Cooking vegan tonight!

[Jenise]

Really. First course, an avocado and walnut salad. Second course: pan-seared slices of cold broccoli-polenta loaf with a warm fresh sauce of sautéed tomatoes, garlic and oregano.

Plan to serve this to the Bobster without actually describing it as vegan and seeing how far he gets without noticing that it didn't contain meat. Will report back tomorrow.

I'll be curious to see how it goes. I know my wife would notice the lack of meat in very short order, but she's pretty sensitive to that.

[Jenise]

It's actually not that we don't have vegetarian meals, but typically it's a Monday OR I manage to point it out in advance. And there's often pasta or a starch involved. In this case--no starch, he loved it and didn't notice.

The polenta-broccoli loaf was delish (4 cups chopped broccoli to 1 cup polenta per the recipe, I did 1.25 thinking I'd rather err on the side of too stiff vs. too wet, and even then the loaf was a little wet). This is a recipe from the book Veganomicon. What I did to turn it into a main course dish was sweat a few cloves of garlic then add three chopped hothouse tomatoes and some dried French basil. Those cooked while I browned 1.5 inch thick slices of the broccoli loaf. There's so much water in those hothouse tomatoes (I'm not a fan of them, I only buy them when I'm desperate) that I had a pan of tomato broth, and so I started to boil it down then stopped myself--why not serve it like a soup, in a wide shallow bowl, something you can eat with a spoon vs. the fork-style dish on a flat plate I had originally envisioned? So I switched horses, and honestly THAT made the dish. I did take it from vegan to vegetarian at the last minute, however, and give it a little dusting of parmesan.

In this case--no starch...1 cup polenta...

??

[Jenise]

Rahsaan, fair catch. But what I meant was, there wasn't a separate pasta or something that is easily eyeballed as the main component of the dish. When you looked at what was in the bowl, you primarily saw green and red.

A warm & hearty vegetarian dish. Perfect cold weather food. During what passes for winter in South Texas, we make this a couple of times a month.

Ribollita

~ 1 purple onion, rough chop
~ 6-7 medium to large carrot, peeled & rough chop
~ 4-5 medium garlic cloves, chopped
~ EVOO
~ 1 can chopped tomatoes (check to be sure there is no added sugar…have been running into this with major brands. Don’t like the added sweetness)
~ 80 fl oz Chicken Stock ( I use Kitchen Basics, 2.5 x 32 oz containers)
~ Double Concentrated Tomato Paste
~ 2-3 cups Cannellini Beans ( Sometimes I use left overs…mostly I use canned if it’s a weekday)
~ 16 oz container fresh spinach
~ loaf of ciabatta ( could use any kind of rustic farm loaf though)
~ 1-2 Parm Reggiano rinds (we always save these)

1) Saute chopped onion and carrots in EVOO to soften. I season to taste with dried oregano, basil, red pepper flakes, parsley, salt & pepper
2) Preheat Oven to 425 deg.
3) Add chopped garlic and saute for a bit.
4) Add 2 hefty squeezes of the dbl tomato paste, stir in and cook for a couple of minutes.
5) Add can of chopped tomatoes, stir and simmer for a min or 2.
6) Add the chicken stock, 2.5 x 32 oz containers +/-
7) Add cannellini beans & Parm Reggiano rinds
8) Bring to boil, then turn heat down and simmer. The Parm rinds will give off a bit of foam to start with. Simmer volume down by an inch or so.
9) Slice bread in thick slices 1-1 ¼ “….lay on sheet pan, drizzle EVOO on both sides and bake in oven. Turn in 10 min…bake til golden on both sides,
then remove & set aside
10) Once the soup is simmered down, add the fresh spinach (stuff it down, it will all go, lol), turn fire off & cover the pot for a minute, til it wilts.

To Serve:

I use pasta bowls for this. I lay 2 pieces of the grilled bread in the bowl, end to end. So the other ends extend out the side of the bowl. Ladle the hot soup over middle of the bowl. A sprinkle of grated Parm Reg and a swirl of fresh EVOO and you are ready to go.

Of late, our go to value wine has been the 2011 Villa Puccini. Good match with this dish, but any decent sangiovese or toscana works well also.

http://www.garyswine.com/fine_wine/italy/79742.html

This is a recipe from the book Veganomicon.

Great cookbook! We are spoiled to have the author, Isa, here in Omaha! Her restaurant, Modern Love, takes vegan to a level that makes me seriously think I could go vegan, if I could eat like that everyday. Isa is wonderful to work with (I sell them Microgreens and wine). On your next road trip that brings you through Omaha, you must call me and I will take you there!

A warm & hearty vegetarian dish.

~ 80 fl oz Chicken Stock

~ Parm Reggiano rinds

Surely stretching the definition of 'vegetarian' to breaking when it includes these two ingredients

[Jenise]

Well, the cheese is definitely vegetarian, but of course not the chicken stock. Either way it's certainly a great recipe for reducing one's overall consumption of meat. I'm not vegetarian--so like Richard I'm free to use a bit of chicken stock in something otherwise all-vegetable for richer flavor.

Hehe...forgot about that chicken stock. We've used vegetable stock too. Still works. Parm rinds though..((shrug)). .

Well, the cheese is definitely vegetarian, .

Not if it's Parm Reggiano because it is made with rennet.