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 would LOVE a good vegan cookbook! (I don’t have one… sad :( )
Would love to win :)
I’ve heard great things about this book. It would be wonderful to win!
Oh! I love cookbooks and better yet I love cookbooks that serve up healthy veggie minded dishes! You made those tortilla chips?! Amazing!
everything looks so yummy!
This looks AMAZING! tricking people into eating vegan recipes is sort of a recent past time of mine … (weird) so i am definitely trying these recipes out for the football fans in my life. And as someone who has a hard time digesting fats, this cookbook is reallly exciting me : )
While I’m not vegan or even vegetarian, I’ve committed to eating much more healthily– and actually, I’ve ended up mostly cutting meat out of my diet! This cookbook would really help me as I am getting tired of stir fry, but don’t have time to scour the internet (of course, Oh She Glows is helping a ton as well!)
There’s no way you can miss cheese when you know the wonders of nutritional yeast. Those vegan nachos would have had me fooled, that’s for sure ;) !
All that food looks so yummy in my tummy!! :D
Been reading your blog for months and loving the recipes – commenting for the first time. Those nachos look super delightful!
one thing is for sure: you can never ever own too much cookbooks, and both dishes look so good. So I would love an opportunity to make a copy my own, without having to explain to my partner why the bleep I bought another vergan cookcoob :-)
The chips and dip looks yummy! I’m salivating here.
I’d love to win a copy of the book!
Have a great weekend.
I would love to try that Mexican dip! Being a Texan I always get excited about anything with spicy beans and cheese (or cheeze)!
I’ve almost bought this book a handful of times… I think I’m just meant to win it instead:)
That dip looks amazing! …and I’m a sucker for Nutri-Grain bars, but I buy the ones at Trader Joe’s that don’t have as many fake ingredients in them. I’d love to have a good knock-off recipe! I’ll have to go check out the Happy Herbivore’s blog. I see her name pop up here and there on the blogs I follow, but I’ve never actually gone over there. :) I’d love a copy of the cookbook, of course. ;)
These look like fantastic snacks! Thanks for sharing.
I’ve been eyeballing her book for a while now, everything sounds amazing!
As a vegetarian who wants to be a vegan this cook would be divine! ;)
i feel like i have the same problem every week for football season! i always try to contribute at least one HEALTHY, but still man-friendly snack. it’s tough! your dishes look delicious as always though. :)
please, please If I’m not winning the book at least post the cereal bars recipe, tnx a lot!!!