Tonight is vegan-food night! An appetizer of chilled bright-green cucumber-tahini soup and a main of roasted mushroom skewers seemed both seasonal and sufficiently rich to pamper my vegan friend.

Chilled Cucumber and Tahini Soup with Spicy Pumpkin Seeds (Falestin): The preparation of this dish is straightforward. Just make sure not to forget any of the many garnishes in the soup! I found this dish to be refreshing, but surprisingly light and simple flavored given the addition of tahini.
Joe’s Rating: 6
Difficulty: 5.5

Crispy Oyster Mixed Mushroom Skewers with Crushed Chickpeas (Mezcla): This dish really exceeded my expectations. First of all, I decided to use dried instead of canned chickpeas. I just followed the instructions for preparing them in the hummus recipe in Zahav. I believe it’s totally worth it if you are able to soak the chickpeas overnight and boil them for 60-90 minutes. The second adaption I made was to get a mix of seasonal / wild mushrooms from The Mushroom Shop in Somerville. After talking with the experts there, we decided on a mix of oysters, chanterelles, and morels. Finally, I’d recommend making significantly extra chili oil for basting and garnishing the mushrooms.

We absolutely loved this dish; all elements were important. The morels were our favorite mushroom, although all were very good. We noted that meat-eaters would not miss their meat in this dish.
Joe’s Rating: 8
Difficulty: 4.5