Chef's Table

The Chef: Colleen

The Menu: A lovely roasted butternut squash soup, Colleen's signature holiday salad, and a delicious quinoa salad with chopped bell peppers, carrots, and red onions. In case you haven't been near Colleen during the holidays, her salad consists of mixed greens, candied pecans, dried cranberries, and sliced apples.

The Goods: Today we enjoyed the excellent company of Bryant Terry and his lovely partner Jidan. The weather was slightly chilly for an al fresco lunch, but we had fun none the less. Here's a photo of the whole, freezing group:

Wellington Returns!

The Chef: Joseph

The Menu: An eclectic mix of Thanksgiving-ish leftovers, which included the very last of our beloved Native Foods' Wellington, some stuffing, a quinoa and green bean salad with walnuts, roasted sweet potato slices, inari, and crudités. We were, of course, both thrilled to see the Wellington on the menu, and sad to see it go, since this was the last of it.

The Goods: It's going to be a busy week here at the VNHQ after our long Thanksgiving weekend! We hope that everyone who celebrated thoroughly enjoyed their holiday, and that everyone else had a good, non-holiday weekend. A few important notes: tomorrow is the deadline to apply for our 2010 Wedding Feature, so if you had a vegan wedding this year, don't forget to apply! Also, keep an eye out for awesome guest Bryant Terry, who'll be joining us for lunch on Friday.

Cookbook Week: Vegan Soul Kitchen

The Chef: Aurelia

The Menu: More stellar soul food! Yeah, um, maybe we totally love having soul food twice in the same week, and maybe, just maybe, we were all totally blown away by the loveliness of this plate. Oh, did you actually want to know what all that gorgeousness is? Well, fine. Ms. Aurelia's Open-Faced BBQ Tempeh Sandwiches with Carrot-Cayenne Coleslaw started out with toasted, fluffy rosemary focaccia, which she topped with some super spicy barbecue-style tempeh, and, of course, the crazy-colorful slaw. Is that not the prettiest little cabbage you ever did see? Yeah. Yum.

The Goods: Bryant Terry's Vegan Soul Kitchen promises to be one hell of a cookbook, especially if today's lunch is any indication. First of all, look at that plate. Gaw. Secondly, Aurelia reported that the recipes were easy to follow and put together, though she did recommend reading them all the way through before beginning—let's just say that the coleslaw was incredibly delicious, despite not having marinated overnight. It would be difficult to describe how very much we enjoyed these sandwiches, so instead we'll leave you with a little Radiohead, which, according to VSK, is this meal's soundtrack!