Vegan Dinner Party

Chris and I have been meaning to invite our Vegan friends (Sharon and Clive) over for dinner for at least a year now... I should admit that we haven't necessarily made this a number 1 priority, but I have at least looked on a number of vegan websites (including the aptly titled Vegan Porn – for titillating tofu eaters...) and ummed and aghed about the possible delights we could serve.

Often Chris and I will have seen a Vegetarian dish in one of our many recipe books and exclaimed: 'Ooh the Goat's Cheese and Leek Quiche looks good' 'What about the Melanzane alla Parmigiana', without realising at first that both have cheese and therefore are a no no... You see, I imagine that 50% (or more) of my diet is Vegetarian but when I say Vegetarian I always mean CHEESE CHEESE CHEESE... I don't think I could live without Brie, Stilton, Gruyere, Boursin, Camembert, Feta, Mozzarella, Parmesan and the occasional laughing cow slice - you mock but there is always a time and a place for such delights. Anyway, as I have said it was a bit of a challenge (for Vegan virgins at least) to come up with an entirely non-dairy, tasty, dinner party standard - 3-course meal.

First, we thought – how about a curry? Our reasoning – that anything with enough spices thrown at it can taste good. However, we thought that this would be a bit of a cop-out... Instead, we decided on a Mediterranean theme - so now we're just chucking olive oil and garlic at the food. Because of the amount of vegetables and fruit we needed, we first thought about getting everything at the Norwich market - which has a number of locally produced/organic/reared with love veg stands, which I'd certainly recommend. Nevertheless, basically because of laziness we opted for Home Delivery from Waitrose - We're boycotting Tesco's at the moment so unfortunately we HAD to choose Waitrose... In the end this was a fortuitous decision as the driver dropped off an extra bag of food so we had free mangos, avocados and a baguette. I'd like to make clear that we did ring Waitrose and tell them about the extra bag - consequently not only did we feel great about the extra bag, we also felt better knowing we were good people.

The evening was very enjoyable - wine flowed aplenty and Chris and I decided that vegan food is pretty good after-all, especially with lots of garlic, herbs, bread and tomatoes! Could we ever go vegan? Not if it meant giving up the cheese...

The Menu (with thanks to Rick Stein)

Starter:
Two Bruschettas: Tomato and Basil, and Broad Bean and Mint

Main Course:

Oven-Baked Summer Vegetables with Dill
Tomato, Roasted Red Pepper and Onion Salad with Preserved Lemon
Tabbouleh (Parsley, Mint, Bulgar Wheat and Tomato Salad)
Foccaccia (with Rosemary and Rock Salt)

Dessert:

Poached Pears in Red Wine

P.S If anyone is interested in any of the recipes let me know and I’ll send them to you. I’d like to make clear that unlike the cooks at Vegan Porn I didn’t assemble and prepare this while naked.