For your Williamsburg family thanksgiving, I recommend keeping it simple. Even if you’re no culinary expert, these potatoes are easy, and truffle oil makes it fancy tasty. Open up a bottle of Wild Turkey to keep it festive, or make this. Put on a record, and whip up these bad boys. People will be all like, damn, them’s good taters.

2 lb. fingerling or Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
4 large cloves garlic, peeled and halved
2-3 Tbs. truffle oil
1 Tbs. finely chopped parsley

1. Bring potatoes, garlic, and enough water to cover all by 1 inch to a boil in medium saucepan or one of those aluminum things you get at the bodega. Reduce heat to medium, and simmer 20 minutes, or until potatoes are soft when pricked with fork or a chopstick or something. Drain, but hold on to 1 cup of that liquid potato gold.

2. Pour another drink.

3. Return potatoes and garlic to saucepan; mash with cooking water you held on to until smooth and mashed potatoey. Stir in truffle oil and parsley, and season with salt and pepper.

Careful with the truffle oil, less is more. I can’t say the same for the Wild Turkey.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends.

Secret-ish food markets are back (with the never-talk-to-the-New-York-Times lesson learned from the Greenpoint Food Market forgotten). So, of course we have our very own. And obviously its going to be vegan.

From the release, these are some of the goods:

Puffy glazed doughnuts from Dun-Well Doughnuts!

The Regal Vegan’s top notch Faux Gras! (gluten-free too!)

Meow Meow Tweet, with their masterfully crafted organic bar and liquid soaps, and vegan bug repellent too!

Pretty Monsters has made a special all vegan product line just for us with matcha lavender lip balms, soy candles in new Summer scents, AND tattoo balm!

At the Pinebox Rock Shop this Sunday from 2 to 5, with cheap drinks and freebies. As far as markets go, this one sounds good. As long as they don’t talk to the Times.

More info at their website. Good luck, little food market.

Good news, vegans! As if it weren’t good enough having Foodswings around to let you indulge in delicious burgers, wings, mac and cheese and even their own version of the Double Down while still sticking to your morals. As if this spot wasn’t the saving grace for drunk herbivores craving a late-night feast. As if you haven’t brought all of your meat-eating friends here and said “Look! Vegan food can taste good!” On top of all that, they are throwing a party. Tomorrow you can show them your appreciation and help them celebrate their anniversary.

The festivities include special anniversary food specials (yum!), free beer (glug!) and prize giveaways (cha-ching!). Here’s to many more years of vegan fast food!

From Dreamin It Vegan:

3 whole bell peppers, cut in half and seeded

3 cups cooked brown rice

1 med. yellow onion, diced

1 cup corn, cooked

2 T. pine nuts

2 tsp. cumin

1 1/2 tsp. oregano

2 T. cilantro

1 package of vegan sausage crumbled

If using tofu I used firm and crumbled it and add following herbs: oregano, red pepper flakes, sage, garlic, fennel, caraway seeds, soy sauce, cumin, olive oil. and sauted until cooked through.

salsa

tofutti

Preheat oven to 375. First saute sausage or tofu. Put into a bowl and set aside. In another pan saute onion & garlic in oil. Add corn and saute. Add pinenuts and saute for about min. Next add cumin and oregano for a couple more min. Add rice, sausage and cilantro to the pan a stir through.

Lay the halved bell peppers in a casserole dish. Fill up peppers. Top off with a Tablespoon or so of tofutti and salsa.

Pour hot water into the dish about 1/4 inch or more and cover with foil. Bake for 1 hour until peppers are soft.

Earlier in June we posted about the all-vegan bakery Champs  owned by Megan Blackburn and Brad Baker (best name ever) of Boneshakers that was scheduled to open later in the summer. Vegans rejoice-it’s finally open and ready for business! The interior of Champs is fairly bare bones right now-three pictures are hung on the wall, and there aren’t any table and chairs, but they’ll be arriving soon. Taking inspiration from the Italian bakeries in the area, Baker and Blackburn wanted to offer everything one would find at a normal bakery, but made with strictly vegan ingredients. A variety of cookies, cupcakes, scones, brownies, and Gimmie! Coffee Drinks are served. We tried the chocolate, peanut butter brownie and it was delicious. Typically vegan treats taste chalky, but that wasn’t the case here. The Discerning Brute got the details on the tasty vegan treats:

Eighty-five percent of the ingredients they’re using are organic, their shortenings are healthy oils that are  non-hydrogenated, and, in addition to being 100% vegan, they’ll soon be offering gluten-free and sugar-free options. The most exciting news happened when Megan spilled the beans about the croissants. That’s right… they will be offering the only vegan croissants in New York.