Birthday Brunch

As this beautiful Saturday winds down to a close, I feel exceptionally grateful for the wonderful women in my life.  I turned 26 years old earlier this week, and as is tradition in my house and has been for years, my mother and I cooked and served brunch to 8 of my closest friends to celebrate.

Last year marked the first vegan birthday brunch, and it was such a great success that we repeated some of the recipe choices this year.  We also added a few more, as my vegan cooking skills have markedly improved over the past year!

As the girls started to trickle in around 11 am this morning, I was putting a Caramelized Vidalia Onion Quiche (from Vegan Brunch by Isa Chandra Moskowitz) in the oven, and beginning to heat up saute pans for hash browns, vegan sausage, and Tofu Scramble (a la Vegan Comfort Food by Alicia C. Simpson).

My mother made vegan crepes (also from Vegan Brunch), and filled them with our traditional blend of vegan "cream cheese" (Tofutti) and agave nectar (in past years we used honey).  She also prepared a giant plate of cut fruit and berries and baked my favorite vegan birthday Applesauce Cake, an old family recipe of hers with deliciously thick caramel icing.

The onion quiche was as big of a hit as last year, and the tofu scramble was surprisingly successful as well, considering the dish was pretty new to everyone present.  The scramble is a dish I am an old hand at now, having made it for breakfast for my boyfriend and I so many times during the past year that I couldn't count them.  I think it's my favorite recipe from Alicia Simpson's book so far.  The hash browns were an invention of mine-- just boiled chopped potatoes sauteed with onions and nutritional yeast, lots of salt and pepper, served over Field Roast Smoked Apple Sage 'sausage.'  Hash browns are a safe and easy breakfast staple, and I always love how big of a hit that brand of vegan sausage is with meat-eaters! Last year I also made a second quiche, but I tried to limit myself to simple and popular dishes this year so that I could enjoy a more stress-free morning of cooking.

It has been my consistent experience, and this morning and afternoon were no different, that when you combine good food, love and friends, the result is a good time no matter the variables.  Some of my friends met each other today, and some had known each other for years.  I sat next to a woman I met only months ago who's visiting the U.S. from Israel to get her LLM degree, and across from another friend I've had since the day she was born (our parents were college roommates).  Old and new, I love them all dearly and celebrating my birthday among them is the best gift I could (and ever do) receive.

As I sauteed the onions for the quiche (made of tofu, ground cashews, and the onions with a touch of salt and nutmeg in a home-made pastry crust), I also prepared dough for my very first batch of home-made vegan sticky cinnamon buns!  Unfortunately, due to inexperience with yeast-rising pastries, I put the dough in the refrigerator (to rise, of all things) expecting it to chill as pie and cookie doughs do.  Needless to say that dough did no rising until I realized my mistake and took it out of the refrigerator, and the buns were prepared after brunch was over.  Just my sister and a close friend and I were around to enjoy them, but the three of us have no complaints about how that situation turned out!

The buns are Pull-Apart Cinnamon Sticky Buns from 500 Vegan Recipes by Celine Steen and Joni Marie Newman (page 35 of the Breakfast section).  Luckily, putting dough in the refrigerator had minimal effects on its ability to rise.  I caught my mistake midway through the meal and took the dough ball out and set it on the stove with a clean dish towel over it, so by the time the last guest had left it was just about time for my sister and I to punch the dough down and roll it out.

Slightly more dried out than I think it was meant to be, the dough rolled out beautifully into a flat rectangle and I covered it with a brown sugar, earth balance and cinnamon paste.  I then rolled the whole thing up from the short ends into a log, and carefully sliced the log into 12 beautiful buns!  My sister and I waited for them to rise for a bit more, and then I popped them in the oven and threw together the powdered sugar glaze.  What came out of the oven 20 minutes later was heavenly.

A good friend stopped by with her brother's adorable dog for a quick visit before she headed out for the night and was just in time to enjoy a hot sticky bun fresh from the oven!  The three of us sat around the kitchen counter with hot tea and warm, sweet rolls in a state of bliss (as did the dog, who feasted on his vegan carrot and apple treats on the floor).  It was a beautiful end to a beautiful afternoon.

This recipe was one of many that I've made from 500 Vegan Recipes over the past month, and I've begun to cook out of it exclusively.  Never have I had such consistent success from one amazing book!  I'm convinced that Steen and Newman are vegan geniuses and I can't wait to cook through the entire collection.  So far I have made everything from lasagna to quick bread, all with great success, so stay tuned for further results!

As usual, I hope you also had a weekend filled with friends and good food.  Cheers to another year of my twenties, and though last year was so good it will be hard to top, I've got a good feeling about this one!