Day 6: A Vegan Dinner with Friends

It helps to have friends who love to cook. And eat.

Dinner last night was with dear friends, Alan and Debbie, our oldest son’s godparents, who are always open to trying new foods and recipes. Coincidentally, and rather bizarrely, Debbie began a vegan diet a week before I did. She is using recipes from Meg Wolff’s “A Life In Balance”, as well as information and support from Meg’s website. http://www.megwolff.com 

Last night proved that a vegan lifestyle is anything but boring. It also helps that the 4 of us have been friends for almost 30 years, know each other very well, have laughed and cried together, raised our children together, love each other and always end up laughing hysterically by our visit’s end.

We started the meal off with a delicious black bean salad that Debbie has made for years and that we have always devoured. Black beans, corn, tomatoes, green pepper, celery and parsley with a balsamic dressing, it was a delicious accompaniment to hummus and corn chips. Marinated olives and mushrooms and a good bottle of red wine rounded out our appetizer course. Our main entry was the eggplant “parm” that I made from the Oh She Glows website that was delicious and made more so by a fresh sauce that I made from my early morning farmer’s market visit. 

I used Daiya mozzarella cheese replacement on top. My husband suggested to me after dinner that we might as well just do away with trying to find a cheese substitute. It tasted ok, but its not cheese. Let's just not use stuff like that to replace cheese, he said.

He is right. 

These words don’t often appear in my lexicon, so don’t get used to reading them.

I served the eggplant with a low carb fresh pasta from Al Dente Pasta, called Carbo-nada, that I had on hand. It has a tiny bit of egg in it, but I had it on hand and decided to use it. If you are looking for a low carb pasta option, give this a try. http://aldentepasta.com Keep in mind, though, that there is egg in it, although listed last in the ingredient list.

Debbie produced a fabulous couscous salad to accompany the eggplant. It was filled with roasted yellow cherry tomatoes, cukes, sweet red pepper and a light and flavorful dressing. She had made it a bit earlier, so the couscous had absorbed the dressing and the roasted tomatoes popped when we bit into them, exploding with a flavor that was fresh but rich, thanks to a brief 15-minute roast in some olive oil. It was a perfect side dish with the rich breaded eggplant cutlets.

The game of Sequence and some decaf capped our evening together. And imagine…no one needed, asked for or craved anything sweet. Yow-za! One other notable difference is that no one started to fall asleep, was too tired to keep going or complained to being too full. We were sated, well fed and happy.

There might be something to this vegan thing.