Have a Romantic, Vegan Candlelight Dinner

With Valentine’s Day coming up soon, I wanted to share a few ideas for creating a romantic, vegan dinner for you and your special human. What could be more inviting (and appreciated by any animal companion) than an evening at home, surrounded by cruelty-free candles, indulging in decadent foods and knowing that no animals were harmed in the process?

Here’s a bit from my book, Making Kind Choices, all about how to create that perfect romantic dinner.

Whether you want to melt the ice, or passions are too hot to keep the champagne cold in that bucket, a romantic dinner must include foods that you hope have aphrodisiac properties because, whether those properties are real or not, that hope alone can be suggestive enough to excite more than your appetite.

… I’m going to take a (fig) leaf out of Millennium’s book. Millennium is a fine San Francisco restaurant which offers a monthly dinner consisting of five courses of “aphrodisiac” foods served up in a romantic setting. This restaurant uses foods the Greeks originally identified as having magic powers to ignite the loins, and include oyster mushrooms, avocado, and, of course, chocolate, which many women find holds an allure that, like falling head over heels in love, cannot be fully explained.

. . .

A sample meal at Millennium, in which each course carries a lovers’ theme title, might consist of smoked baba ghanoush antipasto, followed by an avocado, jicama, and sesame salad with kumquat dressing. For appetizers you could have oyster mushroom calamari and hot and sour “shark fin” (faux, of course) soup with ginger, lily buds, and banana blossoms.

Add a wild-mushroom-and-hazelnut-stuffed artichoke and chipotle grilled seitan roulade for the entrée, and for dessert, chocolate molten soufflé with raspberry crème anglais, rose petal “ice cream” or coconut tapioca pudding.

Millennium’s favorite romantic nightcap: A Chinese herbal “love potion” made with lemonade, cranberry, pomegranate juice, ginseng, cornus, moutan, and light spices. That meal is enough to make the most resistant love interest melt. And, speaking of melting, if you are at home, after enjoying the recipes listed below, you might liquefy some dark chocolate in the microwave; mix it with a little vegan cream and a dash of Cointreau. That will result in a delicious chocolate dip for strawberries, figs, apricots, cherries, dates, brazil nuts, and almonds, and one quite suitable for licking off each others’ fingers. …

Now to Fabio, the modern Casanova whose shirtless body of bodies, chiseled chin, and flowing mane have graced more romance novel jacket covers than any other man in history. Lucky for us, Fabio created a Valentine’s Day meal for PETA that can easily be cooked in an apartment kitchen and used for any night of the year. …

Here are Fabio’s romantic recipes:

• Asparagus Amore With Walnuts …
• Tantalizing Tomato and White Bean Crostini …
• Ripe-for-Romance Raspberry “Cheese” Cake …
• Red-Hot Risotto …
• Fabio’s Portobello Passion ….

How about you? What are your favorite romantic vegan recipes?