Vine and Dine - Spork Fed - Beer Battered Tempeh Fish with a Tartar Sauce

Welcome to the March Madness version of Vine and Dine. For my newer readers; Vine and Dine is a fun little challenge that Tami from Vegan Appetite created. She selects a recipe from a vegan cookbook and we go about trying to find a vegan wine that will complement the dish. 

The selection for this time around was Beer Battered Tempeh Fish with a Tartar Sauce from Spork Fed by sisters Jenny Engel and Heather Goldberg. Fish and Chips certainly have their origins in the UK. Exactly which part of England and which version is the true version is a matter of hot debate to this day. One indisputable fact is that Fish and Chips were one of the dishes saved from rationing during World War II. No small deal. 

This version would make the old school folks turn their noses up for sure! Tempeh instead of fish? Bloody bang out of order! Tempeh actually worked quite nicely here. I have to admit the texture of the tempeh did not come close to fish, but it was very nice with the batter. I might add some dulse or other sea type seasoning to add a bit of a fishy flavor.  This "fish" recipe and the tartar sauce recipe were both very simple. Admittedly, this was a very indulgent dish; not low fat by any means. I opted to halve both recipes, which was a good call. I don't think this would re-heat well.  The batter fried up beautifully crispy and golden. The creamy tartar sauce had a great pungent and salty quality from the capers and olives. 

I opted to make my own "chips". I used un-peeled russet potatoes. I did a quick blanching in hot oil for about 3 minutes. The potatoes were cooled completely and then fried again to perfect crispy golden perfection. They were tossed in seasoned salt. As is tradition in the UK, these were served with my very in-authenic version of mushy peas. This was a very filling, comfort-foody dinner. Fred really liked it. But I did let him know, this would probably not be in the regular rotation. I could feel it going directly to my hips and thighs!

Here is Fred to chat about the wine:

Tonight we (well actually Kim, as I worked a 15 hour day) picked an Arizona Stronghold white table blend called Tazi to accompany our meal. Tazi is also the name of Cochise's oldest son, the "peacemaker" for the Chiricahua Apache Tribe. Malvasia, Sauvignon Blanc, Reisling, Pinot Gris, and Chardonnay were all packed into this bottle which turned out to be a "comfort" wine for me, as no one grape took over. Every sip melded with each bite of food. It was wonderful! 

The nuttiness of the tempeh was complimented by the Chardonnay characteristics and then the peas got a goose from behind with the bright freshness of the Pinot Gris. It has a pomelo (asian grapefruit, only sweeter) finish which almost cleansed the palate after every sip. This wine with this meal is interesting, has personality, and is definitely fun. Tazi was indeed full enough to have it's own identity but yet a peacemaker with every flavor in our meal tonight.

A side note from the cook: All day long, I kept saying, "I can't even imagine not having beer with this dish. Maybe we should just break the rule and have beer." Last minute I went and found a wine for the dish so I wouldn't be a rule breaker. When did I become a conformist? In the end I'm glad I was...this time. 

You can see below that Fred is holding the debate in his head even as we are sitting down to eat. He is musing over two local beverages. Four Peaks Brewery 8th Street ale is made in Tempe, AZ, home of the ASU Sun Devils. According to Barnivore, most of their beers are vegan friendly with the exception of their cast-conditioned ales served at their pubs. Arizona Stronghold is produced in Cochise County Arizona. All of their wines produced after 2008 are vegan friendly. 

Vine and Dine - World Vegan Feast - Lentil and Rapini Stew with Spicy Vegan Sausage

Vine and Dine has become one of our favorite events. It gives me another excuse to feed my cook book addiction (as it seems the books selected are missing from my growing collection) and it gives Fred the opportunity to talk to his wine folks.

This time around the Dine selection was from a book I just ordered: World Vegan Fest by Bryanna Clark Grogan. It is chock full of recipes from all over the world. I really enjoyed the beginning sections of the book; particularly the section on egg replacers. I know what a lot of them are, but didn't have a good grasp the function of each. This is the first of her books I have gotten. I am just loving all of the yummy looking dishes. It would have been really hard for me to pick what to make first, so it was nice I didn't have to. 

This dish was very rustic and filling. I love cooking with lentils. They are a great low fat protein source and oh so filling. This was a stick to your ribs stew. The tomatoes gave it just the right amount of acidity. I used fresh oregano and basil from our wine barrel herb garden. The subtle flavor of the fresh herbs was a nice complement to the lentils. The sausage I used was actually a Mexican hot link of my own design. The flavors actually worked very nicely in the dish. The rapini ended up being crazy bitter even after blanching. The farmer I bought if from said that once it starts to flower it can get very bitter. Well there were a couple of little flowers on my bunch. We ended up having to pull most of it out. We both thought regular broccoli would be a great option, so we will do that next time. I'm looking forward to trying more recipes from World Vegan Fest!

Lentil and Rapini Stew with Spicy Sausage

Time for Fred!

Our dinner was full of earthy, spicy, acidy, herby, a really good solid hitter, center field stuff that melded together well. There was nothing way out in left or right field that would let me throw a quick short stop in or sub a strong first baseman to offset anything. Tonight our wine had to face the food head on. My choices were maybe a second baseman who could protect his palate (plate) quickly with a strong presence, bold, tannins, fruit forwardness, to make or break a play (meal) and make his stand known. I chose instead to go with an experienced outfielder with long legs, an easy touch with the tannins, able to catch any flavor while on the run, adapt to any hit (taste) while catching a ground ball (herbs) or pop up (spices) and in a single fluid moment throw the ball (taste experience) to home plate.

A 2007 tempranillo, a Sangre de Toro, did just that. It is almost chameleon as every sip adapted to every bite, turning mostly black cherry and soft tannins for us. The rapini was a little bitter but yet our outfielder (our wine) came closer to the plate (it's soft sweetness), did not drop the ball, and was forward enough to get a double play in with the lentils at first. The next batter up was Kim's spicey sausage in which our dark but bright red wine went way back and caught the game ending fly ball with a smile and salutes for everyone.

Make sure to click here for the wrap up of Vine and Dine over at Vegan Appetite!

Kim's Note:

Check out the cute little plastic bull on the bottle! 

Vine and Dine - Candle 79 - Chile Grilled Tofu with Avocado-Tomatillo Sauce

The title of this post alone pretty much says it all: chile avocado tomatillo. My passion for southwestern ingredients has been fully satisfied. I could just stop here and be done, but I won't.

As a HUGE fan of most things southwestern and chile related it was not surprise that this version of Vine and Dine would make me very happy. The biggest bummer was that I totally spaced out that is was V & D week. SO I did not get to marinate my tofu for any length of time. I did simmer it for about 45 minutes hoping to speed the process. I think it was fairly successful. I'm certainly not going to complain.

This is the third recipe I've made from Candle 79. This book is really growing on me. One thing that often throws me with many recipes is the measurement of fresh herbs. I am never 100% sure if they are measured before or after chopping. I usually guess well, but still, I would like to make sure.

I'm still in heaven from the intermingling flavors of the dueling sauces. Guajillo chiles are a beautiful smoky wonder. The chile sauce is divine in its own, but pair it with the Avocado-Tomatillo Sauce...bliss. The smoky earthiness of the chile sauce and the bright, slightly acidic Avocado-Tomatillo Sauce combined to make a perfect party in my mouth.

I chose Wildwood tofu for this dish. It is a very firm tofu that holds up well on the grill. I tend to use this brand mostly when I know it will be served with a very flavorful sauce as it doesn't really absorb marinades  as well as some other brands. It was a dream on the grill, perfect for this dish. I had some left over black beans simmered with tomato and cumin. I combined them with some quinoa and made a little quinoa cake for the base. I loved the texture with the tofu. Wow I'm chatty tonight. I better stop so you will hang in there to read Fred's wine review! But just look at those vibrant colors!

Here's Fred!

I showed my wine guy, (one of many, I feel like such a wine tramp) tonight's recipe and he said this is a no brainer. A semi-dry Riesling would be soft with the avocado and just sweet enough with the chili. We chose a "Jean Baptiste 2009 Riesling Kabinett (German)". It is definitely a fun wine but after the first bite the wine became sweeter, really too sweet for this dish. I said wrongo bongo, I ran to the wine cellar (small fridge in front room) and grabbed a French "Trimbach Riesling, 2008". This is from the alsace region in France. It borders France and Germany in a mountainous region that compares with Napa Valley in that it also is on a fault line with a a lot of different soil types in a small area. It is known primarily for its whites, so there you go. Although this wine was much drier, it became sweeter after another bite, niccccce... What a complimentary wine, floral, minerals, fruitier smelling than it tasted, yeah!! I know, unsweet Riesling, hot cold, bitter sweet, but I gotta say this worked great. The Jean Baptiste was fantastic as a desert wine for this venue. One thing that I have learned, in my research for "Vegan" wines it is hard to find the association between centuries old wineries and please don't kill our animal friends. Start from the basics, don't use words like vegan, fining, or processing. Keep it simple and use "filtering" when asking questions to the winemakers,  this does not confront and make it an attack on age old processes. I have found many more sites available to me this way when I search with filtering as the term. Cheer on! 

Vine and Dine - Candle 79 - Panko Crusted Seitan Milanese

This round of Vine and Dine was from Candle 79 cookbook. I had the original Candle Cafe Cookbook, but I had to order this one. There are some wonderful pictures and interesting looking recipes as well. This week we tested out the Panko-Crusted Seitan Milanese. I am sad to say, I didn't have the best of luck with this dish. I opted to use the seitan cutlets from AVK. Something went very wrong with my seitan. It was really rubbery for some reason. (Mom didn't even eat hers. It reminded her of raw meat...fail). The crock pot method is always flawless for me, but I didn't plan far enough ahead. The seitan texture was one issue, I also had a misfire on cooking the seitan. I didn't have enough oil in the pan, so the browning was not happening. To try and save it, I added oil. Unfortunately, this made the coating a little oily. I felt that the beautifully flavored marinade was really not prominent in the final dish, which was just a shame. I saw that others used the marinade on their pasta....great idea. I also think it would have been tasty just drizzled on top of the seitan.

We were psyched to be able to use fresh arugula from our garden for the topping. It had a beautful nutty flavor. It doesn't get much fresher! We got some heirlooms from the farmers' market. They are a bit out of season, so they had a little less flavor than summer tomatoes, but I'm not complaining. They were a nice treat for the winter. To make the plate complete, I served some simple asparagus roasted with garlic and olive oil.

As a side note: The wine definitely won the day after my pathetic performance in the kitchen. Honestly, I am not one to look twice at the pinky wines in general. They tend to be too fruity for my palate. This one was perfect with this dish!! I'll let Fred tell you the rest of the story.

Today's recipe seemed to be pretty simple, but I realized that there was more than one acid in it . Lemon juice, tomatoes, and vinegar all joined in the end so I stayed safe and kept away from any wines that were lemony or had an acid tone. I chose a dry Rose from Spain. It has a nice, full fruit taste but is very light on the tongue and has a nice soft finish. The 2009 Marques de Caceres from western Spain is good all by itself, one you would give to someone who is just learning about wines, but yet it is just complex enough to be interesting to an expert. This wine actually tasted better after a few bites, melding with the basil and arugula nicely. It was a good pairing to the last drop and we can attest to that! Not a drop was wasted!

Check out what the others chose to pair this dish with over at Vegan Appetite.

Vine and Dine - The Millennium Cookbook - Baked Madras-Glazed Tofu

Welcome back to the return of Vine and Dine. A fabulous cooking challenge where the players do their best to procure and match vegan wines with a delicious dish from a variety of cookbooks. Vine and Dine is hosted by the lovely Tami Noyes over at Vegan Appetite blog where she will be posting this round's great wine finds and recipe interpretations.

This time around she let me choose the book we'd be using. I chose the Millennium Cookbook. I had the opportunity to visit Millennium a few years back and was awed! The recipes in this book often times make me freak out when I see all of the ingredients and components, so the book gathers dust too often. I thought this would be a great opportunity to use it again! Tami selected the Baked Madras-Glazed Tofu with Saffron Basmati Pilaf, Sauteed Vegetables, and Peach-Lime Chutney. That title is a mouthful all on its own!

This recipe had several components: tofu that had to be marinated, curried onions and vegetables, chutney and rice pilaf. Nothing was overly complicated, but it did take a bit of coordinating. The marinade and chutney could certainly be made ahead of time, making this much more simple to pull together. I didn't plan ahead, so all was made last night.

I did have to make a few substitutions. How I ran out of brown basmati rice is beyond me, but I did have long grain brown rice. I know the basmati would have given the dish a more complex and aromatic layer, but with all of the other flavors going on here, it worked out just fine. I wasn't able to find fresh peaches or apricots this time of the year, so used the dried apricot variation.

Sadly I have a bit of a nasty cold, so my tastebuds are a bit off. This was a great dish for that though! There are a lot of bold flavors going on here that even I could taste! The tandoori marinade had a hint of bitterness that was nicely complemented by the sweetness of the chutney. I loved the hint of lime in both the marinade and the chutney. I thought they were a great match up. I think the tandoori may have been overpowering without the chutney. The saffron made the rice a gorgeous color and gave it a hint of grassy flavor. The curried onions and vegetables rounded this out beautifully. I used zucchini, carrots and broccoli. I'd get a hit of the tandoori, then bang, the curry, followed by the sweet flavors of the chutney. It was really amazing. Eric Tucker sure knows how to marry his flavors. The colors were so vibrant. It was a very pretty plate!

I made the full amount of the marinade and only half the rest of the recipes. I have some green beens and spinach that need to be used up. I may try simmering some tempeh with them in the leftover marinade...oh, and maybe kabocha squash.

Now here is Fred to talk about his wine pairing (which was quite lovely I must say).

This dish is a sea of swirling flavors, spices and textures, one that could wash away a weak wine or clash with a strong one. 


I found a Pinot Noir that turned out to be an island that held it's own but yet coexisted delightfully with everything in this dish. One sip gave me a smokey raspberry taste and the next was a light plumish aftertaste. 


She was not a cheap date at 27 dollars, but she was worth it. This 2008 "Duck Pond" from the Willamette Valley in Oregon has a strong presence but yet knows how to blend in with the crowd. This wine complimented this intricate dish at every level. It went well with Indian seasonings, held up to the heat, and seemed to really bring out the flavor of the veggies.  


It was like a couple dancing where the main course is leading but the wine really knows how to move and they both come off looking great together. I will buy this wine again as I think it would be fantastic by itself as well as an accompaniment to a meal.

Vine and Dine - Candle Cafe - Seitan Picatta with White Wine and Caper Sauce

Welcome to another edition of Vine and Dine where Phat Freddie and I attempt to pair vegan wines with fabulous vegan recipes from different cook books. This challenge is actually brought to you by the bright mind of Tamasin Noyes from Vegan Appetite. She so kindly invited us to participate along with Liz and Matthew of Cooking the Vegan Books. Vegan Aide of Weekly Vegan Menu and her honey David have joined the ranks. I'm so excited we have so many participating. It's exciting finding more vegan wines to choose from!

This week's adventure in food comes from the Candle Cafe Cookbook by Joy Pierson and Bart Potenza. For those of you who may not know, Candle Cafe is a very famous vegan restaurant in New York. This book gives away some of their famous recipes for the home cook to recreate.

I've had this book for a very long time. I've only made a couple of things from it since I bought it a few years ago and I have to say, I've liked everything I've made so far. The Seitan Piccata with White Wine and Caper Sauce (pg. 119) is no exception. This challenge also included the Sauteed Mixed Greens (pg 147). We decided to forgo the garlic mashed potatoes this time. I was potato-ed out from the last Food Network Friday. I made a huge batch of potatoes and we ate them all last week. I opted to make a simple batch of quinoa with crushed garlic cloves instead.

This was a nice, quick, easy and truly impressive dish. I used my own beefy seitan recipe. I had a couple of thick cutlets in the freezer that I thawed out for the occasion. I sliced them in half lengthwise. I dredged them in the whole wheat flour. I used the left over flour to thicken the sauce rather than using AP. I was excited to be able to use onions and parsley from the garden and lemons from Ty and Ry's tree. For once I read the recipe ahead of time, so the meal was timed well. I started the quinoa before I started the main event. I thought of using the wine Fred picked for the sauce, but then thought better of it. I had a partial bottle of white in the fridge, so I was able to reserve his selection for drinking! I love the combination of the piquant capers, white wine and tart lemon, so I knew this dish would work for me. What I didn't expect was how quick and easy it was to make. I'd make this anytime; for a quick weeknight meal or to impress guests.

I don't know what the heck happened with our greens. They were crazy bitter. I used a combo of purple kale and collard greens. I didn't have the optional bacon bits, so I added just a sprinkle of liquid smoke. The first bite gave me bitter beer face, but they were salvageable with the yummy picatta sauce. I am a huge potato lover, so it was surprising even to me that I chose not to make them tonight. I was so happy I opted for the quinoa. It a perfect complement. It was over 100 here today, so we wanted a bit lighter side dish and this did the trick. We both really like this dish. Two thumbs up.

HERE'S PHAT FREDDY!

Kim's dinner tonight was one of my favorites but my wine selection faltered, I had wanted Kim to meet the guy at Total Wines that helps me the most but he was not on shift. Number two expert stepped up and in less than two minutes lost us when he said the weather in Napa does not affect the vineyards and wines very much.......(What the F*&^ dude) so we helped ourselves. What I did notice, as he tried to help Kim, he was product pushing rather than helping find what we were looking for, wrong move with me buddy!  

Another problem we had was, we spent so much time making sure our wine was vegan I did not make sure it would compliment our meal, shoot!. We did find a "Sterling" Sauvignon Blanc, (2009) which is a very nice summer wine, bright with what they say is honeydew, lemon and lime zest but with our dinner came across as having more of a grapefruit characteristic. Although it didn't work with this dinner, at $11.99 for the bottle, it didn't break the bank either. I think it would be great as a spritzer by the pool, not as a dinner wine.

According to Barnivore, all of Sterling's white wines are vegan, SCORE! I have, over the years, had a few glasses of Sterling because it is reliable and good. This was before I knew what veganism was, so there you go. Kim's dinner had lemon in it and maybe that is why our wine was too bright on the tongue. I am trying to find a correlation of sorts between vegan wine lists on line and what is actually available at the store, all I can say is I am always looking and we'll see.

Vine and Dine - Voluptuous Vegan - OMG Raviolis!!

OK, so they aren't really called OMG raviolis, but they should be. This was the second V & D that featured Voluptuous Vegan by Myra Kornfeld. This week's Dine part of vine and dine was the Herbed Ravioli with Porcini Pesto and Tofu "Ricotta" (pg. 185) and Basil-Walnut Pesto (pg. 187). I will get to the OMG part, but I have a few other things to cover first. Don't forget to see what my other Vine and Dine buddies had to say about his dish and see what wines they paired with it at Vegan Appetite!

I had two really messed up errors in the kitchen today. First, while I was making biscuits for breakfast I added corn starch instead of baking powder...hello hockey pucks. Seriously, sometimes I think I'm really losing my mind. Have I never been in a kitchen before? Who puts cornstarch in biscuits? I can't even think of an excuse. The crazy mishap ended up being a blessing in disguise. I have been trying to come up with some breakfast items for the cookbook I am hoping will materialize in the near future. I regrouped and came up with a damned good southwestern biscuit that you will see in the future.

Next up, error number two. Well I guess we are going to have to call this challenge numbers two and three. A couple of weeks ago, I went about purging as I try to do every few years. I got a little over zealous and donated my pasta maker to a charity garage sale. Duh!!! This was something in my repertoire I actually do use! I had to hunt another one down for the ravioli. I headed over to Sur la Table aka Empty My Wallet, to see if they had said device. They did, but it was $75.00. Ouch. I fired up my trusty droid and found that Bed, Bath and Beyond had just what I needed for $34.99. I dragged my poor sister to the next store and scored my piece de resistance. With my trusty pasta maker in hand, I headed back to the casa. Here is where things got interesting yet again.

I headed out to the herb garden and the chive patch and rustled up some incredibly herbaceous herbs. (seen below) and got to chopping. It is amazing the volume of fresh herbs it takes to equal 1/3 cup finely minced. All proud of my mad mincing skills, I set about making the pasta dough. In this recipe, silken tofu stand in for the eggs traditionally found in many pasta doughs. I whipped up my tofu mixture and started kneading away as my trusty mama looked on. The dough was quite obviously dry and really not coming together. After a bit of kneading and water adding, I realized something was amiss. I looked over my ingredient list and much to my horror realized I had forgotten to add the olive oil to my tofu mixture. The big bummer about this, is that there was really no recovering the dough that I had trashed and the fresh herbs I had wasted. The herbs, my precious herbs, so sad. Luckily I had more to gather and mince.

The second batch was much improved. I started kneading away, when I thought, hey, there are 4 people watching me work away. I thought, hmmm, maybe I can talk one of them into kneading the dough. My lovely sister was more than willing to get her arm work out for the day. My mom said she could see me grinning as my sister was doing all the hard labor. Hee hee. Memories of childhood when I would promise to make it home to do my chores before Mom got home from work. Jackie would always end up having to pick up the slack and do all of my work.

Actually, it makes me ridiculously happy when my family cooks with me. We had a lot of this going on during Mom's trip. As is often the case in the arid desert climate, I had to add more water to the dough to get it to the right consistency. I had a few challenges getting the dough to roll out in a nice sheet. But after a few trials and tribulations, we finally got some good sheets!

Here is how it all went together.

The tofu ricotta and porcini pesto came together easily. I must admit I was a little concerned with the amount of rosemary in the ricotta recipe. Rosemary is a very potent herb and can overpower if not used with discretion. But I'm happy to say my concerns were for naught.  The fresh herbs stole the show. They were everywhere: in the pasta dough, in the porcini pesto and the Basil-Walnut Pesto. I'm so happy we have our own herb garden, because super fresh herbs are the bomb! I absolutely adored the herbed pasta dough. The miso in the tofu ricotta and the pesto added the perfect amount of saltiness. Pine nuts are crazy expensive, so I used walnuts in porcini pesto. I tasted the ravioli naked before dunking in the pesto. They were incredible. The pesto was just an added treat. There was so much going on, creamy richness, earthy mushroom tones and of course the sunny flavor of all those fresh herbs! Gastronomic bliss.

Myra suggested serving this with her roasted pepper recipe. I am kind of a freak about using organic peppers and no fresh ones were available. So I cheated. I bought some crook neck squash and sauteed them in olive oil with dried oregano, thyme, granulated garlic, salt and pepper (which gave the plate a nice color contrast) and topped it with jarred organic sliced roasted red peppers. To round out the meal we found a really nice local baked multigrain bread. I made a garlic butter with Earth Balance, Carla Kelley's Cheezy Mix, fresh minced garlic and minced parsley (from the garden of course).

Fred, Mom and I were doing a lot of mmmm and ohhhhh-ing over this one. Mom has eaten a lot of vegan dishes a la Kim. She said that this one didn't taste vegan at all. Now mind you, mom doesn't turn her nose up at vegan food, she just wanted to make a point that no one would be able to tell it was vegan. I love her for so many reasons and her open mindedness when it come to trying anything I cook is just one of them. She's been here for two Vine and Dines this month. Sure wish we wasn't heading home as I'd love to do a few more for her!!

HEEEEEERE'S Phat Freddie's Wine Review

An " Andrew Peace" (remember this one) was our vegan red wine tonight (confirmed vegan). A 2009, again seems to be a good year for reds, mixture of Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Grenache, and the deal maker or breaker, Mataro. This is an Australian (family owned) winery who do make a number of vegan wines, in fact I am finding Australia seems to be more vegan friendly in this arena than most other countries that have produced for a much longer time. As of today, Australia is the fourth leading exporter of wines in the world, so there must a reason or two. I think one of those reasons is innovation, hence our wine tonight. The Mataro grape is an earthy, blackberry driven grape that needs an ample water supply but can take more heat than most. It is higher in taninns and can be high in alcohol content when conditions are right. I think that is why they mixed it with the other three grapes to make it a more interesting, characterized wine. It worked for me. Kim's very organic, herbal dinner was a mid tongue blessing and I reveled in the mild but yet fruit forward blackberryness with pepper chasing a slight tobacco taste that covered the rest of my tongue. Kim and her mother would have rather stayed in their comfort zone with their food, not so much blackberry forwardness, perhaps a touch softer in the tannin area. All three of us agreed it was a very nice wine and would suggest it to friends in any occasion. In fact, I am one of my best friends and I believe I will find a couple of "Peace" wines in our fridge in the near future.


DON'T FORGET TO CHECK BACK FRIDAY FOR MY VEGANIZED VERSION OF THIS GUY FIERI RECIPE FOR FOOD NETWORK FRIDAY! Delay of game. I am behind on my FNF so this will not appear until Monday or so.

Vine and Dine - The Voluptuous Vegan - Chickpea Crepes etc etc

This episode of Vine and dine was supposed to be brought to you by the lovely chickpea. The featured recipe tonight from Voluptuous Vegan (VV) was the Chickpea Crepes with Wild Mushroom, Roasted Cauliflower, and Chickpea Filling. VV was one of the first vegan cookbooks I owned (after Vegan with a Vengeance). I was so thrilled with this book because it had a sort of fine dining edge that I loved!! Like many of my books this one is totally under-utilized.

One thing I love about cooking challenges is that I try recipes that I would probably pass up because of certain ingredients. I am semi-ashamed to admit that I am 1/2 Irish and I usually hate cooked cabbage or sauerkraut. Sue me. I'm also luke-warm on cauliflower, but I eat it because, darn it, it's good for you. I have been proven wrong a lot in the last year or so by some pretty yummy recipes. This was yet another case of in my face cauliflower and cabbage-goodness. The crepes have a really awesome texture and flavor. My mom said in a weird way they reminded her of an egg-roll-esque type flavor.

I do have to admit that I had to take a couple of liberties. As my traveling companions tomorrow will tell you, they will be eternally grateful that I subbed cannellini beans for the chick peas. As I was cooking along, I pulled out my soft tofu to make the horseradish cream. It had a funky and highly suspicious yellow film on it. So into the garbage it went. Thankfully I had some Toffutti sour cream in the fridge. I used that instead. I made a couple of other tweaks to the recipe that now escape me after a few too many glasses of wine and a bit of time in the sun and the pool. It was graduation day after all. The sauce was kind of a cross of a tzatziki and creamy dill dressing. Um awesome for sure. It was a perfect compliment to the crepes, but I think it would be equally awesome as a veggie dip. The arugula was almost too overpowering as a garnish. I found myself pushing it to the side and eating it later with the sauce on its own. We all thought this was an excellent choice.

Fred had a very educational and interesting evening hunting down wine tonight. It is my hope that he will share everything he learned. I'm also hoping that some of the perplexing questions that came up might be answered by someone out there as we were really curious why it is so damned difficult to find answers to the vegan wine questions Fred poses to the "wine experts" he encounters. Not to dog the incredibly accommodating and helpful people that share their knowledge at all, but the vegan component really seems to throw many a wine aficionado. Fred will be adding his bit a little later today if he can figure out how to update my blog, EEP!

As a side note, I had the unbridled joy of using onions I pulled from the garden just prior to cooking. I was going to post a picture of the onions, but dear readers, the pictures were wisely censored  by my mom and my beloved Fred. Note to self, do not break out the camera when you are wearing your strapless swimsuit after an afternoon in the pool with adult beverages. Thank you Mom and Fred for saving me much embarrassment. That is true love.

Fred's Wine Adventure:

 I could not confirm our Jean Albrecht "Pinot Gris"  is vegan so I do not think it is, darn. My learning curve on vegan wines is going to be much bigger than I thought. This wine was a fantastic match for our dinner, gold in color, perfect acid content with a strong mineral base that would not wash away with strong foods like cabbage or dill. One of my wine experts actually read Kim's recipe and said it would be better matched with a beer. This wine is mellow and not sweet, a plus. It comes from a region in France that is  rugged and a little dry. A Pinot Gris ( in Italy it is the same as a Pinot Grigio) is a finicky, thin skinned, tender grape with a lot of taste. I find it interesting that a grape of this nature thrives in a rugged appellation. It's sugar and alcohol content can change in a manner of a few days with changes from cool and rainy to warm and breezy. I chose this wine as it has a slight smokiness  and a hint of mushroom undertone, which I hoped would twin up and become one with Kim's mushrooms. It gets this character from a little rot that happens in between picking and fermenting. There is such a thing as grand  rot which is a whole nuther subject. I have read that 09 was a good year for this area producing very round and balanced wines which this one was. It matched dinner very nicely. I did learn that a list of vegan wines has to be updated constantly as one season a vineyard may not be vegan and the next it could be. A vineyard might try a fining process with clay or diatomaceous earth and it may not work with that years grapes or they may not fine at all one year. Unfortunately, most white wines need some type of filtering or they would turn out to be cloudy. The unvegan fining processes use one of, egg whites, casein (milk protein), gelatin, chitin (lobster and crab shell), or isinglass ( a gelatin made of fish bladders). One saving grace is that with the advent of mad cow disease, Europe made it illegal in the early 90's to fine wine through cow blood.  My wine sommeliers are very helpful and knowledgeable but when I whip out the V word, time stops for 15 seconds while they uncross their eyes and gather themselves. It is not that they do not know about the V, it is that no one ever asks if slaughtered beings were used to make our feel good libation.  It would be very helpful to put a V on the label and I do not know why they don't, I guess there is a stigmatism about them darn vegans. They are probably populating and drinking good vegan wine somewhere.
 Next week, vegan wine!

Vine and Dine - Vegan Table Round 2 - South of the Border Pizza

I wish all of you would get in on this cook along. It is so fun! This week we took another delve into the Vegan Table. We planned on getting on this over the weekend, but we ended up going a-visiting and partying with friends most of the weekend. So we are a little late to the party. No matter. We did finally get it done.

This week we tried out the South of the Border Pizza recipe (pg. 295) with the cornmeal version of the Basic Pizza Dough (pg. 287). For those of you who follow my blog or my ramblings on the PPK, you know that yeast is my nemesis. Today was no exception. My first try the yeast just sat there dead as a door nail on my first try. Big surprise Haha. My second try it was meek, but alive. I had to let it rise the full two hours in a warm oven. That seemed to do the trick. 

The pizza toppings looked a bit simple and perhaps a bit boring to me. It called for one jalapeno for an entire 16 inch pizza. Seriously? That is laughable in the house of chile (aka our house). So of course I upped it to 3 BIG jalapenos. I also thought it would be great to grill them before slicing them. The recipe called for 2 cups of pinto beans. Well, a 15 oz can of beans is only 1 1/2 cups, so that's what we used. It would have been even better with the full two cups, but I didn't want to use a partial can. I used Daiya Mozz. I really want to try Teese on pizza one day soon, but WF doesn't carry it. I can only get it one place locally and I haven't done it recently. Maybe next shot. 

After baking I topped it with slices of avocado and drizzled it with sour cream. I thought about making my go to tomato salsa, but then I thought I'd try something different. Fred loves the heat, so I opted for a sexy, fiery roasted habanero-tomatillo number. (For those of you who are testing for me, I will be posting it to the test site tonight or tomorrow). I served this on the side so the pizza would not get soggy and we could decide how much we wanted.

OK, so the crust on this was super crisp. I really liked it. Making a 16" pie it was very thin and very awesome. This was an interesting combination. it was a nice contrast with the creamy, rich topping and the crunchy curst. I think the pizza on its own was a bit bland, but with the salsa it was much more complex and interesting. I thought about adding thinly sliced shallots but decided to try it without this time. Next time I'd add them for sure. Fred liked it, but commented he is a red sauce guy when it comes to pizza. I might try this again with a southwestern tomato sauce. All in all we liked, not loved this combo, but the crust! Oh the crust was yummy!

Tonight's pizza was very basic but yet somewhat healthy, I ate three big pieces and won't dream in color tonight. What was cool about it is that I could change the taste totally with the addition of salsa or red pepper. We chose a white wine that had a lot of light fruit tones, green apple, melon, lime, pear, etc. As a rule of thumb one should choose a wine that is as spicy as your food or sweet to compliment and offset the spiciness. Since the pizza's personality was so quickly changed with salsa and spices we thought a sweeter, fruit forwars wine would work the best, and it did! An organic, biodydamic, sulphite free, and vegan wine kicked some butt as an accompaniment and as a long sip at the end of the meal.  "Horse and Plow, Harvester White North Coast, 2009" tickled our tummy tonight in a good way. I would use this wine in a situation where one couldn't please everybody in a crowd and only had one bottle of wine left. It was light and fresh, great for summertime but yet has enough body to make people sip slowly.

**As a side note, Fred went to three different stores to try and find a vegan wine. This time he wasn't lucky enough to find someone who knew what vegan wine was. I went to Whole Foods and had a similar experience. The young gentleman in the wine department was super willing and helpful, but really didn't have any idea which wines were vegan. I had my droid, so I did pull up Barnivore.com to determine if wines were vegan while I was there. I actually called a vineyard here in AZ because I thought it would be fun use a local wine, but the person I talked to at the vineyard had no idea what made a wine "not vegan".  We'll keep trying to learn and educate the locals. :)

Vining and Dining from the Vegan Table Part 1

Tonight we took our first delicious delve into the Vegan Table. I have to confess I don't yet own this book, but I am certain I will very shortly.

Tonight we had the pleasure of making two recipes from The Vegan Table by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau. First up were the Tempeh and Eggplant Pot Pies (pg. 206). Now I have to tell you that Fred is hardly a fan of tempeh and I am not normally a fan of eggplant, so I wasn't sure how this selection would be received by either of us. Frankly, I figured we would try a bite and drown our sorrows in Fred's wine selection. Which, honestly is not a losing proposition, because the weather tonight was beautiful for drinking dinner. But I digress.

One of the things I noticed immediately about the recipes is that she gives lots of suggestions (and permission) for options and substitutions. I took her up on this and made a few small changes. I stayed pretty true to the recipe for the pot pies. I only made 1/2 of the recipe because of the afore mentioned dislike of certain ingredients, oh doubter that I am. I added a small carrot. I just couldn't help it. I picked some fresh out of the garden this afternoon and it seemed sacrilegious to leave Mr. Carrot out of the mix. I used the max amount of capers because that's the way I roll. I love their salty piquanty nature. I didn't have ramekins, but I did have some mini spring form pans that fit the bill perfectly. I lined them with parchment paper so no goo would escape.

The recipe was pretty simple to make. I was moving slowly today because I could. I chopped and cut everything before I started as Fred was shopping for the wine and I had no idea how long he'd take. He has a reputation for spending a lot of time bending the ears of the folks in the wine stores and department doing research, a trait I find very endearing. Had I not done the prep work, there was plenty of time to do slicing, dicing and mixing at each phase. The filling probably took about 30 minutes total. I was able to mix up the biscuit dough while it was simmering. The pot pies baked for exactly 15 minutes. OK, this was very tasty! We were both pleasantly surprised by the yumminess of this dish! I thought the filling to biscuit mixture leaned a bit heavy on the biscuit side, but Fred insisted it balanced the stronger flavors of the filling perfectly. The biscuit layer had a really great crumb, texture and moisture content. The filling boasted lots of flavor from the capers, fennel and red pepper. Fred said the fennel made it for him.

The side dish selection for this evening was the Garlic-Glazed Green Beans (pg. 241). I was fortunate to find awesome organic green beans today. I opted to substitute fresh dill from our garden for the marjoram. I also opted to add toasted walnuts. In my opinion these should not be optional. They made the dish pop. I also added minced shallots with the garlic. The first bite I had, I felt was too sweet (I'll probably cut back on the maple syrup next time). But as they cooled down a bit, they achieved a wonderful balance of flavors. Fred thought they were great. I thought they complimented the more piquant spicy flavor of the pot pies nicely. The full recipe states that it is two servings. We made 1/2 the recipe and it was plenty for 2 as a side dish.

Although I don't have my own copy yet, I am really excited to get the book and try more recipes from it.

With Kim's fennel, nuttiness of tempeh, acid in eggplant, spiceness of red pepper recipe I had to find a wine that could hold it's own and not lose it's identity but yet did not want to take first place. The general consensus of the experienced help at one of my favorite wine stores was a chianti but I was unable to find a vegan one. I headed for the youth department where a couple of barely 21 year olds were all over the vegan idea, it was actually fun for my helper. He turned me onto a red Beaujolais from France. Normally Beaujolais are meant to be drunk very young but this particular "2007 Moulin-A-Vent" (windmill) can last up to ten years. At $17 a bottle the berry forward wine was a great buy and complimented the recipe very well.


**Kim's side note on the wine. This wine had definite berry characteristics, but I noticed that with the food a kind of peppery spice showed came out from hiding in the wine. We finished the bottle after the food was gone and it returned to its delightfully light and berry character. This is a great summer wine and very reasonable.

Vine and Dine - Tal Ronnen's Cajun Portobello Sandwich

Fred and I shimmied our way into Vine and Dine with two of my favorite foodies and bloggers Tami of Vegan Appetite and LIz of Cooking the Vegan Books. We also recruited our boyz to join in the fun by pairing wines with our recipe selection. This week Tal Ronnen's Conscious Cook was the book of choice. The Cajun Portobello Sandwich with Avocado and Remoulade (pg. 112) was the recipe of choice. First off, I really must get into the habit of reading recipes in detail before I make my plan. I had a tendency to browse them and miss some important details. I have been trying to eat earlier in the evening and though, "oh, a sandwich, this will be quick and easy." Well, I got the easy part right, but this one takes a bit of time. You have to reduce the marinade/cooking liquid for 20 minutes, then let the mushrooms marinade for another hour. So much for quick. I thought for a veggie type sandwich this one was a bit fussy was the word I kept using. But seriously, more if it was my lack of planning.


We have a serious lack of good bakeries here. It is always a challenge to find that perfect sandwich bread. I ended up using a demi loaf of french bread with pretty good results. I do wish I would have had time to make Tami's Black Pepper Baguette as I think it would have been perfect here. Now, even with all the fuss, I do have to say this was a really good sandwich! I love anything blackened and spicy. Add to that my love of portobellos and this really was my kind of sammy. I made 1/2 the recipe but a full recipe of the remoulade. Quite to my delight, the leftover remoulade actually made a pretty darn good potato salad for our house guest this weekend. I felt quite frugal and all left over savvy. 

Fred made an excellent selection for the wine.Check out his debut wine review.


I admit I had to have help with a pairing of what Kim was going to cook. I finally found "Ramone", who at first sight of me, I think, ran. Visually, people take me as a beer and whiskey guy, so not so. I imagine he thought I was there to kidnap him and take him to Montana to mate with goats. After I had explained myself, I received the best 30 minute wine class ever! 


Ramone pointed out several wines that covered a wide range of compliments. I chose a 2009 Chante Cigale,from the southeast part of France ( appellation Chateauneuf-Du-Pape) that is a blend of four varietals. Ronnen's recipe was light and vegetabaly but yet slightly earthy so I needed a white wine that could hold its own. The different grapes in this wine, combined, bought a minerality, acidity, balance and taste that produced a white wine strong enough to compliment the recipe but yet was exceptionally smooth, mild, and had a srong base. Our dinner had just the right amount of saltiness and spiciness to bring out a surprise in our wine, a smidge of pepper mixed in the white pear forwardness ( that took us forever to figure out!) We were still finding new tastes at the last sip. What a delightful wine for our night! 

Fred and I really enjoyed our first Vine and Dine. It was a great opportunity to pair up food, wine and ourselves in the kitchen. I'm looking forward to the next installment.