July » 2011 » VeggieGirl

The Cinnamon Snail

Say what you will about New Jersey, but New Jerseyians are the ones getting in the last laugh. Why? Because New Jersey is home is The Cinnamon Snail! The Cinnamon Snail is food truck that features all organic vegan food made by chef extraordinaire Adam Sobel. The menu features pancakes, waffles, tofu scrambles, sandwiches, salads, raw pizza, donuts, brownies and more! The Snail is usually parked in Hoboken on Sinatra and First on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, and at the Red Bank Farmers’ Market on Sundays.

Dennis and I recently had a lovely Cinnamon Snail picnic in the park in Hoboken with a group of friends. Sadly, I didn’t get pictures of everyone’s food, so waffles, donuts and the amazing triple fudge brownie I ate are not pictured.

I had the Maple Mustard Temeph sandwich.

Dennis had the Korean Barbeque Seitan

Rachel had her all time favorite – the Creole Grilled Tofu Sub.

The food was so good that Dennis and I got sandwiches (and pastries) to go to have for dinner. I had the Tofu Bahn Mi and he had the Creole Tofu Sub. I can’t wait to go back and try more of their menu!

Protein Smoothies

Since it’s too hot to cook, I like to start my day out with smoothies. Smoothies are great because you can hide ingredients like leafy greens or flax seeds in them and start your day out with a huge boost of nutrition. Arbonne has high quality protein powders that I’ve been using as the base of my morning smoothies. A serving is full of 20 grams of protein from pea, cranberry and brown rice, as well as 20 vitamins and minerals. And they’re pretty yummy too!

Here are two of my favorite smoothies:

Blueberry Vanilla Smoothie

2 scoops of Arbonne Essentials Vanilla Protein Powder

1 1/2 cups frozen blueberries

1 banana

1 handful of spinach

1 cup of water

1 tablespoon flax seeds

Mix all ingredients together in a blender. Enjoy!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Smoothie

2 Scoops Arbonne Essentials Chocolate Protein Powder

2 frozen bananas

2 tablespoons natural peanut butter

1 tablespoon flax seeds

1 handful of spinach

1 cup of water

Mix all ingredients together in a blender and enjoy!

If you would like help ordering Protein Powder, or any other products from Arbonne, please let me know.

Gene Baur is Coming to Montclair

Just a reminder that Farm Sanctuary’s president and co-founder Gene Baur will be visiting Montclair in July! Mark your calendar!

Gene will be talking about his work with Farm Sanctuary as well and selling and signing his book Farm Sanctuary: Changing Hearts and Minds About Animals and Food.

The event will take place at 7:00pm on July 30th at the First Congregational Church located at 40 South Fullerton in Montclair. This event is free and open to the public, so please spread the word.

Cookbook Project: Going Raw

Now that it’s July and too hot for me to function properly, I’m cooking less. But the fact that I’m not turning the oven on doesn’t mean I’m sacrificing anything in my meals. I’ve fired up the dehydrator and have starting uncooking. Going Raw by Judita Wignall is my new favorite raw recipe book and It’s kept me in the kitchen. It has lots of advice for people new to raw food, but it has enough interesting recipes to reel in people who are seasoned raw chefs. It’s packed full of beautiful color photos of food as well as lots of how-to photos of different techniques. And if that weren’t enough, it comes with a dvd!

First, I made Garden of Eden Pesto Wraps. These are made with dehydrated wrappers, which are new to me. I spread them a little too thin and they tore in a few places, but they were delicious, and now I know what not to do the next time I make them!

This Thai Green Bean Salad is actually made with sugar snap peas. It was the perfect meal for a hot summer’s evening.

Kale chips are my all time favorite snack, so when I come across a new recipe for them, I must try it. I’ve made these cheesy kale chips twice now and they have never lasted longer than a few hours!

It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of tacos. I usually make raw tacos with lettuce leaves and a simple sunflower seed filling, but I was up for a challenge, so I decided to make these. The filling is made with Brazil nuts (I used sunflower seeds instead because of my nut allergy), zucchini, mushrooms, onion and spicy which are mixed together and dehydrated. The shells are made with bell peppers, corn and avocado and are also dehydrated.

I also made simple guacamole, pico de gallo, cheezy sauce and cashew sour cream. It took quite a while to make everything, but most of the time was spent just waiting for nuts to be soaked or components to dry. It was well worth the time because they were amazing!! I think these are going to become a regular summertime meal in our house.

I’ve also made red wine sangria and blueberry lemonade. Both were amazing and I’ve made them a few times each.

More Recipe Testing

I’ve been hard at work in the kitchen testing more recipes for Manifest Vegan’s Allyson Kramer. I’ve been focusing on salads and cold foods because it’s starting to get hot here in NJ and I don’t want to turn the oven on! I can’t share any recipes with you, but I can tell you that this is going to be a great book when it comes out. Everything has been delicious! Here are some photos:

Cold Sesame Noodles

Vanilla Bean Ice Cream. I added a peanut butter swirl.

Greek Salad

Tofu Feta. I made this to use with the Greek Salad, and I put the rest on a yummy pizza.

Strawberry Kale Salad

Wendi Salad. I made this for a Montclair Vegans potluck picnic and it was big hit!

Drenched Pad Thai Salad

Creamy Potato Salad

I still have more recipes to test, so stay tuned for more photos…

Happy July!

June was a month of blog neglect for me, but I plan to make it up to you, dear reader, here in July. I thought June was going to be a month of slowing down and relaxing, but it turned out to be hectic and busy. And to be honest, I’m even sure what I was busy with. There’s a super nasty summer cold making the rounds and I managed to catch it, so I wasn’t able to attend Cupcakefest, I had to cancel my trip to Watkins Glen and Farm Sanctuary and my birthday party wasn’t very much fun. (Look for an upcoming post on natural remedies for colds.)

While I’m working on new posts for July, take a look a this article about yours truly in Manifest Vegan’s Weekend Reads: http://www.veganmainstream.com/weekend-blog-reads-veggiegirl-com

As an apology for my blog neglect, please accept this super cute photo of Miss Clementine and Tallulah Belle having a snuggle. I love how their belly stripes sort of meld together in the middle.