Oatmeal Choco Cookie

Adapted Plagarized from The Garden of Vegan by Tanya Barnard and Sarah Kramer. This cookbook is so worthwhile. Every recipe is delicious. Buy it.

-3/4 cup flour
-1/2 cup sugar
-2 c. quick oats
-1/2 tsp baking soda
-1/2 tsp baking powder
-half a banana (RIPE)
-1/3 cup oil
-1/2 cup maple syrup
-1 tbsp vanilla extract
-1 cup choco chips (Bakers' semisweet chunks are my favorite. I used carob once and they bombed)

Mix the first 5 ingredients together in a bowl. Food process everything else (except the chocolate chips) and mix the 2 bowls together. Stir in chocochips. Spoon onto a cookie sheet. Bake at 350 until done.

You'd best double the recipe.

The secret ingredient is: banana.

Bobbi's Hummus

Bobbi's Hummus is the best hummus that has ever lived. It's better than Sabra and better than homemade. If you think otherwise, it is obvious you have never tried Bobbi's Hummus. The jalapeno variety is so delicious I'm not sure you would ever even need to try a different variety.


The only other kind of hummus I would ever buy is the horseradish hummus from Trader Joe's. The hummus part is less delicious than Bobbi's Hummus, but I like the horseradish flavor. If Bobbi ever made a hummus with a horseradish flavor, I would die.

Best Vegan Food in Paris According to Me

Vegetalien(ne) is how you say vegan in french. Even if you say it "je suis vegetalienne s'il vous plait. je ne mange pas le lait ou les oeufs" and the people appear to understand, your meal will likely still have ham and goat cheese in it. The "vegetarian sandwich" at the Louvre is a good example. Don't get it. It's full of ham. Hungry after my day of trying to find the Mona Lisa so I could take my picture in front of it, I bit into the sandwich without thoroughyl inspecting it. I got a mouthful of ham. I couldn't stay vegan in Paris. I was just too hungry. I stayed veg and was ok with unprocessed cheese. By "ok" I mean I had awful diarrhea for most of the trip.

But it was worth it.

1. Krishna Bhavan (off Gare du Nord stop on the metro... hard to find from there. you'll need a map 24 Rue Cail (75010)): Dosa's. So good. And INSANELY CHEAP (like 6 euro total). Not 100% vegan, but enough vegan food to keep you happy. Onion dosa and champignon dosa were consumed during my multiple trips there. I still dream about the mango cake (get it sans ice cream). Surprisingly, the non-native french speaking indian staff, and the non-french speaking american tourist trying to remember 7th grade french communicated well, and the waiter understood what i couldn't eat and was very nice.

2. Le Potager du Marais (22, Rue Rambuteau (75003)... Rambuteau stop at the Metro): fancy, tiny, delicious, traditional French food in vegan form. Be prepared to spend like 40 euro. Pear pie with coconut whipped cream, beef bourginon (with a pile of brown rice shaped like a heart? yup), menu changes a lot i think. I had a lot of anxiety about eating while in Paris because I just get so sick, and this is the one place where I actually didn't have to stress out about eating or being close to a bathroom immediately afterwards.

3. Maoz. Near Notre Dame in a fun, difficult to navigate area full of restaurant men heckling tourists. I felt stupid for eating here, but I did it anyways.

Best Vegan Food in Philly According to Me

My coworker Steve showed me pretty much all these restaurants...

1. Kaffa Crossing (44th and Chestnut): Ethiopian food, cheap, get the vegetarian sampler.
2. Singapore Vegetarian (10th and Race): Chinese food, really nice owner, 95% vegan, make sure you get the New Year Soup (they call it ham and spinach and corn soup or something on the menu, but if you ask for New Year Soup, he'll bring the right thing). This is my favorite vegetarian food in chinatown
3. Homeslice (in Liberties Walk on American between Wildey and George): Kind of expensive but worth it. Homemade almond "cheese" that isn't really trying that hard to be cheese which I can appreciate. Sort of ricotta-y. A lot delicious. Everyone there is really nice.
4. Memphis Tap Room (Cumberland and Memphis in Fishtown): delicious for brunch or dinner. Not all vegan, but usually excellent vegan options and a vegan egg salad pita and a quinoa/white bean/roast veggie veggieburger are always on the menu. Right now they have a great israeli cous cous thing, and in the past theyve had a delicious eggplant dish, vegan crabcakes, and once at brunch they had "chicken"-friend seitan. Nice atmosphere, usually full of normal people. A lot of fancy local beers that I don't drink or know anything about.
5. Cantina Los Caballitos (e. Passyunk and Morris): $10 margarita pitchers from 3-6 M-F, free chips and salsa, vegan burritos, tacos, seitan and tofu fajitas. There's one in the No Lib's too (Cantina Dos Segundos) but for some reason, I never go there.
6. Maoz (12th and Walnut): If it weren't for maoz, I would starve because I'm awful at remembering to bring my tupperwares home from work, and therefore can never bring my lunch. After lunch, walk a block to the Planned Parenthood at 12th and Locust, visit me, and pee in a cup.
7. Royal Tavern (I never remember where it is... on Passyunk somewhere...): get the Tempeh Club. Don't even bother trying anything else.
8. Gianna's (5th btw South and Lombard): whatever, whatever they lied about the cheese. It's still the best for shitty, gross Philadelphia-style cuisine. A pound of fake meat instead of a pound of real meat and your diarrhea is still going to look the same. Scowly art student drop outs will take your order. Closed on Mondays.
9. Govinda's To Go (Broad and Lombard): I'm currently boycotting Govinda's because they always give me regular cheese instead of vegan. And I never notice til I'm too far to go back so I either eat it and get a stomach ache, or throw it away and am super pissed. So don't go there. But if you do, check your sandwich before you leave. When I start working at the health department across the street I'll probably eat here anyways, but for now it's boycotted.

Restaurants I don't like: Tiffin, Ekta (nothing's vegan but you think it might be), Johnny Brenda's, the Pope's brunch sucked

French Toast

I made this for Sam last weekend, and I made it for Liam once and they both really like it.

-1/2 can of coconut milk.
-8 oz plain soy/almond/hemp/whatever milk
-cinnamon to taste
-a ripe banana
-sweetener (maple syrup, agave, or sugar) to taste
-sourdough bread is the best i think (whole foods' snappy sourdough is vegan, but you can use whatever you have)
-maple syrup
-earth balance/vegan buttery spread

In a shallow container mix everything together, mashing the banana (or, if the banana isn't super-ripe-- food processing it). Add sweetener to taste. I don't like my toast to be super sweet, so I usually only use about a tablespoon of syrup to sweeten it, then usually change my mind and drown it in syrup later.

melt some butter in a non-stick skillet on medium-high heat and fry up the bread after dipping both sides in the batter until golden brown. if you don't use non-stick, you will hate your life, because even with nonstick, mine sometimes sticks. keep adding butter while you fry up more bread.

goes well with tofu scramble, home fries, and a long nap.