Outrageous Vegan Thanksgiving Feast

Here is a post for the foodies among us!

We had an incredible vegan Thanksgiving feast. It was the most variety and flavor we have ever had at a meal – holiday or otherwise. It was living proof that vegan meals rock!  Fourteen of us each contributed one or more dishes. Some highlights included pumpkin tamales wrapped in banana leaf with cranberry relish and coconut sour cream; grilled breadfruit, tempeh and tofu cutlets with onion shiitake gravy; mashed potatoes; seitan field roast; big organic  salad with cranberry dressing; homemade breads; steamed vegetables, potatoes and squash; marinated herb roasted mushrooms and zucchini.  Oh…and fondue with a creamy pumpkin sauce!

For dessert we stuck with the fondue theme, this time it was melted dark chocolate and soy creamer as the dipping sauce. For dippables we had homemade peanut butter cookies, candied ginger, bananas and apples, banana bread, homemade fruit bread, chocolate cake. Live pumpkin pie as well as apple pie with vegan whipped cream, all served with the famous Blossoming Lotus Chai.  So much to be thankful for!

Cooking for a Vegan Lover’s Blog reviews The 30-Minute Vegan

The 30 Minute Vegan

The 30 Minute Vegan is filled with a variety of great easy, quick, and delicious recipes that are (mostly) under 30 minutes. I received this book to review and had the most difficult time choosing recipes to try from it, not because I couldn’t find any but rather because I want to make everything.  That was my first indication that it had the potential to be a great cookbook.  However, the true test would be to see if any of these great sounding recipes actually turned out to be as good as they sounded.

After hours (yes hours) of flipping through this cookbook I finally decided that I would make the Batter Baked Tempura with the Spicy Mustard Sauce, We Will Rock You Three Layer Nachos and Eggless Egg Salad.  The Batter Baked Tempura was delicious especially with the mustard sauce, however I am not sure if it totally resembled tempura but rather it was more like baked onion rings/veggies.  Nevertheless it was amazingly delicious and unfortunately was the only item I ended up taking the time to photograph.

The We Will Rock You Three Layer Nachos were next on my list of items to make and they were so good.  I made both the tempeh bean mixture and nacho cheese sauce which I put over baked blue corn chips and baked then topped with salsa, pickled jalapeno and avocado.  The recipe made so much sauce I only used half of bean mixture and nacho cheese for the nachos and saved the remainder to make a Tex-Mex Mac and Cheese the following night with mushrooms, onions and cherry tomatoes.

My husband’s favorite recipe that I made was the Eggless Egg Salad and it was certainly one of the best recipes for it that I have tried.  I served the Eggless Egg Salad in whole wheat pita halves.  The great part about this recipe is that it made enough for 2 days worth of lunches!

Overall I love this book and find that although not all of the recipes are 30 minutes with prep time and cooking they are still quick, fast, healthy and fun. You can order your own copy of The 30 Minute Vegan on Amazon.

You can also check out other reviews of The 30 Minute Vegan on the following sites:

Happy Herbivore

Basil & Spice

Vegan Guinea Pig

Chow Vegan where you can find reviews & recipes for Mango Gazpacho& Baked Tempura

Vegan Fusion – The authors blog

Vegan Crunk

When walls fall down

Remnants of the Berlin Wall

We were in the lobby of our guest house in Berlin when someone wheeled in a television set on a cart to the center of the room. People began to gather around it with shouts of glee. I looked at the screen and it appeared as if cars and people were streaming through a toll booth. “What’s going on”,  I asked, not knowing the language. “They just opened the Wall!” people shouted. It was November 9th, 1989 and we had just become a part of history.

At the next moment, we were on our way to Check Point Charlie, the main artery connecting West and East Berlin. We stood on the side of the road and joined the throngs of Berliners in the most jubilant celebration ever. Families and friends were welcoming loved ones they have not seen in decades. We laughed, and cried, and drank champagne in the streets. It was clearly a ‘moment’ that we would treasure for ever.

I had just arrived in Berlin a few days earlier, having hitchhiked from Amsterdam to Berlin with Kathy from San Francisco. Just the day before the wall opened, we visited East Berlin and took part in a demonstration where students and other East Berliners – young and old, were marching in demand for democracy. “Freedom of Speech”, “Freedom of Press”, they shouted. It was unbelievable to us that people were living without these basic rights – ones that we took for granted in the West. We saw people throwing flowers at soldiers saying “these are our weapons.”

Returning to West Berlin, I saw someone painting on the wall. It was a fascinating to witness how decorated the wall was on the west side and how utterly empty it was on the east side. The west was filled with artwork, poems, slogans, and graffiti – a colorful canvas for the voice of the people. I asked if I could borrow their paint brush and wrote “Love thy neighbor”.  Who could know that the wall would be no more on the following day.

We never did  get to see  people tearing down the wall. That evening we were on a train to Warsaw. Our path led us through Poland and into Prague, Czechoslovakia, just in time for the Democratic uprising there!

Twenty years later and I can still recapture that excitement and sense of purpose we all felt. There was such a strong sense that something wonderful and historic was occurring. May the walls continue to crumble. The walls that stand between us and our life’s calling. The walls that stand between people of different beliefs. And the walls that stand between us and the other creatures with whom we share this precious planet.

Cardio Health E-book Now Available!

 

Pure Wellness Series: Cardiovascular Health takes what you think you know about heart health and turns it inside out. This e-book celebrates the achievements of the cardiovascular warriors in medicine who decided to buck the system and change how we think about cardiovascular wellness.

The e-book features 20 vegan heart healthy recipes by award winning Vegan Fusion chefs and contains exclusive coupons for featured products at Pure Prescriptions.

Visit Here to Order Now

Only $3.97

All proceeds from the e-book go to the Healthy Ohana Foundation

The Healthy Ohana Foundation was formed to educate the public on the vital importance of a healthy diet and lifestyle. The founding members have vast experience in the health and wellness industry and intend to share their knowledge to help people live healthier, more sustainable lives. This charity promotes health education in under served areas through plant based diets and CAM (complementary and alternative medicine).

Vegan Fusion Chef Services

Are you looking to incorporate more healthy foods into your life?

Blossoming Lotus Chefs and authors Mark Reinfeld and Jennifer Murray

We have over 20 years of experience preparing delicious natural foods, specializing in living foods

♥ Custom-created meals for pick up or delivered to your home ♥ Private classes and healthy lifestyle training ♥ Specializing in live food cuisine ♥ One-on-one supervised cleanses and fasts ♥ Using fresh organic and locally grown ingredients

Ask about our mainland private chef services!

Contact us at info@veganfusion.com or
call 808-822-0820 for a free initial consultation

Mark Reinfeld
Coauthor, The 30-Minute Vegan, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Eating Raw, and Vegan Fusion World Cuisine

Mark Reinfeld is the author of three books and the founding chef of the Blossoming Lotus Restaurant. He is the recipient of a Platinum Carrot award given to America’s top “innovative and trailblazing healthy chefs”. He has offered chef trainings across the country to clients that include Google, Credit Suisse First Boston, The Peninsula Spa, Aspen’s Explore Bistro, Malibu’s Pacific Coast Green’s, and more.  Mark has offered private chef services in Malibu, The Hamptons, Hawaii, and New York City. To learn more about the healing quality of foods, Mark received a Masters Degree in Holistic Nutrition from The Clayton School of Natural Healing.

Jennifer Murray
Coauthor, The 30-Minute Vegan, and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Eating Raw

Jennifer Murray co-developed the original menu for the award-winning Blossoming Lotus Restaurant as well as the Lotus Root Juice Bar & Bakery. She is currently working on her third cookbook due out next summer. Jennifer teaches classes nationally and internationally. Designing fun, mouthwatering food that looks as good as it tastes is her way of spreading vegetarianism.

Raw Food Class on Kaua’i

Fun with the dehydrator!

Learn from Blossoming Lotus founding chef Mark Reinfeld the basics of using the dehydrator to create crackers, pizza and granola. You will also learn how to create nut milks and cheeses.

When: Saturday, December 5th 3-6pm

Where: Wailua Homesteads

Cost: $65/person includes recipes and tasting

Recipes include:

Pesto Pizza

Herbed Flax Crackers

Cashew Cheese

Orange Cranberry Granola

Almond Milk

 

Spaces are limited. Contact Mark at mark@veganfusion.com or call 808-822-0820 by Wednesday November 25th to register.

 

Mornin’ Fruit Bowl – Vegan Crunk Reviews The 30-Minute Vegan

Mornin’ Fruit Bowl

For some reason, when I get new cookbooks, I always make the ridiculously easy recipes first. You know, the recipes that are so simple, you kinda wonder why you even need a recipe. Even though those sorts of easy meals are common sense, I’m always intrigued by simple recipe ideas that I couldn’t have thought up on my own. Take for example, this Walnut Fruit Bowl from 30 Minute Vegan:

 

It’s just mango, banana, a few frozen blackberries, walnuts, and soymilk. That’s it. The recipe actually called for fresh figs, but I subbed blackberries when I couldn’t find any figs. The thing is, I would never think to throw fruit in a bowl with milk unless that bowl also contained cereal. But this bowl was pretty filling without carbs. And I felt super-healthy starting my day with lots of fruit, a food group I don’t really eat from often enough.

The book, 30 Minute Vegan, was a birthday gift from my boyfriend. It’s by Mark Reinfeld and Jennifer Murray (also the authors of the awesome full-color book Vegan Fusion). Though most of the meals — like this fruit bowl — take far less than 30 minutes, a few are more complicated and take longer than a half hour to prepare. The book features a great mix of healthy cooked and raw meals, which is perfect for an occasional raw foodie like me. In fact, I’m making another recipe from the book for Raw Food Day tomorrow. But you’ll have to wait and see what it is…