My vegan heart, part 3

There's this Middle Eastern restaurant near my office that has an amazing appetizer plate. Hummus, babaghanouj, tabbouleh salad and falafel, and I actually moan when I eat it. The first time I had it, I told my date (!) I was going to go in the kitchen and make out with the chef. And the best part? On the menu, it's clearly labelled "vegan." Be still my vegan heart! With food like that, that is so clearly and considerately marked safe for yours truly, you better believe I'll keep coming back. And maybe I'll even  threaten to make out with the chef.

(Partially) Illustrated Things I can Always Eat.

I asked a colleague out for lunch last week. She said, "I was going to suggest sushi but you just had some on Friday." First of all--good memory on her, no? Secondly, I can have sushi anytime.  Breakfast, lunch, dinner, brunch, midnight snack, post workout...I hope you get what I'm saying. There are a few things like that--if someone asked, "How about this for dinner, again?" I would say, hell yeah! So for my first post of VeganMoFo 2012, here is my very informative list, of (Partially) Illustrated Things I can Always Eat.

Sushi, obviously
The elegance of Japanese food is inherently appealing. The focus on the aesthetics is so different from the meat-potatoes-veg dinners so many of us grew up with. Hallelujah for that! And plus we get to use chopsticks, which is how I measured when I became a fully-formed city girl.

Pizza
Generally speaking, I have to make it myself. So I do. If I am especially disciplined, I will make a pizza and take it to work with me for a couple days' worth of lunch, health-ified with a salad on the side. Sex is like pizza, right? I can't remember how exactly, but it sounds right.

Dumplings
They're tiny and varied, they're stuffed with things, and they come with sauces. If dumplings aren't on your list of OMNoms, you must have been born without taste buds.

Grilled Cheese
Since going vegan, grilled cheese wasn't a popular item on my menu rotation. But then there was Daiya; and I discovered my panini press makes grilled cheese extra awesome. (It's all the extra space for crispy-ness that the panini press makes.) Now there is now going back. 

French toast
This has much the same appeal as grilled cheese--it's fried and it's carbs, so gimmeh! Only with French toast, it's not the gooey cheeze that make it extra nom-worthy, it's the stuff you eat it with--fruit, fruit sauce, maple syrup, icing sugar, or completing the full-on hot-breakfast trifecta of hash browns and meatless sausage/bacon. Weekends are made for this, people.

Falafel
Another food that builds on the basic fried carbs, falafel kicks it up a notch. Not only do you have the fried falafel balls and the pita, some food genius decided that contrasting this with cool, crisp parsley and adding some tahini for depth of flavour would take this food to a whole new level. And it did. 

Mexican

There is something about the flavour palate and the often vegan-ness of Mexican-style food that I can't get enough of. And seriously, anything I can add avocados to has my heart. Furthermore, chipotle peppers are the perfect addition of heat, and leave me teary with delicious joy--and a burning tongue.


Avocado
Do I really need to explain this one? If anything with avocados has my heart, then avocados themselves must be amazeballs. It's like this: if movies with Ryan Reynolds are inherently awesome, then Ryan Reynolds himself must be awesome squared. Hard to argue with my impeccable logic, right?
Avocados are smooth and creamy and go well with everything. If you're not convinced, look at the picture and try not to imagine how tasty that is.

Hummus

Humans have four basic needs: air, water, food, shelter. This being the 20th century, we can add Facebook and funny photos of cats if we wanted the list to be truly accurate. Vegans can add hummus to the list of necessities. How many sad, hungry vegan, lost and forlorn--on the road or at an event--has found that delicious saviour, hummus, and become instantly rejuvenated? Hummus is a vegan food that can be found so many places now that it frequently saves us from "just the salad". And thank hummus for that!