Going meatless

Since I moved into my new home, I've been doing a little home entertaining and awakening my inner Barefoot Contessa. It's been fun having my friends over for dinner and exploring recipes.

Last night, however, posed an interesting challenge. What do you make when someone is a vegetarian? Well, fortunately, Hellenica is mostly vegetarian. She also eats fish, which is a new development since our college days. She, Linda and Linda's husband joined Puppy and me for a fun Monday meal of salad (with salmon), mac & cheese (thank goodness no one is vegan) and a "Greek caponata," which was a medley of summer squashes all roasted together.

I was suspicious of the caponata, but it turned out to be my favorite part of the meal ... until Hellenica broke out her mini "coconut cream pies." Unlike normal pies, these were the raw version, meaning that none of the ingredients had been heated over some specific temperature - a detail that I don't really care about. In any case, we were kind of skeptical, but they turned out to be quite yummy and they tasted sort of decadent!

Of course, Hellenica had to go to a lot of trouble to make the little buggers. Apparently, she made date paste and some other coconut product that were unavailable at the grocery store. But in the end, we all enjoyed the mostly vegetarian feast.