Party Animals No. 58: Rosette Veg Tart for a Potluck with the Neighbors

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Happy Friday, everyone. I have an imprecise Party Animals post today, featuring this deep-summer veg tart, which I made mid-spring. I can't begin to know whom to credit for the veggie-rosette thing, but once I saw pictures, I knew exactly what to take to my neighbors' potluck (where people would be eating my cooking for the very first time). It was a lovely evening, and I'm pretty pleased with how this guy came out. Especially since I didn't follow anyone's recipe, and just winged it. (No, I have no idea why. I blame a busy schedule?) It's rich, but also decidedly vegetal, thanks to sheer quantity of veg needed to make the rosette. And of course, texture abounds: tender, thin squash and eggplant, flaky pastry, and rich almond pâté all play extremely well together.

To make something similar at home, grab a half-dozen yellow and green squashes, a globe eggplant, and your very finest vegetable peeler. Wash them all well and set them aside. Now prepare a batch of Lemon and Herbes de Provence Almond Pâté, and get it in the oven. While it bakes, if you have time and desire, whip up a pie crust. If you're in a hurry, set out some vegan puff pastry to thaw, as I did.

While that bakes and the other thaws, get to spendin' some quality time with the veg. Slice, slice, slice, until you have a massive stack of thin planks. Here's where my instructions get murky. To season the veg, I tossed it in a simple lemon vinaigrette, but my tongs tore up some of the more delicate squash planks (where it gets seedy). So, I dunno. Maybe very gently mix with your hands. Maybe mix the vinaigrette separately and drizzle it very slowly over the assembled tart. Who could know? There might be a recipe out there that could help, but I wouldn't know. I'm too busy to do things like learn, apparently.

Stuff your thawed pastry sheet into a nonstick 9-inch springform pan, and stretch the high corners over to help the bits that fall short. Don't sweat it too hard. Spread the still-warm pâté over the pastry using the back of a spoon (wet it to prevent sticking). Wrap your veggies around each other until all you have left is broken planks, and you're too tired of all this endless wrapping to try to piece together the rest of the rosette. Save the broken bits for grilled veggie sandwiches. Fold in the rest of the puff pastry so you have kind of a galette-thingy with a crust of puff pastry filled with almond pâté, which will be bananas-tasty.

Season your tart with flaked sea salt and black pepper. Pop it in the oven until golden, let cool before removing the pan sides and wrapping in parchment. The next day, when you actually attend your potluck, pop the tart (still on the bottom of the springform pan) back into your oven on a warm setting while you make mashed potatoes to go along with your tart, and leave it in the oven until time to head next door. Accept all the compliments on how pretty your tart is (even though you technically messed it up) and be ready to explain what all that is, exactly. Drink your neighbors' wine, and have a nice time. The tart is best served warm.

Happy gathering.

Party Animals No. 57: A Table of Munchies for Xmas Eve (or Whenever You Need)

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I host both Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve at my place for our tiny family. After the big November meal, my husband requested more of a cocktail-party setup for December. We still served ourselves buffet-style for ease. If you need a festive spread for NYE or any other time, may this generous little spread help you with inspiration.

Beverages:

• Kir Royale
• spiced Assam tea Toddy (substituting grade A dark/robust maple syrup for honey)
• for non-alcoholic, spiced tea with hot soy milk and a little extra maple

The munchies menu:

• fresh grapes
• pear chips (pear slices pressed in sugar and baked at low temp for a couple hours)
• rosemary mixed nuts
• spiced oat cookies with espresso glaze
• toasted french bread slices and whole-grain crackers
• smoky almond pâté
• veg cream cheese (Kite Hill recommended) with dill and capers
• ginger fig jam (store bought)
• freshly cracked black pepper
• coconut bacon

Happy entertaining! Here's to the days getting longer and the table being full. Happy New Year's to you all, and thanks so much for hanging with me in this totally bananas year. Onward!

Party Animals No. 56: Thanksgiving 2017

Just a quick pop-in to run over the all-vegan MSV Thanksgiving for the year.

Which was pretty much exactly the same as last year. The family has decided this menu is not broken and should therefore not be fixed. There was a little freedom to play with the welcome cocktail and dessert, though, so here we go.

Raspberry lambic and creme de cassis topped with brut cava and garnished with a rosemary sprig-skewered branded raspberry made for a fruity and lively drink to toast the day.

Dessert was a dead simple apple crisp (based on this recipe), served warm with (Coconut Bliss brand) vanilla ice cream and topped with those brandied cranberries.

Hope everyone who got a long weekend enjoyed it. As ever, thanks so much for being here.

Party Animals No. 49: The MSV Wedding Reception

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So, I got hitched in May to my boyfriend of 10 years. And yeah, I did the food for our (teeny tiny) party. There's so much credit to give out, so let's dive right in.

First, all of these seriously dreamy photos were taken by the totally fabulous Leah Moyers. She improved our wedding day in so many ways, and has made my food look better than it will ever look again. Despite knowing that we devoted a significant chunk of our wedding day's relatively modest budget to her services, I still feel like I owe her so many extra thanks. Also, hey, she's vegan.

Quickly, though this isn't something I normally talk about on MSV, my hair was done by my regular stylist, Emily, who is also vegan, and works at Geo Hair Lab (they do not use products tested on animals or containing animal products). I did my own makeup with Tarte products.

Okay, now for the food! I got tons of support from friends:

My pal Caitlin is responsible for all the stunning calligraphy you see (in addition to being on assist all evening, ferrying food up and down the staircase). Her work elevated the food presentation dramatically.

Friends Casey and Elaine ran the beverages like bosses, including hauling in lovely glassware (and so much more). Elaine—hospitality and ice cream master—also put together the table decor and basically acted as my day-of coordinator. All the great plating, arranging, and everything everything everything was directed by Elaine, and I'll never be able to repay her dedication to putting together a killer party.

This shot demonstrates just how thoughtful my friends were in providing stemware. And also what public speaking is like for me.

I can't begin to list all the credit that's due these folks and others, so just know they totally ran the show, and I had very little to do with any of it once the food was made. Even with the party as small as it was (about three dozen total), this was easily the largest crowd I'd ever cooked for, and I couldn't have done it alone. All I had to do was make the almond pâté tower, the sandwiches, the pickled green beans, and the four desserts. Got them to the church on time, so to speak, and sighed while everyone else took over. I'm a lucky lady.

Pals working while I celebrate

Additionally, we asked for volunteers among our guests to pick up food and bring it in to the party (our party was extremely intimate—only the people who love us very best in the world were there, the kind of folks you don't mind asking to stop and bring in some taro chips, if they don't mind). So anything marked store-bought in the menu was generously provided by guests so I had several less things to handle.

And now, the menu:

Hors D'oeuvres Buffet                                                                                                

• Almond pâté tower (four-tier):                                                                                               
  • top tier: red wine-fig jam marbled (app. 3")                                                                                    
  • third tier: peppercorn-crusted (app. 4")                                                                                            
  • second tier: smoked tea (6")                                                                                
  • bottom tier: lemon zest and herbes de Provence (9")
• Assorted Crackers (store-bought)                                                                                                
• Mixed nuts (store-bought)                                                                                                
• Fresh fruit (from Tomato Head catering)                                                                                         
• Dried fruit (store-bought)                                                                                                
• Mixed olives (store-bought)                                                                                                
• Spiced balsamic pickled green beans                                                                                              
• Taro chips (store-bought)                                                                                                
• Greek green salad (from Tomato Head catering)                                                                              
• Spring potato salad (from Whole Foods catering)                                                                           
• Buffalo (vegan) meatball sandwiches                                                                                               
• Smoked-tofu bánh mì                                                                                              
• Marinated veg & chickpea-salad sandwiches (a variation on this)                                                                                               

Dessert Buffet                                                                                                
                                                                                                

• Lime & thyme blueberry Bundt cake                                                                                                
• Lavender & lemon vegan cheesecake                                                                                                
• White chocolate-coconut-macadamia truffles rolled in cacao nibs                                                 
• Jumbo oatmeal cookies with currants and dark chocolate

Drinks

• Cucumber-lime agua fresca (plus another agua)
• Cocktail: 212 (gin, Aperol, grapefruit juice) topped with ginger beer (and garnished with lemongrass straws—Elaine's seriously gorgeous finishing touch)
• Coffee from K Brew (they substituted almond milk for the creamer in their catering packs for me easy peasy)
• beers, wines, cava, water

And, finally, the moment we've all been waiting for, the food photography:

Phew. And <3.

Party Animals No. 47: Big Ears Brunch 2017

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Big Ears brunch, 2017 edition! (Past years: 2014, a tiny peek at 2015, and 2016.)

In addition to coffee on the hot end, there were four chilled drinks on offer:

• pineapple-carrot-chamomile juice topped with sparkling water
• blueberry-mint Bellini
• apricot-ginger Bellini
• ginger shandy made with Harpoon UFO White

All four garnished with a lime wedge (easy peasy).

The main focus this year was breads and things. There were biscuits with tempeh-walnut patties (not pictured), everything bagels, wheat toast, and pecan-raisin toast.

And the toppers, from right to left:

• apple-chamomile molasses
• strawberry-jalapeno jam
• Blackberry Farms blackberry jam (out of frame)
• coconut bacon
• pear slices
• mashed avocado
• pesto
• Kite Hill plain cream cheese
• smoked sun-dried tomatoes
• chives
• capers
• lime wedges
• freshly cracked black pepper
• flaked sea salt
• crushed red chiles

No one went hungry.

There were also some fork foods to round out the table. On the left is a fruit salad of mixed grapes and halved strawberries tossed with a little oil, a dose of apple-chamomile molasses (the best fruit booster, by the way—adds tart and sweet in one go), and finely chopped mint. On the right is a dish of black beans and tomatoes simmered with cumin, coriander, smoked paprika, and Mexican oregano. Into a giant baking dish they went. The top was studded with slices of polenta, which were brushed with a mix of olive oil, nutritional yeast, and kala namak before baking. Hearty and comforting and seriously spiced. Finally, a big bowl of this potato salad was served, but with roasted cauliflower florets substituted for the potatoes (with all the bread on hand, potatoes seemed a bit much). Parsley for the herb. It was a hit, as ever. Seriously, take that salad to the next party you go to.

So there you go. This was decidedly a generous vegan brunch. And a great festival.

Back next week with a new recipe. Thanks for reading.

Party Animals No. 46: Thanksgiving 2016

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The all-vegan MSV Thanksgiving table for 2016 went a little something like this:

To welcome our guests, a version of this spiced pear and ginger cocktail. Totally lovely. This'll definitely show up on the MSV entertaining table again. (Also, I went a little bananas and made botanical drawings to accompany all the items.) Get my (slightly simplified) version of this great cocktail here.

Tofu-pecan loaf and fluffy biscuits (same as last year).

A lackluster citrus and green bean salad that I'll replace next year. Win some, lose some.

Cranberry relish, same as ever.

A first stab at horchata cheesecake that decidedly needs more tests. Still tasted good, though.

And, finally, the pleasant surprise of the year. I tweaked my regular dressing to streamline the process. I replaced the corn bread (which I used to bake a day or two before) with store-bought prepared polenta, replaced the figs (which I used to soak and chop) with already-small currants, and took the walnuts down just a bit. The result is totally dreamy and a little more harmonious than my old dressing. This couldn't have worked better. I seriously recommend this recipe over the old one. The polenta's creaminess adds an unbeatable textural improvement that I refuse to do without from here on.

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If you got a long weekend, I hope it was lovely.

MSV subscribers (you can join their ranks if you haven't already) got a little note about this in their emails, but I'm taking this week off, leaving the blog quiet for now while the East Tennessee communities try to work through this week's damage in The Great Smoky Mountains National Park and nearby towns.

See you again soon.

Dead Simple Polenta and Herb Gratin

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Creamy, comforting, a little rich but not greasy, seriously fragrant, and seriously easy to throw together, this wildly handy and tasty polenta gratin is likely to be on heavy rotation all fall and winter long. It gives big return for simply slicing, whisking, pouring, and baking.

The trick here is taking advantage of prepared polenta. You'll dress it up with dried herbs (making this a fabulous pantry recipe), soy milk, and almond meal. Admittedly, making your own polenta in advance will probably make this taste even better, but this recipe about convenience. The effect is obviously different from a traditional potato gratin, but you still get lots of creamy, carb-y goodness with a fraction of the work.

This will effortlessly round out any simple meal, like a green salad with some beans or tofu for protein. Or serve it with scrambled tofu and baked apples for brunch. And it will be right at home on any big fall holiday table, if you happen to have one of those coming up.

Dead Simple Polenta and Herb Gratin

Print the recipe

serves 4-6

18 oz polenta (1 prepared tube)

3/4 cup unsweetened soy milk

1/4 cup blanched almond meal

1 TBSP nutritional yeast

rounded 1/4 tsp fine sea or kosher salt (plus additional for finishing)

1/4 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp dried thyme

1/4 tsp dried oregano

1/4 tsp dried rosemary

pinch crushed red pepper

freshly cracked black pepper

Heat oven to 375.

Slice polenta into thin (scant 1/4-inch) slices and arrange in an overlapping spiral pattern in a 1 1/2-quart baking dish (shallow, app 9"x12"). Whisk together measured salt, garlic powder, thyme, oregano, rosemary, and red pepper. Pour slowly and evenly over polenta. Sprinkle top with a pinch of additional salt and add freshly cracked black pepper, to taste. Bake until polenta is lightly crusted and bubbly, 35-40 minutes.

If desired, finish under broiler to give the top a golden brown finish in spots. Let cool 5-10 minutes before serving.

Dead Simple Pear Tart for MSV's Fourth Anniversary

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Four years of MSV! I hope you're as jazzed as I am. Let's eat dessert. And let's not spend too much effort making it.

In fact, ease has been a major theme on MSV over the past year. When I started MSV, I had been vegan for only a year. This blog gave me a place to direct my energy and figure out a new way of eating. I had endless patience—enthusiasm, even—for experimentation.

Four years later, I have less patience, but more experience. I still screw up in the kitchen, of course, but I generally have a better sense of what works for me. One thing that hasn't changed in these four years is my fundamental preference for freshness, but the way I pursue that now looks much different than the way I did it back then. Now I'm much more focused on offering everyday foods, stuff you can take for lunch—important tools to help people keep plants at the center of their diet. And though the protein question is sometimes tossed around as a tiresome inquiry, I don't mind taking the question at face value and answering it two weeks out of the month, or whenever I come up with a good answer.

That's the public part of the way I've come to shape this blog. Privately, I'm a little more focused on working pleasing food into my life rather than making food my main hobby. That means spending less time in the kitchen without sacrificing pleasure by recognizing that sweet spot of low effort and high return.

Enter this lovely pear tart. Pie dough actually isn't a big deal. Once the sleeves are rolled up, there's nothing to it but to do it. And the end result is so good. But for some reason, I dread the idea of making it. And so this dead-simple shortbread-style press-in crust (you may have noticed) has become my go-to crust. It's rich, it has a wonderfully firm texture that shatters satisfyingly under tooth, and it takes stunningly little effort to make. I add cornmeal for a little texture and extra flavor, and because I never stop putting cornmeal in all my baked goods for a little texture and extra flavor.

This really is designed to scratch the pie itch without having to touch the rolling pin. To do that, you'll essentially marry a tart with a fruit crisp. The crumble topping is lovely and effortless, but the flavor and richness is bolstered by the addition of almond flour. For the filling, thinly sliced pears are tossed with apricot jam to give the fruit that, well, jammy quality that's usually achieved in a pie by baking fresh fruit with starch under the top crust. Buy the best apricot jam you're willing to spring for, and you're all set. Here's a tip: choose the least expensive apricot jam with apricots listed as the first ingredient. For the best flavor, skip anything that lists sugar first.

And there you have it. Easy enough for your kids to help you make it (if you have those), and good enough to entertain with.

Here's to four years! I can't thank you enough for being here.   —Amanda

Dead Simple Pear Tart

Print the recipe

serves 6-8

For the crust:

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/3 cup cornmeal

1 TBSP natural cane sugar (evaporated cane juice)

1/2 tsp fine sea or kosher salt

1/3 cup melted refined coconut oil

For the filling:

2 medium just-ripe green pears, thinly sliced

1/4 cup apricot jam

2 TBSP lemon juice

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

pinch fine sea or kosher salt

For the topping:

1/4 cup rolled oats

1/4 cup blanched almond meal

1 TBSP turbinado

1 TBSP melted refined coconut oil

pinch fine sea or kosher salt

Heat oven to 375.

Begin with the crust. Whisk together flour, cornmeal, sugar, and salt. Add coconut oil and mix until sandy and uniform. Press into a 14x4-inch nonstick rectangular tart pan. Bake 13-15 minutes. The crust will go from done to burned with speed, so watch—and smell—carefully.

Meanwhile, toss filling ingredients until uniformly coated. In another bowl, stir all topping ingredients together with a fork until uniformly coated.

When the crust is done, remove from oven and reduce heat to 350. Add pears evenly to crust. Sprinkle topping over pears. Bake until pears are tender and topping is golden, 17-20 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool in the pan. Remove tart pan sides after tart has cooled. Serve at room temperature.

Party Animals No. 43: Lemon and Herbes de Provence Almond Pate

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Listen up. Today's almond pate variety should be every vegan's first lesson in savory vegan entertaining. Or savory omnivore entertaining, for that matter. Unless you have an almond allergy (sorry, folks with almond allergies), there's little excuse not to have this creamy, rich, flavorful spread in your pie hole at every party you ever attend from now on. It's seriously gorgeous. And, thanks to store-bought almond meal, blissfully easy to make.

This version doesn't contain as much acid as MSV's garlic-white wine almond pate, but gets brightness from lemon zest, and is a little extra creamy from the addition of soy milk.

Toss in some complexity from woody and floral herbes de Provence, and you're all ready to triple the recipe and use a nine-inch springform pan to mold it so you can haul it to your next warm-weather party to feed a crowd(*). Everyone (without almond allergies) will adore it.

Or just make a single batch for days of indulgent snacks just for you and yours. That works, too.

(*The freezer shortcut offered in the instructions is not recommended for so large a wheel. Instead, refrigerate in the cheesecloth-lined springform pan four hours. Pull back the cheesecloth covering the top, invert onto a parchment-lined baking sheet, remove pan sides, then pan bottom, then peel off cheesecloth. Bake about 55 minutes.)

You can munch this at any temperature, but it's best slightly chilled (so leave it in the refrigerator until you're ready to walk out the door if you're taking it to an event). A little time out of the fridge lets the flavors wake up a bit while the last remaining chill keeps the natural sweetness of the blanched almonds from dominating.

But that's a minor detail. The important thing is that you make it. So good.

Lemon and Herbes de Provence Almond Pate

Print the recipe

serves 4-8, adapted from here (post includes credit links)

150g blanched almond meal

1/4 cup lemon juice

1/2 cup unsweetened soy milk

3 TBSP olive oil

1 small clove garlic

1/2 tsp fine sea or kosher salt

1 TBSP herbes de Provence

1 tsp lemon zest (from about half a large lemon)

Blend all ingredients except herbs and lemon zest with an immersion blender until smooth. Stir in herbs and lemon zest.

For a softer spread, heat oven to 350. Divide evenly between two 10-oz ramekins. Bake 40 minutes, until puffed and golden brown on top. The spread can be used immediately as a tart base before baking, or let cool before serving on a tartine or crackers.

Alternately, to mold, line two 10-oz ramekins with a double layer of cheesecloth. Divide the mixture evenly between the ramekins, fold cheesecloth over, and chill for at least 3 hours, or up to overnight. (In a pinch, chill in the freezer for 30 minutes.)

Heat oven to 350. Use the cheesecloth to lift the pate from the ramekins, carefully transfer to an oiled (or parchment-lined) baking sheet (without cheesecloth), and bake 40 minutes, until golden.

Let cool thoroughly before transferring to the refrigerator. Best served slightly chilled.

Party Animals No. 39: Thanksgiving 2015

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MSV's real, live, all-vegan table for 2015:

• Sangria
• Tofu-Pecan Loaf
• Biscuits
• Mashed Potatoes
• Wild Mushroom-Chickpea Gravy
• Cranberry Relish
• Spiced Walnut-Fig Cornbread Dressing
• Mixed Citrus Green Salad
• Apple Cake

The tofu loaf is a slight variation on these tofu-pecan meatballs. The cranberries never get tweaked. You've seen those biscuits and dressing before (printable recipes here and here). The sangria is a bottle of Spanish grenache poured over a sliced orange, a couple handfuls of pineapple chunks, and a small chopped pear. Chill for several hours and drink it down in a fraction of that time.

The salad is 5 oz spring mix tossed in a dressing of equal parts black cherry concentrate, apricot jam, and olive oil with a dose of finely chopped mint. That all gets topped with two oranges, two grapefruit, and a handful of toasted pistachio (serves 4-6). The apple cake is from The Joy of Vegan Baking, and is always pretty. Even when you don't line up your apple slices just so.

The new kid on the table this year actually made its first appearance last year. (In fact, last year's table was such a winner, this year ended up mirroring it almost exactly.) But it's getting shared this year. It's pretty lovable: earthy, thick, and with two kinds of pepper, it's a great addition to any spud (or tofu-pecan loaf). You'll want to whip it up all winter long, holiday or no.

Wild Mushroom-Chickpea Gravy

Print the recipe

yield will vary based on desired consistency

1/2 oz dried wild mushrooms

2 whole black peppercorns

1/4 cup chickpea flour

2 TBSP olive oil

2 cups vegetable broth

1/2 tsp dried thyme

1/2 tsp dried sage

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp fine sea or kosher salt

1/4 tsp ground white pepper

Use a coffee grinder to grind the mushrooms and black peppercorns into a fine powder. Heat a medium pot over medium heat. Add mushroom powder and chickpea flour. Toast, tossing very frequently, until fragrant, a couple of minutes.

Whisk together oil, broth, and all herbs and spices. Add half the liquid to the pot in a steady stream, whisking constantly. Whisk until smooth. Whisk in other half of liquid and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to maintain a steady simmer. Cook, whisking frequently, until thickened to the desired consistency. Adjust salt, if needed.

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Hope anyone who gets a long weekend enjoys it. See you back here next week.

Party Animals No. 38: Halloween 2015

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Murderous cupcake toppers! They happened because Halloween was celebrated at the MSV house this year with a Clue-themed party. Since the party was dreamed up based on the styling in the movie (though all costuming interpretations were welcome), that meant for planning purposes the year was 1954, and everyone had gathered for a fairly fancy dinner. Working with that theme for a casual home party, the spread:

Working front to back:

• Roots & Branches crackers (three varieties: plain, sesame, and black pepper)
• white wine-garlic almond paté
• mushroom-pecan paté
• tart apple, cream cheese, and dijon sandwiches on store-bought seeded wheat bread
• chocolate cupcakes a generous friend contributed
• smoky eggplant-wrapped dates

Scroll down for drink details. The cupcakes and frosting are Isa's recipes. The original plan for the sandwiches was to use brie, but our Whole Foods was out of the Kite Hill soft ripened. A simple swap for Kite Hill cream cheese still made for a really tasty sandwich.

To make the dates, prepare eggplant strips per the instructions in this post. When cool enough to handle, wrap the eggplant around pitted dates, heat them seam-down for 10 minutes in a 400-degree oven, apply toothpicks, and transfer to a serving dish. (You'll get about 25 dates.)

The recipe for the white wine-garlic almond paté is in this post. Served here is the shortcut version where there's no fooling with molding—the paté was served directly from the ramekins. The mushroom paté was only slightly tweaked (only for convenience, and this one is too close to the original for posting the recipe here to be cool) from New Vegetarian, landed a couple months back at a local second-hand bookstore. It's dead lovely. Portobello mushrooms, toasted pecans, shallots, thyme, black pepper, and brandy all team up to make one seriously flavorful, if gray, paté.

Because there's no lily that doesn't get gilded around here, cocktails started with a couple of great syrups made from the ingredients above. That's as close as you'll get to photos of drinks today.

The two main drinks were a ginger-sage sparkling wine cocktail to start, plus rye and ginger ale. The three things offered in dialogue in Clue are champagne, whiskey, and brandy, so that's where planning started. Additionally, there was a big batch of sparkling lavender lemonade, which could be enjoyed alone or combined with gin.

In the back there are the two Mrs. Peacocks chatting with each other.

Back next week with a new recipe.

Hash Brown Bake for MSV's Third Anniversary

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Let's begin with a confession: I created this recipe for Thanksgiving. I know that's a holiday nearly two months away, and this post is for MSV's third anniversary, but bear with me. I also know that Thanksgiving is about as insensitive and manufactured a holiday as you could dream up, but my family celebrates it. I think most holidays here get uncomfortable. Folks in the U.S. fire up the grill and crack open the brews on Memorial Day. We hit big sales at big box stores on Labor Day. National holidays are meant to recognize dramatic parts of our history, yet it's perfectly human to want to gather with friends and family when those of us lucky enough to get it find free time.

I don't think the dominant U.S. culture is particularly good at gathering with people to remember and recognize. We're trained to be optimists and told we're masters of our destinies. When someone tells us their troubles, we're prone to insist the silver lining is bigger than the cloud. Instead of recognizing, we "celebrate," with decidedly upbeat connotation. Jovially celebrating dramatic parts of our history gets inappropriate pretty fast.

To be honest, I do love Thanksgiving as a celebration of fall harvest and as a way to ease the long nights. It helps that it's a food-centric holiday, and my hobby is cooking, and I get to prepare the big meal for my small family. Most of the time, I cook for myself. In a way, I cook for you guys here on MSV. But people need people, and actually serving food to people means something to me.

I took over Thanksgiving hosting duties in my late twenties because one year neither my mother nor my boyfriend's mother, the traditional preparers, wanted to cook. I thought skipping it sounded like a bummer, so I offered to host. I've done it for years now, but I went vegan a few years in, and I'm firm about not cooking animal products in my home. The lack of tradition allows me to tweak the menu annually for variety, and also to figure out what plant dishes everyone likes best. That means by Halloween, I'm fretting about a centerpiece for late November.

My hosting dinner started out with really low stakes. I was just trying to make sure we didn't miss out on a day most of the people we knew were digging into full tables. But I'm testing early this year because this Thanksgiving feels like a bigger deal than it has been in the past.

My boyfriend's mother, Shirley, died in early September after many tough years of living with pulmonary disease. I knew her as a selfless woman who always made me feel welcome in her home (no small task when dealing with someone as lousy at conversation as I am). Even though we weren't legally family, I never doubted that she considered me part of hers. She accepted both me and my relationship with her son and genuinely appreciated them as they are, even if the shape of those might not have been easy for her to understand. She went to her grave without knowing what practicing veganism means, though I'd been doing it for nearly four years at the time of her death. And that my boyfriend and I aren't married after the better part of a decade together is probably a fact that seemed strange (possibly even wrong) to her, but one that she never asked me to answer for.

Shirley kind of hated Thanksgiving, at least in the time I knew her. Occasionally, I feel badly that I probably forced her to keep celebrating it. We might have let the whole thing drop, and I suspect that would've been all right with her. A decidedly fussy eater in general, she once announced over a holiday meal she had prepared that she hated holiday food. But her family loves it.

I didn't host Thanksgiving last year. Shirley struggled once a year with weak lungs to climb the two flights of stairs that lead to our apartment, and she'd understandably had enough of it. She instead searched out one of the buffets in town where we all went together, and I made a spread for my boyfriend and me the next day. Now, given that fall is here, one of the ways my boyfriend and his father have talked about looking ahead and spending time together in the wake of Shirley's death is planning to gather once again at our home for the Thanksgiving meal.

One of the dishes Shirley made for special occasions was a potato casserole, heady with saturated fat, topped with breakfast cereal flakes, and greeted eagerly by everyone in the family (except me, with the incomprehensible diet). I'm not going to try to make it. She liked that casserole. It was one of the few things she did eat off a holiday table(*). It would seem misguided, even ghoulish, to me to try to recreate her casserole. I'm setting this table for people I care about who are in pain. It's important to me to recognize that in whatever small way I can. But I can't quiet the urge to commemorate her when it comes time for me to host my family, and I tend to respond to life with food.

So instead I've worked out a potato dish of my own that I hope will serve a similar function to Shirley's casserole. This one keeps it simple and adds creamy fat through foods I'm comfortable working with, almond meal and soy milk. And as a replacement for the beloved thinly sliced herbed potatoes from Veganomicon I used to make for Thanksgiving, it's much quicker to throw together, a definite bonus when you're putting together a large spread. It also takes one convenient cue from Shirley's casserole by using pre-cut frozen potatoes. Though nontraditional, it's nevertheless a rich and comforting dish. It can't do a thing about the death of a family member. But it's what I need to cook right now.

This is MSV's third anniversary, and I'm grateful you guys are all here for it. In the weeks leading up to this, I persisted in testing a cake to post for today, but I finally had to admit it felt forced. A classic marker of festivity doesn't fit here right now. This fall for my family isn't really about celebration. It's more about recognizing and remembering. We have things to regret and things to be happy for. This year, fewer of us will do just that around a full table.

(*Another was biscuits, which I always made sure to include for her. Note I'm updating that recipe this year to substitute vegetable shortening for half the nondairy butter, which makes a dramatically more tender biscuit. I always used it as an omnivore, but eventually skipped buying it. I recently splurged on the shortening for a gift batch and was shocked at the difference. Sorry I fell down on those biscuits in the last few years, Shirley. You deserved better.)

Creamy Hash Brown Bake

Print the recipe

serves 6-8

1 cup unsweetened soy milk

1 cup blanched almond meal

1 clove garlic

1 TBSP nutritional yeast

1 TBSP lemon juice

3/4 tsp fine sea or kosher salt, divided

1 lb frozen hash browns (look for a brand that contains nothing but potatoes)

3 TBSP panko crumbs

Heat oven to 375.

In a quart jar with an immersion blender, blend milk, almond meal, garlic, nutritional yeast, lemon juice, and 1/2 tsp salt.

In a shallow medium baking dish, spread hash browns evenly. Slowly and evenly pour milk blend over potatoes.

In a small bowl, whisk together remaining 1/4 tsp salt and panko crumbs. Sprinkle evenly over potatoes.

Bake 40 minutes, until creamy throughout and browning at the edges. Switch to the broiler for a few minutes to brown the top. Serve hot.

The Basics No. 1: Scrambles and Hashes to Nourish the Tired Vegan (and Everyone Else, Too)

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First, a note of deep gratitude for all of your help with last week's post. MSV readers did an incredible job of sharing, not to mention making some very generous pledges. So, so many thanks. There's still more than a week left in their Kickstarter, so if you find yourself in a position to help, whether by pledging or talking it up, your contribution is important.

Due to all that, it's really nice to have a post on New Year's Day. If any one year is about fresh starts for the MSV house, 2015 will surely be it. When big changes are afoot, home and hearth can be a comforting anchor, and that's what's going on this week. Today's dead-simple template will help you stay nourished and satisfied even under busy, uncertain, or stressful circumstances. With these basics on hand, you'll never have to wonder what to eat after a long day. There will be protein, and vegetables, and flavor. It will be fast. They're all appropriate for breakfast, lunch, or a breezy dinner. And if you don't feel like it, you don't even have to touch a knife.

This formula relies on indulging in a few expensive ingredients that you'll use in small quantities on the front and back ends to boost the dish's flavor and satiety factor: sun-dried tomatoes or olive oil at the start; smoked almonds, pickled jalapenos, or capers (or kimchi, or sauerkraut) toward the end of cooking. The bulk of these plates is a mix of whichever base you like--tofu, tempeh, or prepared polenta--and, for maximum convenience and economy, frozen vegetables. If washing and chopping and handling fresh foods soothes you after a long day, by all means, go for it. Nothing precludes the use of fresh veg, but when life gets really hectic, it's tough to beat the ease of popping open a bag and dumping pre-cut chunks into a hot pan. Plus, it's usually cheaper, especially in winter. (Except in the case of collards, where you can easily find a comically large bunch for less than two bucks at a large grocer, and pay the difference in washing and chopping labor. Naturally, choose what works for you.)

All manner of green veg work great in hashes and scrambles. They tend to keep a good bite and don't release a lot of liquid, which means it won't hinder the seriously gorgeous surface browning you're going to make sure your base gets. Because that's what takes a scramble or hash from tossed off to something you'll look forward to tucking into.

Collards or other hearty greens work best with chewy tempeh, but there's no reason you can't pair them with polenta squares, if that's what you're craving. Likewise, broccoli's texture is terrific with soft and chewy tofu, but green beans are no slouch, either. One of these dishes feeds one person generously, but it's simple to stretch it to a meal for two (or if you have higher calorie needs) by adding a starch. Toast smeared with a little nondairy butter or a thin layer of tahini (light maple drizzle optional, but pretty heavenly) pairs well with nutty tempeh and greens. Toast works for a tofu scramble, too, but once you've added hunks of hand-torn corn tortillas to the pan for the last half of cooking (for what lazily gets called tofu migas in the MSV house when no one else is around), you might have a hard time pairing any other carb with your tofu scramble.

Speaking of carbs, let's talk polenta. Cooking little chunks until golden is about to become your new favorite way to put those tubes to work. Out of the fridge, it's grainy, slippery on the outside, and generally a little unappealing. But after a few minutes in the pan, those bites become gorgeously soft and especially flavorful when tossed with a shower of nutritional yeast (those green beans, too).

Nutritional yeast, by the way, is highly recommended on all versions here, but considered necessary for the tofu scramble. YMMV. If you're sensitive to the flavor of nutritional yeast, go easy, and the flavor won't be pronounced, but it will add noticeable depth to the finished product. (Likewise, hot sauce served at the table is a fine choice for all hashes, but especially wise for a tofu scramble.)

Because polenta is a grain, edamame is a perfect green accompaniment that adds protein, but there's no reason you can't use another veg and toss in a handful of cooked beans, or crumble in half a block of tempeh. Or don't sweat this plate and get an extra dose of protein at another meal. And if there's a law against enjoying a slice of buttery toast alongside bits of creamy polenta and lightly charred green beans, you're gonna need a lot of bracelets.

And finally, about the knife business, these shots are all of tempeh and polenta that's been cubed with a knife, but don't think you can't tear off bite-size pieces with your hands or crumble the tempeh if you want even smaller bits. With pre-cut frozen veg and your paws, there's no cutting board or knife to wash. Do what feels good, and chow down.

Scrambles and Hashes to Nourish the Tired Vegan (and Everyone Else, Too)

Print the recipe

serves 1 generously, or 2 lightly (see starch option)

To Begin:

1 generous TBSP chopped sun-dried tomatoes in oil

or

1 TBSP olive oil

Veg:

A couple handfuls of any of the following (all frozen, unless you prefer to prep your own):

chopped collards

or

cut green beans

or

cut broccoli

or

shelled edamame

optional flavor boost: fresh scallions, white and green parts, roughly chopped

Base:

14 oz soft (or firm, if you prefer, or have higher calorie needs) tofu, drained

or

8 oz tempeh, in small bite-size cubes (use a knife or your hands)

or

9 oz (1/2 tube) prepared polenta, in bite-size pieces (use a knife or your hands)

Seasoning:

Herbamere or salt, to taste (try a generous 1/4 tsp)

freshly cracked black pepper

2-3 TBSP nutritional yeast, or to taste

optional flavor boost (pick one): 1/4 tsp garlic powder, 1/4 tsp dried sage, 1/4 tsp smoked paprika, 1/4 tsp garam masala, a few dashes liquid smoke

Finishers:

1 TBSP capers in brine, drained

or

1-2 TBSP salted smoked almonds

or

1-2 TBSP pickled jalapeno slices

or

1/4 cup kimchi or sauerkraut, very well drained

Optional Starches to Stretch/Boost:

toast (spread with nondairy butter, or hummus, or pesto, or nut/seed butter with maybe a light touch of maple syrup added), as desired

6-inch corn tortillas, store-bought (or if you have them, day-old), as desired

To serve (optional, pick one):

hot sauce, pico de gallo, maybe even a little warmed marinara, avocado cubes

Heat tomatoes in oil (or just oil) in a large nonstick skillet over medium-medium-high heat (on an electric range, turn the heat up until the pointer is pointing at about 315 degrees on the circle that is your range knob). Add frozen vegetables and cook for a couple minutes, stirring frequently, until they begin to come to life/brighten in color. Add scallions, if using, along with your chosen seasonings.

Add base of choice:

For tofu, tear off hunks and squeeze it roughly through your fist, letting it fall into the pan. Break up any too-large chunks with a spoon, stir to incorporate seasoning, and spread everything in a single layer as best you can. Let cook, undisturbed, five minutes. Toss well (the tofu that was in contact with the pan should look a bit golden now) and add pieces of torn corn tortilla, if using. Let cook, undisturbed, three minutes. Add finishers, toss again, let cook another two minutes undisturbed. If your tofu isn't browned to your liking, let cook a little further, tossing every minute, being careful not to burn. Serve with hot sauce.

For tempeh or polenta, add the pieces to the pan, stir to incorporate seasoning, and spread into a single layer as best you can. Let cook, undisturbed, for about two minutes. Toss. Continue that pattern, stirring every minute or two (let your nose be your guide on when to give it a toss) until the bits are all nicely golden. This will take 5-7 minutes overall, but cook longer if needed to brown your base, being careful not to burn. Add your finishers during the last two minutes of cooking. Serve with topping of choice, if using.

Notes:

The vegetables listed above are suggestions. Feel free to swap your favorite, but note that any vegetable that releases a lot of water will interfere with the browning of your base. Likewise, if using kimchi or sauerkraut as a finisher, set it aside in a sieve to drain thoroughly while you prepare everything else to avoid adding excess liquid to your dish.

Garlic powder is particularly effective in a tofu scramble.

Some favorite combinations you may want to try: tempeh with collards, tofu with broccoli, polenta with edamame (polenta can also be combined with a single handful of veg and half a block of tempeh or a handful of cooked beans to increase protein content, if desired), and either polenta or tofu with green beans.

Party Animals No. 32: Not-Thanksgiving 2014

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Long story short, the MSV house didn't see the same Thanksgiving crowd it has for the last half-dozen years. But that didn't get in the way of breaking out the bubbly, lighting candles, tying on some festive ribbons, and cooking up a heap of food a day after most of the folks we know. And it went a little something like this:

(That's tofu-pecan meatloaf, wild mushroom-chickpea gravy, biscuits, smashed potatoes.)

(Cranberry relish, cornbread-spiced walnut-fig dressing, and a green salad with lots grapefruit and oranges and a black cherry dressing.)

Hope you've all had a generous week, whether you celebrate fall harvest or not. Below is an apple strudel waiting to be dusted with powdered sugar and served with vegan vanilla ice cream, so until next week, thanks for reading.

Phyllo Flodni (and Authenticity) for MSV's Second Anniversary

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MSV turns two! Thanks a heap for being here for it. Like last year, the format of today's celebratory post is different than normal, in that you'll get a story about the recipe. Plus, an identity. I'm Amanda. Right now, I do all the stuff around MSV, and today's recipe is several years in the making for me.

When my friend Julie fed her version of flodni to me nearly a decade ago, I was a minor mess of a person. Some of that is common to folks who are, as I was, in their early twenties—questionable laundry practices, being stuck in a serious relationship I didn’t know how to take seriously. Some of it was less common, like grappling with what I hadn’t yet recognized as chronic anxiety, including social anxiety, which contributed to my habits of working 60-hour weeks, indulging in very regular drinking binges, and being terrified of most food.

I first thought of Julie as a smartass, a really smart one, but in contrast to my inability to treat anything at all seriously back then, I discovered Julie had (and still has) an enviable intellectual curiosity and a deep capacity for sincerity in between cracking wise. She was older than I, had it together, and one year, invited me over to witness the annual tradition of her and her friend making a giant holiday pastry (you can read her writing about that here). I agreed, but, as ever, had to work late. By the time I showed up, exhausted, more than a little intimated, and probably wearing dirty jeans, Julie met me at the door, saying her friend was under the weather and had taken off as soon as the pan was in the oven.

I was embarrassed about having missed the whole thing, and my instinct was to run back to my unhappy home, but Julie was a peach about it. She asked me in, poured me a glass of wine, kept the conversation going (to this day, not my forte), and when the flodni had cooled sufficiently, cut me a slice. Still just warm, fruity, and earthy, it was a generous thing, and I was grateful. Despite a deep conviction that I didn’t deserve it, in clumsy circumstances, I felt welcomed--maybe even a little fussed over--by someone I thought a lot of, and at a time in my life when I probably hadn’t dared to eat a dessert for some time.

So flodni stuck with me. I asked Julie for the recipe two years after that first taste. She sent it to me, and I still didn’t get around to making it. It involves hand-grinding a pound of poppy seeds, after all. But a couple months ago, I realized it might be the perfect labor of love for MSV’s second anniversary. And still I didn’t get around to it. Not the way I meant to, anyway.

Really, it’s a small miracle this thing got made at all. I wasn’t sure MSV would get an anniversary post. A home project is eating up all my discretionary income, and I’ve been spending the last few months cooking large batches of inexpensive ingredients, and taking fewer chances with the fresh ingredients I do splurge on. It doesn’t make for the most interesting blogging and, for someone neither Hungarian nor Jewish, takes all the urgency out of veganizing Hungarian Jewish egg pastry.

But Julie unwittingly helped me to loosen up again. One of her funny notes from six years ago:

“For God's sake, do NOT buy the prepared stuff [poppy seed filling]. It only counts if you sweated and ground poppyseeds [sic].”

I swore she had a line about grunting being a necessary ingredient, but I wasn’t able to track that down in writing.

When I got in touch to let her know I might want to blog a version of her recipe, she offered encouragement and again provided some tips, including this note about the poppy paste:

“I use the canned shit every time now, grinding just enough of my own seeds to stave off the judgmental glare of my dead grandmother.”

[Update: So, hey, it’s 2018 now—Christmas Eve 2018, in fact—and Julie got in touch to update me on the poppy grinding process she uses now. But I want to let this story be told as it was at the time for me in 2014. Update appears at the end, just before the recipe. —A]

Priorities change all the time. I wanted to do justice to this beast, but I admitted to myself that the labor—a big part of Julie’s story about making this huge dessert every year—didn’t have to be part of mine. In fact, missing out on the labor was my story, and what was important to me about flodni was a memory of warmth in a chaotic, tiring, deeply insecure time. That memory can be celebrated—at long last—without spending tons of money and energy developing relatively niche vegan pastry. Because, hey, baking isn’t even my thing.

There’s another part of Julie’s story, a moral to the dessert: you take the bitter with the sweet. Each filling ingredient—the decidedly un-sweet walnuts, poppy seeds, and tart apple—is mixed with sugar and sprinkled with lemon before being layered between rich pastry. And when she originally sent me the recipe, she started her email with this line:

“OK, I have the wrinkled, discolored note paper before me, withdrawn from its secure place (stuck in the pages of a grease-stained Greek cookbook).”

No way using processed, pre-sweetened poppy paste diminishes any of that.

Make no mistake, history matters, and our stories matter. Knowing where a dish comes from can make us think about the circumstances it came from. It can make us feel like we’re participating in something bigger than our own small lives. But recording history is messy, and I think it’s also important to acknowledge that we’re likely viewing only part of the dish’s story. Choosing any one version to the exclusion of all other considerations shouldn’t be done unquestioningly, at the very least. I don’t believe authenticity should be pursued to the detriment of creatures weaker than I am, who rely on me to define their roles in the world, to decide how and when they live and die.

So here I present an entirely unfaithful reproduction of flodni. Changes abound, one from Julie, most from me. First, I’m cutting this recipe down to a quarter of what Julie makes. Second, Julie’s version strays from the common construction. I found most recipes include three thick layers of filling, whereas hers, which I’m using, breaks it up into six. And as the title of the recipe announces, I skipped making my own pastry altogether and enlisted convenient frozen phyllo.

Then there are the poppy seeds. There’s a specialty grinder for just this thing, but I didn’t want to insist on an appliance of that sort here. I ultimately took a cue from modern Indian cooking, grinding poppy seeds well in a coffee grinder and mixing the powder with apple juice to make a paste before finishing them off in the food processor. Julie’s grandmother gets no deference this way, and it can’t be as smooth as the canned shit, but it gets it done.

Finally, I found online a version from a bakery that included a layer of plum jam, which I found knee-bucklingly enticing, so I swapped pureed prunes for the second apple layer. I consider this the most transgressive, since it disrupts the concept of the cake, but prunes are good. For a more traditional pastry, feel free to double the apple layer to replace the plum puree. Next time, I’ll likely do just that, because apples are good, too. It’s an earthy, fruity, generous dish either way, tasting thoroughly of winter celebration.

And for what it’s worth, I managed to splash lemon juice and oil on my copy of the recipe.

WINTER 2018 UPDATE: Julie says:

I abandoned the canned stuff almost as soon as I started using it when I discovered, thanks the miracle of the internet, that my family had made the poppyseed prep unnecessarily difficult. Long epic short, I learned to bring the poppyseeds in about 3 c water per 8 oz to a simmer, turn off the stove, cover the pot, set for 30 minutes, and then repeat the same process once. Then drain through a fine sieve or cheesecloth. They're a lot easier to pulverize that way. (Also, I mix them with condensed milk, but I am sure coconut milk would work as well.)

So there you have it. Still a bit of a process, but less grunting required than her original method, and the result is smoother than my stuff, I’m sure. I’m a little embarrassed at having to be given this method by someone else. After all, if anyone knows about soaking nuts and seeds to make creamy spreads, it’s the vegans, right? But that’s why we’re all in this together. Big thanks to Julie for getting in touch to keep this recipe as generous and user-friendly as possible. Happy counterfeit-flodni making, everyone. —A

Phyllo Flodni

Print the recipe

serves 6, adapted from my pal Julie's grandmother

1/2 cup (about 10) pitted prunes

1/2 cup apple juice, divided, plus another 3 TBSP

1 large lemon, cut into 8 wedges

4 oz poppy seeds

8 oz shelled, unsalted walnuts

4 TBSP natural cane sugar (evaporated cane juice), divided

1 Granny Smith apple

8 oz frozen phyllo sheets, thawed

1/4 cup melted nondairy butter or olive oil

Add the prunes and 1/4 cup apple juice to a small pot. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat, reduce heat to medium-low, and keep at a steady simmer for 10 minutes, or until the prunes are very soft and the juice has reduced to a thin syrup. Carefully transfer pot contents to a quart jar, add 3 TBSP apple juice and the juice of 2 of the lemon wedges. Puree with an immersion blender. Set aside.

Grind the poppy seeds thoroughly in a coffee grinder (it's easiest to do it in two batches). Grind well, making sure you get a little clumping action to be sure you're releasing the oils. Transfer to a mixing bowl, stir in 1/4 cup apple juice, transfer to a food processor with 1 TBSP sugar and process for a total of 5 minutes, scraping the bowl as needed (every minute or so). Transfer back to the mixing bowl and set aside.

UPDATE: Julie now recommends the following process to make the poppy paste. I haven’t tried it, but I trust her experience, and I’m sure it creates a smoother paste than the textured mix I let ride when I posted this recipe. To make the poppy paste, bring the poppy seeds to a simmer in 1 1/2 cups water. Turn off the heat, and let sit, covered, 30 minutes. Repeat the process once. Drain through a fine sieve or cheesecloth before processing to a paste. /UPDATE

Wipe out processor bowl and grind the walnuts and 2 TBSP sugar finely. Set aside.

Peel and grate the apple into a bowl. Stir in 1 TBSP sugar.

Grease a 6-inch cake pan and preheat the oven to 350. Wet and wring out a clean kitchen towel to place over the phyllo to keep it from drying while it's not in use (i.e. while you're adding the filling layers to the pan).

Open the phyllo and use a pizza cutter to cut it into 6x6-inch squares (the rectangular stack is long enough so that you can cut two stacks of 6x6 squares--you should have no problem just cutting through the whole stack with the pizza cutter.) Have your liquid fat in a small bowl along with a brush.

Place one square in the bottom of the cake pan, brush it well with oil, and, working quickly, add another square. Repeat until you have laid five squares in the bottom (don't oil the top square), and cover your unused phyllo with the damp towel. Add half the walnut mixture to the pan, pressing it in evenly with your hands, squeeze the juice of a lemon wedge over the top, and add 3 squares of phyllo, brushing oil in between each layer. Press in half of the poppy mixture, squeeze a lemon wedge over it, repeat 3 phyllo squares, spread on all of the grated apple, squeeze on the lemon juice, and again with the 3 phyllo squares.

Repeat with the remaining nut and poppy layers, end with the pureed prunes, and top with 4 sheets of phyllo. Brush the top sheet thoroughly with oil.

Bake until golden and fragrant, 55-60 minutes. Allow to cool completely before cutting to allow the structure to solidify.

Traditional variation: omit the prune puree and double the apple mixture to use in its place.

Thank you all so much for reading. For those of you who prefer MSV's usual brevity and anonymity, next week will be back to normal style, with a feature to give me more time in the kitchen this fall with less stress.

Party Animals No. 30: Mother's Day Brunch for Two

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Not only did we love celebrating Mother's Day with this wildly colorful, fresh, and flavorful intimate brunch, it was some of the easiest entertaining we've ever arranged, leaving most of our attention devoted to our guest. We whipped up ice cream and cheesecake the day before and sailed into brunch with little more than some chopping and a bit of searing required.

To start, a sparkling wine cocktail. We don't have an ice cream maker, so super-creamy homemade ice creams just can't happen. But since the purity of texture doesn't matter as much when you're making a float, we're getting into it in a pretty serious way as the weather heats up (stay tuned for another float coming in the near future). To make this drink, drop a large melon baller's worth of strawberry ice cream into a flute, pour over half an ounce of orange liqueur, top with bubbly of choice, and finish with a squeeze of fresh lemon or lime juice.

Next up, food. The salad, we winged, but it's one large peeled cucumber, seeded and diced, tossed with a small handful of chopped cilantro and, say, a couple of cups of chopped fresh pineapple. Add half a minced jalapeno, a generous pinch of salt, and lime juice to taste, a tablespoon or so. Let sit for a few minutes to let the flavors mingle before serving.

For the main event, we went with a stack, something in the neighborhood of a Tofu Benedict. Split an English muffin and toast the cut sides. Then follow our instructions here for the tofu and green beans, using only seven ounces tofu (cut into four slices--half the recipe over there) and substituting one dozen trimmed green beans for the asparagus in that post. And be sure to add a generous sprinkle of black pepper to the tofu along with the other seasonings.

To serve, top each muffin half with half a dozen green beans, two slices of tofu, and smother each in this pretty wonderful roasted red pepper-avocado sauce. This makes more sauce than needed for the brunch for two, but you'll be thrilled to have the leftovers.

Dead Simple Roasted Red Pepper-Avocado Sauce

Print the recipe

flesh of 1 ripe avocado

2 large roasted red peppers (jarred or freshly roasted)

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp dried dill

1 TBSP lemon juice

1 tsp dijon mustard

dash hot sauce

Blend all ingredients until very smooth. Adjust seasoning, if necessary.

We wrapped the meal with the Lemon Cheesecake recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking, which has never failed to please any of our crowds. We whipped up a simple ginger snap cookie crust for the base and for a topping, sliced strawberries lightly marinated in equal parts orange liqueur and black walnut balsamic vinegar.

Party Animals No. 29: Spiced Almonds Two Ways (from Pure Vegan) for a Birthday Gift

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When we received the invitation to an (obligation-free) birthday dinner for one of our loveliest friends, we knew we didn't want to come empty-handed.  So out came the cookbooks, and the spiced nuts from Pure Vegan felt like the right fit. We followed directions from the book precisely, but we'll give you the rough outline.

First up, the maple-ginger-tamari almonds. Equal parts grade B maple syrup and reduced-sodium tamari (the book does not call for R-S, but it's all we ever use) are whisked together with olive oil and a dose of powdered ginger. Bake until browned, let cool, et voila.

The vanilla-mint nut recipe is really a recipe for pistachios, but we had extra almonds and no pistachios on hand. (Pistachios do not last long in the MSV kitchen.)

Give the nuts a preliminary toast (about half the total time), and meanwhile, combine one part fine sea salt, one part vanilla extract, and three parts each olive oil and minced fresh mint. Toss together, pop back in the oven for the last half of toasting, and let cool. Or serve warm. Bliss.

Both recipes yield a beautiful nut that isn't too heavily seasoned. They make elegant snacks alone or can jazz up a salad. And don't forget to toss them on top of ice cream. Enjoy.

Party Animals Nos. 26 and 27: Christmas Eve Dinner and Christmas Day Brunch 2013

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We celebrated Christmas Eve this year by putting together a comforting spread of homemade foods inspired by some of the U.S.'s favorite bits of Japanese cuisine. We kicked off the evening with a cocktail, which we found here.

This Shiba Dog, as they're calling it, is a lovable, dead simple drink. We made one adjustment to the suggested recipe by using nigori sake. We suggest you make an additional adjustment by forgetting the salted rim altogether. It was an overwhelming nuisance. But by all means, mix equal parts nigori sake and grapefruit juice at every opportunity. (And check Barnivore before buying your sake. We somehow failed to back when we bought this bottle, and ended up with a brand that isn't vegan-friendly.)

Next up, Miso Soup with Mushroom Wonton Dumplings. We're working to nail down MSV's official dashi, so the soup recipe isn't quite ready to share. In the meantime, we're enjoying every last test bowl.

For this special occasion, we added some gorgeously salty and savory mushroom wonton dumplings using our gorgeously salty and savory mushroom filling recipe. We omitted the cashews, so the only crunch in the soup would come from the spring onion garnish, and we substituted for the morels the shiitakes we used to make the dashi. Feel free to use nothing but button mushrooms, and you'll still have tasty morsels on your hands.

With time running out after a quick look around town yielded not a single commercial vegan wonton wrapper, we decided we'd have to make our own pasta for the dumplings. Method here, but we used a dough much easier to work with by using roughly 1 1/3 cups flour, 1/4 tsp salt, and 1/2 cup warm water. The great little folding tutorial we used is here. Adorable.

Vegan nigiri sushi trio: roasted red pepper (jarred, and we looked for a variety that, contrary to our usual preference, contained added sugar to make sure we got a lovely shot of sweetness); sliced avocado; and blanched, pressed tofu marinated in a simple, addictive soy-miso sauce from Kansha. (Knoxville readers, remember that Lawson-McGhee has a copy of Kansha you can check out--highly recommended.)

And finally, for dessert, we continued the theme by using both matcha and ginger, but also included a nod to the common Western European-American Christmas tradition by including a heap of sorghum (in lieu of molasses) and other spices. The result was a dense, moist, terrific gingerbread cake with a matcha glaze. (Cake veganized from Tartine, matcha glaze spotted in Pure Vegan.) You can see the cake at the very top of this post. It wasn't very pretty, but it was incredibly tasty. And paired beautifully with straight nigori sake.

The following morning, brunch! The MSV kitchen doesn't host this brunch, but we do make a few contributions.

Almond-crusted zucchini strips. So incredibly good. You can find our coating recipe here, but instead of using mushrooms, we cut one giant zucchini into 6 1/4-inch-thick planks. Bake on one side for 15 minutes, flip, and bake another 10-15 minutes, until golden (more golden than this shot indicates, sorry) and mind-blowingly fragrant.

On the side, fluffly little corn muffins seasoned like hush puppies. Yum. This was a first test of this recipe, and we have some ambitions for it, we think. It may reappear before long, depending on our progress with these.

And, finally, Apple-Blueberry Doughnut Cobbler. This bit of ridiculousness comes from BHG. Be warned, the mini doughnuts got a little too crispy in spots (they tasted fine, but were a bit difficult to cut), so we suggest using either full-size doughnuts or covering the cobbler for the first half of baking. And, if you hadn't already guessed, this is only for the serious sweet tooth.

Our version is different from BHG's a little, so here goes:

We made old-fashioned doughnuts the day before to make this a snap to assemble. For the filling, we used two Granny Smith apples, two Honeycrisp apples, and one cup of frozen blueberries. First, measure out the blueberries, but keep them in the freezer. Slice the apples, and cut those slices in half. Toss them with the juice of half a lemon (or lime, of course, but juice the whole lime, if substituting). Whisk together 1/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup flour, 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon, and 1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg. Toss the apples with that mixture, then carefully stir in the blueberries. Top with the doughnuts, drizzle with 2 TBSP of melted nondairy butter or coconut oil, and bake at 375 for 45 minutes.

See you all next year.

Party Animals Nos. 24 and 25: Post-Thanksgiving Party 2013 and a Christmas Party

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Talk about festive. To get everyone started at our post-Thanksgiving party (held annually at the MSV house on the Friday after Thanksgiving) this year, we offered a pitcher of Cranberry-Rosemary Sangria. Really good. We recommend topping off each glass with a bit of dry bubbly to make this drink perfect.

(Also, note that we had the wrong apples on hand when we made the test run, which is what was photographed. We did use the Granny Smith apples called for in the recipe the day of the party.)

The post-Thanksgiving party is mostly about leftovers, but we always provide a couple of soups and a couple of loaves of crusty bread to supplement. This year we made miso soup with a shiitake dashi from Moosewood Low-Fat Favorites. (This also made for the best possible breakfast the morning after the party) and a carrot-ginger soup from The Curry Book.

And now this weekend is our first Christmas party of the season, and to it we're taking a pitcher of Horchata White Russians. This is a genius idea for a dairy-free, gorgeous, and winter-ready mixed drink. Our recipe came from Pure Vegan, and the sweet, cinnamon-packed horchata, like everything else we've tried from that book, is pretty stunning in this drink.

But it's not the only ingredient, of course. To assemble the drink, add a half-cup of horchata to an ounce each of vodka and coffee liqueur. We made our own liqueur using this super-fast recipe. Ready in days, not weeks. Bring on the cheer.

Party Animals No. 23: Thanksgiving 2013

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For you new readers, the MSV kitchen hosts a real, live Thanksgiving every year. Now that that's out of the way, this is the post that needs no introduction.

But we will add two notes. Recipes below call for both nondairy milk and nondairy butter. This year, for the first time, we used Miyoko Schinner's homemade butter recipe (from the October 2013 VegNews). Our doughs this year were both the fussiest raw and the loveliest finished products we've ever had. Because our kitchen is a home kitchen and not a controlled test kitchen, we can't guarantee either of those were due to the change in butter, but it's the only thing we altered from previous years. But we think it's the combination of that with the cold weather. So you know. As ever, our nondairy milk of choice is our homemade almond-oat.

The recipes for biscuits, cranberry relish, and roasted apples with balsamic drizzle are unchanged from last year.

For our main dish this year, we made a shepherd's pie filled with earthy, meaty Puy lentils, tender eggplant, and rich toasted pecans further flavored by a pile of garlic and given a touch of sweetness and a bit of color from grated carrots.

Lentil Shepherd's Pie

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serves 8

For the potatoes:

1 1/2 lb white or gold potatoes, chopped into 1-inch pieces

1/2 tsp fine sea or kosher salt

2 TBSP olive oil

freshly cracked black pepper, to taste

2 TBSP nutritional yeast

1/2-1 cup nondairy milk, warmed

For the lentils:

8 oz eggplant (half of a medium), peeled and cut into 1/4-1/2-inch dice

1/2 cup unsalted pecan halves

1 cup dried Puy lentils

2 1/2 cups water

2 TBSP olive oil

6 cloves garlic, minced

2 shallots (about 2 oz total weight), minced

6 oz carrot (2 large or 3 medium), peeled and grated

1 tsp dried basil

1 tsp dried parsley

1 tsp dried marjoram

2 TBSP low-sodium tamari

1 tsp liquid smoke

1/4-1/2 cup vegetable broth, divided

1 TBSP chickpea flour

To prepare the potatoes, boil them in enough water to cover by a couple of inches until very tender, about 30 minutes. Drain well and quickly transfer to the bowl of a stand mixer. Use the beater to mash the potatoes thoroughly on low speed, a minute or two. Add the salt, oil, pepper, and nutritional yeast, and beat another half-minute to incorporate, adding nondairy milk to reach your desired consistency. Switch to the whisk attachment and whip for five minutes, until fluffy. (Alternately, use any method you like to mash to the potatoes.)

To prepare the lentil mixture, heat the oven to 400 degrees. Spread the eggplant in a single layer on a cookie sheet and roast 20 minutes, until browned on the edges, tossing halfway through. After tossing, add the pecans to the oven and toast them for the remaining 10 minutes, checking occasionally to avoid burning. Let cool, then process into crumbs in a food processor.

Reduce oven to 350.

Meanwhile, place the lentils in a medium pot with 2 1/2 cups water and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook until tender, 20-25 minutes. Set aside in a mesh sieve to allow to drain thoroughly.

Heat 2 TBSP olive oil in a large skillet. Cook the onion, garlic, and grated carrot until tender, about 5 minutes. Add the basil, parsley, marjoram, tamari, and liquid smoke. Stir thoroughly and cook for another couple of minutes.

Whisk together 1/4 cup vegetable stock and chickpea flour to make a slurry. Add the lentils to the skillet, stir to combine, and add the slurry. Stir well and cook until warmed through. The mixture should be very moist, but not saucy. Add more stock, if needed, or continue cooking to let excess moisture cook off, if needed.

Remove skillet from heat, stir in eggplant and pecans, and adjust seasoning. Transfer the lentil mixture to a deep 9-inch-round pan. Scoop the mashed potatoes on top in large dollops all over the surface and gently smooth out to cover. Bake 20 minutes, until potatoes are lightly browned.

This is pretty much the same old beloved dressing we've made each year, but we streamlined the process and went with a chunkier, looser assembly. If you prefer a tighter, more sliceable dressing, simply skip the oven-drying of the cornbread, crumble it rather than cube it, and press the final mixture tightly into the dish before baking.

And finally, we left it out of the recipe this year, but you can add 1/2 tsp of fennel seed along with the walnuts, if desired.

Spiced Walnut-Fig Cornbread Dressing

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serves 8-10

1 loaf (generous 1 lb) cornbread, cut into 1-inch cubes

2/3 cup dried mission figs, quartered

2 TBSP oil

1 large yellow onion, very finely chopped

2 tsp finely chopped fresh rosemary

8 oz walnut halves, finely chopped / crumbled in a food processor

1 tsp dried basil

1 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp dried rubbed sage

1 tsp dried thyme

1/2 tsp crushed red pepper

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp onion powder

2 TBSP low-sodium tamari

fine sea or kosher salt

freshly cracked black pepper

1/2 cup nondairy milk

1/4 cup olive oil

1/2-1 cup vegetable stock

Preheat the oven to 400. Spread the cornbread cubes in a single layer on a baking sheet and cook until dry and barely toasted, 10-12 minutes. Set aside to let cool, then transfer to a large mixing bowl.

Reduce oven heat to 350.

Meanwhile, place the figs in a heatproof bowl and pour in hot water to cover. Let stand 20 minutes, drain, and add them to the cornbread.

Heat 2 TBSP oil in a large skillet. Saute the onion and rosemary until the onion turns translucent, 5-7 minutes. Add the walnut crumbles and all spices, including tamari. Stir and cook until warm, fragrant, and no liquid remains in the bottom of the skillet, about 3 minutes.

Add the contents of the skillet to the mixing bowl and season generously with salt and pepper. Stir to incorporate, breaking up any large cornbread pieces, but being careful not to reduce it to crumbs.

Whisk together the milk, 1/4 cup oil, and 1/2 cup of the vegetable stock. Pour over the mixture and stir well. The mixture should be very moist, but not wet. Add more stock, if needed, and transfer to a lightly oiled baking dish. Bake 45-60 minutes, until golden on top.

So, those are biscuits, because we failed to get a shot of the spaghetti squash. But it tastes way better than it looks, anyway, so don't skip this one (and do feel free to reduce the oil to make it friendly for any weeknight meal). In fact, go ahead and double the Savory Nut Crumble recipe when you go to make it for this dish, because you're going to want to have some on hand to sprinkle on other meals throughout the week. In fact, even if you never make this squash, take five minutes to make a batch of the Savory Nut Crumble. It's a green salad's best friend.

Roasted Spaghetti Squash with a Savory Nut Crumble

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serves 6-8, adapted from The Cheesy Vegan

1 small-medium spaghetti squash (about 2 1/2 lbs total weight)

1/4 cup olive oil, plus additional 2 tsp, for roasting

1/2 tsp dried thyme

1/2 tsp dried basil

1/4 tsp dried rosemary

1/4 tsp smoked paprika

1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg

Savory Nut Crumble, recipe follows, to taste

Preheat the oven to 400. Split the spaghetti squash lengthwise, discard the seeds, rub the cut sides with 2 tsp oil, and roast, cut-side down, until tender, 45-60 minutes. Let cool.

Add the thyme, basil, rosemary, and paprika to a skillet with 1/4 cup oil and warm gently. When the squash is cool enough to handle, scrape out the flesh into a serving dish. Remove the oil from heat, grate in 1/4 tsp nutmeg, and toss thoroughly with the squash. Top generously with the Savory Nut Crumble and serve.

Savory Nut Crumble

1/4 cup raw almonds

1/4 cup raw walnut halves

2 TBSP nutritional yeast

zest of 1/2 lemon

1/4 tsp fine sea or kosher salt

Process the almonds in a food processor until broken up into small pieces. Add all other ingredients and process into crumbs. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Oh, hi, pie. We never use anything but Gesine's pie dough. It just works. (Unless we're making a cookie crust, of course. Because those are just dead simple.)

Sorghum-Maple Pecan Pie. We used Isa's recipe, replacing half of the maple syrup with sorghum syrup. We also whipped up a batch of vanilla salt (made by stirring the contents of 1 vanilla bean into 1 TBSP fleur de sel) to sprinkle on individual slices, as desired. Ridiculously good with the vanilla salt. Expensive, but good.

Pear-Cranberry Pie. To our tongues, this pie tastes exactly like the season. To fill our pie, we stirred together the following:

2 pears, thinly sliced

1/2 cup fresh cranberries

zest of 1/2 lemon

1 TBSP lemon juice

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

6 TBSP natural cane sugar (evaporated cane juice)

2 TBSP quick-cooking tapioca

To finish it off, we suggest milking the top and sprinkling with a cinnamon-sugar mix (we use 1 part cinnamon to 2 parts sugar). Then bake until golden and bubbly.