Holiday Aftermath, With Two Recipes and a Leftovers Bonus

Christmas was white, after all those weeks of iffy sleet and naked ice.  It is so beautiful and quiet, but the outhouse is not at all inviting with snow drifted all over the seat and unavoidable!

And Christmas was beautiful and festive, with bright lights and colors relieving the white and dark outside.

I shared so many different kinds of home-made goodies! Close family and friends each got a whole box. (And here I am sporting the gorgeous shawl I was given as a gift. I almost can't believe I get to have something so beautiful. I'll show it again in more detail sometime.) I also put out two plates of goodies, one laden only with "Ela-friendly" (i.e. no dairy and low sugar, gf) goodies, the other only with the mainstream confectioners sugar/butter/peanut butter/gluten stuff. Perhaps not surprisingly, the "Ela-friendly" plate had maybe two items taken off it (one of which I took), whereas the other plate I had to go back and refill a couple times.

I may do some family pictures next post, but today I want to focus on sharing a couple recipes that added to the festive cheer, for me at least!

First up: "Rooibiscus!"

This is a combination of rooibos and hibiscus tea plus a cup of pomegranate juice.
Two tablespoons hibiscus flowers and one tablespoon rooibos steeped in three pints of not-quite-boiling water, allowed to cool, and mixed with pure pomegranate juice. I had the idea to make this some time ago, but hadn't gotten around to doing it until just now.

It looks just like red wine in a glass. It functions like iced tea: super refreshing and increasing alertness.

It's also lovely mixed with sparkling water and/or ice. And it's actually also lovely with just a splash of red wine added, if that's your kind of thing. I think I was the only person really hitting it, but I enjoyed it all evening, and made more the next day. I had also brought home-made coconut whiskey and home-made vegan pina colada mix just like I did last year, and those were popular!

I was not the only person hitting the other recipe I want to share: vegan, semi-raw mushroom pate'.

I'm really proud of how this turned out. I had mushrooms and shallots from Full Circle Farm, and had been asked to bring a vegetarian appetizer. I remembered a mushroom pate' I used to make back when I was in college. It was during the period that I had a boyfriend and was eating a little dairy while he ate less meat to try to bring us closer together (neither end of the compromise lasted), and the base for the pate' was regular cream cheese--a concept totally repugnant to me these days.

So, I made a two-day fermented cashew cheese and combined it with gently sauteed shallots, mushrooms, garlic, and a little parsley.

 You can see how the cashew cheese is nice and aerated with good bacteria.

 And it all mixed together so beautifully and was well enjoyed by everyone. I brought two kinds of raw crackers to serve with it. Neither one is my recipe, although of course I tweaked! Both are on this page: one is called "Cheeze its" and the other is "Hot'n'Spicy Tortilla Chips," although I wanted more of a neutral cracker, so I left most of the spice out. I left the bell pepper out in both cases, because it makes me sick and I thought I might want to eat one or two. But I also brought carrots, which I prefer to crackers any day! With the "tortilla chips," I might have finally made a cracker that's crunchy enough that Phil will eat it! So far, I've been disappointed in that quest, and he's a huge cracker lover, so this was a breakthrough.

Now for the vegan Mushroom Pate' recipe:

For the cashew cheese (make two days in advance):
2 cups cashews
1 cup water
1 probiotic capsule

Blend the cashews and water until smooth. Open the probiotic capsule, add it to the blender, and blend again.
Scrape everything out onto a sieve lined with a nut milk bag or cheesecloth and set over a bowl.
Place in a darkish location for two days. (You can leave it for less time, but it won't be quite as tangy or as aerated.)

On the day you're ready to make it, chop:
8-10 cremini mushrooms
2 shallots
2-4 cloves garlic
3-4 tablespoons fresh parsley

and have ready:
salt, pepper, lemon juice

Add just enough (coconut or olive) oil to grease a heavy-bottomed saucepan, and saute' the mushrooms and shallots. When they begin to release some liquid, add the garlic.
When everything smells aromatic and mushroomy, take off the heat and stir in the parsley.

To put it all together:
Remove the cashew cheese from the sieve and place in a large bowl. Add the juice of half a lemon and some salt and black pepper.
Pour in the sauteed mushrooms, shallots, garlic and parsley mixture, and stir together carefully.
Adjust seasonings to taste. Garnish with black pepper and a parsley sprig.

The tang of the cashew cheese and the earthiness of the mushrooms and shallots complement each other so beautifully. I was so happy to have plumbed my memory bank and creativity and to end up with such a crowd-pleaser. Note too that this could easily be made raw: you would just need to marinade the mushrooms and shallots in the dehydrator ahead of time, and use less or no garlic. I wanted the texture of cooked mushrooms and really don't enjoy raw onions/garlic, so I went with sauteeing, but if I'd given them two days in the dehydrator, it might have worked all-raw too.

Bonus--what to do with the leftovers!
But wait--there's more!
Yes, even though it was a crowd-pleaser, there were leftovers. They furnished a lovely lunch today.

Here's how:
Shred up some purple cabbage and romaine lettuce (a cup or more of each).
Combine with kelp noodles, previously soaked in warm water to soften.
Add about a quarter cup (or however much you want/have) of the Mushroom Pate' and massage all together by hand.
Serve with sliced grape tomatoes, top with nutritional yeast and spirulina if that's your thing!
Yummy and beautiful--and I made some for Phil with regular pasta and a few other ingredients too.

I'll be back with some more snow pictures and holiday recapping: I leave you with the yin yang dogs and the hope that you had wonderful holidays.