Due to pain I didn’t get this up as early as I normally like to (before everyone gets off work), so this challenge isn’t due until Sunday night. The rules!

1. Whatever you come up with has to be new, nothing from a cookbook or a blog, not something you posted last week that happens to involve the secret ingredient. It’s fine to use a recipe for a jump-off point, but make it your own!
2. Entries are due at 9 pm CST on Sunday (but it takes me awhile to read all of the entries so if you’re a little late it’s no big).
3. Have fun and be creative!

And the secret ingredient is…

SQUASH!!!

Whether you are still recovering from an overindulgent holiday season or you’ve decided to shun the silly notion that January = diet, squash is a perfect food to play with in January. It’s versatile, there are so many varieties (people down under can use summer squash) available right now, and it’s guaranteed to make any dish warm and cozy. Some squashes can be a beast to cut through, here’s a photo guide on how to cut and peel a butternut squash (safety first).

Allez Végétalien Cuisine!

First we have Rolled Focaccia with Garlic and Herbs from Julia, one of the herbs being mint obviously. Perfect for those of us whose kitchens are too cold to be in unless we’re baking something!

Tiffany made Mint Tea Whole Wheat Couscous, which brings to mind some many nice adjectives. Like: fast, easy, pretty, delicious, and simple-yet-interesting.

And to fill that cookie-shaped hole in your heart, Danni gives us Chocolate Mint Cookies, which she based on a veganized recipe of her mom’s pinwheel cookies.

So you could put those three things together and pretty much have a complete meal. Or. OR. You could head on over and check out Cara’s entry because she made three minty dishes (Tabouleh inspired Bulgur Veggie Tower on a Bed of Mint Sauce, Mushroom Cannelloni on Bed of Lettuce and Garlicky Button Mushrooms, and Minty Pancakes with Chocolate and Strawberry Jam) and she doesn’t even like mint! Watch out, Morimorto.

Thanks for playing, guys! Next month’s ingredient has already been picked out, and I promise that it’ll be perfect for the cozy kinds of food we all need in January. See you January 13th!

A quick review of our few simple rules/guidelines:

1. Whatever you come up with has to be new, nothing from a cookbook or a blog, not something you posted last week that happens to involve the secret ingredient. It’s fine to use a recipe for a jump-off point, but make it your own!
2. Entries are due at 3 pm CST on Sunday (but it takes me awhile to read all of the entries so if you’re a little late it’s no big).
3. Have fun and be creative!

And the secret ingredient is…

MINT!!!

Now, if you have mint in your yard like I do (so, so much mint), you might think that this is more appropriate for spring when you can use fresh leaves. But maybe you still do have fresh available, and there are extracts and teas and just so many mediums of mint that can be used. And while this will be a great way for all of us to figure out some new holiday treats to make, don’t forget that mint can be savory too!

Allez Végétalien Cuisine!

According to Todd at Spencer’s:

The main premise and focus at Spencer’s is to create a hub for personalized food discovery. Our passion is working with the smaller, artisanal producer and giving them a platform to grow their business. That said, we will also work with some more recognizable brands if they fit our “natural” food policy. We don’t mind introducing people to a little bit of an indulgence, but it has to be made from clean and natural ingredients.

The folks at Spencer’s were nice enough to send me a variety pack, and they’re offering one of our readers the same bundle of goodies. These are from brands most of us recognize, but Spencer’s will also be offering goods from smaller producers.

The lucky winner will receive:

• One box of 12 Larabar mini’s
• One bag of Terra Exotic Vegetable Chips
• Six Primal Strips (one of each flavor)
• One bag of Uncle Eddies Vegan Cookies

This giveaway is a little different. You’ll need to click here and sign up for their mailing list to enter. Please, do not enter through the comments. We’ll pick a random winner Monday, around noon EST.

We’ll announce a winner shortly!

Sorry, but this one is open to U.S. residents only. Good luck!

I was thrilled to receive a copy of Nava Atlas’ gorgeous new book VEGAN Holiday Kitchen to review, and even more excited to be able to give another copy away to one lucky reader of the MoFo blog. The photos in this review are courtesy of fellow MoFo organizer Amey, who posted a review on her own blog, Vegan Eats and Treats. I chose an un-photogenic beige soup, and am too embarrassed to show the internet my attempt at braiding challah dough, so Amey graciously agreed to let me use her alluring photos!

Mixed Greens with Green Apples, Beets & Pistachios

The book is stunning—hardcover, full-color, with plenty of photography done by Susan Voisin of FatFree Vegan Kitchen, and boasting more than 200 recipes. This is the kind of book you take straight to the couch with a cup of tea, a warm blanket, some bookmarks (or if you’re a slob like me, your dog-earing fingers), and a pen and paper for grocery lists. One thing I immediately noticed and loved about VHK is that there is no lengthy intro taking up a huge chunk of the book where recipes could be! Instead of spending ninety pages explaining what agave nectar and nutritional yeast are and touting their health benefits, Nava simply includes pertinent ingredient information as sidebars next to the recipe that contains it. The book focuses on major (and mostly Western world/US) holidays; Thanksgiving, Christmas, Passover, Rosh Hashanah, Hanukkah, Easter, Independence Day; and there is section at the end for potluck, brunch, and party appetizer dishes. I had an extremely difficult time deciding what to make first, and eventually settled on the Creamy Wild Mushroom Soup from the Thanksgiving menu, along with the Vegan Challah from the Rosh Hashanah menu.

A wild mushroom devotee, this particular recipe both attracted and worried me due to the intriguing addition of silken tofu and white beans blended into the soup after it has simmered, to add the creaminess. The recipe also called for the mushrooms to be simmered in water separate from the soup’s base rather than being sautéed , which is something I’ve never done in my many years of cooking mushrooms, and I wasn’t sure if it would do justice to the beautiful locally foraged shiitakes and oyster mushrooms I was using for the recipe. Fortunately, I opted to trust Nava’s every direction, and ended up with silky, earthy, and slightly tangy (due to some white wine, which pairs gorgeously with mushrooms) soup. My boyfriend isn’t a fan of mushroom soups and I’d even bought him a frozen Amy’s pizza in case he hated it, but after he got over his initial textural issues, we polished up the eight servings in an obscenely short amount of time.

Having never had non-vegan challah before but being certain I love the vegan version after making it several times, I was drawn to Nava’s recipe, which uses pureed squash as both an egg replacer and to make the breads a subtle shade of orange. Breads are not my specialty, but I had had kind of crappy go of life last week and punching and kneading dough on Sunday afternoon suited me just fine. The dough rose enthusiastically, and there was surprisingly little hands-on time required, just a couple of long rising times during which I caught up on terrible television shows and made the soup. The two loaves came out soft yet dense, with a subtle sweetness and a crispy crust. Will make again, and often.

Other recipes I have dog-eared: Baked Thanksgiving Risotto; Hearty Lentil and Mushroom Shepherd’s Pie; Lemony Spinach and Chickpea Soup; Marinated Mushrooms, Asparagus and Artichokes; New World Wassail; and pretty much everything Amey made, especially the Three Sisters Stew.

Three Sisters Stew

Asian-Flavored Tofu & Cucumber Platter

To win your very own copy of VEGAN Holiday Kitchen, simply leave a comment telling me what your favorite holiday dish is, to either make or have someone else make it for you. This particular giveaway is open to people with addresses in the US and Canada, and I will pick a winner at random on Thursday, December 1st at 10am PST.

I’ll start! My favorite (finicky) holiday dish is a pull-out-all-the-stops seitan roulade. I haven’t done one yet this year, but am planning it for some time at the end of December when I’m visiting family in freezing cold Alberta, where kneading and simmering seitan is the only way to keep warm.

Best Cooking With Kids goes to Cold & Sleepy Cooks, for her ABC theme and her daily kiddo pics.

Hottest New Ingredient goes to Vegan Culinary Crusade for Vegan Lisa’s post on Raw Caramel Chips, which introduced us to lucuma powder.

Most Epic Post goes to Three And A Half Vegans for creating an entirely edible Candlyland! Need we say more?

Best Use Of Chia goes to Spinach Pancakes from Spa Bettie. This could double as “Best Use Of Spinach”, too!

Best Around The World Adventure goes to Meet The Wikos where Erinwiko took us from Sicily to Sri Lanka and back again!

Most Fantastic How-to goes to Sugar Skull! Kristin made her blog’s namesake (SUGARSKULLS!) and held our hands through each step.

Best Theme goes to Don’t Eat Off The Sidewalk for her amazing Dinner And A Horror Movie theme. Katie kept us laughing and screaming and eating all month, while still managing to blog here and do the Iron Chef Challenges. Maybe she wins best Mofo-er overall?

Thanks for playing, everyone! Hope you had fun. Winners! Please email us to receive a little banner to display on the sidebar of your blog. And thank you to Amanda at Will Draw For Cookies for creating the banners.

Best Photo goes to these Pumpkin Pancakes at VK Rees Photography. This tall stack of pancakes had us opening up our mouths in hopes that some syrup would fall in.

Post Most Like To Inspire Frying goes to Olives For Dinners’ Faux Fish And Real Chips! How badly do you want to squeeze lemon over everything and gobble up the screen?

Best Cat goes to Joyfulgirl’s inaugural MoFo post. Nothing says adorable like a kitten being terrorized by a huge container of pumpkin puree.

Best Childhood Recipe Recreation goes to i-40 Kitchen’s Sausage Balls! Because we all get a hankering for that food we loved when we were seven.

Most Droolworthy Speedy Dessert goes to Madcap Cupcake’s Chocolate Cherry Ice Cream. The only equipment needed for this decadence is a blender, and for that she deserves 10 awards!

That does it for Round Two of the Mofies. Stay tuned for Round Three…
PS Winners: please email us so that we can get you a small banner for your blog’s sidebar.

Our methods for determining Mofie recipients were ground in rock solid, airtight science. We used an intricate method that analyzes all of the available datas and scrutinized algorithms. And then we said “Fork this!” because really, everything was getting too complicated which is why we’ve never gotten around to creating the awards before. So, instead we went with the k.i.s.s. method. Keep it simple, stupid! Each VeganMoFo organizer created two categories and chose the winner. After all, no one knows MoFo like we do!

And from the bottom of our vegan hearts we want to thank all of the MoFo participants. It was so much fun to scroll through our feeds and read what you had to say all month. Whether it was a fun story about road-tripping it just to eat your favorite pizza or a tender story about recreating your Nana’s meatballs vegan-style, we were right there with you.

This is round one of winners, we’ll post the second round later today. And we do have one more category that will be chosen by YOU the readers, so stay tuned for news on that. Winners, please contact us so that we can send you a small banner to use on your sidebar.

Now, without further ado, we bring you MOFOS OF THE YEAR!!!

Best Use Of Tofu goes to Vegans Eat Pencil Shavings for her Pan Fried Vegan Oysters with Chili Lime Pomegranate Molasses. What an amazing use of vegan seafood, agar and all.

Blog That Convinced Us To Go To A Superbowl Party goes to Jojo at Vegan In Brighton for her awe-inspiring Football Food Sunday posts. We loved to read about each finger licking item this Brit cooked up for her American football feasts.

Best Way To Support Farm Sanctuaries goes to My Zoetrope for her charity watercolors that raised money for For The Animals Sanctuary. We loved all the bears and cats and talking sandwiches she produced all month, and a few of her paintings might even reside in our kitchens now!

Best Use Of Pumpkin goes to Kathy at Busy Vegan for her Pumpkin Spice Cheap-o-chino. She served us autumn in a glass in and it costs only pennies. And for that we are forever thankful.

Most Impressive Food Project goes to Fork And Beans for her monthlong adventures in vegan and gluten-free candy making! From Snickers to Butterfingers, Cara kept us coming back for more.

Best International Dish goes to Vegan On The Prowl’s South Indian Gunpowder. Rithika gave us a condiment that’s just great for elaborate dosas or simple veggies, and might also take honor for best use of chickpeas.

That does it for round one. Catch up with us later on for round two of the Fifth Annual Mofie Awards!

WHAT: Now, if you live outside of the United Kingdom, please feel free to gaze and contemplate polyunsaturated essential fatty acids on your own, but if you reside within the United Kingdom, simply leave a comment with a link to your favorite recipe that uses hemp – doesn’t have to be your own, just something you’ve tried – and you’re in the running to win a GOOD Hemp Hamper (£50.00), which includes their fancy hemp oils, hemp milk, hemp seeds and you guessed it – hemp protein powder.

Image from the GOOD facebook

HOW TO WIN: Leave a comment with a link to your favorite recipe that includes hemp, and I’ll pick my favorite tomorrow morning over my morning hemp milk latte!

Let me know in the comments by 9am PST Tuesday and I will pick the UK winner then (who will in turn, send me Cheezly, right?!)

SERIOUSLY: Please make sure you leave an email address that you check! We ask that you respond within 24 hours. Hemp is serious.

________________________________________________

Find out more about GOOD hemp products on their facebook.

Zoa took a failed batch of seitan and turned it into Seitan-stuffed Tomatoes with Moroccan Spices.

Richa turned some leftover Chana Masala into these cute little Baked Potato Tikkis.

Cara took her favorite elements of a popular Georgian recipe and turned it into Breaded Nutty Tofu Balls en croûte and Nutty Breaded Eggplant Slices with Walnut Parsley Cream Sauce.

Danni made a pantry-friendly bean loaf, and included recipes for Cauli-tatoes and a Butternut Squash cake!

Corrina went old school with Butternut Squash Tofu Balls, that are based on a Dreena Burton recipe that I love! Tofu balls forever.

I love it when people aren’t too proud to talk about their baking/cooking failures, I think it’s educational. I love it even more when they are able to turn their failures into something new, waste not and all that. If you feel the same way, you’ll enjoy this epic tale of Tiffany’s Autumn Fruit Strudel Rolls.

Cadry made Cashew-Cheese Stuffed Jalapeno Poppers, I can practically taste the combination of cashews and miso in the filling.

Kristen made Panko-Encrusted Ginger-Wasabi Brownies, which she says is ‘not very original’, but I say: whaaaaaaaaaat?!