Vine and Dine - World Vegan Feast - Lentil and Rapini Stew with Spicy Vegan Sausage

Vine and Dine has become one of our favorite events. It gives me another excuse to feed my cook book addiction (as it seems the books selected are missing from my growing collection) and it gives Fred the opportunity to talk to his wine folks.

This time around the Dine selection was from a book I just ordered: World Vegan Fest by Bryanna Clark Grogan. It is chock full of recipes from all over the world. I really enjoyed the beginning sections of the book; particularly the section on egg replacers. I know what a lot of them are, but didn't have a good grasp the function of each. This is the first of her books I have gotten. I am just loving all of the yummy looking dishes. It would have been really hard for me to pick what to make first, so it was nice I didn't have to. 

This dish was very rustic and filling. I love cooking with lentils. They are a great low fat protein source and oh so filling. This was a stick to your ribs stew. The tomatoes gave it just the right amount of acidity. I used fresh oregano and basil from our wine barrel herb garden. The subtle flavor of the fresh herbs was a nice complement to the lentils. The sausage I used was actually a Mexican hot link of my own design. The flavors actually worked very nicely in the dish. The rapini ended up being crazy bitter even after blanching. The farmer I bought if from said that once it starts to flower it can get very bitter. Well there were a couple of little flowers on my bunch. We ended up having to pull most of it out. We both thought regular broccoli would be a great option, so we will do that next time. I'm looking forward to trying more recipes from World Vegan Fest!

Lentil and Rapini Stew with Spicy Sausage

Time for Fred!

Our dinner was full of earthy, spicy, acidy, herby, a really good solid hitter, center field stuff that melded together well. There was nothing way out in left or right field that would let me throw a quick short stop in or sub a strong first baseman to offset anything. Tonight our wine had to face the food head on. My choices were maybe a second baseman who could protect his palate (plate) quickly with a strong presence, bold, tannins, fruit forwardness, to make or break a play (meal) and make his stand known. I chose instead to go with an experienced outfielder with long legs, an easy touch with the tannins, able to catch any flavor while on the run, adapt to any hit (taste) while catching a ground ball (herbs) or pop up (spices) and in a single fluid moment throw the ball (taste experience) to home plate.

A 2007 tempranillo, a Sangre de Toro, did just that. It is almost chameleon as every sip adapted to every bite, turning mostly black cherry and soft tannins for us. The rapini was a little bitter but yet our outfielder (our wine) came closer to the plate (it's soft sweetness), did not drop the ball, and was forward enough to get a double play in with the lentils at first. The next batter up was Kim's spicey sausage in which our dark but bright red wine went way back and caught the game ending fly ball with a smile and salutes for everyone.

Make sure to click here for the wrap up of Vine and Dine over at Vegan Appetite!

Kim's Note:

Check out the cute little plastic bull on the bottle!