Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

Sweet Tooth
We're über-excited about all the new vegan sweets poppin’ up around town! Swing by Sprinkles in Preston Center for vegan red velvet cupcakes or Starbucks DFW-wide for Lucy’s vegan cookies! Want indie? Grab some vegan cinnamon coffee cakes and banana nut muffins at Roots Coffeehouse in North Richland Hills...or hold out until Valentine’s Day for Tough Cookie Bakery’s specialty offerings: whoopie pies and Valentine’s cookies and cupcakes! Grab TCB’s V-Day treats at The Pearl Cup, Crooked Tree Coffeehouse and The Green Spot. Custom orders can also be placed at ToughCookieBakery@gmail.com.

Prost!
Join Dallas’ chapter of VeganDrinks.org for high-hop brews and other adult sips at Idle Rich Pub this Thursday at 6:00 PM. Vegan Drinks Dallas is a great place to network, socialize and promote our cruelty-free lifestyle. Contact Jamey Scott at Jamey@DallasVegan.com for more information.

Film Fete
Spiral Diner founders Amy McNutt and James Johnston are seeking investors for Fort Worth’s Citizen Theatre. This will be America’s first-ever indie film house offering all vegan concessions. We couldn’t be more thrilled about our friends’ future venture! Contact Amy McNutt at Veg@SpiralDiner.com for all the deets.

Vegan Bake Sale for Haiti Relief

Jade DeGrio of Spiral Diner hosts a vegan bake sale to help benefit the victims of the Haiti earthquake.

All proceeds will go to Direct Relief International. Come out and grab your favorite vegan treats while they last. There will be a variety of treats that will tempt even the biggest carnivore:
Peanut Butter Cookie Bars
Chocolate Covered Pretzels
Fudge
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Rice Pudding
Coffee Cake
Strawberry Pie
...and loads more!

Dallas Vegan Bake Sale for Haiti
Transit Bike Shop
3839 McKinney Ave #155
Dallas, Texas 75204
Saturday, January 30, 2010
11:00am - 4:00pm



Why a vegan bake sale?
Well the most important reason is sugar--people eating more than they should--and that = mucho money for the people of Haiti! Inspired by Post Punk Kitchen's Isa Chandra Moskowitz, vegan bake sales are popping up from Los Angles to New York. So far, with the help of many hunger vegans with a sweet tooth nationwide, over 10,000 dollars has been raised. With all the great vegan chefs in Dallas there is no reason why this bake sale shouldn't be just as successful!

What is the Haiti Earthquake?
On Tuesday January 12th, 2010, a major 7.0 earthquake, the most powerful to hit Haiti in a century, struck southern Haiti shortly before 5 p.m. The impact of the earthquake resulted in massive damage, and massive lives lost. The Haiti people were left without basic resources. Let's help 'em out!

Reminder - Dallas Vegan Drinks This Thursday

First Dallas Vegan Drinks of 2010 is almost here!

We had a great turnout in December - let's start the New Year off right with an even better event.

Lots of exciting things are going on with some awesome Dallas Vegans. Get together and discuss what everyone is up to and how you can become a part of the action.

Are you part of an new or existing organization and you'd like to get the word out? Do you need volunteers for demonstrations, or just help in general? Need some inspiration on food - cooking, restaurants, etc? Or maybe you'd just like to have a beverage or two with some cool people?

Whatever your reason, we'd love to see you and grow the network of veg*ns in the Dallas area.

RSVP

Same time. Same place.

Time:
6:00pm - 8:00pm

Place:
Idle Rich Pub
2614 McKinney Avenue
Dallas, TX 75204

What is Vegan Drinks?

Vegan Drinks (www.vegandrinks.org) is a monthly social networking meeting to bring together veg*ns of diverse backgrounds in one place to discuss our hopes, dreams, ideas, and...well...to have a few drinks for happy hour!

Feel free to invite your friends, vegan and other open minded people, to promote your causes, talk about vegan food, or just shoot the breeze.

Vegan Drinks’ mission is to bring together a diverse group of people to build new coalitions and promote the sharing of resources. Vegan Drinks is for newbies and oldies. All we expect is an interest in animal rights, veganism and the pursuit of after-work fun. Show up and introduce yourself, pass around business cards (if you've got ‘em) and embarrass yourself at least once an hour.

• Be friendly! We'll be passing out name tags, so you can march right up to someone and greet her by name.
• If you're representing an organization (either as an employee or volunteer or general supporter), talk up the organization and the work you've been involved in.
• If you're representing YOU, talk up your vegan and AR interests, your favorite restaurant, your dream job for animals, your blog, etc., etc.
• Sip a drink (alcoholic or non-alcoholic, we don't care!) and relax with like-minded folks for a couple of hours.

Brendan Brazier Seminars at Central Markets next week

Brendan Brazier, Ironman Triathlete, Ultramarathoner, and author of Thrive: The Vegan Nutrition Guide to Optimal Performance in Sports and Life, will conduct several seminars in Central Markets across North Texas starting next week. He will be at the Dallas store on Friday January 15th.

Brendan, who also formulated the Vega vegan health food product line, is an inspiration to vegan athletes everywhere looking for validation that their vegan diets and extreme sports can indeed coexist.

This is a unique opportunity to hear him describe his vegan fitness program in person – so don’t miss your chance. Space is limited, so be sure to call and RSVP.

Brendan Brazier: Thrive Fitness Seminar
Central Market – Dallas
5750 Lovers Lane, Dallas, TX
Friday, January 15th
5 – 6:30pm

Click here for a full list of appearances in the area.

Green Tomatoes (without meat, dairy, or Kathy Bates)

I picked up my CSA share on Saturday, and I had a veritable plethora of green tomatoes and some assorted hot peppers (jalapenos and the like).  I’ve never cooked with green tomatoes (that’s a Southern thing, apparently, and quite frankly, Texas isn’t really Southern – it’s Texan*.), so I snooped around the internet, fished through approximately 2 billion recipes looking for something to do other than fry them and wound up with the following: 

Hot N Spicy Green Tomato Soup with Crispy Pancetta 

The recipe was fairly simple to veganize:

1. Skip the pancetta and just add a tad bit more oil for cooking the onions to make up for the missing grease.

2. Substitute veggie broth for the chicken stock.

3. I had a leftover Chipotle Field Roast Sausage, so I diced that up and quickly browned it and set aside to fill in for the pancetta (not necessary, but I liked having something crunchy on top). 

Ok, so I had so many tomatoes that I had to try the frying thing as well.  Luckily, I remembered staring at this recipe for a month while my favorite vegan food blogger was working on getting her book out (more on that to come because I really like a few of the things from this book so far). 

And to top that, I’ve been hearing so much about Gardein lately (I don’t eat a lot of faux meat, but thanks to the Oprah exposure, I had to give this a shot), that I went all vegan Paula Deen and fried up the faux chicken according to the Fried Green Tomatoes recipe.

So, now I had a meal fit for a king Southern gentleman.   

The highlight was definitely the fried green tomatoes (with a bit of balsamic reduction and served on some mixed greens from the farm) and the Gardein (the closest thing to real chicken texture that I’ve had) was a very close second.

Final Result:  All of it was good.  Damn good.  Gluttonous good.  Like I’ll likely not eat for the next 24 hours because I’m so full – well… except for the glass of chocolate Silk and the TCB chocolate chip cookie sitting next to me on the desk while I type this.  But, seriously, 24 hours starting…….now.

 

*Green tomatoes are not tomatillos (something I do know how to cook being from Texas), but this soup has a consistency and taste similar to the tomatillo sauce you would put on enchiladas, tamales, chile rellenos, etc.  That being the case, I’m planning on topping some vegan tamales with the leftovers tomorrow evening – nice bonus, I must say.