Bagel Bites for Fishless Friday

Cashew Cream Cheese and Smoked Phish Bagel Bites

Let's call this part 2 in a 2-part series on fantastic fishless recipes.  First I gave you my Two Nut Phish Salad (yum), and today, on a Friday that still has lots of people around the world eating something from the sea, I bring you Cashew Cream Cheese and Smoked Phish Bagel Bites.

Another of my pre-vegan aspiring favorite things to eat was classic bagels and lox.  Removing the lox actually doesn't significantly change the deliciousness of that stack of savory delights - fresh bagel, Persian cucumber, Roma tomato, red onion, capers-if-handy, and cream cheese (I've been eating Tofutti brand and love it).

However, a while back I took a class with Miyoko Schinner, artisan vegan cheese maker, and she showed us how to make "lox" and "cream cheese" starring cashew nuts and nori.  First you make a cashew based creamy cheese, then mix in roasted red peppers, liquid smoke, nori, and sea salt to taste, and voila, you have a spread that any bagel would be proud to be schmeared with.

For Fishless Friday or Sunday Brunch, Cashew Cream Cheese and Smoked Phish Bagel Bites will definitely satisfy your craving for something-from-the-sea.  Enjoy! 

Two Nut Phish Salad (Vegan)

This month's food blogger group meetup theme was Vegetarian Brunch, which you know had me jumping for plant-based joy.  And what's brunch without a nice cold phish platter, right?

So I took my Two Nut Salad recipe, shaped it like an actual tuna, surrounded it with slices of a savory wheat/rye with mixed seeds bread, and headed for Judy and Joel's lovely Brentwood home.

Tunas Love Two Nut Phish Salad!

Here's the recipe:

Two Nut Phish Salad
2 cups garbanzo beans, canned or Melissa's steamed
1/2 cup hazelnuts, ground
1/2 cup almonds, ground
1/3 cup carrots, diced
1/3 cup celery, diced
1/3 cup sweet onion, diced
1/3 cup pickle relish
1/2 cup Vegenaise (mayo)
sea salt and fresh ground black pepper
1 1/2 Tablespoons dehydrated sea vegetables or crushed nori (optional)

Pulse the garbanzo beans in a processor until slightly mashed and flakey - do not take them into hummous territory!

In a large bowl, combine the g-beans with the remaining ingredients and toss to combine.  Season with s&p, add more of any ingredient you like, or for that matter you can leave something out and put something else you like in.  More Vegenaise probably wouldn't hurt either.  (The optional "sea" ingredient is for those who like their salad extra phishy.)

Form the salad into a fish shape, embellish with cucumber and scallion fins/tails, pluck in a hazelnut eyeball, surround with your favorite bread, crackers, and/or chips, and enjoy.  Maybe try and save some for a two nut phish salad sandwich for lunch tomorrow?

Holiday Shortcuts

You don't have to bake from scratch to be a star at the holiday cookie exchange.

These silver & blue hued beauties consist of Betty Crocker Shortbread Cookie Mix, Earth Balance "Butter" sticks for the dough, blueberry jam imported from Italy via the 99 Cents Only Store for the filling, powdered sugar with almond milk and limoncello for the icing, and silver and blue sprinkles for the big finish.

And you don't have to cook from scratch to create a savory standout for the potluck party.  There were a 1/2 dozen recipe requests for my Pesto Antipasto Appetizer (sorry, no picture) that is a simple assemblage of delicious prepared products from Melissa's:

Melissa's Steamed Artichoke Hearts (chopped)
Melissa's Steamed Fava Beans (rinsed)
Melissa's Roasted Red Bell Peppers (chopped)
Melissa's Pine Nuts (lightly toasted)
Melissa's Basil Pesto (or make your own)
Extra Virgin Olive Oil (I used Arianna Trading Co.)
Preserved Lemon or lemon juice
Fresh or Dried Basil and Oregano
Salt and Pepper

Use about equal amounts of each of the first 5 items, to end up with the quantity you need based on the number of people you're serving.  Add the olive oil, lemon, and pesto to coat, then season to taste with the herbs, salt and pepper.  Put the mixture in a serving bowl and surround with roasted garlic bagel chips, crackers, chips, and/or any crostini base you like.

So channel a little Sandra Lee, use great products from Melissa's, mix in a dash of your own creativity and flavor preferences, and do something dazzling in your kitchen!

Pimento Cheese Biscuit Sandwiches + Mosaic Garden Art

Pimento-Cheese Biscuit Sandwiches (Dairy-Free Version)
(photo by Judy Lyness)

Our recent Los Angeles Food Bloggers' potluck theme was "picnic", and I turned to a recipe that I wrote for Melissa's The Great Pepper Book for inspiration.  Actually more like imitation, because I pretty much recreated it ingredient for ingredient, with one slight variation.  I took the dairy ingredients and replaced them with non-dairy, plant-based  equivalents, and not that I make a habit of fooling people, but the bloggers were smacking their lips, totally surprised, when I came clean.

So whether you need to go dairy-free for health reasons, or want to try dairy-free out of culinary curiosity, you'll find that with a little creativity, ingenuity, experimentation, and all those other reasons why you like to cook in the first place, there isn't anything you can't recreate.  I'm not saying that the new version will taste exactly like the old version, but I will say that it will taste good, very good.

Buy This Book!

Here's the original recipe from Melissa's The Great Pepper Book, with substitutions in parentheses.  These little one-handed sandwiches would be perfect on paper plates at any picnic, or on a silver platter at your next potluck.

Pimento-Cheese Biscuit Sandwiches
1 can refrigerated buttermilk biscuit dough (dairy-free biscuit dough)
8 ounces cream cheese, softened - about 1 cup (Tofutti cream-cheese)
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese - about 2 ounces (Follow Your Heart Vegan Shredded Cheddar)
1/4 cup mayonnaise (Follow Your Heart Vegenaise)
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 fresh cherry bell chile peppers, stems and seeds removed, finely diced - about 1/3 cup (or sub red Fresno chiles)
1 large shallot, finely diced - about 2 tablespoons
3/4 cup watercress or arugula (I used arugula)
Fresh cherry bell chile peppers, thinly sliced (optional)
Smoked paprika to taste (new ingredient)

1.  Bake biscuits according to package directions; cool to room temperature.
2.  Place cheeses and next 5 ingredients, through shallots, in a food processor or blender; pulse to combine.
3.  Add smoked paprika, 1/4 teaspoon at a time, pulse to combine, and add more if desired.
4.  Cut biscuits in half.  Top biscuit bottoms evenly with cheese mixture and watercress or arugula, and sliced chiles, if desired.  Top with biscuit tops.  Serve on a silver platter or paper plate - whatever.



                                                        GARDEN ART   

On an arts & crafts note, I've been making garden mosaics using cement pavers

with broken china and tiles.  Here's the latest one, plus a few others from my succulent growing front yard.

Little Free Library, Melissa's and More

Melissa's Sugar Cane Swizzle Stix Giveway at Camp Blogaway

I'm baaaaaaaack!  Yes, another lost-my-will-to-blog episode has come to an end.  Thanks Camp Blogaway and all my fellow bloggers for inspiring me to write on.

Lemongrass-Ginger Cooler and Vegetarian Bahn Mi

While I still plan to write about food on this blog, I'm happy to announce that I am going to be a featured blogger on Melissa's website.  As you know I've been a member of the culinary team at Melissa's for several years and now I'm going to be able to reach so many more people with my plant-based eating message.  Please check out this month's feature at Plant-Based 411, including 2 great recipes from Melissa's "The Great Pepper Cookbook".  If you already have the book - thanks so much!  If you don't, please buy one asap.








 

Sweet as HONEY!

Another exciting announcement is much more personal.  I have a new BFF, her name is Honey, and she's sweet as honey.  It's been 4 years since I lost my Poochie, and I'm so glad I waited for Honey to come into my life.  I hope you all have sweet friends too.

Little Free Library Grand Opening

Last Saturday I was honored to cut the ribbon at the grand opening of the Little Free Library in my front yard.  Neighbors brought books and enjoyed cookies, extra crunchy peanut butter and guava marmalade sandwiches, and limeade.  For those of you who haven't heard about LFL's, they are smallish structures, often built from recycled materials, that house books for you and your neighbors to share on a take-a-book, leave-a-book honor system.





I built mine with a lot of help from Transition Mar Vista, plus a repurposed picture frame/glass door, old paint, broken china mosaic tiles, and a little hardware help from a couple of nice handymen.

LFL in process (those are cutting boards for shelves)

Camp Blogaway was about supporting your fellow bloggers .  Plant-Based 411 is about sharing recipes and tips on how to eat in a more healthy, endlessly creative, produce centric way.  A Little Free Library is about

reading, sharing, and feeling more "howdy neighbor" than a lot of us do.  And a new BFF, like my Honey, is all about compassion, companionship, cuddling, and making sweet memories to always remember.

Makin Fakin Bakin for Meatless Monday

It's Meatless Monday so I thought I'd offer up a recipe to magnificently mimic one of meat eater's most favorite meats - bacon.  Sometimes I invent recipes.  Other times I "borrow" and tweak.  This time I just pretty much took the recipe for Coconut Bacon from The Simple Veganista and made it as-is.  The only thing I really changed was cutting the recipe in half because I used Melissa's Coconut Chips which come in a 3 ounce package instead of the 7 ounces called for in the recipe.

Bakin' Before Bakin'

Be sure to take note of The Simple V's recipe suggestions at the bottom of her post - they all look amazing.  As you can see, my "bakin" came out like Julie's, and as soon as the avocados I just bought are ripe I'll be making a Cobb-ish salad, some split pea soup, and maybe some maple bakin cupcakes.  I hope you'll stay tuned  .....

Bakin' After Bakin'

LOVE

Chocolate Crispy Hearts (vegan)

Whether it's love for one another, love for you-fill-in-the-blank with your favorite thing, love for animals and the less fortunate, and/or love for yourself, feeling it, sharing it, receiving it, and being grateful for it is what V-Day means to me.  You?

I'm also grateful for the growing (pun) interest in eating a plant-based diet.  Whether it's for the animals, for your health, for the environment, or for whatever reason, this movement is going in the righteous direction.

In order to feel part of today's love fest I had this idea to make something chocolaty that was also vegan and that was also something I haven't eaten in forever because conventional marshmallows are made using gelatin, and gelatin is derived from animal by-products.  So I'm sending out some love to Chicago Vegan Foods for creating Dandie's vegan and air-puffed marshmallows!

For your Valentine's Day plant-based eating pleasure I present my Vegan Chocolate Crispy Hearts.  Love, sweet love - it's the only thing that there's just too little of.

Chocolate Crispy Hearts (vegan)
3 Tbsp. Earth Balance buttery sticks
1 pkg. (10 oz.) Dandie's marshmallows
5 cups Three Sisters Cocoa-Snapz (or another chocolate crispy cereal)
1 1/2 cups pecans, toasted and chopped
1 1/2 Tbsp. water
1 1/2 Tbsp. grape seed oil
1 box Baker's semi-sweet baking chocolate squares, melted

Combine the cereal and pecans in a large bowl and set aside.

Line a baking pan with parchment paper and lightly spray with cooking oil.

In a large stock pot, melt the butter on low heat, add the marshmallows, and stir, stir, stir for about 4-5 minutes until the marshmallows are completely melted.  Add in the water and oil and stir, stir, stir until the mixture is creamy smooth.  Turn off the heat, pour the cereal/pecan mixture into the marshmallow cream a cup or so at a time and stir to incorporate.  Be sure to get everything well mixed or it won't hold together.

Transfer the mixture to the baking pan, spread out to about 1/2-3/4" thick, using a wooden spoon to press down.  Set aside to cool.  When cool, use a heart-shaped cookie cutter to make individual crispy hearts and set aside.  (Sorry, but you'll just have to scarf down the trimmings like I did.)

Melt the chocolate squares in the microwave according to package directions.   Spread melted chocolate over the top of each heart, and set aside to dry/harden.  When one side is completely dry, turn the hearts over, remelt the chocolate, and spread chocolate on side 2 and set aside until hardened.  If you need to store the hearts, carefully place between parchment paper in a sealed container.

XOXO