Yummies: Volume 5

Last night was the first of many Yellow Vic family dinners. An old roommate of mine, Sarah, has moved back into town after leaving for over half a year to travel through South America and spend some QT at home with her parents in Cincy (i.e. saving money to move back here). Though we were sad to see Sarah leave our beautiful Yellow Victorian home near the Alamo Square district of San Francisco (where the Full House houses are), it's wonderful to have her back in our old neighborhood, across the square and up the hill. Sarah graciously hosted me and my current roommates for a delicious, collaborative meal comprised of winter salad, butternut squash soup and Tahini coated cauliflower... the perfect vegetarian combination for any group of 6-8 people. These recipes can also be used for your upcoming Thanksgiving meal!

WINTER SALAD
I used to make this salad with baby pears, but I find the persimmons add more sweetness and color. Make sure to use butter lettuce over any other kind.

-2 heads of green leaf butter lettuce
-1 large pomegranate
-3 small, hard persimmons
-2 cups of walnuts, chopped
-a pint-size container of crumbled blue cheese
-olive oil
-champagne vinegar
-teaspoon of white pepper

For dressing:
Add a 1/3 cup Champagne vinegar to jar. Add teaspoon of white pepper. Add 1/4 cup olive oil. Shake well.

-Heat a large skillet with 2 teaspoons of olive oil. Toss walnuts at medium temp for about 5 minutes, or until toasted. Add salt to taste. Let cool.
-Chop and wash butter lettuce. Place in large bowl.
-Cut open pomegranate and remove seeds into salad bowl.
-Slice persimmons into bite size pieces (make sure you get the smaller, hard persimmons and not the soft ones)
-Add walnuts and blue cheese, toss with dressing and serve.


BUTTERNUT SQUASH SOUP
This was loosely based on this recipe from Vegetarian Times. I'm pretty sure we left out the first four ingredients. We used coconut milk instead of Butternut bisque, substituted leeks for onions, and used fresh thyme for garnish. We also used a blender to puree everything. I really wasn't part of this portion of the meal so I'm sorry I can't be more helpful.


TAHINI COATED CAULIFLOWER
This was concocted by my creative roommate, Maddie, who has her own food blog. She would like to give credit to her friend, Leif Hedendal who showed her the dish.

For the tahini dressing:
-Combine tahini with a couple tablespoons of olive oil and fresh lemon juice. This is also great for dipping sauce (we polished off a loaf of bread with it).
-Arrange cauliflower and sliced yellow pepper in a glass casserole dish, and coat with tahini dressing. Bake in the oven at 400 degrees for 30 minutes (I think...)
-The yellow peppers were experimental in this dish, but everything came out delicious! You will never think of cauliflower the same way after eating this.