Food & Wine

Welcome to Vine to Wine this is your host Linda Moran and today is food and wine pairing day. I got a new cookbook and I have been cooking feverishly. This is a vegan cookbook and although I am not a vegan it has opened my eyes to the world of truly gourmet vegan food and of course I am finding lots of wines to go with it. The Conscious Cook is a cookbook by the chef Tal Ronnen. I received it as a gift and it has certainly opened me up to the gourmet side of vegan cooking. The greatest thing I have found is cream made by simply soaking raw cashews in water and then liquefying them in a blender. It gives outrageous texture and savory character to corn chowder, tomato bisque and celery root soups, not to mention sweetened and whipped for desserts. All of the soups in this book are outstanding and I have learned they lend themselves well to wine. For example the fire roasted tomato bisque is wonderful with lightly oak chardonnay or malbec. The corn and chipotle chowder is amazing with Grenache for red or dry Riesling for white. The celery root soup is a recipe to which I added wild rice and the combination was delightful with Merlot. I never would have thought of it at first, but it worked. There is also a recipe that cooks a peppercorn Portobello mushroom and it was fabulous with Zinfandel! Give vegan a chance. Remember to send your new favorite food & wine pairing to Linda at vine to wine dot net and thank you for joining me on today's Vine to Wine.