Vegan Snacks, Vegan Cheese, Vegan Soup, Vegan Pizza Pods!

A little bit of a shorter post today.  Not because I don't have more to blog about but because I'm rather short on time.  I'll mostly be blogging about vegan food today!  I'm kicking things off with a photo of these Cinnamon & Sugar Pop Popcorn Mini Cakes.  They were YUMMY!

I recently came across this Spicy Blanco from Siete and enjoyed it much more than the cheddar flavor I tried a while back.  Not that I didn't like the flavor of the other one BUT I found it to be a bit runny and thin.  This was thicker and the consistency was much better - especially for dipping!  The taste was better, too!

I found that our local Tops had a bunch of stuff on their discontinued shelf.  I'm not sure if they are eliminating them to downsize that section (I hope not) or just trying to make room for NEW products!  Here is one of the items I found that they are discontinuing!  I had not tried this one from Amy's yet so I thought I should grab it before it was gone!  It was pretty good!

And here is the meal I had the last time I was in Buffalo (which was a few weekends ago)!  We went to one of my favorite places...The Pizza Plant!  They have many vegan options there including their famous PODS!  I was able to build my own and went for the vegan cheese and artichokes!  YUM!

3 New-To-Me Daiya Products & A44 Movie

Just a quick post today because I seemed to be running out of time again!  YIKES! 

Last week The Vegan Zombie passed his Kickstarter goal of $80,000 to start producing his VEGAN Sci-Fi Movie A44.  I donated a very little bit to the campaign on the last day!  Can't wait to hear about the progress!

I received my shipment from Vegan Essentials and over the next couple of weeks will be sharing with you some of the things I ordered. 

Today I have 3 Daiya items that were in that shipment, actually. 

First up is this 4 Cheese Style with Herbs Cheezy Mac.  Here, locally, I am able to get the 'cheese' packets and in Lakewood they sometimes have the other 2 macs.  I have been able to try them and they are ok but it's not something I buy a lot.  This was also ok...again...not something I would buy weekly...or even monthly!  But it's good for a treat or on occasion.  I did like the addition of the herbs to the mix.  The pasta noodles were a little strange but didn't taste bad.  Just different, really.

The other two items are these Cheeze Sticks.  I bought one of each as you can see.  The Cheddar Style and the Moz Style. 

So far I have eaten both of them as a snack.  Convenient for on the go.  I think they have more flavor than the block style cheeses.  I assumed they used the same base as their blocks and just cut it different but Daiya responded on my IG photo saying that it's their own recipe blend specifically for the sticks.  Interesting.

I have also tried these Cheddar sticks finely chopped and tossed and melted in with regular pasta noodles, almond milk, Earth Balance, and a bit of nooch.  It turned out pretty good for just throwing everything in.  I will say that the flavor of it melted is more of a sharper cheddar than I remember from Daiya's other products.  I think I like using this better than the shreds, actually!

I might be trying the same method with the Moz sticks later tonight and melting then pouring over pizza.  Or maybe I will just add the finely diced Moz to the actual pizza.  I haven't made up my mind yet tho.

All-in-all I'm pretty happy with the sticks!  I would buy them again if I saw them for the right price!  Now...if someone just did vegan string cheese and vegan cheese curds!

Questions of the day...have you tried any of these 3 products from Daiya yet?  What did you think? 

Did you hear about the Vegan Zombie's Vegan Sci-Fi A44 Movie?  Were you able to be a part of the Kickstarter?

Gut Punch, Unicorns, & Vegan Cheese

DH and I got a fairly early start this morning and drove to Buffalo Wholefoods - among other places.  While I stopped in at WF I picked up a few things that were things I have been looking for, haven't been able to find in other places, found at a low price, or really needed.  One of the first items I want to share with you is this Farmhouse Culture Cola Gut Punch Sparkling Probiotic Veggie Drink.  Farmhouse Culture the brand known for its probiotic-rich Kraut, fermented veggies and Gut Shots, has introduced a ready-to-drink sparkling probiotic beverage line called Gut Punch. It comes in five flavors, including Mango Guava, Ginger Lemon, Cola, Strawberry Hibiscus and Cherry Cacao. Made with a fermented beet base and infused with real fruit essences, the line contains no added sugar added, with each variety retailing for a suggested $3.79 per bottle, however, it was $3.99 at Buffalo Wholefoods.  Normally, I wouldn't spend that much for a Booch or other Probiotic beverage but it looked really interesting and I probably won't be able to visit another WF for 4 to 6 months.  Personally, I wanted to grab the Mango Guava but I thought DH might like to try the Cola and we could split it.  He tried it and hated it.  I tried it and it was ok.  VERY different.  Glad I tried it - probably wouldn't spend the money on it again unless it was drastically reduced and on sale.  


Over the next several days I will share more of my WF Finds with you but I also wanted to tell you about our trip to Barnes & Noble!  Since we don't normally get each other or much for Christmas we decided to pick up a few things while we were out today.  DH went to a couple of music stores and found some interesting things and I found 4 books at B&N.  

Before I share the first of the 4 books I grabbed I thought I would show you these cute i-Clips.  They are magnetic bookmakers with Unicorns on them!  Many of you know that I collect Unicorns and I knew I just HAD to have them!  They are small but fun.  There are 4 sets of 2 for a total of 8 i-Clips!

There was snow on the ground in and around Buffalo.  A couple of inches in yards but the roads were clear.  Near our house we didn't get any of the snow they were calling for but my sister about a half hour away got about 4 inches.  I was lucky enough to spend time with her and my niece Trinity yesterday for a couple of hours and then DH and I met up with some friends and stopped by a small town for a Christmas Walk.  It was VERY COLD.

Sorry...back to...TODAY!  Here is the first of 4 books I wanted to share with you from our B&N Buffalo Trip.  Vegan Cheese by Jules Aron.  I've only thumbed thru a few of the recipes so far and I can't wait to try to make some of the cheeses!

I will try and spread the other books throughout future posts.  The more I have been thinking about the Virtual Bookshelf the more I feel like I need to do it myself and not use a widget or app.  It's going to take a LONG time but little by little I hope to add more and more books to my bookshelf.

I've also decided to start including more music to my posts.  At first I was thinking about adding a song to each post but maybe I will do a Monday Music Mention or something to kick things off.  What do you think!?

Reads, Recent Kitchen Experiments, & Build-Your-Own-Wrap

WARNING!  This is going to be a lengthy post!  And most likely one to jump around a lot, too!

First I want to share with you a new-to-me-vegan-cheese that I found at Wegman's this past weekend on my mini haul!  It's from Parmela Creamery and it's an aged nut cheese that is on the sharper side and made with cashew milk.

I used these shreds in the recipe/meal idea below, too!  The verdict is still out on this one.  I liked it but I have had others that were more tasty.  It doesn't melt as good as some of the other ones I have worked with but it does have it's perks, too!  The aroma is much like an artisan aged cheese.  Tonight I tried it in a wrap (which I will get to a little bit later in this post) and I really enjoyed it in a wrap situation.  There were a couple of other flavors for sale but I wanted to try this one first.

The other night I was trying to throw together a bowl of sorts and it ended up turning in to something completely different.  Let me explain.  

THIS photo is of the bowl mixture which was pretty tasty in its own right but it made me left wanting.  I will go on to show you what I did with it shortly, but first, the ingredients for this include: 1 C Multi-color Couscous, About a pound of roasted veggies I found at Trader Joe's a while back that I heated up and put into a blender on pulse, and then I made a simple creamy sauce made of Cashews, Almond Milk, Sea Salt, Garlic, Onion Flakes, Dill, Nutritional Yeast, and a splash of Balsamic.  Everything was eye-balled so sorry I don't have the exact measurements.

So here is what I ended up doing with the mixture.  It was holding together pretty good on its own so I made them into little balls and pressed them down into a muffin pan.  As you can see I used the plant-based shreds on top of all of them.  On half of those I squirted some Sriracha on top.  Both were tasty.  I think I liked the ones with Sriracha on top better.  I then made another Vegan Ranch type sauce for dipping. 

Here's a close-up of the dressing/dip/sauce.  Because I was out of cashews I decided to use Sunflower Seeds for this one.  Below is that recipe...

1 C Sunflower Seeds
About 1 C Almond Milk
2 t Lemon Juice
2 Cloves Garlic
2 t Dill

1 t Smoked Paprika

1 t Black Sea Salt
2 t Dijon Mustard

2 t Onion Flakes

Here's a closer look of the little Couscous Bites I made.  I have to say for me just throwing something together I was pretty proud of these lil guys!  The roasted veggies in the frozen package I got at TJ's was made up of Eggplant, Red Peppers, Onions, and had a bit of Balsamic for flavor in them, too!

In other news...
I had to break down and buy my lunch the other day and didn't want to go too far from the office so I stopped in at Total Evolution.  I opted for the Build-Your-Own-Wrap.  I decided to go with Sprouts, Avocado, Shredded Carrots, Hummus, Tomatoes, and they make their own Vegan BBQ Marinated Chickpeas.  They also make their own Vegan Cilantro Ranch Dressing so I went with that, too!

I have a lot of things I will be thumbing thru over the next couple of days including the following...

Raw Healthy & Delicious Recipes from Norbu (Australia)
Maranda Pleasant's Mantra Yoga & Health
Raw Food Lifestyle - back issues from March/April & May/June 2014
Rawmazing Easy Raw Food by Susan Powers

I've also recently found a website for those with Dyslexia.  They have resources for children but they also have a section for adults so I decided to subscribe to their newsletter and got my first issue today.  I will continue to locate resources for adults and try and report back here.

What do you think about the experiments in the kitchen?  Or about the little Build-Your-Own I found in my small town?  Or about the currently reading list?  I will be featuring more mini hauls over the next week or so!  A few other things I'm wondering about are...what do you think about the changes to my site so far?  The FurKid Section/Tab?  The Into description and photo in the upper right hand corner of my nav bar?  And what do you think about the links section?  There are over 100 links there, now!  YAY!  I can't wait to visit and comment more frequently on both old and new friends sites!  Please let me know if I don't have your link listed and I will add it ASAP!  CHEERS!!!

Worth A Re-Visit Thanks To Their New Vegan Smoked Gouda!

It's been a few years since I last purchased vegan cheese from Follow Your Heart.  Probably even before I went vegan, actually.  I have to say I wasn't fond of their vegan cheeses.  So that - in short - is why I haven't bought them again...UNTIL NOW...

Many of my blogging buddies who have been lucky enough to locate Daiya's Smoked Gouda and have blogged about had me craving it.  I thought maybe if anyone had it - it would be the brand new Whole Foods Market in Buffalo.  But, Nope!

So...I when I saw they had this smoked gouda from FYH I thought I would 'settle' for it.  Well, color me SURPRISED!  It's flippin' fabulous!  Now I want to go out and grab all of the other Follow Your Heart Sliced Vegan Cheeses I come across to see what I have been missing!

They must have really upped their game the last few years because I don't remember having a positive encounter before.  Glad I stepped outside my comfort zone and paid them a re-visit!

A funny addition to this story is that DH mistakenly opened MY VEGAN CHEESE and ate TWO SLICES out of it before I did!  When I went to use it for the first time and noticed the package was open I asked him about it and he said that he didn't know it was mine.  I totally believe him because he always poo-poo's my stuff.  I said to him...well, it must have been good if you didn't complain about it.  He said that he didn't notice...so...I'll chalk that up as a WIN in the vegan cheese category!

Eating Vegan On A Budget: Stretching Your Vegan Cheese Recipes

If not all of my vegan cheese sauces - MOST of my vegan cheese sauces seem to be a 'one and done'.  Meaning I throw everything into my blender - wet and dry - make the cheese sauce - and throw it on whatever I am wanting to CHEESE UP.  Especially if I am using cashews or another kind of nut for the creamy base this will be a pretty expensive vegan cheese sauce...considering a pound of cashews are anywhere between $11 and $16.  When I have made Vegan Cheese Sauces in the past I usually use 1 cup of cashews on the average.  So that means 1 cup of cashews for 1 dish.  After Googling this I have noticed that you usually get about 4 cups of cashews in a pound.  So that means that I'm spending between $2.75 and $4 per dish just on the cashews (if they are between 11 and 16 bucks).  WHAT?  OMG!  So...there is a method for all of this MADNESS here, REALLY!  PROMISE!  Keep reading...

I recently came across a recipe on Veg Kitchen and it was a recipe from Miyoko Schinner.  Yes...THAT Miyoko Schinner!  Miyoko...the Vegan Cheese Goddess!  You can see her recipe at the link above.  You know me - I use what I have on hand - so I tried a few tweaks - and they seemed to work nicely!  The first photo above is the aftermath of this recipe my first day.  The second photo is from ALMOST the beginning.  I used my Vitamix.  I can't believe I'm going to say this but I don't think a Vitamix is the way to go with this.  Unless you are REALLY patient and do it 'low and slow'.  If you KNOW ME - you know I'm NOT the most patient person.  It WORKED tho!  This was my first attempt.  There were some clumps but I put individual portion sizes of the dry mix in the refrigerator and then when I took one of them out I put it in a coffee grinder to loosen and 'all was well.'

Here you can see the coffee grinder attempt to 'fluffen' the dry powdery mix.  I have a small coffee grinder that I use for spices and such.  I don't use it as an actual coffee grinder.  When making the actual SAUCE I take 1/3 C of this mixture and whisk it into 1 C of Almond Milk and about 1/3 C Water.  And then you have your sauce.  I was able to get at least 4 batches of sauce with this dry mix.  It's described my many as a vegan equivalent to the dry mix in boxed Mac & Cheese!

So if I was able to get at least 4 uses out of this dry mix - the serving sauce on the cashew part - is between 69 cents and $1 - if the 1 pound of cashews cost $11 to $16.  I know this has been one HUGE blab fest about the cost of cashews and serving sizes but I thought it was interesting.  This will NOT make me stop trying other Vegan Cheese Sauces, flavors, mixtures, etc. but it's certainly something to keep in mind when the bank account it lower than usual.

I will say that it tasted quite good.  It's not a sharper cheese sauce like some of mine are but it more than gets the job done.

In this photo you can see what it looks like as I whisked!  Yes, I know, I'm a messy cook!

What do you think so far?  I have more photos!

In this attempt - the same one as above - I used a tomato based penne pasta.  It was pretty fabulous!  In the photo below I added some Turmeric to the dry mix or even while on the stove top heating and thickening.  It made it more orange/yellow.  I used organic pasta.  The elbow variety of course.  I topped with Wildtree Dill.  It was YUMMY.  At first I thought that there was a lot of sea salt in this but it worked.  And if you think about salt/sodium in those boxed powders it probably levels up!

Here's the recipe I used - including my own alterations...

1 C Cashews
3/4 C Nutritional Yeast
1/2 C Garbanzo Bean Flour
1 T Smoked Paprika
1 T Organic Cane Sugar
3 tea Black Himalayan Sea Salt
2 tea Wildtree Absolutely Onion
2 squirts Yellow Mustard

I put all of these ingredients into a blender/grinder until powdery.

1/3 C Dry Mix
1 C Almond Milk
1/3 Water

Whisked on low to medium heat until desired consistency is reached.

Recap of the Week

TGIF!  I'll get the not-so-great-news out of the way, first!  This past week Paco (our Chihuahua who has immune issues) had a puffy nose and I took him to the vet and they are thinking it's tooth related so long story short...they are going to do dental surgery next Thursday.  Because of his immune issues and those issues having to do with clotting and NOT clotting properly they have to treat this a bit differently.  I'm hoping all goes well.  Please send positive thoughts, prayers, vibes our way!  In other crazy news...my Fiat needs 4 new tires!  Blah!  Plus...I'm still without a dishwasher!  AND...our gutter fell off the house...so...YEAH...it's been a rough go-around!

Anyways...on to more positive things...such as FOOD...First photo is part of my lunch from Monday.  It's a Red Cabbage Crunch Salad of sorts.  Raw...carrots, cabbage, onion, pumpkin seeds, parsley, sunflower seeds, etc...

Next photo is simply Oil Roasted Brussels Sprouts with herbs!

I got both of these at Wegman's which are clearly marked whether or not they are vegetarian, vegan, or otherwise.  Why can't every eating establishment be that obvious!?

I was able to meet up with my sister for lunch that day since I was in her neck-of-the-woods.

Not too long ago I made this Pimento Cheese.  It turned out super YUMMY!

Silly me...I didn't save the recipe!  I can tell you that it has Cashews, Pimentos, Nutritional Yeast, SeaClear, and more in it, tho!

I've been into more comfort and convenience foods as of late and need to throw in more grains.
I hope to do more casseroles, one-pot-meals, and thrown-together-bowls in the near future, too!

So  many vegan food combos - so little time, eh!?

Last night I did this Plant-Based Cheese and once again I don't have the recipe with me.  It is in need of some tweaking, first, so it might be for the best that I don't post it now but I will tell you that it had potatoes, carrots, cashews, almond milk, nutritional yeast, minced garlic and onion, and a few other little things thrown in.

It turned out ok but I felt it was missing that last little something-something.

Something else I should mention that was pretty awesome this week was that it reached 72 degrees the other day!  Yes...in mid-march...in the snow belt!

Last week I stopped in at a semi-local produce market.  I say semi-local because it it still about 40 minutes away from my house but since I am traveling up that way for work at least once a week now I am able to stop in and see what they have.  It's also one of the few places of its kind that is open year-round in this area.

I found these Honey Tangerines on sale 2 for $1.  I also found Honey Bell Oranges that you can see in the next photo.  The Honey Bell Oranges were 79 cents each.



This might not sound like a deal to some of you in sunny Florida or California where citrus is plentiful but here for this time of year the price was right for me.

So these 4 items made up my lunch that day!

I'm still waiting for a semi-local restaurant to re-open.  It's a vegetarian and vegan restaurant that has been under construction for well over a year.  The owner is doing all the renovations himself so I understand the delay but I won't lie...it's nearly killing me! LOL

I will leave you with this photo of Cricket.  She's doing well and still a crazy lady that is for sure!  Riley is doing good, too, and so is Charlie the feral cat we have!  Here's hoping all goes well with Paco's dental surgery on Thursday!

I will say I have been tempted to adopt another dog from a local shelter...his name is Tipper.  I think 3 dogs is maximum capacity for our house but I will tell you that this specific dog has been 'haunting me' for WEEKS.  I have been visiting him at the shelter and smuggling in treats for him.

Vegan MoFo ~ Lunch on the Go!

Happy Saturday!  Today's Vegan MoFo 'starter' is Lunch on the Go!  Well, I do PLENTY of these because I'm often on the go during the week for work!  Usually I will have a sandwich, pita pocket, wrap, salad, or veggies/nuts/seeds/fruits to munch on.  Another thing I have done many times is any kind of veggie with various flavors of hummus!  

Here you will see the last hummus I made at home and ate...Shriracha Hummus!

Here's the recipe:

2 C Chickpeas

1/2 t Cumin

1 Mini Red Bell Pepper

2 Cloves Garlic

2 T Tahini

1 T Lemon Juice

1 T Shriracha

Water if needed

Cayenne Pepper, Pink Himalayan Sea Salt to taste

Top with more Shriracha to taste

I eat a lot of salads.  For Lunches and Dinner.  Sometimes because it's all the restaurants offer that is vegan and sometimes its by choice because I really do love them regardless!  What makes a great salad is 'eating the rainbow' but also a good dressing!  I make a lot of my own.  I'm sure we all do!  Here's on that I made with carrots as the base a while back.

Because I have been making a lot of these Vegan MoFo posts based on what I have on hand in my pantry and cupboards I wanted to share with you this extremely simple, fun, and flavorful tip/trick I came up with the other night!  Now that I know just how much I LOVE this I will be making it often so I have some on hand at all times!

I introduce to you...Pine Nut Parmesan!  

I've done other vegan parm's before but this one 'takes the cake'!  Here's what I did...

1 C Pine Nuts (Ground in a coffee or spice grinder)

3 T Nutritional Yeast

1/2 t Garlic Powder

1/2 t Black Sea Salt

That's IT and it really IS that AMAZING!

In case you were wondering what to do with this yummy sprinkle...here's an idea...

1 Small Sweet Onion

1 Small to Medium Zucchini

pan fried and topped with the Pine Nut Parm!  YUMMO! 

Vegan MoFo ~ Childhood Food VEGANIZED & Happy Mail

It's the 2nd day of Vegan MoFo and I wanted to stick with today's PROMPT which is to "recreate a meal from your childhood."  Well, this isn't really a complete meal per say but it was what I had for dinner last night and it certainly hit the spot!  Cheesy Broccoli!  YUM!  Yup!  That's 'from scratch' vegan cheese sauce!

Here's the recipe for the Vegan Cheese Sauce:

2 C Raw Cashews

3 T Lemon Juice

1 C Water

1/4 C Nutritional Yeast

1 t Minced Garlic

1/2 t Turmeric

About 1 t Yellow Mustard

Pinch of Cayenne Pepper & Black Himalayan Sea Salt

Remember you can join MY Vegan MoFo Blogroll by commenting on THIS post.  I decided to make one since I didn't see a 2015 BlogRoll on the VeganMoFo.com site.

I thought I would also show you my latest shipment from The Raw Food World!  They now have tote's!  YAY!  They are ONLY $2.95 and I LOVE them!  For the direct link to these neat reusable bags CLICK HERE!

The Raw Food World recently got a whole slew of new items from Chocola Tree and I HAD to scoop them up!  CLICK HERE to see them all!  There are Raw Vegan Wraps, Raw Vegan Flatbreads, Nori Nachos, and Raw Vegan Cheddar Cheese Sprinkle as well as Raw Vegan Parmesan Cheese Sprinkle.

Just for good measure I did a close up on the vegan cheese sprinkles!

I ended up getting a few items for friends and family, too, but then I wanted to try these 3 new-to-me Living Nutz flavors.  They also have some new Vegan Coconut Bacon which are on sale this month for only $4.55!  It was also time for me to re-order cashews and salad booster, too!  I finally decided to get some Camu Camu Powder as well!

I added to my Raw & Vegan Book Stash with these 4 books!  I was luck enough to meet Karen Ranzi at the WNY VegFest last month so I wanted to grab her book.  I have first Raw Foods For Busy People so I figured I should grab the 2nd one, too!  I have been into learning about fermentation and added to that category.  And then the Raw Food Nutrition Handbook looked interesting so I decided to go with that one, too!  Have you read any of these books yet?

  

I've had a lot of questions from people lately about purchasing from The Raw Food World!  If you click the banner above you will see all of the 'At Cost Specials' this month!  That's a great place to start looking!  And remember you can also save 7% on your order with the code rawfood7.
What do you think of my latest haul?  And what do you think about the veganized childhood dish?

Things Have Been Pretty 'Cheesy' Lately

Over the past couple of weeks things have been pretty cheesy!  Of course there are no actual dairy products in the cheesy recipes I show you here today and I apologize in advance but these are lacking actual recipes, too!  I literally threw them together and only wrote partial recipes or didn't write up a recipe at all! 

I will tell you this about the first photo you see - as a thickener I used a bit of NuNaturals Oat Fiber.  It worked quite well.  I also used nutritional yeast, garlic, onion, Bragg's Liquid Amino's, Turmeric, Coconut Milk, and a few other ingredients.

As for this 2nd photo - I used Corn Pasta.  I used about 1/2 package of Daiya Mozzarella, 3 T Earth Balance, 1/4 C Nutritional Yeast, 1 t Paprika, 1 t Garlic Powder, 1 t Onion Powder, 1 t Mustard Powder, 1 or more cups of Almond Milk, 1 t Turmeric, and Black Sea Salt to taste.

This turned out pretty wonderful, too!  Incredibly creamy and cheesy!

As you can see I have been using more more Turmeric in my recipes.  This is the Turmeric I use from The Raw Food World.  I LOVE it! 

For this last photo - I made some Cashew Cheese and topped it with Cajun Seasoning.  I used 2 C Cashews, 2 C Water, 1/4 C Lemon Juice, 1/2 C Nutritional Yeast, 1 Small Onion, 1 t Avocado Oil, 1 t Dried Garlic, 1 t Bragg's Liquid Amino's, 1/2 t Turmeric, Pinch of Cayenne...and topped with Cajun Seasoning to taste.

I had LOTS of this Cashew Cheese Left over and used it for Nachos, as a dip, some in other sauces, and MISC recipes that needed a little more creaminess!  Which one looks/sounds more up your alley!?

Vegan Pizza - Pizza Plant - Williamsville, NY

One of the places we stopped on Sunday was The Pizza Plant on Transit Road in Williamsville, NY, for my Birthday.  They have an AMAZING selection of Vegetarian Options.  They have a great deal of Vegan Options as well.  We've been to the Pizza Plant a few times...they have two locations.  The other is in Walker Center.  I was born in Buffalo and raised in a few towns and cities around Buffalo.  My Mother's Father owned part of Transit Road back in the day.  Of course that was probably 50 years ago or more, but still...we have history there.  I'm always excited to visit.  We didn't meet up with any of my family members - such as cousins, uncles, aunts, etc...we just went for the day and didn't really know where we were going other than Trader Joe's, Guitar Center, and a few others stops.  We ended up at Pizza Plant. 

I noticed they had not only Vegan Pizza - but Vegan Pizza - WITH Vegan Cheese!  I have to confess - this is the very first time I have had Vegan Pizza with Vegan Cheese - eating at an establishment.  You just don't usually find that around much.  So...it was my birthday and I splurged!  They make their own sauces, their own crusts, and use very fresh ingredients.  On this pizza I had Tomatoes, Zucchini, and Artichokes...with herbs!  The crust was their Garlic Crust.  It was AMAZING!  I had plenty to take home...that's for sure!

There are so many things you can veganize on their menu in addition to the already vegan items they clearly mark on their HUGE menu!  PLUS our waitress was WONDERFUL.  As soon as I said "vegan" she lit right up and started raddling off a bunch of additional info!  She said ALL of their doughs were vegan except for their Whole Wheat.  Good to know!  In the past I have opted for the "Pods" that they are famous for MINUS the cheese.  Which would be various veggies and sometimes a sauce inside of a "Pod" which is basically a Stromboli but better!  It opens slightly on the top and they aren't greasy like you would see in stromboli's plus they have over 30-some different combos!  YAY!  Anyhow...I really like this place...perhaps it's because I'm not able to go there often...or maybe it's because of the vegan options....heck...it's probably BOTH...but I'm even HAPPIER after our last visit!  YUM!