Cooking Class May 25, 2010

I have had another very busy week which has not been conducive to blogging. I wanted to get you a quick idea of the recipes from class this Wednesday. Since I know that many that read are omni looking to transition to vegan and/or have omni families I am going to post pictures of both the original and vegan versions of the dishes. I hope this gives you an idea of how you can feed both omnis and vegans without a lot of effort. Additionally I hope this inspires you to “veganize” some of your favorite omni dishes.

The appetizer was a green gazpacho topped with Greek yogurt and a quick pickled beet garnish.

Since the gazpacho was vegan mine omitted the yogurt and no other change was necessary. You could always top the soup with cashew crème fraiche if you like.

The next dish was a roasted vegetable and chickpea salad.

This was served with Stromboli which was made with a variety of Italian cured meats, cheeses and artichokes.

Mine was filled with vegetables.

The dessert course was macerated fruit and pignoli cookies.

The only change for me was to eliminate the cookies and I was good to go.

Other needing to make a separate Stromboli this meal was very simple to modify.

When you start to think in terms of “how I can I modify recipes” it becomes easy to make a vegan and omni version of the same dish. Ideally the entire family would eat vegan but I realize that isn’t going to work for a lot of people. However I hope you find it comforting to realize how easy it is to modify dishes without creating a lot of work for yourself.

Happy thoughts:

• I have had a good week though it has been another busy one. It seems like my life has been in overdrive for the last few months. I sure hope things slow down soon I need a break. ;-) Don’t believe people when they tell you retirement is boring. I read somewhere that “if you bored it is because you are boring” and there may be something to that saying. Boring doesn’t happen at our house.

• Today if our friend Walid’s birthday. Happy birthday buddy! Big hugs! I am very happy to have you in our lives. I hope you know how much you mean to us.

• Shopping this week I picked up a few great buys which I will tell you about in another post. I love a bargain and these were definitely that. *woo hoo*

• Summer is definitely here and that is a very good thing. I am looking forward to the holiday weekend. Now I just need to convince Dan that work can wait until Tuesday. Wish me luck; I am going to need it. ;-) He is such a hard worker. While I appreciate that he works so hard to provide for our family I also wish he would relax more than he does. There is always good and bad in everything. But the bottom line is that my husband is a great guy, who takes good care of us and I love him very much. I couldn’t ask for better husband for me.

• We are having dinner with our friend Louis this weekend which makes me very happy. We both enjoy spending time with Louis and appreciate it even more since he lives so far away. It is always great to spend time with good friends and Louis is one of the best! He has been there for me through the good times and the bad. I love you man! ;-)

• Wearing my running shoes has been fine this week! I am elated that I have been able to get out every morning and go for a nice walk before I start my day. There is nothing better than getting outside first thing in the morning. I snapped a few pictures this morning which I put up on Facebook. For those that don’t follow me there here are a few of them.

Signing out:

It is time for me to turn into a pumpkin so I can get moving early tomorrow morning. I hope you have some fun planned for the long weekend.