Delicious Pasta with Greens (and some reds)

Brown Rice Penne with Pesto, Dried Cranberries and Pinenuts

Mmmm this was a total spur-of-the-moment invention and it turned out to be incredibly tasty! I was trying to use the last of my veggies from the fridge when planning what to cook for a friend for lunch. I had extra pesto and a big head of swiss chard I’d ambitiously bought at the farmer’s market and then had used only one leaf of in a smoothie earlier in the week. Inspired by this recipe I decided to mix the two. I find that the cranberries help to mollify the earthy-bitterness of the swiss chard, and the pinenuts add texture to the whole dish. Overall a great combination of flavors. Here’s the recipe:

Pesto with Swiss Chard, Dried Cranberries and Pinenuts

Serves 3-4

Ingredients:

Pesto (recipe here)

8 oz brown rice pasta (I like Trader Joe’s penne)

Swiss Chard

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 bunch of swiss chard
• ½ yellow onion, thinly sliced
• ½ shallot, thinly sliced
• 1-2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 handful dried cranberries
• 1 handful pinenuts

Directions:

(While you’re cooking the swiss chard, make the pasta.)

Chard:

• Heat the oil in the pan, when hot, throw in the onions and the shallot.
• Chop the stems of the chard into small pieces. Throw in with the onions and sautee for a  few minutes.
• Add the crushed garlic, stir everything. Sautee for another minute.
• Throw in the cranberries and pinenuts.
• Slice the chard leaves into thin ribbons, add them in. Saute everything until the leaves are nicely wilted.

Now: mix the pesto into the pasta, then stir the pesto-ed pasta into the chard mix. Toss everything. Serve. Scrum-diddly-YUMptious.

Kalamata Olive Tapenade: A Belated Father’s Day Gift

Kalamata Olive Tapenade

A while ago my dad had this delicious olive tapenade at his house, (that, by the way, cost $8.50 for an 8oz serving), and it had the ingredients on the label. I thought I might be able to figure out the proper measurements and thus be able to make my own version, so I told him I’d try. 2 months later, voilà!

My Version of  Phoenix Pasta’s Olive Tapenade

• 1 6.5 oz jar of Kalamata olives (I got mine at Trader Joe’s)
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• ½ tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 tbsp shallot
• sprinkle of thyme

Blend everything in a food processor. (This will be hard for my dad, since I “borrowed” his. Oops. Looks like I’ll be sending him a jar of tapenade.)

Eat with a flax cracker or something more delicious, or just your finger. Yum.

Delicious New Dessert Recipe: Banana Fudge Bars

Banana Fudge Square

I love it when I’m randomly experimenting with a new recipe and don’t expect it to be that great, and then it turns out to be crazydelicious. I know this sounds incredibly cocky, but seriously—I served it to some friends who had several helpings of the treat and agreed that it was amazing.

It’s pretty simple to make and very healthy. Here’s whatcha do:

Banana-Fudge Bars (This is not the most appropriate name, but I don’t know what else to call them, so this will have to do for now.)

Makes 9 bars

Ingredients:

Crust

• 2/3 cup almond meal
• 2/3 cup rolled oats (or for Gluten-Free: brown rice flour)
• ½ banana
• 5 figs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3 tbsp palm sugar
• 3 tbsp coconut oil

Fudge Topping

• 12 dates, soaked for 20 mins
• 5 heaping tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tbsp agave
• Berries

Directions:

Crust

• preheat the oven to 350
• In a food processor, blend the oats and the almond meal so that it’s all ground up in a fine powder
• add in the palm sugar, blend
• add in the banana, then the figs, one by one, until they’re nicely blended in
• add in the vanilla and coconut oil. Blend everything until it is nice and moist
• place dough in a square pyrex dish, flatten, bake for 15 mins
• when it’s done baking, let it cool for a few mins, then place in the freezer to speed up the process so that it’s nice and cool when you spread the fudge on top

Fudge Topping

• in a food processor, blend everything except the berries. If necessary, add more agave or cocoa powder, depending on how rich/sweet you like your fudge.
• spread onto the crust
• place in the freezer for 1 hour
• remove from freezer and place berries on top. I used sliced strawberries, but I’m sure any berry would be scrumptious.
• Serve. YUM.

Dehydrating…again: Flax Crackers and Banana Chips

For my second dehydrating experiment I decided to make flax crackers, and I threw in some sliced bananas to see if I couldn’t make some tasty banana chips as well.

I soaked 1 cup of flax seeds in 2 cups of water, then mixed in 1 tbsp garlic and sprinkled in some cayenne pepper. My dehydrator seems to only have 1 dehydrator sheet, so I’ll have to figure out where to get more, because the other shelves are open grates and pouring any kind of cracker batter in would be quite difficult. In the meantime, I had to halve my recipe and in fact, even at half there was too much cracker-batter. Oh well.

After 4 hours of dehydrating, I was supposed to be able to flip the giant cracker but sadly it was only crusty about halfway through, so I peeled it apart and placed the hardened half on a holey-dehydrator shelf and hoped the still-wet other half would dehydrate properly during the next 6 hours.

Dehydrated Flax Crackers

The end result was strange, but I actually have no idea what flax crackers are supposed to look/taste like, so I’m going to assume they were perfect. However, even perfect, these crackers are decidedly NOT delicious. I’ll admit, the garlic and cayenne pepper wasn’t the best flavor choice, next time I might do something with rosemary…but even so, the texture is awkward and flax seeds have a kind of fishy-taste…so I decided to make use of them in a different way: fake tempura! Fishy? Check. Crunchy? Check. = tempura, right?

I made some sushi, broke up the crackers into thin strips, and threw them in. This added a really nice texture and flavor to my sushi rolls. Apparently flax crackers last FOREVER, literally, so I’ll have fake-tempura sushi for years to come, since I managed to fill 2 tupperware with the crackers and only a little bit goes into the rolls.

“Tempura” Sushi

I may also try dipping the crackers in something that will either mask or compliment their strange flavor…to be seen.

The banana chips were ok flavor-wise, but the texture is very chewy and they really stick to your teeth. Think they may be best used broken up and thrown into granola. Also to be seen.

Banana Chips

More dehydration experiments to come.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia!

Chia Tapioca with Strawberries

The other evening, when unable to decide what to make for dessert, I turned to my favorite vegan cookbook, Piece of My Heart, for guidance. Because I didn’t have much time (and was feeling particularly lazy), I settled on her Chia Seed Tapioca, which is actually a breakfast recipe. The recipe takes about 2 minutes to prepare (mix chia seeds, nut milk, a dash of vanilla, cinnamon, salt and then refrigerate for an hour or more) and results in a fantastic dish—so incredibly healthy, and extra yummy with a bit of agave and fresh fruit on top. My dining companion had recently become dairy-free, but desperately misses yogurt. It was agreed that this could easily replace yogurt in the morning, although admittedly the texture is not as smoothe. Still. A close second, animal-free!

Here’s some info about why Chia Seeds are so amazingly good for you: Chia seeds are very high in anti-oxidants have more calcium than milk and are a complete protein. They will thus give you lots of energy and help you feel full for a long time after consumption. They are full of Omega-3 oil, otherwise not so easy for vegans to get. In fact, chia seeds are the richest plant source of omega-3 oil. For more info, click here.

YUM!

 

My First Attempt at a Raw Cake

Day 1

Once I borrowed the book “Rawsome” from the library and then it went mysteriously missing. Days after I finally paid the insane late fee, which was surely at least 3x the value of the book, it turned up. Typical. That was a year ago, and I have yet to cook one recipe from said book. Until now. Enter the dehydrator: My mom sent it to me, I was so excited, but it’s taken me a month to actually open the box. Finally I have, and the first thing it will be used for is the “Amazing Cake” from “Rawsome.” Sadly, I’m such an impatient cook and all of the raw recipes that require a dehydrator generally look like this: Soak x-nut over night. Dehydrate for 12 hours. Blend with a, b and c ingredient. Dehydrate for 12 hours. And so on. A 2 day process to make dessert! I grew up melting chocolate chips in the microwave and dipping pretzels in them for dessert, so needless to say, I’m more of an instant gratification kinda gal. But here I am, attempting something new. Almonds a-soakin’.

Soaking Almonds

Day 1, part 2

Almonds have soaked, it’s time to dehydrate! After much examination, it turns out this machine is so simple, all I do is plug it in and it starts. Here we go.

Almonds Dehydrating

Day 2

So I decided to do the soaking during the day, the dehydrating overnight so that I could make the dessert in the morning. I now understand why all the recipes suggest that you soak the almonds overnight and then dehydrate. That thing is not quiet. It is also against my nature to leave an appliance on all night long, but I keep telling myself, “it’s a dehydrator! It’s for raw foodies and other eco-conscious people! It must be somehow not an energy waster…?” (I don’t want to do any research to find out the contrary.)

Here are my dehydrated almonds:

Dehydrated Almonds

I have yet to understand why I actually soaked and then dehydrated them, but I’m sure there is some nutritious explanation.

I should note at this point, that technically this dessert is not totally raw. Had I gone out and bought raw cacao powder and not used vanilla extract, it would be. And I’m sure it wouldn’t be that different. Actually I’m just remembering that I had planned to grind up the raw cacao nibs I’ve had sitting in my cupboard for months to use as raw cacao powder but obviously forgot. Oh well.

I soaked the dates (a surprisingly short 20 minutes, compared to the almonds).

Dates Soaking

Then I used the food processor I “borrowed” from my dad to blend up the crust. Sadly, I have to admit, that while the Vitamix can do a lot of amazing things, blending up dough/crust/thick things etc is much, much easier in the large bowl of a food processor. Sorry, Vitamix, I guess you can’t do everything better than anyone else, but close. That being said, even with the food processor I had to blend the crust in batches and open it regularly to dislodge a chunk from the blade. As I was blending and digging, blending and digging, it became pretty clear that this recipe was probably too labor intensive for my regular cooking preferences. But it’s still fun to experiment!

Blending the Crust

After the crust was fully blended, (although I didn’t manage to “puree” it, as the recipe recommended), I smushed it into a dish, then covered it with sliced strawberries.

Crust

Crust with Strawberries

Then I blended the top layer. I’m really not sure what this was supposed to look like, or what consistency it should have had, because at this point I pretty much stopped measuring. It came out kind of moist and crumbly at the same time, and had a flavor similar to that of chalva (probably because the main ingredient was tahini). I spread this over the berries and officially finished my first (almost) raw dessert!

Amazing Cake!

Inside the Cake

Even though it was only 10am, I had to taste.

Slice o’ Cake

Just a sliver.

Supermega delicious. Quite possibly worth all the time and effort, which, in retrospect, wasn’t all that much.

French Toast!

French Toast

I was recently with a group of omnis, veggies and vegans for a lovely weekend of relaxing in a beautiful cabin (which is actually a huge, amazing house) in Occidental. We had brought up a stale loaf of ciabatta, hoping to do something with it, so the first morning I attempted to make French Toast. I haven’t eaten French Toast since becoming a vegan, not just because I generally avoid bread but because, aside from the amazing French toast my dad makes with this incredible loaf of cinnamon challah (sadly sooo not vegan), I never really liked it. Until now.

This recipe is stupid-easy, and sooo tasty. Not super healthy, but since there are no eggs and the sugar is agave, it’s not so bad for you compared to normal French toast and I think it’s still pretty damn delish.

Here’s watcha do:

 

Fifteen-Minute French Toast

Serves as many people as you want, depending on how many slices you make.

• stale bread
• almond milk
• agave
• cinnamon
• nutmeg
• coconut oil

Slice a stale loaf of something—baguette, ciabatta, anything except something herby/garlicy/savory-flavored. (Doesn’t have to be stale, but it’s a great use of otherwise inedible bread.)

In a bowl mix almond milk, agave, cinnamon and nutmeg. As is my usual fashion, I measured nothing, but if I were to guess I’d say 1 cup almond milk, 2 tbsp agave, 2 tsp cinnamon and ½ – 1 tsp nutmeg. Roughly. Very roughly.

Soak the slices in the  milk mixture, making sure each slice is super soaking wet throughout.

Heat 1 tbsp coconut oil in a pan. Fry the slices until they’re browned (on each side). Add more oil to the pan as necessary as you refill it with new slices.

Enjoy plain, or drizzled with maple syrup, agave, or whatever else suits your fancy. So easy. So yum!

Veganing in NYC-Part 2

For Part 1 click HERE.

There is nothing more frustrating than writing up a whole blog post and then having the computer delete it as you’re ready to publish. Hence the delay in this NYC Vegan Eating update, all 7 of you anxious readers.

Day 3

Lunch

Today we lunched in the Chelsea Market, which had surprisingly fewer vegan options than I’d expected, yet despite that I absolutely love this place! We ate at The Green Table, as it advertised having a vegan chili as the soup of the day so I figured it would have other veg items on the menu. This proved to be untrue, but I had the chili which was just fine. I was in need of protein, and it was full of legumes, so no complaints on my end. If you go to the Chelsea Market, don’t miss the Highline, just a block away, for one of the most beautiful strolls in NYC.

The Green Table: Chelsea Market 75 Ninth Ave., New York, NY 10011

http://cleaverco.com/

Dinner

Later on enjoyed some more drinks at Metaphor (so handy to have a delicious swank place where you’re staying, although makes one less motivated to get out and explore! We did have the excuse of A.’s ginormous blister from walking miles around town every day, so didn’t feel too bad staying put) and we tried some tofu, steamed in a banana leaf, topped with a cilantro coconut chutney served with chickpea fritters. The dish was mediocre—to me the coriander-coconut chutney had a strange plasticy-taste, but A. loved it. I was a fan of the chickpea fritters, which were essentially onion rings with chickpea flour for batter (always looking out for vegan onion rings!). For dessert I had the Prosecco Lychee Martini which was not nearly as good as my giant glass of prosecco (this place pours a hefty glass). I always think it’ll be fun and exciting to try some special cocktail thing, and then the reality is always so disappointing.

Day 4

Breakfast

This morning, after a lovely stroll along the Hudson River, we stopped in at Birdbath Neighborhood Green Bakery, a little spot we discovered a block from our hotel that offers soy lattes, vegan baked goods and even raw kale chips! Mmmm. The first day we popped in the super-nice and vegan-enthusiastic barista gave me one of their vegan Rice Milk Cakes on the house to taste, and it was delish. Dense, nice texture, sweet but not too-sweet…So this morning we got excellent coffees, and tried both the Sesame Banana Cake and the Raspberry Bran Muffin. The former is made with agave, so not only vegan but sugar free, and it was really tasty. Very dense and flavorful with big chunks of bananas, and crunch from all the sesame seeds. The Raspberry Bran Muffin was good but kind of fluffy, and I like my breakfasts dense and hearty. Still, both had great flavors, and the coffee was excellent. Oh and A. had never had kale chips and she’s now a convert! Mmmm. I’ll be experimenting with my dehydrator when I get home, attempting to replicate. YUM.

Birdbath Birdbath Tribeca: 200 Church St., New York, NY, 10013

http://www.thecitybakery.com/birdbath

 

Lunch

It’s hard to find a good spot to eat around Central Park and 5^th Ave, where we were having a little stroll and drooling over the unattainable haute couture, but the food looked decent on the patio tables of Sarabeth’s so we decided to give it a try. We shared the Grilled Asparagus (hollandaise on the side) and I had the Market Vegetable Salad sans cheese. This salad was supposed to have actual market veggies but sadly it just had a meager supply of chopped peppers, some seemingly-canned peas and corn…maybe a few chopped tomatoes but was really disappointing. The asparagus was fine, but I really felt like I’d had a big bowl of rabbit food, which is always what I insist I don’t eat when people ask about my vegansim, and here I was, feeling hugely protein deprived. Oh well, I could always re-up with a bag of nuts or a smoothie later, and A. thoroughly enjoyed her Nicoise Salad. When on vacation, and in general, actually, I like to be laid back—meals out are a time to enjoy being with a friend, the food is always secondary.

Sarabeth’s: 40 Central Park South New York, NY 10019

http://www.sarabethscps.com/

Day 5

Breakfast Smoothie

At this point, after socially wonderful but nutritionally mediocre meals, I was severely in need of a good protein wake-me-up, so I looked up the best nearby place to get a hefty boost in shake-form. If only I’d known that just around the corner from us is an awesome little health food store with a full coffee, juice and smoothie bar. I got the Pro-shake it was super tasty and filling and truly hit the spot. They offer any kind of milk in your smoothie, I had almond and it was creamy and awesome. This shop also has a ton of great natural, healthy groceries and goods!

Bell Bates Natural Foods: 97 Reade St New York, NY 10013

http://bellbates.com/

Lunch

A. and I were meeting a friend for lunch who had selected Kutcher’s Tribeca as our destination. Kutcher’s is basically a fancy Jewish deli, with an actual executive chef and beautifully-presented dishes. Not much in the way of vegan fare, but I managed. I had the (very large-portioned) side of Quinoa Varinishkes that they were able to make sans butter. I had a feeling the noodles in the dish were egg-based so I just picked around them and the whole thing was super-tasty. I also had the Country Club Chopped Salad (hold the challah croutons) which beat the previous day’s salad by A LOT. Beautifully presented in this fancy little tower, super flavorful and full of nice fresh veggies and real lettuce, not some iceberg crap. I don’t know if I’d return here because I’d probably have to eat the same thing every time, but my singular experience was absolutely fine. And the non-vegs I was with were very happy with their food.

Kutcher’s Tribeca: 186 Franklin St, New York, NY, 10013

http://kutsherstribeca.com/

Snack Time!

It’s always nice to have a post-theatre coffee and piece of cake, especially when it’s been drizzling all day and was 50 degrees in said theatre (saw the fabulous Venus in Fur, and froze my ASS off despite how hot and steamy and amazing the play was!!!). If you’re in NYC and dying for some vegan treats and Babycakes etc. are no where nearby (they are far from the theatre district), know that Le Pain Quotidian offers all kinds of vegan treats and has soy milk for your coffee etc. I’m not going to rave about the carrot cake I had cause it was decidedly not amazing, but I was in need of a pick-me-up and it did the trick. It’s always handy to know the chain cafes that accommodate vegans when you’re traveling so keep this one in mind, you can find it all over the country.

Le Pain Quotidian (locations all over the country)

http://www.lepainquotidien.com/

Dinner

Ok so finally we hit a truly vegan-friendly restaurant, Souen, a cute little spot that offers macrobiotic sushi (and other Asian delights). A. and I were feeling sort of health-food deprived and I’d read about this place on The Kind Life and couldn’t resist. While the food was indeed healthy and totally satiated our desire for a nourishing, filling whole, unprocessed meal, I wouldn’t say we had anything that we couldn’t have made on our own. We started with a tempeh-avocado sushi roll—fine but nothing exciting, and I had the special soup which was cauliflower-beet, also fine, but not spectacular. I had the pad thai with soba noodles, and really enjoyed that it was FULL of broccoli, among other veggies, but it really just tasted like soba noodles with veggies in a peanut sauce. Still, it was nice to have that kind of food for the first time in almost a week. And then dessert…well we couldn’t pass up their offer of gluten-free, sugar-free and dairy-free treats, so we tasted the special coconut pudding with raspberry coulis and their cocoa mousse. These two were lovely. Not too sweet, nice simple flavors, not at all rich or heavy or overwhelming…just right. All in all, a great meal that was absolutely needed!

Souen Soho: 210 Sixth Ave at Prince St, 10014

http://souen.net/

Veganing in NYC: Part 1

This week I will be examining the art of Veganing in New York City as a non-militant vegan. This means that I will be dining with all non-vegans, (primarily my godmother, A.) and, because I refuse to be the kind of vegan who  makes everyone accommodate my needs, I’ll be figuring out how to eat in regular restaurants. I hope to prove wrong everyone who has told me that being a vegan in NYC is impossible.

Day 1

Tapas

We arrived in the evening, and planned to grab drinks and little appetizers before getting the obligatory $10 mani/pedi, and then having the also-obligatory dinner-after-10pm. We are staying in the swanky and fun Duane Street Hotel, at the bottom of which sits Metaphor, a cute little tapas bar. We thought we’d check it out just to see if it had anything worth eating, and in fact, they offer both a vegetarian (with many vegan options) and non-vegan menu. Amazing! We enjoyed the Vegetable Dumpling Chaat and the  Walnut Salad with Guacamole Sorbet and Raspberry Compote. The salad was lovely—flavorful, delicious, big enough to split between the two of us, and the guacamole sorbet was a tasty, spicy new treat I’d never even imagined! The dumplings were served in an Asian-sauce, with ramen-like dried noodle pieces sprinkled over them. They weren’t amazing but they were fine, basically simple potstickers. There were 8 in the dish, which was more than enough. We each ordered a drink, I had prosecco and A. had a glass of Pinot Noir. Mine came in a champagne flute-tumbler—essentially the glass minus the stem, except it was gigantic and filled to the top. Not sure if this was a usual portion or if the bartender was feeling generous that evening buy wow…I hadn’t had alcohol in 3 weeks so I was definitely feeling that drink by the time I was even halfway through. The Pinot came in a normal-sized wine tumbler and the portion was also normal.

Metaphor: 130 Duane St., New York, NY 10013 http://mehtaphornyc.com

A- (fair share of vegan options, decent food, classy place)

Dinner

After getting our mani-pedis (while fairly inebriated) we decided to find something nearby (thank you YELP) that wasn’t too fancy or anything. We decided on Centrico, which, I’ll admit, had I been sober, I probably wouldn’t have gone for because generally, Mexican in New York? Never a great idea. However, it was packed, looked hip and fun and the margaritas were flowing so we went for it. The margs were excellent, and we irresponsibly drank more than we should have (and were feeling it the next morning).  We had a very peppy waitress who was super-cool about accommodating a vegan. We started with the guacamole, some of the best guac I have had in a long time. For the meal, the peppy waitress encouraged me to order WAY more food than any normal person would eat in one sitting, but I’d guess it was because I was ordering sides mostly and she wanted to upsell…I get it, I was a waitress once too. So I ended up with the side of rice and beans which is massive—big bowl of tasty white rice (not very Mexican but still tasty) and another big bowl of tasty black beans. I also had a side of plantains and the sopas, which were sort of English muffins made from corn topped with avocado, black beans and some shredded lettuce. I could have forgone the latter, they were bland and not so delicious, but since I took a lot of food home to go, I did enjoy having the leftovers for dinner the following night.

Centrico: 211 W Broadway, New York, NY 10013 http://www.yelp.com/biz/centrico-new-york-2

B (not a great share of vegan options, but tasty enough and fun!)

Day 2

Brunch

We had a brunch date with an old timey New Yorker friend, M., who had chosen the spot, Highpoint Bistro and Bar, which was near the Sunday flea markets that we were going to tour with her afterwards. M. had apparently heard that the place was great and had checked to make sure that they could accommodate a vegan. Well, sadly the former was untrue and the latter was barely true and the waitress was super unfriendly about the whole deal. Ok I can’t speak for non-vegans, but A. had a salad that she referred to as tasting “out of the bag” (it looked very unappealing) and M. had an omelet that looked…fine, but was nothing special. I ordered the Avocado BLT but with no bacon or mayo (so it was supposed to be basically an avocado sandwich)  as a wrap. It ended up being just a bunch of iceberg lettuce, a few tomatoes and some measly slices of avocado in a wrap: so disappointing and not nutritious. Their fries were good, I’ll give them that, and they serve you some doughnut holes in a cute little mini shopping cart which is adorable but obviously useless to us vegans. The sour attitude of our server and the mediocrity of the food earn this restaurant a C-, but I’m sure some non-vegs might enjoy this place.

Highpoint Bistro: 216 7th Ave, New York, NY 10011 http://www.highpointbb.com/

C- (less-than-mediocre vegan options, not-great-tasting food, poor service)

Tune in as I continue my vegan adventure in a non-vegan world!

Trader Joe’s Vegan (and mostly gluten-free snacks) Reviewed For You…One By One: Part FIVE: Falafel Chips

For Part FOUR click HERE

Awesome Bag...but wait. 2, wasteful bags??? And still-stale-tasting chips? Whaaaaa?

Oh man…when I saw this bag I got so excited! I love falafel! I so miss the As du Falafel in Paris, probably the ONLY place I’d ever bother to wait in line for food (I’m so lazy. And snobby.) And in chip form? How amazing…think of how delicious they’d be dipped in hummus while ostensibly being much healthier because they’re not deep-fried balls, rather chips made from falafel meal.

Well if you can see where this is headed, you’re right. I need to learn not to get super excited about something until I’m sure it’s actually as good as it sounds.

The worst thing about these chips is that they come in not one, but two bags—the outer one looks all funky and pseudo-ethnic and then there’s a plastic bag inside. Talk about waste. And talk about totally useless waste, because even being stored in two bags, the chips taste and feel completely stale. This was the first thing I noticed as I initially tasted these chips. And then…well flavor-wise I guess you can kind of see that it resembles falafel slightly? But I don’t think if you were to eat them without knowing what they are you would have any idea what they were based on.

Are they healthy? Not really. Health and taste-wise raw broccoli definitely beat these as a dipping tool for hummus. And thus the search continues.

Nutritional Info: Serving Size: 30g (11 chips/8 per bag) 140 calories, 7g fat, 3g protein, 18g carbs