Thanksgiving in pictures

And that's what a 100% vegan Thanksgiving looks like. Delicious, as always.

Somehow I did not get a picture of the pie. (Probably because we were all too busy eating it.)

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend!

Twas the night before Thanksgiving

...and we went out for huge platters of Puebla food and talked about racism in America.

Thanksgiving week would be an appropriate time for that discussion even if the past few days (or 3 months, or 50 years) hadn't been so bad. I try not to use this site for politics, but we're in beyond-the-pale territory right now. Turning a blind eye perpetuates the system. So if you haven't been paying attention to Ferguson, now is the time to go read #FergusonDecision (and just plain #Ferguson and #blacklivesmatter and #TamirRice and so many others), and the New Yorker coverage and On Being a Black Male, Six Feet Four Inches Tall, in America in 2014 and A one-chart summary of every Ferguson eyewitness's grand jury testimony and Telling my son about Ferguson.

And, if you're going to end up at a table with your racist great-aunt Carol tomorrow, you'll probably want to read Here's How to Talk About Ferguson Around the Thanksgiving Dinner Table This Year too.

Start paying attention. Start talking.

Now back to our regular programming.

Tomorrow we're having vegan Thanksgiving at Chrissy and Ben's house. This afternoon I made a Veganomicon cranberry orange bread (sans walnuts and with double orange peel) and a batch of Budget Bytes' no-knead focaccia rolls, both with whole wheat flour. (The no-knead absolutely works with wheat flour as long as you oil the sponge before you let it rest for its 18 hours, so it won't develop a crust. I did a test run last week, and they worked out beautifully.)

I'm going to bring a dish of mixed vegetables -- delicata squash, tokyo turnips, cauliflower, carrots, onion, and thyme -- ready to roast as soon as we get there. Wine, crackers, and almonds will also be making an appearance. Chrissy and Ben are taking care of the mains, mashed potatoes, gravy, salad, and pumpkin pie. We are set.

Are you ready for Thanksgiving? Yes? Maybe? Not quite? Not at all?

Well, if you need some last-minute ideas for a vegetarian Thanksgiving, you've come to the right place.

I find that the key to creating a satisfying vegetarian dinner is to get away from the idea of protein as centerpiece. Protein is in all kinds of different foods! And if you're making a large multi-dish feast to begin with, you have ample opportunity to satisfy everyone.

Snacks and tidbits

- Refrigerator giardiniera
- Spicy caramel corn with maple, almond, and sesame
- Cashew cheese with dill and red onion
- Homemade baked tortilla chips
- Refrigerator dill pickles

Soups

- Carrot and white bean soup
- Classic potato leek soup
- Black bean cauliflower soup
- Purple carrot soup
- Beet soup (also purple, although less surprisingly so)
- Cauliflower leek soup with smoked pepper flakes

Salads

- Fall salad with apples and almonds
- Couscous salad with chickpeas, golden beets, and zucchini
- Lentils vinaigrette
- Big green salad with chickpeas and herb vinaigrette
- Beet and goat cheese salad

Vegetables

- Broccolini vinaigrette with chopped egg and red onion
- Simple golden beet and green bean melange
- Brussels sprout, onion, and apple hash (contains bacon, but you can sub butter or oil)
- Sauteed carrots with spicy brown mustard
- Baby leek and potato gratin
- Our entire xmas 2012 vegetable menu

Main dishes

- Spanish tortilla
- Baked pasta shells with basil ricotta cream
- Twice-baked sweet potatoes with black beans and broccoli
- Pasta fagioli
- BRIGHT PINK beet risotto

Desserts

- Ginger almond yogurt cake
- Judy's amazing apple dumplings
- Classic (veganified) pumpkin pie via Food52 & Choosing Raw
- Ginger molasses cookie ice cream sandwiches with pineapple coconut ice cream
- Swedish farmer cookies

Drinks

- Classic Negroni cocktail
- Fields of Gold cocktail
- Rosemary lemon gin sour
- White grapefruit mimosas

Have a happy Thanksgiving.

Pi day 2014!

OH MAN.

This year, after being invited but unable to attend for the past couple of years, I finally got to go to my friend Jen's pi day party.

WHY HAVE I NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE.

This here is about 1/3 of the actual menu of different pies available. There was a full table of dinner pies--chicken pot pie, lamb shepherd's pie, spanakopita, clearly also some other kinds of pie--and a second full table of dessert pies. Check it out:

The whole "phone picture in a dark room" thing worked out about as well as I thought it would. That's ok! You can at least get an idea of the vast, munificent bounty. VAST.

In addition to the listings on the actual menu, there was custard pie with whipped cream, blueberry, key lime, and apple streusel. Actually, the apple streusel may be the vegan apple pie listed. There were so many that I'm not sure.

I hear that the strawberry lemon was the best, but really all of the pies were the best. PIE.

Also, see these tiles? See the grey ones that are all in lines of different heights? That is in fact a visual representation of the number pi on Jen & Rob's kitchen wall. You know they are taking both math and baked goods very seriously indeed if they had pi grouted into their wall. I'm just saying.

Note the bright purple KitchenAid. YES.

I had six kinds of pie and three glasses of red wine and was well satisfied with my lot in life. Chicken pot pie, spanakopita (which was SO GOOD and I really am kicking myself for not taking one for the road when Jen offered; clearly I am going to have to ask for the recipe), custard, cafe au lait (that's the towering one in the first pic), chocolate, and this cherry vanilla lattice-top.

Thank you to Jen & Rob for a lovely party!

What kind of pie did you bake (or, like me, just eat) this pi day?

Christmas morning red onion and dill schmear

So many people have family traditions of an elaborate christmas morning breakfast, full of every dish imaginable: sweet sticky cinnamon buns and coffee cakes, waffles and french toast drenched in syrup and buried in compotes, muffins bursting with blueberries or cranberries, platters of crispy bacon, savory sausage, or both, and of course the most classic of all breakfast foods: the egg.

We make none of these things. Instead, the traditional holiday breakfast around here is the bagel.

Bagels, unlike most of the breakfasts above, require almost zero effort. All you really need to do is slice them in half, toast them to your specifications, and spread them with your choice of deliciousnesses. Pour yourself a cup of coffee and you have the perfect breakfast.

But on a holiday morning like this, I want at least a little fance. This calls for a homemade schmear!

I decided to try out a combination I've had kicking around in my head for awhile: red onion and fresh dill. I wanted to add chopped capers as well, but our jar of capers turned out to be way too old to use, so I opted for black pepper instead. The results were not only delightfully crunchy, savory, and herbal, but also oddly reminiscent of my favorite egg salad. But then, I tend to use as much dill as possible there, so that makes sense.

If you aren't into red onion and dill, have some more schmear ideas: one and two. So many delicious combinations!

Red onion, dill, and black pepper schmear

cream cheese
red onion
fresh dill
black pepper
plain yogurt or milk, optional

Finely mince about a quarter of a red onion. Pick the leaves off about ten stems of dill and chop them up too.

In a small bowl, combine a couple large slices of cream cheese with the red onion and dill. Grind a generous amount of black pepper over the top. Add a spoonful of yogurt or a small splash of milk for ease of mixability.

Mash everything together with a fork until well combined. Check out the ingredient proportions and add more of whatever you think might be lacking.

Spread your schmear on the toasted bagel of your choice. Eat with impunity.

Also, have a cup of coffee. COFFEE.

Now you will be well fortified to rip open presents.

Hope you all have a wonderful holiday and get some much-needed relaxation in!

Did I say white grapefruit mimosas?

Yes, I did.

White grapefruit mimosa

freshly squeezed white grapefruit juice
dry sparkling wine

Combine equal amounts of juice and wine in champagne flute or coupe.

Don't even bother garnishing this. Just drink it.

SO GOOD.

If you have a mimosa tradition on Christmas morning? Try this. You won't be sorry.

Dried tart cherry rum orange shortbread cookies

Are you ready to descend into the holiday cookie vortex? I mean, the entire foodblogging population seems to be there already, wildly waving quarter sheet pans and spatulas and sporting an amazing array of holiday aprons as they spin through billowing gusts of flour and sugar. Let's go!

First on the agenda: dried tart cherry rum orange shortbread cookies. Super festive!

I have a taste for teeny tiny cookies, and also for homemade slice-and-bakes. So what did I do? I made a simple shortbread dough and mixed it up with fresh orange zest and dried tart cherries soaked in rum. I made the dough into four long, thin rolls, squared them off (just for a change--although round cookies are probably technically superior since they don't have any corners sticking out for accidental burning), let them chill, and cut them into a plethora of little squares. Then I baked them and cooled them and wow! Tender, fruit-filled cookies for all!

I made these for our annual knitters' cookie exchange, which meant I needed a whole lot of cookies to divide up and distribute. One batch of dough made roughly 180 tiny cookies. Perfect! If you make bigger rolls of dough, you will get fewer cookies, but it's still going to be the same amount of overall goodness, so hey.

I actually only had to bake half the dough to get a full complement of cookies for all; the other half is still hanging out in our fridge, waiting for future cookie-baking endeavors (i.e. for us to eat all the other cookies I brought home from said exchange). This brings us to another selling point: you can make up a couple rolls of dough, refrigerate or freeze them, and bake whenever you so desire. Super convenient for those late-night cookie impulses.

Also, the leftover rum that the cherries didn't soak up? HIGHLY recommended. There was only a tiny bit left in my pan, but it was amazing: almost like a cherry-flavored port. I'm definitely going to experiment with infusing a batch of dried tart cherry rum now.

Dried tart cherry rum orange shortbread cookies

Adapted from Everybody Likes Sandwiches' cranberry rum shortbread cookies.

1 cup dried tart cherries
1/2 cup plain old white rum
1 cup softened butter
zest of one orange
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 cups flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder

Start by finely chopping your cherries. This will be especially important if you want to make tiny cookies; big chunks of cherry tended to encourage crumbling in the finished product. You can avoid that by chopping your cherries now. The smaller your cookies, the tinier your cherry pieces should be for overall physical stability. My cherries were too big. Take note!

Put your cherries and your rum in a small saucepan. Bring the pan to a boil, lid, and turn off the heat. Let the cherries soak up all the rummy goodness for at least half an hour.

To make the dough, cream together your butter, orange zest, vanilla, and powdered sugar. Sift the remaining dry ingredients together in another bowl (I actually did the separate dry mixture this time! A culinary first). Add the dry mix to the wet in batches, beating well with a wooden spoon or the implement of your choice. You may need to get in there and use your hands with the last batch of dry ingredients. Add the drained cherries and mix or knead to distribute them throughout the dough.

Separate your dough into four equal parts. Form each part into a roll, wrap in plastic wrap or foil, and refrigerate for several hours or overnight. At this point you can also chuck a roll or two in the freezer to save for later instant-cookie baking.

To bake, preheat your oven to 375F. Cut a roll or two of your dough into quarter-inch slices and arrange them on parchment-lined cookie sheets. Bake for about ten minutes, checking a bit earlier if you're making particularly tiny cookies. Your cookies are done when they are set and have turned lightly golden around the edges. Let cool on the sheet for about 5 minutes before removing to a rack.

Eat with tea, coffee, or the proverbial nog. Or pack your cookies into bags and send them home with all your friends! It's all good.

What kind of cookies are you baking this holiday season?

Thanksgiving in pictures

Everyone needs some arts and crafts to start off the holiday right. We ate a lot of Paper Doll Parade's maple rosemary roasted nuts while searching through every shade of brown, orange, yellow, and red the Crayola 64 assortment had to offer.

This was the first Thanksgiving at which I've had meat since 2006. I made some salami tidbits (which, true to form, everyone stood around the stove and ate as soon as possible) and Veronica and Simon, who were so kind as to host, brined and roasted a chicken.

The full dinner menu: the aforementioned chicken, roasted potatoes and carrots, mashed sweet potatoes mirepoix, salad, and lots of gravy. I also made apple dumplings for dessert. Needless to say, everyone was VERY FULL.

Here's my plate before liberal application of gravy. SO MUCH GRAVY. That was by far the best part of having meat for Thanksgiving. I can totally cook and eat a gigantic vegan celebratory meal with no problem except for the lack of good gravy.

SO MANY LEFTOVERS. The chicken carcass got tossed immediately into a stockpot for stock. (I also made stock a couple days later from the few bones and skin and etc that came home with me.)

Of course you know what leftovers mean. They mean that the next morning you can cut open a bagel, toast it nicely, and layer on all the sweet potato, chicken, and salad greens in the land. Some cream cheese made an appearance as well. So did a big cup of hot black tea with the season's first big whack of eggnog.

Definitely the perfect ending to a celebratory weekend.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!

All holiday all the time

Man, this week is just packed full of festivities. Pancake Day! Pazcki Day! Lincoln's birthday! Mardi Gras! The state of the union address! Ash Wednesday! Chinese New Year! Valentine's Day! I bet I'm missing a few more!

You know I'm the one who wants to celebrate the state of the union instead of any actual holidays. HA.

Okay, maybe Pazcki Day too. The thing is that there aren't really any pazcki in the bay area, at least that I'm aware of, so celebrating with them is a bit difficult, especially a couple days after the fact. Now I miss Michigan. I hear the best pazcki in Ann Arbor are at Amadeus...

Right. Anyway, because it is actually Valentine's Day today, have a delightful treat.

That's right: oatmeal with yogurt and raspberry jam is about as valentiney as it gets at our house. And let me tell you: it is really, really good. Who needs dessert when you can have such an amazing breakfast?

Of course, I'm also making myself a lovely batch of shrimp etouffee for lunch--but that's a little more in line with Mardi Gras.

Oh well. Happy festivity of your choice!

What are you celebrating this week?

Portland: the reckoning

Many people got all excited about sports this past weekend. John and I did not. In fact, we actively ran away from SF, caught a plane up to Portland, and thus nicely avoided nearly any mention of football. Okay, that wasn't the actual reason we went to Portland--it was more a combination of work and just wanting a nice weekend away--but it was a convenient side effect. Hooray!

Since Portland is essentially a mecca of amazing food, we had not only a delightful time but an equally delightful assortment of food and drinks.

On the very first night, right after checking into our hotel, we decided we couldn't wait to run up the street and have the most local of beers at Tugboat Brewery. This is the bar (and brewery) I most wish were up the street from our house. Who wouldn't want to hang out in a bar with this many bookshelves?

The beer is strikingly delicious as well. Our favorite of their beers on tap was the Red Cloud, but there was also a truly amazing stout (the name of which I can't remember), Chernobyl, that was so strong it was only available by the half pint. WELL. Can't argue with that, especially if you like dark beers, which we do.

Taking pictures in the bar in the dark always works exceptionally well, doesn't it? That's why I have no pictures at all from our fabulous Saturday night dinner at Grüner with Michelle of The Hoot Eats. It was dark! But then the food was also completely delicious, and the company more than delightful, so I think that makes up for the darkness admirably.

Believe it or not, this was my first foodblogger meetup ever! It certainly won't be the last. It's always so nice to discover people are even more awesome than you suspect--especially if you, like me, lack social skills and are therefore a bit nervous about meeting new people. Obviously I don't actually need to be!

I hadn't had German food in ages, which is just sad, but Grüner certainly fixed that. So now I have a strong impulse to try to recreate their jägerschnitzel and mustard-seedy spätzle at home. There was also very tasty red cabbage, but I'm pretty sure I actually know now to make that already. Actually, maybe I will make some of that tonight...muahaha, etc. Because it's evil cabbage? Sure.

You might think that a German restaurant would not be the best place to take a vegetarian. Well, you would be wrong, because John was pretty happy with his dinner: kale salad with kohlrabi, asiago, and intense lemon dressing, and a plate of bright pink beet and ricotta dumplings with poppyseeds. We also threw several longing glances toward other diners' plates of amazing-looking beet-pickled deviled eggs. OM NOM NOM.

Afterward, we went next door and had fancy cocktails (always a plus) at Kask. We are generally not the type of people to go out to bars on a weekend night--we're way more likely to hit up Tuesday or Wednesday happy hour at our local beer garden, and get home by seven--so I wasn't quite expecting the massive amount of people there, but the drinks were obviously worth it. There was such a huge variety of cocktails that I literally can't remember what I had--although Michelle's negroni flip was pretty amazing, and John's pink gin (when's the last time you were in a bar that had a pink gin on its menu?) was classic and perfect.

A most delightful evening. And afterward?

Food carts.

Hey, it was several hours after dinner by that point! And we couldn't leave the city without eating something from a food cart--we'd probably get fined. So we went to the corner of SW 5th and Stark, found an Egyptian cart that is evidently so new there is no mention of it anywhere on the internet--something Pharaoh. Small Pharaoh?--and got two gigantic sandwiches, one falafel and one lamb kebab. This was the perfect meal to tipsily eat in our hotel room late at night while watching videos on the internet. Yes.

Okay. What else did we eat? Let me sum up.

- Homey & comforting black beans and rice with sweet yellow carrots at Danny & Bethany's house.
- Chilaquiles and coffee at The Original Dinerant--terrible name, but good and very filling chilaquiles. What did John have? I don't remember. Coffee, anyway.
- Plenty of hotel lobby coffee, which was actually Stumptown. Drinking coffee while walking around Portland is one of the best things.
- Thai Peacock: summer rolls, pad kee mao, and evil noodle with peanut sauce and tofu. It was a super-peanut spectacular of a meal. I was so happy to have some Thai before we went back home, where there are several Thai places in walking distance, but they're all bad. Also, prettiest summer roll presentation ever!

- Juice at Prasad with my friend YT. I had a concoction called the Honey Green, with coconut milk and matcha powder and honey and strawberry and cucumber: EPIC. John had more coffee, this time in americano form, because coffee. Coffee was kind of the theme of the weekend, really.
- A tableful of post-tiring-hike pizza with Danny and Bethany and their tiny dudes and many multiplication flashcards. This was the first time I've ever had the classic ham & pineapple pizza, and it was good. The crispy edges of each piece of ham were well worth it.
- Sunday night last chance drinks at Bailey's Taproom, as recommended by Michelle. John had a Upright Engelberg Pilsner--nice & grassy--and I had a Walking Man Black Cherry Stout, which was harsh on first sip but excellent as my palate adjusted. It was like having a cherry coke beer, which I realize sounds awful, but which was in fact not. Very interesting in any case.
- Monday morning fancy latte and work discussion at Barista.

And now, after a Monday afternoon plane delay that meant we COULD have in fact eaten one more lunch in actual Portland instead of the airport, we are back at home starting to catch up on all our work (not to mention the 400 blog posts in my reader) in a fairly exhausted yet happy fashion.

Hooray! Portland!

Happy new year!

The perfect new year's breakfast is always bagels. Bagels with cream cheese. Bagels with hummus. Coffee. Yes.

BAGELS!!

In other news, if you still have eggnog in the house, have I got a deal for you! First, in John's words, "Just admit it! Admit that you like eggnog-flavored things!" Of course, if you have eggnog in the house you may have already accepted this. I had not. ANYWAY, here's what you need to do. Go brew a cup of strong hot chai. Now, instead of adding milk to it, add eggnog.

AMAZING.

If you happen to have made any of the gingerbread liqueur we discussed a few weeks ago, and you have remained sober enough throughout the holiday season to consider drinking now, you may want to add a glug of that too. It's so good.

Christmas dinner: the dessert

Vegan desserts are easy: just go for the fruit. Since it's winter, we went for pears. It also helped substantially that we've been watching a lot of Jacques Pepin videos (what else is new?) and had just seen him make a delightful-looking dessert of pears in coffee syrup. Pears in coffee syrup it is!

We didn't want to have to watch a video while cooking, so I went searching and uncovered this article on Jacques Pepin's pears in coffee syrup from a Chicago Tribune article originally published when I was nine. Um. Hooray! We ended up combining the two recipes a bit, and doubling them besides. I left the amounts as is for six servings here.

You can use any pear you have for this. We decided on tiny seckel pears, which we kept whole for presentation. If you use larger pears, you might want to halve and seed them.

Poached pears in coffee syrup

pears for 6 (we served 2 little ones apiece)
2 cups coffee
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
dash brandy
arrowroot
sliced almonds
dark chocolate

Start by washing and peeling your pears.

We had a slight issue deciding what to do about the pear seeds. The recipe said to core the pears out from the bottom. This did not work so well. So we decided to just remove the blossom scars and leave the seeds for people to eat around. I thought this might turn out to be a problem, but when it came down to eating my pears, I discovered it was actually not a big deal at all. So. Don't worry about it.

Make a syrup by gently heating your coffee, sugar, and vanilla over medium heat. Add your pears, in one layer if possible, and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, or until your pears are tender to the point of a knife.

Remove and reserve your pears. Keep cooking the coffee syrup until it reduces by about 1/3. To thicken, mix a couple spoonfuls of the syrup with half a teaspoon of arrowroot in a measuring cup. Add a bit of arrowroot mixture to the syrup and stir well; it will thicken on contact. You can add as much of the arrowroot mixture as you prefer. Keep in mind that the coffee syrup will also thicken a bit off the heat.

Next, add a glug of brandy (or other liqueur of your choice--kahlua, frangelico?), stir, and remove the syrup from the heat. Pour it over the pears.

Chill your pears and syrup until you're ready to eat.

Serve a pear or two per person, with a spoonful of syrup. You can choose to serve the pears over something like pound cake, or to add ice cream or whipped cream, but we just left ours as is.

Garnish each dish with shaved chocolate and sliced toasted almonds. We used this exciting dark chocolate we found at the East Lansing food co-op.

The finished product was pretty adult and sophisticated, with an edge of bitterness to contrast with sweet fruit and sugar syrup.

So that was our massive Christmas feast. Now all we have to do is sit down and breathe and wait for the new year. Oh, and go get bagels and cream cheese and champagne and orange juice. But we can handle that, right? Right?

I hope all of you guys had an amazing holiday, and are looking forward to a wonderful new year!

Christmas dinner: the vegetables

Oh boy. Where do we start?

Since we were feeding a selection of omnivores, vegetarians, and vegans, we wanted to keep everything but the roast and its accoutrements vegan. This way everyone could eat everything without worrying about it at all. This also meant the vegetable selection was quite extensive. Good deal, but a lot to write about in one go.

We started the night before with vinaigrette and white bean butternut squash soup (and the roast sauce, but we've already covered that).

Our standard vinaigrette comes from the Bouchon cookbook and consists of only three ingredients. It's super easy, although you do need a blending device of some kind.

Red wine dijon vinaigrette

1/4 cup dijon mustard
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1 1/2 cups canola oil

Mix together your mustard and vinegar in a blender or with some sort of blending device. We used an immersion blender this time; it worked admirably. Slowly pour in half a cup of your oil, blending the entire time to emulsify. Now pour your mixture into an appropriate mixing bowl and whisk in the rest of the oil in a steady, slow stream. Voila! A delightful vinaigrette that goes well with practically any salad.

The soup was one of our two main vegan/vegetarian protein sources. We knew we wanted to do something white bean-based, since white bean soups are generally excellent. But we hadn't decided on the exact soup until we actually got to John's mom's house and discovered three big butternut squashes on the kitchen counter.

White bean butternut squash soup

butternut squash
onion
garlic
carrots
celery
olive oil
cooked white beans
bay leaf, fresh thyme, sage, marjoram, salt & pepper
water/vegetable broth/bean broth
optional dry vermouth or white wine
chives or parsley to garnish

This is a pretty standard vegetable and bean soup. You can probably figure out what to do just by looking at the list of ingredients.

Start by peeling, seeding, and cubing your butternut squash. We used two squashes to serve eleven people. This is by far the most arduous part of this recipe. Peel and dice your onion, mince your garlic, and chop up your scrubbed carrots and celery while you're at it. I'd use about one medium to large onion, a handful of garlic cloves, a big carrot, and a couple stalks of celery per squash. Since we had two squashes, we doubled everything up.

In a large soup pan, warm a slug of olive oil. Add the onion, garlic, carrot, and celery; saute over medium to medium-high heat. Season with a bit of salt, a branch or two of fresh thyme, a couple bay leaves, and some dried sage and marjoram. Congratulations! You now have garlicky vegan mirepoix!

When your mirepoix is soft and aromatic and delicious and starting to turn golden, add your cubed squash. Mix everything up and cook, stirring occasionally, for a good five to tem minutes. If necessary, deglaze the bottom of the pan with a couple glugs of dry vermouth or white wine.

Next, add your white beans to the pot and cover everything with water or the broth of your choice. We used three cans of beans, drained, since making dry beans from scratch was a little much to do on top of everything else. If you make your own beans from scratch, go ahead and use their broth in the soup.

Bring your soup to a boil, lower heat, cover, and simmer until all your vegetables are tender. Take the pot off the heat, remove the bay leaves and thyme branches, and puree with an immersion blender. Then put the pan back on the heat to reduce down to your preferred thickness. Taste and correct seasonings, adding some black pepper at the least.

When the soup is to your liking, serve it with the garnish of your choice. Hooray!

Both of these went into the refrigerator to wait overnight.

The next day, we were up bright and early (read: by eleven) and got into the kitchen to start cooking everything that needed to be chilled before serving. So we made lentils vinaigrette and our dessert, which is getting its own post later.

The lentils were obviously our other big protein source.

I've talked about lentils vinaigrette a couple times before. The recipe, again, comes from the Bouchon cookbook (and yes, you should go to the library and take a look). They are super easy, although time-consuming, and worth a search for puy lentils. We found ours in the bulk bins at the East Lansing food co-op (which, incidentally, is well worth a visit if you're in town). If you can't find puy lentils, this would still be well worth a try with standard green or beluga lentils. Don't use red; they'll disintegrate.

We doubled this recipe for as many lentils as possible.

Lentils vinaigrette

puy lentils
onion
carrot
leek
herb bouquet: garlic, bay leaves, fresh thyme, peppercorns
water
salt, pepper
red wine vinegar
red onion
chives & parsley
vinaigrette

First, make the herb bouquet. Tie up a halved head of garlic, 12 peppercorns, 3 bay leaves, and 3 thyme branches in a piece of cheesecloth. We did not have cheesecloth, and ended up using coffee filters sewed together with thread. Okay then.

Pick over and rinse a cup of lentils. Put them into a large saucepan or dutch oven, along with your herb bouquet, half an onion, a whole scrubbed or peeled carrot, and a halved and washed leek. Cover with water by two inches.

Bring the whole shebang to a boil and then immediately reduce the heat to a very gentle simmer. Cook for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the lentils are cooked through.

Next, pour the whole pan of lentils, vegetables, and liquid into a casserole dish or other wide, deep dish. Add two tablespoons of salt and two teaspoons of red wine vinegar, stirring gently to combine. Let the lentils cool in their liquid. This will take awhile. When the dish is cool, remove and discard the herb bouquet and the vegetables, leaving just the lentils behind.

Strain the lentils in a sufficiently fine sieve. Mix them with half a cup of finely diced red onion and dress them with vinaigrette. Add salt and pepper to taste.

When you're ready to serve, garnish with more finely diced red onion and a big handful of snipped fresh chives and parsley. If you're not keeping it vegan, a dice of hard-boiled egg is really good too.

After we finished making the lentils and dessert, we stuck them in the refrigerator and took a wine break.

Next: mashed potatoes. You know how to make mashed potatoes. The only thing we do differently is poaching our garlic in olive oil.

Mashed potatoes with garlic poached in olive oil

potatoes
garlic
olive oil
rice milk
salt & pepper
chives & etc to garnish

Peel and quarter as many potatoes as you want to eat. Bring a sufficient pot of water to a boil, add the potatoes and a bit of salt, and boil until tender. Depending on your potatoes, this may take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour.

While your potatoes are cooking, poach your garlic. Start by smashing a bunch of garlic cloves with the flat of your knife and removing the peels. Put a small saucepan on the heat, add enough olive oil to sufficiently season your potatoes, and add the whole smashed garlic cloves. Cook very gently over the lowest possible heat for at least twenty minutes. Congratulations: you now have a beautiful garlic-infused oil.

When your potatoes are done cooking, drain them well. Mash them with a couple splashes of rice milk or other non-dairy milk of your choice. Add in the oil, garlic cloves, and some salt and pepper to taste, and beat together until well mixed.

Garnish with chopped fresh herbs. Voila!

Peas, pearl onions, and endive

olive oil
bag of peeled red pearl onions
several heads of endive
two bags of frozen peas
salt & pepper
white wine

John made this one, so I'm not entirely sure how it went down. Let's ask him.

"Ok. So. Put oil in. Cook the pearl onions. When the onions are soft and have some color on them, core the endive and cut them into quarters. Put the endive in with a little bit of water and white wine. Stock is fine too. When that was soft I added the peas, salt and pepper, and a little bit of oil. And that's it."

THERE YOU HAVE IT.

In last-minute prep, we made a green salad. This was very simple, and just consisted of washed & dried salad greens tossed with some of our vinaigrette. No worries there; we just had to make it immediately before we sat down to eat. I believe we used a mix of romaine hearts and baby spinach.

Then we all sat down to eat as much as humanly possible.

Here's my plate.

Needless to say, no one left that table the slightest bit hungry. Success!

Next: dessert.