A Labor Day Potluck, In my Kitchen, & NYC!

Please head over to my new blog at TheUrbanHousewife.com, where you'll find this post & more!

Gathering with friends is always something I enjoy & I used Labor Day Weekend as an excuse to have a potluck! An awesome range of friends attended & I was excited many members of the "vegan brunch cartel" were able to make it. The culinary prowess was at an all time high & the food was insanely delicious! As planned, we all ate far too much, yet there was still a ton of food on the table! Luckily, I had my empty Earth Balance containers ready & sent people home with leftovers, as there was no way we could consume what was left!

For the bash, I whipped up Vanilla Cupcakes from my own recipe & topped them with both Lemon Cream Cheese frosting & Mocha Mousse frosting. No one guessed they were vegan, so I believe I'm finally happy with my vanilla cupcake recipe & will be sharing it here in the near future!
By request, another round of Lolo's Donuts were made, this time in Maple & classic Pink Glaze with Sprinkles. I'm done making these for awhile, I adore them, but there's so many other treats I've been meaning to make!

In the savory department, I made tamales, thanks to Dr. Stonielove! I have a constant craving for tamales, but had never made them myself, but her recent recipe gave me the courage to do so! One batch contained black beans, soyrizo, & jalapeños, the other was filled with corn, red & yellow bell peppers, & chilies. I was VERY happy with these & snuck some in to the freezer to enjoy later. We also made Tempeh kabobs to grill along side all the veggie dogs & burgers people brought!

As a joke, I decided to use vegan gelatin to craft a giant cupcake. Sadly, it's not the most stable product out there, so it started to melt pretty quickly. I shoved it in to the freezer, only to find it solid & much shorter than when I initially assembled it when I went to retrieve it. Use your imagination & we'll say it started out glorious & mind blowing, okay?!


Other attendees brought delicious dishes like Bruschetta, the Get Sconed version of New Farm Mac and Cheez, Curried "Chicken" salad in Endive wraps, Hummus with pita & cucumber, Spinach-Artichoke dip, & as you can see, an amazing display of Fruit Kabobs! (This is what happens when a caterer attends your potluck!)

I had a fabulous time & I can't wait for the next excuse to gather around a diverse setting of food with various people! I think I may have a potluck obsession & I'm perfectly OK with that!

***
In other news, I've been going crazy in the kitchen lately! I've been so inspired by all the blogs I've been reading, as well as the PPK, all I've wanted to do is try new recipes (& make sorbet, of course)!

Recent recipes have included Celine's L & H Seitan O'Greatness, which was used to make Lolo's Crispy Sweet and Sour Seitan. I'm also a tester for Joni's new cookbook about burgers, so I made her Ortega Burgers on homemade whole wheat french bread with oven fries. A desire for something besides Tofutti in the morning yielded Bryanna's Lemon Curd & let me tell you, it is FABULOUS! My crumpets will forever be covered with this insanely addictive spread!

On the sorbet front, I made a wonderful Strawberry Sorbet that we gobbled up quickly! Yesterday in a 12 hour span I managed to make Watermelon Sorbet, Yellow Peach Sorbet, & Bartlett Pear Sorbet! The plan is to have some in the freezer to be consumed when the mood strikes, but it seems to disappear pretty quickly around here! I'm happy to see others have caught the sorbet bug as well, like Amey at Vegan Eats & Treats!

In travel news, I'll be headed back to one of my favorite places, NEW YORK CITY! woo.
While I've been there many times, I'm always looking for restaurant & activity recommendations, especially of the vegan persuasion. I'm not a greasy spoon diner type (I can make a veggie burger at home), but I love a range of tasty foods, especially healthier vegetable heavy items or ethnic fare, so bring it on! I'll be in town for 2 weeks in late October / early November, so there's plenty of meals & fun to be had!

Hey NYC, let's have a Halloween themed Potluck!

Lolo's Baked Vegan Donuts, Glazed or Chocolate covered!

Please head over to my new blog at TheUrbanHousewife.com, where you'll find this post & more!

Last weekend, I attended a fabulous potluck organized through Yelp called the "Vegan Brunch Cartel". Although all food had to be vegan, it was attended by a great group of folks, both vegan & non.

I debated what to bring, as the first edition yielded some dishes people were still raving about as the 2nd one was organized. A mention of donuts was received with fanfare, so I started my search for the perfect recipe.

This recipe comes from the amazing Lolo at VeganYumYum! Do yourself a favor & check out her blog & recipes NOW. I voted for her in the 2007 Veggie Awards & she has an upcoming cookbook I'm excited to get my hands on!

Lolo's Baked Vegan Donuts
Ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 shake of cinnamon (I was out of nutmeg, so I used all cinnamon & more than a shake!)
1/2 cup soymilk
1/2 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Egg replacer for 1 egg (I used Ener-G Egg Replacer.)
4 tablespoons Earth Balance or other vegan margarine

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350º F.

In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients with a whisk to mix thoroughly.

In a small saucepan, combine wet ingredients over medium low heat & mix until margarine is melted. You should be able to stick your finger in the mixture without burning yourself. Don't make this too hot for the dough!

Add wet to dry & mix until just combined, forming a soft spongy dough.

Using a tablespoon measure, scoop out dough into an ungreased nonstick mini donut pan & smooth out the tops of them. If using a regular sized donut pan (like I did), fill them until just below the rim. Make sure not to overfill them or they'll have uneven muffin tops. If you under fill them, they'll be skimpy, but still edible.

Bake them for 12 minutes or until a tester comes out clean.

Invert the hot pan over a cooling rack to release the donuts & allow them to cool completely before decorating.

This will yield 20 mini donuts or 6 to 8 large donuts.
If you don't have a donut pan, you can bake them as donut holes in the bottom of a mini muffin pan or make fun shapes in those molded silicone pans!

Glaze for Donuts & other confections
Ingredients:
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon soy milk
my additions:
a splash of vanilla (optional)
a bit of agave nectar (optional)

Instructions:
Whisk all of the ingredients together.

Dip half of the donut into the glaze, let some drip off, then dip glaze-side down into sprinkles.

Transfer the donuts to a wire rack with parchment paper underneath, the excess glaze will drip through the rack onto the paper for easy cleaning later.

My Notes:
This makes a great all-purpose glaze for treats! I added vanilla & agave nectar for some extra sweetness & gloss, but it's good without them as well.

Chocolate topping for Donuts
Ingredients:
Your favorite vegan chocolate, approximately 6 ounces. (I use E. Guittard Semisweet chocolate.)

Melt the chocolate over a double boiler & remove from the heat being careful not to get water in the chocolate.

Dip your donuts into the chocolate until completely covered & place on a wire rack to drip off excess chocolate.

My Notes:
I found the dipping process to be a bit awkward, some of my donuts didn't want to leave the glaze & chocolate easily, so I was afraid they'd break! In the end, I took my offset spatula & glazed them thickly, letting the excess drip off the sides, then threw sprinkles on top. This worked best for me, but you may like the ease & speed of dipping them.

I tried two donut recipes, hoping to bring chocolate cake donuts as well, but the results of the other recipe (from a vegan cookbook) were not to my standards, so I did not bring them along. In the end, I was very happy with Lolo's donuts & will definitely make them again! I had extras, so I dipped them lightly in agave nectar, then coated them with a cinnamon-sugar blend; so delicious!

The Vegan Brunch Cartel was a total success! Not only was the food delicious, but the people were entertaining & the Victorian house it was held in was gorgeous. An open kitchen & vintage stove complete with 6 burners & a hot plate allowed dishes to be made right before the meal, as we all stood around & chatted. Cinnamon rolls, blueberry corn pancakes, samosas, apple brown betty, home fries, french toast, & "egg" salad sandwiches flowed freely; we were all stuffed! If you're ever in San Francisco, get in touch, if one of these events is happening, you shouldn't miss it!