Vegan MoFo 2010: Day Six

Day Six: Bagels! Bagels! Bagels!

bagels, all the time!

It's finally the weekend! Most of my day was spent between the kitchen and the computer, catching up on MoFo bloggers. I've been really busy with work and cooking that I've neglected a lot of spectacular blogs, even some in my own reel! What I have browsed thus far is amazing. Our Veggie Kitchen is cooking up White Bean Waffles, and photographing them well. Want a step-by-step guide to chow mein and fried rice? Check out Go Vegan Meow! One of my preferred bloggers, MoFo or otherwise, actually inspired this post! C'est La Vegan makes some of the tastiest foods I can imagine, from Marinated Cheeze to Tofu Benny's. She recently made the Garden Herb Spread from one of my favorite cookbooks, Vegan Brunch. Upon sight, I knew I would be making bagels this weekend!

    

The recipe yielded a dozen medium sized bagels, just a bit smaller than most store-bought varieties. Several were scarfed down almost instantly by my roommates! I've only made the bagels from Vegan Brunch one other time, several years ago, and those did not come out too well. It's pleasant to know my baking experience and ability has grown since then, as these were almost perfect! A few oddly shaped bagels aren't ruining this batch.

 I had most of the ingredients required to make the Garden Herb Spread from Vegan Brunch, and that's what I did. I combined cashews, tofu, lemon juice, fresh basil, parsley and fennel, dried tarragon and dill, s&p and nutritional yeast in the food processor and voila!

Vegan MoFo 2010: Day Three

Day Three: Fine Dining - Entree

From my own experiences in "high class" dining facilities, I've safely assumed that most mainstream chefs have little to no imagination when it comes to vegan entrees. Too frequently I have been presented with a plate of overcooked penne and out-of-the-jar marinara sauce or an under-seasoned slab of tofu accompanied by rice pilaf (which is really just white rice and a couple of peas). The worst meal I've received from a restaurant (with a fixed menu) was stuffed zucchini...stuffed with itself. The insides were scraped out, shredded and stuffed back into the zucchini for a 20 minute bake. I couldn't find a single teaspoon of seasoning, let alone a grain of salt or pepper. Such a dish has scared my interpretation of "stuffed" vegetables. Out of my frustrations came an unrelenting persistence. I would reclaim and recreate the forlorn stuffed vegetables of mainstream commercial kitchens! No longer will the zucchinis and eggplants and portobellos be forced onto a plate, embarrassed by their near nakedness! I'd stuff a mushroom, and I'd stuff it good.



Stuffed Portobellos with Sun dried Tomatoes and Basil
Plated on Homemade Tomato Sauce with Toasted Walnuts

The recipe I used can be found in Donne Klein's The Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen.* The filling was simple, fresh, uncomplicated and absolutely delicious. Sun dried tomatoes lend a sweet and tangy essence to the earthy basil and parsley. Homemade vegetable broth prevents the filling from drying out, and the portobellos absorb any access liquid. My addition of homemade marinara and toasted walnuts finalize this satiating meal.

*Amazingly and unlike most cookbooks geared towards veg*nism, Klein completely disregards to use of soy products and meat/dairy/etc. analogues! This a great book for someone without access to well stocked grocers or health food stores. More to come on her cookbook - a Cookbook Challenge is on the agenda!

Vegan MoFo: Day One

Day One: A Fine Dining Appetizer

 

Welcome to the Vegan Month of Food and welcome to the Five-Course Vegan! Over the next four weeks, I will be your host, server and chef for what I wish to be a memorable dining experience. At the beginning of each week, a meticulously planned menu will be organized and presented for your viewing (and salivating) pleasure. The aforementioned menus will, of course, contain an assemblage of harmonious courses particular to an announced theme. While differing slightly from the standard sequence of most Western-world multi course meals,  I will serve an appetizer, soup and/or salad, a main course, dessert and cocktails of the alcoholic and nonalcoholic variety. Below you will find this week's menu, an ode to Fine Dining.

The Five-Course Vegan: Fine Dining Menu

Classic Bruschetta with Roma Tomatoes and Shallots

Tomato-Fennel Soup with Gremolata and Cashew Cream Drizzle

Portobello Caps Stuffed with Sun-dried Tomatoes

Cinnamon Infused Apples Poached in White Wine

The Vegan Glass of Wine: A Minor Treatise

For your first course, may I present a Classic Bruschetta with Roma Tomatoes and Shallots. It has been prepared with the finest and ripest tomatoes available. Paired with mildly sweet shallots, this classic Italian appetizer has been bathed in extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and seasoned with the last of my garden's Genovese basil. It is a hearty appetizer reining from central Italy, served with home-baked artisanal baguette slices.

Classic Bruschetta with Roma Tomatoes and Shallots
Homebaked Artisanal Baguette Wedges

If you would care to return tomorrow, you are in for a treat. I'll be serving Tomato and Fennel Soup with Gremolata and a Cashew Cream Drizzle. It'll be the perfect accompaniment to more home-baked baguette slices, as well as the cooler weather many of have been experiencing. Happy MoFoing :)

Eggplant and Zucchini Rollatini

Genovese and Sweet Basil in the bowl, Lemon Basil on the board.
Fresh herbs from my garden. Such a bounty!

I'll never come to terms with an office job, the 9-5 (6-5 in my case), pushing paper, literally. I've settled for this routine that has developed over the last month, but it's not making me happy. I'm trying to utilize my free time for activities that are all my own. For one, I'm entering the beginning stages of writing a vegan cookzine, but an unconscious fear of incompletion or ill-favored reviews is holding me back from getting it started. I've gathered a modest amount of recipes, compiled mostly from commonly cooked dishes stored in the back of my brain. I'll be requesting the help of my most creative friends to collaborate on the design and layout, and I'll need some recipe testers when the time comes. This idea spawned (at work) out of this realization that I need to be doing more. Something more needs to come out of me, something positive, tangible, and beneficial to others. Something I can take credit for and be happy with.

That being said, work has left me drained. I'm working 5 days a week, leaving the house at 6AM and returning home around 5PM. Needless to say I'm exhausted and have been alternating between mildly dressed up frozen burritos, salads, and pasta. Not this weekend, I told myself. Matt and I have been on an eggplant binge for the last few weeks - they are plump and deliciously cheap at the farmer's market - and I've had my heart set on eggplant rollatini all week.

Eggplant and Zucchini Rollatini with Cashew Ricotta and Lemon Basil

I breaded and baked the eggplant slices, and decided to throw in some sliced zucchini. It's filled with the cashew-ricotta from veganomicon and some lemon basil from my garden. Everything turned out wonderfully...better than I anticipated. Time-consuming and ingredient-heavy meals have a tendency to be altered significantly during my cooking process. I'll usually eat 1/3 of the meal during the time spent in the kitchen, tasting this and that until I'm too full to ever sample the final and complete dish. Not this time around. The effort and time spent on this meal was worth the reward.