Global Vegan

For the past couple of nights, I've gone on a bit of an exotic staycation with vegan fare at the house. Monday night, I took a trip to Holland with this Fried Potato and Cheeze Soup with Grilled Onions and Bread:

I didn't really know that cheese soup is Dutch, but the recipe came from punk rock vegan chef Joshua Ploeg's Dutch Much?: Fun Excursions in Vegan Dutch-American Cooking. If you've never heard of Ploeg, you should check out his books here. He's a traveling vegan chef who couch-crashes and leads cooking demos in his host's home. He cooked a four-course meal at the local DeCleyre Cooperative house here in Memphis a few years back and I bought one of his DIY-style spiralbound cookbooks then.

This cheeze soup is fantastic! It's the second time I've made it, and I'm sure I'll make it again and again. The base is nooch, vegan cream cheese, soymilk, Dijon, and some other stuff. The potatoes are fried and the onions are caramelized. The bread is fresh pumpernickel I picked up from a German bakery in Clarksville over the weekend. Yum!

On Tuesday night, I took a trip to Vietnam with these Spring Rolls with Peanut Sauce from The Vegan Table:

I've never followed a recipe for spring rolls, but I love Patrick-Goudreau's addition of sweet basil and mint. I hate, hate, hate Thai basil, and when I order these things in restaurants, I always pick the basil out. But the combo of sweet basil and mint was much easier on my palate. These also contained tofu (dredged in cornstarch and fried in sesame oil), rice vermicelli, carrots, cucumbers, hoisin, and sriracha.

For the peanut sauce, I followed The Vegan Table recipe but subbed Pbu for straight peanut butter. Yum!!!! I ate these with streamed vegetable buns (from my freezer) and a salad with Jessy's Orange Miso Dressing.

Tomorrow night, I'm going to see the New Kids on the Block at Mud Island Amphitheater!!! Yep, my fifth grade dream is coming true. I'm sure I'll be too starstruck to post tomorrow night, so I'll see ya'll Sunday!