MoFo Day 1: The Return of the Double Rainbow Potluck!!!

Happy VeganMoFo Everyone!

I'm not doing a super ambitious theme this year - just "A Month in the (culinary) Life of VE&T"! 

I promise weeknight dinners, canning projects, use of crazy finds from the depths of my pantry, and lots of doodles. I am even considering taking doodle requests!

However - I am starting off MoFo2012 RIGHT - 

with a glorious post of yesterday's most amazing potluck:

The Return of the Double Rainbow Potluck!

Long time readers may remember the original Double Rainbow Potluck two years ago, which was equally epic. A "Double Rainbow Potluck" aims to create a total rainbow of food offerings twice over: once entirely in savory dishes and once more entirely in sweetie dishes. 

Red Savory, from Nikki - was a big beautiful bowl of freshly made salsa (complete with red "Pico de Gallo" Rice and Beans chips. I love those things!

Orange Savory, from Alana - was a really delicious Warm Butternut and Chickpea Salad. It was really nice - I loved the creamy tahini sauce!

Yellow Savory - from Sophia and Max was two amazing little loaves of yellow french bread!! They used turmeric to affect the color - but the flavor was totally fabulous. Those two make great homemade bread and they have learned that fresh bread is pretty much the road to my heart.

Green Savory  was from Rose - it was her amazing "Green Salad." It was so good! It was like a giant batch of guacamole on steroids - with giant avocado chunks joined by green apples and green tomatoes and cilantro and lime... Man, I loved it.

Being the gracious hostess that I am, I let everyone else pick their colors first - which of course left me with Blue! Nobody ever picks blue by choice! For Blue Savory - I tried my hand at Blue Mashed Potatoes. I used purple potatoes and a bunch of blue dye made from cabbage juice. I think I'll do a whole separate post about my blue food adventures. It was really fun.

Indigo Savory: was Kendra's super delicious "Eggplant Jam". It started off with purple eggplants - and I love how she decorated it with purple flowers just to reinforce the point. Either way, this was super yummy. Mr. Vegan Eats and Treats loved it so much!

All Round Rainbow Fun: A rainbow potluck just wouldn't be a rainbow potluck without a big, beautiful rainbow salad! I even soaked the white parts of my radishes in the blue cabbage dye to complete the rainbow! The whole thing was on top of a bed of salad sprouts and microgreens. So delicious and so beautiful. This time of year is just amazing - all the glorious colors at the market are so life-affirming!

For Red Sweetie: Nikki made one of my favorite recipes of all time, the Chocolate Strawberry Pie from Vegan Diner. Oh MAN this is just so heavenly perfect. I must confess, I didn't limit myself to a small piece! Even with all the other desserts to sample, I dove straight into this bad boy. I wanted to enjoy it with maximum appetite!

Orange Sweetie was an amazing pumpkin pie from Alana... and somehow I didn't take a picture????!!! I am filled with potluck shame.

Yellow Sweetie, from Sophia, were these amazing creations - sweet yellow beet parfaits with coconut cream and topped with candied slices yellow beets. Wowsers! Unfortunately, I made the mistake of saving this one for last - and I didn't have much (read: ANY) room left by the time I tried my little parfait. But I got a few nibbles, and I gobbled up my candied beets - which were really amazing!

Green Sweetie was my domain, so I made dates stuffed with pistachios. The pistachios were blended with cardamom and orange blossom water for extra interest. They were really yummy (although not super green, I must say). I love stuffed dates.

Blue Sweetie - I copped out! I cheated by just buying a whole mess of beautiful blueberries... which were a huge hit with the kiddos. I thought of doing some creation covered in blue frosting, or some tart covered in blueberries... but blueberries are pretty sufficiently great just as they are. So I stuck with that!

Violet Sweetie: Kendra made these absolutely beautiful chocolate-dipped fresh figs. OMG! Freaky alert! I love fresh figs so much, and I love chocolate, and the two together is very fine indeed. I have one more in my fridge just waiting for tomorrow!

Rainbow Sweetie: I know you can't tell in this crummy picture - but this is a coconut pudding with giant boba-sized rainbow-colored tapioca balls. I've had this package of giant tapioca balls in my pantry, just waiting for a call to action. AT LAST. The pudding didn't set up 100% in time for the party, but that didn't stop it from being super delicious. Giant tapioca balls are fun.

Bonus Rainbow Fun!

I was so delighted with the super success of my all-vegan rainbow jello mold with fruit!

For some odd reason, I have been dreaming of making a concoction like this for, oh, 10 years or so. I can't really explain. Anyhow, I have been acquiring little boxes of vegan jello from various sources... and somehow I realized yesterday that I could do a red-yellow-green jello extraveganza! Such joy! The red layer has strawberries in it, the yellow layer (my favorite!) has fresh bananas in it, and the green layer has little pieces of green pluot. Isn't it just lovely?

Here's my savories plate (arranged in rainbow order - with salad in the middle!) - absolutely delicious. So many veggies and colors and flavors. It was amazing. They always say you should "eat the rainbow" - well, we did!! Also, this picture really captures that crazy intense color of my mashed potatoes - all natural!

And here is my sweeties plate (now you can see the pumpkin pie!!!). 

Oh man. So much sweetie goodness.

Also, here's a photo of my jello salad slice, glistening in the sun like a precious jewel. 

Oh wait, it really was a precious jewel!

Here's the whole gang, all lined up in Rainbow Order. As you can see, our awesome friends do not suffer from a lack of party spirit! It was such a super fun day (and also, after days of fog - it was crazy hot and we had to move the table into the shade!). Awesome friends, great food, beautiful harvest bounty, laughter, and stuffed tummies. What a lucky bunch of fools we are!

After all that eating, everyone needed a little rest - from the big boys to the little boys!

(maybe you recognize the Little Emperor from ColdandSleepy Eats??)

Let the MoFo glory begin! I'm so excited! I'm dancing my pants off! Now I've gotta go read some blogs. Remember to register your doodle requests... and please, don't expect a post like this every day from me! :)