Vegetable Wellington, great NYE dinner.

If you hosted both Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner like I did, you may not want to cook for New Year's Eve. I have already made reservations at my favorite country French restaurant, Cafe Sparrow.

However, if you are feeling adventurous, this vegetable Wellington is a show stopper. It is tasty and not too hard to make. A lot of the prep can be done ahead of time. Right now stores should still carry puff pastry. In some places it is considered a holiday item so I stock up. If you want to make it vegan you can use filo dough instead, it is slightly trickier to work with.

I had this dish a number of years ago, prepared by my friend, Laurie. I was so impressed. Recently I asked her for the recipe, by then she had moved on to an entirely plant based diet. She couldn't remember where she got the recipe. Undaunted I looked online but without the benefit of the name of the dish, I searched and searched, finally I just decided to reproduce it from memory. I loved what I came up with, then a month ago she found what she thought was her original recipe.

I still think I like my rendition best ;-)

Laurie's Vegetable Wellington

Ingredients

1 package puff pastry
1 egg
1-2 cups grated cheese, Parmesan or cheddar or jack
2 cups cooked mushrooms
1 cup steamed greens, spinach or chard
2 cups sliced and steamed carrots
1 cup sauteed onions
1 cup sauteed bell peppers

1) I have found that the best way to work with puff pastry is to defrost it in the fridge. That way it takes only minutes out of the fridge to be ready to use.

2) It's important to get all your vegetables ready ahead of time. What vegetables you use is very flexible as long as you cook most of the moisture out of them so your puff pastry doesn't get soggy.

3) Beat one egg with a tablespoon of milk or water. The egg wash also helps to keep the puff pastry from getting soggy.

4) Preheat your oven to 400 F. Line your loaf pan with parchment paper, and spray with cooking oil.

5) Once you remove the puff pastry from the fridge and its packaging, you will want to work fairly quickly. You want to line the pan carefully with puff pastry and brush it with egg wash. You can see it doesn't have to be perfect but do mash the seams together.

6) Now you are ready to layer the vegetables. I suggest putting the carrots on the bottom instead of something wetter like the greens or mushrooms, otherwise I just layer them for nice color contrasts.
I sprinkled the cheese between some of the layers.

7) Now cover  with your last piece of pastry, crimp the edges together and paint with the last of your egg wash and make some slashes across the top.

8) Bake at 400 F for 40-50 minutes until the crust is golden brown. Remove from the oven and then remove from the pan once it cools enough to handle. Allow to rest another 5-10 minutes before slicing. Serve with a large green salad, hearty soup or meat dish. I have to say if you have leftovers, you are lucky, it is great the next day gently warmed in a toaster oven.