upstate New York and funded it by selling veggie dogs at Grateful Dead concerts. It grew into one of the primary animal welfare agencies today, with multiple sanctuaries for rescued farm animals. Vegnews published a story a few issues ago about a vegan bucket list, and this Virgo went check mark crazy with coloured pens. One thing I hadn't done yet was attend the annual Hoe Down at Farm Sanctuary.  An incredible vegan-palooza with world class speakers, rescued animals, amazing food, yoga, free wine, spectacular location and did I already say food? It was on!
We decided that for the full experience, we would set up camp in the tent village. At midnight. Without flashlights. In a tent neither of us had ever put up. Enter Adrian, a fellow Canadian, who saved the day with a glowing cell phone and more self preservation skills than we possessed. It wasn't quite perfect, but it did the trick (until the end when it didn't, and collapsed on us in the rain).
Fail.
Katherine and I both left nursing children at home, so this tent also served as a lactation station. It sure wasn't a stretch  to empathise with a dairy cow! We woke up to vegan breakfast and rain! Heavy clouds brought heaving downpours that clattered off of the roof in the people barn.

On the plus side, we brought cute rubber boots. In the afternoon, we got to learn about the animals on the farm. Their stories of survival and triumph brought me to tears, and then we got to meet them! My favorites were the fuzzy Holstein calves, squeallllll....even thinking about them now makes me swoon!

I told you we had cute boots.



See you in part two!











Free magazine!

 I love the story of Chickpea magazine. It started up with a mircobusiness loan, its name is cute, it has delicious recipes like vegan nutella and alfredo-and it's free! Check it out-I loved it!

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Get in my belly: Vegan Fish and Chips

Hey guys! I'm back after a monumentally long absence. Mini took all of the keys off the keyboard, so blogging was out. You can now expect more timely updates thanks to the finest/cheapest laptop money can buy. I'm going to solicit your forgiveness with this amazing top secret recipe. It comes from my vegan homeslice Maggie, and the first time I ate it-I cried tears of fatty happiness. Perfect fried tofu! The batter was fish and chips all the way, so that's how I'm presenting it to you.
Maggie's Fried Tofu
aka Battered Fish
1 Block Tofu, sliced 1/2 inch thick
1/3 cup Flour
1/2 cup Non-dairy Milk
4 Tbs Cornmeal
4 Tbs Nutritional Yeast
1/2 Tsp Salt
1/4 Tsp Pepper
1 cup Grape seed oil
Place oil in the heaviest frying pan you own. Let it get nice and hot. If a drop of water is dropped into the oil, it should pop. Arrange three bowls, one containing flour, the next milk and the last your cornmeal, nutritional yeast, salt and pepper combined. Here's where you can freestyle-do you like garlic, onion, or sage? Add some of your favorite seasonings to the last bowl if you're feeling frisky. After that, dip each slice of tofu in the contents of the bowls, obviously one by one. Flour, milk, cornmeal. Got it? After this, fry a few minutes on each side until they are golden brown. Drain on a paper towel or newspaper if you like to kick it old school. From here, you can make yourself some baked fries for fish and chips, or put it on a roll like a chicken burger. A simple tartar sauce for dipping: Mix veganaise(or any other egg free mayo), a splash of lemon, salt and pepper, a 1/2 tbs agave syrup and 1/4 relish.
Now you can't say I've never given you anything! You're welcome.

Friday, May 20, 2011

Your hippie-tastic tip for the day!

I came upon this tip on Alicia Silverstone's blog, and I think it's pretty freakin genius. Green=Check. Free=Check. Money saving=Check. So do it y'all!


"All you have to do is save a 20 oz. water bottle, remove any plastic or paper from the outside of it and then fill it partially with sand, dirt, pebbles or gravel (if you can’t find any of those materials around your house, just fill the bottle partially with water!). Make sure to seal the bottle tightly before placing it in your toilet tank. Then carefully lower the bottle into the tank and put the lid of the toilet back on. Pretty easy, right? HERE is a New York Times article about reducing water in your home. According to this article "A sealed half-gallon water container installed in the tank will save a half gallon of water per flush...a family of five that flushes five times a day each -- the national average -- will save 350 gallons of water each month." That's a lot of water!"

And while you're greening up your bathroom, start buying recycled toilet paper already! You're wiping your ass with it and then flushing it down the toilet. Lets not kill any more trees that we have too.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

I want to marry this sandwich.

*sigh* I love Field Roast. In my opinion, the very best analog (and soy free) products out there. Analog simply refers to a product that resembles meat in texture and flavor. I often get asked why a vegetarian or vegan would want to eat something that pretends to be meat. First, not all of us do. Second, because meat tastes good-duh. I don't know many veggies who stopped eating meat because of flavor. This product is nice because it has a short ingredient list (all of which are real food) and amazing flavor and texture.
Unfortunately, I can no longer get Field Roast products at a store anywhere near me. We will be reunited again soon. When that day comes, I will be making this Vietnamese sandwich while crying tears of happiness. Image: Field Roast
In the mean time if you could just make this for yourself, and tell me about it detail by painful detail-that would be awesome.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Best video eva! Pad Thai, yum!

Today I share with you possibly the most amazing cooking show you've ever seen. I present to you "Vegan Black Metal Chef". Brilliant!

Monday, May 2, 2011

The day I discovered my Vitamix made ice cream

Image: Kawaii

Also known as the fourth best day of my life. I've made no secret about my obsession with my beloved Vitamix. Over the three years that we've been together, we've had some fun times, sweet times, bittersweet times, saucy times, and some explosive times. We've had boozy times, crepe-y times and blendy times. But until today, we've never had ice cream-y times. For those of you that have never eaten vegan ice cream, I'm going to tell you something. It's both insanely delicious and stupid expensive. For that reason, it's rare in this house (someone also told me that it's metabolic suicide-and I have a hard time forgetting that). So today when Biggest was sent home with a raging fever, it called for some serious TLC. Our family shares one car and after a walk home in the rain I wasn't expecting that TLC to come in frozen form. But there he was, begging for ice cream and me not having any. Then I remembered the Vitamix Costco demo that sold me on it in the first place. How had I not tried this until now? Into my Vitamix I threw

Mango Lychee Soft Serve
1 cup ice
1/2 cup organic soy milk
1/2 cup cashews
5 dates
1/4 cup frozen mangos
1/4 cup frozen lychees

Using the plunger, keep forcing the ingredients towards the blade until it's relatively smooth. I was really careful to blend it just enough, as the Vitamix will quickly melt that ice. I used an ice cream scoop to dish it out and we all thought we went to heaven. Seriously. No sugar, check. Healthy ingredients, check. No metabolic suicide, check. Not $7.99 a pint, double check. Amazing! I have had a soft serve maker all this time?!? Le sigh. Though that just means that I have to make up for lost time. So for my dinner ice cream I made: (keep in mind with measurements that I'm guesstimating)

Raspberry Chocolate chip Soft Ice Cream
1/4 cup frozen raspberries
1/2 cup organic soy milk
1 cup ice
2 handfuls cashews
6 dates
1 small handful vegan mini chocolate chips

Repeat same process as above. Except keep chocolate chips out until the last few seconds. I loved this one! The raspberry was really tart with a little sweet, reminiscent of frozen yogurt. Biggest had two cones of this-it's nice when I can say "yes" to more treats sometimes. Stay tuned-I'm already planning tomorrow's ice cream binge. Dear Vitamix, thank you for giving me a reason to wake up tomorrow. Ice cream for breakfast.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

The People Project

Two posts in one day! I swear, the world is not coming to an end. My friend Shannon told me how addicting watching the stats on your blog are. She couldn't be more right. Essentially it tells you how people are finding their way to your blog (turns out I have a large Latvian audience! Sveiki visiem maniem latviešu auditoriju! Paldies par apstāšanās ar, un parādot man jūsu mīlestība! Pazemīgus, lai aplūkotu vegāns ziņu izplatību tālu un plaši. Daudz mīlestības! Thanks Google Translate :) Anyways, it's how I found out that Isa Chandra gave this blog a shout out on twitter (squeeee) and how I learned I'm face number two on the Veganvoice.org People Project. How awesome! Essentially it's purpose is to show the many faces of veganism (which by the way are both normal and very attractive haaa). It's really really cool-if you're vegan, go check it out and add your bad ass self and story! And if you're not, it's great for people watching!

Happy Easter! Vegan creme eggs holla!

Veganizing things makes me feel powerful. Like a cooking ninja if you will, sneaking in under the cover of darkness to make delicious treats previously off limits to junk food junkies like myself. Omni-tastic Christina used to eat copious amounts of creme eggs right around this time of year, almost guaranteeing an extra 5 lbs of flab going into bathing suit season. Everything is explained now that I have seen the ingredients that go into them.
Now let's make no bones (haaa punny) about it-these are horrible for you. Yet they taste amazing and they instantly transform you away from that weird vegan in the corner eating the only side dish without bacon.
Since it was my first attempt at making candy, they weren't a total home run. I would have been more effective with multiple candy trays, as I was doing them one at a time hours apart (which was hard to keep the chocolate from solidifying). Also, I overfilled the chocolate molds not wanting to
waste the filling. But otherwise-smashing success. Really easy so give it a try! Happy Easter everyone!

Monday, April 11, 2011

Whipped Creme:The Holy Grail


There are some things that are (in my humble opinion) unduplicatable. Brie. Deviled eggs. Whipped creme. UNTIL NOW! Now don't let my shouty capitals alarm you, but feel free to let them excite you right down to your undies. Vegan whipped creme is here, and it's so flippin amazing you'll want it to take a bath in it.


It comes, of course, from Isa Chandra Moskowitz, who has come up with pretty much every one of my very favorite recipes. I was going to blog about something else tonight, but when my new buddy Shannon found out there was a recipe for vegan whipped creme-there was no other choice. The recipe for Rad Whip, in all it's glory! Don't let the complicated steps throw you off, it doesn't take more than about 20 minutes of active work and the results are out of control. Get ready for all kinds of whipped creme madness!

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Feeding picky jerks vegan food

Let me walk you through a timeline of dinner at my house:

4:00-the natives start to get restless, what's for dinner?
4:15-ingredients assembled, preparation begins
4:20-boiling, chopping, sauteing and measuring all being done while simultaneously keeping Mini out of the fridge (which she always violently protests), keeping Mini away from the oven, cleaning up pasta shells Mini has dumped onto the floor, rescuing playdough from Mini's mouth and trying to have a rousing debate with Biggest about why now is not the time for snack.
4:30-Pingu saves the day
4:33-Biggest takes up where we left off about negotiating for snacks
4:35-Settling for a glass of rice milk, Biggest now takes up a petition for the family to play Super Mario brothers together. Melts down when dinner preparation wins. Glass goes zooming across the kitchen and shatters. Clean up said glass while Mini tries to dance in the shards.
4:40-Turn off oven timer and instead program in a time out
4:45-Forget about oven items while talking to Biggest about why he had a time out
4:50-Oven treats burn. Rescue Mini from imminent death(she's jumping on the top bunk because the door was left open to their room).
4:55-Dinner's ready. Shut up and eat.
5:00-Mini may be a jerk, but girlfriend knows how to eat. She shovels it in while Biggest complains that it's too hot/cold/brown/cooked/not plain bread

I'm going to tell you a little secret, kids are assholes at meal times (and bedtime for that matter). One second they are dying of hunger, the next they could starve you out for weeks. Vegan kids are no different (though I do feel that my children's palate is probably more keen on dark leafy greens than most omniorious adults). Nothing pisses me off more than spending and hour in the kitchen to have them refuse to touch it. A few of Biggest and Mini's current no fail favorites:


1. Garlic bread. Whole wheat toast, earth balance buttery spread, dehydrated garlic powder and nutritional yeast. Bam, breakfast is served.

2. Smoothies! I'll save my secret smoothie recipe for another post-but biggest chooses two fruits and two vegetables. 60% of the time, it works every time.

3. Tortillas. Put anything in them, or nothing.

4. A loaf of bread/plain bagel. Carbs carb carb carb carbs! Who doesn't love carbs, and lots of em? Ask any 4 year old.

5. Mini loves soups of all sorts, Biggest is indifferent.

I'll end with a magical, life changing, super delicious, can never make enough, family favorite recipe. For hummus. That tastes like pizza.

Pizza Hummus
Servings: Never enough


1 can (or 1.5 cups cooked) chickpeas
3 cloves garlic (or less if you're wimpy)
2 tbs-1/4 cup olive oil
juice of a lemon
1/4-1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cumin
1/4 cup sun dried tomatoes, soaked in warm water for about 15 minutes to soften
1 tbs dried oregano
1 tbs dried basil

Rinse your chickpeas if using canned variety. Add all ingredients to food processor(start with smallest amount of olive oil, and drizzle in until you get your desired consistency) and process until smooth. Salt with smallest amount first, then taste and readjust as necessary. Next, drain the water off of your sundried tomatoes, add them and your spices. Blend again-Bam! Dinner is served. Pictured with roasted veggies, and pita (to roast, oven at 400-450c, a little olive oil, a little salt, keep your eye on them until brown!)


I served it with a fruit salad. The syrup is made of equal parts flax oil (for omega fats) and maple syrup. Dinner FTW! Now if I could just find guest that wear pants to the table....

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Stuff Virgos like....

We virgos are a proud people. Organized, rational, driven. There are few things that virgos like more than order. Or planning. Or alphabetizing things. So when given the chance to cut loose, this virgo loves to plan a dinner party. A themed dinner party in fact. Ideally once monthly, some of my bestest friends come together at rotating homes for potluck madness. And by madness I mean thoughtfully planned out, organized fun. This month was my turn, and I chose Mexican. San Antonio imparted me with a deep love of southwestern cuisine (though adapted to not hurt animals or my cholesterol). The kiddos were around for a bit, and went to bed surprisingly easy considering the full house. (Thanks to the hubby for taking the bullet on that!) Pictured is mini with her favorite person Shawn and cupcake face.There was handmade guac and chips, mexican rice, and cuban rum from Jules and Shawn. Amy and Racheal took charge of drinks and we had a million gallons of margaritas-as you can probably figure out from the mustaches drawn on with permanent marker.

My contribution was my(Anna's) famous tortilla soup, which won high marks from the judges. Also featured was kale, potato and pumpkin seed enchiladas from Veganomicon, with roasted garlic cilantro sour cream. Yum, I could eat this every day.

I also made cupcakes (though I can't remember now what type-probably pumpkin chocolate chip with cinnamon icing. I'm kind of a one trick pony-I love those things!). It was another amazing night with this crew, leaving me bursting with happiness at my luck for great friends and great food. Oh, and mustaches and monocles.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Vegan in Vegas: The Vitamix cabbie and other hillarities

You might have noticed that it's been about a month since I last blogged. I know you've been sitting at home, stuffing your face full of frozen waffles, pining for my return. Well put down those waffles, I'm back and I come bearing food porn! I've had a busy month- full of getting ready for Las Vegas, talking about Las vegas, thinking about Las Vegas, and then travelling and visiting Las Vegas. So maybe you're lucky I stayed away, you just get to sit through the abridged version :). It was kind of the trip of a lifetime for me, but I'm the luckiest girl in the world and get to do it every year for my business convention. This year, my two best friends Kristi (who was featured most recently on my blog here) from California and Julie from here were coming with for a weekend away- party time (excellent) before my business stuff started. We flew out of Toronto, where a long wait ensured lots of stupid photo opportunities and of course food! The Toronto airport departure area has a restaurant called the Molson brew pub. When I last flew out of here, I was one starvin marvin-and ended up having the most divine Veggie burger of my life. The first time I actually sent it back because I thought it was a meat burger. I didn't have the heart to double check if it was vegan, I just asked for no pesto and hoped for the best. When I travel, my usual rules tend to relax a bit due to necessity. No food on airplanes + questionable choices on arrival sometimes = take what you can get. When we arrived at the Palms in Vegas, Kristi had brought us spicy lentil wraps from Trader Joes in Cali-just what the doctor ordered after a long day of traveling YUM! (For the record, the Palms has very little to eat if you're of the veggie variety-so plan for that if you stay there. They did upgrade us to a suite, however, so this time it's forgiven).

A wild night of fun turned into a sushi brunch at RA the next day in the Fashion Show Mall. What a treat it was to get to share food with another vegan! It also happened to be the most beautiful day ever, so the Canadians insisted on dining outside. What does a vegan eat at a sushi restaurant? Well, when said vegan imbibed perhaps a little too hard the night prior-something greasy! Tempura! Julie and I have been known to embarrass ourselves when tempura is available in the "all you can eat" variety. Thankfully this wasn't a day to test our limits.

Next up, degaku tofu and veggie rolls. The veggie rolls had artichoke in them-which was a first for me and freakin awesome! Why hadn't I thought of that? Oh yeah, I am not a sushi master (yet). While we were eating, Elvis sat down at a bench across from us and started making what I presume to be a very long distance call. Awesome. After a fun day of sightseeing, a frightening experience at Circus Circus and a gigantic vile of cheap tequila slush-we were ready for our fancy dinner at the Wynn. On our way there, this happened: we got into our cab and told him our destination. Our lovely cabbie starts telling us all about how cool Steve Wynn was. I told him we were going there specifically because of the vegan menus, and he got insanely excited! "Wait, so you're vegan? No fish, eggs, dairy-nothing?" (From here I was expecting the typical thinly veiled insult, but no!) And he proceeds to ask the most thoughtful "I've been waiting 20 years to finally meet a vegan to ask all my questions to" kind of stuff. He then asks me "Have you heard of a vita-mix?" It was here that my heart exploded with joy. "It's only the thing I would run back into my burning house to save, " was my reply. He then holds up a 4 gallon glass mason jar full of vegetable puree. My kind of man! Vita-mix cabbie then excitedly took down this blog address, so if you're reading this-I still think of you fondly and wish you luck on your journey!
The Wynn is the only five diamond hotel in Las Vegas, and it looks and feels every bit of it. The owner and mega mogal went vegan this past year and each one of the Wynn's many restaurants has a separate vegan menu. After days of pouring over the menus, 6 different reservations and countless back and forths-we decided on Switch, which ironically enough is a steak house. As one would expect of the nicest hotel in Las Vegas, meals here are pricey. With a shared appetizer, a drink and a vegan main my total was a little over $60. I am a firm believer that you get what you pay for, and we had a meal and experience to rival all others. Firstly, we could arrive and feel like we belonged in this beauty, we have reservations! The service was top notch, and we had a personal sommelier at our disposal. Switch was designed to completely change every twenty or so minutes. As in the walls surrounding the restaurant either go up into the ceiling or go down into the floor, and come back completely changed . So it's either totally open to the hotel, or has rich tapestries, or has stone or other choices perhaps if we were there longer. It's hard to explain, but totally awesome. The ceiling also opens up to the most spectacular chandeliers. The only negative is that fancy restaurant=low light=suck pictures. And my camera is lame. See earlier post re:why I can't have nice things.
First up, carbs! Shaped like a W, cute. Our first round of bread came with cheese/bacon biscuits plus the W ones. I told the waiter that we were vegan and he said "so sorry, I'll get you some new ones that weren't touching the others." This dude gets me *swoon* and lets me save the annoying vegan requests for another time!Next up, appetizers. This one was a hard call, but we went for the Tofu Compacho(?) It had a bunch of fancy greens, pine nuts, pesto and about 7 other reductions that would take a million years to make at home. It was epic. Truly amazing. On the recommendation of our host, we both had the polenta with wild mushrooms and truffle oil. Now, I don't actually like polenta. I'm not sure if it's the texture, or the generally bland flavor-but I'm just not generally a fan. Our host, however, kissed his fingers like Italian's tend to do when they describe perfection, so I was easily convinced. I did like it, but didn't weap with food happiness like I did with the appetizer. In lieu of desert, I had a lechee cocktail which I drank too fast to take a picture of *sorry*. After our amazing meal, we decide to walk it off and explore our magnificent surroundings. There were crystal peacocks! Designer stores! A red carpet with T Pain! We did a lot of window shopping, but the magnificent 20+ carat yellow diamonds in the Cartier window drew us in. Since most of the people in there were giant guards, the girl was more than happy to let us try on to our heart's content. She put her favorite watch on me, which was a $42,500 white gold and diamond piece *squeal*. I'm pretty sure it went perfectly with my outfit.I won't carry on about how awesome this evening went on, but I could. We left there vowing to return for our entire stay next year.
Fast forward to the next morning. Oh, my head. Errr, my stomach. Determined not to waste a beautiful day and endless dining opportunities, we fuelled up on expresso coffee beans covered in dark chocolate and trucked on. Since getting around Vegas gets expensive, we decided to see where our feet would take us. The answer was the same as almost every time Julie and I are together-Chinatown.Much to my delight, there was a vegetarian restaurant right in our path! It was called Veggie delight, and it featured a wide selection of bubble tea and faux meat Asian dishes. Over the years, my tastes have evolved away from things that taste like meat-but look at the selection-I had to give it a go. Julie started off with an avocado slush.I started off with water. Lots of water.Next up, I had the fresh rolls with fried "pork strips".For my main dish, I gave the lemongrass "beef" a go.
I can't in all honesty say that it lived up to my inflated expectations. To be fair, I was in the "everything taste like ash" kind of stage-so it absolutely could have been me. But if you have the chance, check it out and let me know what you thought.The silver lining was that while browsing through a local magazine, I saw a write up for the restaurant I was currently eating in as well as a vegan donut shop! And it was on the street we were on! You bet your ass we were going there. I have to warn those with only a mild adventurous spirit that if you're walking, this neighborhood gives you a real picture of how the other parts of Vegas live. We got some drive by hoots (ok, lots of them) and some dude tried to proposition us. When we finally arrived at Ronald's donuts, I was expecting the same eclectic hipster vibe you often get at places that cater to our people. Not so. If you were to walk into a donut shop from 1984, this would be it-signage and all. It is not publicized anywhere which donuts were vegan, or that there were vegan donuts anywhere in the vicinity actually. Upon asking, however, we discovered a plethora-and all under $1. Steal! Cream filled, chocolate covered-yum! Definitely worth the walk, and who knows what kind of colourful characters you might meet on the way.
My Vegas journey continued on for 4 more days after my two best gals went home to their jobs and families. It was full of culinary hits and misses that one comes to expect at a conference at the Hilton. I will say though that being vegan on the road always brings an element of adventure and surprise I have never experienced before. Viva Las Vegas!