Roasted Eggplant and Zucchini Rounds

YUM

My boyfriend calls it awesome, my brother calls it SMOOSH, I say eggplant is just a big, purple, rubbery bundle of AMAZING waiting for me to force it into a delectable dish, ready for consumption by those nearest and dearest!

The Stuff


-2 large purple eggplants sliced into 1/4 inch rounds
-4 medium green zucchinis sliced into 1/4 inch rounds
-1 tbs salt
-2 tbsp olive oil

This is how you Do It


In order to avoid a big piece of rubbery nasty or a small wrinkled piece of limp smoosh, you must first adhere to the "Sweating" procedure necessary when dealing with eggplant. Lay the sliced eggplant rounds out on a cooling rack, roasting rack or any rack held above the surface you are working on and sprinkle this side with salt. Flip the rounds and repeat the sprinkle on the opposite side. Allow the rounds to sweat for at least 20 minutes. When you return, the rounds will literally be speckled with perspiration which we will then wipe off.
 Coat the eggplant and the zucchini with the olive oil and salt, place them on a rimmed cookie sheet and bake for about 20 minutes or until the eggplant is slightly golden on top. You can flip and allow to bake a little longer if you want the eggplant and zucchini less firm.
Take them out and enjoy accompanied with a little couscous or use them as a meat substitute in your favorite dish!

Savor every moment.

XOXO

V.V.

Finger-Licken Lasagna

This is the much friendlier version of my absolute favorite meal as a child. I don't know if the nostalgia is caused by the smell of the baking pasta, the sounds of my mom working in the kitchen like a pro, or if it's the actual act of EATING this mildly italian masterpiece, but this dish elicits so many warm and cozy happy feelings in me that I couldn't keep the secret all to my self any longer.

Now, this recipe is not the exact replica of my mothers seeing as how I was raised omnivorous (CLOSE to carnivorous!) and her recipe called for mounds of mozzarella, ricotta and ground sausage.

My recipe replaces the sausage with mushrooms, zucchini and eggplant!
The mozzarella is booted out by DAIYA vegan mozzarella!
The sauce is a home brewed variety I particularly LOVE for baked pasta dishes!

She's saucey....

She's Messy....

She's a little ooey, gooey, cheeeeeesy........ (Minus the cow secretions, naturally)

She's a damn good italian dish that you can basically make any time of year with any vegetable in season!

The Saucy Sauce


-8 big fat tomatos
-2 tsp salt
-2 tsp oregano
-a handfull fresh basil chopped up
-3 garlic cloves smooshed

The Guts


-1 box whole wheat lasagna noodles
-1 large eggplant (sliced into 1/2 inch thick rounds roasted with a little olive oil)
-4 medium zucchinis (sliced into 1/4 inch rounds)
-2 cups sliced mushrooms
-4 cups fresh spinach leaves
-2 cloves garlic finely minced

-1/2 cup red wine of choice

The Assembly


(Preheat oven to 350F)
To make the sauce, cut your tomatoes into quarters and arrange skin side down onto a lightly oiled, rimmed cookie sheet. Lightly salt them and throw a few garlic cloves (smooshed with the side of your biggest baddest knife to release their flavors) into the pan. Roasting the garlic is important. If you try and throw it into the food processor RAW with the roasted tomatos, your sauce will be OVERCOME with spicy garlic flavor. Roast the tomatos for approximately 30-40 minutes depending on your oven and your tomato sizes. They should be darker red and wrinkly. Once they are done, let them cool slightly and throw them into your food processor with the garlic and the 1/2 cup red wine of choice. You can really process the living hell out of these tomatos, OR you can choose to let it be chunky. I leave it chunky for texture. Pour out the sauce into a nice, heavy bottomed sauce pan and throw in the chopped up basil and the oregano. Put the sauce on medium-low heat while you prepare the rest of the guts.

NOW is the time to boil the noodles! Make sure they are al dente so they don't get ripped while your handling them in the assembly of the dish!

Take your lasagna pan and put about 1/4 cup of your sauce in the pan and smear it around to cover the entire pan bottom. Lay down a layer of noodles.
This part is fun because the layering is really very simple. You can quite literally layer the fillings however you want but just make sure the sauce and the Vegan cheese together because when they melt together  it is absolutely heavenly.

Make sure you finish off the top with a layer of noodles, a BUNCH of sauce and a sprinkling of cheese!

Throw the whole thing in the oven for about 30 minutes at 350 degrees or until the top of melted and a little crispy!

Enjoy.

XOXO

V.V.

A Delicious Beginning.

To cook:
A Verb simply meaning : To prepare food.
Synonomous with but not limited too: bake...barbecue, blanch, boil....to Braise.

To broil, to brown, to ultimately burn ...

To decoct ( extract flavor through the act of boiling), to deep fry...


To devil, doctor, escallop, fix, fricassee, fry, griddle, grill, heat, imbue, melt, mull, nuke, panfry, parboil, parch, percolate, poach, pressure-cook, reduce, roast, ruin, sauté, scald, scorch, sear, seethe, simmer, sizzle, spoil, steam, steep, stew, toast, warm up.

In it's most simplistically pure form, we all land on either side of life's perpetual balance involving food... We are either Ying or Yang... Hot or cold... In essence, what I mean to say is that we either like to cook or we like to eat and there are those of us who are born to explore our own odyssey that is limbo; that effervescent grey area where there are people not unlike ourselves who love cooking just about as much as they enjoy feverently consuming that which they have labored.

We cook as a social outlet, as a form of therapy and even as a form of potentially sexual foreplay. People cook to consume nutrients, to experience exotic flavors without setting foot in another county.. We cook to consume our feelings. Taking a peak at the world of the culinary arts from a molecular point of view, we eat in order to take in and utilize the nutrients necessary for survival. Unlike plants, we are incapable of synthesizing our own minerals from sunlight. Consequently, we as a race have come very far in the preparation of our own sustenance which brings me to the timely conclusion of this lengthy ode to cooking. No other word could better fit and fully embody what I do and love.

To Cook.

When I chose to start a blog about all of the amazing adventures I have had, will have and am currently experiencing, I was shocked at how the only tidbit I was threatened by was what in the hell I was going to name my blog.... So a title embodying the three topics that have consumed almost every part of my life seemed vastly appropriate: A Veluptuous Vegan Cook.

I'm a six foot nothing, veluptuous, amazonian vegan with a passion for cooking that would set Paula Dean's butter aflame.

Welcome to a beautiful thing.

Xoxo

V.V.