As many of you probably know by now, my friends & I hold a monthly vegan cookoff (often gluten-free as well). We choose a theme, and anyone who wants to compete creates a tasting-size portion for each person to try. At the end, we vote on different categories and a winner is declared. We’ve been doing this for four years now and I always look forward to it, and it’s definitely helped all of us who attend regularly improve our culinary skills.
Above are a few entries from our March theme, which was street food. Click on the photos to read the descriptions, or visit the blog for the full recap, if you’re interested.

Dia’s Gluten Free & Vegan Yeast Doughnuts (by diadesigns)
Recipe

Live Pacific Northwest mussels, to be used in a ‘savory frozen shellfish marshmallow’ of sorts. Sounds pretty weird but was delicious; it’s not often we see frozen savory dishes.
Part of a long-term cooking project that’s been in-progress since 2009.
Anonymous asked: where can i find recipes for the individual food on the vegan cookoff, like the pizza's you made/the heirloom fungi?
Any recipes that have been posted are on the blog under the tag ‘recipes’, sadly however not a lot of people send me theirs to be posted so there’s really only a few things. Most of the entries have pretty solid ingredients lists though so you could probably piece together a reasonable facsimile yourself. Good luck, sorry I can’t be more help!
edit: forgot heirloom fungi was one of mine… the hardest & most time-consuming part is the polenta base, which came from a cookbook book called Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi, I just veganized the recipe. Tomatoes are easy enough to roast, just coat them in oil and salt & pepper until they blacken a little and burst open in the oven. The sauce is just a tablespoon each of margarine, tahini, & miso paste, about a half cup of coconut milk, a few cloves of pressed garlic, and a bit of flour or cornstarch combined on the stove. For the tofu, use a fresh packet of firm (not the vacuum-packed kind), press the water out, cut it into slices, and fry it in oil until it gets crispy and golden.

As some of you may know by now, once a month my friends and I hold a vegan cookoff with a set theme. We’ve been doing so for over three years and it has gotten pretty competitive (and VERY delicious). I encourage you to check out the blog (which is run mostly by me) if you are vegan and/or love food & cooking!
October’s theme was squash, and my entry above is a butternut squash & red pepper masala curry cooked with pumpkin wine, on a gluten-free cauliflower crust, & topped with raita, cucumbers, & cilantro.





