Yesterday night I had a family dinner…
My guests were, let’s say, strong-oriented omnivores, so I made this three dishes menu, colorful and charming.

Everything is simple to make, as I like when I have to cook a lot and, I must say, everything was excellent. Plus this is, from all points of view, a perfect food combination. Here it is:
First a starter, where half of the food was raw, as I find very important to begin the meal with something raw. There dish was made of:
– a salad (baby swiss chards, cabbage and apples);
– cornmeal mush (I used the polenta taragna kind, shaped into a small patty and put it in the fridge for a couple of hours) topped with raw red chicory and nuts creme (I blended three nuts with a round fist-sized red chicory, salt and EVO);
– a piece of farinata topped with dried tomatoes and sauteed zucchini with garlic (zucchini are not a winter product, in fact the original plan was olives creme instead. But I realized I was out of olives and had to replace them with zucchini, as the small local store didn’t have the olives o needed).

Second, the main course, was a soup, this was the most appreciated dish and everybody had a second go. One red beetroot, two medium onions, 1 kg of potatoes. Cut everything in small pieces, put them in a pot with some EVO, warm up and stir. After 5-10 minutes add water (enough so that vegetables are in the water, but not covered by it). Cook (without the lid) until everything gets tender. Blend and add salt, EVO and rosemary to taste. Serve with some chive.

Third but not least, my tapioca pudding for dessert.

About the E.T. to make everything: excluding the dessert, that I prepared the night before (it takes half an hour to make it, plus one hour for the pearls to soak), this menu for 6 people took me 2.5 hours, cleaning up included.
It was worth it: my plan to win the guests worked out just perfectly, as the left saying: “We thought a vegan meal was gonna be boring and poor and we got a spectacular one, instead”. Literally.