When I heard about the Meet the Shannons, I immediately thought it was a great idea. What could be more of a noble task than veganizing the insanely popular, Betty Crocker Cookbook? Aside from admiring the blog, and the couples activism, nothing prepared me for how spot on and hilarious some of the answers are in this interview. The way Dan Shannon explains our Tofu vs. Tempeh vs. Seitan challenge is so good I don’t think it can ever be topped. Read the interview, check out the blog, then go fire up your oven! This one’s so good it’s like getting a lightning bolt!

Can you tell us how The Betty Crocker Project started? Did something good actually come out of that Julie & Julia movie?

Annie: It was a movie about a woman who wears vintage clothes and is cooking her way through a cookbook. I had prepared myself for the usual amateur gourmet nonsense. That food channel chatter about how a meal isn’t a meal unless it has meat, or worse, a meat that was produced in some particularly cruel way – like a force feeding geese or baby cows locked away in intense confinement. The Lobster Killer scene was particularly disturbing for me. She was conflicted about boiling them alive. She knew it was wrong, but she did it anyways, and in the end we are suppose be really proud of her for finishing something.

The truth is that you don’t need to hurt anyone to make good food and boiling anyone alive is not OK. With today’s technology – anything can be vegan and I want to prove it.

Betty Crocker has a well-deserved reputation for teaching cooks how to make almost anything and how to get products to reach their full potential. I just want to do that with vegan products, and if we happened to debunk any prejudices people may have towards vegan foods… well that would kinda be the best thing ever.

What has been the hardest recipe to veganize thus far?

Annie: There a few that took awhile to figure out and I had to get a special pan or gadget but I have to say Coq au Vin has been the toughest.

Neither of us had the meaty version so I did a lot – A LOT – of research to figure out what it should taste like and look like. I read the translation of a description of it written by soldier in WWII and this Anglo-Franco Anthropologist’s theory on it being a dish served to Julius Caesar. I had to look at all the mock meats out there to find the one closest to darker and tougher Rooster meat. It was really good and fun to make, but I admit I had to work for it.

What recipes have since become staples in your kitchen?

Annie: We definitely have been keeping lists of our favorites. So far Osso Bucco and Chicken Tetrazzini have really been stars. Though I have to admit I was serious when I said that I am going to make all my own salad dressings now. I am still talking to anyone who will listen about that Caesar Salad dressing. I’ve been Born-Again.

I also have to admit figuring out a proper Vegan Caramel Sauce and theVegan Poached Egg were pretty much two of the best moments in my life – up there with meeting Dan.

Dan: Awwwwwww. Well, we (that would be the royal “we”) have been cooking so much new stuff that we haven’t even had a chance to go back and take a second stab at something. But, everything Annie mentioned will certainly be making a return appearance, as will the Thai-Style Coconut Chicken and the Caramel Sticky Rolls.

Cupcakes superior to cake? Are you high?

Dan: Yes.

Annie: Well have you ever seen 2 people eat an entire cake by themselves? It is an odd combination of amazingly fabulous and kinda disturbing. Cupcakes are easier to pawn off on random passerbys and dear friends and all the folks in between. Plus they are so cute and can inject frosting and fruity stuff in them. Filled baked goods are universally accepted as being superior to non-filled.

This is a couples project. Who does what in the kitchen?

Dan: I openly admit that Annie is the master chef behind The Betty Crocker Project. I just don’t have the culinary chops that she does. I help out in other ways though. I’m the muscle—you need something chopped or stirred or opened, I’m your man. I make sure Annie pays attention to the time so that she doesn’t leave things in the oven too long. I do all the shopping and most of the dishes. And I make us breakfast every morning—nothing fancy, smoothies and bagels, but I suppose that counts as “cooking.” Other than that—Annie’s the headliner of this show.

The goal is a cookbook deal if I am correct. I envision hundreds of vegans buying this for their mothers and grandmothers for Christmas.

Dan: I mean, the goal is really just to cook some delicious food, write about it, and have fun. Anything else that happens from there is delicious vegan gravy. Certainly if someone wanted to make a cookbook out of what we’re doing, we wouldn’t say no. And I will admit that introducing people’s grandparents to vegan cuisine would be kind of amazing.

You are both avid travelers as well. Tell me where you can find the most surprising vegan meals in otherwise unfriendly territory.

Annie : Hmmm. Well recently, we randomly stopped at a classic car show in Berlin, MD and had lunch at a historical Inn with a veg section of the menu.

We went to New Orleans for our honeymoon and were a little worried we’d have a tough time finding something, but there was actually a few amazing places right in the French Quarter that had vegan specials of the day—and one was completely vegan. We had vegan Po’Boys, Voodoo Chick’n, Dirty Rice with Soy Sausage, Key Lime Pie – basically anything that you would want to try in New Orleans, we found a vegan version of, and we ate at several different places that had that real French Quarter Bluesy feel. And we found soy milk at all the local coffee shops. Love that town!

Here’s a photo of the Vegan Po’Boys at Cafe Bamboo

Dan: A couple of years ago Annie managed to get ourselves to Budapest, which was without question the best Shannon adventure to date. In the middle of Eastern Europe (not exactly ground zero for vegan cuisine) we managed to find not one, but two entirely vegan restaurants. One place, Eden Vegetarianus Etterem, was a cafeteria-style, healthy, organic sort of scene—it was good but not great. One of the waitresses was an IDA supporter! The other place, Napfenyes Etterem, had some of the best vegan pizza we’ve ever had in our lives… although we may have been biased, since we walked for about two hours to get there, and showed up JUST as they were about to close and had to talk them into serving us.

I love love love In Defense of Animals and I think their “Reason for Vegan” leaflet is one of the absolute best. As an employee, tell us some awesome things about IDOA that we may not know. And Dan, fill us in on some things PETA does that you think people should know more about.

Annie: I love IDA too!

Well, a lot of people don’t know that IDA has animal sanctuaries in Cameroon, India and Mississippi. I’m particularly proud of the work we do in Cameroon at IDA Africa with orphaned chimpanzees. The farm sanctuary IDA runs in Mississippi is called Project Hope. They do the best kind of direct action down there. They don’t just give shelter and veterinary care to several pigs, horses, chickens – you name them – but they also do a lot of work locally: assisting with cruelty cases, transportation for rescues, providing veterinary care, educational projects and helping several communities in the area treat their animals more humanely. They’ve even assisted in cruelty cases involving exotic animals like emus and tigers.

Dan: Most people hear all about the “controversial” side of PETA–celebrity campaigns, naked protests, that sort of thing. Most people don’t hear about the hands-on work that PETA does for animals in the local community here in southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina. PETA operates a free/low-cost spay & neuter program that’s “fixed” more than 500 animals every month. PETA also gives away hundreds of free doghouses every year in underprivileged neighborhoods, to people who hardly have the means to take care of themselves, let alone their animals. It doesn’t get the same level of media attention as the more “controversial” campaigns, for obvious reasons; but I think that’s a shame, because it’s a very important part of the work PETA does.

Tofu vs. Tempeh vs. Seitan

Annie: For everything there is a season.

I mean where would our Sunday mornings be without Tofu “eggs” and Tempeh makes an excellent “bacon”. I admit if I want a WOW factor I usually head straight for seitan – especially when I’m eating with people who aren’t vegan or vegetarian. I have this little jerk in me that likes to hear them say “WOW! This isn’t meat? This is good.” Mostly because I might be too nice to say “I told you so” – so I let mock do that for me.

Dan: I golf a little (I’m terrible) so let’s break it down like this. Tofu is your driver—you use it every hole, it’s where you get the majority of your yardage, and it’s probably the single most important aspect of your game. It’s also what you start practicing with when you’re just learning the game. Tempeh is your sand/pitching wedges—indispensible in certain very specific situations, otherwise it stays in the bag. Seitan is your fairway wood—really difficult to master, and because of that you generally just avoid using it. But it’s worth the practice, because once you get it down, it can really improve your game.

Almond milk vs. soy milk vs. rice milk vs. hemp milk.

Annie: I have Almond milk in my coffee every morning. I love it.

But I have to admit that when I’m baking and cooking I prefer using soy milk because most people can find it in their local grocery store and it is easiest to work with. Soy milk is the most mainstream of the above and is the most versatile. I like Almond and Hemp milk just fine, but I have to admit that if you don’t know what you’re doing, you can end up with something that is too watery or has a funny after taste. Part of making the Betty Crocker Cookbook vegan is also showing how easy it is to be vegan and also introduce vegan foods to people who might have never had a vegan Buffalo Wing or Cheeseburger Pie. So we are using organic Soy Milk for most of our recipes.

Dan: Honestly I’m a straight-up soy milk guy. I don’t know if it’s that I don’t like trying new things or what. But I could drink soy milk by the gallon (what am I saying, “could”). Almond milk just tastes like watered-down soy milk to me. I tried making a smoothie with it one time and it wasn’t thick enough to support the fruit. Rice milk takes like milk-flavored Vitamin Water to me—and I don’t mean that in a nice way. And hemp milk… what do we look like, hippies? Just kidding. Honestly, never tried it.

Super Smash Brothers vs. Mario Kart

Dan: Excellent question. Tough though—like trying to pick your favorite kid. Both have their place and are brilliant in their own right, but are hugely different despite seeming very similar on a cosmetic level. Ultimately, Super Smash Brothers is to Mario Kart as checkers is to chess. SSB is a game you can have fun playing with your friends of various skill levels—it only takes a few minutes to learn the basics, and then you can just play and have fun—like checkers. Nothing all that complicated going on. Kart, on the other hand, you can spend the rest of your life mastering—like chess. The strategy is nuanced, you hit various “plateaus” in your development that you need to overcome and move past, and the depth of the game is staggering despite seeming relatively straightforward. As a side note on Kart, for years I’ve wanted to work “getting a lightning bolt” into the cultural vernacular as something you say when something unlikely but game-changing happens to someone. Like, if you’re at the store to get extra-firm tofu for scramble in the morning, and they just so happen to have extra-firm tofu on sale at three-for-one—you just got a lightning bolt. So help me out with that.

What do you hate more, bacon loving hipsters or bacon loving hipsters?

Annie: I pretty much don’t like anyone who thinks it is cool to be a dick… and anyone who supports the pork industry is a dick.

Dan: Is bacon-loving-hipsters an option? Because I hate them the most.