Raspberry Lemonade Tart with a Rosewater & Coconut Crust

So I admit I've been a little MIA lately. There has been a lot going on and to be honest -- I've fallen behind on basically everything. I mean emails, laundry, cleaning out the fridge... pretty much everything but bills*. But there have been a few really exciting things that have happened lately. To paraphrase:

1. Our book Betty Goes Vegan is finally available for pre-sale! There are all these early bird special discounts available on the amazon page -- which is cool.

2. I was able to share some of my favorite vegan baking substitutions on the kitchn. I love this blog so it was a real honor for me. Plus it was great to be able to share with a not-all-vegan community how easy it is to bake vegan. I focused on substitutions you can find in any old grocery store and was really touched by the over 600 likes!

3. The Seed - Vegan Experience conference is this weekend. I won't be able to make it unfortunately but if you're around NYC -- you should really check it out. They have a pretty impressive speaker line-up. I'm also excited because it means my buddy Michelle Schwegmann from Herbivore Clothing Company will be in town. Love that girl.

Michelle & me at The NYC Vegetarian Food Festival - photo credit : The Village Voice

4. I finally posted our photos from Belgium. We spent a few days there around the end of May and you're going to hearing a lot about this trip. I mean this is a country famous for fries, beer, chocolate and comics. What's not to love? Today's recipe is actually inspired (in part) by a tart I saw in the window of a bakery in Brussels.

We didn't glaze ours and didn't add as many raspberries in the photo so you could see the filling. We also played around a lot with some more Mediterranean summer flavors by adding rosewater to the crust. Last summer we made Rosewater Lemonade Sorbet (shaved ice) and it just wouldn't be summer with out dabbling with the rosewater some more.

I'm curious -- what flavors say "Summer" for you?

Hot & Sour Soup with Sesame Garlic Tempeh

Tempeh not pictured... I ate it all too fast. 

Ever have a weekend you needed a weekend to recover from? This past weekend I had the pleasure of helping out at The Herbivore Clothing Company booth at The NYC Vegetarian Food Festival. It was a blur of friendly new and familiar faces, food and lots of fun. I know "fun" is kind of a lazy word to describe a day but I stand behind it. If you missed it - you can see the photos on our Facebook page by clicking on this sentence.

There's something kind of wonderful that happens when you're exhausted and busy though... with the right mindset you can look at the random collection of leftovers from meals past and see something new. This isn't a traditional Hot & Sour Soup - it's more a collection of wonderful that makes up a soup that is hot and sour but we loved it.

It might be March already but it's still cold out and that means soup season is still here! Enjoy it while we still can!

The world really is going Vegan! Yes! There will be lots of pictures!

Vegan in LA

Everyday we get emails from all over the world from people who are living or looking to explore a cruelty-free life. Last night, I was looking through the stats for our Facebook Fan Page and was incredibly impressed to see that literally people from all over the world from every age group and demographic are interested in being vegan! I have to admit if you had sat down 16 year old me and told her that - she would have never believed you. I was a very jaded teenager*.

So you can imagine how happy I get whenever I hear about a new awesome veg-friendly restaurant. I mean for a long time vegan restaurants had a pretty bad rap for being nothing but sprouts and nudists. They were never really that bad in my opinion but these days there are pretty revolutionary things happening in veg-friendly restaurants. A-list celebrities like Ellen DeGeneres and her wife Portia de Rossi are opening vegan restaurants and you can pop into places like Foodswings in Brooklyn where you can enjoy vegan Butterfinger Milkshakes and Pizza Fries. I mean this is the definition of a dream come true.

So we thought it would be fitting to post some photos from some of the vegan hot spots around the world! I couldn't fit them all in one post so here are some highlights in a slideshow. Special Thanks goes out to Quarrygirl, Melisser Elliot, John McDevitt, Sarah Posey (our Facebook Fan Page covergirl), Marisa Miller Wolfson, Joel Bartlett, Libbe Blain and Rachel Foss for submitting photos and helping us with today's post.

If you're looking for a veg-friendly restaurant near you there are a lot of great online resources. We suggest HappyCow.net, VegGuide.org, and of course a little googling**. 

Ready to get really hungry?

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(If you can't see this slideshow - visit our The world is going vegan! Album.There is also more info on where you can get this delicious food.)

If you're looking for a veg-friendly restaurant near you there are a lot of great online resources. We suggest HappyCow.net, VegGuide.org, and of course a little googling**.


PS - You can find more photos on our Fan Page in the Restaraunts that have a Heart Album. If you ever have a great photo from a veg-friendly restaraunt you'd want to share - just email it to Shannons@MeetThe Shannons.net.



* It might be possible I was a bit of jerk.

** Which even after all these years still sounds dirty to me but is undeniably helpful.

The World Go Vegan Week Contest!

So cute.

 I really love having things that might not be one of a kind but are darn close. I like things that are screen printed by hand and little vintage-y things that have to do with 80's cartoons and toys from my childhood that are actually from the 80s and not Hot Topic. I love kitchen toys that are shaped like robots, wallets made from recycled bicycle tires from Sweden and pillow cases with love letters on them*. That's why I get a lot of things from Etsy. On one website you can find handmade and vintage wonders from all over the world that are all the more special because they aren't mass produced in sketchy factories and really are treasures*. One day I was on Exaltation's store, falling in love with this Oxytocin shaped necklace when I found something just marvelous. If you're not familiar with it, Oxytocin is the neurotransmitter responsible for love and bonding in all relationships. It's basically romance in chemical form. Ironically though what stole my heart was a sweet, little simple and classic necklace that says my favorite word : Vegan.

It's World Go Vegan Week right now and we have special posts planned but to start it all off we're partnering with Exaltation for a fraking kick-ass contest! You guessed it! We're giving away One of these adorable Vegan Necklaces to One lucky Meet The Shannons Reader! These cute little necklaces tell the world that you're a hero to the billions of animals who suffer and die every year for meat and dairy products while being a little more discrete than a cape.

All you have to do to win is leave a comment telling us 2 things :

1. If you could be eating at any veg-friendly restaurant in the world tonight where would you be?
2. Everyone has their own super power. Baking. Knitting. Jitterbugging**. What do you think your super power is?

Of course there is no wrong answers and don't worry about trying to be the most creative. Consider this a brag board that might lead to you one day having an awesome vegan necklace of your very own. Before you leave your comment -- remember in order to win one of our contests, you must be a "member" of Meet The Shannons. If we can't email you, then we can't send you your prize! So before you leave your comment with the answers, make sure you use the "Join This Site" button on the right hand side of this blog under "Friends of The Family" .

We'll randomly choose a member from the comments posted below on Oct. 30th and send you your MAJOR AWARD! (Please keep in mind that it will take a few days for processing and shipping). 

* Yep. I have gotten all these things on Etsy.

**  OK - They're not all treasures.

*** Seriously adorable word right?

The Betty Crocker Project : Coquilles Saint Jacques

 

Welcome to the 3rd day of Vegan Mofo Meets The Shannons!

So Paris Vegan Day is just around the corner and I could kick myself for not having our cookbook done and prepping to get on a plane to France in a few weeks. Could these past few weeks have any more heartaches? I guess I shouldn't test that theory. Let's stay focused on the food.

I know what you're thinking... this isn't Vegan Shrimp Gumbo. I thought we were getting more Creole and/or Cajun food from you today. I'm sure there are other random curse words in there too... especially if you are thinking about last night's election results. But the lovely Leinana over at Vegan Good Things just posted a Louisiana Shrimp recipe, so I decided to mix it up! This brings us back to France.

Most folks think chicken fried steaks, green bean casseroles and impossible rainbow sprinkle layer cakes when they think Betty Crocker but this just isn't the case. This book has a serious diversity of recipes to it. Frankly that's one of the reasons we chose it. Much to my pleasant surprise there are quite a few pretty fancy French dishes in there and of course we all know how much I love being fancy and pretend French. Yes - I know how pretentious it sounds... The heart wants what it wants.

Coquilles Saint Jacques is one those pretty fancy French dishes. It was also one of Julia Child's favorite dishes - probably because it was French and included loads of heavy cream and a whole stick of butter. Ours is still a bit rich for vegan food but I'm sure it doesn't even come close to the real deal that besides the cream also includes Swiss cheese*. As you can also see if you clicked on the links above it is usually served on the half shell but that's not how we roll. Ours has artichoke hearts, white wine, a light sheesy savory sauce and of course hearts of palm "scallops" and our favorite Vegan Shrimp Balls. (snicker)

So let's enjoy our more compassionate yet infinitely lighter while remaining super fancy French dinner. Bon Appetit!

Special Edition : DC Vegfest Meets The Shannons

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What can I say? We go where the food is.

Back at the beginning of time when Dan and I went vegan, we hoped there would one day be a world where a vegan cupcake would kick ass on the Food Network, and where across the country there would be festivals dedicated to vegan food and saving animals. In our dreams, those festivals were packed with kind, smart, good-looking people. Sigh. Walking through DC Vegfest, we saw all those hopes and dreams come true!

There was booth after booth of delicious vegan falafel, nachos, baked goods, Ethiopian buffets... whatever. It was there. So were the people. The joke that this was actually "Line-fest" never got old, no matter how many times we heard it from folks (Ed. note: by "folks", she means me). Or maybe it was the hunger delirium that made everything hilarious.

The Betty Crocker Project : The Southwest Pasta Bowl

I know what you're all thinking: that's not a cupcake! Where's my delicious vegan baked treat this week? WTF Annie?!?

Well, this has been a pretty big week for us Shannons. So here's my list of excuses, in no particular order:

• This weekend is our dearest friend Sarah's birthday. I'm making some pretty awesome cupcakes for that and I don't want to spoil the surprise. You all know Sarah as our Facebook group Vegan Foods = Joy poster grrl. I do promise to post the recipe and tons of photos of the cupcakes and DC Vegfest on Monday. Just a reminder, the DC Vegfest is where all the cool kids will be, and it's free. You should swing by if you can!
• Dan & I have full-time jobs on top of this blog, and so sometimes we get super busy with that. We kinda have to do our jobs to pay for all the goodies we are making. The downside of being employed is that sometimes you suck at blogging.
• Season 5 of Supernatural came out on DVD and as many of you might remember, I adore that show. What can I say? I'm a grown woman who loves CW shows. It fills that campy sci-fi nook in my heart where Buffy, Angel, True Blood, X-Files and the classic old school Friday the 13th (the TV show) also live. Hell, I'll admit it: Charmed lives there too. If you're jonesing for something to scratch that nerd itch, I recommend giving Supernatural a try. I had to watch the entire Season 5 back to back for 48 hours and it put a crimp in my kitchen time.
• Dan and I wrapped up Lost. This was actually kinda meaningful for Dan and me, and I'm still kinda wrapping my mind around it. So I'll revisit that.
• We had a pretty big media hit this week. Kinda huge actually. Maclean's magazine (if you're not familiar, they're like 'the Newsweek of Canada') wrote a pretty meaningful piece about our little project that I hope you'll take a minute to check out, and maybe share it with friends or leave a nice comment. You can find it by clicking here. We've been getting even more emails than normal SO I'm even more behind than usual. Sorry 'bout that.
• Robots. They're always messing things up. Example A: Skynet's Cyborgs

But let's not focus on the cupcakes that are coming. Let's enjoy this dish that will make enough for two pretty ambitious eaters to have for lunch for a week. That's not too shabby for something that isn't a cupcake.