Last night after returning home for the weekend, I made a very vegan meal that was quite satisfying.  Before I left, I cooked some organic black lentils, so the foundation was readily available.  Here is the full list of ingredients.

Not a recipe, really.  Just chopped the vegetables, added crushed cumin seed, and sautéed them all in olive oil.  Separately, I browned and then braised a small head of cabbage, and cut up and fried one seitan chorizo sausage.  The final component was made from an outstanding heirloom bean dish — Rancho Gordo’s Vallarta beans, which at the end of last week I had already pre-soaked overnight and cooked the following day for a couple of hours.  Included in the cooking water was a finely-diced mirepoix (carrot, onion and celery), which added even more flavor to these rich beans.  I had consumed most of them last week, so for this dish, I used the leftover broth from the beans to blend flavors together for the lentils and vegetables, and I pureed the remaining beans and mirepoix to make a bean crema to garnish the dish.

The wine?  Another “leftover”: I already had an open bottle of 2010 Pithos from Azienda Agricola COS, a Sicilian wine from the Grecanico grape, rich and savory and a good match for the dish.