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.
The recipes sound awesome, and the difficulty of finding ingredients doesn’t look to be too bad either! :)
I want to make that cheese dip asap! I’d love to win The Happy Herbivore Cookbook too!
Looks delicious as always!
Hey…I love to see the pictures and I had no idea if vegan food can be so tempting :-)
Looks so awesome. I love cheesy dips
Wow! That dip looks amazing!
Oh my word! Those nachos look delicious. I’m practically drooling all over the keyboard. I’m always slightly envious of the easy availability of vegan cheese products in the USA and UK by comparison to where I am in South Africa.
All of this looks amazing! The link for the beer fries is not working, looks like your friend’s site is down. I found her guest post on your site, but all of the links to her recipes aren’t working. And they look like awesome recipes too…!
After 12 years of vegetarianism, I went back to being an omnivore last year. However, I love the challenge of cooking/baking vegan. I’d love to try out this book.
I need this book to impress my boy friend with vegan food! He would have no clue!!!
Looks amazing, just like all your other recipes! Question about the Daiya cheese…I’ve eliminated dairy over the last few months and I’m happy to feel great and no longer get the horrible stomach aches I’d always seem to get after eating dairy. Is this cheese a good subsitute? Is it hard to find in stores? I’ve been making your breakfast oats, walnut pesto torte and mushroom phyllo roll a lot lately…among many other of your great recipes!! Thanks so much!!
those nachos are calling for me! (probably not the first, nor that last to say that). I would love to win this book! Thanks!
I could definitely use a new vegan cookbook. I’ve made just about everything in Veganomicon, but it’s hard to know what a cookbook’s going to be like without thumbing through (and frankly, I live in Georgia — there aren’t many places to find vegan cookbooks here)! That dip looks out-of-this-world good.
Yummy!! Looks delicious!
I would love to win this. I am in a recipe rut! I feel like I eat the same vegan things all the time! That dip looks amazing!! :)
Love the recipe… Really want the cookbook!!
Those nachos looks amazing.
And I’ve amazing things about The Happy Herbivore!
Your photos are fantastic! The food looks irresistible. When’s the next game on?!
I need to make those cereal bars. I’m not even a “sweets” person. I would love to win the book! :)
Can you please make a post on how to start a blog and make it successful? Your blog is such an inspiration and I will love to hear your thoughts and suggestions.
Thank you in advance :)
Lovely site, thanks!