I. Love. My. CSA.

This is an exact copy of a recent post on my other blog, but I really wanted to share it here too- enjoy! And to learn about how you can get your paws on your very own CSA, check out www.localharvest.org. You'll be glad you did!

Last Saturday was Farm Day with our CSA. It's the last pickup of the season, and they invite all the members out to the farm to see where the food is grown and glean the fields. For our last pickup we got an insane amount of grey Hubbard hard squash, a baking pumpkin, a pile of tomatoes, a half gallon of homemade organic, local apple cider, fresh roasted green chilies, and a huge bag of apples. After we hauled all that back to the car, Bobby and I hit the fields. I really, REALLY wish I had brought my camera to the farm, but at least we had a good time photographing the pile of food we brought home, as we laughed and told each other about 10 times "getting a CSA was SO worth it".

We both agreed we should lay everything out on the table and take a picture. It was pretty ridiculous.

In addition to the potatoes, carrots, peppers, broccoli, swiss chard, corn, and tomatoes we gleaned from the field, we also got to pick out a carving pumpkin. Here I am for size reference. Bobby said a few times "this is the best Halloween pumpkin I've ever had!". Thanks for making dreams come true CSA. You're a peach.

You might be thinking, what do you do with all those squash?? The good thing is, these gray guys will last until March, provided they are stored in a dark, temperature controlled, fairly cool place...

so now they're living on the shelf in our laundry room. Their more colorful friends will last until December this way.

This is a HUGE wooden bowl in the middle of our dining room table, filled with apples.

Then we took about two hours to wash, chop, and store all the fridge worthy veggies.

More veggies and the chard filling up both drawers- the left one that's closed is more of the same.

All of the onions, potatoes, shallots, garlic, and beets we got will be going in a wire hanging basket we scored from Goodwill for $1.50, but it needs to be hung. So for now they're living in a canvas bag.

We have been eating like crazy this whole week, and you can bet that the apple cider is almost gone. I need to use the chilies soon before their roasted awesomeness is wasted, but everything else is working out well. Between the natural shelf life of the hard squash, and the fact that we sorted, washed, and chopped pre-emptively, I think we'll get through without wasting too much.

All in all, I'm VERY sad our CSA is over. I've shopped at farmers' markets for years, but CSA's are so much easier, and to me, more enjoyable. Once you vet your CSA and know how they work before you buy a share, you absolutely know that everything you are getting each week is local, organic, and fresh picked. You get to see the people who grow and pick your food every single week for 5 months, or in states with longer growing seasons, sometimes as long as 9 months. Plus it's always fun to have veggies fresh enough to have clumps of dirt on them, or fruit that naturally ripened instead of being picked early to sit on a truck for a month and arrive at the store feeling like a rock and tasting like nothing. And it's cheap. Our CSA was $500 for 5 months. That's $100 a month, $25 a week. We had a fruit and veggie share of local, organic, fresh produce, plus we had a flower share- we got a bouquet every week of native flowers. And then at the end, we were able to glean as much as we wanted. I saw some families carting away wagon loads of food. It's a healthy, environmentally friendly, and economical way to help local farmers and eat great food. I don't ever want to go without a CSA again, and I hope I don't have to!

Veggie Packed Dinner- Bruschetta and Swiss Chard Salad

I took these pictures about two weeks ago, but they languished awhile before I uploaded them, and then I put off going through them for a bit after that. Since last week was our last CSA pickup it kind of makes me a bit sad to look through them, because I loved all the local, fresh, organic produce I got every week. I hope the winter farmer's markets don't let me down!

One of the last big batches of rainbow swiss chard, chopped and ready to become a salad.

Regular tomatoes and green zebra tomatoes, which were later added to chopped fresh garlic, basil from my balcony, and covered liberally in organic olive oil and fresh cracked black pepper. I think I could live off of bruschetta.

The chard was mixed with 3 colors of peppers, peppers, and tomatoes- all from the CSA- and then tossed in lemon goddess dressing and topped with raw, unsalted trail mix and chia seeds.

The bruschetta on top of Whole Foods Seeduction loaf. Not my favorite, but it was nice sliced thinly and toasted.

Doesn't this make you want to eat your veggies? Or at least sit and admire how pretty they are? Getting a CSA was so very worth it. I don't see Bobby and I ever going without a share in a CSA again unless they aren't available where we live. I've shopped at farmers' markets for many, many years, and I try to buy local/organic, but this makes it so much easier. Plus, I got to know the people who grew and picked my food, as I saw them every week for almost 5 months. And I also love when my food is so fresh picked that there are still dirt clumps on it :)

Coming Back Soon...

This blog started off as a food diary- the goal was to take pictures of every.single. meal. I made. And I couldn't use my phone since internet isn't something I feel I need on it. I found myself getting out the camera every time, taking lots of pics from different angles, and then uploading them to my computer, sorting through them, then uploading them here. So, I've decided to just take pictures of a few meals a week- especially since my breakfasts are usually smoothies and/or oatmeal with lots of add ins, and lunches are usually just leftovers from dinner the night before. So, to take off the expectations of every single meal being photographed and blogged about, I'm going to experiment with just a few posts a week.

Today was Farm Day with our CSA. We were able to go out to the farm, see where our food was grown, and glean whatever was left in the fields. We have lots of pictures of our last haul, but it took us about two hours to clean, chop, and put it all away. So, for now it's bedtime.

Butternut Squash Filling is Why Ravioli Was Invented, Right?

The first time I had butternut squash ravioli it was thanks to a Lean Cuisine a few years ago. Now, before you question my tastes, just know it was actually really, really good. Lately I have been meaning to make ravioli the kind of homemade/kind of lazy way, using wonton wrappers, but when I found frozen butternut squash ravioli sans cheese in the freezer section for under $4, I figured that would be way better- and way easier. I did, however, go ahead and make a sauce from scratch and fancy it up with lots of veggies to compensate.


So, here's dinner. On the floor. In front of our sliding glass door. Here in Colorado-Land it's about to start getting dark around 4:30, and anything that is even remotely sauce-y looks super gross and slimy under our dining room lights, so I have to work to get any kind of natural light. This photo doesn't do this yummy pile of deliciousness justice though. Despite being pre-made, the ravioli was really good and well seasoned. I made a creamy garlic sauce with about 5 cloves of fresh garlic, half a cup of unsweetened coconut milk, some olive oil, and various spices of paprika, thyme, basil, rubbed sage, and a sprinkle of flour and some vegan butter to thicken it up. I cubed a large 'bella mushroom and thinly chopped three big rainbow chard leaves, sauteed them in light oil, and then tossed them in the sauce. When the ravioli was done cooking it too was tossed in, and chopped roma tomatoes were added at the very end, just so they were warmed through but not cooked down. Everything except the 'bellas came from our CSA, and you could really tell with the tomatoes- they had such a good flavor.


Because the main dish was pretty decadent thanks to the creamy sauce I wanted to keep things light on the side. Broccoli, squash, carrot, and chopped rainbow chard were tossed in a very light coating of rosemary balsamic dressing, then topped with chia seeds and a handful of trail mix- pistachios, almonds, walnuts, sunflower seeds, brown and golden raisins. Everything except the chia seeds/trail mix came from our CSA. I'm going to miss my weekly dose of local, fresh picked, organic food once winter rolls around. There are a few winter farmers' markets, but it's not *quite* the same. While I don't miss living Texas I have to say to those of you that have a year round growing season- you're very lucky.

Check out www.localharvest.org to see what CSA's and farmers' markets are available near you. Usually they're somewhere around $30 a week, and you get a ton of food. Plus you're cutting down on emissions from eating locally, the food is fresh and better for you, and it's often organic as well. You'd be surprised what's out there- Dallas is far, far, away from being remotely "green and crunchy" and yet there is a CSA with drop off points in 3 different areas of the metroplex. You might discover an entire underground of local food advocates right under your nose!

CSA filled Tacos

Last night, after we ate this dinner, we headed off to a party. My internship director invited me, and all he said was "they have a treehouse, they hired a DJ, and they're roasting an entire goat". We did time it to show up when the goat *wasn't* being roasted, and had already been taken down and divvied up. We both had a great time, and the party was wonderful. The DJ even jumped over the side of the treehouse in the rock climbing harness they keep for that purpose. Oh, and there was a keg. Let me just say, having lots of drunk people crawling up into a two story + tree house, and then jumping over the edge, seemed like it was full of YouTube potential. As a non-drinker, I always get to enjoy the antics of those around me who *are* partaking. But, on to what you come here for- the food!



Lately I've been trying to use up the random things I have in the pantry before buying more groceries, since between said random things and our CSA I have a lot of options. This was a pantry + CSA = dinner creation last night. Blue corn organic taco shells that had been hiding on the top shelf were stuffed with sauteed squash, zucchini, green bell peppers, and white onions, topped with the avocado sauce from the other night, chipotle salsa, red onions, and chopped rainbow swiss chard. Everything except the salsa and avocado sauce is from our CSA. We've been getting so many different things the last few weeks and it's been awesome. I served it with black beans and rice from a box, to which I added two cups of some more chopped rainbow swiss chard. This was super good and very easy. It might not be gourmet, but that's not really my aim :) I like healthy, simple, and relatively quick when it comes to day to day dinners. I'm much more likely to cook, and enjoy cooking, without having to make everything a big production.

Sunshine Burgers at Sunset

After a week in Chicago with our mutual friend Jo, Bobby flew out to join us on Friday night. The three of us spent the weekend in the city, and then Bobby and I hopped on the Amtrak Labor Day afternoon and headed back to Colorado. It's a pretty painless train ride- we got on at 2 p.m. on Monday, and arrived in Denver at 8:30 a.m. the next morning. We got a sleeper car, which was very much like staying in a Transformers Hotel room. Everything in it served at least two functions, and could be folded and turned into something else. Plus it's much more comfortable than sleeping in the coach car seats- I've done the 36 hour Los Angeles to Seattle train ride, and it's hard to sleep when someone keeps waking you up to offer you vodka. But anyway, on to the food...


It was pretty painful to have to toss out so much CSA produce, but Bobby simply couldn't eat it fast enough on his own, and then both of us were gone for those three days. So, after cleaning out the fridge today, I threw together a meal- yes, this sounds just like my post before last, I know, but we've been doing tons of traveling lately! We had BBQ sunshine burgers topped with a sauce I threw together in the food processor: avocado, red onion, fresh garlic, garlic salt, pepper, a splash of raspberry lime dressing, a handful of cashews, and a dash of Frank's Red Hot. Tomatoes from the CSA were chopped and sprinkled on top.

The burgers were served with pickled beets purchased from our local farmer's market, as well as roasted veggies spiced with cumin, salt, and pepper: green bells and squash from our CSA, and organic red onion. I topped them with more of the spicy avocado spicy cream sauce because it was really, really good.

Right as I was finishing up my last bite, I noticed a streak of pink from the sliding doors. I got up to investigate, and found this awesome sunset filling up the sky. Literally 5 minutes later it was gone. I loved Chicago and I already miss Jo, but it is so good to be back home.

Chicago Diner

I spent a week in Chicago with our mutual friend Jo, and then Bobby flew out on Friday night to join us for his birthday weekend- his birthday is today actually, I'm glad he was born to say the least ;)

He flew in late Friday night, so Saturday we decided to hit up Chicago diner for lunch. It was AWESOME. Please go if you're ever in the area, it is very worth it and is pretty accessible from the L- we walked about a mile, which is really nothing in the grand scheme of city walking.





When the waitress asked for our drink order, I went first and ordered a cola. Then Bobby and Jo ordered shakes, so I decided that sounded good. Bobby got cookie dough, I got vanilla chai. Mine tasted like a pumpkin pie shake and it was really, really good. The restaurant is all vegetarian but most things are vegan, like the shakes.

I got the "Pork" Tacos, and they were a very, very good choice. The seitan (wheat meat) is marinated in a pineapple sauce, then grilled, and it was piled with lettuce, tomatoes, onions, salsa, avocado slices, and vegan sour cream- this was my favorite sour cream, as it was light and creamy, almost fluffy.

I ordered a side of biscuits and gravy with "sausage"- also seitan. I was a bit disappointed, if only because every vegan/veg restaurant I've gone to makes brown gravy and biscuits, not white gravy. I'm a Southern girl from Texas, brown gravy doesn't make sense to me on biscuits. On stuffing, yes. Biscuits.. where's that creamy white gravy? I've had vegan white gravy before, and I've made it myself, so I guess I'll just have to keep cooking it at home. But the search continues.

All in all, this place rocked. Great service, and although it was packed there was a quick turnover and we were seated immediately. Plus, it wasn't pretentiously expensive like a lot of vegan/veg places can be. I would definitely go back the next time I'm in Chicago, and I highly recommend it!

Using up This and That

With all the trips Bobby and I have been taking, we've eaten a lot of fruit, crackers, granola bars, and PB&J's on the road. Upon returning (briefly) to our homebase, there were lots of odds and ends to use up. This is the result of cleaning out the fridge...



A vegan sausage patty sandwich on onion poppy seed bread with spring mix, swiss chard, tomatoes, sliced beets/radishes, chopped green and red bell pepper, and a good slather of vegan mayo and spicy horseradish mustard. About half of those veggies were from our CSA. The sides are asparagus, and CSA green beans with walnuts sauteed in fresh garlic. Not too bad for a meal consisting of little bits and pieces and odds and ends.

Letting Someone Else Cook

I had been wanting Thai food for a while, and Bobby had asked around work for good suggestions. We were pointed in the direction of Bann Thai restaurant downtown. I am so glad we went, because we will definitely be going back.



Bobby and I shared a bowl of tom kha soup, with tofu instead of veggies- this was one of the options on the menu, not a special request. With the tofu it was vegan, how easy is that? If you've never had tom kha, it's a lemongrass flavored coconut milk soup with carrots, mushrooms, and usually chicken. My favorite place in Dallas makes it vegan, and then just adds in chicken at the end, so that's pretty friendly too :)



The main event, pineapple stir fried rice- I ate about 1/3 before I remembered to take a picture, it was that good. This was the best version of this dish I've ever had. I really love the smoky taste of fried rice, that's one flavor that can be lacking even in a vegetarian diet since it's usually accompanying grilled meat. This dish also had the option of 3 different kinds of meat or tofu, I would usually forgo the tofu but I tried it this time. It was filled with carrots, tomatoes, small bits of broccoli, toasted cashews, and juicy pineapple chunks, and would normally come with eggs but those were easily left out. All of this was flecked with basil and topped with cilantro and green onions. Bobby had a pineapple curry, and we were happy to discover that they didn't use fish paste in *any* of their curries or other dishes. We'll be back for more menu exploration I'm sure.

Thai food is a great eat-out option for vegans that doesn't make you feel like you've created a bunch of gaps in your meal with the absence of animal products. The main thing to look out for is the fish paste in the curries, and asking them to leave out the eggs on the stir fries. Even in Dallas, which is far from veg/vegan friendly, there was always an option for tofu in all of the stir fries and curries to sub for the meat. Plus, Thai food is just delicious, so it's always good to try and have some in your life.

Clapping over a Pot

Forgive me kittens. Even with a good camera and somewhat ok light, it is terribly difficult to take an attractive picture of a creamy pasta dish. This doesn't come close to capturing in photo form just how good this was. The sides are simple- asparagus pan fried in a smidge of olive oil, seasoned with only black pepper and a hint of salt. The potatoes were roasted in the oven with sage, rosemary, garlic, and olive oil. The pasta sauce was made up of 3 colors of bell peppers, zucchini, squash, red onions, beets, and leftover swiss chard all sauteed in fresh garlic, red onions, and olive oil. Then it simmered in a light covering of homemade tomato sauce. In the end it was all doused in the red pepper cashew cheese sauce I discovered a while back. This velvety veggie goodness was piled on top of tri-color pasta, and served with onion poppyseed bread.

If you're eating vegan and you miss that creamy, rich mouthfeel and taste of buttery pastas, I highly suggest playing around with the hundreds upon hundreds of variations of cashew cheese out there in the wide world. Yes, nuts are fatty and higher calorie, but so is a pile 'o cheese and butter. In the end, you don't use that many nuts- this had 1/4 of a cup of raw, unsalted cashew nuts in it, and it fed 4 adults with two meals left over. So, very low nut to person ratio. Plus, the fat in nuts is the kind of fat that would make your body happy, and it would give you a high five for it, but really you'd just be standing in your kitchen clapping over a pot, so maybe don't do that ;)

Don't worry if your first tries at cashew cheese fail, I tried two recipes before I just kind of made up my own based on two others I combined. Any Google search of "vegan cashew cheese" will happily return heaps of pages for you to sift through. One thing I've found out- most include lemon juice, in copious amounts. The lemon gives it a necessary tart element, but I generally like using about half of what they suggest. I usually just squeeze out one lemon and call it a day. Let me know if you try any cashew cheese recipes!

Peripheral Benefits of CSA Produce...

Seriously though, I'm so excited to make zucchini bread!

Camping Cooking

Vegan food at our mountaintop campground.


We all went up to Rocky Mountain National Park to camp while the girls were in, and we had a pretty nice breakfast feast. Bobby made some veggie sausage over the propane grill...

I ate some of that plus instant oatmeal, with trail mix stirred in, out of a stereotypical camping cup.


And we dropped $6 on vegan marshmallows so we could have s'mores! (my hat matches my pants by pure coincidence, I don't match very well in real life, much less camping life!)

Look at how gorgeous that is. Even at 8 a.m.

Super dark vegan chocolate rounds it out!

How To Scramble

I love scrambles for breakfast. You can chuck in a ton of good veggies- especially odds 'n ends that need to get used up-, get a big dose of protein, mix in some nutritional yeast for your daily allowance of B12, and the cherry on top is you can cover it all in salsa and eat it with biscuits. This particular scramble had yellow bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, red and yellow onions, baby bellas, and black beans. Biscuits are from scratch- unfortunately not wheat, I'm trying to use up the rest of my white flour- and the sausage is vegan. I feel like I'm leaving a veg out, but that's all I can remember.

If you want to try your hand at making a tofu scramble, the very most important thing is to get extra firm tofu, and be sure to press the hell out of it so everything stays crumbly instead of getting mushy. Another tip is to mix all of your spices together in a little bowl, so you can sprinkle it evenly since the tofu can suck up the spices so quickly. I use this recipe-

http://www.theppk.com/recipes/dbrecipes/index.php?RecipeID=110

but I never use the lime/lemon juice, never add the carrot, you can't taste/feel a difference if you leave out the nutritional yeast, I don't measure any of the veg/onion, and I adjust the level of spices depending on how much extra veg I add. If you add in spinach/greens- ah! SPINACH, that's what I was leaving out!- add it in once you've crumbled the tofu in so it will wilt but not get slimy/sloggy/nasty. I have to admit, I wasn't over the moon about tofu scrambles until I made them myself at home. I always had to have my eggs *very* hard scrambled, so this gave me control over the cooking time. Have fun experimenting :)

P.S.- This makes a LOT of scramble. Get some tortillas and use the leftovers to roll up breakfast burritos, wrap them up well, and freeze for quick breakfasts. Or, just use half the block of tofu and try your hand at baking the other for a separate meal.

Crumble

After our epic southern feast, we had to have dessert. That's just the way it's done. Bobby made this crumble for us. About 6 months ago we found the recipe on the back of a package of frozen rhubarb, when, while grocery shopping, we both decided since neither of us had ever eaten rhubarb we should give it a try. The original recipe called for the standard half 'barb/half strawberry mix, but we've used pretty much every fruit under the sun since then. This is a mixture of frozen blackberries, raspberries, and strawberries with some fresh blueberries thrown in to the mix. The topping is just equal parts flour to sugar, and then enough of a fat- sometimes we use oil, sometimes we use vegan butter- to make the dry mixture form crumbles. Mix about a tbsp each of sugar/flour in with the fruit, top with the crumble mixture, and bake. The time varies *wildly* depending on how much fruit you use, the ratio of frozen to fresh, and how deep the dish is. We usually just cover the bottom of a 9 inch square pan, that way things don't get too soggy. Serve with a good scoop of vanilla coconut milk ice cream!

Pot Pie for Katie and Anna

You guys have seen the pot pie before, and I don't need to remind you how much I love it. The first thing I said the first time I made it was "This is AMAZING" and the second thing was "I HAVE to make this when Katie comes up!". Katie and her friend Anna were here all last week as I mentioned, and I was *so* excited to make a nice Southern meal for all us Texas girls *and boy, hi Bobby!*


I served the pot pie with, from left to right, more of the white bean/spinach/sundried tomato dish; sauteed squash and zucchini from our CSA; red and golden beets, red, purple, and white turnips, and rainbow swiss chard from our CSA sauteed in red onions and garlic; mashed sweet potatoes. The pot pie was just as good the second time around and the sides gave a lot of variety to such a dense, hearty main dish. The girls loved it so I was a happy host :)

Coconut Banana Oat Cookies

Bobby and I had house guests all last week. They drove in last Monday- a 15 hour trip from Texas- and I fed them a mix of things I had in my fridge when they arrived late at night. Since we were all up and cookies don't take long to throw together and cook, I made these as they ate their dinner and we caught up. I still can't believe I'm not only making, but eating and enjoying, recipes with coconut in them. Seriously, as I've said before, getting organic, unsulphured, unsweetened dried shredded coconut to cook from has made all the difference. The stuff in the bags in the baking aisle, or whatever topped Sno-Balls or was stuffed into Almond Joy, almost ruined me for coconut forever.

These cookies had two mashed bananas, a cup of unsweetened shredded coconut, and a cup of oats, along with all the other standard cookie players like flour and oil and such. It was flavored with just a touch of cinnamon and vanilla, and I used brown sugar because I like the way it complements coconut. These cookies were awesome. I ate a good scoop of the batter and then had one fresh out of the oven. I think the sugar could have been completely omitted and they would have still been sweet from the bananas. It was a good start to a great week with friends.

Waffles and Rice

Whole wheat waffles topped with chia seeds, a big handful of raw trail mix- unsweetened coconut, dates, almonds, peanuts, raisins, sunflower seeds, walnuts- and a big drizzle of warmed up, organic, 100% maple syrup. After years of scoffing at its expense, I purchased some. I can definitely say it is both better than "pancake syrup" and is also worth the extra money.



The Caribbean rice, reincarnated as a breakfast rice pudding of sorts. Definitely fits in a bit better with waffles and mornings than it did as a dinner dish. I topped it with chopped, raw, unsalted walnuts and more chia seeds. With less sugar and the addition of the crunchy walnuts I liked it even more than I did the first time. Although I have to admit I only ate half of it thanks to filling up on waffles. Taking pictures of my food is so much better now that I stopped being lazy and learned the (absolute bare minimum basics) of Bobby's camera.

Dinner Part II- In Which I Take Sun Dried Tomatoes as a Mistress

During random minutes of downtime during the PotPie Making Process of 2010, I rounded up the ingredients for a side dish I found on Epicurious. While I love you guys, I have to confess that I didn't get out the bowls just for aesthetics of the picture- I usually like to put veggies in separate bowls so I can have a clear cutting board surface. I did, however, arrange them just so for the picture :) You're looking at sundried tomatoes, minced garlic, an onion, and white beans.


Everything save the beans gets all sauteed up in oil. I used the oil from the jar of tomatoes, since I used about half for the recipe. The only seasonings in the recipe are paprika, salt, and pepper, but the garlic, tomatoes, and olive oil are the real stars.


Add in a few good handfuls of baby spinach, put a lid on it and let it wilt, stirring occasionally to combine and aid in the wilting. I fiddled with all the measurements in this recipe, and I'm glad I did. It called for 20 oz of spinach, which is A LOT. I used about 10 oz and two cans of beans and it was a good ratio of spinach/beans to spices/oil/garlic. I would say it smelled like heaven, but I was putting this together as the potpie was coming into its own in the oven, and I have to say the potpie smelled like heaven. If heaven has a smell. I'm sure heaven has a smell. Let's just say it smells like awesome vegan pot pie. With beans and spinach in the background. Anyway, stop reading this pointless sentence and look below it...


Yes. Ma'am. This was so, so good. It was light and fresh tasting, which was the perfect complement to the dense creaminess of the potpie. I cannot wait for leftovers tomorrow. Or later tonight. Or as soon as I hit "Publish Post".

Dinner Part I- In Which I Decide to Marry a Potpie

Dinner tonight was epic. For the main dish, I made Cauliflower and Mushroom Potpie with Black Olive Crust from the old standby, "Veganomicon". Full disclosure- from start to finish, between this guy and the side I made, I was in the kitchen for 3 hours. BUT! Wait! Don't run off crying. Bear in mind this includes washing and cleaning and cutting and peeling loads of veggies, and you make a sauce and a biscuit crust from scratch. The point is, it is worth it. Worthitworthitworthit. Just trust me, this recipe alone is worth checking out and or buying this cookbook. Let's see what went down...



First you make a sauce- a naughty sauce, with 3 TBSP of Earth Balance (or butter if you prefer). Flour is browned in the Earth Balance until it's sizzling, then a milk sub (I used no sugar added almond milk)and marjoram, thyme, tarragon, mustard powder, and salt are whisked in. This gets thick and creamy, and smelled and tasted divine. I could have stopped right there and just had that in a glass for dinner, but there were two more elements to make.


A made from scratch biscuit crust with chopped olives and thyme added. I don't own a rolling pin, so I just smooshed it out with my fingers and it worked just fine.


A bit out of order, but I made the biscuit crust while this portion was steaming- leeks, carrots, and mushrooms are sauteed in olive oil and garlic, and then you dump in a pile of cauliflower to steam. Then you run over to the other side of the kitchen and are grateful you mixed the dry ingredients of the biscuits first, because getting them together while the cauliflower steams is much easier this way.

Now it's time to combine these wonderful things into an exponentially wonderful thing. Dump the creamy sauce on top of the veggies and give it a good mix. Again, fight the urge to just stop right there and eat them straight from the pot.

Slice up the biscuits haphazardly, ignoring the advice to cut into diamonds- this is what I mean by "Veganomicon" being a bit fussy. I went for the rustic look, and it worked just fine :)

Dump the veggie/sauce mixture into a baking pan, and then lay the biscuit strips on top, covering the top. All of this goes into the oven. While it cooked, I made the side, which gets its own post because Blogger is hell bent on making me lose my mind with it's sadistic photo uploading methods. But, another topic for another time.

The potpie came out bubbling and crumbly. And it was glorious. Everything about it was great.

Creamy, hearty, complex spice profile, and really good biscuits holdin' it all down. Make this. Please. I can't come to your house and do it for you, so you just have to trust me.