This Little Veggie

Although not a vegetarian, the last few days I've been eating mostly vegetarian dishes. Home-cooked food is delicious, even more so when you don't have to do the cooking. On Thursday, before my aerobics dance party, I dropped by a friend for some veggie pasta. The vegetables and onions were soft and tender, and the spaghetti was perfectly al dente. The very generous oil added to the dish really made it go down easy.

Friday night, I attended a vegetarian shabbat. There were freshly baked challah, an arugula and roasted nut salad, a couscous vegetable stew, and coffee truffles and apple crumble for the dessert. They were all tasty but the stand-out was the couscous dish aided by two strong flavours: soft and tender whole small onions, and bursts of zests from tiny slices of preserved lemons. The addition of home-made harissa, Tunisian spicy sauce, gave a nice punch to the mix.

On Sunday, my yoga class had a Holiday potluck after the morning practice. I'm not usually a fan of potluck, too many incompatible dishes, but because of the restriction to vegan or vegetarian options, this gave the meal more cohesion. It was a generous spread of 15 or so offerings: broccoli salad, roasted red peppers, quinoa, guacamole, bean dip, scones, cheese platter, fried noodles, melon salsa, samosas, and a large array of desserts: brownies, coconut cookies, tarts, pies, etc. There was also some mini lobster tarts for those of us who weren't vegetarian. We all stuffed ourselves silly. I waddled home for an afternoon nap, with a doggie container overflowing with leftovers.