Battle Vegetarian and Fashion Show

This week Cassie modeled a fancy new t-shirt and invited one of her bffs to join us for one of our family food fights. It was fun having Megan join us, and just like Natalie Portman on Top Chef and Zoey Deschanel on Top Chef Masters, Megan’s vegetarianism presented a few challenges to the Our Family Foodfight team.

A recent convert to all things Mediterranean, Julie has been known to go a whole week eating hummus for EVERY meal! That was until she ‘discovered’ Maoz Vegetarian at our local food court! Now, not a week goes by without a journey to the Town Center mall for falafel. So this week started with Julie’s homage to falafel.

Crispy falafel, garlicky tzatziki, and oven-roasted cauliflower drizzled with tahini.

Next up was Cassie’s Cousa, a traditional Lebanese dish made with yellow squash and typically filled with lamb and rice. Cass used her great-grandmother’s vegetarian recipe, and enlisted her friend Megan to help hollow out the squash, fill it rice, tomato and chickpeas and ultimately cook it in seasoned tomato broth.

Cassie’s Cousa served with leban.

Back from a week in San Fransisco sipping, eating and FoodBuzzing — Mom made this latin-inspired vegetarian treat.

Crispy plantain cups filled with rice and beans topped with a sweet plantain salsa and served with a fresh avocado, olive and parsley salad.

Our last course was pumpkin gnocchi. I’ve never made pasta from scratch, so this was a real challenge. And in the end, although tasty, the pumpkin flavor didn’t come through as much as I’d hoped.

Pumpkin gnocchi with crispy sage, browned butter and toasted pumpkin seeds.