Be Still My Bechamel Heart

While on holiday in Italy we found a soy product that peeked K's interest enough for me to be persuaded from my usual non-fauxish type product buying. K actually got excited and rushed over to me waving his arms in the air and shouting "Lynnie, Lynnie look what I found!" (Okay, so I did a couple of drama courses in my bachelors degree).

What he found was none other than a soy version of the mythical 17th century Bechamel Sauce, or what we Canadians call: White Sauce (or what my step dads calls "No Thanks"). According to the all reliable source of wikipedia, Bechamel has a history that is tangled up with the all powerful Italian family The Medici. Apparently, Catherine de Medici, when she came into France, brought with her a couple of chefs who swapped their Bechamel recipes for a couple of baguettes down at the local cafe. It involves adding milk to a roux and warming it up until it is nice and gloopy (not really my cup of tea).

It sat in the fridge until Sunday night, when I decided to make a pasta-free lasagna with some of the veg I had hanging around in the fridge. The overall product was quite good, though, I think K went a little crazy with the sauce, as the picture indicates. yikes.

Pass on The Pasta Lasagna

I grilled up the following veg:
1 zucchini
2 sweetie potatoes
2 bitty aubergine

I assembled the dish like this: bottom layer of sliced sweet potatoes; next two layers were the zucchini and aubergine; I then added a layer of red sauce; and then things got a little crazy and I added a tin of chick peas as my next layer. I topped it off with the Bechamel and threw in a couple of chilis. It went in the oven for about 30 minutes. Voila! To be honest, there was/is so much more this dish could have had done to it to make it that much better. It was a lazy Sunday night experiment, that I think I will come back to sans the white stuff.


I, like Bianca of Vegan Crunk, also got some vegan vittles by post this week. Whoppee. Vegan Essentials sent me my vegan vitamins, some vegan protein powder and my wicked new grey t-shirt hoodie with a pink bunny on it! Yes! Bunny Power. Under the advice of a reader, I also went ahead and purchased the much talked about Vegan CupCakes Take Over The World, but Amazon has yet to get that load to me yet....

Speaking of cupcakes! I am taking my new risk on the road. K and I have been cordially invited to the wedding of two colleagues (see...we aren't the only lameo's who work together and then get hitched - seriously, its all the rage). I am baking a batch of vegan cupcakes, a raw cashew cream (of course) cake and I think I might also take a couple of salads......woooooooo. Can't wait to share the results.