Yummy Bread Sticks with Olive Oil

My husband always craves breadsticks. Anything that resembles bread. Recently we went to this restaurant called Pizza Fusion (great vegan pizza) and had some great breadsticks (more like little loafs of bread) that was paired with a oil and vinegar mixture. So I decided to make some breadsticks with pizza dough. We were both utterly amazed by how easy and yummy they turned out.

Get a package of pre-made pizza dough (you can definitely make your own if you're ambitious enough), separate and roll dough into balls about 2.5 inches in diameter. Sprinkle some dried oregano and salt on surface. Drizzle some olive oil on top and place on cookie sheet. Preheat oven (if you're using a toaster oven, which was what I used, you can save energy and don't need to preheat.) Bake at 400 degrees in oven for about 7 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool for a minute and serve with more olive oil/balsamic vinegar or marinara sauce.

Polenta with Portobello Mushroom

I never knew what polenta was until I saw it on Food Network recently. I always thought it had milk or animal products in it but it's just boiled cornmeal. I realized they sell polenta almost everywhere and it's super easy to make. If you're tired of making regular pasta, I highly suggesting trying polenta. All you have to do is slice the "tube" of polenta about half an inch thick, heat some olive oil in a pan and fry the polenta until both sides are golden. Add some warm tomato sauce on it. Easy-peasy.

If you're interested in making portobello mushroom, I whipped together a simple marinade consisting of half part balsamic vinegar and half part olive oil. Dip the mushrooms (top and bottom) in the marinade and place a hot pan. As it sizzles, I spooned more marinade onto the mushrooms, making sure you flip the 'shrooms to prevent it from being burnt. Should take about a minute or two for it to be soft. You can just stick a fork in it to see if it's soft enough for your taste preference.

Real Food Daily

Real Food Daily is among the top of our vegan restaurant list. We read about this place from VegNews magazine a while ago and decided to pay it a visit while visiting family in the LA area. Unfortunately for us, there are only two locations and both are in Los Angeles: one in Santa Monica and the other in Hollywood. It has rather cozy seating but who's to complain if their food is delish!?

RFD has a regular menu, a monthly and a weekly rotating menu with new dishes. For the month of May, their special was Two Hot Oaxacan Tamales made with two seared tofu and vegetables tamales, spicy mole sauce, anasazi beans and spicy cole slaw with toasted pepitas.

In addition, we ordered the Pizza You Can Eat-za. If you were to order this, I would suggest you erase all your preconception of what a typical pizza should be like. Perhaps it was the cornmeal crust that made it taste more like flat quiche, but it was tasty, nonetheless.

As part of their weekly menu, we ordered the cleverly named, My Hands Are Thai. A dish of spicy glazed king mushroom, noodles, cabbage, avocado, snow peas, cilantro mint, basil, peanuts with spicy thai dressing. Great for a warm close-to-summer day.

Real Food Daily is definitely a place to try, vegan or not. I would eat here everyday if I could, simply because their menu changes. It definitely has an eclectic following of hip LA peeps but flip-flop wearing San Diegans won't feel out of place.

"Egg" Muffin

It has been three years since I've had an Egg McMuffin at McDonald's. The Number-One-Egg-McMuffin Combo used to be a Saturday morning staple with my dad. When I became vegetarian, I had one without the Canadian bacon. Maybe it was the salt, or the chewy warm goodness, Egg McMuffins were once my favorite. I decided to make a vegan version of this after I came across a pack of Yves Canadian Bacon at the market. And it was DELISH without the guilt.

This Egg Muffin doesn't need a real recipe. It's just a toasted English Muffin with a slice of Follow Your Heart cheddar. I used a little oil to fried the Yves Canadian Bacon and a thick slice of firm tofu until browned. My suggestion is to thinly slice the cheddar to ensure it melts. My cheese was definitely too thick in the picture but delightful nonetheless.