Monday, July 18, 2011

Summer Vegan Meet-up

Great vegan meet-up Saturday evening with some new faces and some non-veg people in the group (I love people who don't mind coming to a vegan potluck even though they aren't veg). Rachel blogged about it here? Her pictures are so awesome. I need to find out what kind of camera she uses. It was great to see her and everyone else at the meet-up. I ate so much, it was all so yummy!

We hosted this meet-up and the day was beautiful so we set up at the park.
Josie was climbing the trees waiting for the vegan group to show up.
"When do you think everyone will show up and what kind of food will they bring?"
 Here is the spread (early on, several dishes came after I took this picture). If any meet-up attendees want to share their recipes or already have a blog with the recipe posted, let me know.
Katie's Corn Fritters with Black Bean Dip (you can barely see it at the bottom). Don't you love how pretty they look? They vanished quickly!
Meat-free Mike's Quinoa Salad. He had me at cilantro. For some great ideas for quinoa recipes, check out Cooking Qunioa.
I think someone (sorry I don't remember who brought it) called this Broccoli Slaw, but I call it delicious. It had grapes and apples along with the usual broccoli salad suspects. It is one of my favorites, but I rarely make it.
Amelia made this Savory Zucchini Bread with vegan cheese on top. Oh my! She brought two of these and they disappeared (I'm pretty sure my children ate almost one dish by themselves). Amelia is legendary in our house and the kids love anything and everything she makes. She also happens to run the Common Ground Co-op Deli department. I secretly want to open a vegan restaurant with her, but for now I'm just happy to have her smiling face at the co-op and her yummy food at the meet-up.
Amelia's Black Bean Pasta Salad, one of Dema's favorites and one you can eat by stopping by Common Ground's deli.
Jason's Spicy Green Beans, yum! Rob and I are not huge green bean fans. I don't know why, but we buy them for the kids and we eat them happily, but don't crave them. These green beans I could eat every day!
Rachel's Confetti Ramen Slaw with Hemp Dressing. I rarely make anything with ramen. Not that I don't like ramen, I just don't think about it. This was so good, I will have to start stocking ramen noodles in my pantry.
Rob made Blackened Spicy Chickpeas from my new cookbook, The Indian Vegan Kitchen by Madhu Gadia. It calls for black tea in the recipe. We haven't cooked with tea often so it was fun to make a version of chole without tomatoes and the subtle tea flavor in the background.
Rob also made his take on Jasmin's Mattar Pulao. I had to return Ginger and Ganesh to the library so he went by memory.
Obviously, the tempeh salad (kind of a vegan take on tuna salad) went fast. Sorry, I don't remember who brought this one. A great way to tempeh haters to learn to love it!
One of several platefuls of food. One of the non-veg participants went on and on about how colorful vegan food is...yep, a wonderful way to eat your rainbow. Who says vegan food is boring?
To drink we had Chase's home brewed beer and my latest favorite sun tea, Good Earth Organic White Tea Sweet Citrus flavor.
Rob had to set up the slackline because it is too much fun. Here is Amelia looking like a pro!
We finished up the evening with a night swim at Vicky and Greg's pool A perfect end to the day and nothing makes one sleep better!

Want to be part of the vegan meet-up fun? Locals can click the link at the top of the post and join the meet-up group. Don't have a vegan meet-up in your area? Start one!

3 comments:

Robin said...

A fabulous meet-up indeed!! I loved every dish. One hundred percent. Plus Chase's beer, your tea, and the slackline? Highlight of my weekend for sure. Oh, also, I uhh, accidentally brought one of your knives home in my pan. Oops! (Sorry!) Will return next meetup : ]


p.s. Having read your blog for awhile now, I knew as soon as I saw it that the chickpea dish was Rob's! (Recognition that was very much followed by even greater anticipation...I also LOVE Indian food.)

VeganLinda said...

Robin, I'm so glad you made it! No problem about the knife, we didn't even notice it. We'll schedule another meet-up soon.

Rob is kind of obsessed with making chole/channa. We cooked up more chickpeas on Monday and that was the first thing he thought to make with them. :-)

Rachel Weber said...

Hi Linda! Thanks again for hosting. I think much of the credit for the pictures goes to the time of day. The light was just right! I use a Canon Power Shot A540 though, which takes much better pictures outside than it does in my kitchen.

I'm glad you liked the salad. I think it would also be good without the ramen.