Tonight — starting right now, actually — Royal Tavern (937 E. Passyunk Ave.) is showing a little love to the vegans and vegetarians of Philly by populating their famous chalkboard specials board with nothing but vegan/veg dishes. There’ll also be some specialty cocktails to mark the event, and a portion of the proceeds will benefit the Philadelphia Animal Welfare Society (PAWS). This one-night-only event marks the kickoff of the Royal’s anniversary celebration, which we told you about last month.

Photo | Drew Lazor

PETA’s VegCooking blog recently rounded up their picks for the best faux meatballs in the nation, and Gianna’s (507 S. Sixth St.) earned a slot for its “Haastile” meatball sub with sautéed onions, peppers and mushrooms. A solid pick, but we should also give a nod to the kofta sub at Govinda’s (pictured above), which helped us through the hallucinatory vision quest that was The Week Without Meat.

Photo | James Saul

On a tip from Miss Rachel’s Pantry, we discovered that you can find homemade vegan donuts 20 minutes down the White Horse Pike (or a 15-minute walk from Lindenwold Speedline) in scenic South Jersey.

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Photo l Michael Persico

Homemade gnocchi with pesto, spinach and Parmigiano

Eating a bowl of fluffy gnocchi, simply sauced with pesto or sage in brown butter,  is the equivalent of falling into a soft feather bed.  Easy to do and easy to enjoy, but to actually make that feather bed you’ve got to kill a whole lot of geese and get pretty messy.  The analogous pitfalls and time requirements of hand-making pasta has kept me from attempting those feathery pillows until now, when I went on the hunt for the Ultimate Gnocchi Recipe.  Prescriptions for perfect pasta abound on the Web; the Food Network came up high offering versions from Emeril Lagasse (who starts with mashed potatoes) and Mario Batali (who has you par-cook the things and hold them in oil until service).    Further research turned up dozens of other, slightly less corporate sources.

The first method that stood out came from Anna Maria Volpi, a native of Italy who provides step-by-step instructions (with photos) for classic Gnocchi Patate.  Her version is as traditional as it gets, boiling the potatoes in their skins and incorporating only flour and salt into the dough (the egg is optional) to create a super-light and incidentally vegan dumpling.

Executing Volpi’s recipe resulted in puffed, airy dumplings that came at the expense of a difficut-to-work, crumbly dough.  These boiled potato, egg-free vegan gnocchi worked best when cut into  1″ pieces from a 3/4″ rolled dowel of dough.

The second recipe worth using originates at The Italian Dish, a blog devoted to simple recipe/photo guides to classic Italian preparations.  The Italian Dish bakes their Russet potatoes instead of boiling, mixing drier riced potatoes with eggs and flour. This egg-enriched dough held together better and was easier to work with.  The gnocchi were also stiffer and took to their sauté without tearing, without sacrificing the fluff and bite of a quality gnoccho (singluar of gnocchi).

Gnocchi made in a large batch can be frozen and used later, by placing freshly cut gnocchi on a floured cloth on a baking sheet and freezing for 20 minutes.  Partially frozen gnocchi can then be transferred to a freezer bag and stored for up to one month.  To serve, add gnocchi straight from the freezer to vigorously boiling water until they float.  Add gnocchi to sauté pan containing warmed sauce of your choice; toss to combine sauce with gnocchi.  Serve hot, immediately.

To make successful vegan, traditional gnocchi, follow Anna Maria Volpi’s technique, which can be modified by using baked potatoes instead of boiled.  Bake the 2 lbs. of Russet potatoes for 65 minutes in a 400 degree Fahrenheit oven, then proceed with the recipe as usual, omitting eggs.

To make successful egg and potato gnocchi, follow The Italian Dish’s recipe.  Bake 1.5 lbs. of Russet potatoes in a 400 degree Fahrenheit oven for 65 minutes, until tender to the fork.  Be cautious peeling potatoes of their skin; steam released from under the skin can burn you badly.

“Carnivores, please see other menu!” advises a note at the top of Arbol Café’s new all-veg selection. The Paraguayan eatery (209 Poplar St., 215-923-3150), we which just “Where’d We Eat”-ed yesterday, rolled this entirely separate menu out about two weeks back, and it’s no one-dish-and-done situation — there are entire hot and cold sandwich selections, plus salads, potato dishes and “tortillas Paraguaya,” rice, onion and cheese patties bound with milk, egg and flour and stuffed with veggies (kinda like a quesadilla).

Full menu after the jump.

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Photo | Drew Lazor

We ran into the ladies of the forthcoming Sweet Freedom Bakery at last week’s Appetite for Awareness event, and they were kind enough to share some details about their in-the-works storefront at 1424 South. Heather Esposito (right) and her partner Allison Lubert, both of whom are holistic health counselors, are targeting Nov. 1 to open their bakery, which’ll specialize in vegan goods produced without using (ready?) gluten, dairy, eggs, corn, wheat, peanuts, soy, casein or refined sugar. Esposito, who has food sensitivities herself, knew of very few retail resources in the area for those with similar dietary restrictions, motivating her and Lubert to tackle this project. Their product line will include cookies, cupcakes, cakes, pizzelles, loaves and muffins, and they’ll do tea and coffee, as well.

Taylor from Mac & Cheese tweeted this call to arms earlier, and we thought it’d be a perfect query to put out there to all you Meal Ticketers:

Help! Suggestions for romantic Philly restaurant (a proposal is involved) for two vegetarians (not me!). Doesn’t have to be all veg rest.

So how about it, y’all? Where are some good Philly spots that are both romantic AND vegetarian-friendly? Note that the proposal is not actually taking place at the restaurant — this’ll be a post-”YES!” meal for the happy veggie couple, but it still needs that ambience. A few places off the top — Cochon is quite romantic (and, as we told you recently, can accommodate vegetarians). Mi Lah could be an option. And while this may be a slightly obvious pick, how could you possibly go wrong with Horizons?

Check out this video of Philthy Blog’s Conrad visiting with North Port Fishington Cookie Factory baker Mike Landers at South Street’s Philly Kitchen Share.

Kelly White profiled Landers’ all-vegan baking business for CP back in 2007.

Photo | Drew Lazor

Chef Gene Giuffi just launched his new menu for fall at Cochon (801 E. Passyunk Ave.), and it’s no surprise that it’s meaty as hell. (Check it out in full after the jump.) St. Canut Farm Porcelet? Berkshire pork stew? Roasted lamb? Housemade pate? Yesyesyesyes. This is the hearty stuff Giuffi’s known for, and he does a hell of a job. But we couldn’t help but notice a little addendum on the bottom of this new lineup — “vegetarian option upon request.”

Gene’s wife Amy, who runs the front of the house, says that she’s encountered more than a few vegetarians who are hesitant to dine at their BYO based on its reputation for meaty goodness. But the team’s more than happy to accommodate vegetarians with off-the-menu dishes — all you gotta do is ask. Recently, Gene has prepared stuff like root vegetable pot pie, wild mushrooms in puffed pastry and house-made gnocchi with a chanterelle/royal trumpet mushroom ragout, slow-roasted tomatoes and gorgonzola black truffle sauce (!). For pescetarians, there are regular seafood options, too.

“Also, the butternut squash soup is 100 percent vegetarian,” adds Amy. “Though Gene sometimes garnishes it with some meat, so vegetarians should definitely inform their server first.”

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Photo l Felicia D’Ambrosio

Squashed

This simple, filling soup is like the edible translation of a crispy fall day.  In addition to being inexpensive and healthy, my vegan version omits all of the butter and cream that make restaurant versions delicious but fatty.

I tested two methods of roasting the butternut squash: peeling the whole squash and cutting it into chunks before roasting, and slicing the unpeeled squash in half and roasting it cut-side up, both in a 400 degree oven.  The peel-and-chunk method emerged as the winner for both speed (the chunks of squash roasted twice as fast as the squash halves) and ease (scooping flaming hot squash into a stockpot without bringing the tough skin along for the ride was painful and annoying).

You will need a blender or food processor for the recipe; I also pressed my pureed soup through a mesh strainer to further refine the texture.

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