"Concha" is Spanish for "shell". I've heard these called so many things, but concha is the only name that makes sense.

The topping is carved before rising and the end result looks like a pretty shell. Commonly, you'll find three different colors/flavors (pink, brown and white) and the original recipe isn't vegan. My recipe includes all three: cinnamon, vanilla and orange; and it's vegan. They are just one type of pan dulce (sweet bread). These are a perfect morning treat to enjoy with coffee.

If you've never had these, it's nearly impossible to imagine what they taste like. While baking these, I was reminded of going to the panaderia (Mexican bakery) with my mom when I was a child. At the time, there was a well-known place in town. People would drive from all over the city just for this panaderia's famous sweet bread. Often, there would be people lined up outside -- the line would go all the way around the building. The bakery was very tiny. By the entrance, there were trays and several pairs of tongs, and you would grab one of each. The next part wasn't for the indecisive or picky. Everyone was shoulder-to-shoulder, scooting and inching over from one side of the room to the other. You would quickly grab which ever pan dulce you wanted and at the end of the line was the cashier. The cashier would ring you up and toss your items in a brown paper bag. They had every kind of pan dulce you could imagine. This includes items like empanadas, polvorones and maranitos (gingerbread cookies shaped like piggies). No frills - just fresh oven goodness.

Conchas are very easy to make. I tend to use my kitchenaid or breadmaker whenever possible, but there wasn't a need here. Dare I say, "knead"? You just have to make these. I'm not a coffee drinker, but I'd make a pot just so that I can dip the bread into a cup like I did when I was a little girl. Eat these hot. They can store for about a week, as long as they are covered and sealed in an air tight container. I keep them in the fridge, because I hate to leave anything out. They are just as good after being heated in a microwave for about 15-20 seconds. Make these, you'll thank me.

 
DOUGH

• 1 Tablespoon yeast
• 2/3 cup water, warmed
• 1/3 cup vegan sugar
• 1/3 cup vegan margerine
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 ener-g egg replacer egg
• 3 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup lukewarm soymilk, warmed up and then cooled in the freezer for 3 mins

TOPPING

Base:

• 1/3 cup vegan sugar
• 1/4 cup soy margerine
• 1/2 cup flour

Flavors: (Do not mix these together, read on)

• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons orange zest 1 drop of red food coloring

DOUGH DIRECTIONS

1. Dissolve yeast in warm water.
2. Warm-up soymilk, and place in freezer to cool for 2 mins.
3. Make your ener-g egg replacer egg.
4. Add-in (sifted) sugar, soy margerine, salt, ener-g egg replacer egg, (sifted) flour and cooled soymilk.
5. Knead until smooth.
6. Oil a large mixing bowl lightly (very lightly)
7. Put dough in mixing bowl and turn over onto parchment paper. Make sure that all places for air to enter are covered.
8. Let it rise, in a warm space for about 1 1/2 hours.
9. Punch down the dough.
10. Make 12 portions, shape them into balls.
11. Place on cookie sheet with parchment paper on top.
12. Leave at least 2" between each ball.

PREPARING THE TOPPING

Make the base for the flavors:

1. Mix sugar and soy margerine with a fork until fluffy.
2. Mix in (sifted) flour.
3. Divide into 3 balls.

Flavor the topping, three ways:

1. Mix cinnamon into the first ball. Once color is even, set aside.
2. Mix vanilla into the second ball, set aside.
3. Mix orange zest into third ball. Add one drop of red food coloring. Mix well and set aside.
4. Keep 3 flavors separate.

ASSEMBLE

1. Now you'll need 12 topping circles (one for each ball of dough).
2. Divide each flavor ball into 4 parts.
3. Now you'll have 4 parts for each flavor/color.
4. Take two pieces of plastic wrap.
5. In between the two sheets of plastic wrap, place a topping piece.
6. Shape it into a circle large enough to cover the top of your dough. You can use the back of a spoon or your fingers.
7. Once you have acheived the desired shape and size, remove the top layer of platic wrap. Slide your hand under the bottom layer, lift and turn it over onto the top your dough ball.
8. Once you've done this with all 12 topping pieces, you're ready to make the shell pattern.

MAKING THE SHELL PATTERN:

1. Take a knife and create a shell pattern into the topping. This takes about five cuts lengthwise and a few horizontally. Don't worry about it looking pretty. It just will, trust me.
2. Now, cover and let them rise for 30-45 minutes.
3. Preheat oven to 350 F.
4. Bake for 15-17 minutes.

This is definitely comfort food. Vegan Meatloaf, Garlic Broccoli and Mashed Potatos with White Country Gravy. This meal easily feeds a few people (meat-eaters included, as always).

Below you'll find my meatloaf and white country gravy recipes. The meatloaf is really delicious, but it pales in comparison to this gravy. I believe it has the capacity to do great things to your tastebuds. Be prepared.

Whenever I think of "vegan meatloaf", I am reminded of 70's veganism. You know, when hippies made it out of nuts and tofu. While I love both of those things, they don't really belong in meatloaf (not mine anyways). My mom used to make great meatloaf when I was still living at home; of course, this was in my pregan (read: before I was vegan) days. I just had to veganize her recipe. I gave it a try about a year ago and it's exactly the way I remember. This meatloaf, like all vegan food, is cholesterol free.

VEGAN MEATLOAF

MEATLOAF INGREDIENTS

• 2 T Oil, to saute veggies
• 2 "tubes" Lightlife brand "Beef Style"
• 1/2 Onion, finely diced
• 1/2 Green Bell Pepper, finely diced
• 1/3 c Ketchup
• 1/2 t salt
• 1/2 t pepper
• 1 Ener-G egg replacer "egg"
• 10 Saltine Crumbs, or Japanese breadcrumbs (like panko)

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 400 F, lightly oil a baking dish.
2. Saute veggies in a shallow pan in 2 Tablespoons oil until soft and clear.
3. Mix everything except salt and pepper in a bowl.
4. Add salt and pepper to the same bowl.
5. Shape mixture into a "loaf".
6. Place loaf into prepared baking dish.
7. Cover all visible sides with more ketchup (it's comfort food, not health food).
8. Bake at 400 F for 40 minutes, with the top covered with foil.
9. After 40 minutes, remove foil and bake for 5 minutes more.

WHITE COUNTRY GRAVY

We have tried so many vegan white gravy recipes. They all end up very weird, grainy or like some sort of jello mold. I know, that sounds gross; but that's why we moved on.

This is a mix of a few non vegan recipes that we found online and veganized. It's perfectly creamy, savory gravy. It's the kind of gravy you can cover anything in and it's totally understandable. My boyfriend and I always make the gravy first, because while making everything else, we taste the gravy to make sure it's good (over and over again). It always is. It doesn't take a twenty tastes to know that. We just can't stop. Also, this is perfect for biscuits & gravy!

WHITE COUNTRY GRAVY INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 c Vegetable Oil
• 3/4 c Flour
• 1 3/4 t Salt
• 2 t Black Pepper
• 4 c UNsweetened soy milk (if you only have sweetened soymilk, you may want to increase the seasonings a tiny bit to counteract the sweetness of regular soy milk)

DIRECTIONS

1. Heat Oil in a large skillet over MED-HI heat.
2. Shortly after, whisk-in Flour, Salt and Pepper.
3. Cook and stir over MED-HI heat until completely mixed.
4. Gradually whisk in soymilk, and bring heat to HIGH heat.
5. It will seem too liquid, but keep stirring and it will become thick after a few minutes.
6. Once it's thick, remove it from heat and keep stirring until it's creamy.
7. If gravy is too thick, DO NOT add water. You can slowly add more soy milk.

You're probably wondering what this is. When I was a younger, my mom and aunt were always throwing parties. If my memory serves me well, then these are exactly (or very close to) what they made quite often. It's a sugar cookie crust with a toffee spread. It's then topped with sliced Granny Smiths, chocolate and nuts. It's really simple but the taste is really complex--especially the spread.

The first thing you want to do is prepare a sugar cookie crust. I used NoWhey Katie's sugar cookie recipe. It's perfect for this. I didn't have Ener-G egg replacer so I used 1/4 c soy yogurt. Worked like a charm! Once you have your cookie dough ready, simply roll it out on your baking stone or dish.

Blind Bake the cookie crust for 15 minutes at 300 F. While it's baking, prepare your spread.

SPREAD INGREDIENTS

• 1 8-ounce package of Tofutti soy cream cheese
• 1/2 Cup packed Brown Sugar
• 1/4 Cup Creamy Peanut Butter
• 1 1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

OTHER INGREDIENTS

• 2 Granny Smith Apples peeled, cored and sliced
• Chocolate/Caramel topping OR Chocolate Ganache
• 1/4  Cup Chopped Nuts (peanuts or pecans)

SPREAD DIRECTONS

1. With a fork, cream together all of the spread ingredients.
2. Spread on top of cooled cookie crust with a spatula.

When the sugar cookie crust is ready to be removed from the oven, make sure you allow it some time to cool down. This is a great time to prepare the 2 Granny Smith apples. You'll want to peel them, core them and slice them. One the crust is cooled, top with spread. Place the apple slices on top of the spread.

From here, you'll want to top the apples with either a caramel or chocolate topping. We had some vegan chocolate drizzle on hand; but if you don't have any, just make some simple ganache. You can make a simple ganache by boiling about 1 cup of soymilk. Once boiling, remove from heat and add in some vegan bittersweet chocolate chips. To thin out mixture, you can add maple syrup.

Don't forget to top it all off with some peanuts or pecans.

We ate ours with a scoop of vegan Praline Pecan ice cream. Chris says, "I expected this to taste very simple, however it was anything but simple. Every ingredient compliments the others well and this is just really awesome. Everyone should try it." Oh yeah, and it's really easy to make and doesn't dirty too many dishes. It's perfect for a weeknight. In less than 25 minutes, this is completely ready to be eaten.

Yesterday, it seemed like everyone was talking about pizza all day. Well, my stomach definitely has ears. With that said, guess what we had for dinner...

Now, we really wanted to make our own crust this time instead of the usual one we buy from Whole Foods. The only problem with that is we didn't have a baking stone for maximum pizza crust enjoyability. It must have been "in the stars" because when we contacted our local Pampered Chef representative, not only did she have a pizza stone but she had a model that hasn't even been released yet! She delivered it to our place that night. We were so happy since we didn't have to go to Williams-Sonoma. We love it but HATE the mall.

I also have to mention that we had to make 40 cupcakes last night, so we wanted something easy. The moment we got home, we tossed the pizza dough ingredients in the breadmaker, set it on the "dough" setting, and let it do its thing. We then made cupcakes and went to the store for ingredients. We still had to stop by Whole Foods for some vegan cheese. We usually buy Follow Your Heart soy cheese because of it's meltability (no, we haven't ordered Teese yet) and even at that, it doesn't really ever melt...without broiling. However, they were out of FYH cheese! We had to buy our old friend VeganRella. We set our expectations low for meltability and went on our way.

After we pulled the pizza out of the oven, we were shocked because after only 15 minutes on 375 F the VeganRella was melted.  I'm not sure if they improved their soy cheese or the stone is just that good, but we were pleased. This pizza dough is the only one that's really worked for us so I'm sharing it. It's unconventional but it tastes like a hand-tossed pizza. More thick than thin and very addicting - even for people who pass on the crust. Add more spices, if you like. I always do something different.

Here's the dough rolled out after kneading and rising twice (I was buying time). This is a 15" stone, by the way.

PIZZA DOUGH INGREDIENTS

• 1 teaspoon Brown Sugar
• 1 teaspoon Salt
• 1 1/2 cups Hot Water
• 3 1/2 cups Flour
• 2 tablespoons Olive Oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons Oregano
• 1 teaspoon Garlic Powder
• 1 teaspoon Crushed Red Pepper
• 2 1/4 teaspoons Fast Rising Yeast
• 1/4 cups extra Flour

BREADMAKER DIRECTIONS

1. Dissolve sugar and salt in hot water.
2. Add flour, olive oil and spices to water mixture.
3. Make a well in the flour and add yeast.
4. Start on "Dough" setting.
5. After rising, transfer your dough to a mixing bowl (this is best by turning the dough pan upseide down, as it's very sticky).
6. Add in 1/4 cup flour, mix with hands or spatula.
7. When manageable, roll out onto baking stone or pan.

MANUAL DIRECTIONS

1. Dissolve Sugar and Salt in Hot Water.
2. Add Flour, Olive Oil, Oregano, Garlic Powder, Crushed Red Pepper and Yeast to water mixture.
3. Knead until smooth.
4. Rise for 1 hour minimum (max 1 hour 30 minutes).
5. Add extra Flour and mix/knead until smooth.
6. When manageable, roll out onto a baking stone or pizza.

PREHEAT oven to 375 F and blind bake for 10 minutes.

TOP with ingredients.

BAKE at 375 F for 25 minutes.

After the dough is finished blind baking, you can add whatever toppings you'd like. We topped our crust with the following ingredients:

• Pizza Sauce
• Soy Cheese
• Tomatoes
• Black Olives
• Mushrooms
• Yves "Pepperoni"
• Onion

Straight from the oven.

This pizza fed two hungry vegans for 2 days. Try this dough for your calzones, too.

This basic Japanese curry is a weekly staple at our house. At first, I hesitated to share this "recipe" (I say that because it's very easy), but I decided to go ahead with it when I thought about our vegan/vegetarian friends. Most of them are musicians, some are broke, but they're all always hungry or at least down for some curry. The reason this is the "hungry musician's curry" is because 2 people can eat off of this for 2 or 3 days and it's cheap. When we're feeling pressed for time or cash; we run into the store, grab curry mix, canned vegetables and a fresh onion before rushing back home. It's also a meal you can toss together to impress lots of people, really quickly and on a dime. It smells incredibly inviting. Don't feel embarrased if someone catches you with your face over the simmering curry, inhaling its fragrant fumes. If you're afraid of traditional curry, this is a great place to start. Japanese curry isn't as jarring as some Indian curry can be (though I do love them all). Serve this with steamed rice and soy sauce and you've got quite a meal.  

INGREDIENTS

• 2 pkg Extra Firm Tofu, drained
• Veg Oil, for frying
• 1 large Onion, sliced
• 3 T Veg Oil, for sautéing
• 2 1/2 c Carrots, sliced (or 2 cans)
• 2 1/2 c Potatoes, sliced (or 2 cans)
• 3 c Water
• 1 pkg S&B Golden Curry Sauce Mix (Mild or Medium)
• 2 c Prepared Steamed Rice (or more depending on how many servings you'll need)

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Fry Tofu in Oil on MEDIUM HIGH until golden. Set aside.
2. Sauté Onion in 3 T Oil until translucent. Also, this would be great time to start your rice.
3. Add Potatoes and sauté for 1 min.
4. Add Carrots and Tofu.
5. Add 3 c Water.
6. Increase temperature to HIGH and allow everything to boil.
7. Once water is boiling, add the curry mix and throughly incorporate all ingredients.
8. Once curry mix is dissolved, simmer for 15 min.
9. Set aside for 5 min and serve with steamed rice while hot.