from Don't Eat Off the Sidewalk
I've had the zine this recipe is from forever, and I bought it because of this very recipe. I've had every intent to make these wingz for over a year now, even going as far as buying ingredients, but never managing to do it before now. It wasn't that I was scared they wouldn't be delicious - I'd seen them all over the vegan food blogs (or "flogs", as some of my friends call them), lovingly photographed and described. I was afraid that they would be complicated, and for some reason I assumed they would be fried (they're not), and I have breading and frying issues. I think the real reason is that I didn't consider buffalo wings to be something one could cook at home. They seemed to be the kind of food that was only available in certain bars and diners, foods that tend to be breaded and deep-fried and come with a side of ranch dressing. It seemed impossible to make decent buffalo wingz, at least without purchasing a deep-fryer, a step I was unwilling to take. And I hadn't even tried wingz in years and years, so maybe they weren't even that good.
But then we had this appetizer at Cafe Vita in Portland called "Buffalo Things," these squares of deep fried tofu in a spicy buffalo wing sauce, and they were
so good. The boyfriend and I kept telling random people about them, saying things like "You don't understand, it's like all the goodness of fried tofu plus all the goodness of buffalo wings,
together." Sure, there was a deep fryer involved, but it was still inspiring. We had reaffirmed our commitment to buffalo wings.
And
Jessy kept posting pictures of the wingz and talking about how delicious they were, and I was fairly sure Jessy didn't own a deep fryer, she seems way too healthy for that. This is pretty much what got me to crack and finally attempt the recipe: every time she posted a picture of them, I'd leave a comment that said something like "Dang, I need to make those!" until finally I just did it.
And they were easy! Super easy. Okay, I got some bread crumb goo on stuck to my hands during the breading process, but it wasn't a big deal. And they were so, so tasty. I kept stealing little bits of them while I was putting them on our plates, and I was fairly sure they were going to completely blow my boyfriends mind with their deliciousness. Unfortunately, I got too excited and was all "Taste this! Taste this! It's so good!" and he was like "Eh, it's pretty good, but I don't think it's as good as
that other tempeh" because he has to be contrary.
I served them with some steamed broccoli and a creamy silken tofu/herbs/balsamic vinegar sauce, which was the perfect counterpoint for the spicy deliciousness of the wingz.
Local: Broccoli, herbs
from Veganomicon
This was the perfect light dinner. The asparagus I impulse bought at the market because it was on sale and I was excited about asparagus. So fresh and green and spring-like! So not a root vegetable, and yet also so not cabbage. I roasted it using the directions in the front of vcon, just with olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic, and I put a little lemon juice on it once it was out of the oven. This was so delicious, I ate all of mine and a couple of spears off my boyfriend's plate, and I didn't even feel guilty - I mean, I was just getting my veggies!
The lentil salad was also super fresh tasting and delicious. Cooking the lentils in veggie broth made them totally flavorful and delicious, and once they were mixed with a vinaigrette dressing, carrot, radish, diced tomato and red onion, the result was great, really bright and flavorful. I ate leftovers of this for lunch for a couple of days, and it just got better. I especially liked the use of tarragon in this.
Local: Carrot, radish 
from Vegan Soul Kitchen
Another recipe from Vegan Soul Kitchen! (Can you tell I get obsessed with new cookbooks?) This one was exciting because I got to cook stuff in an aluminum foil packet! (If I was fancy I'd say "en papillote" but I am so unfancy I had to look up the fancy term on the internet.) I've never cooked stuff in a packet before, except possibly in girl scouts when I was small, and then there was a campfire involved. So I was pretty excited about this, in a cooking nerd way.
However this recipe took a ridiculously long time before you get to actually put the stuff into the packet, something that would be less annoying if the intro hadn't stressed how little time it took to cook once everything was in the packet. (First you simmer the tempeh for an hour, then you bake it for 20 minutes, then you put it in the packet and cook it for 13 minutes.) And the result was kind of bland. I actually liked it, I thought it was really fresh and green tasting, and I loved the way the tempeh turned out. The boyfriend said it was bland and shunned most of the green parts. So I probably won't make this again, but I enjoyed eating it. And it was the perfect thing to do with the little bit of asparagus I got from my CSA this week. And I will almost certainly try to make something in a packet again. (You get to cut the packet open at the end! It's like a present filled with food.)
Local: Asparagus, salad 
biscuits & gravy are a Vegan Crunk tester, chickpeas from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan
So my biscuits didn't rise, which has happened to me 
tofu is a Vegan Crunk tester, kale from Cooks Illustrated
This may be a revolutionary step in my transition from beet hata to beet lova - I am actually just eating them by themselves all roasted up with olive oil. Of course, I'm pretty sure everything becomes delicious with enough olive oil. I just cut the beets up into chunks, mixed them up with olive oil, salt, pepper, and this "Parisian salad herb" mix from Penzy's that's got dill and chives and stuff, and then roasted them at 400 degrees for about 45 minutes. Boom, delicious! (You know, for beets.) I'm a big fan of recipes where you just stick stuff in the oven for a while, they usually turn out great and it's just so easy.
I first had this tofu in fried form in the great 
from Real Food Daily, cooked by my boyfriend
ZOMG, this sandwich was like a deliciousness explosion in my mouth. Seriously, it was so good. I get a little teary just thinking about it. It certainly helps that my dreamy boyfriend cooked it for me, and that I had gotten back from the gym and was all tired and hungry when he made it, but I think it's really just that good. I mean, think about it: Roasted portobella mushrooms, roasted bell peppers, ciabatta bread, and pesto mayo? That's just ridiculously good. And then after a couple more bites he remembered that he'd forgotten to put in the caramelized onions when he assembled the sandwiches, so I went and got them and sort of shoved some into my sandwich, and it just got better. Whenever I think of this sandwich, I get a little dreamy, and I imagine it sort of floating above a field full of bunnies and unicorns, it's just that delicious.
Boyfriend says: This was kind of complicated and it involved doing a lot of different things as well as using the oven a lot. (Ed: My boyfriend is afraid of the oven. Isn't that adorable?) I thought it was going to be good, but it ended up being even better. I was also worried that the portabellos would be over cooked since they were in the oven for a while, but they ended up being perfectly cooked.
PS. He gave the sandwich to me plated just like that and he was like "Look, I posed it for your picture!" Awww.
Local: Lettuce, bread 
from Vegan Soul Kitchen
Rice and beans can be either really good or really bad. At its worst, it's a big bowl of mealy blandness, requiring the addition of ridiculous amounts of hot sauce to make it palatable, and reminding me of nothing more than a 
from A Homemade Life, by 
from Veganomicon
This is one of the few vegetable recipes from Veganomicon that I hadn't made yet, and I'd meant to make it forever and ever. I mean, it's got capers! And white beans! I like both those things. And while I wasn't actually sure what an escarole was, I thought I'd probably like it. But I've been avoiding buying new vegetables since I get so much from my CSA, and while they do like to give me strange greens like mizuna and flat leaf broccoli, so far there's been no escarole.
But while I was up staying with my parents for my great aunt's birthday, my mom gave me an escarole head! Straight from her garden, with instructions to wash it carefully because it had been grown under some sort of tree and was filled with little leaves that did not belong to it. (Sometimes homegrown produce has a downside.) My mother has an amazing garden, it's filled with terraced plant beds and extends out my parents' backyard into a vacant lot owned by the city. All through my childhood I was always being sent out to clip some of the rosemary that cascaded down the front of our yard, or to pick some herbs from the garden on the side of the house as my mother cooked. Every time I go up to visit, my mom sends me back with something from the garden.
So the fates had finally aligned to give me an escarole, and I knew I had to make this recipe. I cooked up some white beans in my pressure cooker and used up the last of my capers, and it was delicious. Isa's description of escarole as getting soggy in a good way is precisely correct, it reminds me of bok choy a little in texture, but with a nice bitterness to it. (I think it was a little too bitter for the boyfriend.) Honestly, if you had asked me before I would have said I'd never eaten escarole before, but its presence in my mom's garden makes me think I've probably had it snuck into a salad or something, and just didn't know it. But now that I know about it, I'll definitely eat it again, given a second chance.
Local: Escarole 
Pears and recipe from my aunt Lynne
Get togethers in my family involve a lot of food. A lot of wine, also, but mainly a lot of food. My dad, for example, is brings at least two home made pies to every occasion (and makes at least one of them vegan!). The food is always delicious, too, and while they tend to look at my veganism as some sort of extreme form of being a picky eater, they always make sure I have enough to eat. They remember to leave the cheese out of the salad until after I've been served, and they try to cook vegetables in olive oil instead of butter. One of my younger cousins is a vegetarian now, too, so together we've got a little more leverage.
I recently attended an 80th birthday party for my great aunt, and my aunt Lynne wanted to make a pear sorbet for me to eat with my strawberry pie (everyone else had cake and pie), but she ran out of time with everything else she was making. So instead she sent me home with a ziplock bag full of peeled pears and instructions on how to make the sorbet. (Pears, lime juice, ginger, and sugar to taste, blended in the food processor and then put in the ice cream maker.)
I used powdered ginger because my fresh ginger had gone moldy, and I threw in a tablespoon of earl grey tea on a whim, and the result was amazing. You couldn't really taste any individual flavors except the pear, but the pear flavor absolutely sparkled. It had depth and just the right amount of sweetness. Pears always have something that reminds of carbonated beverages, and whatever that was came through in the sorbet too. It was very fresh tasting.
It was best right out of the ice cream maker, because it got very solid in the freezer, but I ate it anyway because I loved it. 