Dinner & A Book

Ingredients:

• 4 large Portobello mushrooms
• Olive oil
• 1 green onion
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 cup red wine

Directions:

1. To make a Vegan Rhino Cutlet, remove and discard the stems from 4 large Portobello.
2. Cut the edges to make it kind of polyhedral. Lightly score the tops with a sharp knife to make small squares. This is purely to make it look a little more odd and less obviously mushroomy.
3. Lightly brush the mushrooms with oil, place them on a cookie sheet and bake at 425 for 25-30 minutes.
4. While that cooks, dice the bits you cut off the mushrooms, add one minced green onion.
5. In a small sauce pan, bring a cup of red wine to a simmer and add the mushroom and onion bits and sugar. Allow this to reduce by half at least. The mushrooms in the wine will absorb a great deal.
6. When the mushrooms in the oven are done, scoop a tablespoon or so of the wine-shrooms put it in a little heap on a plate, adding the cutlet on top of it. This will help the cutlet-shroom buckle somewhat, making it look a bit more peculiar (plus, when you cut into it, the absorbed wine will bleed out onto the plate…a nice effect!).
7. Drizzle some of the wine reduction over the cutlet and serve.

It looked lonely on the plate, so I added a cucumber salad. I mean, um, grated Arcturan Mega-Donkey. Yeah. All you do is peel a cucumber, then use the peeler to cut wide, thin slices. Do this all around, down to where the seeds start. Then cut the slices into vermicelli-like strands, toss with a splash of olive oil and about ½ a teaspoon minced picked ginger.