Local Party Food

We hosted a game night at our house last night and I challenged myself to make the snacks as close to 100% local as possible- Here's how I did:

Our burritos were made with homemade flour tortillas (flour from MN and soymilk from IA), homemade refried black beans (beans from MN, peppers from the garden, green garlic from MN/WI), lettuce from the garden, and homemade pico de gallo (tomatoes from MN, green onions from WI, japaleno from garden, cilantro from MN/WI).

The chips were from Whole Grain Milling Co. in MN. The cookies are my Sunny Oat Maple
Cookies (local except for the oil, salt, and vanilla). Our beverage of choice for the night was Rhubarb-Ade. I think I posted before about the Rhubarb Lemonade recipe that my friend Sarah gave to me. I tweaked it just a bit-

Rhubarb-Ade

6-7 cups chopped rhubarb
7 cups water
1 cup maple sytup
a small handful of fresh lemon verbena leaves
additional 1-2 cups cold water

Boil the rhubarb, maple syrup, and water until the rhubarb is very mushy (maybe 10 minutes). Then strain the liquid in to a pitcher with a fine mesh strainer. In a smaller cup, smash the lemon verbena leaves with a cup water to release the flavor, then add to the rhubarb liquid. Taste the rhubarb ade and add more cold water if it need to be diluted or more maple syrup if it is too sour. {If it's too sweet, you can add some lemon juice, but my rhubarb was tart enough} Refrigerate pitcher for at least 4 hours, until thoroughly chilled.

Here's a great bagel sandwich I had a few nights ago- made with a St. Paul Bagelry "everything" bagel, MN tomatoes, MN made pickles, my homemade pickled radishes, and Wisconsin dill mustard. Yum!

Horseradish Beet Salad and a Midwest Sundae

Tonight's dinner totally hit the spot for me. I had just finished doing some yoga outside and watering the garden (lovely, except for my first mosquito bites of the year) and I wanted something fresh, cooling, and not overly filling. This avocado toast and Horseradish Beet Salad was exactly what I needed.

The avocado toast is just a mashed avocado, the juice of 1/2 a lime, and salt and pepper spread over very crisp toast. I ended up putting the beet salad on top of the avocado on the toast, which looked really beautiful and tasted even better.

Horseradish Beet Salad
1 large beet, grated (about 1 1/2 cup grated)
1 Tbsp. minced fresh dill
2 green onions, chopped (about 2 Tbsp.)
1 Tbsp. Veganaise
1 tsp. grated horseradish
1/2 tsp. salt
freshly ground black pepper to taste
3 Tbsp. raw sunflower seeds

Stir together all of the ingredients. Take care to make sure the horseradish and Veganaise are well distributed throughout the salad. I like to let this for about 30 minutes before eating to let the flavors meld together and the beets get juicy. Just before serving, sprinkle the sunflower seeds over top of the salad.

I should thank my coworker/friend Nick for the idea for the beet salad, because last week he mentioned trying a flavor of chips called (I thought) "Beet and Horseradish". I thought, "Awesome! Beet chips with horseradish flavoring!". Alas, I misheard him and they were really Beef and Horseradish chips. But the flavor combo is a winner.

Here's the first use of the rhubarb syrup I made on Monday. This is a slab of cornbread topped with Rice Divine Very Vanilla ice cream and rhubarb syrup. This has got to be the most Midwestern ice cream sundae you could make.

Grilling Time!

Tonight we celebrated Memorial day like most Americans- around the grill. I love grilling outside. Ever since I was a little girl, my dad has trained me to cook food properly on the grill. I remember feeling both terrified and thrilled when my dad would douse the charcoal in gasoline and throw in a match. WHoooosh! We would sit and talk or I would play until the flames died down. Then he'd grill some steaks (always marinated in teriyaki sauce) or maybe some red snapper.

Today I was kinda bummed out because we decided not to get the bright and shiny nice new (used) car that I LOVED. I know it was the right (read: frugal) decision, but I still stayed in my pajamas until noon and wallowed in my own pity. So the point of this is that I needed a good cooking assignment to cheer me up. Mike called to say he wanted to grill out and that was all the inspiration I needed.

Let's start with the veggies. I stuffed some button mushrooms with leftover Cashew Ricotta (from Veganomicon) and marinated some locally grown, organic asparagus in lemon juice, olive oil, coarsely ground salt and black pepper. These cooked up really fast on the grill and the mushrooms were the best. This is one case where I was thankful that the kids won't touch any type of fungus. More for us!


I wanted hotdogs, but didn't want to go to the store (although I ended up going anyways to get a great vacuum cleaner that Mike dumpstered at the Co-op), so I made some. These are loosely based on the Spicy Italian Sausages, but I cut the recipe in 1/4 and added a cup of mashed lima beans, omitted anything spicy, and added liquid smoke. They turned out a bit more moist and less dense- just what I was looking for! Since these have wheat, I marinated some tempeh in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, tamari, and maple syrup for Mike.

I also baked some Southern Style GF Cornbread to go with my meal and with everyone else's desserts. You see, the great rift between myself and Mike & the boys is how we like our cornbread. I like mine savory- preferably with jalapeños, but I'll settle for green chilies. They like theirs as dessert with maple syrup.

The real star of the dinner was the Rhubarb Lemonade- thanks to my awesome friend Sarah.
She sent me this recipe from Food Network Canada (along with a SIGNED copy of Eat, Drink, and Be Vegan) last year, but I had just used the last of my rhubarb when I got the recipe. Now that the rhubarb is back, this was first on my list! It's really as simple as 6 1/2 cups water, 3/4 cup sugar, and 4 1/2 cups chopped rhubarb boiled until the rhubarb is soft, then strained. Then you add the juice of 1 lemon and chill. The super cute idea that I didn't get a chance to do tonight is to skewer some blueberries and freeze them to use as a garnish/stir stick for the lemonade!

This drink has a really unique flavor that only rhubarb lemonade could have- it's delicious! I also made some plain rhubarb sugar syrup at the same time, so look for that coming up soon.