We had friends over on Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend. After a big day Saturday at the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary we didn’t want to spend a lot of time prepping food. We wanted simple, flavorful quick dishes so that we could focus on enjoying our time with our friends.
The Vegan Cookout Menu
The nosh
Homemade Humus with pita chips
Toasted nuts
Olives
The meal
Avocado Cucumber Soup Shooters with Toasted Almonds and Mint
Quinoa & Edamame Salad (brought by our guests!)
Grilled portobello mushrooms
The dessert
Vegan Rhubarb Ice Cream
Raw, Vegan Vanilla Ice Cream
For the humus, I soaked the chickpeas for 24 hours (not intentionally, just worked out that way) and then prepared them in the pressure cooker with sesame oil, onion, garlic and a bay leaf. I brought the cooked chickpeas to room temperature and then my husband made the humus. He added tahini, lemon juice, more garlic and, instead of olive oil, he used the liquid from the pressure cooker. This humus was incredible!
The soup recipe was courtesy of Chef Louisa’s class at Natural Gourmet Institute. I prepped everything early so that I could toss it all into the high-speed blender just as the mushrooms were coming off of the grill.
I marinated the portobello mushrooms following a recipe from Andrea McNinch’s raw class at NGI (oil, garlic, two kinds of vinegar and maple syrup) and, rather than dehydrate them, we grilled them for 10 minutes.
The quinoa and edamame salad, with lemon, tarragon and red peppers was the perfect addition to the meal. Thank you to our guests!
The meal came together beautifully.
Though we were pretty stuffed from the nosh and the meal, we couldn’t help but dig into the vegan ice cream I made a few days earlier.
Vegan BBQ’s rock!
Have you been rockin’ your grill with vegan goodies?
15 thoughts on “Vegan Cookout”
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Everything looks delicious! I’m having a big bbq next weekend and will definitely call upon your recipes. I’m making grilled tofu this weekend and can’t wait to share.
Can’t wait to see what you make, Jill!
I’m getting inspired to put more vegan goodies on the grill! I will have to discuss with the “grill master” (aka hubby) about a vegan side and a meat side to the grill. I didn’t care about this last summer, but now I do.
That’s exactly what we do. He uses the left side for his animal products, the right side are for vegetables and I use an outdoor electric grill for my tofu, homemade veggie burgers and smaller veggies (they would fall through the great on the gas grill) Works well!
I can’t wait to use my BBQ! I worked that raw class with Andrea- good to know the marinade works hot, too!
You worked in that class? I should have said hi! Of course she kept calling me Jill when I said my name was JL 🙂 I didn’t love her style, but I do like the recipes.
What a yummy feast! I’m jealous!
As jealous as I am when I see your gorgeous eats!
i need to make avocado & cucumber shooters—adding almonds sounds like just the right touch
Yes, the toasted almonds added a really nice dimension to the soup!
Everything looks divine JL!
I love barbecues. We’ve been having some every weekend since the weather’s turned nice. Also yesterday, we made broccoli pesto to go with the pasta and potatoes in curry sauce on the bbq. But other days we tend to go all the way: smoked bell peppers, carrots with honey (or maple syrup for a vegan – I’m vegetarian) and soysauce, asparagus on the grill, … just love it.
Sara, grilled carrots with maple syrup and soy sauce sounds amazing! What a great idea!
Yum, everything looks wonderful! Yes on vegan grilling, mushrooms, fava beans, asparagus, and my favorite is probably grilled zucchini.
I love to grill and have some vegetarian friends and am always looking for new recipes to try with them! Thank you so much for the inspiration!
Kita, I just love tossing fresh veggies with a light marinade on the grill. So fresh and light (and tasty!)