Leaving the comfort zone: nut loaf and puff pastry

From Gone Walkabout by Tiffanie McCoy

March 20, 2009

While I’ve been vegan for a while, I’ve never ventured into the nut-loaf territory. It always seemed so... militantly healthy. I worried that it was about nutrition over taste and texture. And my puff pastry avoidance I must put on my mother, who would always tell me how hard puff pastry was to work with whenever we ate baklava. Mmm... baklava.

I recently acquired the Vegan Lunch Box cookbook (loved the blog!), and was intrigued by the recipe for Mini Beef Wellingtons, which are mini puff pastries filled with nut loaf. The ingredients were all at hand, the major components are brown rice, chickpeas, walnuts, and oat bran. One variation includes sauteed mushrooms, which tipped the balance, since the toddler LOVES mushrooms. I bought some frozen whole wheat puff pastry, which turns out to be vegan these days. The nut-loaf part is easy to prepare, with a food processor. I have it cooling in the fridge now, I think I shall make them for dinner. The husband is out for a nine-day business trip, so I gotta do something fun every day to keep from going a little crazy with the kids. :-)

I’ll let you know how it goes... the toddler is an adventurous eater, but this may be too different at first.