Native Foods. It's kind of tasty.

I promised a long time ago to write about the cooking demo I attended at Native Foods! I'm nothing if not a procrastinator....

 

First, I will confess to hoping they'd give us, those fans packing the place early on a Saturday morning, a recipe for any one of their delicious vegan meats. I wasn't picky, I would happily take the pastrami recipe, the chicken, the gyro....

But alas, the chef focused on recipes centered around whole foods. WHATEVER. Here are the photos and descriptions - at least, the best I can remember.

A mushroom fricassee on a piece of toasted bread. If Jeff didn't hate mushrooms in their cooked form, we would eat this every day.

  

Tempeh cake with chili remoulade. My first thought? Crab cake. But it's not fishy (seaweedy?) so win.

 

An unpictured Native Escalivada, made with eggplants, peppers, capers and cashews.

Persimmon tarts! This was my favorite, and not because I got a couple of samples.

After the lovely demo, my sweet friends and I decided to stay for lunch. Color you surprised, right?

Tandoori kebabs. These are made with both seitan and tofu, and the mango apple chutney was divine.

I THINK this is the Ghandi bowl, my friend ordered it so I'm not exactly sure. Whatever it was, it was so healthy looking, I grimaced. Ok, it was delicious.

Chicago dip! I didn't get to try it as I was too busy eating her sweet potato fries (unpictured because I ate them all), but it was very well received.

I ordered the dragon roll for myself, but didn't take a photo.

Let's face it, I suck at food blogging. I feel like a freak when my sweet friends push their plates toward me, asking if I want to take a photo. Hell, today I took a photo of my crappy lunch, thinking "oh, this will go on the blog!" Unfortunately, it was a photo of some very sad, lonely brown rice. Perhaps the caption will go something like, "proof I'm healthy and very very broke! Brown rice in my thermos, say what?!"

So, some little "holiday" is approaching. I usually couldn't care less about it, but Vegetarian Times published a "Valentine's Day Dinner" menu that sounds so good that I'm taking the plunge and making all four courses. Yes. I plan on eating them all, even. And, if you're lucky, I might write about it.