As a vegetarian parent (and married to a vegan), it was interesting to read about your struggles to explain your vegetarianism to your girls. My oldest is only five, and he’s been vegetarian his entire life, so we haven’t had any difficulty yet -- when we talk about why, we just explain our environmental and health concerns around meat. Eventually we’ll add in the ethical problems with the meat industry. I hope it stays simple! :-)

Ha! My two and four year old do the same thing so regularly to me! It sounds like it was a lovely soup, and thank you for writing about the beauty of cooking everyday. :-)

Couldn’t agree more! I’ve been a CSA member for four years now, and I love the challenge of eating all the produce. The variety keeps me on my toes, and I eat far more greens than I probably would have on my own. You are more in touch with the impact of the weather on the farm -- the first crop of strawberries was ruined by the series of storms we just had, so now we must wait a couple of weeks to taste them.

I’m a big fan of the plating and the texture tips -- beautiful color contrasts and the right sizing really do make a huge difference. Since I cook vegan at home, I also focus on the texture (and color) of the food -- there are so many opportunities to be creative. Thanks for the other tips, I’m still learning!

Oh, you are too sweet, Ellen! That isn’t necessary! I would love any advice about what I can try for next time. I think I’ll go back to canola oil, and maybe try it in a cake pan instead of a loaf pan. Have you ever made it with all-purpose flour instead of spelt? And, finally, what do you think about the salt? Does it need salt? Perhaps my addition of salt was unwise.

Hmm, this recipe did not turn out well for me. Ended up quite gummy, despite going beyond the 45 minutes as every tester came out gummy. Ate a bit of the top section and the flavor is nice, but the bottom 2/3 is just a mess.

Any suggestions? I’m an experienced baker, so I don’t think it’s a simple human error problem. Maybe a more subtle human error. :-)

This is in the oven right now, but I was curious about the lack of salt in the recipe. I am assuming it was an error; I put in 1/2 tsp to split the difference in case it was intentional.

I just started using coconut oil and agave in my cooking so I went with that this time.

Thanks for sharing a vegan recipe! I’ve been vegan for four years now and vegan baking is so much better than I expected (coming from a French baking background). :-)

Great story, and warms my heart to see others with the same approach to eating well on a budget. :-)

I make a variation in my slow cooker, using white beans, orzo, and escarole (onions, garlic, bay leaves, red pepper flakes, too). Delicious! I think I will try it with tomatoes and rosemary, that would be wonderful, too.

Great article, though it made me nostalgic for my childhood; we raised pastured cattle on a small farm in Oregon. I still find it hard to believe that anyone thinks the commercial practices are a good idea. I’m not romantic about raising animals, but don’t they have any qualms about the suffering they inflict?

Best gift cookbook: Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home. Was a gift from my future husband, and he had the authors sign it for me (we were at Cornell, near the Moosewood Restaurant).

This reminds me of a dessert my mother would make and I couldn’t figure out how to reproduce it... it was cut up strawberries in a red wine syrup! So sweet and delicious... I’m going to have to try it now that I know the proportions.

I haven’t canned since I was a child at home -- I have very happy memories of all the blackberry picking we would do and then the hours of cooking and canning to make blackberry jam we would eat for the rest of the year. To this day, it feels odd to eat a buttermilk biscuit and not have homemade blackberry jam on it...

That makes sense, and I really should have thought of that! :-) It makes me wonder if a bit of vinegar would also help... I’ll have to try it next time.

Thanks!

Haha, I hope not! I mean, I keep it sanitary and do try to toss out old food on a weekly basis, but I KNOW I have some jam jars in the back that I won’t be eating. And probably a jar of capers. :-)

Julia Child’s leek potato soup is yummy. You’re pretty close to it, she sautees the leeks with onions (equal amounts) until soft (olive oil or butter), adds a couple Tbsp of flour for thickening, then six cups of broth and a couple of chopped russet potatoes. It’s a pureed soup, though I just use a potato masher, since I like a rougher texture. It’s yummy with a bit of shredded gruyere or swiss on top. And bread!

Oooh, I can never have enough great cookbooks!

It becomes darker, rather purple. The leaves when raw can be various shades of magenta, plus the green outliers. It’s pretty over brown rice, but very suspicious to a toddler. :-) He calls all greens spinach or seaweed, but he didn’t know what to name sauteed orach.

One excellent book on the nutrition needs of vegans is Becoming Vegan. Omega-3 and 6 can be derived from many foods, but I focus on walnuts, ground flaxseed, canola oil, greens, and wakame seaweed (in my miso soup!).

B-12 is trickier, but many foods are fortified, you can take supplements, and nutritional yeast can be a good source.

Good luck!

Well, the nut loaf itself isn’t too bad. In texture and appearance it looks like meatloaf. I found it to be a bit dry, I think I’ll add some sauteed onions and tomato paste next time.

The puff pastry didn’t puff, not sure what went wrong there. It does keep everything neatly together, so at least it fulfilled that function.

The boy did not find it tasty, even when I emphasized that it was a mushroom pastry. I have six of these little loafs left, so I’ll offer it again.

I wonder if some sort of tasty sauce on top would help? Maybe even a simple marinara? I’ll have to try that if I can’t finish them on their own.