Deb's Lunch … and dinner and breakfast too

In the last week or so, I’ve had, or created, several opportunities to eat vegetarian versions of meat dishes. On Thursday, for lunch, I had a sandwich made from slices of mushroom-pecan paté, really just vegetarian meatloaf, leftover from the first small plates buffet. It was a good, traditional, sandwich – the paté, grainy mustard, lettuce and tomato. The same night, for dinner, I had barbecued seitan on a bun at the co-op’s annual membership meeting. I was one of about 3,000 people who enjoyed the free meal. Tonight, I’m turning the tabouli that I made 4th of July weekend into veggie burgers – with a can of refried beans and lots of breadcrumbs. The recipe also includes a yogurt-red-onion-mint-cucumber sauce to serve with. I think I’m going to try Heidi’s recommendation to make the burger the bun –

We’re also going to have rhubarb-strawberry crumble.

Rhubarb-strawberry crumble

After eating, I’d have to say that tonight’s veggie burgers were probably the least tasty of the three – they were mostly brown, and mushy textured. The recipe included nuts, which is what gives the mushroom-pecan paté a good texture – but I think the walnuts in these burgers were just overwhelmed by the beans and being pureed in the food processor. And I used a can of refried beans in lieu of the whole pintos called for – plus, I made the burgers from leftovers – it’s probably still worth a try with fresh ingredients. And, I still have high hopes for the crumble. Which were fulfilled. I increased the sugar just enough (since rhubarb’s tarter than strawberries), the Nigella Lawson trick of adding leavening to the topping worked a charm (the principle being that if you add leavening, the topping rises when baked – so you have more topping, that’s crispy & light, without adding more butter, flour, or sugar, heavy-ing everything, and risking upsetting the ratio), and the orange zest & juice were a good sub for lemon.

Used up the patty pan squash and spinach from my veggie box. This is the type of recipe where you’re supposed to mix Thai curry paste – that you’ve either prepared yourself, or, like I did tonight, spooned out of a jar – with canned coconut milk to make the sauce, then add meat or fish or vegetables. I always think the sauce is too thin, and I like to saute the meat or vegetable, rather than simmering, boiling really, in the sauce. This recipe called for sweet potato and tofu and spinach. Since sweet potato is sweeter than the patty pan that I was using, I browned tofu, like this tofu topping (minus the scallions). I dumped the tofu out of the skillet, cooked the onion and the patty pan, and dumped those out, too. I mixed coconut milk, Thai curry paste, and some veggie broth in the skillet for the sauce, and then I let that mixture boil down til it reduced and thickened. I put in one spoonful of the peanut butter and melted it, and then added the veggies back to the pan. Last addition was about half a pound of spinach, stemmed and cleaned. When that was wilted, voila, dinner – over rice.

Thai curry

…but not lots of pictures, and the ones I did get are of the leftovers, not the debut.

On Thursday I taught a cooking class for using up the stuff in your CSA box, at the kitchen of a church on the west side. Gorgeous dining room; not so well-equipped kitchen. We made 5 dishes: Dressing in the bowl supper salad, crispy zucchini or summer squash rounds, ramen salad, butter braised turnips and their greens (or other greens, like spinach) and strawberry pizza. There was one vegan, no gluten, eater in the group. I reduced the sugar in the ramen salad from what I usually use, and left out the seasoning packets, since they have some form of chicken in them. I have kind of a love-hate relationship with those seasoning packets. In some Mollie Katzen recipe or other, where she’s introducing ramen noodles, she instructs: first open the noodles, and throw out the seasoning packets. But I met the ramen salad at potlucks here in WI, where it turns up alongside the equally bad for you broccoli salad, that includes bacon, lots of white sugar, cheddar cheese, often sunflower seeds or other nuts, and often raisons. The seasoning packets seem to give the ramen salad that true junk food potluck taste. This no seasoning packet version was good, though, in a more healthful way. We didn’t get the cabbage sliced quite thin enough, nor the noodles quite toasted enough; blame it on the church kitchen electric stove (tilted burners). I also braised the turnips in olive oil instead of butter, so the vegan could eat them. And we made some plain grilled zucchini.

On Friday I served the first of the summer small plates buffets at School Woods – meatball sliders and little mushroom pate sandwiches, spring rolls, caramelized onion dip (I used Heidi’s recipe, but instead of adding onion powder, I added a pinch of brown sugar & a little soy sauce to the onions when they were almost done) chips and carrots, cucumbers and sugar snaps for dipping, olives and wasabi peas munch mix, and cheesecake squares for dessert. Prosecco Negronis and peach tea lemonade. Everything was good, but I think the sliders were the biggest hit, although I liked the mushroom pate sandwiches, with grainy mustard and lettuce on whole wheat cocktail buns. In fact I might even have one for dinner tonight, so maybe I’ll get a picture. Speaking of leftovers, the meatball sliders cooked in a tomato sauce, and there’s some of that sauce and a few meatballs left – which should be just enough to construct a good zucchini Parmesan, with the zucchini rounds leftover from the class.

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Luke is Besh’s more casual place, in comparison to Restaurant August. It’s kind of German/French/New Orleans and heavy on the pig – in a good way.

I had shrimp & grits, the shrimp and buttery grits were great, but the picture came out blurry. Mark’s chicken had that garish food shot with flash look, so I’m not reproducing it here. Joe’s $16 burger was the most photogenic.

I fell while we were walking over and skinned my knee. Besides feeling stupid when I took the fall, I was a little beat up and sore the next morning.

Mark took a 2 minute iPhone vid; I only took a couple pix of the trumpet player. He was a) wearing a Brewers hat, and b) cute.

trumpet player with Brewers hat

posted from my iPhone