Pate, Goslings and Bubbies

Do you ever buy a book for its cover? I did last week. I was recently saddened to see a new version of How it all Vegan. The cover in muted earth mother tones was just wrong. These colours are fine for the autumn fashion collection but not right for this book. The tone is full of fun and frivolity. I have always been attracted to the original gaudy cover with the colourful photo of the kooky authors. So when I saw a copy of the book with that original cover I snapped it up.

I have browsed the book in the stores often enough to be confident I would enjoy the pages in between the cover. Given that I own cookbooks that I have never cooked from, it is a good sign when I make a recipe from this book within a week of purchase. And the Voracious Vegan Pate was excellent. I made quite a few changes but for me, a good recipe should be flexible enough to work with different pantries. I also love new ideas the seem so crazy they just might work. Grated potato in pate is a new one for me but it does add to the texture.

So the recipe was flexible, innovative and delicious. That is high praise. But I must caution that when I first tasted it I wasn’t quite sure of it because it tasted too meaty for me. Then I tried it again and identified more flavours – mushroom, onion, nutritional yeast flakes, smoked paprika, cayenne powder and the merest crunch of sunflower seeds.. This was a recipe I needed as I have had good intentions of trying pate for a while and I haven’t had much inspiration in my dinner lately. The pate has been a great sandwich spread, the centre of healthy dinner platters and an excellent snack. I made it on Sunday when I had a bit more time. Which was just as well given that, once I had the vegies frying, I couldn’t find any sunflower seeds so I went to the supermarket in the middle of making the pate.It was one of those relaxed days which started with a lie-in while E amused Sylvia and then a walk to Coburg Lake where we watched the geese with their fluffy goslings. In the afternoon E and Sylvia played outside with her new sandpit while I started on the pate. I made the dough for a batch of Tofu Pesto Biscuits while Sylvia had her afternoon nap and baked them in the evening.Biscuits are very popular in our house at the moment. Sylvia’s face lights up at the very word, even if she is the one who is mentioning them – and it usually is! She drives them around in her trolley and will offer them to Zinckie but she knows that our cat has her own bikkies. She offers them to the alien in the sock, who is more receptive and often responds “nummy”. I suspect if given the chance she would have offered them to the goslings at the lake.

Whereas E and I prefer to just eat them. We have had lots of bikkies in the house with our pate. Tofu pesto biscuits, oat and walnut biscuits, sesame seed and poppy seed biscuits, rice crackers. We had the pate again for dinner last night and I discovered that the combination of avocado, pate and tomato is excellent. There is still more in the fridge so I am going to enjoy it for another few days. I am sure I will be making this again and I am looking forward to more great recipes from How it all Vegan.Previously on Green Gourmet Giraffe:
This time last year: HoTM: Chocolate Sesame Cookies
This time two years ago: Broccoli Soup from AWW

Voracious Vegan Pateadapted from How it all Vegan

• Splash of olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 5 medium or 10 small button mushrooms
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 1 cup raw sunflower seeds, ground
• 1/2 cup of breadcrumbs (or besan flour)
• 1/2 cup nutritional yeast
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp dried mixed herbs
• 1/2 tsp dried sage
• 1/4 tsp smoked paprika
• 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 and 1/4 cups water
• 1 medium potato, grated (about 2/3 cup)
• 1/2 medium carrot, grated (about 1/2 cup)
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 2 tbsp tamari or soy sauce (or maybe less)

* NB I used breadcrumbs instead of flour and reduced the water. My pate was quite moist and I wondered about increasing the breadcrumbs or using less water next time, by about ¼ cup either way.  Update: I have made this with chickpea flour (besan) for a gf version.

Heat olive oil in frypan and add onion, mushroom and garlic. Fry over low (or medium) heat until onion is soft. I think I fried mine for about 15 minutes and then left the onions in the warm frypan while I went to the supermarket.

Stir in ground sunflower seeds, breadcrumbs, nutritional yeast, salt, herbs, sage, smoked paprika and cayenne till you have a crumbly mixture. Add remaining ingredients and stir until combined. Tip into a lined and greased or a silicone loaf tin (as I did or a 20cm cake tin as the original recipe did). Bake for 45 minutes at 180 C until golden brown and the middle has firmed up.

Cool before eating and serve at room temperature. The recipe suggests it is best after sitting overnight and I would tend to agree. I just left mine in the fridge in the silicone loaf tin with some clingwrap on it but I think it would look excellent as a loaf on a serving platter surrounded by greenery or dippers if you were entertaining.

On the stereo:
Excuses for Travellers: Mojave 3