#flat dinner

I was trying to think of veggie mains for a little flat friendsgiving, and a pumpkin quiche definitely seemed in order. I took to Pinterest, and this recipe immediately jumped out on me with its gorgeous pumpkin crust and that beautiful array of beetroot on top.

I made this in full using canned pumpkin and a mix of red and white onion, as well as a mix of spinach and kale. You're essentially dealing with three different elements here, so be prepared for some multitasking and a little bit of controlled chaos.

Because I was using puree, I chose to simply whisk my crust ingredients rather than bothering with the food processor just yet. My pie pan was unfortunately almost the same color as the crust, so trying to smooth it out evenly was honestly a bit challenging. 5 minutes ended up not being near enough oven time; I think I ended up leaving it in for at least 10.

I totally should have used a bigger pot for the spinach mixture, as 120g of greens is truly a shocking amount, but I made do by adding it bit by bit until it was all nicely satueed.

The tofu filling might seem the most intimidating part, but, thanks to the food processor, it's actually the easiest. After taste testing, I ended up adding some paprika, cayenne, lemon juice, extra nutritional yeast, and a dash of nutmeg to lift the flavor a little more, all of which I think I could have gone even heavier on.

This ended up taking closer to 25 minutes to bake, but, still, for a quiche, that's practically nothing.

Overall, this was not mind-bogglingly good by any means, but it was still pretty decent. Expect a tofu-y taste and texture for sure; if you're not a tofu fan, I would definitely avoid this. The flavor overall is a bit bland, but very easy to customize as needed.

All my favorite dinner ingredients in one salad! Of course I had to make this one!

I made roughly a third of this, subbing the olive oil in the dressing for about twice the amount of water. I used the dressing and the avocado to soften my kale.

I have no idea why the sweet potatoes get an extra 20-25 minutes in the oven. I made what at first seemed like the mistake of mixing the chickpeas, sweet potato, and tahini spice mixture altogether, but everything was 100% done after only 20 minutes. Maybe even a little too done.

I went on a deep dive on Pinterest not too long ago looking for vegan French recipes, and this is one that I found which probably interested me most. It’s from the region of Alsace, where my mother’s ancestors are from, for one, and for two, it combines sausage and sauerkraut in a big dish, full of interesting spices, in a way that I couldn’t resist.

I’ve been saving this recipe for a group setting where I could make it in full, and in fact made a little extra, about 1.5x as the recipe is written, to make a little dinner for me, Matthew, Remus, and Flo.

I used the Linda McCarthy brand of sausages which I just found in the frozen section in Tesco, and I have to say they were absolutely phenomenal, definitely everyone’s favorite part.

This did end up taking me a little longer to get going than I thought it would, as peeling potatoes is hard, especially with the poor peeler in Remus’s kitchen, which was where I made this. However, it’s a simple one dish meal here, so the prep is simple and really not so bad.

Because this took me longer, though, everyone ended up waiting on this to finish up in the oven, so I actually took it out a couple minutes early, which I thought was fine since the top was looking a bit crispy but really probably was not; the potatoes and carrots were still pretty solid. I had also turned the heat down some at one point, which may have been fine with my oven here, but perhaps not with Remus’s.

I’ve been wanting to try and make a vegan lasagna for a while, and I totally used a little flat dinner with Matthew, Flo, Remus, and me as an excuse to do so. I made the Almond Eater’s eggplant parm for the first ever dinner party I hosted, and it was a huge hit — Matthew still talks about it — so I knew this was gonna have to be good too.

I bought nice lasagna noodles from our little local Italian market and had Remus make me a big batch of sauce to make this as delicious and authentic as possible, although I did skip the homemade mozzarella this suggests and opted for some store-bought instead just to make this process a little easier on myself. I’ll also add here that I presoaked my cashews in boiled water for about two hours before getting started, and they blended beautifully.

Honestly, I thought this was going to be some kind of big project but it turned out way easier than I expected. Boiling pasta noodles is not difficult, and the tofu ricotta came together quickly and easily in the food processor. I did add a little extra salt to it, as well as a few tablespoons of water, per the recipe note, to make it a little easier to work with.

The assembly was actually the hardest part, as I was somehow previously under the impression that lasagna assembly can be neat and tidy. I did my best, though, and at the end of the day, it’s lasagna, and no one is really going to care or notice anyway so long as it tastes good.

When I went to bake again with the mozzarella on top, I made the mistake of leaving the tinfoil on; the recipe doesn’t say anything about it, but, as Remus pointed out to me, removing it allows you to get that browning on the top. Since it wasn’t quite there after the initial 5 minutes, I left it in for maybe 10 more while we started in on Matthew’s caesar salad.

Enchiladas were my latest idea for a flat dinner, and when I saw that the recipe queen, Minimalist Baker, had a sweet potato black bean version, I was so in. These turned out even better than I could have anticipated (as is pretty typical for MB), so much so that Ryan told me they were ‘the best vegan thing I’ve ever made’, which from him is the biggest of compliments.

I made this with both the homemade sauce linked in the ingredients and the avocado crema noted at the bottom, and both really made it. The sauce I made ahead of time, and the crema I did as I was waiting for my sweet potatoes to bake. My only note with it is that I think I ended up using about a cup of water rather than just 1/2, thinking I’d need it thinner to drizzle it over top; however, I ended up serving it on the side instead, as that just seemed the easiest approach, so I suppose I could have left it thicker.

I don’t know what was up with our oven last night, but it was taking ages to heat up, and even on max, I still couldn’t quite get it to 400°F. But 20 minutes of baking time did the trick just fine and it was an easy step down to 350°F from there.

In the assembly process, I put the first half of my rolled tortillas on a plate to keep them out of the way while I did the others, and then squeezed everybody in at the end. And by squeeze, I mean squeeze; my casserole dish was just a bit smaller than the recommended size. When I went to pour the sauce over everything, I also ended up using a spatula to give everything an even coating, as some of the later tortillas I rolled hadn’t had as much sauce to absorb and needed some extra love.

My latest idea for group dinner was enchiladas, and when I saw my absolute favorite, Minimalist Baker, had a sweet potato black bean version, I knew I was in. This is their homemade sauce that the recipe calls for, which I was hesitant about making at first since since it involved so many niche chilis, but I honestly didn’t have a choice, and I am happy to report that, even improvising on that front, it turned out super well.

I don’t necessarily think this recipe is quite as ‘easy’ as it touts itself to be, as both its steps and ingredients are a bit complex. The first challenge here was sourcing the super specific chilis it calls for; living in the UK, all chilis are lumped into essentially the same category and then sold together. I picked out two packages containing 8 in total that were marked ‘medium’, figuring that would probably be about right to balance the 7 mild and 1 arbol called for. They were fresh, not dried, as, again, my options were limited.

Despite being fresh, though, I don’t think they really screwed the recipe in any way. I still followed the same cooking process, and, in the end, I think their freshness actually made them softer and easier to blend. 

The spices here were really great; that emphasis on the smoked paprika is so important here. Smoked paprika has been one of my recent discoveries, and I’m saying with certainty that I’m never going back.

I used my immersion blender for this since it was still pretty hot, transferring the mixture to the pot I used to cook my vegetable broth in, as I thought that would be easier to blend in than the large skillet. I really thought the blending process was going to be way more difficult than it was, but it really only took a couple minutes before everything was entirely smooth.

I had originally planned on making this as I was making the rest of the enchiladas, but because I had some time in the afternoon, I went ahead and prepped it and I’m so glad I did. I think it would have been fine to wait, as I ended up with a lot of time to waste while I waited for my oven to heat up, but it meant I was multitasking on less thing and made the whole process a lot easier.

With the tempeh I bought for that Thai rainbow salad, I knew I wanted to do take that opportunity to make a tempeh Reuben, a venture I’ve been wanting to try for myself since my favorite restaurant at home, Community Loaves, started offering it. And of course, no Reuben is complete without a Russian dressing. This one was linked in the ingredients for the recipe I ended up using.