Vegan Mini Wellingtons

Now, before you ask yes, yes of course I prepare my personal luncheon in this fashion on a daily basis. I also have no piles of laundry or undusted shelves. I certainly did not have to go put on shoes this morning because there were so many crumbs on my kitchen floor that it was hurting my feet. No, no.

Ok, so the lunch is staged. The dinner photo of the finished wellington looked weird - it didn't do the recipe justice. I'm not sure how cookbooks make ground up brown stuff look appealing because my casual photo didn't look good. I hated to gross you out. So I had to put this together and now I have a lovely lunch plate to eat.

But back to the recipe.  I had these for lunch at a girlfriend's house and they were so delicious I wanted to try them myself.  She made them out of a favorite new cookbook of her family's, Vegan Lunchbox.  She warned me that it was a little extra prep, and it was, but not too much - doable for a weeknight with a little extra time.  Plus, I had Zack help me and even though he lost interest before I was wrapping them up, he still thought the final product was very cool.  

Even though we aren't vegan, I like to have some vegetarian meals and this was a great one.    I liked the flavor and texture.  It's really easiest to just pick them up and eat them rather than using the knife and fork, so don't feel bad about digging in!

Find the recipe for Vegan Mini Wellingtons here and be sure to add the mushrooms listed in the variation - even if you aren't an enthusiastic mushroom person like me, they work into the mix without being heavily mushroom-y and add a lot of richness.  If you aren't going to add them, though, the sauteed garlic alone would be a good addition.

I served them with a honey mustard that I made from brown Dijon mustard, honey and some ranch dressing (not vegan, but that's not a problem for us). 

Oh, and in case you need grocery store tips like I do, the Puff Pastry was in the frozen dessert pastries section at my store, not the frozen breads.  And the oat bran was in the bulk section (and very inexpensive) but I think if you couldn't find it you could substitute something else pretty easily.