Vegan Pâté
So, the other day I was recipe-searching online and discovered that there's such thing as vegan pâté (and, yes, I'm gonna spell it that way every time...in case you were wondering). Vegan pâté! Mind blown.
I started looking for the perfect recipe and I was either missing ingredients, didn't like the combinations of ingredients, or didn't like the texture shown in the pictures. So I just started writing down ingredients that I liked and made my own conglomeration from about seven different recipes.
Ingredients:
2 cups walnuts (soaked for at least 2 hours)
1lb cremini mushrooms (common brown mushrooms)
1/2 large onion
1/4 cup ground flax seeds
3 T fresh parsley
1 T fresh thyme
2 T fresh rosemary
2 T white miso
1 T soy sauce
2 T lemon juice or apple cider vinegar (whichever one you have on hand is fine)
1 T nutritional yeast
2 T dulse flakes (optional; I just like to throw these into everything)
2 garlic cloves (or 3 or 4 or 10...can you tell I love garlic?)
salt (to taste)
veggie broth (to help blend)
Soak the walnuts at least 2 hours (I soaked mine overnight), drain, and rinse. Put all the ingredients into a blender. You may have to divide your batch, depending on the size of your blender; alternatively, you can use a food processor but make sure you use a spice grinder for grinding down the flax seeds. Add veggie broth as needed to bring it to the consistency you prefer and to help mix your ingredients, especially if you have a cheap, weak blender like I do.
You can dip crackers in it or spread it on bread for snacks or breakfast. I got my crackers from Breadfarm at the Everett Farmers Market. I couldn't decide between the two kinds they had, so I did what any reasonable person would do: buy both. I still can't figure out which ones I like best. And, let's be honest, I'm pretty sure I made the pâté as a way to utilize the crackers instead of the other way around.