It’s Hockey Season and that means I’m feeding snacks to a bunch of hungry guys during our weekly game night.
Impressing the male species with vegan food is one of the biggest challenges of all. It’s not so much the taste of the food that I’m worried about; it’s more the stereotype of what vegan means to them. Often, the word vegan doesn’t evoke warm and fuzzy feelings like….beer or pizza….or nachos.
So I make nachos, spiced bar nuts, pizza, and beer fries.
Now they think vegan is just some weird code for really awesome food.
Score.
The other night I was trying to think of some “guy-friendly” snacks (oh, now I’m stereotyping!) and I came across some delicious looking snack recipes in The Happy Herbivore Cookbook by Lindsay Nixon. The publisher sent me this cookbook to check out and I’ve been meaning to try it for a while now. There are all kinds of dips and appetizer recipes to choose from, in addition to breakfast, sides, entrees, appetizers, sauces/dressings, and dessert recipes. Most recipes also have a full colour photograph which is always a nice feature if you are a visual person like myself.
Lindsay specializes in fat-free and low-fat vegan recipes and you can find over 175 recipes in her cookbook. There are also a lot of tofu, tempeh, and seitan based recipes such as her Seitan Pot Roast and Fettuccine Alfredo. If you are a soy fan, you will find a lot of unique options.
For game night, I made Lindsay’s Spicy Mexican Dip (above) made up of cannellini & black beans, nutritional yeast, spices & seasonings, and a hint of lime. I was feeling feisty so I made the Nacho Cheese Sauce and swirled it into the dip before baking it for about 35-40 minutes. Amazing. The only thing I regret was not putting a layer of Daiya Cheese on top!
I served the dip with Lindsay’s Chili-Lime Corn Chips. They are very easy to make and the flavours went perfectly with the dip.
First things first, the boys thought it was actually a real cheese dip.
Secondly, the dip was gone in 10 minutes.
I forgot all about the fact that the Leafs were losing.
I also made the Fruity Cereal Bars (it’s a good thing because the dip didn’t last long) which are fat-free knock offs of those commercial cereal breakfast bars that we all know and love. I wasn’t expecting much from a fat-free cereal bar, but these were good. The oatmeal base is soft and light (a common outcome when using applesauce as a fat replacer) and the gooey jam topping made me want to eat the entire pan.
Sadly, I had to share.
I even thought about trying the the, ‘You don’t want this, trust me! It’s healthy, it’s VEGAN!’ line, but it didn’t work. My cover was already blown.
Vegan food is just a code for really awesome food, remember?
The Happy Herbivore Giveaway!
[Giveaway Finished]
If you’d like a chance to win The Happy Herbivore Cookbook leave a comment below. I’ll pick the winner on Monday and ship you a copy of this book. Open to anyone, anywhere.
I sometimes bring vegan baked goods into work and get suspicious questions from the guys (I’m an engineer) about if it’s vegan. My usual response is Try it and I’ll tell you. Considering they were eating 600 calorie muffins from the store the other day, I can’t get over that they think that there’s something odd about healthy vegan foods.
Eek, nacho dip and bars look AWESOME. Would love this book!
Would love the opportunity to open my fiances eyes to the world of vegan food… hes stuck on his meaty ways…lol
My husband has decided (cold turkey!) to try vegan due to his high cholesterol. We’re on week 6 and doing great, but I sure could use some more ideas for entertaining and special events. That cookbook sounds perfect!
I recently became a vegetarian about 7 weeks ago, and your website has been so helpful to me for recipes and recipe ideas. I am looking to expand my repertoire of vegan recipes, so I would love to win the Happy Herbivore cookbook!
I have to enter this, I just discovered her blog a few weeks ago and have this cookbook sitting in my amazon cart just waiting for when I can buy it. :)
Would LOVE to win this book! Those nachos sound awesome.
Mmmm… have to try that dip. I’ve gotten some great recipes from the Happy Herbivore website and would love a copy of the book!
Those Fruity Cereal Bars look amazing!!…well, all your recipes are amazing! thanks!
i miss a lot of things since i moved from the north to the south for school: trader joe’s, snow, and jockey! oklahoma doesn’t believe in either of those :]
happy herbivore has awesome recipes!
Those nachos are a MUST for the World Series games this weekend! GO CARDINALS!
Looks so yummy! I love shocking people with how good vegan or dairy free baking and foods are. It’s like the big reveal for me… they all know I’m dairy free but while enjoying the heck out of a buttery cookie or fluffy cupcake I like to remind people :P
That dip looks awesome! I’d love to check out this cookbook.
Football snacks are definitely an area where I throw all nutrition out the window, thanks for the ideas! I confess I’m not a full time vegan, or even a full time vegetarian, maybe 90% of the time, but I love using the recipes for inspiration! I also especially enjoy your recipes since you don’t use soy, which I try to limit. This cookbook looks great!
These look delicious – its hockey season in my world, too, so we definitely will be trying some of these!
oh my goodness… the biggest task in the world is to make sportsmen into happy herbivores. in the world. :)
Please sign me up for the contest. Would love to win this cookbook! That nacho dip looks unbelievable, made me feel less pain for seeing the Leafs lose.
I would love to win the book! Since I’ve gotten into cooking, I’m always looking for great new recipes to try out and those look delicious!
Comment you ask?
PICK ME.
be well,
Carolyn
Oh wow that book looks amazing. My roommate and I are planning on having a super bowl party in February. This cook book would help us make healthy, game friendly food….and nobody would know it was vegan!