Dave, the organizer for the Madison Vegetarian Meetup Group, proposed that we do some homey vegan dinners. The group had a dinner for 27 at School Woods like 6 years ago, and has been over for lunches and cupcakes and games & snacks more recently, but I can only seat about 30, and they are averaging 100 for their dinners currently. So the plan was to do three in a row, 30 per night. Since we are in the deeps of summer, prime vacation time, we ended up with 28 30 the first night (Saturday), cancelling the Sunday for low enrollment, and 14 17 on Monday. So I’m cooking for 42 47 instead of 90 – and I’m kind of happy about that. Plus, because I now have Sunday off, I get to go to the State Fair.
So anyways, they are having:
- Roasted cherry tomato tartines to start; roasted tomatoes & their juices over a slice of bread (I wanted to make this – but I learned that vegans do not eat honey; it is an animal product – so I am making the tomatoes with agave). I sprinkled fancy salt on each tartine, and granished with a basil leaf. For my own dinner when I got home, I had a tartine with just the juices from the tomatoes, drizzled over toasted bread smeared with goat cheese.
- Salad with raspberry-shallot vinaigrette
- This crazy vegan lasagna – I tried out the roasted vegetable sauce at the beginning of July, and it’s delish. I made vats of the vegan bechamel – with cashews, almond milk, and brewers’ yeast. Not sure why 6X the bechamel is so much more than 6X the tomato sauce, but go figure …
- Mexican chocolate cookies – like a chocolate snickerdoodle with a little cayenne. I made a double batch, about 60 cookies, and only 3 were left
- Heidi’s chocolate mousse, with whipped coconut milk topping. The coconut milk didn’t whip as easily as I thought it should’ve but it tasted great – especially scooped up with half a cookie.
All went well – Belinda helped and I paid her $25 plus dinner for Stephen. I put out a bucket for extra gratuity, but, since when the guests register via the meetup group, they’re told that the price includes the food, tax, tip and the fees for the meetup group itself, there was only $2 in the bucket at the end of the night. IMHO, I’ve had plenty of group meals at restaurants where we’re informed that the bill for our large party has a 15% gratuity built in, and I’ve still added a little extra on for the servers and the kitchen. But obviously not many in this crowd shared my opinion. Maybe on Monday I’ll have to add “additional” in front of the tips word.
I only took pictures of the cookies – maybe I’ll be able to shoot more of the dishes when I cook the same menu for the Monday dinner.
