yyt

Normally i don’t have a problem with preparing vegetarian meals I don’t make meat substituted versions of meat dishes - no facon, no mock roast, and of course no tofurky - don’t understand why carnivores think that herbivores want something that refers to meat. Remember a British Airways flight - when there were meals - poking my fork into a nut cutlet. The passenger beside me acting as my taster ventured in and assured me with ‘I don’t know what that is but it ain’t meat.’I prefer cuisine where meat is naturally lacking not where it has to be replaced.

Two times during the year, however, that isn’t the case - Yanksgiving and Christmas. In both cases I feel that those who are over for dinner would feel left out if there wasn’t some sort of vegetarian food coma after the big meal.

It never works. There was the year of the peanut butter soup - more like soupy peanut butter, the braised seitan bar-be-que that was preserved in the freezer for over a year. Didn’t bother to thaw it when it was finally consigned to the garbage bin.

This year was no exception. A deep mushroom pie made with mixed nuts and an whole wheat crust. It looked great. However, it has gone through many incarnations in an attempt to finish the left overs.

The initial crust could have been used as a foundation for any new construction in the area. Needless to say a lot was left. No one starved there was curried butternut squash soup and home made ciabatta but the coma wasn’t there.

Scraping out the interior and making a new crust - white this time and a short crust - only proved mushroom and nut filling resembled sawdust.

The third incarnation which included a sauce - wanted a mushroom in vegetable gravy but settled for a tomato sauce - made it edible.

The dish was finished to-day