Vegan Mother’s Day Brunch Menu & Recap 2016

The day had finally come where Chris and I had our parents meet 🙂 It was nerve wrecking for me, and I am not sure why. His parents are so kind and personable, and I already knew that they would hit it off, but I guess it was just one of those things, a step in our relationship that I had butterflies in my tummy for. I did not vlog the day for my YouTube channel as I was not sure how they would have felt about it, and it was one of those in the moment events we had to be fully immersed in. We all sat out on our back patio on our couches and just chatted for hours about everything. Well, more so our parents, Chris and I got up here and there cause I needed a break LOL but trust me, after all the cooking and bouts of stress, you would too.

Okay so onto the food….we blew it out of the park! We rocked this vegan brunch spread and our parents were thoroughly impressed by all of the food, especially the bagels and lox, it made us so happy <3 We always want to be able to show that vegan food is delicious, easy, and so fun to make & share with your loved ones. Being able to show people new and creative ideas we have in the kitchen is something that I honestly find so much joy in. Both his and my parents are not vegan, so of course it is even more of a plus that they loved the food. I mean, they all are so open to our lifestyles and have made positive changes in light of our own, but anything we can do to give them that extra push, we are going to do it!

Here is a summary of the brunch that we served to our parents, I hope you can try these recipes! They were actually very easy to make, and I was surprised by how less of a stressful night/morning it actually was. The most time consuming part was the bagels just because of the rising time and extra time for boiling, but other than that, we were able to prepare things ahead of time (two days ahead for the lox, night before for the bagel dough, night before for marinating the veggies, and salad), so that the morning of we just put the final touches.

Homemade Bagels + oil-free cream cheese, homemade carrot lox, capers and red onions

• We made the dough the night before and put it in the refrigerator for a 8 hour slow rise and they turned out BEAUTIFUL!
• Fluffy New York-Style Bagels (Vegan, Oil-Free)
• Trader Joe’s Super Seed & Ancient Grain Mix ($5 in store | $15 on Amazon)
• Kite Hill Cream Cheese (oil-free)
• Homemade Carrot Lox (via Olives For Dinner, oil-free option using veggie broth)

Crispy Oven-Roasted Potatoes + Cashew Mustard Cheese

• Potatoes: Preheat oven on convection 410F. Line a baking tray with a silicon baking mat. Dice potatoes, toss in dried dill, garlic powder, salt, pepper and nutritional yeast (a lot!). Bake for 25-3o minutes or until crispy.
• Cashew Mustard Cheese (via Conscious Chris)- we put it in a squeeze bottle and it made it so beautiful!

Easy Peasy Fruit Platter

• Get as many colors as you can on the plate to make it vibrant 🙂

Lentil Quinoa & Arugula Salad + Oil-free Garlic Balsamic Dressing

• Recipe on my blog here 🙂

Infused Water with Strawberries and Mint

Leek and Mushroom Quiche + Sun-dried Tomato and Spinach Quiche

• Our recipes were roughly based on the recipes on Follow Your Heart and the My Eclectic Kitchen App. We used:
• Follow Your Heart Vegan Egg (cheapest source is Thrive Market $5.95) 
• Miyoko’s kitchen mozzarella
• Premade pie crust from Whole Foods Market

Oil-free Garlic Balsamic Roasted Veggies

• Asparagus, bell peppers, broccoli, brussels sprouts, onions, anything you want!
• Marinate vegetables in dressing overnight in a ziploc bag. Preheat oven to convection 350F and bake for 25 minutes, stirring halfway through.
• Dressing same as the salad 🙂

Vegan Goat Cheese & Superfood Crackers

• Raw vegan goat-less cheese rolled in fresh dill and cranberries + homemade superfood crackers from Yvonne’s Deliciously Vegan.
• A creamy dreamy cashew-based cheese creation from my girl Yvonne. We got it Organix LA, and you can order it as well from her from her site My Eclectic Kitchen!