vegan night

Tonight's dinner was my February installment of challenging myself in the kitchen and cooking something outside of my comfort zone/cooking something I've never made before.

The cuisine - vegan!

Oh my gah.

If I had any remaining sorrows about being sidelined due to my knee...I was able to completely and utterly drown them out while eating dinner tonight. Each dish prepared out shined the previous and the best was definitely saved for last.

I want vegan night to be every night!

{I made the mistake of expressing that statement out loud, and was quickly informed by the husband that that is on the divorce list*. Bummer.}



The menu::

• Lentil Walnut Loaf - Oh She Glows
• Roasted Tomato Soup - adapted from Tyler Florence
• Detox Blonde Macaroons - Oh She Glows, originally from Healthy Hoddgin

Lentil Walnut Loaf



I followed Angela's recipe to a T. It was delicious! Nic and I both could have done without the raisins, however, that won't keep us from making this again. It did get two thumbs up from Nic and he said he would eat it again. I never ate meat loaf growing up (okay, maybe my dad made it once or twice, but it was never in the regular rotation), but made it a few times for Nic when we lived in the apartment. He said the texture was spot on, but could tell it wasn't actually meat loaf. I think it was the spices used as opposed to anything else and I would venture even your biggest meat eater might be fooled by this.

Creamy Roasted Tomato Soup



OMG amazing. By far the star of dinner - throw away your Mom's recipe and replace it with this, seriously. Okay, you can keep her recipe but just promise me you'll try this, okay?!

In the mix::

• 4-5 roma tomatoes (1.11 pounds)
• 1 dry pint grape tomatoes
• 1 red bell pepper - cut into quarters
• 1 large sweet onion - cut into quarters
• 5 cloves garlic - peeled
• 1/8 cup olive oil + 1/8 cup canola (you could use all olive oil...we were down to the very last of the jug)
• 1 t sea salt
• 1 3/4 cup low sodium organic veggie stock
• 1 large bay leaf
• pinch red pepper flakes
• 1/4 cup chopped basil
• salt & pepper to taste
• cashew cream - optional

Preheat oven to 450*

Wash and cut the roma tomatoes in half. Spread the roma tomatoes, grape tomatoes, garlic cloves, onion and bell pepper onto a baking tray. Drizzle with oils and season with sea salt. Roast for 20-30 minutes, or until caramelized.





Transfer the roasted veggies into a stock pot. {I roasted my veggies this morning and then put them in to the fridge until I was ready to finish the soup.} Add veggie stock, bay leaf and red pepper flakes. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 15-20 minutes uncovered.

Remove the bay leaves and add the chopped basil. Use an immersion blender to puree the soup until smooth. Season with salt and pepper.

The soup really doesn't need heavy cream (as called for in the original recipe) as it is souper (ha!) silky and smooth as is. That being said, no one will complain if the soup is extra creamy! I topped each serving with a dollop of cashew cream and dug in. OMG.

Cashew Cream
Soak about 1/2 cup raw cashews in water and place in the fridge overnight. When ready to prepare the cream, dump the water our and rinse the cashews. Place in a food processor with about one tablespoon water and puree until smooth - adding additional water a bit at a time until a creamy consistency is achieved.

Detox Blonde Macaroon



Heaven. I am in coconut heaven. I prepared this recipe following this one exactly, minus the vanilla bean and I only made half of a batch. I even made my own coconut butter (for a measly $2!)

There were all sorts of omg-ing while I savored devoured two of these after dinner. I could have eaten the entire pan, but told Nic not to let me eat anymore until tomorrow.



Nic went to bed.

I promptly ate two more.

Coconut heaven.

Really, you should make these!  So easy and they will for sure impress anyone you share them with.

Dinner was truly a success - I am loving these monthly challenges and look forward to see what March brings!  Suggestions? We will be reuniting with the Dukes for March's meal - they we too cool for vegan night.

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Oh and did you notice...we built a light box this weekend! I for sure need some more practice using it, but I think my first shots turned out okay, don't you?

Here are a few more shots I took:





Those balls you see up there - they are a variation of my chocolate peanut butter balls. Quite tasty...I might just have to share the recipe with you!







*We really don't have a divorce list, I swear! We joke whenever either of us says something way out of line that if that thing were to ever really happen, it would be grounds for divorce. All in good fun people...all in good fun. We have full intentions of making it to at least five years and then seeing where we want to go from there...  :)