New Year's Day Good Luck Dinner

Foods can often be symbolic as well as sustaining to people, and in my family we always prepare a couple traditional New Year's Day foods that are supposed to bring good luck and wealth throughout the coming year. You eat the foods that are symbolic of what you'd like to receive: mixed greens represent green cash (I like to season with plenty of earth balance, mixed peppercorns, garlic, and red chili flakes), black-eyed peas represent coins (seasoned with earth balance, onion and garlic), and cornbread represents gold (made with smart balance vegetable oil, soy milk, egg replacer, and a dash of sugar). Usually, pork is consumed in some form because the pig represents progress - well, I certainly think that Gardein scallopinis are even more progressive! I lightly breaded and seasoned those with thyme, salt & peppercorns and fried in vegetable oil.

Sometimes my family would make a cake with a coin in it - if you got the slice with the coin, you'd have great luck that year! I made an almond version with orange glaze this year but I forgot to photograph it before everyone ate it all, looking for the coin!

Chick'n Cordon Bleu

This took days of preparation, and was a huge challenge. But totally worth it! Had to marinate bacon strips in a mix of agave syrup, oil, and spices for a couple days. Then yesterday I took two bags of thawed Gardein Chik'n Scallopini and mushed two cutlets together to form one big one - making four big Gardein slabs in total. Then I marinated them overnight in white wine with bay leaves, garlic, pepper, and thyme. The filling is Daiya mozzarella-style shreds. These were -super- hard to work with and roll up; in no way like real chicken! Even being very careful, they almost fell apart on me. But once I did, I rolled them in a mix of bread crumbs, flour, and spices, and gently fried them. I created a very strong Agave-Wasabi dipping sauce - my version of honey mustard - and only needed a little to accentuate the dish. It is honestly the best "honey mustard" I've ever had, and there will soon be a large jar of it in my fridge. To showcase the dish, I just wanted very simple sides - asparagus sauteed in earth balance and couscous made with a little "Not Chicken" broth. A great well-rounded dinner! It definitely takes the place of the occasional fancy restaurant meals I used to enjoy!

This is one I tried with the 'bacon' strips on the outside, but even with a skewer it didn't seem to hold together that well.