Vegan help needed!

I'm a member of a cooking club and this Sunday we have our monthly meeting. The theme this time is Vegan/Vegetarian food. I have to prepare a hot vegan appetizer or main course.

Any suggestions?! I do NOT do tofu and don't want to do anything strongly Asian as we're doing that in June.

I'd be ok if it were vegetarian, but vegan stuff always throws me for a loop!

Here are some appetizers

Lunch Box Fondue

Vegan Mushroom Fondue

Money Bags from the the Vegan Chef

1 - 1/4 oz. pkg. active dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water (at least 110 degrees)
2 cups unbleached flour
2 T. Sucanat
2 T. olive oil, divided
2 T. safflower oil
1 T. garlic, minced
1/2 cup zucchini, finely diced
1/3 cup red chiles, destemmed, deseeded, and finely diced
1/2 cup cut corn
1/3 cup green onion, thinly sliced
1 T. mellow miso
1 T. seasoned rice wine vinegar
1 T. tamari or soy sauce
cabbage leaves for steaming
 
In a large bowl, stir together the yeast and warm water, and set aside until frothy about 10 minutes. Add the flour, Sucanat, and 1 T. olive oil, and stir well to combine. If the dough seems a little dry, add an additional 1-2 T. water, and form into a dough with your hands. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and knead for 5 minutes or until smooth and elastic. Lightly grease the bowl used to mix the dough with the remaining olive oil. Form the kneaded dough into a ball and roll the dough around in the greased bowl to oil all sides. Cover the bowl with a damp towel, place in a warm place, and leave to rise for 1 hour or until doubled in bulk.

While the dough is rising, prepare the filling. In a wok or non-stick skillet, heat the safflower oil, and when hot add the garlic and saute for 1 minute. Add the zucchini and red chiles and saute an additional 2 minutes. Add the corn and green onions and saute an additional 2-3 minutes or until vegetables are tender. In a small bowl, place the miso, rice wine vinegar, and tamari, and stir well to combine. Add the miso mixture to the vegetables, stir well to combine, remove pan from the heat, and set aside to allow the filling to cool.

When the dumpling dough is doubled in bulk, punch down the dough, reform it into a ball, cover with a damp towel, and leave to rest for 15 minutes. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out into a 12-inch long log, cut the log in half, and cut each half of the log into 12 pieces, thus yielding 24 equal size pieces. To form each of the dumplings, roll out each piece of dough into a 3-inch circle. Place 1 heaping teaspoon of the filling in the center of each circle of dough, gather up the edge of the dough to form a point, pinch the edges together, and give them a twist to seal. Repeat the shaping procedure for the remaining dumplings. Transfer the shaped dumplings to a cookie sheet, cover with a damp towel, place in a warm place, and leave them to rise for 15 minutes or until they are light and puffy. Line the bottom of a steamer basket with a few cabbage leaves. Place the dumplings on top of the cabbage leaves, leaving ample room between them. Steam the dumplings, in batches, for 10-12 minutes or until the tops appear smooth. Serve them warm.

Yield: 24 dumplings

From Veg Paradise

ARTICHOKE STUFFED MUSHROOMS

Yield: 10 to 12 servings

30 to 35 fresh mushrooms about 2-inches (5 cm) in diameter
1 13.75-ounce (390g) can water-packed artichoke hearts, drained
20 Kalamata olives, pitted and chopped
10 jumbo pimento stuffed green olives, chopped
1/2 cup (120 ml) almonds or cashews, coarsely chopped
1 1/2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 shallot, chopped

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (Gas Mark 4) and have ready a large baking pan lined with parchment paper. Wash the mushrooms and remove the stems by pressing on them with your thumb. Set the stems aside for another recipe and place the mushrooms on the baking pan.
To make the filling, place the artichoke hearts into the food processor. Process until they are broken down but not fully pureed and place them into a medium bowl. Add the Kalamata olives, green olives, almonds, olive oil, garlic, and shallot and stir well to distribute the ingredients evenly.
Spoon a heaping teaspoon of the stuffing into the cavity of each mushroom, pressing firmly to secure the ingredients.
Bake the stuffed mushrooms for about 15 to 20 minutes or until thoroughly warmed.

Scallion Pancakes from Moosewood

Scallion Pancakes   
Moosewood chef Jenny Wang's family made these all the time when she was growing up. Often they just used the dough left over from making dumplings: when the dumpling filling ran out…time for pancakes. Sometimes they make dessert-style sweet peanut butter pancakes based on the same technique.

The recipe makes somewhat more refined scallion pancakes than the waste-no, want-not ones from Jenny's childhood and it includes a little baking powder and oil to lighten up the dough.

Yields four 8-inch pancakes
Preparation Time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 5 minutes each

½ teaspoon dark sesame oil
7 teaspoons canola or other vegetable oil
2 ¾ cups unbleached white flour
1 cup hot water
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder
4 to 8 scallions, chopped (about ½ cup)
sprinkling of salt
vegetable oil for frying

In a small bowl, mix together the dark sesame oil and 4 teaspoons of the canola or other vegetable oil. Set aside.

In a mixing bowl, combine 2 ¼ cups of the flour, the hot water, salt, baking powder, and 2 teaspoons of the canola oil. Stir until the dough comes together. Lightly dust a working surface with some of the remaining flour and knead for about 2 minutes, adding flour if the dough is too sticky. Cover the dough with the mixing bowl and allow it to rest for about 5 minutes.

Divide the dough into 4 balls. With a rolling pin, roll out each ball into a circle about 10 inches across. Brush each circle with ¼ of the sesame oil mixture, top with ¼ of the chopped scallions, and sprinkle with salt. Roll each circle into a tight cylindrical rope, then coil the rope to form a flat spiral about 5 inches across. Flatten each spiral by hand, and then roll it into a think 8-inch pancake with a rolling pin, dusting with flour to prevent sticking. It's okay if a few scallions escape from the dough.

Heat a skillet on medium heat, add the remaining teaspoon of canola oil, and swirl to coat the pan. Fry each of the 4 pancakes until brown and cooked through, 3 to 4 minutes per side, turning down the heat if the outside gets to brown too fast. Add a little more oil to the pan, if necessary, for frying.

Cut each pancake into wedges and serve immediately. Leftover pancakes may be refrigerated for 3 or 4 days and then reheated in the toaster.

PER 6.5-OUNCE SERVING: 375 CALORIES, 8.7 G PROTEIN, 9.8 G FAT, 62.3 G CARBOHYDRATES, 2.4 G SATURATED FATTY ACIDS, 0 MG CHOLESTEROL, 390 MG SODIUM, 3.5 G TOTAL DIETARY FIBE

I do a vegan chili, a persian chick pea salad (can be eaten cold or hot--not strongly Asian), middle eastern red lentil soup / stew, if any of these interest you I'll post the recipe(s).  I'm pretty sure there is more as all of what I make is vegan (but a lot of it is Indian).

You might get some great ideas from this blog, which is all vegetarian and has a lot of vegan recipes, too:
www.101cookbooks.com

ETA: What about falafel? Just thought of that from Andee's post on what's for tea.. 

ooks.com]www.101cookbooks.com[/url]

ETA: What about falafel? Just thought of that from Andee's post on what's for tea.. 

Yeah, good idea!  Plus maybe a little sauce for dipping and some ready-made pita bread to go with.

Yeah, good idea!  Plus maybe a little sauce for dipping and some ready-made pita bread to go with.

Or you could maybe wrap the falafel and then slice it into rounds? A sweet chili dipping sauce might be nice since you couldn't do a yoghurt-based one.

Mmmm... falafel! If I knew someone was bringing homemade falafel to a meeting, I'd be there in a heartbeat! Great suggestion!

Tempeh is very versatile, you can cube it, marinate it, bake it and serve it on toothpicks with a dipping sauce.

I have some in my freezer...that might be lunch!!!