When I studied abroad in London I was fortunate enough to enjoy several afternoon teas.  I love sweets, I love sandwiches, and I actually prefer tea to coffee, so a classic tea is a little piece of heaven for me.  I know that my love of this tasty ritual informed my menu of baked goods for C’est La V Bakeshop, and I’ve always felt that they’d be right at home next to some dainty sandwiches and pots of tea.

I was just starting to test some tea sandwich recipes when Jackie Horrick, owner of Alternative Outfitters, contacted me about catering a vegan afternoon tea for her birthday.  Her back yard was the perfect setting for a relaxing tea service, and it made for a really fun afternoon.  I wrote a Food Feature for VegNews about the tea, and the whole thing was such a huge success that I’ve decided to expand C’est La V’s menu to include catering for tea parties!

If you’re outside of the Los Angeles area and you want to throw your own vegan afternoon tea, you can have C’est La V baked goods shipped right to your front door.  For tea sandwiches, try a meatless chicken salad, chickpea salad or radish and “butter” with gray salt.  You can even buck tradition and do mini TLTs (tempeh “bacon”, lettuce and tomato).  This recipe for Cucumber Tea Sandwiches with Herbed “Cream Cheese” is also a great place to start!

Cucumber Tea Sandwiches with Herbed “Cream Cheese”
If you’re making these ahead of time, store them in the refrigerator covered with wax paper and a damp paper towel to prevent the bread from drying out.

1 medium to large organic cucumber
8 oz. tub of tofutti cream cheese (or your favorite brand), at room temperature
1 tablespoon minced organice chives
1 tablespoon minced organic tarragon
sea salt and fresh cracked pepper, to taste
1 loaf organic white spelt bread
about 2 teaspoons Maldon sea salt

Peel the cucumber and slice it into paper thin discs.  Combine the “cream cheese”, minced herbs and salt and pepper to taste in a small bowl.

To make the sandwiches, cut the crusts off of the bread and lay the slices out on a cutting board.  Spread both sides with a layer of the herbed “cream cheese”, and arrange a layer of cucumber disc on one side of bread.  Sprinkle some of the Maldon salt over the cucumber slices and top with the other piece of bread.  Cut the bread in half on a diagonal, and then cut each piece in half again, forming 4 small triangles.

There’s nothing like a fresh, ripe mango.  I’d never eaten them until probably a few years ago, and I was totally missing out!  I think I was intimidated by not being sure about when they were ripe, and then not knowing exactly the best way to cut them up.  I finally got over all of that, and I’m so glad I did.

I like to use frozen mango in my smoothies and usually just eat the fresh ones on their own, but I had a couple that were getting pretty overripe, and  I thought they’d be perfect to throw into a quick bread.  I realized that I also had some So Delicious Coconut-based Passionate Mango yogurt in the fridge, so I decided to make a Thai-inspired Mango Loaf by modifing one of my favorite recipes, Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s “Bakery Style Berry Muffins”.

I’m calling it Thai-style because I substituted coconut palm sugar – which is often used in Thai desserts - for the regular cane sugar, and I used coconut oil in place of canola oil.  Although you could probably also say it’s inspired by Indian cuisine since I used cardamom, and coconut and mango are ingredients used in Indian cooking as well.

I really wanted this bread to be awesome, but I wasn’t wasn’t sure how it would turn out.  I’ve only used the coconut palm sugar in cookie recipes, and I’ve never baked with coconut oil.  I’m happy to say that it tasted amazing, and it was incredibly moist from the mangoes.  I brought it to a friend’s birthday potluck and it was a huge hit!

Mango Bread

2 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cardamom
3/4 cups coconut palm sugar
1/2 cup Passionate Mango coconut milk yogurt (or another dairy-free flavor like vanilla)
1/2 cup soy milk
1/2 cup coconut oil (liquefied)
2 ripe mangoes, cut into small pieces

Preheat oven to 375 degrees, and lightly grease a loaf pan.  (You can skip this if you use a paper loaf pan, like I did.  Just make sure to bake the filled paper loaf pan on a parchment-lined baking sheet.)

In a large mixing bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, salt, cardamom and sugar.  Make a well in the center and add non-dairy yogurt, milk and coconut oil.  Stir to combine.  Fold in the mango.

Spoon the batter into your loaf pan, and bake for about 40 minutes or so, turning the pan halfway through the cooking time.  The bread is done when the top is golden and a cake tester or toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool completely before slicing.

Notes: You want to fill the batter to about 2/3 full in your loaf pan.  I had enough batter to make a few small muffins, which I partly did so that I could taste test this before bringing it to the party.  You can certainly use all the batter, but your baking time might be a bit longer.

If you don’t use a paper loaf pan, you’ll want to turn the loaf out onto a cooling rack about ten minutes or so after it comes out of the oven.  You’ll still want to allow it to cool completely before slicing.

You could try substituting coconut milk for the soy milk.  I think that light coconut milk would work better than full-fat, since it’s a bit less thick, but I didn’t have any on hand and thought I’d wait to see how this turned out before messing any more with the recipe.

The other night we had some friends over for dinner, and I thought I’d make a soup and salad type meal featuring this Cauliflower Bisque.  I’m constantly saving recipes that I find online, but I often forget to go back and actually make them.  I found this one in an old email I’d sent to myself, and it sounded like it would be really tasty, and also pretty simple to make.  It was both those things, and I’ll definitely be making this one again!

I found the recipe for the soup here, but it’s originally from the book “Love Soup” by Anna Thomas.  It isn’t written as vegan, but it was very easily adapted.  I’ve re-written it below with my changes – both to the ingredients and to a few of the directions.

Cauliflower Bisque with “Buttered” Breadcrumbs
Serves 6-7

1 large white cauliflower (2 lbs)
5 cups vegetable broth, divided
2 cups water
1-inch piece lemon zest (yellow part only, the white pith will turn bitter)
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 ½ tsp. sea salt, plus more to taste
2 medium carrots
2 medium stalks celery
1 medium yellow onion
3 tablespoons olive oil
5 cloves garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon herbes de Provence
1 cup raw cashews

Trim the cauliflower, cut the florets in small pieces, and put them in a soup pot with 4 cups of the vegetable broth and the 2 cups of water.  Add the lemon juice and the strip of zest to the pot, along with a teaspoon of sea salt. Bring the liquid to a boil, lower the heat, and let it simmer, covered, for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, peel, trim, and chop the carrots, celery, and onion. Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a skillet and add the chopped vegetables, along with half a teaspoon of sea salt. Sauté the vegetables on a medium flame, stirring often, until they are soft, about 15 minutes or so.  Add the garlic and cook an additional five minutes, or until the vegetables are beginning to color. Add the herbes de Provence and keep stirring over medium heat for a few minutes longer. Add the sautéed vegetables to the cauliflower, and stir.

At this point the cauliflower should be very tender.  If it’s not, continue to simmer the soup until it is.  Once the cauliflower is cooked through, turn off the heat and let the soup cool briefly.  While the soup is cooling, add your raw cashes and remaining cup of vegetable broth to your blender.  Puree the mixture until it’s very smooth and creamy.  Pour the cashew cream into a small bowl, and set aside.  Without rinsing the blender, puree the cauliflower mixture.  You may have to do this in batches.  Return the soup to the pot, and stir in the cashew cream, to taste, until the soup is has the consistency and flavor that you like.  [I didn't end up using all of the cream - you can refrigerate whatever is left and save it for another use.]  Taste, and add salt or lemon juice if needed.  Sprinkle a heaping spoonful of buttered breadcrumbs (recipe follows) over each serving of soup at the last minute, just as you are serving it.

“Buttered” Breadcrumbs

1 cup coarse, soft breadcrumbs
1 tablespoon non-dairy margarine [I use Earth Balance]

You can make big, soft breadcrumbs by cutting up day-old bread into cubes and processing them briefly in a food processor. Alternately, you can crumble any soft bread with your fingers.

Melt the “butter” in a nonstick skillet, add the breadcrumbs, and stir over medium heat for several minutes. As soon as the breadcrumbs begin to take on a toasty golden color, remove them from the heat. Use them warm from the pan, or spread them in a thin layer on a plate or cookie sheet to cool.

Notes: Make sure to be very careful when blending the hot soup.  If your blender doesn’t have a vent in the lid, you’ll need to keep it slightly cracked (away from you!) to release the steam that will build up.  You can add more margarine to the breadcrumbs if you like – the original recipe calls for 2 tablespoons.  I was trying to keep it a little lighter because I added quite a bit of cashew cream.  Enjoy!

This bright green spring salad is one of my favorites.  I love panzanella salads in general (who wouldn’t love a bread salad?!), and this version from Michael Chiarello is really awesome.  Thank god I finally like asparagus and peas – if you’d served this to me as a kid I’d have probably made a wise-crack and pushed the plate away.  The only thing I would have considered eating was the bread, and even that would have freaked me out since it’s coated in an asparagus puree.

All that’s changed, and now I love asparagus.  But one thing that hasn’t changed since my childhood is my love of springtime.  Even though we don’t suffer through a bad winter here in Los Angeles, the winters of my youth still haunt me!  That first peek of green, whether it was grass, flower or tree buds was an amazing sight.  Now that I’m not such a picky eater (well, okay, I guess some might see it that way because of the foods I choose not to eat – but it isn’t because I don’t like them), I can really appreciate the different fresh foods that each season has to offer.  Having lived in LA for almost seven and a half years, I can finally feel the change of seasons here, and one of the biggest indications of where we’re at season-wise is what’s at the farmers’ market.

This is definitely the time of year for asparagus, asparagus and more asparagus!  This salad is packed with it, and it’s so delicious.  There’s also a hint of basil and a mild onion taste, plus some sweetness from the peas. Lemon juice brightens up the whole thing, and the asparagus-puree-drenched croutons are a great contrast to peppery arugula.  You can use spinach if you prefer, but I like the bold flavor of arugula here.

Veganizing this one is ridiculously easy, and again, it just kills me that Chef Chiarello was so stumped about making a vegan meal on Top Chef.  For the sake of convenience I’m going to write the recipe out here with the minor changes I’ve made as well as my notes.

Spring Panzanella Salad

2 pounds medium asparagus
1/2 cup freshly chopped basil leaves
8 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
Sea salt, preferably gray salt and freshly ground black pepper
Panzanella Croutons, recipe follows
2 cups fresh or frozen English peas, boiled until tender and drained [I just thawed frozen peas]
1 cup thinly sliced green onion or spring onion
3 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice, divided
1/2 head radicchio, ribbon-cut, soaked, drained, and dried
2 cup whole baby spinach leaves or arugula

Holding an asparagus spear in both hands, bend the spear until it breaks naturally at the point where the spear becomes tough. Discard the tough end. Repeat with the remaining asparagus. Cut off the tender tips and reserve.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the asparagus tips and cook briefly, just until they lose their raw taste, about 2-3 minutes. Lift them out with a sieve or skimmer and let cool. Add the remaining portion of the asparagus spears and cook until tender enough to puree, about 5 minutes or so, then drain well.

Put the asparagus spears, basil, 6 tablespoons of the olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste in a blender or food processor. Puree until smooth.

In a large bowl, combine the croutons, asparagus tips, peas, and green or spring onion. Add some of the asparagus puree and toss to coat well. Add more puree as needed to coat lightly and evenly. Add 3 tablespoons of the lemon juice and toss again. Taste and adjust the seasoning, then make an even layer of the mixture on a platter.

In another bowl, combine the radicchio and spinach or arugula. Dress with the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil, the remaining 1 teaspoon lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste. Toss well, then mound on top of the dressed croutons. Serve immediately.

Panzanella Croutons

1/2 cup (4 ounces) Earth Balance (or other non-dairy) margarine
12 cups (about 2 pounds) crust-free cubed day-old bread (1/2-inch cubes)
1/4 – 1/3 cup nutritional yeast, or vegan Parmesan

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Cut the crusts off the bread with a serrated knife, and use a chef’s knife to cube the bread.  Put the bread cubes into a very large bowl.

Melt the margarine, and pour it over the bread cubes, tossing well to coat all the pieces.  Sprinkle the nutritional yeast over the cubes, and toss again.  Spread the cubes out evenly onto two baking sheets .

Bake, stirring once or twice, until the croutons are crisp and lightly colored on the outside but still soft within, about 12 to 15 minutes. Let cool. Store in an airtight container.

Notes: If you use the radicchio, you don’t have to soak it.  You can slice it, and rinse it with very cold water.  I substituted Belgian endive to save an extra trip to a second store, and it worked just fine.

I like to use more lemon juice than called for on the greens.  If you’re not serving this to a crowd, just dress the amount of greens you want to eat since they won’t keep as leftovers, though the rest of the salad (bread part) will.  This makes a ton, so toss everything together in a really, really big bowl.  Enjoy!

I know that the pasta up there looks a little crazy, but man did it taste good!  I bought it at the Mangi Con Amore stand at the Hollywood Farmers Market in anticipation of wanting a simple weeknight meal, and that shape – Traditional Trofie – was recommended as going really  well with pesto sauce.   (I also got the tip to shave a little bit of walnut over the finished dish.)  They have several fresh, egg-free pasta options, but I think this one has to be my favorite.  It’s so chewy and yummy, and I imagine it’s perfect with whatever sauce you serve it with.

Going along with keeping it simple, we also used some pesto that we’d bought at the market from Basiltops.  They have several dairy-free pesto sauces, and they’re all really good.  The hardest part of this meal was making the spread for the garlic bread (and that was pretty easy too!)

A few years ago I attended a “Helping Animals 101″ weekend held by PETA.  I know that PETA can be a pretty controversial organization, but one of the great things they do is put out awesome recipes.  We got a packet that weekend with a bunch of recipes, one of them being for this Garlic Bread Spread, which has become my favorite.  It’s so simple to throw together and it tastes so good!  We’ve served it to many a dairy-eater and they always love it.

The Best Garlic Bread Spread
This makes a lot, so I usually half the recipe and keep it in the fridge.

1 tub (8 ounces) Earth Balance margarine, softened
1 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup raw garlic, minced
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon pepper
2 Tablespoons garlic powder
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1/4 cup Italian herbs (I use half oregano and half basil)

Mix all ingredients well, then chill the mixture.  To serve, spread the mixture on vegan bread and toast to a golden brown.

I left the fresh garlic out of this the other night (yes, I was that lazy), and it was still amazing.  You can play with the herbs, and add whatever you like best.  Enjoy!

Ah, Biscuits and Gravy, one of Ryan’s all-time favorite dishes.  Before I stopped eating meat, I’d never had “real” biscuits and gravy.  Being the picky eater that I was, the idea of blobby, white sausage gravy grossed me out.  Gravy was definitely not something I ate as a kid, and even as an adult I wouldn’t eat gravy at Thanksgiving (probably the only time of the year it was on the table.)

It wasn’t until I started making vegan gravies that I actually liked the stuff.  And lest you think, “Oh she likes them because she doesn’t know what gravy should taste like.  I bet it tastes like weird vegan food,” we’ve served vegan gravy to many a meat-eater and they too have loved it.

Now, the part of the Biscuits and Gravy that I could always get behind was the biscuits!  My favorite biscuit recipe is in the book How it All Vegan by Tanya Barnard & Sarah Kramer.  I’ve made these so many times that my book actually opens up to the page with “Easy Biscuits”, and the name is no lie.  These are usually mixed and cut before the oven is even heated.

So vegan biscuits are the easy part – vegan sausage gravy?  It hasn’t actually been hard, but it has taken some tweaking over time.  I feel like I finally have it the way I like it, although it’s easy enough to alter the recipe if you like yours thicker or thinner than this version.  You can also add whatever seasonings you like.  I keep this pretty simple, but you certainly don’t have to.  The main thing with this is that you want to use unsweetened non-dairy milk.  Even the smallest amount of sweetener can make this gravy taste way too sweet once it’s cooked and reduced.

Vegan Sausage Gravy

about 1 Tablespoon + 1/4 cup canola oil, divided
1 small onion, minced
1 package or 8 ounces vegan sausage, diced (see note)
1/2 cup All-Purpose unbleached flour
2 1/2 cups non-dairy unsweetened milk (I’ve used soy and almond)
sea salt
fresh cracked black pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika

Heat the canola oil (about 1 Tablespoon) in a large, deep skillet or sauce pan over medium to medium high heat.  Saute the minced onion and a pinch of sea salt until the onions soften and become translucent.  Add your vegan sausage and saute until heated through and slightly browned.  Transfer the onion and sausage mixture into a small bowl, and return the pan to the heat.

Add 1/4 canola oil and the flour to the pan.  Whisk together to make a thick roux, and cook until it bubbles and smells nutty.  You just want to cook out the raw flour taste. Slowly add the non-dairy milk while whisking to dissolve the roux.  Stir constantly over medium heat (or lower) to let the gravy thicken.  (This is usually when I put the biscuits in the oven.)

Once it’s simmered and become the thickness that you like, add the sausage and onion mixture back to the pan.  Stir everything together and add the seasonings. You’ll want to use a lot of  pepper and plenty of salt.

This makes a pretty thick gravy.  If you want it a bit thinner, just add a some non-dairy milk until you get the consistency you like.  If it’s too thin for you, let it continue to reduce and simmer.

Note: Make sure to check that your sausage is vegan.  I’ve used Morningstar Farms, and I could swear that it was vegan back in the day, but now it contains egg whites. (This link lists Morningstar’s vegan products.)  It’s a good idea to always check the label – even on products you’ve used in the past.  Companies often change the ingredients, and the only way to check this is to read the ingredient list. Tofurky Breakfast Links work well, and another good vegan sausage to try is Gimme Lean.  If you’re up for it there are also lots of vegan sausage recipes on the web. They’re actually not too difficult to make, and the best part is that you can control exactly what goes into them!

The other day when I was looking for a particular post, I came across this photo in a draft that I had totally forgotten about.  I have no idea how this slipped through the cracks!  I meant to write about it this summer, and just forgot I guess.  Poor loaf.

I made this when Ryan and I went to the Hollywood Bowl with our dear friends Mike and Shannon (two of the best people in the world).  I used the Cherry Almond muffin recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance, but just baked the whole thing up in a loaf pan.  I had a mixture of yellow and red cherries – please note those official names. You can see a couple of the yellows peeking out.  I’d made this recipe once before and remembered loving it.  The cherry/almond flavor combo is one of my all time favorites.

I would love to try this loaf with dried cherries, since fresh are around for such a short time and can be so expensive.  Muffins and loafs combine two of my favorite things – bread and sweet.  A loaf is even better because it’s so much easier to make!  Too bad it’s so hard to work off of your hips.  This one might still be hanging around mine, even months later…

I finally got the chance to eat some Taste of Life a couple months ago, and I’m probably the last vegan in LA to try this stuff!  It’s certainly old news to many, but since becoming a vendor at the Hollywood Farmers’ Market, Ryan and I have had it almost every week.  Apparently they’ve closed the restaurant, but are still doing catering and the market.  Their food is really amazing, and they couldn’t be nicer.

I’m not a big tofu fan, but their barbecued tofu is awesome.  I don’t like tofu that’s too soft or that tastes tofu-ey (my new favorite word), and this stuff is neither.  The mac n’ cheese is creamy and fantastic, as are the greens and the black eyed peas. They also make a lasagna and seitan pot roast, but the plate above is my favorite assortment.  I’m a sucker for a good piece of cornbread, and this one delivers. We’re pretty spoiled with vegan options at the market, and this is definitely one of our favorites!

Awwww… look how much the squash and apples love each other.  They know that they taste really good together, as evidenced in this delicious soup.  I first made this years ago, back when I was watching Food Network all the time.  My favorite show was Easy Entertaining with Michael Chiarello, because I think that was the food that I related to the most.  I also found that many of his recipes could easily be adapted to make them vegan.

I had to laugh when I watched the episode of Top Chef Masters where the chefs had to cook for Zooey Deschanel, who requested vegan, gluten-free food.  I couldn’t believe how baffled Chiarello was about what to make.  I’ve only ever made vegan versions of his food.  I was a little shocked that all the chefs (with the exception of Rick Bayless) were so totally stumped.  Aren’t these supposed to be some of the best chefs in the whole world?  And they seriously had no clue what to do when the animal products were removed from the picture?

Chiarello could have easily made his butternut squash and apple soup.  See it up there?  Totally vegan.  The original recipe calls for butter and chicken stock, and I guess he wouldn’t think that it could still work without them.  I sub Earth Balance for the butter and vegan bouillon for the chicken stock.  (I use bouillon because it costs less and takes up less space than the quart size containers of stock.)  With two such minor changes, you can see that it doesn’t take a lot to make this soup vegan.

And I’m sure it tastes just as good, if not better, because it tastes pretty awesome. It’s savory, and a little sweet.  I used this with toasted spice rub that I had in the freezer for about four years(!), and it still tasted great.  The toasted spice rub is really interesting in this – spicy, but not overpowering.  And on the whole, it’s pretty easy to make. The hardest part is peeling the apples and squash.  This soup would be great for Thanksgiving, and also really impressive garnished with the optional candied walnuts, which I was too lazy to make last night.

I love having biscuits with soup.  I had some Daiya in the fridge and thought that cheddar biscuits might go really well with this because of that crazy cheddar-cheese-on-apple-pie thing that people do.  I found this recipe after a quick online search, and it probably took me less than five minutes to mix together.  It was so incredibly easy – especially with my handy ice cream scoop helping me plop the dough down on my cookie sheet.  I added a half teaspoon of garlic powder to the dry ingredients, and I baked them at 450 instead of 475.  Next time I make these, I’ll brush the tops with melted Earth Balance and sprinkle on garlic salt, but I didn’t have any on hand last night.

Remember how I said (just yesterday, was it?) that I’m trying to eat more healthy foods?  Please just know that the biscuits were really essential to the meal last night, and the soup was just begging for them.  You see, the soup was healthy, so it counteracted any unhealthiness that might have been going on.  It’s nice how I worked that out, huh?

I love strawberries, but no matter how many I eat, I always seem to have a bunch left-over in the fridge.  I usually end up dealing with them once half of them are past saving, and I cut the rest up and throw them in the freezer for smoothies.  I know that next time I shouldn’t buy as many, but then I’m at the farmer’s market, and they look and smell so good – I just can’t resist, and I do the whole thing all over again.

I was recently contacted by the California Strawberry Commission about my balsamic strawberries.  They’re doing a free iPhone app featuring strawberry recipes and wanted to include my recipe!  They also have a twitter account where they often post links to interesting recipes and tips, and that’s what led me to end up making this loaf.

We were having people over, and I wanted to make some sort of dessert that would be easy to make and easy to serve.  I had a bunch of strawberries sitting in the fridge, on the path to a slow death, and I came across this recipe on twitter.  The recipe wasn’t vegan, and I didn’t have any bananas on hand, so I compared it Isa Chandra’s Bakery-Style Berry Muffins from Vegan Brunch.  I figured it would be easier to use that recipe and just add the white chocolate chips, subbing strawberry soy yogurt for the vanilla that I usually use.

This was a monster loaf – I don’t know if you can tell from the photo, but this thing was busting out of it’s pan. It was so moist and yummy.  I sliced it and had in on a plate in the kitchen, and every time I would turn around, another piece was gone.  I finally gave in and put it out, and before I knew it, the whole thing had vanished.

Next time I have strawberries I’ll make this loaf or make muffins.  It’s so simple to put together and tastes so good!  The combination of strawberries and white chocolate almost makes it taste like a strawberries and cream cake.  You can also make this with frozen berries, so when I store up enough of my little bags of forgotten and frozen fruit, I’ll know I can give them new life with this recipe.