Vegan food never looked so good...

Nothing draws more groans from the majority of the class than when vegetarian and vegan food appears on the recipe rotation at school. I've never been one to get down on eating a plate of veges or soy products --as long as it tastes good-- so I was pretty excited to see how the pair of dishes we worked on today would turn out.

The focus in this class is quality over quantity, namely plate design over creating a buffet of food each day. To that I say...FINALLY! It's time to make stuff pretty as well as taste good. That's why I decided to attend this school in the first place-- to create dishes a motivated home cook can't produce with a recipe and a couple episodes of 'Good Eats' under their belt.

The dish our group was responsible for today (we will switch tomorrow) was the Crepes. The Crepes themselves use chicpea flour and can be tweaked with herbs of your choosing for both flavor and appearance.

As for the Tofu filling-- just herbs, garlic, lemon juice and salt. Nothing crazy, I know, but it's certainly more entertaining on the pallet than plain Tofu. We also put some of the roasted vegetables in the Crepes (Shiitake Mushrooms, Asparagus, Scallions, Red Pepper, Red Onion) in addition to using them as a garnish.

Now the carrots is what makes this dish all fancy and interesting, at least in my eyes. We have the carrot sauce (Shallots, Thyme, Lemon Juice and Carrot Juice, reduced down and garnished with Parsley). Then there was the Carrot Foam (fell free to call it 'Bubbles' or 'Air' if you prefer), which is nothing more than Carrot Juice hit with an immersion blender to incorporate air. And finally, the Carrot Powder. You take the leftover pulp from the carrots you juice, roll it flat on a sheet tray and bake until the carrot pulp dries out. Crumble and use as a garnish.

All in all-- the dish was good but nothing spectacular. It tasted like the stereotypical vegetarian and or vegan food many people scorn (i.e. it would taste better with meat involved somehow).

The other half of the class produced the tastier dish of the two in my opinion. The Soy Brown Sauce was held perfectly by the homemade Wheat Noodles. It also blended well with the Seitan, which is nothing more than a pound of all purpose flour and wheat flour kneaded into a firm ball and soaked under cold water for five minutes or so to allow the starch to rinse out of the dough. You repeat that step a few times and are left with a gelatinous, starch free(ish) ball of dough, which we cooked off in a vegetable and herb poaching liquid.

Add the vegetables for a bit of color and crunch-- no complaints there. I enjoyed a small bowl of it, but I must admit was kinda' sick of it by the near end. The sauce was tasty...and your mind starts to wonder how it might taste on a hunk of chicken or something. Sigh...oh well.

OK, that's it for now. I have about 10 minutes to shower and hustle over to The Omni for Day 2 of work. Day 1 kicked my butt...and I'm sure it's going to be more of the same from now until Saturday (40 hours in the first week-- mixed blessing of the century when you're up at 5:30am everyday).

VOTE ON THE MEAT MASCOT IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY!