Derby Day: Chips, Dips, and Big Hats

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I'm not a huge Kentucky Derby fanatic or anything but in my family, any excuse for food and drink is great! My aunt hosted a great party with hats, snacks, a little betting, and lots of family fun! I brought a layered that was pretty popular (we started scarfing it before I got the picture).
It is easy peasy to make:
1. Tofutti cream cheese mixed with 2-3 TBS taco seasoning (Trader Joe's has a spicy one)
2. Amy's re-fried black beans mixed with a little hot sauce
3. Chopped black olives and pickled jalapenos
4. 1/2 cup black beans (make sure to rinse and dry these or they will make the dip wet)
5. Guacamole
6. Fresh salsa
Just layer everything in a nice shallow dish. You can get creative about what you use. Serve with chips and veggies. We also a great dinner with roasted veggies and a rice and bean salad with herbs, spices and veg and LOTS of Gin and Tonics!

Here's a picture of the ladies lookin pretty! My hat is so big I couldn't see!

Vegan Superbowl

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Ah Superbowl Sunday. Time for Americans to gather together and pretend they care about a game they don't understand in order to drink and eat in excess. I refuse to allow being vegan to keep me from my beer and snack food so I had a bunch of people over (who don't care about football) and fed them junk food they didn't expect with vegan eating.

Menu:
-Supremely Spicy Sabra Hummus with pita chips and veggies
-Chips and salsa, guacamole, and pineapple salsa (pulse fresh pineapple, red onion, jalepeno, lime juice, and cilantro in food processor)
-Layered Dip (Layer Amy's re-fried beans, black beans, guacamole and salsa. Top with scallions and cilantro. Scoop and enjoy with tortilla chips!)
-Chili Bar with toppings (olives, scallions, bacos, hot sauce, jalapenos)
-"Pigs" in a blanket (wrap tofu pups or any vegan hot dog or sausage with Pillsbury crescent dough)
I try to eat healthy but woohoo! Bacos and crescent dough are vegan?! That is crazy! (now I will immediately forget that so I can go back to brown rice and veggies). Use this menu whenever you want to pig out and are drinking beer (and then go to the gym).

Wine party book club

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I have 3 friends who are some of the smartest, coolest women I know and in an effort to get to see them more, despite our busy schedules, I started book club. Now you should know that this is really more of a wine and food club and part of my plan to feed people delicious vegan food. I am not a very fast reader and would rather cook, go out or shop than read on a typical day so I, of course, finished the book the day of and spent the rest of the day prepping the italian themed party. This actually ended up serving as a light meal for four people.

Spinach salad
Dressing:
2 TBS EVOO
1.2 TBS dijon mustar
1/2 TBS agave syrup
splash of blasamic vinegar
lots of black pepper

This dressing is sweet with a slight tang and should be thick enough to coat the leaves nicely. Add candied walnuts or pecans and dried cranberries.

Stuffed mushrooms
These were made the same way as in this post: Italian Entertaining
although I used red wine instead of white.

Polenta and eggplant rounds with balsamic onions and tomatoes
I haven't worked with much polenta but I was interested in it when I saw organic polenta at Trader Joe's. It comes in a tube which makes slicing it in rounds easy. I sliced pieces about 1/4in thick and toasted them up in a non stick skillet. I then took slices of salted eggplant and pan fried them. For the sauce I caramelized one onion in EVOO for about 30min on low heat. I then added 1TBS of balsamic vinegar and 4TBS of diced canned tomatoes and let cook down about 15min. Place polenta rounds on baking sheet top with fried eggplant and about a TBS of sauce. Place in oven for 5 min before serving. For extra flavor and a contrast to the sweet onions add an oil cured black olive to the top or on just some in case people don't like olives (crazy).

Roasted garlic and white bean dip with crostini and veggies
While the mushrooms were baking I roasted a whole head of garlic. To do this, cut off the top of the garlic head, create a pouch of tin foil and place garlic inside with a drizzle of EVOO before closing up the pouch. After 45 min in a 350 oven, remove from pouch and squeeze out roasted garlic into the food processor. Add one can of cannellini beans, 2 TBS EVOO, and salt and pepper to taste.

Serve with crostini (brush slices of bread with EVOO and toast for 10min in oven) and raw veggie sticks.

Olive crostini
Blend kalmata olives, basil, EVOO and fresh garlic in a food processor. Spread slices of bread with kalmata olive pesto and bake in 350 oven for 10min. So yummy with wine!

Sarah and John's Guacamole

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I'm honored to be a guest blogger on the site and contribute our guacamole recipe (as referenced in this post). We had a housewarming party last night and made a good amount of guac(4 avocados worth!), but it was devoured in less than an half an hour.


2 scallions (green onions), finely chopped
2 plum tomatoes, finely chopped
2 jalapenos, cored and finely chopped
4 avocados
juice of 2 limes (we like ours pretty limey)
a few tablespoons of chopped cilantro (to taste)
salt and pepper

Chop up the scallions, tomatoes and jalapenos first and put them in the bowl. Then, slice and chop up the avocados and put them in the bowl and immediately add the lime juice to prevent browning. Then, mix and mash until you reach your desired consistency, adding the cilantro, salt and pepper along the way. (You don't need to mash it that much; John prefers it to be more of a relish than really smooth). Cover with plastic wrap until you're ready to serve.

Tip: You can keep the avocado pits in the guacamole at the end which also makes the presentation interesting and keeps it from browning, but only one or two pits is really necessary. =)