I Learned a Few Things Tonight

Tonight Cyndi and I took a vegan cooking class taught by Nikki Gardner who created the recipes.  Now, before you say, "Blech!" let me tell you that the food was/is delicious! 

Those of you who know me well, know that I am a full fledged, card carrying carnivore.  In fact, you can give me bacon any time of the day.  Bacon wrapped around chicken with a side of steak would be fine too.  Dessert would be ribs.  Okay, you get the idea. But I decided that it wouldn't hurt me to try some vegetarian dishes.

Well, vegans are special. They not only come from the planet Vega, but they also do not eat any form of animal products.  So not only do they eschew (no, Sharon, that does not mean take teeney tiny bites) meat, but they also do not eat milk nor eggs of any kind.

We ended up forming teams of two and each team worked on a dish.  Cyndi and I made an Artichoke, Chickpea, Olive Tagine.  (I didn't know what a tagine is either -- it's the type of bowl they usually use to serve it.  Here is our creation.

That's couscous mounded in the middle.  The whole thing is topped with a mixture of garlic, extra virgin olive oil, chopped parsley and cilantro, kosher salt and lemon juice.  That's the dark green stuff.

I loved the Sweet Potato Yukon Gold [potato] Shepherd's Pie.  Unfortunately, it came out last so I didn't get a picture of it because I was too busy eating and saying, "yummy, yummy!"  I think I would like that better without the sun dried tomatoes in it, but the woman next to me kept talking about varied textures and depth of flavor.  She and her husband had brought their own designer beers.  Hmpf.

Below is the Spinach-Vegan Feta Casserole.  It was absolutely delicious! It had basmati rice which gave it a very interesting texture.  However, Nikki made "cheese" from tofu and it is WAY too labor intensive for me.  Besides, I like feta and I could use that right from the sheep.  Er, from the shepherd who made it into cheese.  Whatever.

But my very favorite was the Eggplant Seitan Moussaka!  They used vegan parmesan cheese (aka gomasio) in it.  What you may ask, is vegan butter? It's ground up toasted sesame seeds with sea salt. Aye, there's the rub: there was a lot of salt in these recipes and my ankle looks like a football.

Eggplant Tempeh Moussaka (We should have peeled the eggplant!)

Next comes the enchildas.  They were spectacular.  The mole sauce was a bit spicy for Cyndi, but she scraped it off. If she made this dish, she should decrease the peppers by half.  I loved it though.

The Mole Sauce is on the left under someone's elbow and the enchiladas are ready to go into the oven at this point.  It took a long time for the woman to saute the tortillas in oil before stuffing them.

Avocado, cilantro, lime and scallions are accompaniments for the enchiladas with mole.

So now you have the essence of my Monday night!  I think I'll crawl into bed so that when I fall asleep with the TV on, I'll already be in bed! Good night!