All You Need is Smlove

Smlove is all you need.

Happy holidays!

I'm Jewish, so I didn't have plans for Christmas beyond spending 4.5 days knitting and cooking with the music up really loud while everyone else was at work. Then a friend invited me over for the holiday. Friends from out of town were going to come by for a while, then we'd go visiting with her assorted family in the area. And we'd get to play in the kitchen. How could I say no?

We made the Smlove Pie from Veganomicon to bring to her aunts and made some Vegan Bailey's (recipe in post #22 and below) for ourselves. Guh!



I'm so proud of that pie. It looks...like a PIE. Like a real pie you can get in a store. If you've read more of this blog than this post, you know that while my food may taste good, I haven't really been able to get presentation down yet. Obviously, making a pie with someone with a degree in art helps there.

The pie is delicious, but very rich. You can easily be satisfied with a super-small slice, making the fact that we brought one pie for roughly 30 people not so much of a problem.

The most fun part of making this pie is drizzling the chocolate over top. The most impressive part, to me, is that we candied our own pecans. Who the hell candies pecans?! We do! And we had about half of them left over, so we got to eat them plain as well, which was a real treat. We also had plenty of chocolate drizzle left. Candied pecan/chocolate drizzle sandwiches with a side of homemade gingerbread men (I made those the day before, but didn't take any pictures because it was just practice for later) is the breakfast of champions.

This is a great pie to bring to a gathering, vegan or omni. It looks so much like a real pie that people will be impressed just by looking at it. Add the taste, and they'll worship you. I don't know which they'll have more trouble believing: that it's homemade or that it's vegan.

The Bailey's was a little strong for me (I don't really drink), but we cut it with some of the Frangelico we bought for the pie and then it was nice and tasty. And there's something inherently funny about whisking whiskey. Bring it to a holiday party and you won't feel bad at all about not being able to partake of the nog.

Naked pie:



With peanut butter caramel and candied pecans:



Macro!



Sliced:



The slice:



Showing off:



Bailey's, in an appropriately festive cup:



Vegan Bailey's

1 can coconut milk
2 tbs brown sugar
2 tbs chocolate syrup
2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup whisky

Whisk it all together with a whisk. That's it.