First of all I would just like to say that it's not even 7am on a Saturday and I'm blogging about food .... now if that isn't love for VeganMoFo, I don't know what is.
Last night my folks came over for tea (i.e. dinner), and there was a theme! Just a year ago, my parents returned to the States from living in Chester, England for four years. I thought I would give them a vegan version of some traditional English favorites (or at least what I thought was English). My dad dressed for the occasion...
Although throwing together a curry was tempting, I decided to attempt the Tempeh Shepardess Pie from Veganomicon (what are people using as acronyms for this book? it's exhausting typing that out every time). My parents have never had tempeh, but I have introduced them to seitan and tofu with great success, so I figured it was time and they were ready. I followed the alternate suggestion and used sweet potatoes for the topping instead of regular potatoes, a good move I thought. The meal came together fairly easily (I cooked the potatoes the night before to save time). Everyone agreed that this was definitely a huge step up from traditional Shepard's pie. This made a ton of food! Three of us had two helpings and there is still enough leftover for a meal for four. On the side I served some roasted brussels sprouts (I decided that these were sort of an English thing, my dad confirmed that they are pretty popular over there, what instinct!), a green salad, and a fruit salad made of two varieties of apples and the remaining red Bartlett pears.
For dessert, I took a huge leap of faith. You always hear mixed things about bread pudding, lots of people seem to hate it. But I wanted to keep with my theme. So again, I entrusted our meal with Veganomicon, and made the chocolate banana bread pudding. Thursday night I cut up the bread into chunks to let them get stale. At this point I questioned my judgement of choosing whole wheat bread, would it be sweet enough? I was very worried. But, lo and behold after soaking up the soymilk mixture and adding a bunch of ripe bananas and chocolate chips, this turned out so much better than I imagined. I think I may even go sneak some now for breakfast :-) A dallop of Soyatoo whipped soy topping in the bread pudding-filled ramekins finished it off.
During dinner we talked about some English traditions and sayings. In trying to find a clever title for my post, my dad mentioned that in southern England, when people are hungry, they say they're "feeling peckish". By the end of the meal, we were peckish no more.
I'm sure you're wondering why I'm up so early (or maybe not). We are headed up to the Renaissance Fair with some friends today and I'm bringing a breakfast treat that has involved some serious labor. More on that later. Enjoy your Saturday!
