COCOA-COCONUT CHILI

Cocoa-Coconut Chili is a perfect day-after-Thanksgiving-light-dinner recipe.  Originally I planned to make it as part of the T-day meal (easy method of wide exposure to how tasty vegan can be), but that proved illogical, what with all Black Friday research I was busy conducting.  Also, I lost momentum when the local market in North Eastern PA did not have coconut milk - check-out girl and customer-service girl responded with identical looks of bewilderment when I asked about this apparently exotic product.  But my dad was able to scrounge some up when he did a store-run elsewhere on Thanksgiving morning.  Ironically, the author notes that coconut milk does not have to be used, in which case one should add some agave nectar to supply sweetness.  That is crazy talk though, coconut milk is one of the top 3 ingredients in any kitchen and critical to this dish.  Another ingredient the local market did not have was Dutch-processed cocoa powder, so I made do with the regular kind.  Nonetheless, the result was lovely and unique.

PUMPKIN CHEESE-PIE

My book arrived on Monday!  I received it right as I came home from the market with items to make 2 PETA pumpkin cheesecake pies.  After perusing the Sugar N' Spice chapter of the cookbook, I realized that I had all the ingredients on hand to make one of the PETA pies and to make one of the EDBV pies, Pumpkin Cheese-Pie.  The main difference was that the former contained pureed tofu.  They both said to use a food processor, which I lack, but electric beaters worked just fine for the EDBV recipe, and the tofu in the other recipe required a follow-up with the hand blender to better puree tofu.  They were both quite easy and tasty, though I found the tofu recipe to be a bit creamier and therefore tastier (sorry Dreena).

Vegan Monologues

Today I attended a Veg Society DC (VSDC) book group meeting at Karma Kitchen for book The Vegan Monologues by Ben Shaberman, and Ben was present.  Very fun book.  Very good food.  Very cool dude.  Signed my copy.

Thanksgiving with the Turkeys

We took an hour+ ride out to Poplar Springs Animal Sanctuary (http://www.animalsanctuary.org) yesterday for a Thanksgiving Potluck.  Piglets and peacocks milled around while we sampled from tables containing more than 150 vegan dishes.  Then we proceeded to visit chickens, feed pumpkins to 700 lb pigs, and give apples to farm mules, Hal and Gloria.  Utopia.

Ordered

Taking advantage of the remaining 3 weeks of my Amazon Prime free-trial free 2-day shipping, I just placed an order for ED&BV.  Why did we select this particular vegan cookbook?  Recipes include Gimme Chimis, Monkey Minestrone, and Cocoa Coconut Chili - no further explanation required.

1st action item on this journey: trip to market with my monkeys - I mean princesses - for Monkey Minestrone ingredients; a good recipe to start with since page included in Amazon 'Look Inside' preview.