December 17, 2023 – Tapas

Sunday, December 17, 2023
VBC Meeting #130: Tapas
Hosts of the month: Minji and Alaric
Location: Corinth, TX

For the last Vegan Bake Club gathering of 2023, we enjoyed some vegan tapas and chocolate fondue.

This is what we made:

Billy: Vegan Ham and Cheese Tapa

Billy pan-fried veggie ham slices then wrapped them around kalamata olives and skewered them between a slice of vegan jalapeño havarti cheese and home grown arugula and cherry tomatoes.

Billy got the idea for this combination on a web page about tapas but added his home grown vegetables.

Lauren: Cauliflower Salad with Chermoula and Carrots

Lauren followed the recipe in America’s Test Kitchen’s Vegan For Everybody cookbook to make this salad featuring roasted cauliflower and red onion tossed with carrot shreds and chermoula made of pureed cilantro, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, paprika, cumin, salt, and pepper. The recipe called for adding raisins and sliced almonds, but since she didn’t have either and doesn’t particularly like raisins, she substituted chopped apricots and macadamia nuts.

Kori: Chorizo

Kori made a double batch of seitan chorizo. To make the dough, she mixed all the dry ingredients in a bowl including: vital wheat gluten, nutritional yeast, chickpea flour, chili powder, paprika, cumin, garlic powder, onion powder, oregano, cayenne pepper, and salt. Then she added tomato paste, apple cider vinegar, natural creamy peanut butter, soy sauce, and water. She then kneaded the dough using her KitchenAid mixer. She separated the dough in half to make two log shapes that she wrapped in parchment paper and aluminum foil to hold their form then steamed the logs in her Instant Pot steamer basket with a cup of water for 45 minutes.

Slynn: Tortilla Española

To make the popular tapa Tortilla Española vegan-style, Slynn started by chopping and boiling potatoes and sautéing onions, garlic, and parsley. She added these components to a batter of chickpea flour, black salt, and water then cooked it in a frying pan on each side. As a topping for the tortilla, Slynn made a Spanish Olive Tapenade by combining minced olives and garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, oregano, thyme, salt, and pepper.

Ramon: Stuffing Waffles

Ramon had planned to make stuffing waffles for Thanksgiving, but when he didn’t make it out for the event, people were a bit dismayed about missing such a delicious sounding food (and Ramon’s company of course). Hence, he decided to make stuffing waffles for this meeting, but the waffles became johnnycakes after finding that the celery was preventing a good waffle. For the batter, Ramon used the Skillet Corn Bread recipe from the Veganomicon using corn meal, whole wheat flour, flax milk, vinegar, baking powder, salt, and sugar. For a stuffing experience, he added onion, celery, garlic, sage, parsley, thyme, salt, and pepper to the batter.

To accompany the johnnycakes, Ramon made a hash with chopped sweet potato, Brussels sprouts, and chorizo. Since he figured a johnnycake should have a sauce, he made gravy too. For other ways of dressing up johnnycakes, see the posts where Ramon previously made them for a chili theme and for our redo meeting.

Minji: Chocolate Fondue

For a sweet ending to the tapas meal, Minji made a pot of chocolate fondue by melting chocolate in a small crockpot with oat milk, maple syrup, and vegan butter. To dip into the chocolate, she offered grapes, popcorn, raspberries, Oreos, pretzels, marshmallows, and pretzel rods. If you haven’t yet tried it, an Oreo topped with chocolate sauce and a raspberry is a beautiful thing.

Alaric: Potato Cheese; Eggplant Tapas

Alaric made two items for us to snack upon. He made a wheel of vegan cheese that he started by steaming a couple of potatoes. He then mixed these potatoes in a blender with garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper, paprika, turmeric, nutritional yeast, olive oil, pickle juice, and a slurry of starch and oat milk. He poured the mixture into a pot and cooked it on the stove for about eight minutes then let it cool before putting it in the fridge to solidify into a spreadable vegan cheese that he served with crackers and kalamata olives.

For his second tapa, Alaric sliced an eggplant into 1/2 inch pieces that he salted heavily and let sit for fifteen minutes before wiping off the salt. He dipped the slices into oat milk then a blend of flour, salt, and pepper then fried them in olive oil and coated them with agave syrup.

Drew: Polenta Bruschetta

Drew sliced tubed polenta brushed with olive oil and broiled it for 20 minutes. He served this with a topping of tomato, basil, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, and pepper.

Mehgann: Buffalo Cauliflower Bites

For the Buffalo Cauliflower Bites, Mehgann tossed cauliflower in a mixture of flour, water, garlic powder, and smoked paprika. After baking the bites for 30 minutes, she put on one of Sweet Baby Ray’s wing sauce products and baked them for another 15 minutes.