The Artful Chicken

Today's menu was a simplified and scaled up version of one in The Artful Vegan. With some chicken. I've wanted to do a whole menu from one of the Millennium cookbooks for a some time, but I most of them seem like a bit much for a shift. This one worked out really well, thanks to Ida and Ian, although we didn't have time to get to dessert.

Salad

Greens and garden flowers with my new favorite dressing: equal parts lemon juice, red wine vinegar, and olive oil, with red onion, mustard, salt, and pepper. I let the minced onions hang out in the acid for a while, then mixed the whole thing up with an immersion blender right before serving. An old artichoke heart jar worked well for this.

Roasted Cauliflower Soup

Two sheets of well roasted cauliflower, two large onions, lightly caramelized, veggie broth, lemon juice, soy milk, and nutmeg. Would have been a lot better without the nutmeg; next time, maybe roast some garlic with the cauliflower? This was really, really close to perfect the minute before the nutmeg went in. Oops.

White Bean-Filled Phyllo Casserole

Ida took care of this; we followed the recipe pretty closely, except that we didn't have as many mushrooms as we should have, and no Marsala. And we made phyllo topped casseroles instead of purses, and left out the optional vegan sausage (which we instead served separately). I think that all of the changes were good. If I did this again, I might make one more, and cut down the nutmeg here as well.

Seitan Sausage

I made this ahead of time, basically following the Millenium recipe for the dough, but doubling all the spices. Then I braised it Veganomicon-style because I was too lazy to deal with cheesecloth, and Ida fried it up right before serving it today. This will make good leftovers, and I'm glad that we kept it separate from the beans.

Braised Chicken Thighs

Browned in cast iron (with some dramatic flaming) and then baked for an hour and a half covered in some stock that I made last week. I should have defrosted these earlier, and taken the time to season them yesterday evening, but they were still pretty good. They might also have benefitted from a more flavorful broth; even just some onions and carrots and garlic. Not my favorite meat (I could come up with something new to do with ground lamb every week), but the work-to-deliciousness and cost-to-deliciousness ratios are pretty good.

Polenta

Plain, and with cashew-sage cream. Started in two batches on the stove top (1 gallon water to 1 quart polenta) and then finished in the oven. This is a good method, and people seemed to like the cashew polenta, despite the lack of cheese.

Reheated Carrot Raisin Rice

From last week. Because it was really good, and on its last legs. For anyone who didn't want polenta.

Porcini-Zinfandel Sauce

This was significantly different from the recipe in the book, due to CK's non delivery of our button mushrooms. To replace the mushrooms in the sauce, I pureed the dried porcinis that I had used to make stock, which meant that the sauce was already thick and couldn't really take a roux. And I used a Trader Joe's Cabernet for the wine. Not a disaster; we ended up with more than we needed, but it was pretty good. Unlike the seitan, though, I'm not sure how this can get used.

Grilled Broccoli and Rapini

With a garlic balsamic glaze. Ian took care of these and did a wonderful job.

Grilled Pears

With a little balsamic here as well. Also Ian. These were fantastic. I'd forgotten how magical the grill is.