Oh what a week it has been! And we in the Kinky Elfery Kitchen are so excited to have had the MOST hits on our little blog EVER!! We credit so much to Susan Voisin and her FatFree Vegan Kitchen support. http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/
Susan, you have NO idea of your influence and reach and it's so well deserved. We had so much fun with this week's Efly '15 winner, so let's get on with it.
This week's offering of the Elfy winner was the Asparagus and Mushroom Quiche.
We loved it the first time and ditto the second. In fact, we are now thinking of ways to explore other fillings and additional spices. What we DID realize this time around is that this recipe is not NEARLY as labor intensive as we thought it was the first time around. In fact, it is quite easy once you get a clear understanding of how things unfold. Let's show you in pictures...we had the mis en place of all the vegetables for the filling.
Next up was to make the brown rice crust, taking the tofu 'sauce' stuff and making a really nice pie crust with it and the cooked brown rice. We had a slight bit off difficulty with this recipe because stores that ordinarily carry the Silken Tofu (Firm/SuperFirm) did not have it available. We FINALLY found it at the local store (NOT WHOLE FOODS) and were able to complete the magic for this recipe. But we digress...the tofu sauce/filling was made and used to help prepare the crust.
We baked for 8 minutes in a 350 oven but we're not completely sure it was ready...so we let it bake about he minute. We think that a good move. In any event, it turned out just fine and we let it cool while we made the rest of the recipe.
Next up, sautéing the vegetables to go into the quiche.
And poured the vegetables into the cooled crust.
With the remaining filling poured over them.
Then we took our asparagus crowns and made a (sorta) pattern with them. Not as pretty as Susan's though.
The final picture is what it looked like served up. We baked a couple of pounds of baby okra with a bit of toasted sesame oil and some garam masala to have an additional vegetable...guys, it doesn't get much better than this!!
So, we are eager to explore the path that Susan's FFVK has set and see what other options we can entertain with this quiche--artichoke hearts chopped, onions (red, sweet, who knows). We also LOVED the fact that a serving size for this recipe was 1/4 of the pie for only 223 calories!!
That brings us to next week’s Elfy recipe, which is one of Susan’s favorites as well—Spinach and Artichoke Pie.
It’s kinda labor intensive as it works with phyllo dough. Seems we remember really screwing up with the dough last time, so we have looked up ways to work with the thawed dough that doesn’t result in it all sticking together and making a mess. Believe the Elf when we say that we WILL follow the You Tube instructions.
Other than that, it’s really not that hard. When we reviewed the ingredients this morning, we only needed the phyllo dough…we love it when that happens!
We’ve been so busy with reporting out on some of the wonderful FFVK Elfys, we have been rather negligent on some of the other food stuffs we prepare (or as we say in the South—‘fix’), so we just wanted to catch y’all up. With all the glorious produce that is coming in now, we are loathe to purchase vegetables and fruit at a chain grocery store. Take blueberries, for instance, from now till mid-July, blueberries will be at peak. So, we buy a gallon every week..hold out a quart to eat on cereal or plunk a few in a late night glass of Pinot Grigio and freeze the rest. Ditto fresh peaches that are now in abundance.
And we have a smoothie every morning along with some nutritional yeast and hemp hearts. It’s always fun to mix up all kinds of great fruit, some kale or spinach for added nutritional value, add some coconut water or coconut/hemp milk, blast it with VitaMix and slurp it down.
In addition to the fruit bonanza, we have had lots of fresh greens and squash. Plus, The Elf makes a mean vegan cornstick. Like my friends Charles and Pippa Jackson say, ‘we love this better than gravy’. Here are pics of some pattypan squash, rainbow chard, candy stripe beets and those yummy cornsticks.
This past week has also been a great and bittersweet week for us. Y’all know that our BFF of 50 years and college roommate, Mary, died in February after making the decision to discontinue chemo. Her partner, Jo, has kept in close touch and recently decided to adopt two dogs from the Animal Rescue Fund of Mississippi. Well, she drove down Monday from the St. Louis area, picked up her new family on Tuesday (Bonnie and Clyde), spent the rest of the day and night bonding with them and drove back Wednesday. There is no doubt that these two little ones who have been shelter dogs for nearly TWO YEARS!! have won the lottery. They are a bonded pair so had to go together. Here we have a couple of pics…first of Jo and the ‘kids’ getting to know each other at the Home of The Elf and Big Solid and then how they are settling in with their new digs. Bonnie is the little dapple dachshund, recently recovered from heart worm treatment and Clyde is the terrier mix. He looks like a Hamish to the Elf.
So there you have it. We hope to have some really cool stuff to share with you next week along with our report out on the FFVK Spinach and Artichoke Pie.
OH—we almost forgot. Lauren Rhoades passed her health inspection with flying colors to get approval to operate out of a commercial kitchen. We are so excited for her and hope that her Sweet & Sauer business really takes off!! Way to go, Lauren!
We had so much fun writing about Lauren and her passion for producing fermented foods, we want to develop more stories about foodie folks down this way. Gonna most likely call it ‘Explorin’ with The Elf’.
In the meantime and until next Sunday which is THE FOURTH OF JULY!! remember to laugh a lot, be kind, eat plants and DO EPIC!
Your Elf
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