So at the risk of being redundant, here are some tips that you may or may not have heard already.

1. I usually to say forget about the schedule. What I mean by that is don’t worry about making it to all the panels or all the parties. Just go with the flow, you’ll have more fun that way.
2. But a certain amount of scheduling can be good. For example: If you really want to spend some quality time with people, put a meal on the books. Schedule time to meet up, sit down, and eat something.  This way you will actually get to spend time with the people you want to see. I will be holding Ohours at SXSW for this very reason!
3. If this is your first time going to SXSW If you are going to SXSW, you should fully expect to be worn out when it’s over. Make sure to drink lots of water and take extra vitamin C, to prevent getting really sick when you return home.
4. You will walk….a lot! Everything is usually close to the convention center, but that’s going to mean a lot of walking for you. Be sure you are comfortable with what you are wearing.
5. Enjoy the serendipity. South by can be a very serendipitous place. Crazy things happen, you end up in awesome conversations with amazing people, and when this happens just enjoy it and stay in the moment. You don’t need to take pictures and tweet while this is happening (let’s be serious, you can tweet about it later)
6. Don’t forget to eat! It sounds silly, but with everything going on it can be very easy to forget to eat. My advice, schedule meetings around meals. This insures that you give yourself a brake, and get a chance to eat.

A little tip on what to eat at SXSW from your friendly vegan friend, Sarah Cooley (hey, that’s me!).

Remember to eat your veggies! At SXSW, there will be tons of free BBQ to partake of (in fact MapQuest will have a bus trip to Salt Lick BBQ) So I understand that it might be more difficult to fit veggies into your meals. But do your best to try and eat some greens at least once during the day. Trust me, you will feel better because of it!

I’m thinking of putting together a small casual vegan meetup at SXSW (vegans and non vegans welcome). If you would be interested, leave me a comment below. If there is enough interest we can figure out a time and day in Austin that works for everyone.

If you want to meet up in Austin, feel free to sign up for one of my Ohours slots. Or you can try more traditional methods of tracking people down at SXSW, but that usually doesn’t work.

So I know that I have failed on my VeganMoFo promise, but I guess I’ll just have to try again next year. But I did want to let you know what I’ll be making for Thanksgiving this year.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday (maybe because it’s all about food). I love being in the kitchen preparing all the food. This will be my third thanksgiving without any turkey, but it’s my first year being fully vegan. We do thanksgiving at home here, and we do it big! So I have to find a way to make dishes that everyone can enjoy.

We don't mess around when it comes to sparkling cider!

In preparation for Thanksgiving, I made a big batch of roasted vegetable stock from scratch a week ago. It’s really easy to make and I’ll be needing it for my stuffing and my mushroom gravy.

I’ll be making savory stuffed mushrooms (adapted from the candle cafe cookbook) as an appetizer for everyone to enjoy. We will be having butternut squash soup (also from the candle cafe cookbook). I also will be making a wonderful fall salad with a mix of lettuces, fennel, walnuts, and dried cranberries with a simple olive oil and lemon dressing. So everyone will be enjoying a fully vegan menu for the first half of the meal.

Then its on to the main event. The family will be having turkey (naturally) and since my mom likes to stuff the bird, I will be making my own vegan stuffing to enjoy. It’s pretty simple, classic recipe. Cook down some onions and celery in a pan, then add them to dried bread cubes. Add in some herbs and seasonings, a few spoonfuls of vegetable broth to make it moist, then place it in a baking dish a put it in the oven until it browns on top.

The mashed potatoes we make in my house have always been dairy free. Simply boil your potatoes, and when you strain them, save the potato water. Mash your potatoes and add in some of the reserved liquid until they are the consistency you like. Simple right?

All these sides are calling for some delicious gravy! I make a vegan mushroom gravy that is absolutely delicious! My mouth is watering just thinking about it. Here is a basic recipe for mushroom gravy from the Post Punk Kitchen.

We will also be having crispy sweet potatoes and roasted brussel sprouts.

I really wanted to attempt a vegan Pumpkin Pie this year, but I didn’t have time. So I ordered one from Whole Foods. I’ll let you know how it stands up to my mothers pumpkin pie.

I can’t wait to get in the kitchen tomorrow, and I will update you all with photos and let you know how the meal turned out.

I’d love to know what you are making for Thanksgiving.

What is one food you thought you’d miss when you went vegan, but don’t? Cheese! I love cheese, but I honestly don’t miss it. It becomes a non issue after a while.

What is a food or dish you wouldn’t touch as a child, but enjoy now? Salad. When I was growing up salad consisted of romaine lettuce with dressing on it. I was never really fond of how boring it was. I didn’t discover all the amazing things I could put in salads until much later.

What vegan dish or food you feel like you “should” like, but don’t? Scrambled tofu. I love it in restaurants, but I can’t seem to get into making it at home.

What beverage do you consume the most of on any given day? Water! I really do drink a lot of water.

What dish are you “famous” for making or bringing to gatherings? Guacamole! Everyone loves my guac! It’s great to bring to parties because it’s such a crowd pleaser and it’s 100% vegan!

Do you have any self-imposed food rules (like no food touching on the plate or no nuts in sweets)? Hmm, the only thing I can think of is that I no longer drink caffeine.

What’s one food or dish you tend to eat too much of when you have it in your home? Bagels. If they are in the house I will eat them even though I know I shouldn’t.

What ingredient or food do you prefer to make yourself despite it being widely available prepackaged? Tomato Sauce. I recently discovered the amazingness that is homemade tomato sauce.

What ingredient or food is worth spending the extra money to get “the good stuff”? Olive Oil and Raw Coconut Oil. I use olive oil almost every day. You should have 2 kinds in your home, the good stuff (for salad dressings and other uses where it won’t be heated) and the not-as-good stuff (for cooking). I use the coconut oil on my skin, it’s seriously the best moisturizer and it doesn’t contain any chemicals.

Are you much of a snacker? What are your favorite snacks? I am a huge snacker, but I try to keep it under control. My favorites are brown rice chips, cereal, and stove popped pop corn.

What are your favorite vegan pizza toppings? I want the pizza to have a lot of sauce, then olives and basil. I like to keep it simple.

What is your favorite vegetable? Fruit? Wow, I don’t know if I can answer this one. If I had to chose I would say that my favorite vegetable is kale for juicing and string beans for eating. Fruit is hard, but probably fresh strawberries in the summer and apples in the fall.

What is the best salad dressing? Olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper! I put it on everything.

What is your favorite thing to put on toasted bread? Take really crusty toasted bread, rub a clove of garlic on it, then rub a ripe tomato on it, and finally drizzle with a little olive oil and sea salt.

What kind of soup do you most often turn to on a chilly day or when you aren’t feeling your best? Either plain homemade vegetable broth, or miso soup.

What is your favorite cupcake flavor? Frosting flavor? Chocolate and chocolate!

What is your favorite kind of cookie? Oatmeal Raisin.

What is your most-loved “weeknight meal”? Rice and beans.

What is one dish or food you enjoy, but can’t get anyone else in your household to eat? I usually can get my mom to try just about anything.

How long, in total, do you spend in the kitchen on an average day? Probably about 3 hours.

Now that I eat vegan food all the time I think I’ll give vegan lasagna another try. I’ll let you know how it turns out when I try this recipe, let me know if you make this and how you like it.

Here’s the recipe from Healthy Happy Life:

Garden Vegetable Lasagna w/ Ricotta Nut Cheese and Marinated tofu
vegan, makes one 9-11″ lasagna

1 large ripe tomato, sliced into thin rounds
2 cups marinara sauce (or homemade recipe)
16 oz. extra firm tofu, sliced into thin strips
1 cup mushrooms, sliced thin, any variety
1/4- 1/2 cup non-dairy cheese, I used Daiya
2 cups fresh leafy greens
*I used mustard greens. Kale, spinach, etc work too.
1 box no-boil lasagna noodles
*you can choose the boil method if you’d like
optional: 1/2 cup fresh chives, chopped – chopped basil
1 1/2 cups Chive Nut Cheese Ricotta
(see recipe here)

Zesty Garlic Marinade
1 Tbsp garlic powder OR 5 chopped garlic cloves
3-4 Tbsp EVOO
1/2 cup red wine, apple cider or balsamic vinegar
*see vinegar note below
2-3 Tbsp dried Italian herb seasoning blend
1 tsp black pepper
optional: 1/4 cup fresh basil – chiffonade
optional: a pinch of sea salt rubbed on tofu before placing in marinade

*vinegar note: if using apple cider or red wine vinegar you may want to add a splash of agave/maple syrup to sweeten your marinade up a bit. The balsamic vinegar should have enough sweetness on its own.

Directions:

1. Gather your ingredients.

2. Make your marinade by combining all ingredients in a large bowl.

3. Prep your veggies. Slice you ingredients very thin so that the marinade absorbs quickly.

4. Place your sliced ingredients (tofu, mushrooms, tomatoes, greens) into your marinade bowl. Toss gently. Add more EVOO/vinegar if needed to cover ingredients. Allow to marinate at least 20 minutes. Otherwise you can prep this part for overnight marination.

5. If you haven’t made your Chive Ricotta Lasagna in advance – do it now. Set aside.

6. Begin building your lasagna. See the step-by-step pics for the best “building” details. But basically, sauce, noodles, sauce, greens, tofu, sauce, noodles, sauce, mushrooms, noodles, ricotta, noodles, sauce, cheese, fresh tomatoes, chives, black pepper. And done! You can really build a lasagna however you’d like though. There are very few rules.

IMPORTANT TIP: Be sure to put a sauce layer on at least one side of each noodle layer – since you are using the no-boil noodles you want your lasagna to be extra extra moist before baking.

7. Cover your lasagna and store in fridge until ready to bake that day. Or bake in a preheated 400 degree oven for 45-60 minutes. Note: if baking lasagna from a chilled fridge, your baking time will be longer since the temp will be colder.

Serve hot! Delicious leftovers for a few days too. I reheated my lasagna in the microwave for a quick and comfort-food cozy vegan lunch. So good!

Vegan Yum Yum (Free): From the popular vegan blog comes a beautifully designed iPhone app full of great recipes to try out. What I love about the app is that each recipe has beautiful photos and very helpful step by step instructions. There are still a ton of things I want to make from this app.

VeganXpress ($1.99): This app is great for when you find your self looking for something to eat, but you aren’t exactly sure what’s vegan. I use this a lot on road trips when I end up having to eat a chain restaurants. It also has a list of food items (chips, cookies, candies, etc) that are vegan as well as a list of beer and wine.

Smoothies ($0.99): This is another recipe app, but only smoothie recipes. The recipes come from blogger Kathy Patalsky of Healthy Happy Life (one of my favorite vegan blogs). All the recipes are vegan and very creative! I usually take a very simple approach to smoothies, but this has taken my smoothies to a whole new level.

Year after year, I see friends of mine signing up for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in November. Now, I wish I had a novel to write, but alas November has come around again and I have no desire to write a novel. But today I discovered that November has been declared the Vegan Month of Food by the folks at Post Punk Kitchen.

While there are no set rules, the goal is to post something related to vegan food at least once every week day or approx. 20 times in the month of November.

Challenge Accepted!

I figured it was a good enough idea as any to get me back into the swing of blogging regularly. While I don’t consider this a food blog, I am a vegan who loves food so why not!

Stay tuned for all the vegan awesomeness to come this month!

Brunch has been the hardest meal for me to eat out at a non-vegan restaurant, but I was pleasantly surprised with High Points options. I started the meal off with herbal tea and the teas were presented to me in little vials for me to chose from. My friends had some french press coffee to start which came with steamed milk in the cutest little milk jug glass.

Everyone had a hard time deciding what to order, everything on the menu sounded wonderful. Of course it was a little easier for me to make my selection, but I still was narrowing in down between to Watermelon “Steak” and the Brunch Salad. We ended up ordering the Watermelon “Steak” as a starter for everyone to share, and I ordered the brunch salad (without eggs) as my main.

When the watermelon steak arrived at the table it had actual grill marks on it. We were all so anxious to try grilled watermelon so we dug in. I usually like my watermelon iced cold so tasting it grilled was certainly an experience, but it was one of the most delicious vegan dishes I’ve ever had. The watermelon flavor still came through, but it had that distinctive char grilled flavor. It was served with avocado and grapefruit with a jicama slaw. The brunch salad was good, but next time I’m definitely ordering the watermelon steak as my main.

My friends and I were saying that we’d love to come back for dinner to see how the vibe of the restaurant was at night. I’ll keep you posted.

Ok, Sarah, I need to get serious about getting healthy and losing weight. I've got 2 beautiful daughters that are the joy of my life & I want to see them grow up, get married, etc. Can you tell me some more (specifically) about your vegan diet?

Ok, so being vegan…

It was a hard choice for me and I usually tell people that it's not always the right choice for everyone.
You can still be vegan and not be healthy (believe it or not). So I set out to address all the issues with my current eating habits, and it's important for you to do this before you decide to change the way you eat.

My main issues were carbs and cheese. This came in many forms. Bagels and cream cheese, pizza, pasta with cheese, cheese and crackers, nachos, and the list goes on. These were some of my favorite foods, my comfort foods. I was already a vegetarian so giving up meat wasn't an issue, but giving up cheese and dairy seemed almost impossible.

Then I decided to really be aware of my intake of white flour and processed foods. Not because they weren't vegan, but because they were bad for me and they would hinder my ability to lose weight.

I eat a lot of dark leafy greens, which is where I get a lot of my iron from, particularly in the green juice I make in the morning. I make sure I get my needed carbs from whole grains like brown rice, barley and whole wheat breads. I get creative with salads, I love adding new things to my salads. And I make sure to eat my legumes for protein. This includes beans, tempeh, tofu, & meat/dairy substitutes.

Here are some great resources: Vegan Food Pyramid, Vegan Health FAQ's

I'm the kind of person who need's hard and fast rules if I'm going to stick to something, so that's why I decided to go vegan. Recently I've hit a bit of a rut in my weight loss, I started eating white flour and I honestly feel like garbage when I do that. I've lost 22 pounds so far, but I've been stuck here for a while.

I've made the commitment to lose 50 pounds and I'm almost half way there, so I can't stop now! I'll keep you updated with my progress, and I hope I've answered your question.

If you have any other questions I would be happy to answer them.

• Since 1971, Souen has been offering natural organic food to New York diners, with the foremost priority being to serve delicious meals in keeping with good health. We prepare our food simply and naturally, offering you the best quality grains, beans, and produce. No refined, chemicals, preservatives, meat or dairy products are used in our kitchen. We also employ traditional methods of preparation whenever possible to enhance the healthful quality and natural flavor of our food. With the increasing awareness of the connection between food, health and the environment, we continue our consistent effort to maintain and improve upon our high standards and Macrobiotic principles. Our concept is to let people all over the world experience real traditional Japanese food, delicious Macrobiotic food.

I have no been to two different Souen locations. One in the Union Square area, and the other in Soho. The menu varies between locations. But everything I had at both locations was delicious.

Souen is traditional macrobiotic food, so they do serve fish. But everything without fish is vegan since they do not use any dairy products. So it’s a great place to take friends that might not be vegetarian, but have been wanting to eat healthier.

If you are unfamiliar with Macrobiotics, I really suggest you put on your adventurous hat and give Souen a try. The food tastes amazing, and you will truly feel better afterward.

The basic idea of Macrobiotics is simple.

It is thought that by eating balanced foods such as grains and vegetables that are more local and in season, we can maintain good physical and spiritual health and live in harmony with nature. A typical Macrobiotic plate for our area will consist of a large portion of grains, beans, seaweed, vegetables and vegetable protein, such as tofu, seitan, beans and tempeh. Following the traditional Japanese food model of a simple and natural diet, macrobiotics dictates eating food in a natural way – unrefined and unprocessed.

But what does unrefined and unprocessed mean? It means for example, eating whole foods such as vegetables together with their skins and stems. It means not eating husked, processed rice but whole grain brown rice. It means, we living people should eat from a living land – taking food in season, in its entirety.

To clarify, I do not follow a macrobiotic diet. But it’s something I enjoy eating when I can.

If you try it out, let me know what you think.

I realized that I didn’t have enough greens. So I decided to head over to Liquiteria (a juice bar in the east village that I’ve been meaning to try out) and see if their “all greens with apple” was similar to what I make in the morning.

Liquiteria has a menu of fresh squeezed juice, smoothies (that they call liquid meals), and fresh pressed juice. They also have a small take-out menu of sandwiches, wraps, soups, etc.

But I came for the juice! Now fresh squeezed juice would be what I make with my juicer at home, it has more body and is usually a little thicker than pressed juice, but it won’t last as long (you should drink it right away). When you find a place that sells pressed juice its usually made and bottled fresh, and will last a few days in the fridge.

Liquiteria has one of the bigger menus of pressed juices around:

ALL GREENS
kale, spinach, romaine, parsley, celery & cucumber

ALL GREENS WITH APPLE, LEMON & GINGER
kale, spinach, romaine, parsley, celery, cucumber, apple, lemon & ginger

ALL GREENS WITH APPLE
kale, spinach, romaine, parsley, celery, cucumber & apple

MR GREEN
carrot, apple, beet, ginger, Super Green Food & Liver Kidney Lymph Detox

GREENS WITH CARROT
romaine, spinach, kale, parsley & carrot

MIXED VEGGIE
kale, spinach, parsley, celery, cucumber, carrot & beets

GRASSHOPPER
apple, pear, pineapple, wheatgrass & mint

THE KILLER
green apple, ginger, lemon & Immunity Now

THE KILLER XX
green apple, double serving of ginger, lemon, cayenne & Immunity Now

IMMUNE ROCKET BOOSTER
carrot, celery, beet, ginger, flax seed oil & Immunity Now

SKIN TRIP
carrot, spinach, cucumber, parsley, aloe vera & Liver Kidney Lymph Detox

I picked up the all greens with apple because it sounded closest to what I usually make in the morning. I like the juice a lot, it’s a little sweeter than I usually make mine, so I’m eager to try just the all greens next time and see if I can handle cutting out the fruit completely.

Of course the downside to finding a juice place you like is that you will be lazy and buy juice when you could just make it for much less money. So hopefully this will only be a last resort for when I run out of produce.

Do you have a favorite juice place, or maybe a juice recipe that you think I should try?