Vegan Mofo Survey

1. Favorite non-dairy milk?
My current go-to milk at home is So Delicious Coconut milk, plain. Since I travel a lot as a musician, my boyfriend and I have been also buying the Better Than Milk powdered soymilk to take with us. It's shelf-stable, mixes easily with water, and can be brought in small portions to places that offer only cow's milk for their mochas (Renaissance Faires, etc.)

2. What are the top 3 dishes/recipes you are planning to cook?
Since it's fall, I've been craving pumpkin, so I bought my very first pumpkin (!) from Wheatsville - a small-ish organic "Sugar Pie" pumpkin. I need to figure out the best way of cooking it so as to use it in the following recipes -
Pumpkin Pie Brownie Cupcakes
Pumpkin Soup
Pumpkin Muffins (I can't find the recipe online, so I'll post it here once I make it.)

3. Topping of choice for popcorn?
If I'm making it, then I'll go for lots of Earth Balance, nutritional yeast, and a little salt. If I'm getting it from Cornucopia Popcorn Creations here in town, I like Vanilla - sweet glazed popcorn. Mmmm.

4. Most disastrous recipe/meal failure?
I seem to recall one baked dish that had a few tablespoons of baking soda in it instead of a few teaspoons - it was pretty gross. Likewise, I made some cocoa once and the vanilla extract kinda got away from me...ew.

5. Favorite pickled item?
Pickled okra is strangely tasty.

6. How do you organize your recipes?
On the bookshelves, the vegan cookbooks get a shelf and the non-vegan cookbooks get a different shelf. They're loosely grouped by author and how often I use them. On my computer, recipes are organized by name in alphabetical order (duh, right?)

7. Compost, trash, or garbage disposal?
Unfortunately, I haven't really figured out the best way to compost in my tiny apartment, so I've been going with a mix of garbage disposal and trash.

8. If you were stranded on an island and could only bring 3 foods…what would they be (don’t worry about how you’ll cook them)?
Wheatsville Co-Op's popcorn tofu, Bouldin Creek's vegan blueberry cornbread, and Go Max Go's Jokerz chocolate bars. I know, real healthy.

9. Fondest food memory from your childhood?
Breakfast For Dinner! Luckily, there's at least a couple of places in Austin where I can go and order vegan pancakes and tofu scramble at all hours of the day or night. *grin*

10. Favorite vegan ice cream?
Hard to decide, but I think I'll go with So Delicious Chocolate Obsession.

11. Most loved kitchen appliance?
My BlendTec blender, which can blend anything except Chuck Norris.

12. Spice/herb you would die without?
Probably cinnamon, since I do so much baking.

13. Cookbook you have owned for the longest time?
Ironically, the cookbooks that I've had the longest are the ones I almost never use. I've got a stack of vintage and retro cookbooks from my mother and grandmother, like the Better Homes and Gardens cookbooks, that I've had for ages. I've actually got a Micro-Wave Cookbook from the 1970s - freaky, huh?

14. Favorite flavor of jam/jelly?
Anything that's 100% fruit is what I go for 95% of the time, though I'll occasionally pick something spicy, like Austin Slow Burn's Hot Apple Pie Jam.

15. Favorite vegan recipe to serve to an omni friend?
For a savory dish, my Spinach Artichoke Baked Dip (modified from one of Sarah Kramer's cookbooks) has been a favorite of omni friends who "don't even like spinach or artichoke!" For desert, my Vegan Mexican Hot Chocolate Cupcakes from "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World" by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero have been a winner!

16. Seitan, tofu, or tempeh?
Awww, come on, don't make me pick! They're all equally good, but each one has its place to shine - seitan makes a great Philly cheez "steak", tofu is perfect in curries and stir fries, and tempeh wins at faux bacon.

17. Favorite meal to cook (or time of day to cook)?
Lately, I've been tending towards making curries, and this can happen any time between noon and 9 pm. Since I'm self-employed, my sleep schedule can get a bit wonky, and I'll cook at odd hours.

18. What is sitting on top of your refrigerator?
21 different types of tea (no kidding!), a pitcher, and some aluminum foil.

19. Name 3 items in your freezer without looking.
Ice, frozen bananas, and....more ice? There was some frozen spinach and kale for my green smoothies, but I finished that off.

20. What’s on your grocery list?
It really depends on whether I'm shopping for something in particular or just picking up essentials. If I'm getting ready to travel out of town/state for a music gig, I always grab a bunch of food bars - Cliff, Luna, Larabars, Baraka Bars, and ProBars are my current faves. For essentials, I usually stock up on So Delicious Coconut Milk, flax seeds, blackstrap molasses, sucanat, fresh greens (kale, spinach, and collard greens are high on the list), bananas, potatoes, tomatoes, avocados, onions, garlic, and serrano peppers.

21. Favorite grocery store?
Wheatsville Co-Op, hands down. I'm an owner, so I get rebate checks in the mail, and besides groceries, they have a wonderful deli with vegan sandwiches, popcorn tofu (!), smoothies, and coffee drinks.

22. Name a recipe you’d love to veganize, but haven’t yet.
Not one specific recipe, but I'd love to make a vegan chilie relleno. Stuffing it with vegan cheese (and possibly some soyrizo) will be the easy part, but replacing the egg batter on the outside will be a bit more difficult. The Wikipedia page says that they can be breaded with plain corn masa flour, but I'd really like a vegan version of the egg-battered chilie rellenos I had as a kid.

23. Food blog you read the most (besides Isa’s because I know you check it everyday). Or maybe the top 3?
Dallas Vegan - because I like to know what's going on in our sister city to the north, and it's nice to know what new places I need to try on my next (frequent) drive though.
Vegan Etsy - not a food blog, per se, but as a member of the Vegan Etsy team, I need to keep track of what's going on on the blog. They also occasionally post some great recipes!
Meet The Shannons - because this awesome couple is veganizing the entire Betty Crocker cookbook. Seriously, how cool is that?

24. Favorite vegan candy/chocolate?
I'm such a sucker for chocolate that this question is pretty hard to answer, but I'm going to go with the Jokerz bar by Go Max Go. "Layers of dry roasted peanuts, buttery-tasting caramel, and rich peanut nougat, sweetly wrapped in a delicious chocolately coating." Awww, yeah.

25. Most extravagant food item purchased lately?
Well, I felt the need to splurge a bit this week, so I went to the giant Whole Foods downtown and got a box of Sweet & Sara vanilla marshmallows (to go with the vegan chocolate bar and vegan graham crackers I had at home), a Hail Merry raw chocolate mint tart, and a vegan chocolate doughnut from the bakery. I decided to walk down the street and back to do some additional window-shopping and work off some of the calories!