Thanks!

I wanted to say thank you. Thanks to everyone who reads this blog. Though I technically started it in 2007, it was only in August of last year that I was really inspired to post with some regular frequency as well as improve the quality of the blog itself. In the past year I have tried to work on the quality of every aspect of the blog, by improving the writing, photos and content itself. So thanks for coming back and commenting and inspiring me even more.

Thank you to all the bloggers out there who I am able to share a sense of camaraderie with. Thanks for writing thought out reviews, sharing your well crafted recipes and posting drool-worthy photos. Thanks especially to all of you in Los Angeles who I’ve been lucky enough to share a meal with and dork out on vegan food.

Thank you all for being vegan, and if you’re not, for at least being interested enough that you might try it out. Thanks for being someone who I don’t have to explain why I don’t like bacon to or why I get plenty of protein and calcium without meat and dairy. Thanks for loving food as much as I do and caring about animals/your health/the earth/whatever your reason is to make the right choices about what you consume.

And and extra big thank you to Shawn (yeah that’s Studiodrome in case you were confused) for being the most awesome boyfriend ever. Thanks for taking so many of my photos and teaching me how to be a better photographer and letting me borrow your camera even at really annoying times. Thanks for testing all my crazy recipes and letting me ask you detailed questions about every dessert instead of just letting you enjoy them. Thanks for telling me stories from your vegan journey and making me more confident. Thank you for getting excited about all the things I do. <3

Pure Luck

I don’t usually review local restaurants. There are enough awesome vegan blogs that cover the Los Angeles area that it’s really just not necessary to get my two cents in. I do have to say one thing though, I love Pure Luck. I just do. I love going there. I love their food. I love their beer. I can’t honestly think of one thing that I don’t like about the place. I know a lot of people have complaints about the inconsistency but I go there at least once a week, and though I’ve had a few off days, it’s fantastic 99% of the time. I can’t think of another restaurant that I could bear to eat at so often. I’m gonna go ahead and say that Pure Luck is officially my favorite restaurant in Los Angeles (today anyway).

My absolute favorite dish is Kristen’s Carnitas wrap. It’s filled with seasoned jackfruit carnitas, avocado, tomato, lettuce and vegan ceasar dressing. Ok it also comes with pickles and onions but I go without them. It’s so freaking good. Go order one now if you haven’t had it. Seriously. Pretty much everything is delicious though. I highly recommend the fried spring rolls as well, that you can see above.

Another great perk about this place is that Scoops is right across the street so you can get a tasty vegan ice cream afterward. Also, it’s in perfect biking range from where we live so we usually get a nice ride there and back. Yay!

Halloween Cupcakes

You know what’s awesome? Halloween. I love it. I especially love getting to make Halloween treats, decorations and costumes. I love that you can decorate cupcakes and they can look like a five year old made them and they are still amazing. I made these guys for some friends and got a little carried away. Hope they like them. I have a lot of cupcake decoration ideas that I’m hoping I’ll still have time to execute this month. If not, I’m just going to pretend that November is still October. October part two. Is this cool with everyone? I think it’s a fabulous idea.

Halloween Movie Marathon Massacre

Live blogging from the 2nd Annual Halloween Movie Marathon Massacre. This event has gotten a little out of control. As of this moment we’ve watched 12 movies straight, starting at around 8 pm last night. It’s now past 6 pm. We’re getting close to 24 hours of Halloween movie madness. So I’m not going to write much because, well, I’m rather sleep deprived and whatever I write will probably sound ridiculous (disclaimer: I have actually slept through part of at least a few movies). Instead I’m just going to show you a few of the treats I made for the event. Above you can see some vanilla cupcakes with orange frosting.

I also made cookies and cream cupcakes and decorated them with crumbled Newman’s O’s. I had intended to put little graham cracker headstones on each but I totally burnt them. They looked even more awesome burnt but were not at all edible.

My favorite treat that I got to make was caramel corn. I used the recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking. It’s amazing. I can really only make this stuff for special events because I will eat the entire batch.

We also had a veggie hot dog station inspired by The Franken Stand. Sometimes if you can’t get the real thing you just have to make your own. Luckily, they have been at some great events this month, so we get to enjoy them somewhat frequently.

We’re down to five movie watchers, including myself. It’s amazing. The plan is to head to the Cinefamily and catch the double feature of Victims and Don’t Go In the House to finish the extravaganza. I’ll keep you posted.

Movies so far:

Labyrinth

The Brood

I Spit on Your Grave

Poltergeist

Friday the 13th part 4

Sleepaway Camp

Dawn of the Dead (original)

Shaun of the Dead

Lost Boys

Ringu

Necromantic

Suspiria

UPDATE

I finished with:

Victims

Don’t Go in the House

I think that the remaining three watched Close Encounters after that.

So many hours of horror!

Halloween Candy

These days one of the main selling points of Halloween is candy. As if costumes and ghosts weren’t awesome enough, people thought you should coerce children in to celebrating by giving them treats. This has now turned into a sugar free for all consisting of thousands of bags of individually wrapped bite sized candies, because god forbid anyone actually make anything for their neighbors. Everyone knows the razor blade in the apple thing never really happened.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for trick or treating. In fact, as an adult, I still kind of wish I could go. But then I realize the majority of those candies aren’t vegan so there isn’t really a point. I wonder what vegans with children do. Do you take your kids trick or treating and take away the candy afterward or skip the event all together?

Luckily more and more vegan candies are coming onto the market so we aren’t just stuck with licorice and suckers. Go Max Vegan candies are new on the scene and replicate some of the more popular non-vegan brands.  The Buccaneer, reminiscent of a Three Musketeers,  has creeped in as my favorite of the four. I highly recommend throwing a few in the fridge as they are even more tasty cold. The Twilight is my next choice, though I was a particular fan of Milky Ways as a non-vegan. There some flavor in the caramel that doesn’t quite win me over. It’s still really nice to have a vegan candy that’s not just a pure chocolate bar.

It’s easy to make some vegan candies yourself. I’ve successfully made peanut butter cups and peppermint patties that were even better than the mass produced ones. I’m still dying to make Your Vegan Mom’s crunchy version of peanut butter cups. Can someone please figure out how to make a vegan Junior Mints? That would be awesome.