blue plate special

Last night I made dinner for PYT, and decided to go with a Blue Plate Special kind of theme, but vegetarian and fancy-fied (sometimes I like to call this "kara-fied" in homage to my peep Kara who is ba-bomb in the kitchen).

Anyhow, I made a burger, fries, vegetable of the day and pie. I kept the "fries" in the oven a little long to stay warm, though, and the potatoes got a little hard. But, still decent.

I made a version of Heidi's Sprouted Garbanzo Burgers, one of my (now) old standbys. I just made a couple of small changes. I didn't use the sprouted chickpeas, 'cause I didn't plan that far ahead (just used canned), swapped out fresh parsley for the sprouts/microgreens, added some sundried tomatoes, roasted red peppers, added a dab of dijon and used a tangerine salt (a la Eric Gower). For the fixin's, I used some sliced avocado, some roasted red peppers, some White Diamond cheddar, some sundried tomato "ketchup" and some remoulade sauce (a la Nowlzie).

For the fries, I again went with my gal Heidi, and used her recipe for Baked Carrot Oven Fries with chipotle-orange dipping sauce. I also used some baby Yukon gold potatoes, and sprinkled them with the tangerine salt and a little minced fresh rosemary, parsley and a couple of shallots.

For veg of the day, I went with some wilted spinach with garlic, crushed red pepper and toasted pinenuts. I love spinach. I could give Popeye a run for his money, for reals.

For dessert, I used this pie recipe. I ended up adding a couple extra tablespoons of butter to the crust because it was a little too crumbly, and added a little vanilla extract into the custard when I added the whiskey. It was tasty, but I think next time I'd add just a tad more sugar to the custard, and a tad of...some kind of spice to give a little more depth of flavor. Maybe some ground cloves? I'm not sure. Also, my bananas weren't totally ripe, so that cut down on the sweetness also. And, I think this would be good with some coconut in the custard, too. Has anyone made a custard with coconut milk? I wonder if you could replace some or all of the milk with coconut milk. I think that would add a nice flavor and a little sweetness.

Here's the din:


And, here's the pie:


All in all, a lovely evening!