Vegan Summer Dinner

Daniel and I attended a vegan cooking class in Colorado Springs last night. It was a lot of fun, especially as we all sat down with vegan wine to enjoy the results.

We made a watermelon gazpacho with tofu feta, a quinoa salad, an arugula salad with grilled leeks and tomatoes, and the most divine chocolate truffles made from soaked cashews, coconut, and cacao powder. Apparently cacao powder is a superfood. I will probably make the soup and the truffles for Father's Day next Sunday, and I plan to combine the salads into some sort of quinoa tabbouleh, maybe something like this with some grilled leeks thrown in ('cos they were good!). In addition, I'll grill some jumbo Lightlife smart dogs (because the kids love them, and they pack 13g of protein apiece), and some vegan Beyond Meat products. Beyond Burgers are esteemed in some circles as the best burger analogs available, and I heard some good things about Beyond Sausages last night.

I had thought that all wines were vegan and didn't contain much other than grapes. However, apparently young wines are hazy, when we all prefer them clear, so winemakers clarify them with "fining agents" such as albumin (egg whites), casein (milk protein), gelatin (animal protein), and isinglass (fish bladder protein). With vegan wines, fining agents such as activated charcoal and bentonite are used instead.

Last night, we had Girasole wine, a chardonnay and a cabernet sauvignon. Both very good. "The Ultimate Vegetarian Wine Guide", published by the Vegetarian Times, suggests some other wines and is giving me some ideas for Father's Day gifts.