No Meat Meet-Up #5

We had the fifth No Meat Meet-up Vegan Potluck at the cafe at Crosstown Arts, where I work. I'm so lucky to work in a vegan-supportive workplace, where as part of my job, I'm tasked with organizing a monthly vegan potluck! This time, we even got some press in the Memphis Flyer, thanks to my food-writing friend, Lorna Field. Every month, I'm just amazed at all the new faces who come out for this. I'm making new vegan friends every month!

Since I spent the weekend in Nashville for Valentine's Day, I had to come up with something quick and easy, so I made my Tofu Egg & Olive Salad from my cookbook, Cookin' Crunk. This simple salad is made with crumbled tofu, vegan mayo, green olives, celery, red onion, and spices (lots of black salt!). I brought some melba toast for scooping.

For this potluck, we invited our Crosstown Arts resident artists to join in. We host artists from all over the world for residencies in Crosstown Concourse. Since they don't have kitchens in their small apartments, we asked our chef and sous chef (who cook meals for residents) to make a few potluck dishes. They contributed a Pasta Salad and a Green Salad with Coriander Dressing.

And they also gave us lots of vegan pastries!! Muffins, cookies, scones, and blueberry coffee cake! Susan brought the amazing bundt cake from the Veganomicon (served with Nada Moo ice cream), and that was a big hit.

Nicole made this beautiful Avocado Tartar!

Clarita and James are doing a Forks and Knives meal plan right now, so they brought this hearty and healthy whole foods-based Veggie Stew.

Shay made a yummy throw-everything-in-the-pot Veggie Chili, which she served with corn chips.

This Vegan Caesar Salad with Roasted Chickpeas was fantastic. Loved how many salads we had this time!

And this Rainbow Tofu Noodle Salad was the star of the show! There was also a great polenta dish, a yummy blackeyed pea salad, and several more late additions that I forgot to photograph.

If you live in (or near) Memphis and want to come to the next No Meat Meet-up, we'll be dining at 3 pm on Sunday, March 29 at the cafe at Crosstown Arts.