PPK american vegan kitchen apps

Post Punk Kitchen continued with American Vegan Kitchen.

Tonight we enjoyed a trio of appetizers from AVK, by Tamasin Noyes.  We have a Halloween Party coming up and I figured since Tami has some great apps in AVK I would use my family as humane test-subjects. The kids asked if indeed this was dinner, but, my all-powerful-and-knowing-self knew they wouldn't need more food after these.

Baked Poppers with Lime Cream, Deli Reubenettes and Stick-to-Your-Ribs Pot-Sticker.

Quite a line up!

The Poppers are supposed to be jalapenos, but I wanted the kids to try them, so I used small sweet peppers. David and I really liked these and even some of the non-pepper-hating-kids (Cat) liked them. They turned out crispy and crunchy from the oven - just make sure to broil them a bit at the end if the panko seems to be too light. 

AVK Correction: The oil in the 7-in-1 Seasoning Recipe (p. 53) is not supposed to be in there, so omit it. 
(This has been confirmed with Tami.)

Next, the Pot-sticker. The filling was a breeze to assemble! That is when the wind was knocked out of me ... those little wrappers take a village to assemble, forget raising any kids... unless you raise them to help assemble their dinner. No wonder people who are in the know gather in groups to assemble these diminutive packages of food...tamales, stuffed cabbage, pot-stickers, raviolis, egg-rolls, steamed buns, etc. Good thinking, folks! Nevertheless, they are worth it! Stuff and seal..stuff and seal..stuff and...

Last, the Deli Reubenettes stole the dinner by a long shot. NONE of these were left over and I even made about 1/2 a recipe more than the book allocated. Call it a mother's intuition. I changed up the presentation (and therefore the assembly) of these since I was so tired of encasing food in small packages. Instead of stuffing the filling into a triangular package of puff pastry, I cut the pastry into rectangles, baked them, separated each square into two parts, topped each part with a tablespoon of filling and a dollop of the dipping sauce. The puff pastry goes a long way with this method, and my back is saved from a proportional amount of packing-pain. Win-win. And totally a do-again. Nice job, Tami. This is on the Halloween Party platter, but Cat suggested we add green food-coloring to the dipping sauce to make it festive. Ye-ah!

From left: Jalapeno Poppers, Reubennettes, Potstickers