Some delicious misses...

The last two dinners have been made by Andy, though I helped out with the first one. They've been delicious, and attractive (in the pan) but they haven't held their shape. All this means is they make for ugly photos, but great dinners...

Originally a recipe for 'eggplant casserole with olives and herbed tomato sauce' from The Gourmet Vegan, Andy's version had more vegetables, and silken tofu + spinach instead of firm tofu slices. The original also called for a layer of bread in the middle, and he thought that was weird, so we didn't have any bread.
Basically layers of eggplant, zucchini, carrots, capsicum, and tomato sauce with a spinachy tofu layer in the middle. I think the bread was meant to soak up the liquid while it was baking, however, because our version was almost soupy.

Perfectly seasoned, tender vegetables mean that even an ugly mess makes a great dinner.

Take two. While I was at a meeting last night, Andy prepared a polenta pie. He was inspired by a recipe from the new Vegan Voice, though he didn't look at a recipe during the cooking process at all. He made polenta, having never done so before. He made a delicious mushroom and vegemite gravy. He sauteed some minced veggies, and he turned them all into this:
Again, it just didn't quite come out of the pan. I think because the polenta was soft. But really, hard polenta kinda freaks me out a little. It's too much. This dinner was delicious!

Afterwards, we went for a walk to see the lunar eclipse. The timing was perfect; immediately after dark in eastern Australia, the Earth's shadow started to cover the moon. By 8 pm it was glowing red. The photos didn't really come out, but here's one anyways. That red blur in the middle of the black is the moon.

On our walk we got to see not only the eclipse, but gigantic flying foxes, and a few little dogs. A family was out with their three dogs watching the eclipse, and they came up and jumped on us as we walked by. One was a black cattle dog, one looked like Benji, and the other was a white, fluffy ankle biter named Nippy--such a good name for a dog like that! I wish I'd gotten a photo of those three....