No one is better qualified to help solve that meal-planning dilemma than Richard Landau, owner-chef of Horizons (611 South Seventh St.), a 35-seat new-age vegan eatery with gourmet restaurant flair and a growing reputation for turning out some of the country's finest vegan fare.
For Landau and his wife-partner-pastry chef Kate Jacoby, all food, vegan included, has to be about taste.
When you take something out of a dish - be it meat, or butter and cream - you have put something else in, something that adds to the taste and texture, to compensate for what was lost. That might be nuts, fresh herbs, wine, or a different vegetable that adds a unique flavor.
"I'm a carnivore at heart," says Landau. "I need depth and layers of flavor in my food."
The decision to stop eating meat was based solely on ethical grounds, he says: "We didn't give up meat and animal products because we didn't like the taste."
The pair assembled a hundred or so of their best recipes in Horizons: The Cookbook - Gourmet Meatless Cuisine, self-published in 2003.
Their second cookbook - Horizons: New Vegan Cuisine - is at the printers and due to be ready for sale at the restaurant and online at www.horizonsphiladelphia.com early in December.
Among Landau's suggestions?
Use mushrooms to replace the earthy flavor of meat.
Beans and nuts provide necessary protein support when not eating meat.
Tofutti makes a tofu-based "sour cream" alternative that Landau assures makes "a beautiful cream sauce."
As for cooking methods, he recommends braising (slow cooking, covered, with moist heat). It does wonders for beans, he says.
"It's incredible. They come out soft, silky, with deep flavor, even a little cheesy."
He suggests teaming the bean recipe that follows with roasted portabella mushrooms. Or the Mushroom Bouillabaisse (also offered here), an extremely versatile dish, something of a culinary chameleon:
Scoop up more broth and it is a soup.
