Dinner at Denise's

We were fortunate to be invited to dinner this weekend at the home of a fantastic hostess and friend.  Since hearing of my recent dietary changes, she stepped up to the plate and prepared a fabulous Persian vegan feast.  The menu consisted of a roasted eggplant dip apetizer followed by a main course of sweet potato stew and an absolutely gorgeous tri layered pilaf.  Unfortunately the pictures don't do it the justice it deserves.  I can only begin to imagine how labor intesive it was to prepare.  The bottom green layer was flavored with green onion, the middle orange layer was carrot and the top red layer was beet.  It was garnished with pistachios.  A work of art almost too pretty to eat.  Dessert was chocolate banana mousse.  Delicious and light.  I believe the recipes, as well as the menu, came from one of the Moosewood Cookbooks.

I am truly grateful to have friends that are so supportive of my not always easy to accomodate dietary choices.  But for someone to go to the effort to cook a gourmet vegan meal....  that's special.  Thanks Denise!!  Next time it's my turn.  I'm already scouring my cookbooks.

Speaking of cookbooks...  I picked up two new ones this weekend:  Vegan with a Vengence by Isa Chandra Moskowitz, and Vegan Table by Colleen Patrick Goudreau.  I was also looking for The Joy of Vegan Baking, but they were out!!  Both look great, but I haven't tried any of the recipes yet.  I have made several dishes from FatFreeVegan.com though.  I made the lentil soup :  http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2006/02/rainy-day-lentil-soup.html  and it was really tasty and easy to make.  I get new recipes every day on facebook!  How great is that??

And while in Ottawa I went to Rainbow Foods and picked up some of that Vegan cheese that they were raving about in VegNews....  I was not overly impressed.   I also picked up some nutritional yeast.  I'm not quite sure what to do with it yet, but I'll figure something out.....