We connected with Lande over a love of shared meals that championed decadent and divine comfort, and always paired with wine and big laughs. She is a trained pastry chef, working in boutique cake businesses to our favourite eateries in Melbourne’s inner north. In recent years, she’s been inspired by and has dedicated her craft to creating vegan food that is approachable, nostalgic and utterly delicious. We have been thinking for a long time about ways we could work with Lande and share her ethos and recipes with you. So, we worked together and decided we wanted to share an idea for a beautiful, simple long lunch with friends which was crafted for us by our wonderful friend. With a focus on vegan comfort food, Yolande designed for us the perfect lunch of mushroom pie and decadent crumble. Below are the recipes, which are delightfully easy to make.

Mushroom Filo Pie

1 packet of filo pastry
1 small red onion, diced
Handful of fresh rosemary, diced
1 leek, chopped
Olive oil
1x tin cherry tomatoes
5-6 large mushrooms sliced
Small bunch of parsley, roughly chopped
Zaatar and sesame seeds

Cashew Cream
150 grams cashews (soaked overnight or 2 hours later)
2 cups water
2 tbsp nutritional yeast
2 tsp salt

Preheat oven 180c

Place a dash of olive oil in a large saucepan. Add Diced Onion and cook until soft (about five minutes). On Medium heat, add diced garlic rosemary and chopped leek. Stir through until mixed well and coated in olive oil. Add the tomatoes and a dash of water. Turn down the heat and stir through the mushrooms and parsley. Cook for a further 5 minutes or so. Just to slightly soften the mushrooms (they cook more in the oven). Generously grease a large baking tray with olive oil and start to layer with filo pastry.Place sheet by sheet, overlapping until you’ve used ¾’s of the pastry. Drizzle some more olive oil before pouring the mushrooms onto the pastry. 

Put the ingredients for the cashew cream in a blender and blend until smooth.

Pour evenly over the mushrooms and fold the edges of the pastry over the mushrooms.

Use the remaining filo to cover the top, drizzle with olive oil and cover in zaatar and sesame seeds.

Bake for 20 minutes or until golden.

Apple and Rhubarb Crumble

Filling
1x bunch fresh rhubarb
4x peeled green apples
Zest and juice of one orange
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 cup brown sugar
½ tsp salt
Crumble
1 ½ cups oats
1 cup plain flour
1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
¾ cup vegan butter (e.g. nuttelex)

Preheat oven to 170c

Peel and chop the apples into pieces approx the size of your thumb, and chop the rhubarb into similarly sized pieces.Place all ingredients for the filling into a medium sized saucepan and cook on low-medium heat, stirring regularly.

Cook the fruit for approximately 20 minutes or until quite soft but still holding its shape.

Place all the ingredients for the crumble in a large mixing bowl and use your fingers to rub the butter through to create a texture similar to breadcrumbs.

Put the stewed fruit into a heatproof dish and place the crumble mixture on top. Bake for 25 minutes or until crumble is golden.

Recipes by Yolanda Whelan
Photo by Tamrin Barta