Vexing Veganism

  I consider myself a fairly worldly Domestic Goddess. I’m up with all the newest superfoods, and latest diet trends and fads. I’ve cooked gluten-free gingerbread (read about that here), we have play dates with kids that are lactose intolerant (Oreos are a god/dess send!) and with a vegetarian sister-in-law I am quite adept at modifying my cooking and baking skills to whatever dietary requirements the diners may require. And, (if I do say so myself) I’m pretty good at it.

 But this weekend I hosted a dinner party for a work mate and his girlfriend who are Vegan. They have previously been Paleo, but decided to try vegan for health reasons, and as she was already vegetarian. They’ve been doing it for about 4 months and have been going along quite well – lots of yummy looking salads for lunch, an amazing brownie made with applesauce that was sent along to work, as well as cool new cafes with vegan menus they had discovered. So I though having them over for dinner would just mean looking through my recipe book and picking a handful of potentials.

 How wrong I was.

 Let’s start with entrée or nibbles. My Go-To is usually a cheese/dip platter, with maybe some cabana/cured meats. So just make it vegetarian dips, carrot/celery and crackers right?? Easy! Well yes, but most “crackers” (apart from water cracker and rice crackers) have butter as well “milk solids” in them. So none of my fave Lavosh bikkies got put out, but I did get to whip out the recipe for a roasted capsicum dip (muhumara) and make that. And I also made the good ol’ bake-in-your-oven pita crisps (olive oil spread on a pita bread with or without a sprinkle of paprika and baked at 200’C for 10 mins until crispy). Add some carrot and celery and a (store bought) roasted onion hummus and we were starting well.

 Main course I figured would be pretty easy; after all I’ve been cooking vegetarian meals for years! I had plenty of soup options (minestrone, red lentil etc) but that didn’t really say “Dinner Party Main Course" to me (more like “Casual Lunch”). I have a great stuffed mushroom recipe that I thought I could substitute pesto for the fetta – forgetting that pesto has Parmesan (fail). My dahl recipe is vegan (as long as I use vegetable stock and not chicken) but again, not really fancy.  Or maybe a big plate of roasted veges? With gravy made with vege stock? Suitable but Not likely.

  Not to worry, I have a Heap of pasta recipes – surely they can be vegan-ised!!

 First option was a “vege bolognaise” that uses a heap of veges and some lentils to make it seem hearty and "meaty". I’ve cooked this before and it has worked well. Add some home made fettuccine and we’d be on to something! (even without Parmesan to top it off)

 However.

 Husband does take issue with things that Should be meat that Aren’t (don’t get him started on vegetarian lasagna!). So that go struck out.

 Then there is a great recipe that uses roast pumpkin and pine nuts, but also Persian fetta (*sigh*). Then I had several gnocchi recipes, which again, sometimes used parmesan (starting to panic slightly)

 Luckily I have a sweet potato gnocchi recipe that is just sweet potato, (normal) potato and flour – phew! The sauce is a “roast capsicum with gorgonzola” which (as I despise gorgonzola) I have made without the cheese before and its still quite delicious. But then on closer inspection, it has cream in the sauce (Argh!!).  Would it still stand up without cream? Just to be safe I added a few more steps from another pasta sauce recipe to give it a bit more flavour (frying onion and garlic, deglazing with white wine etc).

 Dessert, I knew was going to be tough – not being able to use butter, eggs or milk pretty much cancels out all of my Dessert cook book section! I know there are lots of vegan desserts, but they seem to use a lot of dates and other very sweet things which (ironically) is what I’m trying to avoid in MY diet. I can’t even use honey with vegans! Though, thankfully maple syrup would have been ok. 

 I could have spent several hours searching  on Google, or caught up with my vegan school mum friend and picked her brain, but as time was running short, I went with the easy option of a fresh fruit/nut platter and some of the yummy Loving Earth (vegan) chocolate that I had (conveniently) been gifted for a birthday present. I am happy to report that Salted Caramel Swayzee and Very Buck n’ Berry were both delicious (in a totally non-chocolate way) and Husband found a yummy (if expensive) punnett of strawberries to have with some grapes.

 And thankfully my guests were not too fussed when it come to which wine to drink because egg whites are a common agent used in wine production = sheesh! I’m learning so much from this!!

 So the pasta sauce came together nicely (and had the kitchen smelling of roasted capsicum all afternoon). The gnocchi was a bit tricky in that it was quite a sticky dough, even with adding more flour than suggested. And also leaving it to sit  it for a few hours did make it more like globs rather than lovely “parcels”. But they still tasted yummy, and when smothered in sauce, who cares what they look like!

 But as with all dinner party, the most important ingredient was the people, who were lovely and gracious about the lengths I had taken to ensure I was correctly feeding them. And we exchanged tips about using applesauce and flaxseed meal as an egg alternative, which will be very helpful for the Next time we have them over for dinner.

 In the meantime I’m googling vegan chocolate cake for a special Friday treat....

August and everything after

It’s always reassuring when you use a gadget more than once; it does feel like its purchase has been justified!

 The pasta maker has (reassuringly) been getting a bit of a workout over the last month.

 First up was the aforementioned Prawn Ravioli, which was quite decadent and yummy (if a bit fiddly to make). It was also a great pasta-making-learning-experience for me, mainly that pasta expands when it is cooked! So even if the size looks OK and that sheets are not too thick when you are assembling said Ravioli, it will get bigger and thicker after cooking! Oh well, not a grand drama; it mean they were more mega-entrée sized rather than classy dinner party main meal size pasta parcels!

 But taking that all on board, I next made some fresh tagliatelle again to go with a Tobie Puttock Leek and Prosciutto pasta recipe.

 And it worked a treat.

I can now recognise when the pasta has been compressed enough for the machine to go the next thickness (or thinness, as the case may be) level, and have settled on ‘2’ as the proper size for my pasta (might use ‘1’ but only for angel hair spaghetti). I was also very liberal with The Dusting of Flour.

 And I have found making pasta to be very calming and therapeutic.

 Something about turning eggs and flour into gorgeous strands of pasta coupled with the rhythmic turning of the handle… . I wonder if there is there is room in the New Age World for foodie meditation??

Another Pasta Making First was hand-made gnocchi. I didn’t have the specified potatoes (recipe asked for Sebago) so was a bit worried they would be a bit heavy and gluggy (as some gnocchi can be). I also didn’t have a ‘potato ricer’ and even had to jump on Google to find out what one was.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato_ricer

 Basically it’s a glorified big garlic press, that a foodie friend assured me “it gives you the perfect texture for much less work”. I used my trusty old masher and some elbow grease and it seemed to turn out fine. I can see the advantage of one though – especially as there are ones that peel and mash all in one (!!!) but I think I’ll survive without that gadget for a bit longer.

 But my gnocchi was light and fluffy, and even tastier as the recipe called for it to be pan-fried before adding the pancetta-based carbonara sauce (so definitely not a Heart Tick recipe). Pity Son 1 and 2 weren’t enthused … or maybe it’s not (more for us!!)

 Next up? Lasagne with fresh lasagne sheets (the last one I made was still using up the dried (Shudder!!) sheets in the cupboard)

 In other cooking adventures, I made Gumbo at the weekend.

 Hubby has been watching the TV series Treme, which is set in post-Katrina New Orleans and has a big focus on the culture of the region; food, music etc. Which naturally led me to flick through the ‘Louisiana’ section of my Jamie’s America cookbook.

 He describes Gumbo as a stew-cum-soup (or a stoup!). There is no set recipe for traditional gumbo, as the idea is to thrown in whatever you have around (meat and veges). The most important thing is that it has a roux made with fat (usually from the meat) and flour,  and the ‘holy trinity” of onion, celery and peppers. He lists a Surf & Turf gumbo (with prawns, crabmeat and sausage), but I lent towards the Spicy Meat Gumbo. The first step was to cook the meat and I knew that we were onto something good then.

Have you ever smelt chicken frying with bacon and chorizo?? Mouth-wateringly enticing.

And really with that combo, whatever else you add will be icing on the cake.
I probably didn’t cook the roux for long enough (some people cook it for up to an hour to get the colour dark enough, but who has time to do that?) and it would probably have thickened up if I had’ve let it cook longer, but there was a hungry crew to feed. And surprisingly, Son 2 loved it! As did we - a mixture of yum made it much more interesting than any of the stews I had as a child (sorry Mum!)
So with that success, I may give the Surf n’ Turf one a Go (if I can find some okra and crab claws), but the next Cajun delight I’m planning on tackling is Jumbalaya (they have such cool names of things!! 'Jambalaya' is French for 'jumbled' or mixed up' - it's a rice and meat and veges dished based on the whatever-you-have-around philosophy).

 Other new and successful Recent Recipes of Note – Hot and Sour soup (thai style noodle soup with prams and chicken), Conchiglioni - which are giant pasta shells filled with a meat sauce (Hubby called them Pasta Pirate Ships to get Sons 1&2 to eat them... successfully!)  and a massaman curry, which seemed to get milder after sitting it the fridge for a few days! Go figure!

And as a variation on a popular theme, I will say Keep Calm and Keep Cooking