Easter Brunch with Mom & Dad

This week, my mom asked me "What are we doing for Easter?" It was just a few days after my big NoRouz celebration... so I was big grump and said that I didn't necessarily want to do anything. What a jerk! As soon as I went home, I felt bad about it. Of course I want to spend Easter with my parents! So I called my mom and told her I'd had a change of heart. Plus, I guess I really do like cooking... because by the time the weekend rolled around, I was all enthusiastic and ready for more holiday cooking, ha ha.

i turned that frown upside-down!

Now that we don't have any little kids who require Easter egg hunts in our family, and since none of us is at all religious, Easter mostly just means a springtime brunch party for my family. This year's gathering was sweet and simple: my parents came over for brunch. Easy and fun and lovely.

Raised Waffles from Vegan Brunch

I was pretty excited to eat some hot cross buns, but my sweet dad expressed a preference for waffles! Then, Mr. VE&T also revealed to me that he prefers waffles to hot cross buns. WELL. I see how it is! ha ha. Actually though, waffles are a whole lot more simple than HCBs, so that was fine with me. Also, I really do know how much my dad loves waffles, so just the idea of this makes me happy. Usually we only have waffles on Christmas morning, so it is a special treat to have them for Easter too! 

As always, I made the Raised Waffles from Vegan Brunch -- my favorite waffle recipe ever. They are made with yeast (instead of baking soda/powder) and they are so delicious. They are the vegan waffles that converted my dad to a vegan waffle fan! 

 fruitee tootee

One thing that you simply must have at any brunch time gathering is a giant mess of fruit. I think this is written into law somewhere. I had some strawberries from my friend Jane's farm, which were absolutely delicious, and some super-perfect oranges from the farmers' market. The four of us didn't manage to eat all of this at brunch, but after my parents left, I ate the rest of it. Fruit never lasts long around me.

Pomegranate Spritzer

on a plate with tiny baby chickens

I forgot to buy orange juice to go with breakfast, but I had a little bit of the pomegranate juice left over from NoRouz. I feel lucky that we have TWO vendors selling really great organic pomegranate juice at our farmers market. It's so powerful and potent! I filled the pitcher about a third full with pomegranate juice, squeezed in two fresh limes, and filled the rest with sparkly water. It was a nice light breakfast drink! 

Tempeh Apple Sage Sausage Patties from Protein Ninja

One of my good friends recently gave me a copy of Terry Hope Romero's newest book Protein Ninja for a gift. I haven't really had a chance to dive into it yet -- but when Kittee posted about these Tempeh Apple Sage Sausage Patties, they really caught my eye. I like having waffles for breakfast (I like it a lot!), but I also like to have a savory component with breakfast. My ideal breakfast is always something savory and something sweetie. So, when I remembered these, they were a perfect fit. They are so good! The patties are a little delicate, but firmed up a bit more after coming off the griddle. They're filled with flavor - sweetness from apples, the glory of fennel seeds and sage, and a lovely chew from tempeh and beans. Happily, there were some left over (the recipe made 10 hearty patties!), so I can have some for breakfasts this week, if I don't eat them all tonight.

 giant platter of roasted asparagus

In addition to the sausage patties, I also wanted a veggie, and kept it simple with a big batch of roasted asparagus. I wasn't sure how to proceed, so I double checked Deborah Madison's book Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. I don't use the recipes in that book very often, but I really like how reliable it is for presenting the basic ways to prepare each and every vegetable. I gotta say, these turned out just perfect, so she must be on to something. I served them on a large, beautiful platter that belonged to my dad's parents -- which they just recently handed down to me. My dad remembered that this was the "special occasion" china... so it seemed fitting to use it for Easter. I also remembered to use my adorable little bunny plates that I got at CostPlus World Market a few years ago. Each one has a super cute bunny holding something different - a berry, an Easter egg, two little chicks, and a bunch of carrots. So those were the plates that we used for our brunchy feast!

I'm so glad we had a celebration after all. It was fun to cook, and especially fun to have a peaceful and leisurely morning with my parents and my fella. The weather was warm, so we had the back door open, and the pets were strewn about the house, napping in the sun or under the breakfast table, or on the sofa. All in all, it was pretty great. I hope you had a good weekend too. 

Recent Culinary Antics

Thanks everyone for all your great ideas for quick meals. I really appreciate it! I'm taking notes. You'll see your ideas popping up left and right.

This is the "Toltec Tofu Stuffing" from "Vegan World Fusion". Based on the fact that Musty and I both thought that the Thai Pizza topping would be better on its own, I decided just to make this as is. I'm glad I did, it made a great tofu scramble. It's got a lot of neat flavors: ancho chilies, cilantro, corn, beanss... and it's especially good with a big dollop of spicy salsa.

here's a nice meal from last week - the ever-delicious Red Lentil Dal from PPK, some steamed chard from the garden, and a great new little recipe for asparagus with shallots. The asparagus recipe was from the big Deborah Madison book "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone." I didn't have shallots, one of the main ingredients, and it was still good. We both enjoyed having the asparagus cut up like that... This recipe uses garlic, olive oil, and lemon zest for a nice light flavor combination.

And, this picture is about a week old now... but this was on the 13th day of NoRooz (Persian New Year). General festivites last for 13 days, and then on the last day, you leave the house for a picnic. We had a sort of busy day that day, so we skimped a bit and had our picnic in our backyard. Well, it's technically leaving the house! :) We had a delicious Croatia-inspired picnic: duvec, cucumbers, tomatoes, red pepper hummus (from Eat Drink and Be Vegan), with a fresh loaf of bread. YUM. Also, you'll see my very successful sprouts in the background. One of the most important things that you do on this day is to take the sprouts that you've been growing all month for NoRooz and then throw them in the water (like a lake or river). The idea is that the sprouts have been soaking up all the old, stale energy of the house, and when you throw them out in the water, you clear space in the house for new beginnings. So, after lunch we took our sprouts and threw them in the ocean.

New Beginnings!

Quinoa Salad, Lime Tart, and Pot Pie!

Sunday my friend Jocelyn and I put on an "Intro to Vegetarianism" workshop together, something we have done 3-4 times before. It was really fun and we were able to provide people with a lot of resources and good solid information. We always provide some food too, so that people will see how yummy vegan food can be. Jocelyn made some delicious walnut-lentil pate from Angelica's, and I made a delicious "Quinoa Salad with Pine Nuts and Dried Fruits (With Lime-Cumin Vinaigrette)" from "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone" by Deborah Madison. This is one of our favorite meals, so I made a double batch so that Musty and I could have some for dinner too. We had more for lunch, and even still have a bunch left over. I guess I really did make a big batch! It's such a great recipe, I really encourage you to check it out. It's got raisins, dried apricots, cilantro, yellow bell pepper, cilantro, quinoa, onion... yum yum. And, it's so pretty.

For the workshop, I also decided to test out some of my pie experimentation on them! I made the same lemon tart that I made recently, but I also tried the same pie with LIME - which was super delicious!! I think I liked it even better. The only other change that I made in the lime version was to add a bit more soy yogurt, to make it a little creamier. I liked that. Here are the lemon and lime, next to each other. The lime is on the right, which you can barely tell because it's a little less yellow & the zesty zests are green, rather than yellow.

Then, for the final touch, I melted some vegan chocolate chips and piped on a pretty decorative design onto the lime tart. I think this may be the pie that I enter in the contest! I am going to try one or two more recipes just to make sure though. Hopefully my yoga students are ready to eat some pie! :)
For dinner last night, I made Veggie Pot Pie. Yum Yum. I looked at the recipe in the recent issue of "Vegetarian Times" and at the recipe in the "Joy of Cooking"... and then roughly did something in between the two. I cooked up some onions, celery, garlic, mushrooms, sweet potato, butternut squash, potato, zucchini, purple beans, frozen corn, frozen peas, and seitan! Phew! That's a lot of veggies! I also threw in a little veggie broth, some thyme, and splash of white whine. Then I cooked it at 400, while I made some "basic biscuits" from Joy of Cooking, which I used as the topping. I made a few extra biscuits with the leftovers. I used 1/2 Earth balance and half canola oil for the fat in the crust, and also used whole wheat pastry flour. It turned out very savory and very delicious!
Here is the butternut squash (from my very own garden!) and the cool purple beans (from the farmers market) that went into the pie. I only used part of the squash, so I'm sure you'll be seeing more where that came from soon! In fact, this summer I planted one butternut squash plant and got 14 butternut squashes off of it! and they are not small... so you can expect to see plenty of butternuts in the upcoming months.

Humong-o Post!

Well, I was in the mood for food today! I did lots of cooking (and eating!) today... so there are lots of fun pics!
First, for breakfast I made the **delicious** peanut butter banana french toast that I first learned about on Chris and Darlene's blog. I must say, I feel a deep and permanent sense of appreciation for them, because I am insanely crazy about it!
With breakfast we had fresh figs & fresh pears! Yum yum! These figs are great, my aunt and her boyfriend picked them yesterday. The pears are from the farmer's market - perfectly ripe!
Also! Here's a fig from our little fig tree! How exciting! I took a picture, and then I ate it!

I was just in the mood to bake... and I saw this recipe for "Lemon-Poppy Sunburst Bread" in an ad for "Joyva Tahini" in the recent issue of Vegetarian Times. It's really, really good! It's sweet like banana bread or something along those lines. Here's the recipe:

2 T flax Seeds
1/3 c water
1/3 c sunflower oil
3 T tahini
3/4 c sugar
2 c flour (i used half normal & half whole wheat pastry flour)
1 T baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/2 c plain soy milk
1/4 c lemon juice
lemon zest of one lemon
1/2 c sunflower seeds
1/2 c golden raisins
1-2 T poppy seeds

Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour a 9x5 loaf pan.

In a blender, grind up flax seeds until coarse, then add 1/3 c water, and blend until thick and goopy. Set aside.

In a large bowl, combine oil, tahini, and sugar. Beat with electric mixer on medium until well-blended. Beat in flax mixture. Add in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Blend with mixer on low speed. Beat in the soy milk, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Fold in sunflower seeds & golden raisins until blended. Spread batter into the pan.

Sprinkle poppy seeds evenly over the top. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 50-60 minutes. Cool in the pan for 10 min, then invert onto a rack to cool. Cool completely before slicing.


Beet Risotto! This is one of our favorite meals. I usually make it with normal dark red beets... and it makes a shocking, beautiful red dish. This time I used the pink and white striped "chiogga" beets... and it wasn't nearly as beautiful. But still really tasty. It's such a nice dish, and the recipe is from "Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone".

Big Ol' Blog Entry!!

This has been a huge weekend of celebrations in my family. My cousin was married on Sunday and today was my grandfather's 90th birthday party! Add all that fun to the fact that we are leaving tomorrow morning for a month... and that's why I missed a couple days of blogging! But I'm back with lots of fun photos:
My cousin's wedding was really beautiful and fun... but since this is vegan food blog, I'll stick to the subject! The food was great! The meal had many vegan options... a delicious spinach/bell pepper/walnut salad, roasted organic tomatoes with basil, vegan polenta with white beans and sage, veggie kabobs, and ... most amazingly ... a veritable smorgasborg of VEGAN CAKE for dessert!!! Here in Santa Cruz, we are most blessed to have the esteemed Black China Bakery, masters of vegan cake. My sweet cousin, even though she is not a vegan, liked the idea of selecting vegan cakes so that our aunt and I could enjoy them. Isn't that just amazing?? My family is so accepting and supportive and loving about my aunt and I being vegans, we are so grateful. So, the wedding cakes: there were so many flavors: chocolate mocha, carrot cake, coconut cake, chocolate raspberry cake, chocolate cake, lemon cake... I must admit, I had two slices! hee hee.

Today, at my grandfather's fun-tabulous party, all the food was vegan except for a cheese platter. Isn't that cool? We had about 150 guests there. My grandfather is one of the most amazing people ever, everyone who meets him is enveloped by his grace and charisma. For this party, my aforementioned vegan aunt and I did the menu planning... This is a great technique that I really recommend to any vegans out there. My aunt and I find that when we do the cooking and menu planning, people are just so happy to be fed that they don't mind if it's all vegan. Plus, then they learn how tasty vegan food is & over time they resist it less & less... and soon, they don't resist it at all!

So, at the party we had some majorly delicious food: Hummus with flatbread & pita, Tomato & Cucumber Salad (from Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen), Jewel Salad (pecans, brown rice, grapes, parseley, ... and a few other goodies - very good), crackers, grapes, raw almonds, a fruit platter, a veggie platter, quinoa salad with dried fruit (from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone), a roasted veggie salad (baby potatoes, summer squashes, cherry tomatoes, onions, mushrooms...), and serious mess of bruschetta. It was so delicious and plentiful. Oh yeah, and there was a cheese plate, which I turned a blind eye to!

And here's the huge birthday cake! Once again, all vegan! It's from the Black China Bakery too, and it's carrot cake flavor. This cake singlehandedly expanded many people's definition of "vegan" today. It was winning people over left and right!

And tonight, with an empty fridge, we went out to Dharma's, one of Santa Cruz's most well-known vegetarian restaurants. I had a big bowl of chili, which Blogger doesn't want me to upload - so you will just have to imagine it! I'm taking off tomorrow, and I might make an update or two... but in the meantime check out our travel blog: balkanadventure.blogspot.com

!!

Big Fun Food Day!

Today was a big food day, with lots of fun activity in the kitchen...

Ta-Dah!! Wow! I have been eyeing the crepe recipe in VwaV for quite a while now... and finally I made them! I reduced the salt a lot and used canola instead of olive oil, to make them a little less "savory." When I was little, whenever we had special breakfast, it was always crepes (never pancakes). So crepes have a special place in my heart... and I've missed them since being vegan. Miss no more! These were GREAT! I was dancing around with happiness as I ate them. I filled them with my fresh raspberry jam from last night and rolled them up. Yum yum yum. I cannot strongly enough recommend this delicious item!

This morning I made two loaves of zucchini bread. It's an old recipe I got from my mom and it's really good. I made one loaf for my 15th High School Reunion barbecue today, and one for my Yoga Book Club meeting tomorrow. This is an old standby and a good use of 4 cups of grated zucchini!

Today I did something I hadn't done in a while... made my own salsa! I got this Pico De Gallo recipe from "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone" by Deborah Madison. It's a great recipe - easy and totally delicious. We've got a lot left over, so I'll have to think of something to use it on in the next few days.
Here's the recipe:
3-4 good sized tomatoes, finely diced
2 garlic gloves, finely minced
1 jalepeno, seeded and finely minced
juice of one lime
1/4 c. finely chopped white or yellow onion
3 T finely chopped cilantro
Mix it all together and let stand for at least 20 minutes or so for the flavors to mix together.

Here's the finished burrito... YUM! In addition to lots of fresh salsa, there are some veggie refries (with loads of cumin and salsa added in), some chopped up yellow cherry tomatoes, and a bunch of chopped up lettuce. Really, really good.

Tonight for dinner I made "Green Beans Almondine" from a recent issue of Vegetarian Times... it's one of those "5 ingredients" recipes. It was pretty good!
Turn oven to 350 & toast 1/2 - 3/4 c slivered almonds for about 9 minutes. Set aside.
Steam 1-1 1/2 lb. green beans until tender crisp. cool & set aside.
Add to the beans:
2 t balsamic vinegar
1 T walnut oil
1 1/2 T low sodium tamari

Then, add in the almonds and enjoy!
It's a nice little side dish, and a tasty combo of flavors.

Boiled Peanuts & Torta di Ceci (not together, though!)

Lots of varied & fun food activity today...

For lunch I made myself a salad with loads of goodies... baked tofu, kidney beans, red & green bell peppers, cucumbers, beets, carrots... Very tasty indeed!

Then, this afternoon I finally got around to cooking up some raw peanuts that I got at the farmers' market on Wednesday. I made BOILED PEANUTS! yum yum yum!! I hadn't ever had boiled peanuts until I went to North Carolina to visit family about 10 years ago or so. Now I am a real fanatic, and boiled peanuts are one of the things I most anticipate on trips to the South. If you have never had a boiled peanut, it's sort of like a peanut-flavored edamame.

To make your own boiled peanuts, it's best to have some fresh raw peanuts. Pop 'em in a big pot full of salty water and boil away for 1-2 hours. You'll have to add more water from time to time, and also start checking after an hour or so to see if they need more salt in the water or if the texture seems done to you. They should be soft & salty.

This batch turned out so perfect and delicious. I couldn't stop taking pictures.

For dinner tonight I made Quinoa Salad and Torta di Ceci. The Quinoa Salad recipe I used was from "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone" by Deborah Madison. There's red bell pepper, pine nuts, golden raisins, chopped dried apricots, cilantro, quinoa and lettuce, all with a Lime-Cumin-Cilantro dressing. It's REALLY good!

Torta di Ceci is an amazing and delicious number that all vegans should know about! I first learned about it from my friends in Livorno, Italy. It's a bit of regional specialty there... and you can go out at 2 in the morning and find places selling warm slices. It's a torte made with garbanzo bean flour, water, salt and olive oil... and sprinked with black pepper. It's so insanely delicious, and also quite easy. Here's the recipe:

Torta Di Ceci (also called Socca in France)

• 1 1/2 c garbanzo flour
• 1 t salt
• 2 1/2 t good olive oil (plus a little extra for the pan)
• 2 c water
• black pepper

Whisk together the flour & salt, then whisk in the water and olive oil. Let stand at least 2 hours, and as long as overnight.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Lightly brush a 12-inch tart pan (or pizza pan with 1 inch rim) with olive oil. Pour in batter and bake for 40-50 minutes until the top is crusty, lightly golden, and possibly cracked.

Sprinkle on generous amounts of black pepper and eat hot (or at least warm!)

Enjoy!!