Eggplant Adoration

If you love eggplant as much as we do you'll love this roasted eggplant and tomato panino as a mid week meal.



If you are interested in a fancier dinner time eggplant experience, these eggplant tomato stacks look great and they're a breeze to make.



We just sliced eggplants and tomatoes, brushed them with olive oil and roasted them in the oven at 450 degrees untl they started to brown. We then stacked our roasted veggies, sprinkling salt and black pepper and drizzling balsamic between each layer. We topped each stack with grated soy mozzarella and broiled the completed stacks to melt the cheese. We topped our finished stacks with basil chiffonade and served with a side of fresh spinach salad.

Meatless Mushroomletta

If you love a salty, vinegary, cheesy, messy muffaletta sub but you're looking for a lighter way to indulge you'll really like this mushroom-based alternative. Carb-avoiders take note!

Ingredients:
Olive oil for cooking
4 large portobello mushroom caps cleaned and gills removed
1/2 cup onions, chopped
3/4 cup green olives, chopped
1/3 cup pepperoncinis, chopped
1/2 cup chopped red hot peppers (a jarred version of these should be available at your supermarket)
1 large kosker pickle, chopped
5 oz soy mozzarella

Brush the mushrooms with some olive oil and cook them under a broiler until they become very dark in color and cooked all the way through.

While the mushrooms cook sauté the onions in olive oil until they become golden brown. Combine the cooked onions with the remaining ingredients and mix up the "salad" until everything is evenly distributed. You can adjust the ingredients to taste.

When the mushrooms are cooked spoon the olive mixture into them. Heat the cheese in the microwave to liquefy it and pour cheese over the tops of the stuffed mushrooms.

Veg Times

Fall issues of Vegetarian Times tend to be favorites for me since they are usually loaded with lots of savory rich hearty meals involving root veggies and gourds in particular. Here are the recipes we tried from the latest 2 issues (all of it was terrific):


Hoppin' John with Collard Greens


Harvest Vegetable Medley


Herbed Winter Vegetable Roast


Moussaka

Eggplant Stewed in Honey and Spices

This recipe was so unbelievably good -- seriously, it is like a 10 star recipe. It's a the perfect mix of sweet, spicy, garlicy and gingery. If you do not eat honey agave will probably work. I served this with some steamed asparagus. If you love eggplant you would be foolish to not make this recipe as soon as possible and if you do not love eggplant this dish is so good that it may change your mind.

My Big Fat Greek Salad

I had vegan feta around from a recipe I made last week (I made the vegan feta using the recipe in the Uncheese Cookbook) so I had to put it to use. I made a giant Greek salad. It was delicious. It was so good that, although Matt and I planned to eat the left overs for lunch the next day, we gobbled them all up as a late night snack.

My salad contained:
1/2 lb vegan feta
1 package grape tomatoes, sliced into halves
1 red onion, thinly sliced
1 small seedless cucmber, cut into bite sized chunks
1 small cubanelle pepper, seeded and diced
1 small jar of pepperoccini peppers, sliced
1 cup kalamata olives
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
8 oz package of vegetarian chicken strips, chopped (I used Morning Star Farms)
1 head romaine lettuce, chopped

I stirred up all of the above ingredients into a giant salad bowl. Goes well with pita bread but I didn't bother with it since the salad was so good, I didn't want any bread cluttering valuable space in my stomach for this salad.

Bulgur Stuffed Veggies

These colorful stuffed veggies with a moist, savory, bulgur filling offer a punch of sweet-tart goodness with currants.