Phew, October and the VeganMofo challenge are over. Daylight savings time is too and I think it’s time to hibernate. Back to the blog in a few weeks.

• Hurry-up Black Bean Dip from Epicurious
  (Very good dip, people even asked for the recipe. I used 1/4 of an onion as recommended in the reviews. It was well balanced but I don’t think it would hurt to bump up the cilantro and lime.)
• Web and spider decoration idea shamelessly stolen from Fat Free Vegan Kitchen

from Moosewood Restaurant New Classics by the Moosewood Collective, find it online here

I finally bought a hand blender. My love of soup has certainly grown this month and I’ve gotten tired of injuring myself in the process of transferring soup from pot to blender and back again. I searched for hand blenders and discovered that they are cheap! Ridiculously affordable! I bought this model for $13 on Amazon. The day it arrived I knew I had to make soup and I finally hit upon this recipe which starts with a solid base of diced potatoes and whole cloves of garlic to which you add sauteed onions and lots of spices. Nearly a pound of peas and four very packed cups of spinach adds a hearty dose of green and a can of lite coconut milk brings the flavors together and adds a smooth, creamy touch. The end product is quite thick (I like that the hand blender leaves it uniformly textured) so you might want to try thinning it with a bit of stock. If you get tired of eating it as soup I think you could simmer down a cup or two and use it as a sauce over rice. I’m also thinking about trying it with cauliflower instead of potatoes or omitting the potatoes altogether.

from Alex Jamieson’s The Great American Detox Diet via Care2

I first had potato-leek soup in Ireland. During a day long bus tour we stopped at a quintessential pub and ate quintessentially Irish food. Many of my classmates had the full breakfast: blood sausage, beans, eggs, indigestion… and I had a bowl of potato-leek soup. It was delicious and for a moment, warming myself next to the peat fire, I didn’t feel quite so homesick. Since then, potato leek soup has had a special place in my heart and this recipe with the addition of rosemary is the best I’ve ever had. It is creamy and full flavored without any of the dairy traditionally used.

from Alice Waters’ Art of Simple Food via The Daily Green

Disclaimer: Dwindling daylight hours, gloomy weather and supreme laziness have conspired to make the following posts picture free. Both recipes however produced soups made out of near white ingredients producing off white and turmeric tinted soups so you’re really not missing much.

I occasionally make purchases at my local co-op that have my cheeks burning with shame at the checkout. The large cauliflower I bought to make this recipe was one of them. It cost me $9.29. That’s nearly $10 for a cauliflower! Even the checkout woman rescanned just to make sure it hadn’t been an error. A plain, white cauliflower not a heirloom variety or one with really cool geometric florets. However, I am Scandinavian and it is not in my nature to express emotion so I politely paid, exited the store and did some serious soul searching on the walk home.

“Am I a yuppy?” I asked myself. I’ve always thought yuppies were of an older generation and I don’t drive a Volvo but I do listen to NPR. Am I so obsessed with emulating an alternative culture contrary to mainstream Nascar watching, birther believing, American cheese eating… that I’m willing to pay a higher price to define myself as a member of the liberal other?

Or, maybe I’m just cheap and resent paying a price that more accurately reflects the true costs of energy, labor, and transportation required to supply me with the cauliflower I needed to make soup. I did after all feel better after I had rationalized the expense into a tidy $1.55 per serving.

All of this leads me to just one more thought, soup is good for anxious people and this soup was so delicious and satisfying upon the first taste that I thought the cauliflower was more than worth the $9.29, well, almost.

• leftover chickpeas (after chickpea salad)
• leftover diced kalamatas (after failed attempt at roasted cauliflower with kalamata dressing)
• basil going limp in the crisper
• cherry tomatoes from the farmer’s market
• a splash of balsamic vinegar
• a pinch of kosher salt

I finally made chickpea salad. I used these two recipes as guidance and added ingredients and adjusted ingredients as I saw fit. It tasted great and satisfied a craving for chicken salad quite nicely.

from Epicurious

I love that Pepperidge Farm puff pastry is vegan. I’m not saying it is the healthiest, but it is vegan.

from Vegetarian Times

There are some serious beans in these enchiladas. Two cans of black beans fill just 8 small corn tortillas. It took some effort and determination to chew through these but I think the basics of this recipe are good. If I make the recipe again I think I will try cutting the bean filling in half and adding some roasted veggies to lighten it up. The homemade salsa verde on top was excellent though, I should have added more and really drenched them.

I’ve always been a bit scared of tomatillos with their mysterious paper husks that surround a fruit that never looks quite ripe. What do you do with them? Roasting them with garlic and chiles and then throwing the whole mess in the blender couldn’t be easier and creates an excellent salsa for chips or a sauce to smother enchiladas.

Roasted Tomatillo Salsa

from Epicurious