Partially Vegan, Gluten Free Easter Brunch Recap

yay for old college roomie Tab coming to visit!

I hope everyone had a Happy Easter Sunday! Despite less than perfect weather that moved our festivities indoors, we had a lovely Easter Brunch. This year was quite a switch from my usual Easter Brunch which typically included food and fun for about 20-40 people, an Easter egg hunt, painting eggs and other crafts, and sometimes random additions like potato sack races, an appearance by the Easter Bunny and earthquakes. For events like that I love casserole dishes. Brunch would usually entail 2 different egg casseroles, a breakfast potato casserole, fruit bowls, a tray of pancakes and sausages, and veggies/chips and a dip, oh yes...and pitchers of mimosas :)

This year was quite different. In addition to my gluten free restrictions, we've got Brian experimenting with a mostly vegan diet. Plus, we were only expecting anywhere between 1 and 8 guests. These factors pushed me to be a bit more experimental with the menu. When we were in Boston I picked up a $2.99 picture-filled book on finger foods...and that got me way too excited. While most of their recipes were gluten, dairy, sugar, and meat filled (plus nearly everything was deep fried), the pictures inspired a lot of my own healthy, gluten free, dairy free, meat free, cane sugar free ideas.

So here was the 2011 Gluten Free Easter Brunch Buffet that resulted:

Partially Vegan, Gluten Free Easter Brunch Buffet

1. Easter Egg-filled Parfaits: Yogurt, blueberries, and homemade honey-flavored gluten free granola served in extra large plastic eggs. While the yogurt ones are not vegan, I made a vegan version for Brian with cashew and date cream instead of yogurt (process 5 soaked dates, add 1 1/2 cups of soaked cashews, and add almond milk or water to desired consistency). The honey on the granola is not vegan, but if you don't count bee vomit as an animal product then it is.

2. Non-Vegan but Gluten Free Margherita Egg Casserole: Swiss Chard, onion and garilc mixed with eggs and GF flour, baked and topped with tomato slices and fresh basil for the last few minutes of cooking. I ran out of rice flour and used teff flour because it was all I had left...it made everything brown. Not exactly visually appealing, but I love the texture that teff flour produces!

Margherita Egg Pizza Slices

3. Endive Cups: Half I filled with a spicy mushroom walnut pate and the other half I stuffed with a sweet and refreshing grape, cucumer, yogurt salad.

The bunny loves grape, cucumber salad filled endive!

4. Fun Colored Beet and Sweet Potato Shapes! Boil the beets and sweet potatoes separately (This was the most frustrating part of cooking this whole brunch. I have not been able to adjust to cooking at altitude. It would boil over, I would turn it down half a notch and then it wouldn't cook at all. Back and forth over nearly 1 1/2 - 2 hours and I finally had cooked sweet potatoes and beets!). Once cooked, cool, peel and slice in 1 cm rounds. Using a cookie cutter, make fun shapes. I searched 4 different stores for Easter shapes and couldn't find any, so I used my roommates stars and hearts. 

I topped the sweet potatoes with the cashew date cream and cinnamon, and the beets were topped with a tangy sunflower seed tzatziki sauce made of soaked sunflower seeds, lemon juice, garlic and green onion. 

these were a fun treat

5. Olive Pancake Caprese: Also a big hit! I used Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Pancake mix, subbing ground flax in water for an egg and almond milk for regular milk. Then I mixed in chopped green olives made small pancakes with a tbs of batter for each. Those were topped with a sundried tomato walnut "cheese" (sundried tomatoes, garlic, soaked walnuts, and almond milk processed together to desired consistency). Each got a basil leaf and a yellow tomato slice (well I ran out so half got tomato slices), and pepper on top. 

 Gluten Free, Vegan Caprese Pancakes

6. Dips and Dippers - 

Beet Tzatziki - I blended together the leftover beet carvings from the shapes with yogurt, dried mint, garlic, and tiny bit of lemon juice and served it with cucumber slices for a beautiful spring color blend.  

Not so vegan beet yogurt dip

Vegan Nut-based dips with veggies

 Sundried Tomato Walnut Dip (same from the caprese pancakes) and Sunflower Tzatziki (from the beet shapes) served with zucchini slices and carrots. I also cut Udi's Gluten Free Whole Grain Bread in slices, brushed with olive oil, and toasted in a large frying pan for extra dippers.

Don't have crackers? Easy bread sticks!

7. Buckwheat Blueberry Cobbler: I wanted to make something with buckwheat cereal, but all the recipes were for buckwheat flour - so I experimented. I soaked a cup of buckwheat groats in water for about an hour or two and then drained it. I poured half a bag of frozen blueberries (thawed in the fridge) in a 9x9 glass casserole dish, lightly greased with coconut oil. In a bowl I beat an egg (you could try subbing flax and water or chia and water as an egg substitute), about 3 tbs of almond milk, and 2-3 tbs of maple syrup. I mixed together 1/4 cup of rice flour with 1/2 tsp of baking powder and mixed in the buckwheat and then the egg mix. Throw that on top of the berries and bake uncovered at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes. 

topped with goat's milk yogurt - yum!

Buckwheat Bluberry Cobbler on its own

8. Apple Crisp - this was the result of some lemon poppyseed muffins that came out too dry and crumbly. I wanted to use them still so I processed them into crumbs in the food processor. I baked some apple slices in a covered glass casserole dish (mixed them with water, a.c.v., maple syrup, and cinnamon). When the apples were nearly ready I mixed in half the muffin crumbs, then put the rest on top and drizzled with honey and baked for another 15-20 min uncovered. I forgot to take a pic of this one and there were no leftovers, which is usually a good sign!

9. Hard Boiled Eggs for Coloring! What's Easter without egg dying??? While we didn't eat these yet, we colored some beautiful cage free eggs. It was my first time coloring brown eggs and the colors actually came out deeper and prettier than with the white!

10. And finally....the beverage of the day....White Wine Strawberry Spritzers??? I don't know what to call this really. I put strawberries and some leftover frozen blueberries and juice in a jar with white wine and then topped each glass with some sparkling lemon water. It was actually refreshing and good and not too sweet! I guess I could have used a more attractive dispenser than a pasta jar ha. 

Berry White Wine Spritzers

So there you have it...the never ending Easter Brunch menu for 2011. Hope some of these items inspire you to make fun finger foods for your next party. 

In addition to the fun food and celebration, I found what was really special about this Easter was the culmination of a long Lenten journey. Six weeks ago I started a 10 day fast that cut out all animal products, grains, and processed and packaged foods - leaving me with vegetables, fruit and water. I found myself too skinny, stressed, and tense by the end of the 10th day. It was so frustrating trying to come up with meals of just fresh vegetables and fruits (especially in the middle of winter in colorado and especially when on the go). And while I returned to my normal but gluten free diet afterwards, I came out with a new way of looking at different foods, and I was inspired to try new recipes out of my normal routine. Coincidentally, at the start of Lent Brian also decided to try a mostly vegan diet to see if it would help his stomach issues and running. While frustrating to cook for at times, it pushed me to try new things that I found extremely satisfying! 

I think out of this challenge I also learned the value of preparing food for someone else as a gift of love. Instead of just giving Brian half of what I would already cook for myself, I've enjoyed crafting meals that nourish him and bring him happiness and health. Easter was an opportunity to share these experiments and discoveries with other people, and an opportunity to celebrate not only Jesus' gift of eternal salvation, but also to celebrate all that he has given us on this earth to enjoy in the mean time - like flowers, friends, family, and nutritiously delicious vegetables, fruits, nuts, and grains from the earth. 

On Saturday, as the snow fell lightly on the beautiful pinks and greens of the trees that were signs of new life, I prepped the food for our brunch in gratitude of all of the beauty and deliciousness our world is made of. Jesus gave himself as the Bread of Life, the least we can do is share food with meaning with our family and loved ones. And since every day should be a celebration of God's gifts - Happy Easter...again!

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