So my buddy Jennifer over at it ain`t meat babe and I have been asked to review this vegan cookbook for CBC`s In Town and Out for the month of January. Now, I don`t often do any vegan cooking (except maybe by fluke) but we do cook vegetarian every now and then, so this was a bit of an adventure for sure. First up was the tomato, "mozzarella" and pesto panini. The tofu "mozzarella" did kinda smell and taste like dairy mozzarell raw but when melted in the panini press it tasted like, well....nothing. The pesto in this recipe is made with arugula instead of the traditional basil and it was awesome. Focaccia was called for but we used a pita like flat bread which didn't work so well, a more absorbent bread would have been better. We also made the Caesar salad using miso and vegenaise (which is great).
Next up was the agave-lime grilled tofu with Asian slaw and mashed sweet potatoes.
We occasionally like to indulge in the odd donair/sharwarma dinner, so the "gardien steak" sandwich with watercress, red pepper and horseradish mayonnaise (vegan, of course) was a real surprise as it tasted exactly like a delicious donair.
Lastly we had Jennifer and her fella over for a communally prepared dinner, she made fresh focaccia (which we had as an appetizer with balsamic and oil) and the dessert (delicious chocolate chip peanut butter cake). We made the fresh mint and cucumber salad with tahini vinaigrette (I put too much dressing on but otherwise yummy) followed by "old bay" tofu cakes with pan-roasted summer vegetables, horseradish cream, apples and beets which was off the hook (if I do say so myself).
