If you’re like us, you often feel nostalgic for things that maybe aren’t that awesome. But there’s a context, a larger experience that imbues them with something better, gives them a prominent place in our happy memories. The Olive Garden is one of those for us. For both of our families, it was one of the “going out to eat someplace ‘fancy’” defaults. When we (independently of each other) became vegetarian, it became an even better option, since there were still many things on the menu we could eat. Once we became vegan, though, things got a little dicier. Depending on who you ask, the minestrone, breadsticks, capellini pomodoro, and salad are or aren’t vegan. The pasta may or may not have eggs. The marinara may or may not have meat broth. The salad dressing definitely has cheese in it–there are no vegan dressings.

Since (a) we’ve never been able to get a straight answer and (b) we now live in an area with other family-suitable options (namely, Chinese), we don’t eat at the Olive Garden any more. But every once in a while, we get the hankering for the enveloping warmth of minestrone and hot fresh breadsticks–and a big ol’ vegan salad. So last night, we created some real “hospitaliano”–vegan style.

The minestrone was only slightly modified from this excellent recipe.

Olive Garden-style Minestrone

• 1 medium-sized white onion, diced
• 4 – 6 cloves of garlic, minced or pressed
• 1 stalk of celery, diced finely
• 1/2 medium-sized zucchini, cut into small one-inch pieces or half-moons
• 1 small carrot (or half of a large carrot), grated
• a large handful of Italian/Spanish-style green beans (the flat ones–you can sub normal green beans in a pinch), cut into one-inch pieces
• 4 large stalks of kale (the curly kind), cut from the stalk and chopped coarsely
• 4 cups (2 cans) of cooked kidney beans
• 2 cups (1 can) cooked cannellini beans or white beans
• 4 cups (1 large can or 1 large jar) cooked tomatoes, with their juice
• 4 cups veggie broth
• 3 cups water
• 1/2 cup small shell pasta
• 2 tbsp fresh parsley, minced
• 1.5 tsp dried oregano (1.5 tbsp fresh, minced)
• 1/2 tsp dried basil (1.5 tsp fresh, minced)
• 1/4 tsp dried thyme (1 tsp  fresh, minced)
• salt & pepper, to taste
• 1/4 – 1/2 cup red wine (optional)

As you’d expect, saute the onion, garlic, and celery in a large pot over medium heat–in the oil of your choice (I recommend choosing safflower). When the onion has gotten soft, add in the broth, water, tomatoes, carrots, and herbs/spices. Bring it to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes. In a separate pot, cook the shells. When they’re done–but al dente–remove from heat, strain, and blanch with cold water. This will help prevent them from getting as bloated and mushy in the soup. A lazier person may decided to add the shells directly to the soup. But you wouldn’t do that. This is hospitaliano.

Once the 20 minutes is up, add in the remaining ingredients and cook until the zucchini and green beans are tender. It’s this crucial step that allows you to trump the Olive Garden–you can add veggies in at the end, ensuring their crispness, a paean to non-flaccid vegetables.

Now let’s trump their bread.

We used this recipe, unmodified, but reposted here for your convenience.

Breadsticks

• 1 1/3 cups of water
• 4 tsp melted Earth Balance ™
• 4 cups of flour
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp yeast
• additional melted Earth Balance ™, for brushing on top
• additional salt, for sprinkling on top
• granulated garlic, for sprinkling on top

Combine all of the dry ingredients, minus 1 cup of flour, ideally in a mixer, using the bread hook attachment.

(We like to keep a giant thing of flour on hand so we can make bread any time we want.)

If you don’t have a mixer, you can theoretically mix by hand and then knead (we just got one for christmas and this was it’s maiden voyage–it was awesome). Combine the wet ingredients in a separate bowl/cup and then add slowly to the dry, while mixing. Now add in the remaining flour. Once the dough is mixed well (about 2 minutes in the mixer), roll out in to 16 long pieces. (We made about 12 and they were slightly fatter than the Olive Garden’s, but still awesome.)  Cover them and let them rise for at least 45 minutes. Preheat oven to 400 degrees, Fahrenheit. Brush the bread with Earth Balance ™ and sprinkle salt on top.  Bake for 15 minutes. When you take them out, brush with Earth Balance ™ again and then sprinkle with granulated garlic.

And finally, the salad.

The salad, to be faithful to the OG original, should have lettuce (obviously), croutons, purple onion, roma tomatoes, black olives, peppers, and shredded carrots. We didn’t have any fresh tomatoes or black olives (which I don’t like) on hand, so we had to make due with some sliced zucchini instead. We made the croutons fresh, from a piece of bread cut into squares, lightly doused on olive oil, salt/pepper/garlic-ed, and toasted. The original salad should also have some sort of cheesy mayonnaise vinaigrette dressing, which we didn’t deign to copy. Instead, we made this vinaigrette, slightly modified.

Italian Vinaigrette Dressing

• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup wine vinegar
• 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
• 1/2 tsp fresh dill
• 1/4 tsp dried oregano
• 1/4 tsp dried thyme
• 1/4 tsp dried basil
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp agave nectar
• pepper to taste

Combine ingredients in a cruet and shake well.

When you’re vegan, you’re family!

For me, cooking is largely a creative endeavor, like making art–something steeped in inspiration and which doesn’t like being bossed around. For the first few weeks, the MoFo was just a great way to push myself a little harder, a context for creation. But in the last few days, it’s become harder–for better or worse. Maybe now is the most important time–when it’s no longer easy and I have to start making real decisions, instead of being blown by the winds of whimsy.

It was in this state that I approached last night’s meal: Seitan Bread Bake, Roasted Acorn Squash Soup, and Scalloped Potatoes. With the additional caveat: I must not produce any more leftovers that Amy won’t eat (it gets a little old eating pot pie for lunch every day for a week). So, I wanted to craft a meal that catered to all of Amy’s cravings.

(I’m feeling a bit loquacious today–feel free to skip to THE ACTION)

Mulling over how to put all of this together without creating a hodgepodge of crap, I took inspiration from this really attractive meal at The Airy Way. It reminded me of two things that I often really like in a meal: lots of different, small portions and a nice mix of complex recipes with simple ones.

We usually approach a soup as a meal, but every once in a while I get a wild hare to do an appetizer-type soup. We had a few acorn squash to use up, so this seemed like a perfect opportunity for Roasted Acorn (and Garlic!) Soup. Riding out the Autumn trend (which happened to be saddled to the Amy’s-Craving trend), it seemed like a good night to take another stab at Faux Gratin Potatoes. We’ve been a little nooched out of late, so we decided that a simpler, cleaner Scalloped Potato might be a nice change.

The surprise champeen of the dinner, to my surprise, was the Seitan Bread Bake. We had tomatoes and bread to use up and Amy mentioned this sort of tomato and bread bake that a friend’s dad used to make. My interest was piqued. Of course, we also nad seitan to use up (there’s a theme here). The original recipe used basil, but we have a mess of pesto in the freezer right now–this, I firmly believe, was the crucial element. I don’t have words for how awesome this stuff tastes. You could prepare it faster than I could describe it.

In any case, here’s THE ACTION:

Roasted Acorn Squash (and Garlic!) Soup

• 2 small acorn squash, cut in half and degutted
• 1 HEAD of garlic
• 1/2 medium-sized yellow onion, diced
• 3 cups veggie stock
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• salt and pepper, to taste

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Slice the acorn squash in half, remove the guts, then place on an oiled cooking sheet. Slice off the top of the head of garlic, place in foil, and douse with olive oil. Bake the squash for 45 minutes and the garlic for 30 minutes (i.e. just put garlic in 15 minutes after the squash).

Meanwhile, sautee the onion in oil or Earth Balance in a medium-sized pot over medium heat, untill soft. When the squash and garlic are done, remove them from the oven and give them at least 10 minutes to cool. Spoon and knife the squash and garlic, respectively, into the pot with the onion. Add in the stock, stir well, then blend with an immersion blender. If you’re using a standard blender, you can put all the ingredients directly in the blender, then transfer to the pot. Blend until very smooth. Add the cumin, then salt and pepper to taste.

Serve with a swirl of Rooster Sauce.

Scalloped Potatoes

• 4 medium – large potatoes, cut into thin disks (peel, if using brown taters)
• 1/2 medium-sized white onion, diced
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced or pressed
• 1/2 cup cooked white beans, drained
• 1/2 cup ground cashews
• 1/2 cup milk-like product
• tsp ground mustard seed
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 2 tbsp Earth Balance
• salt and pepper, to taste
• bread crumbs (optional)

This is very much like the Al-Faux-Do sauce, but with white beans and a bit more lemon. It’s a bit thicker and, despite the lemon, a tinch less sharp (and even less so after baking).

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Prepare the potatoes. Sautee the onion and garlic in the Earth Balance over medium heat. Once they’re soft, add them to the blender along with the other ingredients (except the potatoes) and blend until smooth.

Put the potatoes in an oven-safe casserole dish and pour the the sauce over them, mixing very thoroughly. The more shallow you stack the potatoes, the faster they’ll and the more bread crumbs you can fit on top. Your call.

Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Uncover and add bread crumbs (if you’re using them). Bake for an additional 15 minutes. Check the potatoes with a fork–if they’re nice and soft, you’re done. Otherwise, cook for an additional 5 minutes and check again. Repeat as necessary.

Seitan Bread Bake

• 2 thick pieces of bread, cut into large cubes (we used our homemade bread; use 3 pieces if using sandwich bread)
• 1 large seitan cutlet (or two smaller ones), cut into large cubes
• 3 small tomatoes (or 1 large tomato–use your judgment), cut into pieces
• 3 cubes frozen pesto (~1/2 cup) OR fresh garlic and basil, minced
• olive oil

Preheat oven to 425. Place the bread, seitan, and tomatoes in an oiled oven-safe casserole dish or cooking sheet with a little depth (there will be a fair amount of oil and tomato juice–so you don’t want a totally flat sheet). Mix them up, so everything is fairly evenly distributed. Douse generously with olive oil, then spread pesto on top (if you’re thawing, you’ll probably need a little olive oil to the pest when warming). Cover with foil and bake for 15 minutes. Remove foil, stir everything thoroughly, and bake for another 15 minutes, until bread and seitan are somewhat firm. Prepare your tastebuds. Fantastic!

One of the easiest and cheapest ways to move away from buying a lot of pre-made food is to bake your own bread. For some reason, we struggled against this for years, but our friend Jen recently turned us on to this recipe. The genius of it is upkeep. Make more dough when you run out so you always have it on hand. Then you can always have a loaf in the oven while you’re preparing the rest of the meal. Also, you can make the loaves any size you want (though the recommended size seems to work perfectly for two people) so you don’t end up with more bread than you really want. You can use it for pizza crust, naan, sammiches, croutons, bludgeons, etc.

Super Simple Homemade Bread

• 3 cups lukewarm water
• 1 1⁄2 tbsp granulated yeast (1 1⁄2 packets)
• 1 1⁄2 tbsp coarse kosher or sea salt
• 6 1⁄2 cups unsifted, unbleached, all-purpose white flour
• Cornmeal
• (baking/pizza stone)

What’s awesome about this bread is that, if executed properly, it’s a never-ending well of awesomeness. The key here is to always have more dough on hand. Each batch makes 4 medium-sizes loaves. So, when you make your last loaf–make more dough. Don’t wait. Unless you want to wait later. The real key here is discipline. You can use the dough-scrapins from bowl as a starter for your next batch, for added power/glory/flavour.

So, to make the dough:

In a large mixing bowl (resealable/lidded is ideal), combine the yeast and salt with lukewarm water (in theory, 100 degrees Fahrenheit). We usually just use warm-hot tap filtered tap water.

Mix in the flour both gently and gradually, in that order, with a wooden spoon. If necessary, you can use your hands to mix this but don’t knead it. Though dough should still be a little wet.

Now comes that dread beast, the waiting game: cover the bowl with a towel and leave out at room temperature for 2 – 5 hours.

Your dough is now ready for use and/or storage! In theory, you want to refrigerate the dough for 3 hours or more before using; it makes the dough easier to work with. In a pinch though, we’ve used it immediately after two hours. The remaining dough can stay in the refrigerator for up to two weeks (in fact, the flavor “matures” over that time). Leave the lid to the container loose. You can double/triple/quintriple/etc this recipe with no adverse effects. Huzzah!

Time to bake it up!

Sprinkle cornmeal on a working surface (or pizza peal, if you have one). Cut off a grapefruit-sized piece of dough and sprinkle it with flour, stretching the dough out, but keeping it in its ball shape–sort of tucking the dough into the bottom of itself. Like an Escher drawing. This bread should look impossible. Place the ball on the working surface/peal and let sit for 40 minutes. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees and set your timer.

After 20 minutes, put your baking stone and empty broiler/cake pan on the middle rack. Sprinkle flour on top of the loaf and slash 1/4 inch deep with a knife. You can do diagonal lines, little Xs, a hand making the metal sign \M/…

When you reach the final countdown, carefully slide the bread into the oven–you want this to happen in one motion, so you’ll need to perform some sort of zombie-jerk-motion.

Bake for about 30 minutes or until golden brown. After a loaf or two, you’ll have a good sense of exactly how much time your particular oven requires. And don’t be too hasty here. I know it looks delicious, but let the bread cool down at least a little so it firms up and you can cut it.

Variations

You can use this dough for pizza crust, naan bread, dinner rolls, etc–merely by shaping it differently. Naan and pizza involve rolling the dough out. Dinner rolls involve making small oblong balls. Experiment here–it’s hard to produce something that isn’t good. After a few days (if by some miracle you fail to eat it–usually the result of making too many loaves at once) you can cut the bread into small pieces; brush/douse with olive oil, garlic powder, and herbs; and toast/bake on high for about 5 minutes to make croutons.