Vegetarian Lasagna adapted from Saveur’s “New Comfort Food”

A few years ago, I got a call from a guest who was about two hours away from coming to dinner.  He’d called to tell me that he and his new wife had become vegetarian.   Quite frankly, my initial impulse was to continue cooking the dinner I’d planned and let the two of them survive on the baked potatoes I was cooking. They were the only completely vegetarian item on the menu that night.   I managed to control myself, eliminated the pancetta in the spinach and forgot the pie with its Crisco crust and served the berries for the filling all by their lonesome. Inside, I seethed.

Andouille Sausage and Shrimp with Creole Mustard Sauce adapted from Bon Appetit and Stir-Fried Green Beans with Cumin adapted from Suvir Saran

         One of the great joys of cooking for me is finding flavor combinations that work together beautifully even though they come from completely different cooking traditions.  That’s what this dinner does. It takes a wonderful Cajun dish from Bon Appetit full of shrimp and spicy sausage in a truly delicious mustard sauce and pairs it with an Indian side dish. In itself, each dish is wonderful to eat.  Put them together and you create another sensation on the plate.  And it even comes down to color: The green beans are the perfect counterpoint to the bright red peppers, pink shrimp and golden sausage.  And to top it all off, you can get the whole dish on the table in something like 35 minutes.