Recipe

No special occasion or equipment is needed for such undetectably vegan goodness. Bring it to a potluck or party or serve it with homemade mayo during your next BBQ!

Link to the Original Recipe from nutriciously.com

Ingredients

2 lbs white potatoes, peeled and chopped (900 g)

• ¾ cup celery, chopped (170 g)

• ½ cup parsley, finely chopped (15 g)

• ½ cup dill pickles, chopped (77 g)

• 1 green bell pepper, finely chopped

• 2 green onions, finely chopped

• 1 tbsp mustard (optional)

• Radishes, chopped (optional)

• ¾-1 cup vegan mayo

Instructions

Place the peeled and cubed potatoes into a large pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and let them cook for 15 minutes.

1. Once the potatoes are fork-tender, drain and let them cool.

2. Meanwhile, prepare the rest of your ingredients.

3. Make the cashew mayo by placing all ingredients in a high-speed blender and blend until smooth. Adjust to taste with salt and nutritional yeast; add more water if you want a thinner consistency.

4. Add cooked potatoes, celery, parsley, pickles, bell pepper, and green onion to a large bowl.

5. Top with your vegan mayo and mix until well combined with a large spoon. Adjust to taste with salt, lemon juice and mustard.

6. Serve immediately or cover and refrigerate for at least an hour to allow the flavors to blend and taste even better!

Notes

• If you don’t like dill pickles, celery or bell peppers, you can go straight to a potato-and-onion-version instead or choose different veggies to add into your potato salad.

• To add a bit more zing, use some pickle juice to thin out the mayo.

• This vegan potato salad keeps in the fridge for up to 5 days but tastes best within the first 3-4 days.

• Feel free to use store-bought vegan mayo for this recipe.

IN THE COMMUNITY

Meet Sally Dunham a longtime El Sobrante resident and community volunteer. She shares some her family history and expresses her excitement about the Cafe and Plant Nursery's opening! Special thanks to Jacob Day for conducting and editing the video, and to Sally for chatting with us!

Click HERE to watch the complete interview!

Join us for our next Work + Fun Day!

When: Saturday, April 29th from 12-3 PM

Where: 5166 Sobrante Ave, El Sobrante 94803

Sat. April 29th will be our Community Work + Fun Day @ 5166 Sobrante Ave, 12- 3p. Wear sturdy shoes and clothing and bring work gloves and favorite gardening tools. And please bring a good quality mask so we can all stay safe from COVID and construction dust.

Help us share the Good word by following us on Facebook and Instagram

Recipe

Do you love pizza and are ready for a twist on the Italian classic? Try this vegan mashed potato pizza crust! It takes only 10 minutes of hands-on prep time, is really low in calories and totally grain-free.

Link to the Original Recipe from nutriciously.com

Ingredients

Potato Pizza Crust

• 1 ½ lb potatoes, peeled and cubed (680 g)

• 2 cups cauliflower florets (200 g)

• 5 tablespoons potato starch

• Salt and pepper to taste

• Pinch of nutritional yeast (optional)

Toppings

• Green hummus

• ½ cup cooked chickpeas (80 g), drained

• ½ medium zucchini (100 g), thinly sliced

• 1 large tomato, thinly sliced

• 1-2 button mushrooms, thinly sliced

• ½ red onion, thinly sliced

• 1 cup fresh arugula (20 g)

• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Make the Potato Pizza Crust

1. Using a medium-sized pot, steam your cubed potatoes and cauliflower florets for around 25 minutes until soft and fork-tender. 

2. Then, preheat the oven to 430° F (220° C) and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

3. Once the potatoes and cauliflower are done cooking, drain them well. Using an immersion blender, fork or food processor, mash them until completely smooth.

4. Add potato starch, salt, pepper and mix until well-combined.

5. Using a wet spatula, thinly spread the potato mixture onto your prepared baking sheets, forming two pizza crusts.

6. Place the baking sheets into the oven and bake your potato crust for 15-20 minutes until lightly golden.

Assemble the Veggie Pizza

1. Once this time has elapsed, remove the potato pizza crust from the oven. Spread with hummus and top with chickpeas, zucchini, tomato, mushrooms and onion.

2. Lightly season your potato veggie pizza with salt and pepper and return to the oven to bake for another 15 minutes.

3. Top with fresh arugula, nutritional yeast or vegan parmesan if desired, then serve immediately. Enjoy

Community News

Saturday, April 22, El Sobrante Public Library, 4191 Appian Way, 9:30 to 2 PM. 

Be part of the Creeks and Community Cleanup and Celebration in the local El Sobrante/Richmond 94803 area to honor and care for Mother Earth. We hope to get lots of volunteers to pick up litter and trash from our community’s creeks and streets to make our environment cleaner, healthier, and more beautiful for all to enjoy. 

9:30 AM: Sign in, get grabbers, vests, bags, gloves, and pick a location to clean. Join Green Teams to clean up streets, SPAWNERS to cleanup creeks. There will also be a team to help with the library’s garden. Return equipment and bags to the library by Noon. 

Noon - 2 PM: Celebration of our efforts. Community info tables, food, library book displays and art installation, children’s art activities, entertainment, speakers, entertainment, electric bike and car demonstrations, and more. The Good Table will have a table at the celebration.

It’s fun and free! Meet your neighbors. Build our community! Celebrate our wonderful planet! Hope to see you there.

KeepElSobranteBeautiful.info

Here is some great advice for working on your home garden with kids. Whether they are your own kids, grandkids, or if you just need some great advice for working on your first home garden, this article pulled from 510families.com has you covered!

Tips to start an East Bay garden with kids:

1. Designate some garden real estate for kids, let them own the space. Try to find the sunniest spot, somewhere that gets 6+ hours of sunlight outdoors, or in a south-facing windowsill. Our yard allowed us to reuse an outgrown sandbox as a new raised planter bed. Maybe you have a wagon or busted wheelbarrow.

2. Give kid helpers jobs and goals

   • Weeding: We like to have a contest to see who can get the longest weed with seeds in it. Sure a flower might get picked here or there, but we use those as our countertop bouquets.

   • Digging holes and planting: We use starters or seedlings, which are much easier than seeds and just as fun.

   • Reseeding lawns and sprinkling grass seeds.

   • Fertilizing: Using organic fertilizer is important because we can’t over-fertilize and it’s safer for little ones.

   • Watering: If you give your kids the hose, be prepared to be sprayed every now and then.

   • Composting: Kids can collect meal scraps each day for the compost bins.

   • Gathering earthworms: Collect worms for your outdoor garden or compost. Both my daughters love inspecting all the critters we come across.

   • Mulching: Good for any age — and relaxing, too.

3. Germinate seeds indoors: Our seed germination activities are a functional science experiment to sprout hearty garden seedlings. Pro tip: use cardboard egg cartons for sprouting and transferring seedlings to an outdoor garden (here’s how).

4. Find non-toxic pest control when little hands will be digging in treated yards and gardens. Check out these home remedies. We crush egg shells (with gloves on) around the base of our young plants to keep slugs at bay. Reflecting ribbons and a scarecrow also help to keep the birds and squirrels from eating our blueberries (for now).

5. After everything is planted and weeded, I keep my kids engaged by decorating your garden with DIY gnomes and scarecrows (scarecrows are super easy to make with clothes my kids have outgrown and some sticks).

6. Further reading and resources: Based in Berkeley, the Edible Schoolyard has designed a suite of lessons and activities to teach kids about growing food in the garden.

Best things to plant in the East Bay during spring

I’ve had the most success with the following in Oakland’s zone 10a (a numeric gardening zone based on the average temperatures across the US). It’s fun to figure out what zone you live in and discover what might grow in your garden.

• Lettuce: the easiest, edible and most rewarding because it grows quickly

• Sunflowers: heat and drought tolerant, durable and wonderful to look at

• Nasturtiums: this vibrant, edible flower can be for beauty or consumption

• Peppers or chilies: thrive in 510 climate (think jalapeños and bell peppers)

• Collard greens

• Mint: can also be a natural deterrent for vermin

• Basil & parsley: with fewer trips to the grocery store, herbs can add great flavor to meals

• Rosemary & lavender: thrive in a pot or in the ground

• Can’t find seeds or plants of what you’re looking for? Oakland mom, Carol, recommends trying a plant or seed exchange with a neighbor. Everyone wins!

Tools suggestions for gardening with kids

• Gloves: while tiny gloves are probably cute, I just let my daughter use my adult gloves, she doesn’t mind that they’re a little baggy. Besides they’re only worn 25% the time.

• Buckets: for collecting weeds, mulching, fertilizing.

• Shovel: My four year old uses a regular gardening hand-held trowel, my one-year old uses a plastic sand shovel.

• Kid scissors: used like gardening shears, but safer.

• Recycled containers for watering: my youngest daughter can stay busy walking water from a large bucket to the plants, with a smaller used yogurt container.

• Books: though libraries are closed, there are a handful of excellent Bay Area specific gardening books. (I included a list of bookstores further down that have new and used local gardening books for social distancing sale.)

Click HERE to read the original article from 510Families.com!

The Lure of Elegant Solutions
By Rev. Dr. Melinda V. McLain

In science - especially in mathematics – an elegant solution is “a solution to a question or a problem that achieves the maximally satisfactory effect with minimal effort, materials, or steps.” While I’m not a mathematician, I admit that I am always looking for elegant solutions to problems.

I’m not sure when or how I got lured into desiring elegant solutions for everything, but I do know that I have often told myself to “work smart, not hard”. Also, I may have unintentionally tattooed the “KISS” principle (keep it simple stupid) on the inside of my eyelids.

But here’s the crazy part. My primary work for many years has been to nurture and/or create diverse human communities designed to serve neighbors in need. And the moment you start working with humans - forget simple solutions, it will always be an exercise in balancing various individual needs with the needs of the group. Plus, the complexity grows if the group also wants to serve and be accountable to the wider community - especially marginalized communities. 

As complex and difficult as it can be to work in human community, I have sadly discovered that managing a construction project in California (and perhaps other places too) isn’t just inelegant, it’s downright ugly. The process has been byzantine, bureaucratic, and wicked expensive. And we’ve lost time (and money) due to the pandemic, conflicting requirements by government agencies, a massive burglary in June 2021, and a stretched way too thin management team that is deeply committed to maximizing every dollar spent.

Our vision for creating a pay-what-you-can and pay-it-forward community cafe, organic tree and plant nursery, and gathering space for community arts and education is multi-faceted, but elegant in its design. We just want to provide a place where community can gather freely and get a good cup of coffee too. This simple vision is also desperately needed in the little town of El Sobrante that currently has none of the above. Even though the process hasn’t been pretty, we will someday get The Good Table open and it will be an elegant solution for creating a more resilient and just community.

When working in human community, I have found that loving kindness is the elegant solution to just about any problem that arises. It isn’t always easy for everyone to commit to this solution, but when they/we/I do, it works every time. While choosing loving kindness is always the solution to most human problems, the individual path varies over time. Some folks get there via spiritual practice and others through education and ethical commitment. I think the most elegant path is through gratitude. Take time to be grateful and soon the loving kindness will flow. 

Thank you for your support and patience as we continue to create The Good Table Café and Planting Justice Nursery in El Sobrante. And if you have any elegant suggestions to help us, be in touch, or stop by any last Saturday of the month from 12-3 for our Community Work + Fun day.

IN THE COMMUNITY

Meet Sharon Miller a longtime El Sobrante resident and community volunteer. She shares some of the work she's been doing in the community and expresses her excitement about the Cafe and Plant Nursery's opening!

Special thanks to Jacob Day for conducting and editing the video, and to Sharon for chatting with us!

Click HERE to watch the complete interview!

Join us for our next Work + Fun Day!

When: Saturday, March 25th from 12-3 PM

Where: 5166 Sobrante Ave, El Sobrante 94803

Sat. March 25th will be our Community Work + Fun Day @ 5166 Sobrante Ave, 12- 3p. Wear sturdy shoes and clothing and bring work gloves and favorite gardening tools. And please bring a good quality mask so we can all stay safe from COVID and construction dust.

Help us share the Good word by following us on Facebook and Instagram

Click HERE to view the entire Newsletter!

Quinoa Veggie Bowl

An easy, plant based meal that celebrates the bounty of spring. This Quinoa Veggie Bowl will leave you feeling healthy and satisfied. A big dollop of pesto brings tons of bright, fresh flavor.

Link to the Original Recipe from www.veggieinspired.com

Ingredients

• 1 ½ cups dry quinoa

• 2 ½ cups water or vegetable broth

• 1 bunch asparagus woody bottom stems snapped off or trimmed

• 1 bunch radishes halved or quartered (stems and leaves removed)

• 2 teaspoons olive oil divided (see notes for an oil-free option)

• salt and pepper to taste

• 2 handfuls fresh spinach leaves

• ½ cup chopped or slivered raw almonds

• 1 recipe Pumpkin Seed Pesto

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 400°F.

• You can use your favorite store bought pesto OR make the pesto from scratch. You can make the pesto ahead of time if you wish and keep in the fridge. (click here for Pumpkin Seed Pesto recipe)

• Toss the radishes with 1 teaspoon of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt and pepper. Spread on a rimmed baking sheet in one even layer.

• Spread the asparagus spears out in one even layer on another baking sheet. Drizzle with 1 teaspoon olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

• Roast both pans for 20 to 25 minutes until the vegetables are browned and tender. Stir the veggies on the pan and spread back out after 15 minutes.

• While the vegetables are roasting, place quinoa and water (or vegetable broth for added flavor) in a medium pot and bring to a boil. Turn down heat to a simmer, cover, and cook for about 15 minutes until the water is absorbed and the quinoa is cooked through. Fluff with a fork.

• To assemble the bowls, place a small handful of spinach in a bowl, top with quinoa, roasted veggies, almonds, and a dollop of pesto.

Notes

~ The pesto can be made ahead of time and kept in an air-tight container in the fridge for up to 5 days.

~ Rinse the quinoa well before cooking to remove any debris or bitterness.

~ Fluff the quinoa with a fork when it’s done. Do not stir it with a spoon…that will just make it sticky and mushy.

~ Use rice, couscous, orzo or any grain you love instead of quinoa to mix it up.

~ A drizzle of oil on the vegetables will help them brown and caramelize and produce a richer flavor. It will also prevent them from sticking to the pan.

~ For an oil-free option, use a squeeze of lemon juice or dash of tamari instead. Place a sheet of parchment paper on the baking sheet under the veggies to prevent sticking.

~ Add some white beans or baked tofu for an added protein boost.

IN THE COMMUNITY

Meet Nancy Lemon a longtime member of The Good Table and Mira Vista! Nancy shares her excitement with us about the Good Table Cafe and expresses her welcome to the El Sobrante community into the soon to be opened cafe space.

Special thanks to Jacob Day for conducting and editing the video, and to Nancy for chatting with us!

Click HERE to watch the complete interview!

Join us for our next Work + Fun Day!

When: Saturday, February 25th from 12-3 PM

Where: 5166 Sobrante Ave, El Sobrante 94803

Sat. February 25th will be our Community Work + Fun Day @ 5166 Sobrante Ave, 12- 3p. Wear sturdy shoes and clothing and bring work gloves and favorite gardening tools. And please bring a good quality mask so we can all stay safe from COVID and construction dust.

Help us share the Good word by following us on Facebook and Instagram