Creative Cooking Crew: VEGAN

I was so pleased to be asked to participate with this fine group of distinguished bloggers in their Creative Cooking Crew  brought to us by Joan and Lazaro - but when the first challenge was VEGAN it made me do a quick little back pedal. Nothing wrong with vegan cooking but if you have been poaching things in fat and butter like I have I needed nothing short of an exorcism and a colonic just to be qualified. Vegans and vegetarians always seem to be the brunt of whats wrong with things nutritionally with their very head strong ideas about what the rest of us should and shouldn't be eating, and if you had as few choices as they have you would be charismatic about your food too.

I often have to make vegan and vegetarian dishes for some of my clients so the idea of it wasnt as scary as I pretend. Anything stacked is sure to make a happy diner so with that in mind I got busy. I made a Two Potato Tofu Napoleon. Purple potatoes, sweet potatoes (yams) firm tofu, and zucchini went into my layers. I simply boiled the potatoes and let them cool before I sliced them thin, the yams were sliced thin raw and sautéed in a hot pan with olive oil until they were soft. The zucchini was flash sautéed in olive oil with a garlic clove and the tofu was dusted with salt and pepper and corn starch and fried until it was a light golden brown

I put some red chile on the plate and made my stack then I drizzled the whole thing with cilantro oil and scattered some black beans, peas and some of the chopped up roasted garlic then I garnished the whole thing with water cress. 

I made a small one for my son and sliced the edges off of his so you could get a good clean look at the layers.

I made a big stack for me, extra layers of extra flavor and packed with nutrients. I love to cook with colors - I hope you try my Two Potato Tofu Napoleon - and dont forget the chile!