Final MoFo Iron Chef-Inspired Challenge: Cranberries in Sweet and Savory Ways

As November comes to an end, so too does the Vegan MoFo -- a wonderful celebration of the vegan community and lifestyle through this amazing month of food. Although I missed MoFo Iron Chef 3 due to birthday festivities, there was no way that I was going to miss this final MoFo, hosted once again by Katie at http://donteatoffthesidewalk.com/?p=440. In keeping with the T-Day spirit, the secret ingredient for this challenge was Cranberries! How fortuitous that I still had some fresh cranberries leftover from my recent market trip!

For some reason I got crepes stuck in my mind, as I was mulling over what to make. Clearly, given their basis in eggs, these weren't going to happen. Then...dosa! This is pretty much my favorite thing to order from our local Indian restaurant with their fantastic lentils, so I thought I'd try to reinvent with cranberries. My dosas were inspired and loosely adapted from this recipe http://www.vegetarian-cooking-recipes-tips.com/dosa-recipe.html, but I used yellow lentils, brown rice, and dried minced lemon peel, and my timing was quite different as was the final product. I initially added cranberries to the batter itself -- not good due to different shapes of cranberry pieces, despite uniform width. A better (and more aesthetically pleasing) tactic was to arrange berries in desired pattern first on the skillet, drop batter onto berries, and gently smooth around, taking care not to mess with your design. As my cousin M once told me about pancakes, expect the first few to be relatively disastrous (at least your first time through), as you adjust your process, temperature, etc. By #3, dosas were increasingly easy to read and flip, as well as create.  I think this dosa really was the third, as it was my first attempt with the cranberry first and then mix.  Super festive -- don't you think?

In retrospect, I would have made all the fillings and sauces first, but I didn't, since I was truly playing as I went along.  However, I did make the other cranberry element while I was doing the dosas. I pretty much just dropped in the remaining sliced cranberries (about 1/3 c.), turned up the heat to medium, poured enough pinot to cover the cranberries, and lightly misted some sugar in there -- sugar to your taste (I didn't want a sweet cran. sauce -- I wanted a pinot infused cran reduction/chutney type deal).  When liquid was almost reduced, I added the zest of 1/2 of a clementine.   After a minute or so, I added a bit of liquid to a bowl with about 1 t. of cornstarch (just enough liquid to mix), mixed it, poured it back into the saucepan, and brought it up to a boil again and then removed it.

After making the dosas, I made two fillings.  As we were using up holiday cranberries, I investigated other fridge remains for repurposing into my intended sweet and savory dishes.

Sweet:
3 T. cream cheese
remaining zest from clementine
about 3 T. of powdered sugar

Mix together.  Careful with the sugar, as you do not want to lose the tang of the cream cheese; thus, I'd suggest that the measurements above are simply loose guidelines.

Savory:

1 c. sweet potato shreds (you are shocked to see this, I know)
3 cleaned and thinly sliced baby bella mushrooms
3 T. diced red onion
salt and pepper

Saute shreds first (in about 1 T of olive oil) and dash them with salt and pepper ; I used my same skillet that I had used for the dosas.  Then, add onions; continue to saute until beginning to tan.  Then, add mushrooms until caramelizing a bit.

Mix 1-2 T cream cheese with a 1/4 t. rosemary.

As noted, the fillings really only made enough for the dishes shown (I did have some leftover sweet filling and, of course, some dosas.)  Why?  Because frankly, I thought the deadline was 6 p.m., so I wanted to be sure I was finished before then.  Oops.

My favorite of the evening: Bellini Reinvented and Veganized

 Cranberry Dosa with Herbed Cream Cheese, Sauteed Sweet Potatoes, Mushrooms, and Onions 

with a Pinot-Infused Cranberry on Top

(If you are coming to my house for the holidays, count on seeing these again!)

Savory Crepe: Cranberry Dosa Stuffed with Herbed Cheese, Sweet potatoes, Mushrooms, and Onions and Topped with Pinot-Cranberry Reduction

(Next time: I might try blending all into a cheese filling.  

Definitely needed some more softening, yet tangy cheese in this larger size.)

Dessert Dosa: Clementine Zested Cream- Filled Cranberry Dosa 

and Topped with Cream and Pinot Cranberries 

Two ways of using cranberries -- makes me feel all Iron Chef-y inside!  I am going to miss this challenge.  Perhaps, I'll institute one day a week on the blog where you can post a secret ingredient for weekend creations. Then, the fun can continue!  Hope you'll try to explore some element of this MoFo Iron Chef Madness that I've included here.   Previously, I had not used fresh cranberries for anything except as companions to my popcorn, as I made strings of decorations for the Christmas tree.

Time to go pick up the hub...and make him something for dinner!
K