My colleagues surprised me with the idea of having a vegan potluck a few weeks ago.
And despite all of my anxiety, everything turned out really well.
I think it was well received and most everybody, I think, tried quite a few dishes.
I asked them to be open minded and I think they were.
This potluck was a big deal for me.
When I joined this particular team, I quickly learned that eating was a big part of the
culture, whether it be potlucks or just ordering out.
It's something that we do pretty frequently, maybe every other month, every couple of months.
Um, and when we have potlucks, these are not your ordinary potlucks.
These are full blown feasts that may or may not involve a griddle and multiple crockpots.
I mean, we usually have leftovers for days.
I mean, it is a spread.
So, um, needless to say this took a little bit of adjustment for me, um as a vegan going
there and not having anything to eat other than what I brought for myself.
And I usually agonize over whatever it is that I decide to bring, because to me, it's
an opportunity that I really can't afford to blow.
You know, some people may taste something once and if it's not good, they won't ever
taste it again.
And people are already kind of skeptical about vegan food, so I really try to be thoughtful
about whatever it is I bring and bring stuff that I know everyone should like if they actually
give it a try.
And there have actually been a few instances where people have intentionally brought food
that they know that I can eat or purchased something so I'll have something to eat while
everybody else is eating as well.
And so, I've really appreciated that, so needless to say this potluck was a big deal for me
and I really appreciated the fact that they even thought to do it.
They actually said that it was going to be a surprise, but thank goodness it wasn't because
I know I would have probably shed a tear, so sensitive and just ridiculous.
But everything turned out well.
Okay so, before we move on to the menu, I just want you to know that you can get links
to all of the videos and/or recipes below this video.
So, for the menu, I made sure I included things that people could buy like salsa and tortilla
chips and things like that.
Cause, not everybody likes to cook, so we had those things.
I made this little sign, because I heard a few comment, um apparently people thought
that this was gonna be a healthy eating event.
And needless to say, and I've said this before, just because it's vegan does not mean that
it's healthy.
Um, so people just have different ideas of what vegan means and what it is.
And I also sent them a link to an article that I wrote about what to cook for a vegan
and I'll include that down below as well.
I also made sure that each dish had a list of ingredients since the most popular question
I get is, "What's in this?"
So, we had white bean dip.
I gave my colleague the recipe that I used for the video I did a few weeks ago and he
put his own twist to it which I told him was fine as long as it was vegan.
Someone made the chickpea chicken salad.
And just as a side note, I gave everyone any non-traditional ingredients that they might
need, like the vegan mayo for this chickpea salad.
I gave some people some milk, um some nutritional yeast flakes and things like that just to
make it as easy as possible for them.
I made the queso.
I also made my meaty vegan burgers as sliders.
I made marinated tofu using the best marinade ever using the technique shown in the perfect
tofu video.
Our office director made an orzo salad.
She didn't use the recipe that I gave her but hers was absolutely delicious.
I just love orzo so much.
I don't think you can do anything to it that I won't like as long as it's vegan.
Another colleague made a zesty quinoa salad.
Someone else made roasted potatoes.
I gave her a really simple and tasty recipe from Rachael Ray.
Another colleague made Eat Atlanta's mac and cheese.
And someone else made the zesty marinated vegetable salad.
We had So Delicious ice cream for dessert along with applesauce cake that my manager
brought.
We had vanilla cupcakes with buttercream frosting.
One of my colleagues made the cupcakes and I made the frosting.
I've never made or piped frosting before.
It was so good!
I should have just spooned it on and smoothed it but I wanted to see if I could do something
fancy.
It...I won't say it worked out.
But, it kinda looked pretty.
It looked like I did it.
And the day before the potluck, I got obsessed with peach cobbler and decided to try one
for the first time.
Everyone loved it.
I think that I'll do something a little different next time, but I'm not sure what.
It tasted really good though.
I got lots of thank you's afterwards.
And I really think that people appreciated, um the potluck and definitely saw it as educational
opportunity or experience for themselves.
So, it was really good.
I'm glad that we were able to do it it and I hopefully we can do it, maybe once a year.
And over the course of the year, I'll hopefully learn some new recipes that will knock everyone's
socks off.
So, thank you for watching and I'll see you next time!