Beautiful new (to us) cookbook, new recipe, delicious results — that’s the headline here.

Last week our daughter loaned us two cookbooks.  One of them was Pure Vegan, by Joseph Shuldiner, a Los Angeles-based writer and photographer.  The book is visually stunning, and his recipes seem creative, wholesome and very good to eat.  Barbara particularly liked this one (which I reproduce here with the author’s gracious permission).

I made a few adjustments:

• half the salt — it already has plenty in the soy sauce
• safflower oil instead of peanut oil
• did not toast the sesame seeds (pure laziness)
• increased the volume of marinade about 20% after the mushrooms soaked up most of the specified amount, so there would be enough for the carrots and tofu
• shortened the broiling time (started at the broil 1 setting, 500º F on my Wolf range, and the mushrooms were done in half the time; then moved to broil 2 setting, 450º for the carrots and tofu, which also cooked more quickly).

Here’s how it came out:

Since it was a cooperative venture, Barbara contributed her amazing avocado, tomato, cilantro and scallion salad for a solid hit on the vegetable and flavors scales:

Because of the saltiness of the main dish, I went with bubbly for the wine (beer was the alternative) and chose a Prosecco, which went nicely.

Conclusions were that (1) the recipes taste as good as they look, (2) our broiler does an amazing job without any preheating (I was dubious that the carrots would cook through), and (3) cutting the mushrooms in larger pieces (less surface area) and shortening their soak in the marinade should make them less salty and more balanced in the final dish.

Some days it really pays to be Pure Vegan.  Thank you, Joseph Shuldiner!