The Vegans are Brunching!!! Part Two

Welcome back,

Sunday was such a productive day in my kitchen I'm still catching up here on the blog, and as of yet, our journey hasn't even reached noon! Continuing in the preparation of mushroom Blintzes to go with our Blue Flannel Hash, both recipes from Isa Chandra Moscowitz' glorious tome, The Veganomicon, we left off with our hero and his trusty Clome whipping up a batch of vegan crépes!...

Meanwhile, he was simultaneously gathering, measuring, and boiling potatoes to include in the filling for the mushroom Blintzes...

Here's the Biz for the filling:
1/2 pound of potatoes suitable for mashing
2 tbsp canola oil (I used olive oil, plain Ol' devirginized since it isn't really for taste in this case.)
1 small onion diced (The onion and I, as you may have gleaned, do not share a great fondness for one another, and yet it seems to pop up in 9 out of 10 recipes I intend to prepare and share on this blog. Unless distinctly specified, I opt for a sweet onion or a red onion, since they seem less predisposed to causing me to want to gore out my eyeballs with my bare hands--even in such cases, always more gratifying to use your own hands than a kitchen implement--it's worth mentioning that until 2010, I didn't care for dogs either, and now I fawn over them like a first-time grandma pinching baby cheeks.)
1 tsp caraway seeds
1/2 pound mushrooms, sliced thin (save yourself some time and but a pound of sliced mushrooms, the other half can go into the gravy anyway.)
Salt-salt-salt-salt'n'pepa (I'm rapping.)

Ready? This isn't hard at all..

Sautée the onions in the oil in a large sauce pan, while you're doing this, boil some some water for the potatoes, they'll need 20 minutes or so to soften. Once the onions are nice and transparent and start to brown, add the mushrooms, caraway seeds, and cook it all down until the mushrooms are tender. When your potatoes are ready, drain them, give them a quick but thorough mashing, and mix them into the onion/mushroom mixture. Season to taste, if necessary, this filling is very flavorful in my humble opinion.

You can get creative with toppings, I opted for a mushroom gravy, also from the Veganomicon (why mess with a good thing, right?)

Mushroom Gravy:
2 cups veggie broth
1/4 cup flour

2 tbsp olive oil
1 meduim onion sliced
10 oz crimini mushrooms (I did nt come across these were nowhere to be found, I used my leftover portobellos from the filling, and the gravy tasted just lovely.)
3 count'em, 3 cloves of garlic, minced or crushed
1 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp sage
1/4 tsp salt
Fresh black pepper
1/4 cup cooking wine (I am of the school that believes if you wouldn't drink it, you shouldn't cook with it.)

Dissolve the flour in the broth and put aside.

Sautée your onions, when tender add the mushrooms, when those are tender add your garlic, herbs, cook for another minute to left your garlic sautée a bit, then add the wine and simmer. Add the flour/broth, and stir until your gravy is thickened. Your Clome will come in handy during this process as well, since we're all aware of the political and social pitfalls of lumpy gravy at Sunday brunch.

You can add some stuffing to each crépe, fold them over into Blintzes, and give them a quick Preston each side in a frying pan to seal the deal. Conversely, if you've been cooking all morning, and you're simply too tired and hungry to consider prolonging brunch long enough to dirty another dish that you'll just have to wash yourself later on, you can do what I did: namely, spoon the filling into the crépes burrito style, plate them, smother them with gravy, and serve them alongside the hash and your morning coffee. I you still have e patience for it, slice up some fresh fruit to add a little color to the ordeal. I skipped this, too hungry, and by this point ravenous brunches were congregating around the kitchen island, and it was becoming touch and go. My fellow brunchers are not vegan, and one can only assume that if delayed long enough, they would eventually give up on hash and Blintzes and throw me on the rotisserie. I couldn't risk it, and I lived to tell the tale.

Oh, and I made coffee. Vegan coffee...hehehehe.







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Location:Madison, CT