I’ve been browsing  through my vegan cookbooks lately and realized that I have a number of which I’ve made very little use. One has a rather pedestrian title–The Power of Pulses–but a subtitle that’s completely irresistible: “Saving the World with Peas, Beans, Chickpeas, Favas, and Lentils.”

How could I resist?

So today, I decided to save the world with lentils….or, to be specific, with mushroom-lentil pâté.

I had to adapt the recipe quite a bit since we haven’t been grocery shopping in two weeks (because of the relentless snow!). So here is my adapted version…and it involves a WHOLE lot more ingredients than the original–not only because of the bare larder, but also because the original version turned out to be incredibly bland. After tasting it, both James and I consulted various online recipes for mushroom pâté and ended up adding a whole whack of further ingredients (pecans, spices, soy sauce, miso, sambal oelek, lemon juice, etc.).

The final product is very good though!

Mushroom-Lentil Pâté

First, put the following ingredients into the Instant Pot and set on high pressure for six minutes. Allow a natural pressure release.

• 1 cup lentils
• 2 cups vegetable broth
• 1 bay leaf
• a sprig of fresh thyme (I cannot believe this, but I still have thyme growing on the deck!!)

Set that aside, and spray the Instant Pot (or you can do this on the stove top–I just didn’t want to get another pan dirty), set it to “Saute,” and saute….

• 1 chopped onion
• 4 cloves garlic

Saute until onions are translucent. Add…

• 2.5 cups crimini mushrooms, sliced
• 1.5 cups shiitake mushrooms (I used rehydrated dried shiitakes), sliced

Once mushrooms are soft, add the following….

• 1/4 cup sherry

…and saute for a minute or two longer. Remove from heat and place in blender with the cooked lentils. Add to the blender…

• 1/2 cup toasted pecans
• 1/4 cup savoury cashew cream
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 2 TBS miso
• 2 TBS sambal oelek
• 1 TBS Better Than Bouillon Vegetable base
• 2 TBS lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp allspice
• 1 tsp thyme
• 1 tsp sage
• 1 tsp rosemary
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp freshly ground pepper

Pulse until everything’s nicely blended.

Refrigerate for a couple of hours before serving. Serve with a fresh baguette.

The snow is still falling and branches are falling off the trees under the weight of the heavy snow, so we’re anticipating another power outage this evening.

As such, we’ve planned a picnic dinner with a couple of freshly baked baguettes, the mushroom-lentil pâté, beet hummus, chickpea salad, coleslaw, olives, pickles, sliced apples, and nuts.

What a feast!!

And I made a batch of my favourite peanut butter buckeyes today, but we were both too full from our picnic to try them out!

And the song of the day is Rhiannon Gidden’s amazing version of “Waterboy.”