Vegetable Pâté

A few people have been bugging me to post this recipe, which I tried a few weeks ago to great success, and I just haven't gotten around to it until now. This vegetable pate from my "Fresh" cookbook, is super delicious, savory, and makes a great dip, wrap or sandwich filling. After a long day of odds and ends, I made a lovely sandwich with this pate, some Ezekiel Bread and a tiny little bit of Dijon mustard. Not quite a meal replacement, but a welcome dose of nourishment at the end of a long day. The irony is I skipped dinner to go to Grocery shopping, because I was down to one sweet potato and a piece of ginger. Go figure.

Here's the biz:
1 cup soaked almonds (I'm finding it's good to get in the habit of keeps some soaked nuts and seeds at the ready. Soaking brings them to life and makes them easier for your system to digest. I'll generally put Things to soak into the fridge overnight, drain and use. Different recipes I've come across give you various minimum soaking times, but I don't think you can really over-soak your nuts.)

3 carrots, chopped
2 stalks of celery, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic
2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 lemon, juiced (and to this I say, why stop there? Maybe I have some kind of genetic predisposition to the taste of lemon, but when a recipe calls for half a lemon, I have never found using the juice of a whole lemon to Compromise the integrity of the dish. Besides, I hate having half a lemon left sitting on the counter to dry out and go unused. I just hate it. Grrrrr.)
1 tsp of sea salt

Row it all in your food processor and scramble the bejeezus out of it. Depending on the size of your processor, you may need to add your ingredients in increments in order to allow for space. After a minute or so, you should find that the contents of the container will start folding down nicely of the sides and back into the path of the blades, so there isn't a lot of stopping and scraping down the sides.

After your pate is 100% discombobulated, you may chill it or serve immediately to especially demanding houseguests who simply don't have the time, or likely the capacity, to chill. Actually, if these are your guests, make it in advance. I shared this batch with Corinne, who is as chill as chill gets, whilst visions of our impending meal at G Zen danced in our heads.

Of course I completely flaked on a picture, so here's a gratuitous shot of my kitchen island freshly "Wholefoodinated" for the weekend:




And one more of Dusty just for good measure! I call it "Détente."



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Location:Madison, CT