Breakfast: Started this rainy day with a green smoothie. It’s been a few days since my last one and I have missed them! This tasted so delicious. In the blender: frozen spinach, banana, blueberries, mango, and water. Yum.

Wednesday night, I went to a neat event. Chloe Coscarelli, the vegan chef who won the FoodNetwork’s Cupcake Wars, has a new cookbook–Chloe’s Kitchen– and was doing a signing near my house.

I was mostly vegan a few years ago, but even now that I eat meat often (and dairy occasionally), I still really like vegan meals. But I need EASY vegan meals and that’s what attracted me to Chloe’s book– it’s just that! Simple, tasty vegan meals.

Chloe was really sweet in person. She seemed a little nervous at the signing but answered a few questions, mostly about her favorite vegan SF restaurants.

sorry for the big head in the way, no good angle here

She also talked about how difficult it was to write a cookbook– her friends thought she just cooked in her pjs all day, but honestly, it was a ton of work– so many trials and errors with each recipe, late into the night, figuring out exact amounts. I believe her!

She signed books

And another event perk– There were sparkly cupcakes (vegan and g-free, of course!)

I flipped through the book at home. Some good looking recipes. Like these:

She says that whenever she makes these cinammon rolls she keeps breaking up peice after peice....until pretty soon she's eaten half the pan!

Vegan meatballs

And I think Charlie would like this:

Anyways, so the cookbook is now on my shelf. Hope to make a recipe next week.

It’s always fun to meet the chef/author in person. Puts a personal touch to the recipes when you actually make them.

In other news, here was my non-vegan lunch. Sprouted bread with avocado and smoked salmon. Totally easy to make at work and filling.

Happy Friday!!

Any good cookbooks sitting on your shelves?
For those of you who aren’t vegan– do you still make vegan recipes?