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Welcome to the recap for the third annual brunch squeezed in around the most unbelievable music festival that rolls up to the MSV front door each year.
The only thing luckier than living in the middle of the action on these weekends is having a friend who brings the main dish to brunch so you don't have to sweat it:
My pal Casey brought these tempeh hand pies: squares of puff pastry stuffed with flaked tempeh spiced up sausage-style. Awfully tasty, and a totally fun brunch main.
But before those (and after coffee), festive drinks:
To the left, peach lambic and rye sangria. Sounds good, right? Alas, this is too sweet for MSV. Even with a particularly spicy rye added, there's just no escaping the cloying nature of Lindemans peach. Live and learn. And stick with raspberry or black currant.
To the right, a frosty pitcher of booze-free pomegranate-black tea punch. Rather nice.
There were also vieux mot makings available, substituting grapefruit for lemon juice since there was a good bit of grapefruit juice left from segmenting these lovelies:
Also on the table, but not pictured (oops) were almond-crusted thin green beans. Nut-crusted vegetables are the best—especially when you can eat 'em with your paws—and they make for a substantial menu item without piling on more starchy carbs. Because there were plenty of those otherwise:
It's time to thank Mollie Katzen for instructing us to toss potatoes in far more Dijon mustard than you'd think was advisable before roasting them up. It works. So well. (Those are only half the potatoes—there's no pan here that fits four pounds in anything close to a single layer.)
And oh yeah, dill. Seriously dreamy.
Finally, the baked goods tray:
That's a jar of strawberry chia jam and a bowl of blueberry cream cheese (frozen wild blueberries simmered in a bit of brandy and lemon juice, then stirred into Tofutti cream cheese—Kite Hill brand was too salty). And so we'd have something to smear all that good stuff on, two types of muffins. To the right are Isa's lemon-poppy muffins (those are roughly regular homemade size, and the others are jumbo because the MSV kitchen can only bake 18 muffins at once). To the left, gluten-free vegan cinnamon-sugar muffins:
Embarrassingly enough, without the finishing sugar. There's supposed to be a sprinkle of turbinado up top to really drive that recipe title home, but it was forgotten, and that's what we get for being human. Still tasty, though (and a successful first go at gluten-free baking for our very first gluten-free guest).
Gluten-Free Cinnamon-Sugar Muffins
yields 12 muffins
170 g white rice flour
35 g brown rice flour
35 g blanched almond meal
1 TBSP ground cinnamon
1 TBSP baking powder
1 TBSP psyllium husk powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup unsweetened soy milk
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup natural cane sugar (evaporated cane juice)
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 TBSP turbinado, for topping
Heat oven to 375. Oil a muffin tin.
Sift together dry ingredients. Whisk together wet ingredients. Add wet to dry and stir just until combined. Add batter to muffin tin. Sprinkle turbinado on top.
Bake 23-25 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean. Let cool 10 minutes in the pan on a wire rack before loosening sides gently with a thin spatula. Transfer muffins from pan to the wire rack and let cool completely.
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Back next week with a new recipe. Until then, happy brunching.