New Bloggity-Blog

I don't know how many local readers I actually have here, but for anyone who's interested, I'm co-authoring a new blog called Humboldt Vegans. As the name implies, it's a blog for vegans (and aspiring vegans) living in Humboldt County, California. There may be some overlap in posts between this blog and the new one, but I'll try to keep it interesting...

Vegan Potluck Deliciousness

I don't think I've mentioned it here yet, but I recently set up a Yahoo group for vegans in Humboldt County (California). Humboldt has a reputation of being really pro-vegetarian, but I've been frustrated up until now with my inability to find any other vegans. Well, all of that changed last night, when our online group got together in person for the first time. We had about twenty people at our house, including several kids, and we all enjoyed a huge spread of amazing vegan food. My contributions were cupcakes, marinated tofu sticks, and these spinach cups, a recipe I made up myself (this is unusual; I'm usually a follow-a-recipe kind of cook).

Vegan Spinach Cups

1 loaf frozen bread dough, defrosted (or make your own)
1 tub firm tofu
~ 1/3 to 1/2 container Tofutti cream cheese
juice of 1/2 lemon
~ 1 teaspoon dried basil
~ 1 teaspoon dried oregano
~ 1 teaspoon garlic powder
~ 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
~ 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
~ 1/2 teaspoon marjoram
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
a few tablespoons nutritional yeast
1 box frozen chopped spinach, defrosted and liquid pressed out
~ 1/3 block of Follow Your Heart mozzarella
marinara sauce for dipping (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Oil a 12-cup muffin tin.

To make the filling, combine tofu, cream cheese, lemon juice, spices, olive oil, and nutritional yeast in a food processor and blend until well incorporated. Add spinach and pulse to combine. (This was a very improvised recipe, and I ended up with extra filling, sorry - you can use it for pizza topping or mix it with some pasta the next day.)

Cut defrosted bread dough into 12 equal-ish pieces. Form each piece into a thin, flat round (about 4-5" in diameter). Place each circle into a greased muffin cup, pressing into place, with some dough coming up the sides of the tin (it doesn't have to come all the way to the top; it will rise while baking).


Spoon filling into bread cups, about flush with the top of the dough, or maybe just heaped up a little bit. Finely grate the mozzarella onto the top of the spinach cups. Bake for about 25 minutes, or until crust is lightly browned. If the mozzarella hasn't melted, you can try spritzing it with water and placing the cups under the broiler for just a few minutes (be careful not to burn).

Serve with prepared marinara sauce for dipping.

Here is the cutest of my cupcakes - I used the basic chocolate cupcake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World and made the 'peanut butter bomb' variation listed after the basic recipe. SO good.


Now, don't you wish you had been at my house last night? :-) Wherever you were, I hope you were enjoying your own bounty of good friends and vegan yumminess.