Potluck Picnic in the Park

Even though we haven't been mealgrouping it in the way in which we began, we've all been sharing meals together semi-regularly. I will be posting more on pulling together potlucks later, but I wanted to share our most recent potluck, which was a picnic in a local park. It was summer weather, there were adorable children playing, delightful adults chatting and fireflies as the sun went down! And all of the food was so, so good.

Summer picnic! (photo by Dianne Wenz of Veggiegirl)

The menu included...

• Pasta salad with black beans and cilantro
• Quinoa mushroom risotto
• Bean salad
• Carrot salad with a light lemon dressing
• Corn salad
• Watermelon salad
• Bread with pesto spread
• Slow cooker focaccia 
• Lima/edamame hummus
• Cookie dough balls
• No-bake double chocolate torte (click for the recipe, do not be daunted by the avocado)

...and an adorable baby!

Chana Saag, Brown Basmati Rice and Two Chutneys

Date:  10/28/2011
Cook:  Jen G.
Menu: Chana Saag (Indian Greens with Chickpeas), Brown Basmati Rice, Green Chutney and Sweet Carrot Chutney

The Vegan Slow Cooker continues to be a great resource. Tonight I made Chana Saag (with kale) and served it with brown rice and two chutneys: a green chutney and a sweet carrot chutney. It was my first time making both-- I'd add some salt to the green chutney next time, and less sugar to the carrot chutney. Heaped in a bowl all together, it was a delicious meal.

I delivered the goods to Jen at one of our local bookstores, where we gathered around Terry Hope Romero, who was swinging by our fair town to talk about baking, pie, Thanksgiving, life and stuff like that. Oh. I have a new book about making pies. Yes. Vegan Pie in the Sky.

There is a Boston creme pie calling my name.

Potluck Night and The Veg Edge

So much food that it doesn't even all fit in the picture!

 Date: 12/9/2010
Cooks: Jenna, Jen C., Jen G. and Rachel
Menu: A burrito bar with starring black beans, rice and some fantastic guacamole; a roasted beet, shallot and pecan salad; deluxe macaroni and cheese; zooma zoom zoom butternut rancheros and chocolate chip sunflower seed cookies

Allow me to tell you: Thursday night was a fantastic night if you enjoy good food (which we do).  Instead of doing our three nights of meal group sharing this week, we decided to combine our cooking energy into one night and have a potluck at our friend Jenna's house so that we could all hang out and watch a veg-centric show on The Cooking Channel called The Veg Edge (by the way, check out the amazing looking recipes in the sidebar).  While the show itself had some hits and some misses, the food and the company were both outstanding.  We all ate a TON, and left Jenna's full and happy.  Thank you Jenna, for hostessing!

Good Good Things Indeed

Date: 11/4/2010
Cook: Jen G.
Menu: Island Teriyaki Tofu w/ Noodles, Broccoli & Cauliflower; Brownies and Hemp Bliss

I was feeling completely uninspired to cook today. Not only is the rainy, cold weather bringing my mood down a few notches, but the entire STATE canceled school today (and tomorrow) so that teachers can go confer about being great educators. I support that in theory but in practice it means that the pleasant rhythms of my Thursday were rearranged...I'll spare you the details. This time.

On top of it all, this week's meal share group is down another person today as Jen C's daughter is also off on an exciting sojourn! Remembering this, and as mentioned, feeling uninspired, I must admit that Jen C. came VERY close to having a bean and rice bowl from Chipotle delivered as her meal today! (Note that I would be extremely thrilled for that to be delivered to me.)

So there I was, driving home in a grey car on a grey day feeling kinda colorless, when I remembered that I had just read about a VEEHHHHHHHRRRRRY tasty sounding meal on our friend Jenna's site, over yonder on Good Good Things. It sounded not just good but fairly straightforward too, and I had to stop at the store anyway so hey, why not pick up some marinade?

I followed Jenna's directions, but not very well. For example, I do not own a tofu press. I didn't cut all of my tofu into triangles. I accidentally dumped a bunch of marinade into my hot frying pan so the tofu sorta just cooked in its marinade instead of getting that nice fried flavor. HOWEVER! The entire meal came together pretty nicely. By far the best thing was that Jen C. came over for dinner and we had a really pleasant evening together. My partner made brownies for dessert (coincidentally from a recipe given to me by Ms. Jenna Good Good Things), which are THE BEST EVER, and we topped them with some Tempt ice cream while we played Clifford Bingo with my kid.