Each month, I attend an Anusara Yoga Immersion where a bunch of yogis and yoginis get together to practice & study yoga for an entire weekend. We share a potluck lunch with each other on both days. Food is preferred to be vegetarian or vegan and should be something that won’t leave you in pain when you get ready to do asana (yoga poses) in the afternoon.

I found the original recipe for this in the December edition of Delicious Living. It advises that the flavors are enhanced if you let the dish sit over night. Well, perfect, since the only way I can make a meal for this potluck is to do it in advance.  We here at Cast Iron Chef believe the recipes are merely starting points, guidelines if you will, that require the chef’s original creativity. Continue for my rendition of a great starting point that will hopefully inspire you!

For Valentine’s Day, I wanted to buy some really fancy cheese to go with the bottle of wine that I had picked out. I headed towards the brie, but was distracted by this expensive French cheese that looked kinda like Brie, only better. More color, more mold & softer! (I apologize that I do not recall the name of said cheese)

Well, when we warmed the cheese & took the first bite, we were surprised to find that it had the worst aftertaste. We kept trying it & decided it wasn’t worth the pain. We chocked it up to the fact that the French seek that nasty flavor, it probably has something to do with all the cigarettes they smoke. Hehe.

Well, my $7.50 wedge of cheese couldn’t be returned & I hate waste. So, I decided to turn it into something FABULOUS! I recalled a recipe in Complete Vegetarian that used a combined a thin frittata with tomato sauce for a cold salad. Why not make it a hot dinner?? I had already made some tomato sauce a few days ago & had a variety of vegetables that needed to be roasted. All I needed to do was make the frittata! The picture does NOT serve this meal justice... and, oh my, the leftovers. to die for. This recipe is highly reccomended.

Tea Mai Fun Ba Mee

It literally translates into "Vermicelli Rice Noodles & Flat Egg Noodles"

We went to an asian restaruant that was recommended to us by some friends. Since we're new to the area, we take all the recommendations we can get. We ordered a dish that was described as "A favorite Singaporean dish of fresh flat rice noodles and soft egg noodles, stir-fried in a sweet dark sauce with shrimp, egg, Chinese sausage, bean sprouts and greens." It was just OK - nothing special and it did have so much potential. A few days later, I was inspired by the rice and egg noodles in our pantry. I had been reading a lot about black tea being used in cooking. So, I headed into our kitchen to experiment. What I ended up with was PURE AWESOME. And other than the use of Fish Sauce, this meal is vegetarian and very economical to make.