The full post-game report (and some really cute vegan sandals) is live on the Virtual Vegan Potluck blog.
Spoiler Alert: be ready to vote for your favorite Potluck dishes! Info on that coming soon…
Thank you, one and all for a fantastic Potluck!
anunrefinedvegan
unbleached, unprocessed, unrefined…and cruelty-free
Tag Archives: virtual vegan potluck
Virtual Vegan Potluck 3.0: Sweet Potato Fries with Parsley, Garlic and Lemon Zest
For the past two Potlucks, I went fairly elaborate. For Potluck numero uno I made Sage & Rosemary Dinner Rolls with Roasted Garlic Coconut Butter. For Potluck number two, I created Maple Creme & Mocha Spice Cake Trifle with Fresh Blueberries. Just reading those long recipe titles wears me out. Though the title of this recipe is long, the preparation of the dish is not.
Which brings us to sweet potatoes. And garlic and parsley and lemon. Just look at those bright orange babies dotted with flecks of fresh green, dabs of garlic and zingy lemon – all glistening with one of my current favorite muses: coconut oil. I go easy on the oil in my household, but for a party like this one, I had to make an exception. I hope you enjoy it!
Thank you very much to all of the enthusiastic participants of this, the first Potluck of 2013. It amazes me every time that someone signs on! Thanks to my Potluck besties, Somer, Jason and Lidia for helping plan and execute this shindig and keeping me sane in the days leading up to the Potluck. And thanks to all of you who are taking time out of your Saturday to enjoy the beautiful plant-based and cruelty-free dishes being shared. Munch on!
Sweet Potato Fries with Parsley, Garlic and Lemon Zest
Serves 2
1 very large sweet potato, peeled and cut into fry-shape
1/2 tbsp. virgin coconut oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 cup parsley, chopped
zest of 1 lemon
Preheat oven to 425F and line a small baking sheet with parchment paper.
Spread sweet potato slices onto pan in a single layer and bake for about 15 minutes. Turn slices and continue to bake until they are soft and beginning to brown.
While the sweet potato bakes, put the coconut oil in a deep skillet and add the garlic. Just before the fries are done, gently sauté the garlic in the oil until fragrant. Add the fries and stir, coating them with the oil and garlic. Remove pan from the heat and stir in the parsley and lemon zest. Serve immediately.
And now, I’ll send you on your way! To visit the next dish at Too Cheap For Pine Nuts, click the icon below, or click here.
To move back to the previous dish at Cauldrons and Cupcakes, click the icon below, or click here.
If you’d like to start back at the beginning, please visit our host site, Vegan Bloggers Unite!, – by clicking right here.
Thank you!
Virtual Vegan Potluck Update #2: Miscellany
In case you haven’t already heard, the final Virtual Vegan Potluck participant list is posted in all of its 169-plant-strong glory on the VVP website. It would be understandable if you merely want to gaze upon its glory, but while you’re there, please locate your blog and make sure that I have it in the correct course, in the correct part of the world and that the link works. Believe it or not, I did make a few (ahem) errors. (With extra apologies to the ever-patient, Juicy Dishes. You know what I’m talking about.)
I feel obliged at this point to remind you that you can find most of the info and help you need to prepare your VVP post on the VVP website under the handy-dandy heading How It Works. (Check out Jason’s video.) Granted, “how it works” is rather complicated, but somehow it all comes together and happiness is had by all. Once again, thank you for taking part.
I also want to remind you that when this shindig is all over, you and the millions (it could happen!) of blog readers will have the opportunity to vote for your favorite dishes by selecting the one dish per course that really struck your taste buds’ fancies. A few days post-Potluck I will have a form up on the website that should make voting easy-peasy. The goodies we’re handing out this time are:
A Vegan Cuts Snack Box
A 45-minute vegan lifestyle or career coaching session with JL of JL Goes Vegan
A box of Pomona’s Pectin + five Earth Balance coupons
An Herbivore Clothing Bigger Hearts Tote Bag
A bag of broccoli sprouting seeds from Todd’s Seeds + a VVP t-shirt
A copy of Happy Herbivore Abroad, by Lindsay Nixon
A jar of Tropical Traditions Virgin Coconut Oil
A copy of Bravo! by Chef Ramses Bravo
Wait! I’m not done yet! There’s still time to enter the Vegan Cuts Snack Box giveaway on the VVP blog. You’ll want to head over there anyway because we’re sharing Mama et de Bebe Hawk’s award-winning dessert recipe (French Silk Pie!) from the November 2012 Virtual Vegan Potluck.
Last but not least, I’m still trawling for votes for Ethical Ocean’s Eat What’s Good vegan recipe challenge. Thank you for your votes – please keep ‘em coming!
Counting Down and a Vegan Cuts Snack Box Giveaway
Counting it down:
- Today is the last day to sign up for the Virtual Vegan Potluck. Get off the fence and sign up before midnight tonight!
- Tomorrow I’ll post the final list of participants on the VVP website. This is where you’ll find the names of the blogs that come before and after yours in the Potluck. All of your Potluck questions can be answered here, and if you need some extra assistance with linking, check out Jason’s awesome How To video, available on the How It Works page or here.
- Only five more days until the Potluck!
- Eleven more days to vote for my Mango Sticky Rice Cake at Ethical Ocean’s Eat What’s Good vegan recipe challenge! Remember, you can vote each and every day (I do!)!
Giving it away:
- Visit the Virtual Vegan Potluck blog to enter the Vegan Cuts Snack Box giveaway – or click the link below:
Creamy Chik’n Soup with Sweet Potato Gnocchi & Kale
I don’t really want to rush time along, but this year winter has rudely muscled its way into spring and I’m aching for sunshine and warm temperatures. This see-sawing act (hot…cold…hot…cold) is getting tiresome.
Because of the lingering chilliness, my stomach is still craving comforting stews and soups. This one is particularly satisfying. I’ve based this rich recipe on an Olive Garden concoction – except mine gets its creaminess from pureed white beans – not from cream. The gnocchis are homemade with sweet potatoes rather than white potatoes, but you could use store-bought. Just make sure they’re vegan.
GIVEAWAY UPDATES:
If you’re into sprouts and you haven’t yet done so, please visit the Virtual Vegan Potluck blog and enter to win a bag of broccoli sprouting seeds from VVP sponsor Todd’s Seeds! Todd has also created a 20% discount for anyone to use when ordering sprouts or sprouting seeds from his site. For deets, head over to the VVP blog.
Also – I’m giving away three bottles of Kretschmer Wheat Germ on both of my Facebook pages – An Unrefined Vegan and Virtual Vegan Potluck. All you have to do is leave a comment on my Almond Butter Maple Granola photo(s). I’ll be selecting a winner (of all three bottles) on Monday.
Creamy Chik’n Soup with Sweet Potato Gnocchi
Serves 6-8
1 large onion, chopped
1 1/2 cups carrots, sliced
1 cup celery, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. dried thyme
8 oz. mushrooms, sliced
2 cups seitan, cubed
3 cups seitan-cooking broth+7 cups water OR 4 cups vegetable broth+6 cups water
4 cups kale, chopped
1 15 oz. can great northern beans, rinsed, drained and pureed
2 cups sweet potato gnocchi, cooked and drained
ground black pepper, to taste
In a large pot, saute the onions, celery and carrots in a splash of water, vegetable broth or Bragg Liquid Aminos until tender. Stir in the garlic, thyme, mushrooms and seietan and cook for another 5 minutes or so.
Pour in the 10 cups broth/water and bring to a boil. Turn down the heat and simmer for 30 minutes, or until veggies are very tender. Stir in the kale, pureed beans, and gnocchi and cook until the kale is tender. Taste and adjust seasonings.
Giveaway: Todd’s Seeds
I’m experiencing some major technical issues with my blog right now – on my computer, mine looks like the first primitive website ever created (or the website I built once for a homework assignment…), and also issues with viewing other people’s (WordPress) blogs which is why I haven’t been making the rounds lately. So far WordPress Support has not been able to help. I’m using my iPad to type this… Keeping my freak-out level as low as I can, but to say I’m feeling frustrated is an understatment, especially in light of the upcoming Virtual Vegan Potluck. Luckily, the VVP site seems to be okay.
And happily, I had the bulk of this post already written…so without further ado, let’s get to some sprouts and a giveaway! I’m really pleased to welcome Todd’s Seeds as a sponsor of the Virtual Vegan Potluck – - and excited to be able to share some beautiful sprouting seeds with one lucky winner. Head over to the VVP blog to enter for your chance to win. In the meantime, enjoy the sprout eye candy:
UPDATE: Todd just emailed me and asked me to offer to everyone a 20% discount on items purchased from the Sprouting Seeds and Sprouting Supplies categories at Todd’s Seeds. Just plug in offer vegan at checkout. One discount per person, good through the end of the year. Thanks, Todd!
Broccoli Sprouts:
Mung Bean Sprouts:
Just for fun, here’s some wheatgrass – from start to maturity – also from Todd’s Seeds.
And now it’s time to win some seeds!
Ready, Set, POTLUCK! It’s Time to Sign Up for the Virtual Vegan Potluck, May 2013 Edition
It’s time to sign-up for the May 11 Potluck!
Head over to the Virtual Vegan Potluck website where the sign-up form is now available – and then dust off your cookbooks, unearth the pots and pans and start cooking! I’m pleased once again to have the invaluable help and support of the totally Vedged Out Ms. Somer and head Veganaut, Mr. Jason. And – no Potluck would be complete without our hostess-with-the-mostess, Ms. Lidia of Vegan Bloggers Unite!
I know you don’t need any added incentive to sign up, but I’m going to give it to you any way. Just as we did in November 2012, we’ll be asking you and your blog readers to vote on their favorite recipes – and we have these prizes to give away to the winners:
A Vegan Cuts Snack Box
A 45-minute vegan lifestyle or career coaching session with JL of JL Goes Vegan
A box of Pomona’s Pectin (can you say vegan cheez??) + five Earth Balance coupons
An Herbivore Clothing Bigger Hearts Tote Bag
A bag of broccoli sprouting seeds from Todd’s Seeds + a VVP t-shirt
A copy of Happy Herbivore Abroad, by Lindsay Nixon
A jar of Tropical Traditions Virgin Coconut Oil
A copy of Bravo! by Chef Ramses Bravo
Whoa – that’s some awesome loot! And to make this a really big ol’ celebration, we’ve got a giveaway going on RIGHT NOW (through April 17) over at the Virtual Vegan Potluck blog. Enter to win a jar of Tropical Traditions Virgin Coconut Oil. (Sorry international folks, this one’s open only to those of us stateside and in Canada.) Speaking of giveaways – mark these dates on your calendar:
April 22: thanks to new VVP sponsor, Todd, at Todd’s Seeds, we are giving away a bag of alfalfa sprouting seeds
May 3: thanks to our good friends at Vegan Cuts, we have a yummy Snack Box to give away
If you are planning on signing up for the Potluck, please subscribe to the Virtual Vegan Potluck News blog as this is the best way to stay informed as we prepare for the big event on May 11. The VVP blog is the place where I will be posting updates and suggestions and it’s also the home of all things Potluck: how to post, when to post and of course, past Potluck participants and links. Somer, Jason and I won’t be able to email people individually so I’m relying on you to stay up-to-date via the website. And – please help spread the word to other food bloggers by sharing the event on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and any other social media outlet of which you can think!
Get Connected:
VVP Facebook Page
May 2013 VVP Pinterest Board
VVP Twitter use hashtags #veganpotluck #vvp #virtualveganpotluck
Instagram use hashtags #veganpotluck #vvp #virtualveganpotluck
Virtual Vegan Potluck Happening Worldwide, May 11, 2013
Details coming soon to the Virtual Vegan Potluck website. Enter your email address on the News page to receive updates.
Other ways to connect to the Virtual Vegan Potluck:
Facebook
Twitter (use hashtags #veganpotluck #vvp #virtualveganpotluck)
Pinterest
Instagram (use hashtags #veganpotluck #vvp #virtualveganpotluck)
Dehydrator Love
I don’t have a recipe to share today, just some low-quality, iPhone photos of a raw pizza that kinda rocked my sheltered plant-based planet. You see, I recently acquired an Excalibur 9-tray dehydrator, an item that had been sitting patiently on my Amazon Wish List for many, many months while I accumulated enough points (freebie!) to hit the Order button. To many vegans, purchasing a dehydrator produces feelings akin to having a sturdy high-speed blender (there are two camps: the Vitamixers camp and the Blendtecers) gracing their countertop. (For insight into how people feel about owning a high-speed blender, please read this very funny post.)
The pizza pictured below is made from a mish-mash of recipes: the crust is a very slight adaptation of a recipe by Matthew Kenney, one of the gods of raw food cooking. It is absolutely delicious and stands up as a snack – sans topping – in its own right; the cashew-mushroom sauce is my adaptation of yet another recipe found in the pages of Runner’s World. I didn’t change it enough to justify including the recipe here. Again, it’s tasty enough to scoop up on its own, but I’d hold off unless you are trying to gain weight.
Already my dehydrator has opened up a new food world to me and I know I have much left to learn and dry out. Look out world!
Shameless plug: did you hear that Virtual Vegan Potluck made it onto Post Punk Kitchen’s 100? Yep, it did! Please check out the list to see their blurb about the VVP and to visit 99 other awesome sites (including Vegan Richa and Keepin’ It Kind)!
One year ago today: The Vegan Option
One year and one day ago today: Buttermilk Rolls with Flaxseed and Wheat Germ
The Losing & Winning Recipe: Mocha Spice Cupcakes with Maple Creme Ganache
On a wild hare a few weeks back, I entered a baking contest over at Earth Balance (via their Made Just Right site) – something I have heretofore never done. Since I only had a short time to come up with an original recipe, I decided to go with something familiar – something I knew tasted good. So once again I returned to the mocha spice cake recipe I created for the Virtual Vegan Potluck. I thought a creamy, melty maple-flavored ganache would be the perfect topping. It tasted great, but clearly I need to work on my decorating skills!
I didn’t take home the prize for best cupcake; nor did I win the grand prize (a trip to Las Vegas), but it was fun participating – and I did end up getting a very unexpected prize for best photo. Thank you, Earth Balance! (Visit the original recipe at Made Just Right here. And check out the delicious winning recipes while you’re there.)
One year ago today: Better Than Doughnuts: Peanut Butter & Jam-filled Tangzhong Bread
One year and one day ago: Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip, Cranberry & Pecan Cookies
Mocha Spice Cupcakes w/ Maple Crème Ganache
Makes 12
Batter
2 cups strong, freshly-brewed coffee
2 tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
½ cup maple sugar
½ cup vegan butter or coconut oil (or a blend)
2 tbsp. flaxseed meal
½ tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup AP flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp. powdered stevia
2 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. allspice
1/8 tsp. cloves
1/3 cup sweetened cacao nibs
Ganache
¾ cup vegan butter, softened
¼ cup coconut oil, softened
6 tbsp. nut milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. maple extract
¼ cup maple syrup (more or less, depending on taste)
Preheat oven to 350F. Line 12 muffin tins w/ paper muffin cups or spray lightly with oil.
Make the ganache first as it needs a couple of hours to chill.
In a small bowl, whisk together the coconut spread, coconut oil, nut milk, vanilla & maple extracts and maple syrup. Place in the refrigerator to firm and chill.
In a large bowl, combine the flours, stevia, baking powder, baking soda and spices.
In another bowl, whisk together the hot coffee w/ the cocoa powder, maple sugar, EB Coconut Spread, flaxseed meal and vanilla extract. Whisk to thoroughly combine and then pour into the dry mixture. Stir well, pressing out any lumps. Stir in the cacao nibs.
Divide the batter among the muffin cups and bake for 25-30 minutes or until the cupcakes are firm and springy on top.
Allow to cool completely.
To finish the ganache, pour the mixture into a blender – it should be firming up, but not completely solid – and process until very smooth and creamy. Either pipe the frosting onto the cupcakes or simply spread over the tops.
Keep cupcakes in the refrigerator as the ganache will soften at room temperature.
